FORT HALIFAX, 1755.
(Restoration.)
In 1694-95, the frontier line of Massachusetts was established by law as including the towns of Amesbury, Haverhill, Dunstable, Chelmsford, Groton, Lancaster, Marlborough, and Deerfield. Five years later this list was increased by Brookfield, Mendon, and Woodstock, with a kind of inner line, running through Salisbury, Andover, Billerica, Hatfield, Hadley, Westfield, and Northampton.
For the border troubles of Massachusetts, beside Penhallow and Niles, Neal and Douglass, and the Magnalia, we turn to Hutchinson with confidence in the facilities which he enjoyed; but John Adams says (Works, x. 361), “When Mr. Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay first appeared, one of the most common criticisms upon it was the slight, cold, and unfeeling manner in which he passed over the Indian wars.”
The most exposed towns fronting the New Hampshire line were Haverhill, Andover, and Dunstable. The History of Haverhill, by G. W. Chase (1861), gives the story of the Indian troubles with much detail.[453] For Andover they may be found in S. L. Bailey’s Historical Sketches of Andover (Boston, 1880); and for Dunstable in Elias Nason’s History of Dunstable (1877). Just below Dunstable lay Groton, and Dr. Samuel A. Green’s Groton during the Indian Wars supplies the want here,—a good supplement to Butler’s Groton. The frontiers for a while were marked nearly along the same meridian by Lancaster, Marlborough, Brookfield, and Oxford. The Early records of Lancaster, 1643-1725, edited by H. S. Nourse (Lancaster, 1884), furnishes us with a full reflection of border experiences during King William’s, Queen Anne’s, and Lovewell’s wars, and it may be supplemented by A. P. Marvin’s History of Lancaster. The sixth chapter of Charles Hudson’s Marlborough (Boston, 1862), and Nathan Fiske’s Historical Discourse on Brookfield and its distresses during the Indian Wars (Boston, 1776), illustrate the period. The struggle of the Huguenots to maintain themselves at Oxford against the Indians is told in Geo. F. Daniels’ Huguenots in the Nipmuck Country (1880), and in C. W. Baird’s Hist. of the Huguenot Emigration to America (1885).
There is in the cabinet of the Mass. Hist. Soc. (Misc. Papers, 41.41) an early plan of the Connecticut and Housatonic valleys, showing the former from the sea as far north as Fort Massachusetts, and the latter up to Fort Dummer, and bearing annotations by Thomas Prince.
BLOCK HOUSE, BUILT 1714.
In the valley of the Connecticut, Northfield held the northernmost post within the Massachusetts bounds as finally settled. One of the best of our local histories for the details of this barbaric warfare is Temple and Sheldon’s History of Northfield. Deerfield was just south, and it is a centre of interest. The attack which makes it famous came Feb. 29, 1704-5, and the narrative of the Rev. John Williams, who was taken captive to Canada, is the chief contemporary account. Gov. Dudley sent William Dudley to Quebec to effect the release of the prisoners, and among those who returned to Boston (Oct. 25, 1706) was Williams, who soon put to press his Redeemed Captive,[454] which was published in 1707,[455] and has been ever since a leading specimen of a class of books which is known among collectors as “Captivities.”