Deerfield, Massachusetts

“ Then followed the historic attack upon Deerfield in 1704. It was a small town of 300 inhabitants on the north-west border of Massachusetts. The French and their Indian allies burst upon it in February. Fifty of the people were butchered and one hundred were carried into a captivity made famous by John Williams, one of the prisoners, in The Redeemed Captive returning to Sion. "The direct and simple narrative of Williams is plainly the work of an honest and courageous man." ”

“ It was the village of Deerfield, which then formed the extreme northwestern frontier of Massachusetts,—its feeble neighbor, the infant settlement of Northfield, a little higher up the Connecticut, having been abandoned during the last war. Rouville halted his followers at a place now called Petty's Plain, two miles from the village; and here, under the shelter of a pine forest, they all lay hidden, shivering with cold,—for they dared not make fires,—and hungry as wolves, for their provisions were spent. ”

“ But very few of the houses can be seen owing to the magnificent elm trees that line either side of the street, and form in summer a continuous arch of greenness above it; and beneath the shade of these old patriarchs of nature nestle many a quaint dwelling. There is much in Deerfield to interest the antiquarian, historian, and lover of nature; and all admirers of art will take an interest in it because it was the birthplace, and for many years the residence, of George Fuller, the painter, who recently died in Boston. ”

“ Deerfield was one of the first places in the United States to enter into the modern “arts and crafts movement”; in 1896 many of the old household industries were revived and placed upon a business basis. Most of the work is done by women in the homes. ”

“ Lawrence and Franklin Counties, ch. 2.)
There is in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., ix. 478 (March, 1867) , a contemporary account of the destruction of Deerfield, with a table of losses in persons and property; and a letter by John Schuyler in the Mass. Archives, lxxii. 13. Cf. also Penhallow’s Indian Wars; Hutchinson’s Massachusetts, ii. 127, 141; Belknap’s New Hampshire, ch. 12; Holmes, Amer. Annals, with notes; Hoyt, Antiq. Researches on Indian Wars, 184; Drake’s Book of the Indians, iii. ch. 2; Holland’s Western Mass., i. ch. 9; Barry’s Mass., ii. 92; Palfrey’s New England, iv. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Indians under the notorious king Philip fell upon the town of Deerfield, in Massachusetts, killed one man, and laid most of the town in ashes.
1682. William Penn sailed for America in the ship Welcome, 300 tons burthen, with about a hundred other emigrants, mostly quakers. ”

“ In the ante-railroad days, Cheapside, at the head of Pocumtuck River navigation, was a thriving business village, with large imports of foreign wet and dry goods, and large exports of lumber, woodenware and brooms; Deerfield was long famous for its stall-fed beef, as many a New York and Boston epicure did testify; but the advent of the iron horse soon brought about the departure of the fall boat, and the passing of the stall-fed ox. The old town is no longer a centre of political power, or of trade and manufactures. ”

“ There is an arts and crafts society, but the profits from the sales go entirely to the workers.
The territory which originally constituted the township of Deerfield (known as Pocumtuck until 1674) was a tract of 8000 acres granted in 1654 to the town of Dedham in lieu of 2000 acres previously taken from that town and granted to Rev. John Eliot to further his mission among the Natick Indians. The rights of the Pocumtuck Indians to the Deerfield tract were purchased at about fourpence per acre, settlement was begun upon it in 1669, and the township was incorporated in 1673. ”

“ At that early day bells were not common in New England; in the seaport towns, that formed the colony of Plymouth, the faithful were summoned to church by the blowing of a conch shell; at other towns there are records of a "peece" being fired, or of a drummer being paid to beat a reveille for sleepy souls. In Deerfield, where the events we are about to chronicle took place, the practice seems to have been to simply hoist a flag at the time appointed for public service. ”

