A Township
Called Lovewell's Town, But Now, For Some Reason, Or Perhaps
Without Reason, Pembroke, Was Granted Them By The State.
"Of all our valiant English, there were but thirty-four,
And of the rebel Indians, there were about four-score;
And sixteen of our English did safely home return,
The rest were killed and wounded, for which we all must mourn.
"Our worthy Capt. Lovewell among them there did die,
They killed Lieut. Robbins, and wounded good young Frye,
Who was our English Chaplin; he many Indians slew,
And some of them he scalped while bullets round him flew."
Our brave forefathers have exterminated all the Indians, and
their degenerate children no longer dwell in garrisoned houses
nor hear any war-whoop in their path. It would be well,
perchance, if many an "English Chaplin" in these days could
exhibit as unquestionable trophies of his valor as did "good
young Frye." We have need to be as sturdy pioneers still as
Miles Standish, or Church, or Lovewell. We are to follow on
another trail, it is true, but one as convenient for ambushes.
What if the Indians are exterminated, are not savages as grim
prowling about the clearings to-day? -
"And braving many dangers and hardships in the way,
They safe arrived at Dunstable the thirteenth (?) day of May."
But they did not all "safe arrive in Dunstable the thirteenth,"
or the fifteenth, or the thirtieth "day of May." Eleazer Davis
and Josiah Jones, both of Concord, for our native town had seven
men in this fight, Lieutenant Farwell, of Dunstable, and Jonathan
Frye, of Andover, who were all wounded, were left behind,
creeping toward the settlements. "After travelling several
miles, Frye was left and lost," though a more recent poet has
assigned him company in his last hours.
"A man he was of comely form,
Polished and brave, well learned and kind;
Old Harvard's learned halls he left
Far in the wilds a grave to find.
"Ah! now his blood-red arm he lifts;
His closing lids he tries to raise;
And speak once more before he dies,
In supplication and in praise.
"He prays kind Heaven to grant success,
Brave Lovewell's men to guide and bless,
And when they've shed their heart-blood true,
To raise them all to happiness."
* * * * *
"Lieutenant Farwell took his hand,
His arm around his neck he threw,
And said, `Brave Chaplain, I could wish
That Heaven had made me die for you.'"
* * * * *
Farwell held out eleven days. "A tradition says," as we learn
from the History of Concord, "that arriving at a pond with
Lieut. Farwell, Davis pulled off one of his moccasins, cut it in
strings, on which he fastened a hook, caught some fish, fried and
ate them. They refreshed him, but were injurious to Farwell, who
died soon after." Davis had a ball lodged in his body, and his
right hand shot off; but on the whole, he seems to have been less
damaged than his companion. He came into Berwick after being out
fourteen days. Jones also had a ball lodged in his body, but he
likewise got into Saco after fourteen days, though not in the
best condition imaginable. "He had subsisted," says an old
journal, "on the spontaneous vegetables of the forest; and
cranberries which he had eaten came out of wounds he had received
in his body." This was also the case with Davis. The last two
reached home at length, safe if not sound, and lived many years
in a crippled state to enjoy their pension.
But alas! of the crippled Indians, and their adventures in the
woods, -
"For as we are informed, so thick and fast they fell,
Scarce twenty of their number at night did get home well," -
how many balls lodged with them, how fared their cranberries,
what Berwick or Saco they got into, and finally what pension or
township was granted them, there is no journal to tell.
It is stated in the History of Dunstable, that just before his
last march, Lovewell was warned to beware of the ambuscades of
the enemy, but "he replied, `that he did not care for them,' and
bending down a small elm beside which he was standing into a bow,
declared `that he would treat the Indians in the same way.' This
elm is still standing [in Nashua], a venerable and magnificent
tree."
Meanwhile, having passed the Horseshoe Interval in Tyngsborough,
where the river makes a sudden bend to the northwest, - for our
reflections have anticipated our progress somewhat, - we were
advancing farther into the country and into the day, which last
proved almost as golden as the preceding, though the slight
bustle and activity of the Monday seemed to penetrate even to
this scenery. Now and then we had to muster all our energy to get
round a point, where the river broke rippling over rocks, and the
maples trailed their branches in the stream, but there was
generally a backwater or eddy on the side, of which we took
advantage. The river was here about forty rods wide and fifteen
feet deep. Occasionally one ran along the shore, examining the
country, and visiting the nearest farm-houses, while the other
followed the windings of the stream alone, to meet his companion
at some distant point, and hear the report of his adventures; how
the farmer praised the coolness of his well, and his wife offered
the stranger a draught of milk, or the children quarrelled for
the only transparency in the window that they might get sight of
the man at the well. For though the country seemed so new, and no
house was observed by us, shut in between the banks that sunny
day, we did not have to travel far to find where men inhabited,
like wild bees, and had sunk wells in the loose sand and loam of
the Merrimack. There dwelt the subject of the Hebrew scriptures,
and the Esprit des Lois, where a thin vaporous smoke curled up
through the noon.
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