Nowell,[1] who was going to his . This man had a wife and four small children. His brother-in-law, James Speen, (a very pious man,) parted from him not half an hour before he was slain, appointing to meet him at a place designated; but the other came not, and his brother hallooed for him; yet, notwithstanding, the Maquas met not this man, but God preserved him. The English sent forth to pursue this Maquas, with some other Indians, but they could not overtake them. But the Maquas carried the captives through Hadley, some few days alter, and showed the scalp of the man slain to the English at Hadley;[2] who would willingly have redeemed the squaws, but could not prevail with the Maquas to let them go. About this time, viz. in September, 1677, our praying Indians, that lived at Natick, built up their forts and the like, which they did at Pakemit. In this month of September, about the 19th day, a party of Indians fell upon a village called Hatfield, near Hadley; they burnt some dwelling-houses and barns, that stood without the line, and wounded and killed about twelve persons, and carried away captive twenty English persons, most of them women and children.[3] It was conceived, at first, that this mischief was done by a party of Mawhakes, because it was done the next day after the Maquas, with the two Indian captives before spoken of, were carried through the town of Hadley. But it appeared afterward, by an English prisoner that escaped from the enemy, that this party of Indians were about twenty-seven in all, whereof four were women; who were of the old enemy, and formerly neighbours; who had fled to the French about Quebec, and were lately come from thence with the company of another ply of Indians, who were gone toward Merrimack; for, on the very same day, another ply of Indians, that came from the French, came to Naamkeke, near Chelmsford; and there, either by force or persuasion, carried away with them Wannalancet, the sachem, and all his company, excepting two men, whereof one was the minister, and their wives and children, and one widow that escaped to the English.
- ↑ The Mohawks had been urged by agents, sent by the authorities of Massachusetts, to come down upon the New England Indians. This murder was probably among the first fruits of that misguided policy.
- ↑ "The lands bordering on Connecticut river, which are now in the towns of Northampton, Hadley, and Hatfield, were first known by the Indian name Nonotuck." — Williams's Sketch of Northampton, p. 6.
- ↑ See Hubbard's History of New England, p. 636.
