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A Half Century of Conflict, Volume II

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Timber was abundant and could be had for the asking; for the frontiersman
usually regarded a tree less as a valuable possession than as a natural
enemy, to be got rid of by fair means or foul. The only cost was the labor.
The fort rose rapidly. It was a square enclosing about three quarters of an
acre, each side measuring a hundred and eighty feet. The wall was not of
palisades, as was more usual, but of squared logs laid one upon another,
and interlocked at the corners after the fashion of a log-cabin. Within
were several houses, which had been built close together, for mutual
protection, before the fort was begun, and which belonged to Stevens,
Spafford, and other settlers. Apparently they were small log-cabins; for
they were valued at only from eight to thirty-five pounds each, in old
tenor currency wofully attenuated by depreciation; and these sums being
paid to the owners out of the three hundred pounds collected for building
the fort, the cabins became public property. Either they were built in a
straight line, or they were moved to form one, for when the fort was
finished, they all backed against the outer wall, so that their low roofs
served to fire from. The usual flankers completed the work, and the
settlers of Number Four were so well pleased with it that they proudly
declared their fort a better one than Fort Dummer, its nearest neighbor,
which had been built by public authority at the charge of the province.

But a fort must have a garrison, and the ten or twelve men of Number Four
would hardly be a sufficient one. Sooner or later an attack was certain;
for the place was a backwoods Castle Dangerous, lying in the path of
war-parties from Canada, whether coming down the Connecticut from Lake
Memphremagog, or up Otter Creek from Lake Champlain, then over the
mountains to Black River, and so down that stream, which would bring them
directly to Number Four. New Hampshire would do nothing for them, and their
only hope was in Massachusetts, of which most of them were natives, and
which had good reasons for helping them to hold their ground, as a cover to
its own settlements below. The Governor and Assembly of Massachusetts did,
in fact, send small parties of armed men from time to time to defend the
endangered outpost, and the succor was timely; for though, during the first
year of the war, Number Four was left in peace, yet from the 19th of April
to the 19th of June, 1746, it was attacked by Indians five times, with some
loss of scalps, and more of cattle, horses, and hogs. On the last occasion
there was a hot fight in the woods, ending in the retreat of the Indians,
said to have numbered a hundred and fifty, into a swamp, leaving behind
them guns, blankets, hatchets, spears, and other things, valued at forty
pounds, old tenor,--which, says the chronicle, "was reckoned a great booty
for such beggarly enemies." [Footnote: Saunderson, _History of
Charlestown, N. H._, 29. Doolittle, _Narrative of Mischief done by the
Indian Enemy_,--a contempory chronicle.]

But Massachusetts grew tired of defending lands that had been adjudged to
New Hampshire, and as the season drew towards an end, Number Four was left
again to its own keeping. The settlers saw no choice but to abandon a place
which they were too few to defend, and accordingly withdrew to the older
settlements, after burying such of their effects as would bear it, and
leaving others to their fate. Six men, a dog, and a cat remained to keep
the fort. Towards midwinter the human part of the garrison also withdrew,
and the two uncongenial quadrupeds were left alone.

When the authorities of Massachusetts saw that a place so useful to bear
the brunt of attack was left to certain destruction, they repented of their
late withdrawal, and sent Captain Phineas Stevens, with thirty men, to
re-occupy it. Stevens, a native of Sudbury, Massachusetts, one of the
earliest settlers of Number Four, and one of its chief proprietors, was a
bold, intelligent, and determined man, well fitted for the work before him.
He and his band reached the fort on the 27th of March, 1747, and their
arrival gave peculiar pleasure to its tenants, the dog and cat, the former
of whom met them with lively demonstrations of joy. The pair had apparently
lived in harmony, and found means of subsistence, as they are reported to
have been in tolerable condition.

Stevens had brought with him a number of other dogs,--animals found useful
for detecting the presence of Indians and tracking them to their
lurking-places. A week or more after the arrival of the party, these
canine allies showed great uneasiness and barked without ceasing; on which
Stevens ordered a strict watch to be kept, and great precaution to be used
in opening the gate of the fort. It was time, for the surrounding forest
concealed what the New England chroniclers call an "army," commanded by
General Debeline. It scarcely need be said that Canada had no General
Debeline, and that no such name is to be found in Canadian annals. The
"army" was a large war-party of both French and Indians, and a French
record shows that its commander was Boucher de Niverville, ensign in the
colony troops. [Footnote: _Extrait en forme de Journal de ce qui s'est
passé d'intéressant dans la Colonie à l'occasion des Mouvements de Guerre,
etc., 1746, 1747_.]

