Alexandersmap

    Category: History

    • Two Views

      This morning I had the opportunity to sail on Fayaway from the Merrimack River to (almost) Isle of Shoals. Lucky to have Chris and Kelly local a bit longer than expected. These days are truly bonus days. This stretch of coastline looks complete different than it did 300 years ago, but looks exactly the same in two ways.

      The ridge line is largely as it was in 1719, save for a few water towers breaking through. But just below is a continuous line of beach houses, hotels and condos. And below that, on this beautiful July day, was a similar continuous string of people occupying their own square of beach sand. No, the similarities end at the tree line.

      But turn 180 degrees and the view is as it’s been for millennia. The Atlantic Ocean guards what has always been from humanity’s constant change. two views offer different perspectives on the last three centuries. Thankfully the Atlantic is resilient in the face of human impact. I do love the view east. May it always be this way.

    • From Pemaquid to Andover: A Tale of Abenaki Revenge

      On February 22, 1698 a group of Abenaki warriors raided Andover, Massachusetts and killed five people and two more (Haynes and Ladd) in Haverhill.  Raids like this were somewhat common in the Merrimack River Valley at that time, as it was the frontier and friction between settlers encroaching on the lands of Native Americans who had lived there for generations was an unpleasant reality for everyone living in this area.  What was particularly interesting about this raid was who they killed, which leads to why they chose this place for a raid in the first place.

      Two years earlier at Fort William Henry in Pemaquid, Maine, Captain Pasco Chubb commanded a garrison of 60 soldiers who were stationed here, tasked with defending this relatively new stone fort from the French and Abenaki who would prefer to have them elsewhere. This site, on a point of land jutting out into Johns Bay at the mouth of the Pemaquid River, wasn’t particularly strategic, but it represented what was meant to be a permanent foothold on the coast of Maine (then part of Massachusetts) and the northernmost settlement by the English. Fort George, A wooden stockade on this spot hadn’t fared well just a few years earlier, so in reconstructing the fort the British stepped in and built it of stone and armed it with 15-20 cannon. It was completed in 1692 and held by a garrison of 60-90 men.

      There were at least three critical weaknesses with Fort William Henry. First, it was isolated and any reasonable hope for reinforcements was small. Second, the small stone and lime walls were not particularly strong, making them vulnerable to the cannon the French would bring. And third, and an unforgivable mistake given the other vulnerabilities, the supply of drinking water was outside the fort walls! So a siege of any length would prove highly effective as water in the fort was depleted.

      Ongoing tensions with the French and Native American population almost guaranteed that a siege would eventually take place.  And Fort William Henry was indeed besieged on August 14, 1696 by 100 French and 400 Abenaki. Prior to the siege, two Abenaki chiefs named Edgeremet and Abinquid went to meet with Captain Chubb under a white flag to inquire about some fellow Abenaki captured by Chubb’s predecessor and shipped to Boston. The goal was a prisoner exchange with the British.  Chubb and his men raised their guns and shot Edgeremet and two of his sons. Depending on the account you read, Chief Abinquid may have escaped. Either way this act of cowardly violence against Abenaki tribal leaders under a white flag enraged the besiegers. They wouldn’t forget Chubb and the British betrayal.

      The Abenaki wrote a letter that demonstrated their rage and feelings of betrayal.  It would set the table for later violence against settlers:

      “Lord who write at to me, listen and understand what I am about to say, аnd write, to you. Thou wilt easily recognize my words, and why wilt them not recognize them. It is thou (so to express myself) that furnishest them to me. Writing with too much haughtiness, thou obligest me to reply to thee in the same style. Now, then, listen to the truths I am about to tell thee of thyself; of thee, who dost not speak the truth when thou sayeth that I kill thee cruelly. I never exercise any cruelty in killing thee, [a*I kill thee] only with hatchet blows and musket shots. Thy heart must have been еvеr addicted to wickedness and deceit. No other proof is necessary than the acts last autumn at Saco and Pemkuit, taking аnd detaining those who were going to obtain news from thee. Never in the universal world has it been seen, never has it been related of a man being taken prisoner who bears a flag [of truce] and goes to parley on public business. This, however, is what thou hast done; in truth, thou bait spoiled the subject of discussion. Thou hast covered it with blood; as for me, I could never resolve to act in that manner, for therein I have even an extreme horror of thy unparalleled treachery. How then dost thou expect that we would talk. What thou sayest I retort on thyself. There, repent and repair the grave fault thou hast committed; seize those who killed me at Saco, and made me prisoner at Pemkuit. I will do the like by thee. I will bring thee those who killed thee when I shall be able to find them. Fail not to do what I require of thee; of this, I say, who killest me without cause; who takest me prisoner when I am off my guard. – Abenaki letter, written by French missionary brothers Vincent and James Bigot, in response to the treachery at Pemaquid

      The French weren’t as surprised, writing in an account of the events that day that “It is to be hoped that the Abenakis will not place any confidence hereafter in English promises.”  

      The English were disgusted with Chubb for quickly surrendering the fort and fleeing back to Boston.  He was thrown in jail for months when he was set free, and only freed when he wrote a petition to the Court.  In it he wrote the following:

      “And whereas ye petition is a very poore man, having a wife and children to look after with by reason of his confines & poverty are reduced to a meane and necesstous condition, having not wherewith all either to defray his prison necessary charges or to relieve his indigent family…”

      Chubb would indeed be released from jail and return to Andover to be with his wife and child.  It was there that a party of 30 Abenaki warriors led by Chief Escumbuit from Big Island Pond would become reacquainted with Pasco Chubb, killing his wife and child, and paying extra attention on Chubb, shooting him several times to ensure he was dead.  Sweet revenge, perhaps, but with the loss of innocents as well.  Chubb has largely been forgotten in the early colonial history of America, and when his name is mentioned it’s appropriately with distain.

