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Page 12
Captain Lovewell next conceived the bold design of attacking the village
of Pigwacket, near the head waters of the Saco, whose chief, Paugus, a
noted warrior, inspired terror along the whole northern frontier.
Commanding a company of forty-six trained men, Captain Lovewell started
from Dunstable on his arduous undertaking, April 16, 1725. Toby, an
Indian ally, soon gave out and returned to the lower settlements. Near
the island at the mouth of the Contoocook, which will forever perpetuate
the memory of Hannah Dustin, William Cummings, disabled by an old wound,
was discharged and was sent home under the escort of Josiah Cummings, a
kinsman. On the west shore of Lake Ossipee, Benjamin Kidder was sick and
unable to proceed; and the commander of the expedition decided to build
a fort and leave a garrison to guard the provisions and afford a shelter
in case of defeat or retreat. Sergeant Nathaniel Woods was left in
command. The garrison consisted of Dr. William Aver, John Goffe, John
Gilson, Isaac Whitney, Zachariah Whitney, Zebadiah Austin, Edward
Spoony, and Ebenezer Halburt. With his company reduced to thirty-three
effective men, Captain Lovewell pushed on toward the enemy. On Saturday
morning, May 8, in the neighborhood of Fryeburg, Maine, while the
rangers were at prayers, they were startled by the discharge of a gun,
and were soon attacked by a force of about eighty Indians. Their rear
was protected by the lake, by the side of which they fought. All through
the day the unequal contest continued. As night settled upon the scene
the savages withdrew, and the scouts commenced their painful retreat of
forty miles toward their fort. Left dead upon the field of battle were
Captain John Lovewell, Lieutenant Jonathan Robbins, John Harwood, Robert
Usher, Jacob Fullam, Jacob Farrar, Josiah Davis, Thomas Woods, Daniel
Woods, John Jefts, Ichabod Johnson, and Jonathan Kittredge. Lieutenant
Josiah Farwell, Chaplain Jonathan Frye, and Elias Barron, were mortally
wounded, and perished in the wilderness. Solomon Keyes, Sergeant Noah
Johnson, Corporal Timothy Richardson, John Chamberlain, Isaac Lakin,
Eleazer Davis, and Josiah Jones, were seriously wounded, but escaped to
the lower settlements in company with their uninjured comrades, Seth
Wyman, Edward Lingfield, Thomas Richardson, Daniel Melvin, Eleazer
Melvin, Ebenezer Ayer, Abial Austin, Joseph Farrar, Benjamin Hassell,
and Joseph Gilson,--names which should be held in honor for all time.
[Illustration: Township of Bow, NH, and vicinity.]
Both parties seemed willing to retreat from this disastrous battle, each
with the loss of its chief. Paugus and many of his braves fell before
the unerring fire of the frontiersmen, and the tribe of Pigwacket, which
had so long menaced the borders, withdrew to Canada.
The ambitious young men of the older settlements had seen with jealousy
a band of strangers, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, granted a beautiful
and fruitful tract, which already blossomed under the industrious
work of the newcomers. They clamored for grants which they, too, could
cultivate. Every pretext was advanced to secure a claim. No petitioners
were better entitled to consideration than the representatives of those
who had rendered so large a section habitable.
Massachusetts Bay Colony had long claimed as a northern boundary a line
three miles north of the Merrimack and parallel thereto, from its mouth
to its source, thence westward to the bounds of New York. Under the
pressure brought to bear by interested parties, the General Court of
Massachusetts granted, January 17, 1725-6, the township of Penacook,
embracing the city of Concord, New Hampshire.
In May, 1727, a petition from the survivors of Lovewell's command was
favorably received by the General Court, and soon afterward Suncook, or
Lovewell's township, was granted. Only two of the company are known to
have settled in the town--Francis Doyen, who was with Lovewell on his
second expedition, and Noah Johnson. The latter was the last survivor of
the company. He was a deacon of the church in Suncook for many years,
received a pension from Massachusetts, and died in Plymouth, New
Hampshire, in 1798, in the one hundredth year of his age.
Captain John Lovewell was represented in the township of Suncook by his
daughter Hannah, who married Joseph Baker, settled on her father's
right, raised a large family, and died at a good old age. A great
multitude of her descendants are scattered throughout the United States.
The original grantees of the township, for the most part, assigned their
rights to persons who became actual settlers.
In the year 1740, the King in council decided the present line as the
boundary between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, thus leaving Suncook,
and many other of the townships granted by the latter Province, within
the former. For a score of years following, the settlers were harassed
by the proprietors of the soil under the Masonian Claim, until, in 1759,
a compromise was effected, and Pembroke was incorporated.
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