Qass- 
 Book 
 
 
HISTORICAL ^ - >^ 
 
 SOCIETY 
 
 ^^ ^^*. 
 
 MONDAY, THE FIFTH OF JULY, 1897 
 EXERCISES IN 
 
 ©ommemoratioR ©f fjlojor ©Marfeg forest 
 
 ON THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS MASSACRE 
 BY THE INDIANS 
 
 SUNDAY, JUIvY THE FOURTH, 1697 
 
 ELIOT MAINE 
 
EXERCISES OF 
 
 ^^e iflot ^igtorieeif foeiGt^ 
 
 on 
 MOiNDAV THE FIFTH OF JULY, 1S97 
 
 COMMEMORATION OF HAJOR CHARLES FROST 
 
 on the 
 
 Two Hundredth Anniversary of his Massacri 
 
 BY THE Indians 
 
 Sunday, July Fourth, i697 
 

PREFATORY. 
 
 On February 8, of this year, the Eliot Historical 
 Society was formed, for the purpose of ascertaining and 
 putting in enduring form, the almost forgotten facts of our 
 old town's history. 
 
 The first Field Day of the society was on Monday, 
 July 5, in honor of Maj. Charles Frost, who was killed 
 by Indians, Sunday, July 4, 1697. 
 
 The exercises were on the western slope of Frost's Hill, 
 and were attended by about one thousand people, — citizens 
 of the town, and descendants of Maj. Frost from various 
 parts of the country. 
 
 The following pages contain a complete account of the 
 proceedings of the day. 
 
 Eliot, Maine, July, 1897. 
 
^40G9 
 
ORDER OF EXERCISES. 
 
 At II o'clock A. M. Concert on the grounds by the 
 
 North Berwick Band. 
 
 At 12 o'clock, Basket I,unch. 
 
 AFTERNOON. 
 Exercises of the Eliot Historical Society at two o'clock. 
 
 I. Selection by the Band. 
 
 II. Prayer, by the Chaplain, Rev. Andrew L. Chase. 
 
 III. Singing by the School Children : 
 
 "The Star Spangled Banner." 
 
 IV. Introductory Remarks. Dr. J. L- M. Willis, 
 
 President of the Eliot Historical Society. 
 
 V, Oration. Rev. William Salter, D. D., 
 
 Burlington, Iowa. 
 
 "Two Hundred Years Ago. King Williams War." 
 
 VI. Selection by the Band. 
 VII. Poem. Dr. William Hale, Gloucester, Mass. 
 
 "The Hero of Great Hill." 
 
 VIII. Singing by School Children and Audience, 
 " America." 
 
 A Procession was formed and proceeded to 
 Ambush Rock. 
 
 AT AMBUSH ROCK. 
 Singing by the School Children. Keller's Hymn, 
 
 " Angel of Peace." 
 
 II. Address by Francis Keefe, Esq., 
 
 Vice President of the Eliot Historical Society, 
 
 "The Lesson of a Rock." 
 
 III. Unveiling of the Tablet. 
 
 IV. Ode. 
 
 V. Benediction. Rev. William Salter, D. D. 
 
INVOCATION. 
 
 The Rev'd Axdkew L. Chase, First Congregational Church, Eliot. 
 
 The people assembled at two o'clock. Dr. J. L. M. 
 Willis in the chair ; and as the music of the band ceased, 
 he requested the Rev'd Andrew L- Chase to lead 
 devotional Ij- : 
 
 Mr. Chase's invocation embodied thanksgivings to God 
 for the many memories associated with the Fourth of 
 July, — the day of our country's Independence,— and the 
 patriotism it ever inspires ; for the occasion of interest 
 which had brought so many together ; for the revelation 
 of God through the beauty of the surrounding nature : 
 and for the courage, self-sacrifice and religious principles 
 of the early settlers,— especially those whom the service 
 commemorated. 
 
 He asked for those assembled, and for all the citizens 
 of the town, that lessons of wisdom might be gained from 
 the contemplations of valued lives ; and that the exercises 
 of the afternoon might inspire the courage to be pioneers 
 in the problems of the Present; and to be willing and 
 self-forgetful in solving these problems; and that all 
 might possess and be guided everywhere by strong and 
 wholsome principles. 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 Dr. J. L. M. Wn.us, President of Eliot Historical Society. 
 
 We have met to day, to do honor to the 
 memory of our most distinguished towns- 
 man of former days. To commemorate the 
 anniversary of the death of ^Nlaj. Ch.\rle.s 
 Frost, which took place two hundred 
 years ago, (as the calendar reads,) this 
 fourth of July. 
 
 The story of his death is quickly told ; 
 but who can adequately tell the story of 
 his life with its struggles and triumphs, 
 and its influence on the generations whicii 
 have followed him? 
 
 It is especially fitting at this time, that 
 we take a backward look ; and lay by for a 
 little, the all-absorbing Present, as we 
 study not merely the record of tragedy and 
 struggle, but the grand achievements which 
 have made possible the developments of 
 today. 
 
 This is why we have organized and are 
 sustaining the Eliot Historical Society ; 
 and this is why the society has made the 
 effort to revive the memory of Maj. Charles 
 Frost, who was the most venturesome and 
 fearless spirit of his generation. And not 
 his life alone, but of the many others, who 
 with him did so much to claim the wilder- 
 ness for civilization. 
 
 Old Eliot has made many noble pages of 
 history, few of which have as yet been 
 
 written. This indeed becomes the office of 
 our Society, and we hope to place in 
 permanent form these records. 
 
 We are today in the midst of reminders 
 of Maj. Frost. The land we are on once 
 belonged to him. But a little way down the 
 road is the site of his old homestead. 
 While just to the north of us, and within 
 sound of my voice, on the old trail which 
 led from Sturgeon Creek to Newichawan- 
 nock, is Ambush Rock where he met his 
 death. But a short distance from here, in 
 the orchard close by his old home, he lies 
 buried. 
 
 Many of his descendants and their 
 friends are here to-day, and will visit with 
 us these spots. In behalf of the Eliot 
 Historical Society, I bid you a most cor- 
 dial welcome, hoping the day may prove 
 an enjoyable one to you ; and that you may 
 go away with a strengthened spirit of 
 patriotism, and a greater love for old Eliot. 
 
 We have the good fortune to have with 
 us a distinguished descendant of Maj. 
 Charles Frost, who will entertain us with 
 an address on " King William's War. Two 
 Hundred Years Ago." I take great pleas- 
 ure in introducing the Orator of the day, — 
 the Rev'd Wii.li.vm S.vlter, D. D., of 
 Burlington, Iowa. 
 
AMERICAN COLOxNTIAL HISTORY TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 '-'^ * Kimg llJirrieim's llJeir ® ^- 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 IN COMMEHORATION OF MAJOR CHARLES FROST 
 
 Upon the Two Hundredth Anniversary of his Massacre by the Indians 
 Sunday, July Fourth, i697 
 
 Delivered bef 
 
 ore the Eliot Historical Society, Eliot, Maine, July Fifth, 1897 
 By the Rev'd William Salter, D. D., 
 
 Member of The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Iowa 
 
AMERICAN COLONIAL HISTORY TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 
 
 The civilization of the world has been 
 largely carried forward by colonies that 
 have gone from more enlightened to less 
 enlightened or to newly discovered lands. 
 
 At the dawn of history the Phoenicians 
 were the disseminators of letters and civili- 
 zation by the colonies they planted upon 
 the shores of the Mediteranean, and by the 
 commerce and trade and the alphabet they 
 carried with them. Hence sprang up 
 philosophy and an in Greece, and law and 
 jurisprudence in Italy. In turn, Greece 
 and Rome carried civilization to other 
 lands. They extended their dominion by 
 forceof arms, but by colonies and provin- 
 cial establishments they knit distant peoples 
 together in the exchanges of commerce ; 
 they softened manners ; they ameliorated 
 the world. The arts and the language of 
 Greece followed the sword of Alexander. 
 The laws of Rome followed the conquests of 
 Caesar. The largest and fairest city on the 
 Rhine by its name (Coin) recalls the fact 
 that it was originally a Roman colony. 
 
 Upon the discovery of America, every 
 portion of the continent fell under Euro- 
 pean domination. For three centuries the 
 history of America is an elongation of 
 European history, and in no portion in- 
 dependent of it until 1776. Colonies from 
 the Old World took possession of the New. 
 In the course of two centuries, large por- 
 tions of America were known as " New 
 Spain," or "New France;" a little por- 
 tion as " New England." The former 
 names have disappeared ; the latter re- 
 mains ; and may remain in times afar. 
 
 The discovery of the different parts of 
 the continent that form the United States 
 
 WHS made by different nations, by Spain, 
 England, France, Holland, and Russia; 
 and it covered a period of two centuries 
 and a half, from the first sight of Florida 
 by Americus Vespucius in 1497 to the dis- 
 covery of Alaska by Vitus Bering in 1741. 
 As this vast region came to the knowledge 
 of successive generations, the natives in 
 every part were found to be roving and 
 barbarous tribes, at war with one another, 
 and, while for a time friendly to the white 
 people, sooner or later resisting their pro- 
 gress, and making war upon them with the 
 tiingle exception of William Penn's colony 
 upon the Delaware, the neighboring In- 
 dians just before the planting of that 
 colony having been badly worsted in their 
 wars with other tribes. 
 
 In America for one hundred years after 
 its discovery, Spain was the dominant pow- 
 er, and held almost exclusive possession. 
 There came a change at the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century. Then France and 
 England began to plant colonies, and a 
 struggle arose between them. The struggle 
 lasted one hundred and sixty years. 
 
 Samuel Champlain was upon the Saint 
 Lawrence at the same time Captain John 
 Smith sailed up the James river and made 
 the first settlement in Virginia. Five years 
 before the Pilgrims set foot upon Plymouth 
 Rock, Champlain had set foot upon the 
 shores of Lake Huron. When John En- 
 dicott, Francis Higginson, John Winthrop, 
 John Mason and Ferdinando Gorges were 
 founding settlements at Salem, Boston, and 
 upon "the Long Reach of the Piscataqua," 
 Cardinal Richelieu, Champlain, and opu- 
 lent merchants of Paris organized a " Com- 
 
Two HUNDKKD YEAKS ACIO 
 
 pany of One Hundred Associates," for the 
 settlement of Canada ; and at the same 
 time a company of Jesuit Fathers landed 
 at Quebec. 
 
 The earliest wars were life-and-dcath 
 struggles for existence. The red man re- 
 garded the white people as intruders, as 
 having no right upon the soil but by suf- 
 ferance, and, when jealousies and niisun- 
 stardings arose, he sought nothing less 
 than their extermination. The same diffi- 
 culties and misfortunes were encountered 
 in all the colonies, and in Canada by the 
 French, as in Virginia and Massachusetts 
 by the English, and in New York by the 
 Dutch. Upon landing in Canada, Cham- 
 plain found the Algonquins and Hurons at 
 war with the Iroquois, and it was as he 
 went on the war-path with the former 
 against the latter, that he first saw the 
 peaceful lake that perpetuates his name. 
 In the scattered villages upon the banks of 
 James river in Virginia, three hundred and 
 forty-seven persons, men, women and 
 children, were killed on a single day, 
 (March 22, 1622.) In a second massacre, 
 twenty-two years later, there were three 
 hundred victims. The wars of the Iroquois 
 and Hurons overwhelmed the early Jesuit 
 missions in Canada with indescribable 
 horrors of torture and massacre. The 
 Mohawks were long the terror of New York 
 before they buried the tomahawk. Massa- 
 chusetts lost nearly a thousand of her sons, 
 the flower of the colony, in King Philip's 
 war; six hundred houses were burnt; 
 scores of women and children were slain. 
 The ravages of that war extended to the 
 Piscataqua and the Kennebec, where two 
 hundred and sixty persons were killed by 
 the Indians or carried captive. In 1689 the 
 Iroquois burnt LaChine, just above Mon- 
 treal, and massacred two hundred people. 
 