       

    • Jonathan Haynes and a Trip Cut Short

      On February 22, 1698, Jonathan Haynes and Samuel Ladd were returning home from a day collecting cut hay when they were surrounded by a party of Abenaki warriors. Hopelessly outnumbered, they asked for quarter but none would be given for the older men. Both would be killed that day, and one each of their sons captured. One of Haynes’ other sons escaped on a horse. This all happened in what is now Haverhill, Massachusetts near the West Gate Market Plaza.  Today there’s very little evidence of the events of that day, save for a mention on a monument erected by descendants two hundred years later. Those descendants, happily alive at the time, are long gone now too.

      Jonathan Haynes lived a short walk from where Hannah Duston was kidnapped less than a year before.  In fact, Jonathan Haynes had been kidnapped two years before along with four of his children.  Two came back to Haverhill with their father, two lived out their lives in Canada.  This time Jonathan paid the price for living on the edge of the frontier.  The warriors who killed Haynes and Ladd had come from a raid in Andover (likely present-day North Andover) where they had killed five settlers, including Pasco Chubb, his wife and daughter.  Chubb is a story for another day, but it seems that the Abenaki were out for revenge and went to his home in winter to kill him.  Haynes and Ladd were simply unlucky to be on the path that the Abenaki warriors were taking back to what is now Concord.

      There’s a rich history in this region, full of stories like this one that are largely lost to the past. The relentless terror for people living with the threat of raids must have been unbearable at times.  Today there are only whispers.  Evidence of the once powerful Abenaki is almost impossible to find.  But sometimes you find clues to the lives of the original settlers if you simply pay attention.  The Duston Garrison still stands less than two miles away.  And thousands of people drive by the small burial ground where Haynes and his descendants are buried.  Most of the oldest gravestones are illegible as time wears away the engravings on the stone.  The burial ground, like the garrison, is one of the few places in this corner of Haverhill that hasn’t changed all that much in 320 years.  It still marks time as it has since that day so long ago when a trip home was unexpectedly and tragically cut short.

    • Betsy Doyle

      The War of 1812 is often forgotten in the string of wars that make up American history.  If people think of it at all it’s largely in thinking about the White House being set on fire by the British.  But some of the fiercest fighting took place on the shores of Lake Ontario at  Fort Niagara.   The strategic nature of the fort resulted in battles to control it in the French and Indian War, then the Revolutionary War, and finally the War of 1812.  War was officially declared on June 18, 1812.  It would reach Fort Niagara soon enough.

      A young woman named Betsy Doyle and her four children followed Betsy’s husband Andrew across the Niagara River to Fort Niagara in 1810, where she served as either a nurse or a laundress.  Andrew served in the American Army, and for two years they lived in relative peace.  But in October 1812 Andrew was captured by the British at the Battle of Queenstown.  He would never see Betsy again.  As a Canadian, Andrew was considered a traitor and was shipped off to England to spend the next three years in prison.  Betsy and her four children remained at Fort Niagara.

      On November 21, 1812 Fort Niagara came under fire from the British in a battle that would make Betsy Doyle famous, but not infamous.  The American Army would fire hot shot at the British.  Hot shot was cannonballs and grape shot that was heated red hot in the coals, loaded quickly into a cannon and shot at ships or the British outpost across the river.  The hot shot was devastating to ships in particular.  But it was very dangerous for the gun crew that was loading it into the cannon as it could easily trigger an explosion that would kill anyone nearby.  One crew was killed just this way on that day.  But Betsy Doyle continued to bring hot shot up, help load the gun and run back to the coals for more.  The commanding officer called Betsy Doyle’s actions that day brave, and she was certainly a hero.

      Thirteen months later the British with Native American allies would turn the tables on the Americans, seizing Fort Niagara in a particularly gruesome fashion.  When the Americans refused to surrender, the British commander offered no quarter and gave the order to bayonet them all.  Betsy and her children somehow escaped that day, but December in enemy territory in Upstate New York almost guaranteed that they wouldn’t survive long.  But somehow they did, walking over 300 miles in the bitter New York winter to Albany.

      Betsy was never paid for her heroism a Fort Niagara, and would die six years later.  I’ve wondered where her gravestone is, as I’d like to pay her a visit.  For all of her courage on November 21, 1812 and the four month walk across New York State to keep her four children alive, there isn’t enough recognition of Betsy Doyle.  The tablet that honors her isn’t prominently displayed at Fort Niagara, it’s on the top floor of the French Castle, near where she fought alongside American men on that day in 1812.  It might be hidden because they got her name wrong and called her Fanny Doyle instead of Betsy.  It’s unfortunate that someone hasn’t given her a proper tribute.  You can find her story if you search for it, but she’s largely lost to history.  Her husband Andrew came back to the United States but never found her and married someone else the same year that Betsy died.  Her story is tragic and heroic all at once.

    • To Sign the Declaration

      The men who signed the Declaration of Independence were not underachievers. These were men of action, leaders in their colonies, and fully aware of the implications of the Declaration on their place in the world. To sign such a Declaration put them in immediate peril for their lives and livelihoods (pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor). To have worked your entire life to be a leader in your community, with the status, respect and financial security that might bring, and then choose to sign a document as incendiary as the Declaration of Independence took tremendous courage.

      The body of The Declaration of Independence runs through all the reasons why these Founding Fathers would sign such a document, but the opening and closing statements are what resonate through history. As we celebrate another Independence Day, it helps to read and reflect on these two paragraphs as they offer a powerful reminder of what these Founding Fathers sought for themselves, the colonies they represented, and ultimately for generations of Americans to come:

      We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

      We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.