The behavior of the dogs was as yet the only sign of danger, when, about
nine o'clock on the morning of the 7th of April, one of Stevens's men took
it upon him to go out and find what was amiss. Accompanied by two or three
of the dogs, he advanced, gun in hand, into the clearing, peering at every
stump, lest an Indian should lurk behind it. When about twenty rods from
the gate, he saw a large log, or trunk of a fallen tree, not far before
him, and approached it cautiously, setting on the dogs, or, as Stevens
whimsically phrases it, "saying _Choboy!_" to them. They ran forward
barking, on which several heads appeared above the log, and several guns
were fired at him. He was slightly wounded, but escaped to the fort. Then,
all around, the air rang with war-whoops, and a storm of bullets flew from
the tangle of bushes that edged the clearing, and rapped spitefully, but
harmlessly, against the wooden wall. At a little distance on the windward
side was a log-house, to which, with adjacent fences, the assailants
presently set fire, in the hope that, as the wind was strong, the flames
would catch the fort. When Stevens saw what they were doing, he set himself
to thwart them; and while some of his men kept them at bay with their guns,
the rest fell to work digging a number of short trenches under the wall, on
the side towards the fire. As each trench was six or seven feet deep, a man
could stand in it outside the wall, sheltered from bullets, and dash
buckets of water, passed to him from within, against the scorching timbers.
Eleven such trenches were dug, and eleven men were stationed in them, so
that the whole exposed front of the wall was kept wet. [Footnote: "Those
who were not employed in firing at the enemy were employed in digging
trenches under the bottom of the fort. We dug no less than eleven of them,
so deep that a man could go and stand upright on the outside and not
endanger himself; so that when these trenches were finished, we could wet
all the outside of the fort, which we did, and kept it wet all night. We
drew some hundreds of barrels of water; and to undergo all this hard
service there were but thirty men." _Stevens to Colonel W.
Williams,--April, 1747._] Thus, though clouds of smoke drifted over the
fort, and burning cinders showered upon it, no harm was done, and the enemy
was forced to other devices. They found a wagon, which they protected from
water and bullets by a shield of planks,--for there was a saw-mill hard
by,--and loaded it with dry fagots, thinking to set them on fire and push
the blazing machine against a dry part of the fort wall; but the task
proved too dangerous, "for," says Stevens, "instead of performing what they
threatened and seemed to be immediately going to undertake, they called to
us and desired a cessation of arms till sunrise the next morning, which was
granted, at which time they said they would come to a parley." In fact, the
French commander, with about sixty of his men, came in the morning with a
flag of truce, which he stuck in the ground at a musket-shot from the fort,
and, in the words of Stevens, "said, if we would send three men to him, he
would send as many to us." Stevens agreed to this, on which two Frenchmen
and an Indian came to the fort, and three soldiers went out in return. The
two Frenchmen demanded, on the part of their commander, that the garrison
should surrender, under a promise of life, and be carried prisoners to
Quebec; and they farther required that Stevens should give his answer to
the French officer in person.

Wisely or unwisely, Stevens went out at the gate, and was at once joined by
Niverville, attended, no doubt, by an interpreter. "Upon meeting the
Monsieur," says the English captain, "he did not wait for me to give him an
answer," but said, in a manner sufficiently peremptory, that he had seven
hundred men with him, and that if his terms were refused, he would storm
the fort, "run over it," burn it to the ground, and if resistance were
offered, put all in it to the sword; adding that he would have it or die,
and that Stevens might fight or not as he pleased, for it was all one to
him. His terms being refused, he said, as Stevens reports, "Well, go back
to your fort and see if your men dare fight any more, and give me an answer
quickly; for my men want to be fighting." Stevens now acted as if he had
been the moderator of a town-meeting. "I went into the fort and called the
men together, and informed them what the General said, and then put it to
vote whether they would fight or resign; and they voted to a man to stand
it out, and also declared that they would fight as long as they had life."
[Footnote: _Stevens to Colonel William Williams,--April, 1747._]

