Digital heart book

As late as 1724 there was no house on the north side of the
Nashua, but only scattered wigwams and grisly forests between
this frontier and Canada. In September of that year, two men who
were engaged in making turpentine on that side, for such were the
first enterprises in the wilderness, were taken captive and
carried to Canada by a party of thirty Indians. Ten of the
inhabitants of Dunstable, going to look for them, found the hoops
of their barrel cut, and the turpentine spread on the ground. I
have been told by an inhabitant of Tyngsborough, who had the
story from his ancestors, that one of these captives, when the
Indians were about to upset his barrel of turpentine, seized a
pine knot and flourishing it, swore so resolutely that he would
kill the first who touched it, that they refrained, and when at
length he returned from Canada he found it still standing.
Perhaps there was more than one barrel. However this may have
been, the scouts knew by marks on the trees, made with coal mixed
with grease, that the men were not killed, but taken prisoners.


Pages:
233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257