Elizabeth, the wife of Lieut. Henry Adams, was mortally wounded by the accidental discharge of a gun in the hands of Capt. John Jacob of Hingham. She was lying upon a bed in the chamber; Capt. Jacob was in the room below, just going to the garrison house; his gun, in the parlance of that day, was "half bent," and went off, the bullet going through the chamber floor and through the bed on which Mrs. Adams lay. Rev. Increase Mather commented thus: "It is a sign God is angry when he turns our Weapons against ourselves."

Feb. 25, 1676, the Indians burned seven houses and barns in Weymouth. (Mather). Rev. Wm. Hubbard said seven or eight houses.

Early in March; Massachusetts and Connecticut forces were ambuscaded not far from North Hampton. One man was killed, and Rev. Gershom Buckley, of Wethersfield, Conn., wounded. (I. Mather).

March 2, 1676, the Indians plundered several houses in Groton, and carried off a number of cattle. March 9th, they ambushed four men who were driving their carts, killed one and took a second, but while they were disputing about the manner of putting him to death, he escaped. (See Dwight's Travels, vol. ii).

"March the 10th, mischief was done and several lives cut off by the Indians this day at Groton and Sudbury. An humbling Providence inasmuch as many [140] Churches were this day Fasting and Praying." (I. Mather). Hubbard informs that two houses were burned in Billerica, March 10. "On the thirteenth about four hundred of these people assaulted Groton again. The inhabitants, alarmed by the recent destruction of Lancaster, had retreated into five garrisoned houses. Four of these were within musket shot of each other. The fifth stood at the distance of a mile. Between the four neighboring ones were gathered all the cattle belonging to the inhabitants."

In the morning two of the Indians showed themselves behind a hill near one of the four garrisons, with an intention to decoy the inhabitants out of their fortifications. "An alarm was immediately given. A considerable part of the men in this garrison, and several from the next, imprudently went out to surprise them, when a large body who had been lying in ambush for this purpose arose instantaneously and fired upon them. The English fled. Another party of the Indians at the same time came upon the rear of the nearest garrison thus deprived of its defence, and began to pull down the pallisades. The flying English retreated to the next garrison, and the women and children, forsaken as they were, escaped under the protection of Providence to the same place of safety. The ungarrisoned houses in the town were then set on fire by the savages. In a similar manner they attempted to surprise the solitary garrison, one of their people being employed to decoy the English out of it into an ambush in the neighborhood. The watch however discovering the ambush, gave the alarm. The next day the Indians withdrew, having burnt about forty dwelling houses with the church, together with barns and outhouses." (Dwight's Travels, vol. ii). While these things were being done at Groton, Plymouth was attacked, for particulars of which see biography of Tuspaquin, in Chapter 4 of this book.

[141] March 14, 1676, Northampton was attacked, its defences broken through in three places, and five houses and five barns burned. A large number of soldiers being quartered there the assailants soon drew off, but not until they had killed Robert Bartlett and Thomas Holton, and two other men and two women. Northampton had suffered two previous attacks; the first, Aug. 20, 1675, when Samuel Mason was slain, and the second, Sept. 28, 1675, when Praisever Turner, Uzacaby Shakespear and one other were killed.

March 16, 1676, every house in Warwick, R.I., save one that was built of stone, was burned.

March 20, 1676, the remaining houses in the Narraganset country were destroyed by fire.

Sunday, March 26, 1676, was a most sorrowful day to the English, Capt. Michael Peirse and nearly all his command being slain by the Indians near Pawtucket (for particulars see biography of Nanuntenoo alias Canonchet in Chapter 4 of this book). A number of people from Longmeadow on their way to attend public worship in Springfield, though escorted by a party of cavalry, were fired upon by the Indians, two of their number killed *(III-89) and several wounded. In the confusion of the moment two women and their children fell from their horses and were seized by the Indians, and recieved injuries of which some of them died after being rescued. In another part of the colony, viz., at Marlborough, just as the Rev. Mr. Brismead was commencing his sermon, the worshipping assembly were alarmed by the appalling cry, "The Indians are upon us," followed by a fire from the enemy, wounding Moses Newton in the arm, but doing no further injury, the people quickly taking refuge in a fortified house. [142] The meeting-house and many dwellings were burned. The Indians also did great damage to fruit trees, the effects of which were realized for many years. Such was the strip, waste and havoc made that the English abandoned their farms, and Marlborough was for a time left desolate.