Answer was made accordingly, but Niverville's promise to storm the fort and
"run over it" was not kept. Stevens says that his enemies had not the
courage to do this, or even to bring up their "fortification," meaning
their fire-wagon with its shield of planks. In fact, an open assault upon a
fortified place was a thing unknown in this border warfare, whether waged
by Indians alone, or by French and Indians together. The assailants only
raised the war-whoop again, and fired, as before, from behind stumps, logs,
and bushes. This amusement they kept up from two o'clock till night, when
they grew bolder, approached nearer, and shot flights of fire-arrows into
the fort, which, water being abundant, were harmless as their bullets. At
daylight they gave over this exercise, called out "Good morning!" to the
garrison, and asked for a suspension of arms for two hours. This being
agreed to, another flag of truce presently appeared, carried by two
Indians, who planted it in the ground within a stone's throw of the fort,
and asked that two men should be sent out to confer with them. This was
done, and the men soon came back with a proposal that Stevens should sell
provisions to his besiegers, under a promise on their part that they would
give him no farther trouble. He answered that he would not sell them
provisions for money, but would exchange them for prisoners, and give five
bushels of Indian corn for every hostage placed in his hands as security
for the release of an English captive in Canada. To this their only answer
was firing a few shots against the fort, after which they all disappeared,
and were seen no more. The garrison had scarcely eaten or slept for three
days. "I believe men were never known to hold out with better resolution,"
writes Stevens; and "though there were some thousands of guns shot at us,
we had but two men slightly wounded, John Brown and Joseph Ely." [Footnote:
_Stevens to Colonel W. Williams,--April, 1747._]

Niverville and his party, disappointed and hungry, now made a tour among
the scattered farms and hamlets of the country below, which, incapable of
resisting such an inroad, were abandoned at their approach. Thus they took
an easy revenge for their rebuff at Number Four, and in a march of thirty
or forty leagues, burned five small deserted forts or stockaded houses,
"three meeting-houses, several fine barns, about one hundred dwellings,
mostly of two stories, furnished even to chests of drawers, and killed five
to six hundred sheep and hogs, and about thirty horned cattle. This
devastation is well worth a few prisoners or scalps." [Footnote: _N. Y.
Col. Docs._, X. 97.] It is curious to find such exploits mentioned with
complacency, as evidence of prowess.

The successful defence of the most exposed place on the frontier was
welcome news throughout New England, and Commodore Charles Knowles, who was
then at Boston, sent Stevens a silver-hilted sword in recognition of his
conduct. The settlers of Number Four, who soon returned to their backwoods
home, were so well pleased with this compliment to one of their fellows
that they gave to the settlement the baptismal name of the Commodore, and
the town that has succeeded the hamlet of Number Four is Charlestown to
this day. [Footnote: Just after the withdrawal of the French and Indians,
Stevens wrote two letters giving an account of the affair, one to Governor
Shirley, and the other to Colonel William Williams, who seems to have been
his immediate military superior. At most points they are substantially the
same; but that to Williams contains some passages not found in the other.
The letter to Shirley is printed in Saunderson, _History of Charlestown,
N. H._, 34-37, and that to Williams in _Collections of the New
Hampshire Historical Society_, IV. 109-113. Stevens also kept a diary,
which was long in possession of his descendants. One of these, Mr. B. F.
Stevens, kindly made a search for it, at my request, and learned that it
had been unfortunately destroyed by fire, in 1856. Doolittle, in his
_Narrative of Mischief_, and Hoyt, in his _Antiquarian Researches_,
give other accounts. The French notices of the affair are few and short, as
usual in cases of failure. For the principal one, see _N. Y. Col. Docs.,_
X. 97. It is here said that Stevens asked for a parley, in order to
capitulate; but all the English accounts say that the French made the first
advances.]




CHAPTER XXIV.

1745-1748.

FORT MASSACHUSETTS.

FRONTIER DEFENCE.--NORTHFIELD AND ITS MINISTER.--MILITARY CRITICISMS OF
REV. BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.--RIGAUD DE VAUDREUIL.--HIS GREAT WAR-PARTY.--HE
ATTACKS FORT MASSACHUSETTS.--SERGEANT HAWKS AND HIS GARRISON.--A GALLANT
DEFENCE.--CAPITULATION.--HUMANITY OF THE FRENCH.--RAVAGES.--RETURN TO CROWN
POINT.--PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.