 So unsparing of all Europeans were the 
 Indians, that it was at one time proposed 
 that the French and the English should 
 join in common measures for mutual pro- 
 tection against Ihem. But the proposition 
 
 miscarried, and afterwards, as the French 
 in Canada and the English colonies became 
 embroiled in the wars of Europe, the savages 
 were eager to take part in every fray, and 
 could not be restrained. For the last half 
 of the struggle to which I have referred, 
 the colonial wars were French and Indian 
 wars. They were known among our fath- 
 ers mostly by names from over the sea, as 
 King William's War (1688-97;) Queen 
 Anne's War ( 1704-13 ;)King George's War, 
 George II, ( 1744-8 ;) and the Seven Years' 
 War (1756-63;) in which France lost 
 Canada. 
 
 Two hundred years ago, Europe was in 
 hostile camps. In a perspective of that 
 time from this distance two names are seen 
 at the head of the conflict on their respec- 
 tive sides, Louis XIV of France aud Wil- 
 liam III of England. They were repres- 
 entative men, each of force and weight, but 
 opposite in character, of different ideas, 
 sentiment!*, manners, and habits, antago- 
 nistic in their views of what constitutes a 
 State, of what pleases God, of what en- 
 nobles life. In their day those two men 
 had as much to do in shaping the distiny 
 of nations as perhaps any two men have 
 had in any period of history. 
 
 At the time referred to (1697,) Louis 
 XIV had been upon the throne of France 
 forty-six years from his fourtenth year. 
 Since Charlemagne no monarch in Europe 
 had gained equal renown or power. Of 
 stately person and royal air, he called to 
 mind the pride, the magnificence, the ab- 
 solutism of the Caesars. In pomp and 
 pageantry, in gorgeous retinues, in em- 
 bellishments of art, in dazzling carousals, 
 in extravagant and wanton luxury, his 
 court surpassed every other in the annals of 
 Europe. It rivalled the fabled glare and 
 glory of Babylon and Persia. It had also 
 the support and blandishment of the 
 philosophers, poets, and wits of the time, 
 men of renown, and of the bishops and 
 clergy of the realm. France was then the 
 wealthiest country in Eurojie, and the king 
 
TWO HUNDKKD YKARS AGO 
 
 aggrandized that wealth to himself.— 
 "Everything in our dominion belongs 
 to lis," was his saying. He maintained the 
 largest standing army that had been seen in 
 Europe for a thousand years, and acted as 
 sovereign of the continent. To sustain his 
 pride and pomp he laid heavy taxes upon 
 the French people, but his expenditures, 
 whether in war or peace, exceeded his rev- 
 enues, and at his death he left an immense 
 debt which a famous scheme, mortgaging 
 the wealth of the Indies and the Mississippi, 
 was devised to liquidate. It was known as 
 the South Sea Bubble. 
 
 Of imperious disposition Louis XIV ac- 
 knowledged no rule but his own will. He 
 scorned obeisance to any other authority. 
 " I am the State," was his motto. He 
 ground opposition to the dust. He revoked 
 the Edict of Nantes that had given pro- 
 tection to protestants, and ran them down 
 with the Dragonnades, or drove them from 
 France. Of his religion he made a show, 
 but it was a matter of pretence and interest, 
 and never interfered with his vices, but was 
 .such a sanctimonious combination of self- 
 assertion with infamous principles a; led a 
 leader of opinion in the next century to 
 say, '' Ecrazze L' Iiifame." By force of arms 
 or by menace and artifice, he intimidated 
 surrounding nations. He seized the free 
 city of Strasbourg on the Rhine. He joined 
 hands with the Sultan, and confederated 
 with Mahometans against christians to 
 avenge himself upon Austria. When the 
 amiable Fenelon chided the king's pride, 
 he sent him into disgrace. When Innocent 
 XI resisted his aggression and abuse, the 
 king was so contumacious and obstinate 
 that the Pope supported the coalition 
 which Catholic and Protestant princes 
 formed against him, headed by the Prince 
 of Orange. So long as the Stuarts held the 
 throne of England, Louis XIV dominated 
 the policy of that country in his interest, 
 lie made Charles II and James II his pen- 
 sioners and vassals that they might over- 
 ride the parliament and people of England. 
 
 He made Charles II believe that it were 
 better for him to be "viceroy of the Grand 
 Monarch than slave to five hundred of his 
 insolent subjects," the English Parliament. 
 After the death of Charles II, he offered 
 assistance to keep James II on the throne, 
 when his subjects were muttering against 
 him; and later, when James fled from 
 England, he recei\^ed him at his court with 
 royal pageantry, and paid him stipends. 
 Upon the accession of William, Prince of 
 Orange, to the throne, by election of Par- 
 liament, and upon his coronation in West- 
 minster Abbey, Louis XIV denounced him 
 as a usurper, and declared war again.st 
 England. 
 
 Two hundred years ago (1697) William 
 III was in the ninth year of his reign. 
 He had defended himself against the Grand 
 Monarch, and now that the war was draw- 
 ing to a close, and negotiations for peace 
 were in progress he was still defiant, and 
 said "that the only way of treating with 
 France is with our swords in our hands." 
 Finally, a treaty of peace was signed on the 
 nth of September, 1697. 
 
 Of the European complications of that 
 war it is not my province to speak, except 
 that King William's part as the mortal 
 enemy of Louis XIV saved not only Eng- 
 land, but other nations as well, from falling 
 under an arbitrary despotism. In fact it 
 was chiefly in view of bringing the help 
 and resources of England to break down 
 that despotism, that the Prince of Orange 
 left his native and Vieloved Holland and 
 took the English throne. His heart re- 
 mained all his days in Holland, the land of 
 his great ancestor, William the Silent. 
 The ei)terpri.se he undertook, says Macau- 
 lay, "was the most arduou.s and important 
 in the history of modern Europe." " It 
 saved Europe from Slavery," is the verdict 
 of a dispassionate French statesman and 
 historian in this century (Guizot). 
 
 To then far-away America King Wil- 
 liam's War was of ominous and absorbing 
 
HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 interest, as it involved the success of our 
 father's experiment in planting Liberty 
 upon the shores of the new world, and as it 
 involved the fate of the struggle to which I 
 have referred for the possession of the 
 continent. The war, however, was not 
 generally known as an American war, or as 
 King William's War. In Europe it was 
 called the "Grand Alliance," or "the Co- 
 alition," because different nations were 
 confederate against Louis XIV. In Eng- 
 land it was known as the "Revolution;" in 
 France and Germany as the "War of the 
 Palatinate," because the French troops 
 overrun and devoured that Country ; in 
 Canada as " Frontenac's war," because 
 Frontenac carried it on with resolute and 
 remorseless rigor against the colonies. To 
 the English colonies it was " King Wil- 
 liam's war," because to them King Wil- 
 liam was the head and front of the move- 
 ment, and because he was the advocate 
 and defender of that free spirit by which 
 they had been animated from the begin- 
 ning, for which they had braved the ocean 
 and the wilderness. In the colonies they 
 had enjoyed their own institutions of gov- 
 ernment, had made their own laws, and 
 chosen their own officers. They had sub- 
 dued the soil, and had maintained them- 
 selves against the savages without help 
 from abroad. The mother country had 
 looked upon them askance or treated them 
 with neglect. Charles II and James II 
 had overridden their charters, and imposed 
 unworthy and arbitrary men as commis- 
 sioners and governors. Connecticut had 
 refused to give up its charter and hid it in 
 the hollow of an oak. Upon hearing of the 
 landing of the Prince of Orange in Eng- 
 land, Massachusetts, weary of the misrule 
 of Sir Pvdmund Andres, rose in insurrec- 
 tion against the royal governor, put him 
 in arrest, and reinstated a former governor, 
 then in his eighty-five year, the last sur- 
 vivor of the founders of the colony. A 
 zealot for James II, Andros had seemed to 
 act in collusion with Louis XI\" against 
 
 the liberties of Flnglishmen. His govern- 
 ment was denounced at the time as a 
 " French government," and it became "an 
 abomination to posterity," as was foretold 
 of it at the time. 
 
 Nowhere was the accession of William 
 III received with greater joy than in the 
 colonies. It acknowledged their rights and 
 liberties, and put an end to the tyranny of 
 Andros and the Stuarts. There was never 
 before such rejoicing in America. It was 
 more hearty and universal than in Eng- 
 land, where James had many adherents, 
 where a reactionary spirit soon broke out, 
 and where it could hardly be forgiven Wil- 
 liam that he was a Dutchman. New Eng- 
 land had no such prejudice, for Holland 
 had given shelter and home to the Pilgrims 
 when exiled from their native land, and 
 the Dutch people were the original found- 
 ers of the colony of New York. 
 
 To Louis XIV the establishment of his 
 rule and power in America was an oljjectot 
 exceeding interest and desire. He set his 
 heart inordinately upon it. He did more 
 to make a New France in America than all 
 the kings of England ever did for the 
 establishment or support of the ICnglish 
 colonies. It was in his reign that the 
 valley of the Mississippi was discovered, 
 and La Salle had named the vast region 
 Louisiana in his honor. Canada and Lou- 
 isiana were found to be interlaced and 
 interlocked. Nature seemed to have 
 marked both regions for one country. At 
 .several points the portage between the 
 waters that flow to the St. Lawrence and 
 those that flow to the Mississippi is hardly 
 a stone's throw, and in seasons of flood 
 those w-aters intermingle. Could Louis 
 XIV have conquered the English colonies 
 on the Atlantic, the whole continent would 
 have been his. New England would have 
 been blotted from the map, the St. Law- 
 rence, the Mississippi and the Atlantic 
 slope w^ould have all alike Ijccome New 
 France. 
 
 Aiiiong the friends and courtiers of Louis 
 
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 XIV was Count Fronlenac, Governor of 
 Canada at the time of the discovery of the 
 Mississippi, and appointed Governor a 
 second time at the beginning of King 
 William's war. He was an ardent sympa- 
 thizer in the ambitious projects of the 
 Grand Monarch, as also in his absolutist 
 ideas and arbitrary measures. In ability, 
 enterprise, and vigor of character, he was 
 superior to any other public man that 
 either France or England sent over to 
 America. He was eager to do his part 
 against the subjects of King William in 
 the English colonies, and more than any 
 one else he threatened and endangered the 
 existence of the colonies. Upon his de- 
 parture from France for his second term of 
 command, Louis ordered him to conquer 
 New York, the blow to be struck at once, 
 the English to be taken by surprise. With 
 a thousand regulars and six hundred Can- 
 adian militia he was to march from Lake 
 Champlain to the Hudson, capture Albany, 
 seize all boats, and descend to the mouth 
 of the river, where two ships of war were 
 to join in the capture of New York, then 
 containing about two hundred houses and 
 four hundred fighting men. All lands in 
 the colony, except those of Catholics, were 
 to be granted to the French officers and 
 soldiers. The other inhabitants were to be 
 driven off, the nearest settlements of New 
 England to be destroyed, and those more 
 remote to be laid under contribution. 
 
 That scheme failed. Frontenac found 
 on reaching Quebec that the Iroquois liad 
 visited his own province with a frightful 
 devastation, that they had massacred two 
 hundred of his people, as already stated, in 
 a village close to Montreal. Not until 
 mid-winter was he able to assume the 
 offensive, when he sent out war- parties of 
 French and Indians who burnt Schenec- 
 tady, and spread dismay and death among 
 the frontier towns of New Hanii).shiie and 
 Maine. 
 
