their bretheren. The frontier difficulties of a place so remote from others & so exposed as ours, are more than can be known, if not felt....”
Nothing can add to this simple and pathetic statement.
The months dragged slowly on, and no enemy. The deep winter snows seemed a safe barrier against invasion. The people, breathing more freely, gradually resumed their wonted ways; but dark clouds loomed up, all unseen, just beyond the northern horizon. In the early morning of February 29, 1703-4, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, an army of French and Indians under Hertel de Rouville burst upon the sleeping town, and killed or captured nearly all of the garrison and inhabitants within the fort. Through criminal carelessness the snow had been allowed to drift against the palisades, until, being covered with a hard crust, it afforded an easy and noiseless entrance, so that the enemy were dispersed among the houses before they were discovered.
The captives were collected in the house of Ensign John Sheldon, which, being fired by the enemy only on their retreat, was easily saved, and stood until 1848. It was popularly considered the only one not burned, and has gone
into history as the “Old Indian House.” Its front door, hacked by the Indians, is now preserved in Memorial Hall. By sunrise the torch and tomahawk had done their work. The blood of forty-nine murdered men, women and children reddened the snow. Twenty-nine men, twenty-four women and fifty-eight children were made captive, and in a few hours the spoil-encumbered enemy were on their three-hundred miles’ march over the desolate snows to Canada. Twenty of the captives were murdered on the route, one of them Eunice Williams, wife of the minister. The spot where she fell is marked by a monument of enduring granite.
The desolated town was at once made a military post, and strongly garrisoned. Of the survivors, the men were impressed into the service, and the non-combatants sent to the towns below. Persistent efforts were made to recover the captives. Ensign Sheldon was sent three times to Canada on this errand. One by one, and against great odds, most of the surviving men and women were recovered; but a large proportion of the children remained in Canada. Many of their descendants have been traced by Miss Baker, author of True Stories of New England Captives, among them some of the most distinguished men and women of Canadian history.
The inhabitants of Deerfield gradually returned to their desolate hearthstones and abandoned fields, and held their own during the war, but not without severe suffering and a considerable loss of life. Peace was established by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.
Nine years of quiet followed, in which the town prospered. The Indians mingled freely with the people, bartering the products of their hunting for English goods. A permanent peace was hoped for, but this hope was blasted on the outbreak of the Eastern Indians in 1722. Incited by the Canadians, the northern tribes joined in the war; and Father Rasle’s war brought the usual frontier scenes of fire and carnage; the trading Indians being the most effective leaders or guides for marauding parties. Many Deerfield men were in the service, notably as scouts. Inured to hardship, skilled in woodcraft, they were more than a match for the savage in his own haunts and in his own methods of warfare.