Since the last war, the settlements of Massachusetts had pushed westward
and begun to invade the beautiful region of mountains and valleys that now
forms Berkshire. Villages, or rudiments of villages, had grown up on the
Housatonic, and an establishment had been attempted at Pontoosuc, now
Pittsfield, on the extreme western limits of the province. The position of
these new settlements was critical, for the enemy could reach them with
little difficulty by way of Lake Champlain and Wood Creek. The
Massachusetts Government was not unmindful of them, and when war again
broke out, three wooden forts were built for their protection, forming a
line of defence westward from Northfield on the northern frontier of the
province. One of these forts was in the present town of Heath, and was
called Fort Shirley; another, named Fort Pelham, was in the present town of
Rowe; while the third, Fort Massachusetts, was farther westward, in what is
now the town of Adams, then known as East Hoosac. Two hundred men from the
militia were taken into pay to hold these posts and patrol the intervening
forests. Other defensive works were made here and there, sometimes by the
votes of town meetings, and sometimes by individuals, at their own cost.
These works consisted of a fence of palisades enclosing a farm-house, or
sometimes of a blockhouse of timber or heavy planks. Thus, at Northfield,
Deacon Ebenezer Alexander, a veteran of sixty who had served at Louisbourg,
built a "mount," or blockhouse, on the knoll behind his house, and carried
a stockade from it to enclose the dwelling, shed, and barn, the whole at
the cost of thirty-six pounds, one shilling, and sixpence, in Massachusetts
currency, which the town repaid him, his fortifications being of public
utility as a place of refuge for families in case of attack. [Footnote:
Temple and Sheldon, _History of Northfield_, 237, give the items from
the original account. This is one of the best of the innumerable
town-histories of New England.] Northfield was a place notoriously
dangerous, and military methods were in vogue there in season and out of
season. Thus, by a vote of the town, the people were called to the Sunday
sermon by beat of drum, and Eleazer Holton was elected to sound the call in
consideration of one pound and ten shillings a year, the drum being hired
of Ensign Field, its fortunate possessor, for the farther sum of three
shillings. This was in the earlier days of Northfield. In 1734 the Sunday
drum-beat was stopped, and the worshippers were summoned by the less
obstreperous method of "hanging out a flagg," for the faithful discharge of
which function Daniel Wright received in 1744 one pound and five shillings.
[Footnote: Temple and Sheldon, _History of Northfield_, 218.]

The various fortifications, public and private, were garrisoned, sometimes
by the owner and his neighbors, sometimes by men in pay of the provincial
Assembly. As was to be expected from a legislative body undertaking warlike
operations, the work of defence was but indifferently conducted. John
Stoddard, the village magnate of Northampton, was charged, among the rest
of his multifarious employments, with the locating and construction of
forts; Captain Ephraim Williams was assigned to the general command on the
western frontier, with headquarters at Fort Shirley and afterwards at Fort
Massachusetts; and Major Israel Williams, of Hatfield, was made commissary.

At Northfield dwelt the Reverend Benjamin Doolittle, minister, apothecary,
physician, and surgeon of the village; for he had studied medicine no less
than theology. His parishioners thought that his cure of bodies encroached
on his cure of souls, and requested him to confine his attention to his
spiritual charge; to which he replied that he could not afford it, his
salary as minister being seventy-five pounds in irredeemable Massachusetts
paper, while his medical and surgical practice brought him full four
hundred a year. He offered to comply with the wishes of his flock if they
would add that amount to his salary,--which they were not prepared to do,
and the minister continued his heterogeneous labors as before.

As the position of his house on the village street seems to have been
regarded as strategic, the town voted to fortify it with a blockhouse and a
stockade, for the benefit both of the occupant and of all the villagers.
This was accordingly done, at the cost of eighteen pounds, seven shillings,
and sixpence for the blockhouse, and a farther charge for the stockade; and
thenceforth Mr. Doolittle could write his sermons and mix his doses in
peace. To his other callings he added that of historiographer. When, after
a ministry of thirty-six years, the thrifty pastor was busied one day with
hammer and nails in mending the fence of his yard, he suddenly dropped dead
from a stroke of heart-disease,--to the grief of all Northfield; and his
papers being searched, a record was found in his handwriting of the inroads
of the enemy that had happened in his time on or near the Massachusetts
border. Being rightly thought worthy of publication, it was printed at
Boston in a dingy pamphlet, now extremely rare, and much prized by
antiquarians. [Footnote: _A short Narrative of Mischief done by the
French and Indian Enemy on the Western Frontiers of the Province of the
Massachusetts Bay; from the Beginning of the French War, proclaimed by the
King of France, March 15th, 1743-4; and by the King of Great Britain, March
29th, 1744, to August 2nd, 1748. Drawn up by the Rev. Mr. Doolittle, of
Northfield, in the County of Hampshire; and found among his Manuscripts
after his Death. And at the Desire of some is now Published, with some
small Additions to render it more perfect. Boston; Printed and sold by S.
Kneeland, in Queen Street. MDCCL._ The facts above given concerning Mr.
Doolittle are drawn from the excellent _History of Northfield_ by
Temple and Sheldon, and the introduction to the _Particular History of
the Five Years' French and Indian War,_ by S. G. Drake.]

