enclosure, which was called
the fort, measured in all no less than two hundred and two rods, and
within it lived some of the principal inhabitants of the village, of
which it formed the centre or citadel. Chief among its inmates was John
Williams, the minister, a man of character and education, who, after
graduating at Harvard, had come to Deerfield when it was still suffering
under the ruinous effects of King Philip's War, and entered on his
ministry with a salary of sixty pounds in depreciated New England
currency, payable, not in money, but in wheat, Indian-corn, and
pork.[55] His parishioners built him a house, he married, and had now
eight children, one of whom was absent with friends at Hadley.[56] His
next neighbor was Benoni Stebbins, sergeant in the county militia, who
lived a few rods from the meeting-house. About fifty yards distant, and
near the northwest angle of the enclosure, stood the house of Ensign
John Sheldon, a framed building, one of the largest in the village, and,
like that of Stebbins, made bullet-proof by a layer of bricks between
the outer and inner sheathing, while its small windows and its
projecting upper story also helped to make it defensible.

The space enclosed by the palisade, though much too large for effective
defence, served in time of alarm as an asylum for the inhabitants
outside, whose houses were scattered,--some on the north towards the
hidden enemy, and some on the south towards Hadley and Hatfield. Among
those on the south side was that of the militia captain, Jonathan Wells,
which had a palisade of its own, and, like the so-called fort, served as
an asylum for the neighbors.

These private fortified houses were sometimes built by the owners alone,
though more often they were the joint work of the owners and of the
inhabitants, to whose safety they contributed. The palisade fence that
enclosed the central part of the village was made under a vote of the
town, each inhabitant being required to do his share; and as they were
greatly impoverished by the last war, the General Court of the province
remitted for a time a part of their taxes in consideration of a work
which aided the general defence.[57]

Down to the Peace of Ryswick the neighborhood had been constantly
infested by scalping-parties, and once the village had been attacked by
a considerable force of French and Indians, who were beaten off. Of late
there had been warnings of fresh disturbance. Lord Cornbury, governo