“ A Tory of this period wrote: “Oh Tempora, all nature seems to be in confusion; every person in fear of what his Neighbor may do to him. Such times never was seen in New England.”
In October, 1774, a company of minute-men was organized here as part of a regiment under the Provincial Congress. November 14, staff-officers were chosen. David Field, colonel, and David Dickinson, major, were both of Deerfield. December 5, the town raised{434} money to buy ammunition by selling lumber from its woodland. January 5, 1775, an emissary from General Gage was here, advising the Tories to go to Boston. ”

“ One Deerfield man was killed and several were wounded.
Independence Day should be celebrated, in Deerfield, June 26, for on that day in 1776 the town
“Voted that this Town will (if ye Honorable Congress shall for ye safety of ye United Colonies declare them Independent of ye Kingdom of Great Britain) Solemnly Engage with their Lives and Fortunes to Support them in ye Measure, and that ye Clerk be directed to make an attested copy of this Vote and forward ye same to Mr. Saxton, Representative for this town, to be laid before the General Court for their Information.” ”

“ At the beginning of the Revolution, Nottingham had 999 inhabitants, Deerfield 929, and Northwood 313. The records show that the people were making preparations for the coming conflict, and had sent generous assistance to the “Industrious Poor sufferers of the town of Boston” during the siege. During the winter of 1774–5, Dr. Henry Dearborn had a company of men which met at the Square to drill from time to time. In November, 1774, a town-meeting was held and a committee appointed to “Inspect into any Person,” suspected of being a Tory. ”

“ The rogues rule and ruin, and honest men swing.
[Pg 16]
THE DEERFIELD MASSACRE.
In 1703, Colonel Johannis Schuyler, grandfather of the Revolutionary general, Philip Schuyler, and uncle of the still more famous Peter Schuyler, so distinguished in the Franco-Canadian war, was mayor of Albany. From some Indians trading there he obtained information that an attack on Deerfield was planned from Canada. He sent word to the villagers, who prepared to meet it. The design not having been carried out that summer, the people of Deerfield supposed it to have been abandoned, and dismissed their fears. ”

“ View of the Deerfield gorge from the east summit of the Mohawk Trail.
The high level flat to the extreme right and extreme left is the New England peneplain. The terrace bordering the steep walls of the gorge is a strath.
93
The road crosses a series of strath heads, which drain into the Cold River, and ascends to the west summit (33.2) . At first it seems possible to throw a stone into North Adams, so abrupt is the western slope. The city lies deep in a limestone valley, and beyond it the Taconic ranges rise steeply west of Williamstown, over six miles away. ”

“ Deerfield was first settled in 1671; a few houses being then built on the present street, and the settlers being on good terms with their neighbours. King Philip's war broke out in 1675, and the settlers were attacked more than once. There was a large quantity of grain stored up at Deerfield; and it was thought advisable to remove it for safety to Hadley, fifteen miles off. Captain Lothrop, with eighty men, and some teams, marched from Hadley to remove the grain; his men [Pg 94] being the youth and main hope of the settlements around. ”

“ Deerfield did her full duty in furnishing her{437}
1822-1884 quota of men and supplies through the war. Occasionally, in the later years of the struggle, the Tories temporarily obstructed the necessary town legislation. Some of these soon found{438} themselves behind the bars, and others in enforced silence under penalty of like restraint. The minister, Mr. Ashley, who had been firm in his loyalty, died in 1780, and the Tories lost one of their strongest supports. Not until 1787 could the town unite upon his successor, when Rev. John Taylor was ordained. ”

“ Among Greenfield’s manufactures are cutlery, machinery, and taps and dies. Greenfield, originally part of Deerfield, was settled about 1682, was established as a “district” in 1753, and on the 23rd of August 1775 was, by a general Act, separated from Deerfield and incorporated as a separate township, although it had assumed full township rights in 1774 by sending delegates to the Provincial Congress. In 1793 part of it was taken to form the township of Gill ”