March 28, 1676, forty-five houses, twenty-one barns, two grist mills and a saw mill were burned by the Indians at Rehoboth (that part of the town that afterward became Seekonk). The houses stood somewhat in the form of a circle, that bore the name of the "ring of the town." Only two houses were left standing, one of these being the garrison house and the other a house that had black sticks so arranged around it as to give it the appearance of being fortified. The fires were set early in the evening, and the sun of the succeeding morning revealed a line of smoking ruins. One person, an Irishman named Robert Beers, a brick-maker by trade, was slain. He refused to go into the garrison house, but set down in his own house with a bible in his hand, believing that while he continued reading that book nothing could injure him. He was shot through his window, fell and died with the bible in his hand. A chair is still preserved in the Abel family that bears the appellation of "King Philip's Chair," concerning which tradition saith that while Preserved Abel's house was burning, the Indians were seated around to enjoy the conflagration, when one of them brought from the house this large heavy armed chair for King Philip to sit in. On leaving, an Indian threw a fire brand into the chair that consumed the bottom (probably of flag), and considerably scorched the parts to which the bottom was attached, doing no further injury, and now (more than two hundred years after that event) it is still a big armed chair, or emphatically an "old armed chair."

[143] March 30, 1676, the torch was applied at Providence, R.I., and thirty houses burned.

April 9, 1676, the Indians beset Billerica, the people being assembled at a religious meeting, and upon rather doubtful authority it is reported that one Englishman was slain. The same day Nanuntenoo alias Canonchet was captured near Pawtucket.

April 19, 1676, in Andover the Indians killed Joseph Abbot, aged 23 years; captured his brother, Timothy Abbot, aged 12 years; burned Mr. Faulkner's house; wounded Roger Marks, and killed his horse and some cattle. Same day, slew an Englishman at Weymouth and another at Hingham, and burned the remaining houses at Marlborough.

April 20, 1676, a day of humiliation and prayer was observed in Boston. Same day, the houses of Joseph Jones, Anthony Sprague, Israel Hobart and Nathaniel Chubbuck, in Hingham, were burned by the Indians.

April 21, 1676, Capt. Samuel Wadsworth, of Milton, Capt. Samuel Brocklebank, of Rowley, Lieut. Sharp, of Brookline, and about fifty soldiers were slain at Sudbury by the Indians, and several houses and barns burned. Writers disagree concerning the date of these occurrences, some contending that the 18th of April was the proper or real date.

April 24, 1676, Indian depredations at Braintree.

April 27, 1676, Woodcock's garrison house in what is now Attleborough was attacked, Woodcock's son (Nathaniel Woodcock) and one other Englishman slain, and one wounded. Woodcock the father was shot through the arm. The house of Woodcock, the son, was burned. (See Daggett's Hist. Attleborough).

May 2, 1676, Ephraim Kingbury slain in Haverhill.

May 3, 1676, Thomas Kimball, at Bradford, was killed, and his wife and five children taken captive. [144] The names of the children were: Joanna, Thomas, Joseph, Priscilla and John. Philip Eastman also taken prisoner.

May 8, 1676, Bridgewater attacked (see particulars in biography of Tuspaquin).

May 11, 1676, within what were then the limits of the town of Plymouth, the Indians burned eleven houses and five barns. Plymouth then also embraced the present towns of Carver, Kingston and Plympton, and parts of Halifax and Wareham. Tuspaquin probably directed, and in person led, in that movement; and he may have ordered the distruction of Clark's Garrison at Eel River in Plymouth, which was destroyed and its inmates slain May 12, 1676, but that remarkably successful affair was accomplished by ten warriors under the lead of an Indian called Tatoson, who was a son of the noted Sam Barrow.

May 13, 1676, the Indians burned seven houses and two barns in Plymouth, which, added to those destroyed by them on the two previous days, made 18 houses and 7 barns. They also, on the 13th of May, destroyed the remaining houses at Nemasket, now Middleborough. (See Mather's History). Thus it appears that a part of the houses in Middleborough had been destroyed at an earlier date in King Philip's War. *(III-90)