The Course of Empire (Uncensored)

~Oyster River Massacre, July 18, 1694, 100 people killed or kidnapped
•Captain Benjamin Mathes and family:
—he and his sons successfully defended their Garrison House. Many of his neighbour were not so lucky. The Mathes family helped dig a mass grave for 15 of their neighbours on their property. This is a real mass grave.
•John Bunker successfully defended his Garrison house. It stood until the 1930s.
•Francis Drew and family, 14 members
—Francis and family awoke to the Natives besieging their house. Francis tried to escape to a neighbours house but was captured. He surrendered the house but they killed him anyway.
—his wife Lydia was was left behind in the woods to die
—their son Benjamin, aged 8, was used for target practice by the Natives and killed.
—son John escaped, but was later killed in 1707
—son Thomas and his wife Tamsen were taken captive and separated. Tamsen was pulled out a window by Chief Bomazeen while pregnant.
—Tamsen was forced to give birth to her baby later that winter in a snow storm, after which the Natives took her baby and killed it.
—Tamsen and Thomas were released and reunited in 1698. Tamsen later witnessed against Chief Bomazeen caught and imprisoned.
•Two Children of Thomas Egderly and Rebecca, daughter of Francis Rand, were killed.
•John Rand and wife Remembrance were killed and their house burnt down. Their daughter Remembrance was taken to Canada. Sons John Jr. and Nathaniel survived.

•Nicholas Otis
—after surviving the Cocheco Massacre the Otis family were attacked again while walking home from church on July 26, 1696. Nicholas and his wife were killed
•Experience Otis/Heard
—she was attacked and scalped in the same attack that killed her brother. She never recovered and died sometime the next year.
•Richard Otis Jr.
—he was wounded but survived.
•John Locke was killed while harvesting in his field on Aug. 26, 1696. The Natives sought him out in revenge for sabotaging their canoes a few years before. Before he was killed, he managed to cut off one of their noses with his sickle. He was 69 years old. It is believed his sons tracked down an old warrior with no nose years later and got their revenge.

Queen Anne’s War 1702-1713
•Nicholas Hodgdon, killed with several others on May 11, 1704 at Wells, Maine. His age is not known exactly but he was probably in his 80s.
•Lydia Drew, kidnapped by Natives in 1707 and taken to Quebec with one other girl. She was assimilated and died there. Her uncle John Bunker was also killed at this time.
—John Tuttle, the husband of Judith Otis, was killed at his sawmill on May 7, 1712. He saved the life of his son, Nicholas by holding off their attack, buying time for him to escape.

Dummer’s War, 1722~1727
•Captain Matthew Scales, killed while defending his garrison house, April 13, 1725.
•Family of John and Elizabeth Hanson
—Elizabeth had survived the Oyster River Raid when she was young. Her family, the Meader’s, had their house burnt down.
—she was kidnapped on Aug. 27, 1725, and taken to Quebec with four of her children and servant-maid, the youngest being two weeks old.
—her little sons Caleb and Ebenezer were scalped and killed in front of her.
— she was held captive for a year and witnessed a lot of Native brutality before being sold to the French and redeemed by her husband with three of her children and maid.
—Her daughter Sarah was assimilated into Quebec society, the Natives and French refusing to redeem her.
—John Hanson died on his way to Quebec, trying to redeem Sarah one last time.
—Elizabeth wrote a small book, detailing her experience. This was the last raid on this part of New Hampshire.

Second Esopus War, New Holland, 1663
•Catherine Blanchan Du Bois
—taken captive with her three children. She began singing Christian hymns to keep up morale. Rescued just in time by her husband Louis Du Bois. They were French Huguenots.

King Philip’s War 1675-1678
•Lt. John Thomson, his wife Mary and family
—their house was attacked while Mary was cooking in the kitchen. Stole the food and tried to steal John’s 7 foot long rifle. They abandoned their house and it was burned to the ground. They survived the war.
•Capt. John Gallup
—killed at the Great Swamp Fight against the Narragansetts, Dec. 19, 1675
•John Gorham
—killed at the Great Swamp Fight
•John Avery
—fought at the Great Swamp Fight, survived
•George Denison
—fought at the Great Swamp Fight, survived

King William’s War 1688-1697
~Cocheco Massacre/Raid on Dover, June 28, 1689, 52 people killed or captured
•Mary Paul Hanson
—killed while staying in the house of Richard Waldron. Waldron was tied to a chair and tortured before he died. She is the Grandmother of John Hanson (mentioned later).
•Richard Otis and family:
—Richard was killed in his own house during the Cocheco Massacre, June 28, 1689. They had let a Native woman in who asked for shelter and while they were sleeping, she unlocked their doors and let the warriors in to kill them.
—Griselle, his wife, was taken captive to Quebec, with Margaret, their 3 month old daughter. Griselle was assimilated into Quebec society but Margaret eventually returned in 1735.
—Hannah, daughter, 3 years old, started crying and was smashed against the fireplace.
—Stephen, an older son, was killed in the house along with his wife Mary. The house was later burnt down with the bodies in it.
—sons Richard Jr. and Nicholas escaped and survived
— Daughters Judith, Rose, Experience, and Richard Sr’s grandchildren Stephen, Mary and Nathaniel were taken captive. Judith, Rose, Experience and Mary were rescued but the boys were assimilated in Quebec, where they died.
—The Quebec surname Hotesse is derived from this family.

•James Nute
—killed by Natives in his garden in 1691, at Dover, NH, when he was 78. He had left his gun in the house, but put up a good fight with his hoe, killing one of his assailants. His daughter Martha married William Damn. Their Garrison House is still standing.

~Brackett Massacre, Rye, NH, Sept. 29, 1691, 20 people killed or kidnapped.
•Francis Rand and family:
—Francis Rand was killed along with others while they were gathering rushes in the marsh. All they had were sickles. They were buried where they fell. He was in his 70s.
—his wife Christina was blind and elderly. On the day of the massacre she got a bad feeling that “Indians were approaching.” Francis went away to the flour mill and when he came back, he found her murdered and scalped by the Indians. Perhaps he ran to alert the others.
—the children too small to be taken to Canada were smashed on a big rock nearby. Legend holds that you can still see blood stains on it.
•John Locke survived the massacre and was able to sabotage some of the Native’s canoes. This marked him out for revenge that would come later.