 At this time Major Charles Frost vi^as 
 commander of the military forces of Maine. 
 He had come in his early childhood, when 
 three or four years old, with his parents 
 from the west of England, and had grown 
 up with the country among the hardy 
 adventurers of the Piscataqua. Of those 
 people some hewed the forests, cleared the 
 land, and turned the wilderness into 
 fruitful fields ; some followed the fishing 
 industry; others built ships and engaged 
 in commerce and trade. There was work 
 for all, and there were willing hands. A 
 happy and prosperous condition of things 
 existed. There is no happier work than 
 opening up a new country. The long 
 reaches of the Piscataqua and the indented 
 coast of Maine, became "on many accounts 
 the most charming part of New England," 
 as was said of it at the time (Magnalia ii, 
 659.) For forty years the settlers lived 
 amicably with the Indians of the region, 
 until they were incited in King Philip's 
 war to take part in that conspiracy for 
 the extermination of the English people. 
 
 Charles Frost had been enrolled a sol- 
 dier at sixteen years of age. Both in civil 
 and military life he had early gained ad- 
 vancement. From his twenty-sixth year 
 he had been chosen a representative to 
 the General Court of Massachusetts for six 
 years. He had been captain of a company 
 in King Philip's war under Major Wal- 
 dron, who was in command of the Maine 
 troops during that war. He had shared in 
 its hazards and seen its horrors, and won 
 distinction as "fearless, brave and ready." 
 He had taken part under Major Waldron 
 in the famous strategy by which three 
 hundred Indians were captured. The 
 measure was a desperate one, and provoked 
 a desperate revenge that long rankled in 
 the savage breast. 
 
 King William's war was anticipated in 
 America before it was formally declared 
 
T\V(J HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 in liurope. The French in Canada and 
 their Indian allies, under the inspiration of 
 the Jesuit Fathers, snuffed the battle from 
 afar, and entered upon the fray the sum- 
 mer before. 
 
 In the first j-ear of King William, soon 
 after the news of his coronation had crossed 
 the ocean, and had been celebrated in 
 Boston with such pageantry as was never 
 known there before. Major Waldron was 
 murdered by the Indians, by stealth, and 
 with cruel torture, in his own house. Upon 
 him, after thirteen years, the savages 
 wreaked their full measure of revenge. At 
 the same time they killed or carried cap- 
 tive fifty-two other persons. 
 
 Two months after the death of Major 
 Waldron, Charles Frost, who had lost 
 favor and standing under Governor Andros,' 
 was appointed Major of the Military forces 
 of Maine. The Indians and French were 
 now spreading desolation far and near. 
 Many families abandoned their homes. — 
 York, Wells, Portland, Salmon Falls, and 
 Durham suffered the extreme horrors of 
 savage warfare. Wc spare you any grew- 
 some details. The history is of authentic 
 record by Belknap and Williamson the his- 
 torians of New Hampshire and Maine, and 
 by Bancroft, Palfrey, Parkman, and other 
 standard authors. Belknap writing more 
 than a century ago from his home in the 
 very spot where some of those attrocities 
 had occurred, took pains to compare the 
 published narratives and public records 
 with old manuscripts and verbal traditions 
 of the sufferers and their descendants. He 
 said, " The particular incidents may be 
 tedious to strangers, but they will be read 
 with avidity by the posterity of those whose 
 misfortunes and bravery were so conspic- 
 uous." 
 
 At the end of this war the number of 
 Englishmen killed on the frontier towns of 
 Maine and New Hampshire was more than 
 seven hundred ; and two hundred and fifty 
 carried captive, many never to return. 
 
 Nor, while the French were the most 
 
 aggressive, was the war only a defensive 
 one on the part of the English colonies. 
 They captured Acadia, then consisting of 
 the eastern part of Maine and of Nova 
 vScotia, and they planned to conquer Can- 
 ada. Massachusetts fitted out a fleet 
 against Quebec, with which New York was 
 to join a land force. The latter failed, but 
 the fleet reached Quebec, and in the name 
 of King William demanded its surrender, 
 offering terms of mercy while declaring 
 that the French and Indian outrages upon 
 New England might justly prompt to a 
 severe revenge. Frontenac defiantly re- 
 plied that he did not recognize King Wil- 
 liam, that the New England people were 
 heretics, and traitors to their lawful king, 
 James II, that they had taken up with a 
 usurper, and made a revolution, but for 
 wl'.ich New England and Fiance wouki be 
 all one. 
 
 A siege was begun, but after reverses, 
 and the small pox brsaking out in the fleet, 
 the enterprise was abandoned, and as the 
 fleet sailed away Quebec was juljilant, and 
 kindled a great bonfire in honor of Fron- 
 tenac. While Boston was in humiliation 
 and chagrin with the return of the fleet, 
 the news went over the ocean, and elated 
 Louis XIV, who caused a medal to be 
 struck with the inscription : 
 
 FRANCIA IN NOVO OKBE VICTKIX 
 KEHECA LIBER.VrA 
 
 MDCXC 
 
 Frontenac wrote to Louis XIV: "The 
 King has triumphed by land and by sea. 
 Now let him crush the Parliamentarians of 
 Boston and the English of New York, and 
 secure the whole sea coast with the fish- 
 eries of the Grand Bank." 
 
 Later, the colonies were dismayed by 
 rumor that a French fleet was hovering 
 along the coast, "intending a destroying 
 visit" upon New York and Boston. The 
 rumor had foundation ; for in the spring of 
 1(197 a powerful s<|uatlron was under orders 
 
lUNDRliD VJT.l RS AGO 
 
 17 
 
 to proceed to the mouth of the Penobscot, 
 there to be joined b}' Indian warriors and 
 fifteen hundred Canadian troops under 
 Frontenac, the whole force to fall upon 
 Boston. They had an exact knowledge of 
 the town, with a map of the harbor, and 
 had prepared a plan of attack. After Bos- 
 ton was taken, the land forces, French and 
 Indian, were to march on Salem, and 
 thence to the Piscataqua, the ships pro- 
 ceeding along the coast. The towns were 
 to be destroyed, a portion of the plunder to 
 be divided among the officers and men, the 
 rest to be stowed in ships for transporta- 
 tion to France. Frontenac collected men, 
 canoes, and supplies for the march across 
 the wilderness of Canada and Maine to the 
 Penobscot. But the fleet met with deten- 
 tion and contrary winds, and the enterprise 
 came to nought. 
 
 Meanwhile wary and prowling bands of 
 Indians continued to infest the settlements. 
 They never fought in the open, but hid in 
 thickets or behind logs or rocks, and were 
 rarely seen before they did execution. 
 
 On the 15th of March, 1697, th6 Indian 
 ])rovvlers seized a young mother in Haver- 
 hill, Mass:, burnt her home, dashed her 
 babe against a tree, and carried her into' 
 captivity. ' While they slept one night on 
 an island in the Merrimac, she rose upon 
 her captors in their slumbers, tomahawked 
 them with quick and vigorous blows, and 
 made good her escape tlown the river in a 
 canoe to her people. This is the story of 
 Hannah Dustin, who.se descendants are 
 spread over tiie continent. I found one of 
 them more than half a century ago among 
 the hardy ])ionecrs of Iowa. 
 
 On the loth of June, 1697, a party of 
 Indians were discovered near Exeter, N. 
 H., lying in ambush, by some women and 
 children who had gone into the woods to 
 pick strawberries. An alarm was ^iven, 
 and the Indians fled after killing one per- 
 son and taking another captive. 
 
 On the 4th of July following, then a? this 
 year the Lord's Day, Major Frost and two 
 others with him fell victims to the merci- 
 less savage. It was twenty years since the 
 stratagem by which so many Indians had 
 been captured at the close of King Philip's 
 war, and eight years since the Indians had 
 killed Major Waldron. They now wreaked 
 their full measure of revenge in killing 
 Major Frost. He was in his sixty-fifth year. 
 He had been active all his life in military 
 service until he was sixty years of age, 
 when he was again chosen one of the Gov- 
 ernor's Council (1693). By his ceaseless 
 vigilance, while other towns were diserted, 
 or burnt, and their inhabitants massacred, 
 this immediate region of the frontier upon 
 the east bank of the Piscataqua had been 
 preserved for the most part from savage 
 incursions. To the last he continued to be 
 employed in a general superintendence of 
 military movements. 
 
 Faithful in frequenting public worship, 
 according to the law a^d custom of the 
 time, and as a magistrate enforcing that 
 law, he attended public worship on the day 
 mentioned, and it was afterwards remem- 
 bered that he expressed a strong desire to 
 do so that Sabbath morning. On returning 
 home towards evening, a part of his family 
 and some neighbors with him w6re fired 
 upon by savages who lay in ambush at Am- 
 bush Rock. Some of the party in which were 
 his two sons (Charles and John) escaped, 
 but Major Frost and two others (Mrs. 
 Heard and Dennis Downing) were killed, 
 and Mr. Heard wounded. 
 
 Thus ended the life of a brave and reso- 
 lute man two hundred years ago who did 
 his part to opeii the wilderness to civiliza- 
 tion, to save the infant settlements from 
 utter extinction, and secure to after times 
 the immunities and blessings that nmkc 
 the homes upon the Piscataqua among the 
 happie.it and most favored in the worlil. 
 It was through such services and sacrifices 
 that our ancestors maintained their foot- 
 hold upon the continent, and that in the 
 
TWO HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 course of time a nation arose, founded not 
 upon arbitrary and irresponsible power, not 
 upon bigotry and persecution, as repre- 
 sented by the Grand Monarch of France, 
 but upon liberty and justice and the toler- 
 ation of religious differences, as represented 
 by William III. 
 
 The Ten Years of King William's War 
 were called Dccc/iniiim Luctuosuvi , a Mourn- 
 ful Decade, by an annualist of the period. 
 He made a record of them "while they 
 were fresh and new," end put a detailed 
 account of the miseries and sufferings and 
 cruelties into his famous Magnalia Christi 
 Ameticaiia, ere they should be "lost in 
 oblivion." That history closes with an 
 improvement of the " Great Calamities of 
 a War with Indian-Salvages" in a sermon 
 at Boston Lecture, July 27, 1698. The 
 preacher said that in the most charming 
 part of New England, where men had sown 
 fields along the shore for a hundred miles 
 together, the fruitful land had been turned 
 into barrenness, and aTluster of towns had 
 been diminished and brought low through 
 oppression, affliction and sorrow. He add- 
 ed that no part of the English had been 
 more preyed upon at sea during these Ten 
 Years than that which had gone out of 
 New England. He referred to Major 
 Waldron and Major Frost as "two of our 
 magistrates treacherously and barbarously 
 killed by the Indian murderers," and he 
 honors William III as "the greatest mon- 
 arch that ever sat on the British throne." 
 
 A few months after that Lecture was de- 
 livered in Boston, the foremost enemy of 
 the English Colonies, Frontenac, died in 
 Canada. He had been the chief agent in 
 building up New France, and in extend- 
 ing over the vast region which he had aided 
 to discover the authority and name of 
 Louis XIV. 
 
 In the first half of the next century the 
 standards of French authority were set up 
 iipon the Great Lakes, at Detroit, Sault 
 St. Marie, Mackinaw, and Green Bay, and 
 
 over the Mississippi Valley at Fort Du 
 Quesne, Vincennes, Prairie du Chien, 
 Kaskaskia, and New Orleans. But finally 
 those standards and the whole region (ex- 
 cept New Orleans and the territory west of 
 the Mississippi which fell to Spain) suc- 
 cumbed to British rule with the fall of Can- 
 ada on the Heights of Abraham in 1759. 
 
 Meanwhile, though the English Colonies 
 had been saved from falling into the hands 
 of Louis XIV, other wars followed, and in 
 the reverse of history it came about that 
 the tables were completely turned. The 
 subsequent royal governments of England 
 proved oppressive to the colonies, and 
 France, their dread and terror in the period 
 under review, became seventy-five years 
 later their friend and helper against a 
 British King who was "unfit to be the 
 ruler of a free people " And as in the 
 course of events the United States of 
 America took a separate and equal place 
 among the powers of the earth, France and 
 Holland were first and foremost to ac- 
 knowledge the independence and welcome 
 them into the family of nations. 
 
