ed for that of St. Regis; but the evidence for this
conjecture is weak. On the legend of the bell, see Le Moine, _Maple
Leaves, New Series_ (1873), 29; _Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc._,
1869, 1870, 311; _Hist. Mag. 2d Series_, ix. 401. Hough, _Hist. St.
Lawrence and Franklin Counties_, 116, gives the story without criticism.

[75] The earlier editions of this book follow, in regard to Samuel Gill,
the statements of Maurault, which are erroneous, as has been proved by
the careful and untiring research of Miss C. Alice Baker, to whose
kindness I owe the means of correcting them. Papers in the archives of
Massachusetts leave no doubt as to the time and place of Samuel Gill's
capture.

[76] Maurault, _Hist. des Abenakis_, 377. I am indebted to R. A. Ramsay,
Esq., of Montreal, for a paper on the Gill family, by Mr. Charles Gill,
who confirms the statements of Maurault so far as relates to the
genealogies.

John and Zechariah Tarbell, captured when boys at Groton, became
Caughnawaga chiefs; and one of them, about 1760, founded the mission of
St. Regis. Green, _Groton during the Indian Wars_, 116, 117-120.

CHAPTER V.

1704-1713.

THE TORMENTED FRONTIER.

Border Raids.--Haverhill.--Attack and Defence.--War to the
Knife.--Motives of the French.--Proposed Neutrality.--Joseph
Dudley.--Town and Country.

I have told the fate of Deerfield in full, as an example of the
desolating raids which for years swept the borders of Massachusetts and
New Hampshire. The rest of the miserable story may be passed more
briefly. It is in the main a weary detail of the murder of one, two,
three, or more men, women, or children waylaid in fields, woods, and
lonely roads, or surprised in solitary cabins. Sometimes the attacks
were on a larger scale. Thus, not long after the capture of Deerfield, a
band of fifty or more Indians fell at dawn of day on a hamlet of five
houses near Northampton. The alarm was sounded, and they were pursued.
Eight of the prisoners were rescued, and three escaped; most of the
others being knocked in the head by their captors. At Oyster River the
Indians attacked a loopholed house, in which the women of the
neighboring farms had taken refuge while the men were at work in the
fields. The women disguised themselves in hats and jackets, fired from
the loopholes, and drove off the assailants. In 1709 a hundred and
eighty French and Indians again attacked Deerfield, but failed to
surprise it, and were put t