“ Captain Lathrop, who had been despatched from the eastward to the assistance of the river towns, was sent with eighty men, the flower of the youth of Essex county, to guard the wagons intended to convey to Hadley three thousand bushels of unthreshed wheat, the produce of the fertile Deerfield meadows. Just before arriving at Deerfield, near a small stream still known as Bloody Brook, under the shadow of the abrupt conical Sugar Loaf, the southern termination of the Deerfield Mountain, Lathrop fell into an ambush, and, after a brave resistance, perished there with all his company. ”

“ When we say “It is two miles from Madison to Tamworth Iron Works,” we do not tell the whole truth. It would be better to add, “over the top of Deer Hill.” For years Madison has gone to Tamworth over Deer Hill, or else it has stayed at home and wished that Deer Hill was elsewhere. How long grim devotion to the one occupied farm on Deer Hill will force the 199 inhabitants of two townships to ignore the fact that a level road could readily unite them remains to be seen. ”

“ There are two ladies here from Birmingham, so far beyond any ladies that we have to boast of, that some of us begin to suspect that Deerbrook is not the Athens and Arcadia united that we have been accustomed to believe it. You can have no idea how our vanity is mortified, and our pride abased, by finding what the world can produce out of the bounds of Deerbrook. We bear our humiliation wonderfully, however. ”

“ Having followed the Missouri so far, Deerfoot said that a crossing place must be found before the morrow, for it was inevitable that the farther they went down stream the larger it would become, because of its numerous tributaries. The Missouri was an eighth of a mile across at its junction with the Musselshell, but its current was gentle. Not an Indian had been seen for four days, and Deerfoot was on foot searching the northern shore for a good crossing place when George Shelton called out:
"Look! There are white men on the other side of the river!" ”

“ I asked. “Is there a law in Massachusetts allowing a man to be condemned and thrust into a dungeon for ten days for a petty offense like this?”
“I have not told to you one hundredth part of the suffering I saw at Deer Island. The cells there are absolutely dark. There is a small slide in the door where the doctor peeps in to see if a man is dead, or gone mad.” ”

“ It enters Monroe township, Perry county in Section 33, and runs almost due north towards Corning, but bends to the northeast about one mile south of that place. Here the productive territory attains a maximum width of 3 miles, the greatest in the field. The northeast course is continued to the Morgan county line, where it turns due north, skirting that line with a productive strip about one-half mile wide for 21⁄2 miles, when it turns slightly to the east, entering Morgan county in Section 31 of Deerfield township. ”

“ The descendants of those four ancient families are dispersed into different parts of our country, and have become settled in different parts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, California, and probably in some other States and territories; and some, in connection with those among whom they have intermarried, have remained on the premises of their forefathers and now possess nearly all the valuable land for agricultural purposes in the present town of Deerpark. ”

“ Not once had anyone been in danger of attack from wild animals, nor since crossing the Mississippi had any Indians molested them. Moreover, he was sure that in the event of anything of the kind the horses would give timely warning. But Deerfoot had made the order, before leaving the young State of Ohio, that never was the camp to be left unguarded, and while he was with them the rule had not been disobeyed. It was useless to protest to the Shawanoe, who had a way of enforcing his views which no one dared oppose. ”

“ Forty years before, he was born in Exeter, England, and in 1637 landed at Massachusetts bay. He lived at Exeter ten years, and in 1649 moved to Hampton, built a framed house which is still standing, became a large land-holder and town official, and died February 4, 1686. Few men of the early settlers have left a family name so widely represented as Godfrey Dearborn. His descendants are numerous in every county of New Hampshire, and are to be found in every part of New England. ”

“ The visitors attracted less attention than they expected. Indians and white hunters were too common a sight in St. Louis to be remarked upon. Perhaps if the inhabitants had known that the last visitors were on their way to the other side of the continent they would have given them more heed, but, on the advice of Deerfoot, the secret was kept from all chance acquaintances.
When Mul-tal-la and his companion came down the Missouri in a canoe it was easy enough to transport themselves to the eastern bank. ”