 The arbitrary rule of Louis XIV went 
 down in ignominy and shame in his own 
 country in the terror and retribu- 
 tion of the French Revolution at the 
 close of the eighteenth century, — 
 while the ideas and principles of William 
 III have become more and more ascendant 
 in the counsels of advancing civilization. 
 
 King William was the herald of the new 
 age that discredits prerogative and "divine 
 right," whether in church or state, and 
 makes authority and government respon- 
 sible and amenable to the Eternal Justice 
 and to the public conscience and the delib- 
 erate judgment of mankind. He anticipa- 
 ted that entire freedom of religion which is 
 the distinctive principle of our American 
 national life. A Protestant by original 
 conviction, and the head of a Protestant 
 kingdom, he favored the abolition of relig- 
 ious tests, so that any Protestant, whether 
 in the national church or not, might be 
 
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 19 
 
 admitted to public employment. He was 
 a latitudiuarian. He owned different creeds 
 and different forms of church government, 
 while he preferred his own. It was grate- 
 ful to him — England had never such a day 
 before or since — when upon his arrival in 
 lyondon all religious parties joined to do 
 him honor, and eminent nonconformist 
 divines inarched in a procession headed by 
 the bishop of London. He said he should 
 like the Church of England better if its 
 rites reminded him less of the rites of the 
 Church of Rome, and at the same time he 
 was so considerate of the Church of Rome 
 that Protestant zealots of the time put his 
 charity towards Catholics to his disadvan- 
 tage and reproach. It is the verdict of 
 Hallam's Constitutional History of Eng- 
 land, that he was "the most magnanimous 
 and heroic character of that age. Though 
 not exempt from errors, it is to his superi- 
 ority over all her own natives that England 
 is indebted for the preservation of her 
 honor and liberty when the Commonwealth 
 was never so close to shipwreck, and in 
 danger of becoming a province to France. 
 It must ever be an honor to the English 
 crown that it was worn by him." 
 
 Though our ancestors suffered so severe- 
 ly in the Ten Years' War, they were saved 
 from falling a prey utterly to the spoiler. 
 They appreciated the character and hon- 
 ored the name of King William. The 
 second college in the colonies was the 
 College of William and Mary in Virginia. 
 The name William and Mary was given to 
 the old castle at the mouth of the Piscata- 
 qua, the King having made a present of 
 some great guns which were mounted there. 
 *■ The fort retained the name for more than a 
 
 century. Appropriately on that very spot, 
 which commemorated the English Revolu- 
 tion of 1688, occurred the first overt act of 
 the American Revolution nearly a century 
 later in the capture (Dec. 13-15, 1774) of 
 the powder and arms that were stored there, 
 which were put to use the next year by the 
 patriots at Lexington and Bunker Hill. 
 
 A leading public man of two hundred years 
 ago, a President of Harvard College, said 
 that if New England could have her 
 ancient rights and privileges, she would 
 make William III "the emperor of Ameri- 
 ca." And so for substance and in moral 
 effect it has come about. His principles 
 have dominated in America even more than 
 England. They have permeated our 
 national character. We have moved on 
 upon the lines of progress indicated by 
 King William. The Declaration of Right 
 upon which he took the throne of England 
 in 16S9 proceeded upon the same principles 
 as our Declaration of Independence in 
 1776; and without the former the latter 
 had never been. And those principles 
 assure the further improvement of the 
 world and better laws and better institu- 
 tions of government, as the public weal may 
 require in the midst of an advancing civil- 
 ization and under new conditions of hu- 
 man society. 
 
 After two hundred years we behold the 
 principles of liberty and constitutional 
 government for which King William stood, 
 as against the arbitrary principles for 
 which Louis XIV stood, incorporated into 
 the organic life of the forty-five States of 
 the American Union, that have sprung 
 from the feeble colonies upon the Atlantic, 
 and that now stretch across the continent 
 to the Pacific. 
 
 " What change! through pathless wilds no more 
 The fierce and naked savage roams; 
 Sweet praise along the cultured shore 
 
 Breaks from ten thousand happy homes," 
 
 and the songs of Liberty arise from millions 
 and millions of a free and happy people. 
 
 Because in this transformation a crea- 
 tive and constructive part fell to the lot of 
 Major Charles I>;ro.st, we today bring 
 our tribute of honor and veneration to 
 his memory. Some of his descendants 
 remain near the ancestral home and keep 
 
Two HUNDRED YEARS ACQ 
 
 lip in tliese ancient seats the watch-fires 
 of Liberty and hold forth the torch of 
 Truth. Others are scattered over the con- 
 tinent and enjoy the frviits of the labors 
 and sacrifices that have brought so many 
 inestimable blessings to our common coun- 
 try. Major Frost left a widow and nine 
 children most of whom had families of 
 their own. 
 
 His eldest .son Chari.e.s shared in the 
 same honors as his father in both military 
 and civil life. The Funeral Sermon upon 
 his death by Jeremiah Wise, M. A., Pas- 
 tor of the Church of Christ in Berwick, was 
 published. It gives him the character of 
 "a man of great natural abilities, of a 
 clear head, of a solid judgment, and of 
 considerable attainments in useful learn- 
 ing, and so polite that his conversation 
 was admired as pleasant and profitable by 
 men of letters that had travelled abroad. 
 He was a man of religion as well as jus- 
 tice ; a devout attendant on God's public 
 worship, and in his advanced years con- 
 stant to the devotions of family-religion, 
 not suffering himself to be diverted from 
 it by any occurrent whatsoever." 
 
 John, the 2nd son of Major Charles Frost, 
 married Mary, the eldest daughter of Wil- 
 liam Pepperell, and sister of vSir William. 
 They had seventeen children, of whom 
 John was the father of General John 
 Fro.st, who served with the Colonial 
 troops at the reduction of Canada in 1759, 
 and with the Continental troops at Saratoga 
 at Burgoyne's surrender. John Frost, 
 LL.D., of Philadelphia, the learned and 
 voluminous author, was son of General 
 John Frost. 
 
 George, another son of John Frost and 
 Mary Pepperell, was a member of the Con- 
 tinental Congress (1776-9). 
 
 Sarah, another of those seventeen chil- 
 dren, was married to the Rev. John Blunt, 
 of Newcastle. In addition to those of that 
 family of the name of Blunt who served 
 their country well was Usher Parsons, 
 M. D., who was a surgeon in the navy with 
 Commodore Perry at the Battle of Lake 
 Erie. The descendants of Major Frost are 
 under great obligations to him for his 
 memoir of their ancestor published in the 
 New England Historical and Genealogical 
 Register ( 1849). His Life of Sir William 
 Pepperrell is a precious contribution to 
 colonial history. 
 
 A complete genealogy of the descendants 
 of Major Frost would show a widening in- 
 fluence of his life through successive gen- 
 erations of those who have perpetuated and 
 extended far and wide the principles for 
 which he stood "fearless and brave." As 
 we are gathered here amid the scenes of 
 his devoted and laborious life, and near the 
 spot of his tragic fate, and as we recall the 
 changes from the wilderness of two centu- 
 ries ago to the magnificent inheritances the 
 continent now affords seventy millions of 
 our countrymen, may some divine inspira- 
 tion inflame our hearts with awe and ven- 
 eration for the heroic memories of the place 
 and the occasion, and enkindle in every 
 breast a generous zeal, a public spirit, and 
 a religious devotion for the cause of our 
 country and mankind, that to those who 
 shall come after us another two hundred 
 years 
 
 "wf ni.Ty l)e(iueath llie fnme, 
 Tlwt the j;rass ^rew hchiiul us when we came." 
 
THE POEM. 
 Dr. Wii,i.rAM Hai,e, Gjw^ucuster, Mass. 
 
 ^Ke ^ero of ^reot ^Ifr. 
 
 Inscribed with brave good cheer to 
 THE ELIOT (MAINE) HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
THE HKRO OF GREAT HILL. 
 
 "Go, sixteen hundred and ninet3'-seven ! 
 Lean from Thy heights, Thou Lord of 
 
 Heaven ! 
 Upon our saddened li%^es have heed ; 
 Protect us in our hour of need, 
 And in Thine own good season bless 
 The widow and the fatherless!" 
 
 Thus prayed the people of Kittery, 
 Full of anguish and misery, 
 When far and wide the news was spread. 
 That Major Frost of Great Hill lay dead; 
 And that the Indians once more 
 With terror filled the Quamphegan shore. 
 
 Never, since with his followers rash 
 Searching our shores for sassafras 
 Came thst marauder, Martin Pring, 
 Hath there happened a bloodier thing 
 Between settler and settled, red and white, 
 Skirmish or fray or open fight, 
 111 all the fair Quamphegan vale 
 Than that which is told in this sad tale. 
 lietween red man and while man nothing 
 
 worse 
 Do the horrid Indian wars rehearse, 
 Tlian that which befell one fair Lord's day 
 Un the banks of the proud Piscataqua. 
 
 Since our great grandsire, the Black Prince, 
 Fought with the Frenchmen inch by inch, 
 Oil Cres.sey, Poictiers and Agincourt, 
 And other red fields "holding the fort ;" 
 Since the blunt days of Bunker Hill 
 That make a Yankee's blood boil still ; 
 Since Bull Run, Shiloh, and Gettysburg, 
 ( b'oul is war's hell on beach or berg) ; 
 Since P'ort Fisher and Colonel Shaw, 
 Who himself enslaved in slavery's war; 
 Since Barbara Frietchie and "Stonewall" 
 
 met 
 To prove that heroes are living yet. 
 Pluck is man's proudest heritage, 
 'i he grandest heirloom of any age. 
 
 There's a halo around a hero's name 
 
 That puts a coronet to shame ; 
 
 There's something in a good man's face, 
 
 However poor, that gives it grace ; 
 
 There's something in a brave man's gaze 
 
 That all the pride of courts outweighs ; 
 
 And grander is an honest name 
 
 Than tarnished tinsel of rank and fame: 
 
 Just as the rose at sunset's hush. 
 
 Puts tawdry court splendor to the blush. 
 
 Beautiful it was that summer morn, 
 When in the cool of the early dawn. 
 Leaving wife and babes at his cottage door. 
 Whom, alas, he should see no more. 
 Major Frost his stout steed bestrode, 
 And, winding along the river road. 
 Went to meeting, this man of war, 
 In Quamphegan, up the Piscataqua. 
 Not as one now goes in these fair days 
 Went the Major his God to praise. 
 But with trusty musket and pistols true, 
 A powder horn and a knife or two 
 Stuck in belt and boots, and saddk-bags 
 That the weight of bullets sorely sags. 
 Thus, ready for fight or prayer, rode he 
 At the head of a little company 
 Of godly folk that no foe could make 
 Their Lord and his holy house forsake. 
 Braving the forest and the foe, 
 As conscience bade them did they go, 
 Come feast or famine, good or ill. 
 The soul's deep longing by prayer to fill. 
 
 Dreary and sad that awful year : 
 It was a time of want and fear. 
 The famine and fighting and winter's cold 
 Had made the desperate savage bold ; 
 As winter dragged slowly into spring 
 He grew an accursed and evil thing ; 
 And a thousand devils seemed to lurk 
 In the red man's heart and the red man's 
 dirk. 
 
HERO OF GREAT HILL 
 
 Yet blithely that morning, from Sturgeon 
 
 Creke 
 To old Quamphegan, his Lord to seek, 
 The Major went. He often smiled, 
 As if he spake to his todlin' child ; 
 His face was calm as a Quaker's ; but 
 Through his keen gray ej^es, half shut, 
 He swiftly glanced to left and right, 
 As a desperate gladiator might. 
 If a twig but snapped or acorn fell, 
 Or a fox rushed wildly down the dell, 
 He knew it, and in the saddle turned 
 As if some foeman he discerned. 
 Reined in his horse, and cautious felt 
 The weapons in his leathern belt; 
 While his sinewy, nervous fingers played 
 With pistol-butt and with gleaming blade. 
 