Appended to it are the remarks of the author on the conduct of the war. He
complains that plans are changed so often that none of them take effect;
that terms of enlistment are so short that the commissary can hardly serve
out provisions to the men before their time is expired; that neither bread,
meat, shoes, nor blankets are kept on hand for an emergency, so that the
enemy escape while the soldiers are getting ready to pursue them; that the
pay of a drafted man is so small that twice as much would not hire a
laborer to take care of his farm in his absence; and that untried and unfit
persons are commissioned as officers: in all of which strictures there is
no doubt much truth.

Mr. Doolittle's rueful narrative treats mainly of miscellaneous murders and
scalpings, interesting only to the sufferers and their friends; but he also
chronicles briefly a formidable inroad that still holds a place in New
England history.

It may be remembered that Shirley had devised a plan for capturing Fort
Frédéric, or Crown Point, built by the French at the narrows of Lake
Champlain, and commanding ready access for warparties to New York and New
England.

The approach of D'Anville's fleet had defeated the plan; but rumors of it
had reached Canada, and excited great alarm. Large bodies of men were
ordered to Lake Champlain to protect the threatened fort. The two brothers
De Muy were already on the lake with a numerous party of Canadians and
Indians, both Christian and heathen, and Rigaud de Vaudreuil, town-major of
Three Rivers, was ordered to follow with a still larger force, repel any
English attack, or, if none should be made, take the offensive and strike a
blow at the English frontier. [Footnote: French writers always call him
Rigaud, to distinguish him from his brother, Pierre Rigaud de
Vaudreuil-Cavagnal, afterwards governor of Canada, who is usually mentioned
as Vaudreuil.] On the 3d of August, Rigaud left Montreal with a fleet of
canoes carrying what he calls his army, and on the 12th he encamped on the
east side of the lake, at the mouth of Otter Creek. There was rain,
thunder, and a violent wind all night; but the storm ceased at daybreak,
and, embarking again, they soon saw the octagonal stone tower of Fort
Frédéric.

The party set up their tents and wigwams near the fort, and on the morning
of the 16th the elder De Muy arrived with a reinforcement of sixty
Frenchmen and a band of Indians. They had just returned from an incursion
towards Albany, and reported that all was quiet in those parts, and that
Fort Frédéric was in no danger. Now, to their great satisfaction, Rigaud
and his band saw themselves free to take the offensive. The question was,
where to strike. The Indians held council after council, made speech after
speech, and agreed on nothing. Rigaud gave them a wampum-belt, and told
them that he meant to attack Corlaer,--that is, Schenectady; at which they
seemed well pleased, and sang war-songs all night. In the morning they
changed their minds, and begged him to call the whole army to a council for
debating the question. It appeared that some of them, especially the
Iroquois converts of Caughnawaga, disapproved of attacking Schenectady,
because some of their Mohawk relatives were always making visits there, and
might be inadvertently killed by the wild Western Indians of Rigaud's
party. Now all was doubt again, for as Indians are unstable as water, it
was no easy task to hold them to any plan of action.

The Abenakis proposed a solution of the difficulty. They knew the New
England border well, for many of them had lived upon it before the war, on
terms of friendly intercourse with the settlers. They now drew upon the
floor of the council-room a rough map of the country, on which was seen a
certain river, and on its upper waters a fort which they recommended as a
proper object of attack. The river was that eastern tributary of the Hudson
which the French called the Kaské-kouké, the Dutch the Schaticook, and the
English the Hoosac. The fort was Fort Massachusetts, the most westerly of
the three posts lately built to guard the frontier. "My Father," said the
Abenaki spokesman to Rigaud, "it will be easy to take this fort, and make
great havoc on the lands of the English. Deign to listen to your children
and follow our advice." [Footnote: _Journal de la Campagne de Rigaud de
Vaudreuil en 1746...présenté à Monseigneur le Comte de Maurepas, Ministre
et Secrétaire d'Etat_ (written by Rigaud).] One Cadenaret, an Abenaki
chief, had been killed near Fort Massachusetts in the last spring, and his
tribesmen were keen to revenge him. Seeing his Indians pleased with the
proposal to march for the Hoosac, Rigaud gladly accepted it; on which
whoops, yelps, and war-songs filled the air. Hardly, however, was the party
on its way when the Indians changed their minds again, and wanted to attack
Saratoga; but Rigaud told them that they had made their choice and must
abide by it, to which they assented, and gave him no farther trouble.

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