Deerfield Massacre of 1704
My 6th great grandmother was Sarah Basset Webb Field Price, a Connecticut pioneer. Her husband, Zachariah Field, my 6th great grandfather, died in an Indian attack and she remarried to Robert Price. Their village was attacked by Indians, incited by the French, who burned their homes, and started a force march 300 miles to Canada in the winter cold. Weak, young or elderly were killed to keep the march moving quickly.
The young pastor, who seemed to be the target of the raid, had a young wife who recently gave birth. I read where she was so weak, she and her husband said good bye on the side of a freezing river, and she walked into the water to die. An Indian brave went in and gave her a quick death with a slice of his knife. My 6xgrandmother was 54 , and viewed as too old to make the march and died on the side of the road with many others.
(This Webb line is my secondary Webb line, not my father’s Webb line. This line is in my maternal ancestors and leads us back to William Shakespeare…per DNA research )
Here is some research I dug up about this raid:
"In the deep snow of winter, before dawn on 29 Feb 1704, a war party of some
three hundred French and Indians attacked the fortified Deerfield. There
were homes inside and outside the fortified town. Of the town's 291
inhabitants, 48 were killed and 112 were taken captive. Seventeen homes
were burned in the attack, both inside and outside the fort. Nine houses
remained within the fort and several outside the fort. The survivors of
Deerfield and the rescue band from towns below Deerfield who saw the sky
ablaze from the burning homes found an appalling carnage. The rescue band
made a heroic attempt in a nearby meadow to attack the attackers fleeing
from Deerfield and were quite successful in inflicting casualties, but the
battle turned and they retreated to Deerfield. Of the Price family, Sarah
and son, Samuel were captured as was also Robert and Sarah's married
daughter, Elizabeth Stevens. Elizabeth had married Andrew Stevens, an
Indian, and he was killed in the fighting. Robert and Sarah's other married
daughter, Mary Smead, suffocated with her two children and her husband's
mother in the cellar of their burning home. Several families had sought
refuge and hiding in the cellars of their homes, but these turned into
deadly traps when the attackers set the homes ablaze. Robert Price and
Samuel Smead survived the attack and may have been among a group of men who
tried to affect a defense at the beginning of the attack, which became
separated from many of the woman and children, and left their families in
jeopardy. Sarah's son, John Field, by her first marriage, and his family
were also residing in Deerfield. John's wife, Mary (age 28) and their
children, Mary (age 7) and John (age 4) were captured and ten month old
Sarah killed. The majority of children who were captured under the age of
two were killed in Deerfield, too young to make a march to Canada and the
Indians unwilling to carry them. Indians were in charge of the
Deerfield captives and the French took no part in holding captives.
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One Colonel Partridge gathered information a few days after the attack and
among his report was a Table of Losses. He gave a list of every household
and listed each person as captive, slain, alive, and the amount of the
estate lost. In the return list of losses, Robert Price had one child taken
captive, one wife slain, left alive himself, and an estate of 40 pounds
lost. Of Andrew Stevens household, there was one captive, his wife and one
person slain, himself and an estate of 20 pounds lost. Of Samuel Smead's
household, four were killed, a wife, two children and his mother, left
alive himself, and an estate of 50 pounds lost, including the burning of
his home in which his family suffocated in the cellar.
Sarah Price was about 53 years of age when captured. Only a short distance
from Deerfield she was killed. What circumstances resulted in her death can
only be speculation. It is generally believed from the records that have
survived and by the stories of those captives who returned that a woman of
her age would serve no useful purpose and perhaps would be unlikely to
endure the forced march to Canada of some three hundred miles in winter
through an unchartered and uncolonized wilderness. There were two other
women over the age of forty five who were captured and they were also
killed a short distance from Deerfield. Their bodies were found by the men
who went in pursuit of the war party of French and Indians. Others were to
be killed along the march, including the wife of Rev. John Williams, who
was weakened from recent childbirth. Other captive woman who could not
endure the march were slain at intervals along the route. The route was
north up the Connecticut River Valley to the White River in Vermont and
then the Winooski River to the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. They
traveled on the eastern side of Lake Champlain and up the Richelieu River
to the St. Lawrence River and then to Montreal arriving on April 25, nearly
two months after the fateful morning at Deerfield.
A monument in the old burying ground at Deerfield reads "The Graves of 48
men, women, and children, victims of the French and Indian raid on
Deerfield February 29, 1704. Nine of these 48 were men involved in the
meadow fight outside of Deerfield when the French and Indians were fleeing
Deerfield with their captives and seven of the nine were in the rescue
party from towns below Deerfield.
In the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Library are plaques on the
second floor dedicated to those families who suffered in the Deerfield
Massacre. Those relating to the Price and Field families are here listed."
. My question is this…has anyone told the story of this raid in song?
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