NARRATIVE

OF THE REMARKABLE ESCAPE OF WIDOW ELIZABETH HEARD, ALSO TAKEN AT THE DESTRUCTION OF MAJOR WALDRON'S GARRISON IN DOVER, AS COMMUNICATED TO DOCTOR COTTON MATHER, BY THE REV. JOHN PIKE, MINISTER OF THE PLACE.

MRS. ELIZABETH HEARD was a widow of good estate, a mother of many children, and a daughter of Mr. Hull, a reverend minister formerly living at Pascataqua, but at this time lived at Quochecho, the Indian name of Dover. Happening to be at Portsmouth on the day before Quochecho was cut off, she returned thither in the night with one daughter and three sons, all masters of families. When they came near Quochecho they were astonished with a prodigious noise of Indians, howling, shooting, shouting, and roaring, according to their manner in making an assault.

Their distress for their families carried them still further up the river, till they secretly and silently passed by some numbers of the raging savages. They landed about an hundred rods from Major Waldron's garrison, and running up the hill, they saw many lights in the windows of the garrison, which they concluded the English within had set up for the direction of those who might seek a refuge there. Coming to the gate, they desired entrance, which not being readily granted, they called earnestly, bounced, knocked, and cried cut to those within of their unkindness, that they would not open the gate to them in this extremity.

No answer being yet made, they began to doubt whether all was well. One of the young men then climbing up the wall, saw a horrible tawny in the entry, with a gun in his hand. A grievous consternation seized now upon them, and Mrs. Heard, sitting down without the gate, through despair and faintness, was unable to stir any further; but had strength only to charge her children to shift for themselves, which she did in broken accents; adding also that she must unavoidably there end her days.

Her children, finding it impossible to carry her with them, with heavy hearts forsook her. Immediately after, however, she beginning to recover from her fright, was able to fly, and hide herself in a bunch of barberry bushes, in the garden; and

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then hastening from thence, because the daylight advanced, she sheltered herself, though seen by two of the Indians, in a thicket of other bushes, about thirty rods from the house. She had not been long here before an Indian came towards her, with a pistol in his hand. The fellow came up to her and stared her in the face, but said nothing to her, nor she to him. He went a little way back, and came again, and stared upon her as before, but said nothing; whereupon she asked him what he would have. He still said nothing, but went away to the house, whooping, and returned unto her no more.

Being thus unaccountably preserved, she made several essays to pass the river, but found herself unable to do it, and finding all places on that side of the river filled with blood and fire, and hideous outcries, she thereupon returned to her old bush, and there poured out her ardent prayers to God for help in this distress.

She continued in this bush until the garrison was burnt, and the enemy had gone, and then she stole along by the river side, until she came to a boom, on which she passed over. Many sad effects of cruelty she saw left by the Indians in her way. She soon after safely arrived at Captain Gerish's garrison, where she found a refuge from the storm. Here she also had the satisfaction to understand that her own garrison, though one of the first that was assaulted, had been bravely defended, and successfully maintained against the adversary.

This gentlewoman's garrison was on the most extreme frontier of the province, and more obnoxious than any other, and therefore more incapable of being relieved. Nevertheless, by her presence and courage, it held out all the war, even for ten years together; and the persons in it have enjoyed very eminent preservations. It would have been deserted, if she had accepted offers that were made her by her friends, to abandon it, and retire to Portsmouth among them, which would have been a damage to the town and land; but by her encouragement this post was thus kept up, and she is yet [1702] living in much esteem among her neighbors.

NOTE 1.-MRS. HEARD was the widow of a Mr. John Heard. She had five sons, Benjamin, John, Joseph, Samuel and Tristram, and an equal number of daughters. The last-named son was waylaid and killed by the Indians in the year 1723.-MS. CHRONICLES OF THE INDIANS. NOTE 2. It will doubtless seem surprising to the reader that Mrs. Heard should be suffered to escape captivity, when she was discovered by a grim warrior, who, without doubt, was seeking for some white inhabitant, on whom to wreak his vengeance. The facts seem to be these: Thirteen years before, namely, in 1676, when the four hundred Indians were surprised in Dover, (in a manner not at all doubtful as it respects

the character of their captors,) this same Mrs. Heard secreted a young Indian in her house, by which means he escaped that calamitous day. The reader of Indian history will not, now, I presume, harbor surprise at the conduct of the warrior. For the particulars of the event connected with this narrative, see THE BOOK OF THE INDIANS, Book iii. Chap. viii.-Ed.

MEMOIRS

OF ODD ADVENTURES, STRANGE DELIVERANCES, ETC., IN THE CAPTIVITY OF JOHN GYLES, ESQ., COMMANDER OF THE GARRISON ON ST. GEORGE RIVER, IN THE DISTRICT OF MAINE. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT BOSTON, 1736.