 " Aye, troublous times, upon my word !" 
 Quoth he, turning to Mistress Heard ; 
 "The redskins are near, and the coppery 
 
 thieves 
 Are as thick as yonder copse's leaves. 
 Hist ! do ye hear that whip-poor-will, 
 Down there behind the old grist-mill ? 
 ' I'was never a bird that made that note; 
 It came from a skulking redskin's throat! 
 The valley is full of them, far and wide, 
 I see their traces on every side: 
 There's a feeling I cannot drive away, — 
 Methinks there'll be trouble here today !" 
 
 " Fie on you. Major !" the goodwife said, 
 " What's got into your foolish head? 
 Things looked dark this spring, I know. 
 But the redskins have melted with the snow : 
 From Quochecho to Saco's falls 
 On war-path red no savage calls; 
 The genial summer is with ns now, 
 Pray wipe that scowl from off thy brow !" 
 
 Upspake brave Dennis Downing then. 
 
 First of the Major's chosen men. 
 
 Riding along at his leaders side, 
 
 With a conscious air of honest pride, — 
 
 " What think ye, good woman, are we such 
 
 fools 
 That naught we learn in the redman's 
 
 schools? 
 
 There's never a trick that these tawnies try 
 But we can knock them all skj'-high !" 
 
 And the Major, leaning on saddle-bow, 
 Loudly laughed, "Downing is right, I trow. 
 These idle, mawkish, woman's fears 
 Hardly become one of my years." 
 
 So with loud laugh and deep-lunged jest 
 On to meeting they bravely pres.sed. 
 Where the Newichawannock foaming falls, 
 While the salmon strikes and the fish-hawk 
 
 calls. 
 And leaps to the unbridged Piscataqua 
 Through its bridal-veil of flying spray. 
 
 " You know, father," said his strapping lad 
 Who rode behind, "the tawnies are mad 
 Since we thrashed 'em in that wholesale 
 
 way 
 On Oyster River and up Great Bay. 
 You remem'oer what Noah Emery said," 
 (He went on, shaking his curlj^ head,) 
 "At Goodman Shapleigh's the other night; 
 He said he heard a terrible sight 
 Of crackling of sticks, and sighs and groans 
 And rattling as of dead men's bones. 
 As he went for his colt in the heater-piece ; 
 All of a sudden these sounds did cease ; 
 Then a whistle from under the hemlock 
 
 trees 
 Made all the blood in his body freeze. 
 'Twas witches, or injuns, cr the evil one. 
 For devil and redskin are as one." 
 
 "Ho, ho, my sapling!" doth the Major 
 
 laugh, 
 "Are ye a man to let such chaff 
 Scare ye stark mad ?" And he whistled 
 
 his dog 
 That whined and sniffed by a beechen log. 
 And thus the little cavalcade 
 Its pious way to meeting made. 
 
 The parson was at his best that day ; 
 All hearts were touched by his earnest way. 
 His mellow voice with fervor shook 
 As leaning o'er the sacred Book 
 
24 
 
 THE HERO OF GREA1 
 
 He besought his llock from strife to cease, 
 For his theme (like ours today) was peace. 
 His " Peace on earth, good will to men," 
 Was followed by niauj- a deep "Amen" 
 From pew and aisle. And then at last. 
 The i-ermon ended, came the repast 
 On the church steps, or under the trees, 
 Where gathered to catch the summer breeze 
 The good folk loved to linger long 
 For story, gossip, jest and song. 
 For the church then was a Parliament, — 
 House of Lord and man together blent, — 
 Where one might tarry and hear discussed 
 All topics pertaining to mortal dust. 
 As well as those celestial themes, 
 The creatures of our bravest dreams. 
 And so it was late when the Major said 
 Good-night to the parson, and at the head 
 Of his faithful, fearless, little band 
 In clarion tones gave the command. 
 And started away on his fatal ride, 
 Nor dreamed that Death his horse sat 
 
 astride. 
 Now it chanced that, waiting to see them 
 
 pass, 
 A sorrowful woman sighed "Alas !" 
 And a timid maid on the edge of the crowd 
 Wrung her white hands and sobbed aloud : 
 " To look at the Major makes nie afraid ! 
 He looks like the Lord by Jude betrayed." 
 The Major heard and bit his lip. 
 Bowed low to all, and as his whip 
 Fell on his horse's flank, replied : 
 " The Lord is good, his mercy wide ! 
 Gootl friends, I thank ye for your prayers; 
 Put calm your iniiuls ami dismiss your 
 
 cares ; 
 I fear no foe that ever fought. 
 No weapon that ever mo.nal wrought ; 
 Who crosses my path does so indeed 
 At his peril, and liad best have heed : 
 May my old musket never rust 
 Till every savage has bit the dust ; 
 I'll defeiul my folk at any cost. 
 For my blooil is //i'/ though \\\y name be 
 
 Frost!" 
 So, slriikiiig liis steed, he said "good-day," 
 And grandl.v, solemnly, roile a\va\-, 
 
 As martyr might to the cruel stake, 
 Giving his life for conscience' sake. 
 
 " Ah me !" quoth the parson, "it grieves 
 
 me sore 
 That our guest goes sadly from our door ; 
 I never saw him so stern and grave ; 
 How piteous that last glance he gave! 
 Whether our lives pass swift or slow. 
 Heaven lies nearer than we know. 
 I hope no danger our friends have run, — 
 The Lord is gracious. His will be done. 
 May they find peace on this Sabbath Daj% 
 The Lord be with them — let us pray !" 
 
 God bless the Reverend Jerry Wise ! 
 Our keen, blunt Pilot of the Skies. 
 No dearer name than his shall be 
 E'er lisped by lip in Kittery ; 
 Above the roaring river's falls, 
 Saintly and sweet his voice yet calls. 
 Well was he named who wise-Xy '.aught 
 The soul the thorny way it sought. 
 Brave Jeremiah Wise, — well done. 
 Servant of God ! the victory's won ! 
 
 How swiftly direful news is rolled ! 
 
 How soon a tale of blood is told ! 
 
 Scarce had the eagle, seeking rest, 
 
 His proud flight curved to shelt'ring nest, 
 
 Scarce had the heron, at 'proach of night. 
 
 Over the river w-inged its flight. 
 
 Sending afar its wierd lone cry, 
 
 As dervishes for them that die, 
 
 Scarce aglow were the meadows damp 
 
 W'ith the firefly's incandescent lamp, 
 
 Scarce over the misty river bank 
 
 In bed of blood the sun slow sank. 
 
 When, as if from hell's mad sea of flame. 
 
 This news unto Quamphegan came : 
 
 " The foe is upon us — all is lost 1 
 
 The tawnies have butchered Major Frost !" 
 
 Then swift and sure the dread news flew. 
 
 Too fleet to be checked, too sad to be true. 
 
 How the Major's party without harm 
 
 Had reached the confines of his farm. 
 
 And with their happy homes in sight, 
 
THE HERO OF GREAT Hill 
 
 25 
 
 Each fond heart throbbed with love and 
 
 light ; 
 How the Major, uttering his last word, 
 Said proudly, turning to Mistress Heard, 
 " Praise God, good friends, we're home 
 
 again !" 
 While his faithful followers cried "a»ien." 
 When, without so much as a warning breath, 
 Like hell-hounds from the jaws of death. 
 The savages leaped from behind a rock. 
 And gave tbe great leader his death-shock ; 
 How the Major fell with never a word, 
 And Dennis Downing ; but Mistress Heard, 
 Mortally wounded, from pillion prone 
 Fell to the earth, and with dying groan 
 To her husband turning, said: "I die! 
 For the children's sake leave me and fly!" 
 
 That night, before the dawn of day, 
 The Major was laid in his grave away 
 On this gentle knoll, where the apple-trees 
 Dapple the meadow and scent the breeze. 
 But not to rest, for the wily foe 
 For the hated pale chief lying low, 
 Snatched his body before 'twas cold. 
 And bore it to the hilltop bold. 
 Where in the morning light it hung. 
 The ghastliest sight by sage e'er sung, 
 A grewsome Christ on its cross of woe, 
 Grinning grimly on the town below. 
 "Ho, Yengee Sachem!" the red skins 
 
 yelled, 
 " Your last fight is fought, your last feast 
 
 held ! 
 We who Walderne of Quocheco slew. 
 And Roger Plaisted, now slay Frost, too ! 
 The white Sagamore will kiss no more 
 His While Faw7i squaw in cabin-door ; 
 No more will he hunt the red man down, 
 No more will he burn his wigwam brown. 
 Whomever the red man hath for foes 
 To his happy Hunting Groundswift goes!" 
 So went the Major as martyrs go 
 Straight from God's mansion here below 
 To the house above, where bravely wait 
 The sweet, the lowly, the truly great. 
 Poor Mistress Frost, bowed low wi th grief. 
 Unto her Lord turned for relief : 
 
 " Hath a merciful Lord brought this to 
 
 pass? 
 I live no longer! alas! alas! 
 My days are full of misery, — 
 God pity me! God pity me! 
 Open, Heaven, and let me go 
 To him, my all, above or below!" 
 To which a good woman with tear-dimmed 
 
 eye. 
 Kissed the widowed one, and made reply: 
 " The good Lord keepe our troubled ways, 
 And sanctify to our perreles days 
 His dispensations that smite 
 Like lightning on the cave of night." 
 
 Dark, baleful days for Kittery, 
 And the Province to utmost boundary. 
 Each goodman's heart was full of fears. 
 And every goodwife's full of tears. 
 
 Red skin and pale face are now as one : 
 
 The feud's forgot, the race is run. 
 
 No longer the stake and ambuscade 
 
 Strike terror to Christian man and maid ; 
 
 No longer the goodmanwith babes and wife 
 
 Hastes to the garrison for life ; 
 
 No longer our river the birch canoe 
 
 Paints with its tawny, ochred crew ; 
 
 No longer the Indians our wood-ways stalk 
 
 With cruel arrow and tomahawk ; 
 
 No more doth you peaceful, sun-kissed hill 
 
 Our souls with anguish and horror fill 
 
 At sight of that stark corpse looking down. 
 
 Ghastly and scalpless, upon the town, 
 
 A new-world Christ on his Calvary 
 
 Impaled for love and liberty. 
 
 No longer the savage (God be praised !) 
 Is slain like the ox, his wigwam razed ; 
 No more the warrior by boot and spur 
 Is kicked and cursed like a mongrel cur; 
 No more the haughty, untamed brave 
 Is led to the shambles and sold as slave, 
 Th' imperious lord of creation sold 
 For pale-face wampum, damned gold. 
 Dragged from his home, his council fires, 
 The heritage of hoary sires ; 
 No more the squaw, with poor pappoose, 
 Is into the forest wilds turned loose. 
 The trembling prey of wolf and bear, 
 
And the screaming scavengers of the air. 
 
 Now, in the voice of pine and spruce. 
 
 The Great Spirit hath called truce. 
 
 Red man and white man rest side by side 
 
 In the Almighty's graveyard wide. 
 
 Now, in death's calm, untroubled sleep, 
 
 The Lord of all doth his brave ones keep. 
 
 Sleep well, great souls, and know no fear, 
 
 With all ye love and hold most dear ; 
 
 Soon to the Happy Hunting Ground 
 
 Ye bravely go, when the trump shall sound 
 
 Side by side in a common bed. 
 
 They sleep, the white man and the red. 
 
 Honor and censure to both belonj. 
 
 For each was right and each was wrong. 
 
 God grant their spirits in sweet release. 
 
