Historical Papers: Part 3 from Volume VI of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier — John Shaqi
Historical Papers: Part 3 from Volume VI of The Works of John Greenleaf WhittierWhittier, John Greenleaf
History
Historical Papers: Part 3 from Volume VI of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
Whittier, John Greenleaf
History
She carried them into the cellar and covered them
with tubs, and then crouched behind a barrel of meat just in time to
escape the vigilant eyes of the enemy, who entered the cellar and
plundered it. She saw them pass and repass the tubs under which the
children lay and take meat from the very barrel which concealed herself.
Three soldiers were quartered in the house; but they made no defence, and
were killed while begging for quarter.
The wife of Thomas Hartshorne, after her husband and three sons had
fallen, took her younger children into the cellar, leaving an infant on a
bed in the garret, fearful that its cries would betray her place of
concealment if she took it with her. The Indians entered the garret and
tossed the child out of the window upon a pile of clapboards, where it
was afterwards found stunned and insensible. It recovered, nevertheless,
and became a man of remarkable strength and stature; and it used to be a
standing joke with his friends that he had been stinted by the Indians
when they threw him out of the window. Goodwife Swan, armed with a long
spit, successfully defended her door against two Indians. While the
massacre went on, the priest who accompanied the expedition, with some of
the French officers, went into the meeting-house, the walls of which were
afterwards found written over with chalk. At sunrise, Major Turner, with
a portion of his soldiers, entered the village; and the enemy made a
rapid retreat, carrying with them seventeen, prisoners. They were
pursued and overtaken just as they were entering the woods; and a severe
skirmish took place, in which the rescue of some of the prisoners was
effected. Thirty of the enemy were left dead on the field, including the
infamous Hertel de Rouville. On the part of the villagers, Captains Ayer
and Wainwright and Lieutenant Johnson, with thirteen others, were killed.
The intense heat of the weather made it necessary to bury the dead on the
same day. They were laid side by side in a long trench in the burial-
ground. The body of the venerated and lamented minister, with those of
his wife and child, sleep in another part of the burial-ground, where may
still be seen a rude monument with its almost llegible inscription:--
"_Clauditur hoc tumulo corpus Reverendi pii doctique viri D. Benjamin
Rolfe, ecclesiae Christi quae est in Haverhill pastoris fidelissimi; qui
domi suae ab hostibus barbare trucidatus. A laboribus suis requievit
mane diei sacrae quietis, Aug. XXIX, anno Dom. MDCCVIII. AEtatis suae
XLVI_."
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