France and England in North America, Part VII, Vol 1: A Half-Century of ConflictParkman, Francis
History
France and England in North America, Part VII, Vol 1: A Half-Century of Conflict
Parkman, Francis
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
Lovewell's Pond, with its sandy beach, its two green islands, and its
environment of lonely forests, reverted for a while to its original
owners,--the wolf, bear, lynx, and moose. In our day all is changed.
Farms and dwellings possess those peaceful shores, and hard by, where,
at the bend of the Saco, once stood, in picturesque squalor, the wigwams
of the vanished Pequawkets, the village of Fryeburg preserves the name
of the brave young chaplain, whose memory is still cherished, in spite
of his uncanonical turn for scalping.[277] He had engaged himself to a
young girl of a neighboring village, Susanna Rogers, daughter of John
Rogers, minister of Boxford. It has been said that Frye's parents
thought her beneath him in education and position; but this is not
likely, for her father belonged to what has been called the "Brahmin
caste" of New England, and, like others of his family, had had, at
Harvard, the best education that the country could supply. The girl
herself, though only fourteen years old, could make verses, such as they
were; and she wrote an elegy on the death of her lover which, bating
some grammatical lapses, deserves the modest praise of being no worse
than many New England rhymes of that day.
The courage of Frye and his sturdy comrades contributed greatly to the
pacification which in the next year relieved the borders from the
scourge of Indian war.[278]
FOOTNOTES:
[267] _Dummer to Vaudreuil, 15 September, 1724._
[268] _Vaudreuil a Dummer, 29 Octobre, 1724._
[269] _Dummer to Vaudreuil, 19 January, 1725._ This, with many other
papers relating to these matters, is in the Massachusetts Archives.
[270] _Depeche de Vaudreuil, 7 Aout, 1725._ "Comme j'ai toujours ete
persuade que rien n'est plus oppose a nos interets que la paix des
Abenakis avec les Anglais (la surete de cette colonie du cote de l'est
ayant ete l'unique objet de cette guerre), je songeai a pressentir ces
sauvages avant qu'ils parlassant aux Anglais et a leur insinuer tout ce
que j'avais a leur dire."--_Vaudreuil au Ministre, 22 Mai, 1725._
[271] _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 949.
[272] Penhallow gives the Boston treaty. For the ratifications, see
_Collections of the Maine Hist. Soc._, iii. 377, 407.
[273] See the inventory, in Kidder, _The Expeditions of Captain John
Lovewell_, 93, 94.
[274] Other accounts say that eight of the ten were killed. The
headstone of one of the number, Thomas Lund, has these words: "This man,
with seven more that lies in this grave, was slew All in A day by the
Indiens."
[275] Penhallow puts their number at seventy, Hutchinson at eighty,
Williamson at sixty-three, and Belknap at forty-one. In such cases the
smallest number is generally nearest the truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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