 To smoke forever the pipe of peace I 
 
 We are the People of the Pine. 
 Our rugged state is a power divine ; 
 An homely Yankee paradise 
 Of the bravest hearts beneath God's skies ; 
 And every brave home hath its Eve, 
 And its apple, too, we may well believe. 
 Better these homely farms of ours 
 Than serf-tilled acres and lordly towers : 
 Better these free hearts stout and true. 
 That beat for the good that they can do. 
 That battle not with sword and shield. 
 But marshalled on a bloodless field. 
 Live to fulfil the Master's plan. 
 And draw man nearer unto man. 
 'Tis brave earth holds a hero's bones, 
 Holy his lone grave's lichened stones ; 
 Sacred the dust where a brave man lies. 
 Shall we not, Sons of the White Christ, rise. 
 Rise to his height superb, and claim 
 All men as brothers, /// /fis Xanir.' 
 Knowing, whatever the skin may be. 
 The high, the lowly, the bond, the free. 
 Only that soul is white that brings 
 Blessi;ig to others, to all .souls sings. 
 Beneath its tenement of clay 
 The white soul bides that shall live for aye, 
 A spirit transfigured by faith, love, prayer. 
 To be with the White Christ joint-heir. 
 Here was his home bv vouder hill ; 
 
 His name its proud height beareth still. 
 But rather Hero's Hill, think we. 
 The grander, prouder name would be. 
 And thus with our hero face to face. 
 We christen his hallowed resting-place. 
 Here was his dark Gethsemane, 
 And there his gory Calvary. 
 Honor to him forevermore. 
 This hero of an hero-shore ! 
 This new-time Saviour ; who gave 
 Himself his snffering world to save; 
 Who grandly lived, as one deified, 
 Yet lived not grander than he died. 
 
 Who gotten of love comes to earth's estate 
 
 Hath conception immaculate; 
 
 Who daily, grandly, godlike lives 
 
 Himself divinity truly is ; 
 
 Who bravely for another dies 
 
 Ls ever a Christ in angel-eyes ; 
 
 His Master's name may he not take 
 
 Who gives himself for his Master's sake? 
 
 This vale was his black Gethsemane, 
 
 Yon hill his bloody Calvary ; 
 
 Blessed be this Saviour, who died that we 
 
 Might henceforth saved and blessed be ! 
 
 The last of that grand triumvirate. 
 Unflinching martyrs of a common fate, 
 Waldrou and Plaistcd and Frost, these three. 
 The flower of New England chivalry! 
 All honor be theirs! And let us raise 
 Unto these heroes of bygone days 
 Tablet and stone and monument. 
 Nor think we, friends, our means ill-spent 
 H, in honoring the dead, ourselves we raise. 
 And our children's children to grander 
 ways. 
 
 Guard your good name at any cost. 
 Ye men who bear the name of Frost! 
 F^rost, Fernald, Shapleigh, Downing, 
 
 Heard,— 
 A nugget of gold is every word ! 
 Blush, town, with pride! Such names as 
 
 these, 
 Yoiced by billow and bird and breeze. 
 Are a richer dower, a costlier crown. 
 Than :inv that kings have handed down! 
 
THE HERO or GREAT HILI. 
 
 27 
 
 They stand for homes that reach God's 
 
 skies, 
 Of happy hearts the paradise ; 
 They stand for men that are brave and free, 
 They stand for souls that kingly be. 
 
 Here dwelt one who with magician's wand, 
 (Saintly in soul, impish in hand,) 
 Harnessed the thunderbolt, and made 
 It slave of every art and trade, 
 As with bronzed brow and sweatj^ locks 
 Yon farmer yokes the patient ox. 
 
 Here, gracious, loving, sweet, abode 
 In Bittersweet beside yon road, 
 One whose deep love each glad year yields 
 An incense sweeter than the fields. 
 Though living from the world apart, 
 A port of refuge was her heart. 
 And every little storm-tossed waif. 
 Harbored in her great heart was safe. 
 Thank God, from sin and want and shame, 
 In that Home builded In His Name. 
 IJecause her own lamb the Shepherd took. 
 She herself assumed the Shepherd's crook. 
 Uf deathless memory is she 
 To name whom, pausing reverently, 
 "Dear Mother Rosemary!" we say, 
 Then braver, better, go our way. 
 
 But still from Heaven her sweet voice calls; 
 On her beloved yet gently falls 
 The mantle of her love and prayer. 
 As if filled with diviner air. 
 There moves today among us one 
 Whose mission, glorious as the sun, 
 Touches with gold all hearts, and makes 
 Each home a Greenacre ; and breaks 
 Devoutly, in the Christ's sweet stead. 
 For all who will, the Living Bread. 
 " Peace on earth, good will to men," 
 The watchword of her heart and pen. 
 Serene, divine, her rare philosophy : 
 Serener and diviner, she. 
 
 Today a healer with us walks, 
 Companion of our thoughts, our talks. 
 
 Beloved physician, whose kindly speech 
 Is more than bolus huge, or leech , 
 More potent his contagious cheer 
 Than physic, reaching far and near. 
 Casting out devils of dismay, 
 Turning fear to joy, and night to day. 
 Bidding the well be glad and brave. 
 The sick to triumph o'er the grave. 
 Ministering alone for the sweet sake 
 Of Him who Bread of Life once break, 
 Now praised, now damned, as good men be. 
 The weary rounds all patiently 
 He faithful plods, to blame or praise 
 Alike indifferent, through nights and days. 
 Mindful of one whose life alone 
 Seems the fair pattern for his own. 
 The loved disciple in truth is he 
 Of Him who healed in Galilee, 
 And blessed the holy marriage feast 
 With miracle, God's great High Priest, 
 The lame , the halt, the blind swift healed 
 By God's great love in Him revealed. 
 The leper cleansed, raised widow's son, 
 To say at last, " Thy will be done." 
 And such the magic of his smile 
 That as he jogs each dusty mile 
 His wondrous epidemic spreads, 
 As rainbows do, to hearts and heads. 
 And jocund health his "sorrel" tags. 
 And mirth drips from his saddle-bags ; 
 While joy spreads swift from heart to heart. 
 And makes all flesh blessed by his art. 
 
 Here WhiTTIer came, a grateful guest, 
 To find for mind and soul sweet rest, 
 And on Piscataqua's proud shore 
 See the Great Spirit smile once more. 
 And with him came that gentle pair 
 Whose names we breathe as if in prayer. 
 The sharers of his blood and fame. 
 At every hearth of honored name. 
 Whose beauteous home, to him oped wide, 
 Was Heaven itself, personified. 
 
 Blush honest hearts with conscious pride, 
 Whose sires as heroes lived and died ! 
 Yours is man's goodliest heritage 
 
THE HERO OF GREAT HILI, 
 
 On hoary history's blood-stained page, — 
 The dower of courage, love and light, 
 Making men equal in God's sight. 
 
 Aye, blush, ye men of Eliot, 
 
 Whose 'scutcheon rude hath no foul blot ! 
 
 Like him whose honored name ye bear. 
 
 Be ye, too, sober, brave and fair. 
 
 Like that apostle Jehovah sent 
 
 Unto the Indian, in brave content 
 
 Do ye your days with sweetness fill. 
 
 Working, all humbly, the Master's will. 
 
 Broader than Eliot's, not more brave. 
 
 Your lives shall reach beyond earth's grave. 
 
 Press on, brave hearts, nor strivings cease ! 
 
 Beget a Brothethood of Peace. 
 
 Till over every star and world 
 
 Love's banner fair is wide unfurled. 
 
 No less apostles here today 
 
 We fight the fight and go our way; 
 
 Nor will our mission ended be 
 
 Till every land and race is free. 
 
 Shall we, brave souls, rest here at ease 
 
 While suffer sister-nations over seas? 
 
 Are we content to sit at feast 
 
 While sups that "Sick man of the East," 
 
 Incarnate hell, off Armenia's bones. 
 
 And filleth as with travail-groans 
 
 This world of ours? Nay, God forbid ! 
 
 Arise ! The world from sin swift rid. 
 
 And let us give, as heroes do. 
 
 Not prayer alone, but powder, too. 
 
 Our might no grander cause may seek 
 
 Than, rising, to out-Greek the Greek, 
 
 And help poor Hellas in her fight 
 
 'Gainst Turkish tyranny for right. 
 
 Our "liberty" something slavish means, 
 
 When over seas the Phillipines 
 
 Send vainly their request for aid. 
 
 Shall we hold back aghast, afraid ? 
 
 Nay, nay, brave freemen — God forbid ! 
 
 Not till the world of sin is rid. 
 
 Not worthy freemen shall we be 
 
 Until 0117- freedom doth Cuba free ! 
 
 Cursed be the man that cowers and shrinks. 
 
 And like a whipped whelp whines and 
 
 slinks ! 
 Cursed be that land forever more 
 That hides a tyrant on its shore ! 
 Hail! Freedom's first and fairest child. 
 With banner white and undefiled. 
 Shall we strike sail and spike the gun ? 
 Nay, God forbid ! Not till life is done. 
 
 And every shore and soul shall be 
 As we today, thank God, free, free! 
 Hail, proudest land beneath the skies ! 
 Columbia, Freedom's paradise. 
 
 Hamlet of brave hearts! Eliot men! 
 Vain were tribute of tongue or pen 
 Were it not for the spirit that over broods 
 Our fretful lives, our changeful moods, 
 And bids us in a voice scarce heard, 
 To rise above the beast and bird. 
 And putting off the cloging clay 
 Seek serener levels day by day. 
 Like the greatest Sachem and Sagamore 
 That ever dwelt on our rugged shore, 
 The grandest spirit e'er forest hid, — 
 The Indian prophet, St. Aspenquid. 
 The good old chief, about to die. 
 Gathered his people far and nigh 
 To his home on Agamenticus, 
 The death-feast spread, and addressed 
 them thus : 
 
 " My people live at peace with all ; 
 Love white man! White man's God is tall. 
 Bury the hatchet ; from discord cease , 
 With Great Spirit smoke pipe of peace." 
 
 So we, like Aspenquid of old, 
 (Forgive, nor deem ns overbold,) 
 So we stand with ye here today. 
 And sing our song and go our way. 
 Like ships that pass at night we be. 
 Steadfastly faring o'er life's sea. 
 We signal, greet, and parting cheer. 
 As each barque to its course doth veer, 
 "All's well! All's well! Where bound ? 
 
 Where bound ?" 
 Till, hull-down, silence answers sound. 
 So we who may not here remain. 
 Nor look, perchance, dear friends, again 
 Into your kindly faces, give God-speed, 
 Imploring Him whose love doth heed 
 Even the sparrow's fall, to let 
 His light shine on us, Homeward set. 
 We spread for ye the feast, and bid 
 Ye welcome, like good Aspenquid. 
 The death-feast this ; and this fair earth 
 Death's charnel-house. But lo ! new birth 
 Avvaiteth us ! Thank God, at last. 
 When all is o'er, earth's poor repast 
 The soul's birth-feast shall prove ; and we 
 Like Aspenquid, in victory 
 Know the Great Spirit as He is, 
 His life our life, and ours His. 
 
 Valley of brave men, heed ! attend ! 
 Mark well these words — ^the tale doth end. 
 
AT AMBUSH ROCK. 
 UNVEILING OF THE TABLET. 
 
 ^igtori® %®Sg. 
 
 Francis Keefb, Esq., 
 First Vice President of The Eliot Historical Society. 
 
HISTORIC ROCKS. 
 
 Ml. rrtsiilcnl .and Friends: 
 
 It would be strangely interesting if all 
 the legends of Rocks could be gathered 
 into a volume. Rocks are centres of His- 
 tory. Even legends become historic. 
 