INTRODUCTION.―These private memoirs were collected from my minutes, at the earnest request of my second consort, for the use of our family, that we might have a memento ever ready at hand, to excite in ourselves gratitude and thankfulness to God; and in our offspring a due sense of their dependence on the Sovereign of the universe, from the precariousness and vicissitudes of all sublunary enjoyments. In this state, and for this end, they have laid by me for some years. They at length falling into the hands of some, for whose jugment I had a value, I was pressed for a copy for the public. Others, desiring of me to extract particulars from them, which the multiplicity and urgency of my affairs would not admit, I have now determined to suffer their publication. I have not made scarce any addition to this manual, except in the chapter of creatures, which I was urged to make much larger. I might have greatly enlarged it, but I feared it would grow beyond its proportion. I have been likewise advised to give a particular account of my father, which I am not very fond of, having no dependence on the virtues or honors of my ancestors to recommend me to the favor of God or men; nevertheless, because some think it is a respect due to the memory of my parents, whose name I was obliged to mention in the following story, and a satisfaction which their posterity might justly expect from me, I shall give some account of him, though as brief as possible.

The flourishing state of New England, before the unhappy eastern wars, drew my father hither, whose first settlement was on Kennebeck river, at a place called Merrymeeting Bay, where he dwelt for some years; until, on the death of my grand pa

rents, he, with his family, returned to England, to settle his affairs. This done, he came over with the design to have returned to his farm; but on his arrival at Boston, the eastern Indians had begun their hostilities. He therefore begun a settlement on Long Island. The air of that place not so well agreeing with his constitution, and the Indians having become peaceable, he again proposed to resettle his lands in Merrymeeting Bay; but finding that place deserted, and that plantations were going on at Pemmaquid, he purchased several tracts of land of the inhabitants there. Upon his highness the duke of York resuming a claim to those parts, my father took out patents under that claim; and when Pemmaquid was set off by the name of the county of Cornwall, in the province of New York, he was commissioned chief justice of the same by Gov. Duncan [Dongan.]* He was a strict sabbatarian, and met with considerable difficulty in the discharge of his office, from the immoralities of a people who had long lived lawless. He laid out no inconsiderable income, which he had annually from England, on the place, and at last lost his life there, as will hereafter be related.

I am not insensible of the truth of an assertion of Sir Roger L'Estrange, that "Books and dishes have this common fate: no one of either ever pleased all tastes." And I am fully of his opinion in this: "It is as little to be wished for as expected; for a universal applause is, at least, two thirds of a scandal." To conclude with Sir Roger, "Though I made this composition principally for my family, yet, if any man has a mind to take part with me, he has free leave, and is welcome;" but let him carry this consideration along with him, "that he is a very unmannerly guest who forces himself upon another man's table, and then quarrels with his dinner."

CHAPTER I.-Containing the occurrences of the first year. On the second day of August, 1689, in the morning, my honored father, THOMAS GYLES, Esq., went with some laborers, my two elder brothers and myself, to one of his farms, which laid upon the river about three miles above fort Charles,† adjoining Pemmaquid falls, there to gather in his English harvest, and we labored securely till noon. After we had dined, our people

* He had been appointed governor of New York 30 Sept. 1682.-Ed.

Fort Charles stood on the spot where fort Frederick was, not long since, founded by Colonel Dunbar. The township adjoining thereto was called Jamestown, in honor to the duke of York. In this town, within a quarter of a mile of the fort, was my father's dwelling-house, from which he went out that unhappy morning.

went to their labor, some in one field to their English hay, the others to another field of English corn. My father, the youngest of my two brothers, and myself, tarried near the farm-house in which we had dined till about one of the clock; at which time we heard the report of several great guns at the fort. Upon which my father said he hoped it was a signal of good news, and that the great council had sent back the soldiers, to cover the inhabitants; (for on report of the revolution they had deserted.) But to our great surprise, about thirty or forty Indians, at that moment, discharged a volley of shot at us, from behind a rising ground, near our barn. The yelling of the Indians, the whistling of their shot, and the voice of my father, whom I heard cry out, "What now! what now!" so terrified me, (though he seemed to be handling a gun,) that I endeavored to make my escape. My brother ran one way and I another, and looking over my shoulder, I saw a stout fellow, painted, pursuing me with a gun, and a cutlass glittering in his hand, which I expected every moment in my brains. I soon fell down, and the Indian seized me by the left hand. He offered me no abuse, but tied my arms, then lifted me up, and pointed to the place where the people were at work about the hay, and led me that way. As we went, we crossed where my father was, who looked very pale and bloody, and walked very slowly. When we came to the place, I saw two men shot down on the flats, and one or two more knocked on their heads with hatchets, crying out, "O Lord," &c. There the Indians brought two captives, one a man, and my brother James, who, with me, had endeavored to escape by running from the house, when we were first attacked. This brother was about fourteen years of age. My oldest brother, whose name was Thomas, wonderfully escaped by land to the Barbican, a point of land on the west side of the river, opposite the fort, where several fishing vessels lay. He got on board one of them and sailed that night.

After doing what mischief they could, they sat down, and made us sit with them. After some time we arose, and the Indians pointed for us to go eastward. We marched about a quarter of a mile, and then made a halt. Here they brought my father to us. They made proposals to him, by old Moxus, who told him that those were strange Indians who shot him,

*The whole company of Indians, according to Charlevoix, was one hundred.-Ed.

†The Indians have a custom of uttering a most horrid howl when they discharge guns, designing thereby to terrify those whom they fight against.