TREATMENT OF THE INDIANS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
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��caped extermination. When James II. was expelled from England he fled to France, and Louis XIV". espoused his cause. This led to a war between Eng- land and France, called "King William's War," which lasted from 1689 to the peace of Ryswick, in 1697. It led, also, to all the subsequent invasions of Eng- land by the descendants of James II., called Pretenders," down to the year 1745. The Indians had, for some time previous to the Revolution, shown signs of hostility. In King Philip's war, thir- teen years before, Maj. Waldron had, in obedience to the requisition of Massa- chusetts, seized some four hundred In- dians, contrary to treaty stipulations, and surrendered them to Massachusetts to be sold into slavery. Some of these Indians had returned and excited the In- dians of Maine and New Hampshire to vengeance. In time of profound peace, they began to lie in wait, murder, tor- ture, scalp and burn in several of the quiet towns of New Hampshire. The aged and venerable Waldron of Dover was hewn in pieces by their hatchets. At that day the Indians were accustomed to begin war without notice, to fight from coverts, to fall upon their victims when alone and unarmed, to torture their captives, to dash infants against trees, and to compel feeble women, thinly clad, to wade through snows hundreds of miles, to be sold into slavery to a people of strange speech. In all these particu- lars they differed from the most cruel of white men. In 1690, the French and In- dians from Canada invaded the American settlements. Almost every town in the southern part of New Hampshire suffered from their depredations and massacres. Almost every family bewailed the loss of a brave defender. The Indians carried their scalps and captives to Canada and received for them a liberal reward for their cruelty. The Canadian Indians could plead no wrongs from the white men to kindle their brutal rage. They loved the war-path and sought it. After the treaty of Ryswick, in 1698, Count Frontenac issued a proclamation that he should no longer support these savage marauders, and they skulked home to await another call to deeds of blood and
��fire. During King William's war, in March, 1697, Mrs. Duston, a prisoner un- der an escort of twelve Indians, men, women and children, performed an ex- ploit of unexampled heroism. They en- camped on an island in the Contoocook river, near its entrance into the Merri- mack. With the aid of a boy from Wor- cester and her nurse, she killed ten of the twelve Indians while asleep, and with their scalps escaped through the track- less wilderness to Boston. In June, 1874, a handsome granite monument, sur- mounted with a full-length statue of Mrs. Duston, was set up on the very spot where she slew the savages. This was the work of private munificence. Rob- ert B. Caverly of Lowell indited the fol- lowing poetic deed of the island and the statue to the State of New Hampshire :
To His Excellency James A. Weston, and
to all the Governors of New Hampshire :
Know ye that we, the underwriters, For reasons rightful, valid, divers, By deed of quit-claim do deprive us Of title traced,
To all our lands in the Contoocook, However hounded, knoll or nook, On which that block we undertook Is built and based.
A generous people, grateful, plant it, That the tide of time may never cant it, Nor mar nor sever ;
That Pilgrims here may heed the Mothers ; That Truth and Faith and all the others, With banners high in glorious colors,
May stand forever. To witness what this deed reveals, We've given our hands and set our seals : NATHANIEL BOUTON, (Seal) ELIPHALET S. NUTTER, (Seal) ROBERT B. CAVERLY, (Seal)
Witness • ?• F - PRESCOTT, witness. r saAC K . gage.
Then were the grantors all agreed, And true, 'tis made their act and deed.
Merrimack, ss.— June 17, 1874. Before me, ISAAC K. GAGE, Justice of the Peace.
The next series of Indian massacres in New Hampshire occurred during Queen Anne's war with France, which began in 1702, and ended by the peace of Utrecht, in 1713. This period was one long pro- tracted agony of alarm, terror and suf- fering. The most prosperous towns were oftenest invaded. Dover, Durham and Exeter were centres of attack during every Indian raid. Judge Smith says : "Exeter escaped hostilities till 1690. I have drawn a circle round our village, as a centre, twenty-five miles in diameter. The number of killed and captives within
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