 The Hebrew Jacob evidently believed in 
 the " Testimony of the Rocks," for he used 
 one for his pillow and saw the skies divide 
 in his dreams. He made a rock, too, a 
 "pillar of witness" and benediction; and 
 he called it Mizpah, — a name that from him 
 has been adopted as one of the sacred 
 words, and is in common use to-day. 
 
 That strangely occult man, Moses, — 
 educated among the Egyptians, familiar 
 with the lore of an age that has hardly been 
 excelled, — saw, pent up in a cliff at Horeb, 
 a spring of water, to meet an intense need. 
 For aught we know that spring pours forth 
 its stream to-day. 
 
 Later still, in Roman history, we see 
 Tarpeia. the vestal virgin, dazzled by the 
 jewels of the Sabines. When told to open 
 her father's city-gates, and promised that 
 she should have all they wore upon their 
 left arms, the fascinated woman unbolted 
 the bars. Surely they kept their word. 
 She was crushed by the weight of their 
 shields which they heaped upon her. To 
 this hour that rock of fate is called by her 
 name, — the Tarpeian Rock, and has its 
 pilgrims. 
 
 We wander about England and France 
 to see the old Cromlechs of the Druids ; 
 strange, weird, vague, as if haunted by the 
 bards and vates of that mysterious people. 
 
 We go into Westminster Abbey and sit 
 in the Coronation Chair which has for its 
 cushion an old boulder on which for cen- 
 turies the line of Kings and Queens, — even 
 Her Majesty, Victoria, — have been seated 
 to be crowned. And we are told that it 
 was the veritable Jacob. s pillow of vision 
 
 and beauty. Whether we believe it or not, 
 we seek the old oaken throne and sit upon 
 the rock. 
 
 Lesser rocks have their associations. 
 Every town has some old boulder covered 
 with poetic fancy or stern historic fact. 
 
 Across the valley from where we stand is 
 the rock on which the sedate and quiet 
 people of our town used to alight from their 
 horses at the door of the little Quaker 
 meeting-house. 
 
 Dr. Hale, our Poet to-day, has a song of 
 a Heart-break rock in the old Massachu- 
 setts town of Ipswich, re-telling a quaint 
 and yet pathetic Indian legend. 
 
 Singularly enough most of these varied 
 fancies and facts are asssociated with war- 
 fare, victory, massacre, terror, distress, 
 brutality, or leaps to success iu life. 
 
 In all ages, men and women have fled to 
 Rocks for shelter; hence even a boulder 
 means strength to us. 
 
 The old Rock at Plymouth gives strength 
 to the soles of Pilgrim feet as they step 
 upon its solidity. 
 
 To-day we stand beside all that remains 
 of a once huge and really a double boulder. 
 Behind it stood the red man, the native of 
 the soil, whose well-aimed gun brought the 
 stern, relentless, determined old warrior, — 
 Major Ch.\rles Frost, — to the ground. 
 
 Our exercises have commemorated this 
 Soldier and the Englishmen of his day. 
 But, at the rock where he fell, we glance 
 for a moment at the Wild Man who stood 
 behind it; the arm that pointed the gun, 
 and brought low the sturdiest dweller of 
 the Piscataqua. 
 
 The Indian is a study. The more we 
 study him, the better we like him. We find 
 in him the wonderful gifts, powers, abilities 
 and aspirations of most veritable manhood ; 
 the qualities which stem the most revolting 
 
AT AMBUSH ROCK 
 
 and inhuman, as we review them, would 
 — rightly evolved — have made him a noble 
 creature. 
 
 We never cease to hear about the spirit of 
 revenge, which is actually a tinge of Indian 
 blood. It gives us the impression of the 
 venom of cruelty and savageuess. Is it so? 
 
 Revenge really is that keen sense of 
 Justice that found its earliest breath in the 
 mind of God Justice is never anything 
 but Divine Revenge only needed to be 
 re-channeled in the red man's brain, and it 
 would have been a poise of peculiar quiet- 
 ness and thought which kts anj' deed woik 
 out its recompense. 
 
 Nobody took a more wholsome and true 
 interest in the Indian than John Eliot who 
 lived contenip(iraneou?-ly with M j.>r Frost. 
 "I most desire," said Eliot, "to communi- 
 cate unto the Indians in their owne lan- 
 guage." And "wee shall have sundry of 
 them able to read and write every man for 
 himselfe" and this "the Indians do much 
 also desire." 
 
 Eliot's books in the Algonquin tongue 
 were printed in editions of a thousand 
 copies. 
 
 Let us take Cotton Mather's thought of 
 the tribes. He was a more renowned schol- 
 ar than Eliot. He regarded the Indian as 
 on the plane of tigers ; and he wrote : 
 
 " Tho there were enough of the Dog \n 
 their temper, there can scarce be found an 
 .^ in their language." 
 
 "Their Alphabet be short, but their 
 Words are long enough to tire the patience 
 of any scholar in the World." 
 
 John Eliot saw the inttllect and ingen- 
 
 iousness of the Indian. Cotton Mather saw 
 
 the dog of them, and the long words. It is 
 
 ^ just as we fix our eyeglass, — spirit or brute, 
 
 angel or demon. 
 
 John Eliot thought the Indian words had 
 the breath of the Hebrew in them. Cotton 
 Mather found an Indian who was what we 
 should call "mediumistic." He called him 
 a "possessed man." Mather read to his 
 "demon" out of the Hebrew Bible, to test 
 
 Eliot's assertion. Alas ! the said "demon" 
 could not undersiand a syllable of Hebrew, 
 a sure proof. Cotton Mather said, that our 
 Indians were in no sense allied to the "cho- 
 sen people." 
 
 But we have only to read our own Pis- 
 cataqua Sagamore's soulful plea for his 
 people to get a glimpse of an Indian's 
 heart and brain. The old Sagamore, — the 
 last of the Piscataqua Sagamore's, went by 
 the name of KnoUes, — Hansard Knolles. 
 H.)w he got this English cognomen we 
 never may know, and it matters not. But 
 this we perceive, he was a true lover of his 
 country and his men ; and a nobleman of 
 Nature's own moulding. When he was 
 dying of old age, he sent for the men of our 
 Kitttr}' to meet him at Berwick, and his 
 plea was : 
 
 " Through all these plantations are rights 
 of my children. I am forced to humbly 
 requi.'St a few acres of land to be marked out 
 for them and recorded as a public act in the 
 Town books, so that when I am gone they 
 may not be perishing beggars in the pleas- 
 ant places of iheir birth. 
 
 " A great war will shortly break out be- 
 tween the white men and the Indians. At 
 first the Indians will prevail ; but they 
 will finally be rooted out and utterly des- 
 troyed !" 
 
 It was an anxious looking forth for the 
 fate of his people,— a strangely keen intui- 
 tion of the Sagamore. 
 
 Ten years before Knolles gave expression 
 to the foregoing, the ruler aud Powwow on 
 the Merrimac, gave as "the last words of a 
 Father," — 
 
 " The White Men are Sons of the Morn- 
 ing. Sure as you light the fires, the breath 
 of heaven will turn the flames upon you." 
 
 With the word from our old Sagamore's 
 lips, let us turn to 
 
 AMBUSH ROCK 
 behind which the red men who had seen 
 
Knolles lace to face, and who had given 
 him the homage his position required, 
 secreted themselves. We may wish that 
 the wild man had witheld his gun and 
 arrow ; but we will remember this : What 
 hedidonjulj' 4, J697, and why he made 
 this boulder historic, was his native relish 
 for these hills and valleys, — the grand, 
 deep forests and river. 
 
 Major Charles Frost was a man born 
 to achieve. He recognized no impedi- 
 ment. He hesitated not for life or death. 
 We honor him as a man of iron will, — and 
 we have Written his Name in Marble 
 where he fell : 
 
 Two centuries later we read the young 
 stalwart red-faced warrior in clearer char- 
 acters ; and we give him, also, a place in 
 our estimate and respect. 
 
 Ambush Rock from this day will be a 
 
 more notable historic memory. We give 
 out anew its legends to this and all other 
 generations. It is a glory to our Eliot; 
 we feel the pulse of strength to be near it. 
 
 If the voice of the red man who aimed his 
 gun at the brow of Major Frost could re- 
 echo today, it would utter, even as we do, 
 "God and my Native Land!" 
 
 Who knows but the red man and white 
 man in the realms beyond, are in close 
 affinity ; and have learned to understand 
 each other better, as we do here ? 
 
 True light shall shine. 
 
 And in the end 
 Comes recompense 
 
 For foe and friend. 
 
 And wt ennobled 
 
 By their thought. 
 Grow wiser by 
 
 What others wrought. 
 
 Hniunling uf tl;c ClIablBi 
 
 The tablet of marble inserted in Ambush 
 Rock was covered with the American Flag. 
 As the speaker (Mr. Keefe,) alluded to the 
 historic spot and its memorial slab, the 
 Flag was removed, — the 
 
 Tablet Unveiled 
 '')■ 
 Master EDWARD L. FROST, 
 son of Mr. Charles Frost, of Eliot, — who 
 is a lineal descendant of the hero and mar- 
 tyr of 1697. 
 
 INSCRIPTION. 
 
 AMBUSH ROCK. 
 
 — o — 
 
 Major Charles Frost, 
 
 Mrs. John Heard, Dennis Downing, 
 
 Killed by Indians on this spot 
 
 July 4, 1697. 
 
 — o — 
 
 Marked by Citizens 
 
 of Eliot, 
 
 July 4, 1897. 
 
AT AMBUSH ROCK 
 
 33 
 
 ODE. 
 
 Augustine Caldwell. 
 Sung at Ambush Rock. Air, — "Auld Lang Syne." 
 
 One noble life inspires an age . 
 
 One brave heart, far and strong 
 Entwines its powers ; its influence sheds 
 
 In word and work and song. 
 
 Heroic deeds, the strength of arm, 
 
 Firmness of faith and zest. 
 Are atmospheres of life and health, — 
 
 Reveal man at his best. 
 
 Here we recall one fearless soul; 
 
 A steady step and sure; 
 We honor all his sturdy ways, — 
 
 The name, the rank he bore ; 
 
 But— sword nor bayonet to lay ! 
 
 Nor bullet, shot nor shell ! 
 In clearer brain and purer light 
 
 Reasoi and Love shall tell. 
 
 Enlisted in progressive thought, 
 
 With Charity for all, 
 We see the noblest Truths arise, — 
 
 We see all Evils fall ! 
 
 The plowshares of our richest soils 
 Molded from sword and gun, — 
 
 Head, heart and hand equipped complete 
 With LOVE — the world is won. 
 
 And 
 
 BENEDICTION. 
 
 Rev. William Salter, D. D. 
 
 now may Almighty God, who 
 
 brought our fathers over the sea that they 
 might reclaim the wilderness and plant 
 the homes of civilization upon these 
 shores, bless this day's commemoration of 
 their valor and piety to their children's 
 children. 
 
 Standing around the rock where Major 
 Charles Frost suffered and died, we renew 
 with one accord our devotion to the memo- 
 ry of our fathers and to the God of our 
 fathers, that He may be with us and with 
 coming generations as He was with them, 
 that glory may dwell in the land ; 
 
 And may the grace of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and the love of God, and the com- 
 munion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 
 Amen. 
 
 The Exercises of the 200th Anniversary 
 of the Massacre of Major CHARLES 
 FROST were ended. As the assembly 
 slowly drifted from the Rock, groups of 
 interested descendants visited the quaint 
 slab that covers the Hero's dust, and read : 
 
 Here lyeth jnterred ye body 
 of mj Charles Frost aged 
 65 years Deed July ye 4th 
 1697 
 
NICHOLAS FROST AND HIS FAMILY AT STURGEON CREEK. 
 
 ELIZABETH MEHITABLE BARTLETT. 
 repaied .11 the request of the Eliot Histoiical Socii 
 
 As we meet to commemorate the two 
 hundredth anniversary of the tragic death 
 of Major Charles Frost, it is fitting that we 
 review the varied achievements of his life, 
 and the history of his father's settlement in 
 the Province of Mayne. 
 
 Nicholas Frost, the father of Major 
 Charles Frost, came from the town of Tiv- 
 erton, in Devonshire, England, where he 
 was born about 1585. His father's name 
 was John, and his mother's name was Anna 
 Hamden ; and he was one of six children, 
 four of whom were boys. 
 
 Nicholas married Bertha Cadwalla from 
 Tavistock, in January, 1630, when he was 
 forty-five years old. His bride was only 
 twenty. 
 
 It is believed that Nicholas and his wife 
 and two sons, Charles (born July 30, 1631,) 
 and John (born August 7, 1633,) sailed 
 from Plimouth, Devon, in Aprill, 1634, in 
 ye shipp Wulfrana, Alevin Wellborn, 
 master, and arrived at Little Harbor in 
 June of yt year. 
 
 It is said that the bill of lading of his 
 goods is among old papers in the ancient 
 Pepperell house at Kittery Point. 
 
 That Nicholas Frost was in this locality 
 in 1634 or 1635, we know by a deposition of 
 Phillip Swadden, who lived in a wigwam 
 near the Pascataquacke River. His depos- 
 lion taken in 1673, says that "thirty-eight 
 or thirty-nine years since, living then at 
 pishchataqua, I do positively knew yt Mr. 
 Thomas Wannerton gave to Nicholas Frost 
 a Prcell of Land up in Pischataqua River, 
 now known by the name of Kittery, which 
 pcell of Land was bounded, on the East 
 with a little Cove, Joyneing to the Fort 
 Poynt, on the South W^est on the River, on 
 the North West Northerly with a great 
 
 stumpe called the Mantill-tree stumpe ; 
 which is about the middle of the Lane, well 
 Joynes to ye Land which Major Nicholas 
 Shapleigh now possesseth, & soe runneing 
 into ye woods, as fare backe as the sayd 
 Wannerton's Land went, which Tract of 
 Land Mr. Thomas Wannerton gave to the 
 sayd Nicholas Frost to come to bee his 
 Neighbor." 
 
 Capt. Thomas Wannerton had charge o( 
 Mason and Gorges trading station in 1633, 
 and lived in the Great House at Strawberry 
 Bank until 1644. 
 
 Nicholas Frost and his family seem to 
 have tarried in that vicinity for a time, as 
 his daughter Anna was born at Little Har- 
 bor, April 17, 1635. 
 
 Afterwards, it is said, Nicholas pur- 
 chased four hundred acres of land on the 
 North East side of Piscataqua river, and 
 on that land built a small rude log house 
 for his family. 
 
 He began to lay the foundation of one of 
 our town roads ; for we find that in 1637, 
 " Mr. Alexander Shapleigh & Mr. James 
 Treworgie did agree with the neighbors 
 dwelling at and about vStnrgeon Creek, that 
 there shculd be alwayes a highway from 
 Nicholas ffrosts house down to Sturgeon 
 Creek, and soe along to the ceaders " This 
 was done because the "said ffrost desired of 
 sd Shapleigh a way to be left from the sd 
 creek to his house." 
 
 In 1640 Nicholas Frost was appointed 
 constable at Piscataqua, by the first General 
 Court held in Saco by the Councillors of 
 Sir Ferdinando Gorges. 
 
 In 1640, it is said, Nicholas built a large 
 two-story house of square hewn logs, that 
 was known as the ffrost's Garrison. 
 
 The York Deeds contain a record dated 
 
NICHOLAS FROST AND HIS FAMILY 
 
 35 
 
 May, 1633, which says "when the marsh 
 was divided, Mr. Alexander Shapleigh did 
 find that Nicholas Frost had too litlle 
 marsh for his stock of cattle, and therefore 
 did freely give him the five acres of marsh 
 allotted to him, the said Alexander Shap- 
 leigh." 
 
 A question seems to have arisen several 
 years later, about the boundary line be- 
 tween Mr. Alexander Shapleigh and Nicho • 
 Frost; for John VVhitte, a former servant 
 of Sh.ipleigh, testified in 1662, that he 
 knew the bounds at Sturgeon Cricke med- 
 dow that were set down by Mr. Taynter 
 between Mr Alexander Shapleigh and 
 Nicho: Frost, about 22 years since, and 
 that to his best discerning the said bounds 
 still remain. 
 
 It is said that Nicholas Frost's two 
 brothers came to New Engl ,nd about .640. 
 One brother, John, owned and commanded 
 a merchant or trading vessel, the Anna oj 
 Devon, and he came over from England, 
 bringing with him a younger brother' 
 Charles, and an old friend of the family, 
 Thomas Belcher. 
 
 After some years Chailes returned to 
 England. He is said to have presented a 
 Bible to his nephew, Charles Frost, son of 
 Nicholas. A family Bible printed in 1599, 
 IS now in possession of William S. Frost of 
 Allston, Mass. 
 
 Thomas Belcher remained with the fam- 
 ily of Nicholas, and died in 1632. Possibly 
 U was Belcher's grandson who made a will 
 in 1730, in which he gives all his property 
 to Mr. Charles Frost, a grandson of Major 
 Charles Frost. John Belcher, Joyner, for- 
 merly of Boston, gives these reasons for 
 making Charles Frost his heir: " Whereas 
 I the said John Belcher, have lived at the 
 house of Mr. Chailes Frost in Kittery, near 
 about fourty years, and have been com- 
 fortably supported and provided for, no 
 Relations or other Persons whatsoever 
 haveing done anything for my help or com- 
 fort at any time since I have lived in the 
 Eastern parts, but ye said Charles Frost 
 
 and his father and Grandfather, and now 
 in my old age and helpless condition, I am 
 comfortably supported and provided for 
 with convenient food and raiment and oth- 
 er necessaryes of life, by ye said Charles 
 Frost." 
 
 This John Belcher, it is said, used to 
 raise onion seeds to sell to the neighbors; 
 and he always used a cocoanut shell to 
 measure the seeds in. After his death 
 there was great search made for his money, 
 which was supposed to be hidden under a 
 stone. Even after the old G.-rrison was 
 pulled down, thirty years later, the tounda- 
 tion stones were dug around and over- 
 turned again and again, in vain attempts to 
 discover the treasure. 
 
 When Charles Frost was fifteen years old 
 he accidentally killed a companion, War- 
 wick Heard.-March 24, 1646. His story of 
 the affair is m the Court Records of that 
 time : 
 
 "Charles Frost saveth that he beino- 
 about his father's door, looking into the 
 marsh, saw three geese light in the marsh 
 ashethought, by a little puddle of water;' 
 and he taking a piece ran down into the 
 marsh to get a shot at them : and he coming 
 there crept along on his belly. Warwick 
 Heard seeing the same three gee.se light 
 and being crept into the bush and long 
 grass before him, he not knowing him to be 
 there, and it being after sun.set,— Warwick 
 Heard being upon his knees ready to give 
 fire, and the wind blowing the skirts of his 
 jacket abroad, Charles Frost lifting up his 
 head, as he was creeping, thought it to be 
 a goose picking herself, presently gave fire, 
 and so shot him." 
 
 He was taken before the Coroner's Jury 
 who gave their verdict that Charles Frost 
 was not guilty of wilfnll murder of War- 
 wick Heard ; and the higher Court con- 
 firmed the verdict and discharged Charles 
 F'rost. 
 
 In 1649, Nicholas Frost with Capt. 
 
36 
 
 NICHOLAS PROST AND HIS FAMILY 
 
 Nicho ; Shapleigh and John Heard, served 
 as "ye select Towns man" in the newly in- 
 corporated town of Kittery. They were the 
 first selectmen elected in Kittery. Again 
 in 1651 we find him serving in the same 
 capacity with Nicho : Shapleigh and An- 
 thony Emery, — who was the first Emery at 
 Sturgeon Creek. 
 
 It is a family tradition that Nicholas 
 Frost's vvife Bertha, and daughter Anna, 
 were captured by the Indians on the night 
 of July 4, 1650, and carried to an Indian 
 camp near the mouth of Sturgeon Creek, 
 during the absence of Nicholas and his 
 son Charles. On their return from York, 
 Nicholas and Charles went to the rescue of 
 mother and daughter, but were unsuccess- 
 ful ; Charles, however, killed two Indians, 
 (a Chief and a Brave,) in his desperation. 
 Calling a few of the other settlers, Charles 
 and his father went back to the Indian 
 camp next day but found it deserted, ex- 
 cepting for the mangled bodies of Bertha 
 and Anna, which they brought up and 
 buried near the old Garrison. 
 
 Kittery, in 1651, granted to Nicholas 
 Frost 340 acres of land, "joining on the 
 west to Anthony Emery's land, and on ye 
 east side of ye land with a brook which 
 runs into Agmenticus river, and on ye 
 south to ye end of ye plains." Twenty acres 
 more were granted to him in 1653. 
 
 Both Nicholas Frost and his son Charles 
 signed the papers of " Submission to the 
 government of the Massachusetts Bay in 
 New England," in 1652. On this occasion 
 Nicholas Frost's mark was unusually bold. 
 He combined N. F. in a simple monogram 
 as his usual mark. 
 
 Charles Frost was about twenty-one years 
 old at this time ; and the town of Kittery 
 granted to him, December 16, 1652, one 
 hundred acres of land "at Tompson's point, 
 of twenty-four Poles wide, & so running 
 backward the same breadth over the Rocky 
 Hills untill ye sd one hundred acres be 
 accomplished." Twelve years later he 
 cold one half of this land to the Oliver 
 
 brothers, who were fishermen at the Isles 
 of Shoals. 
 
 During the year of his majority, Charles 
 Frost was interested with others in plan- 
 ning a Meeting House, said to be the one 
 in the Parish of Unity, in which he attend- 
 ed service for the last time on that fatal 
 July day. This will be seen by the follow- 
 ing copy of an old paper : 
 
 " By this Courte & Authoritee Theroff : 
 Holden ye ffourth daye of Maye, 1652, Att 
 ye place called Franks Forte, For j'e chus- 
 ing off ye fittest men for ye selection a Lott, 
 & Building thereon a Meeting House. Itt 
 is ordered — that Charles Frost, James Niral 
 James Emery, Wm. Chadbourne, Icho : 
 Plaisted, John Heard, Have ye athoritee to 
 selecte a Lott yett undisposed & Build 
 theron a Meeting House as they shalle 
 judge meete for ye goode of ye Inhabitants. 
 
 " It is ordered — That ye Meeting Hou.se 
 shall be builded forthwith, Thirtie by 
 fourtie foote & ye Timbers shalle be cutl, 
 if yt can be found sutible. from ye Lott. 
 
 Itt is ordered — That when j'e Courte 
 have agreed uppon ye summ of Monye to 
 bee Levyed uppon ye sevrall people within 
 this Jurissdiction ytt a Comittee bee chusen 
 to sett & apoynt W'ch shall bee ye propo- 
 tion of every Man to Paye of ye sd Levye. — 
 John Wincoll, Sec'y." 
 
 In 1657 several of the inhabitants of the 
 townes of Yorke, Kittery, Wells, Sacoe 
 and Cape Porpus, sent a petition to Oliver 
 Cromwell, Lord Protector of Eng. praying 
 to be continued under the government of 
 Massachusetts "which through God's mer- 
 cy wee now Injoy to o'r good satisfaction." 
 Nicholas Frost and his son Charles both 
 sign this petition. The reasons for sending 
 this petition are stated as follows : 
 
 " Because wee feare ye hurtfullnesse of 
 our changes, as o'r govermt now is, our 
 prsons & Estate stand undr ye securitie of 
 wholesome Lawes, watchfull Governors, ye 
 fathers of our nourishment and peace, 
 whose joyous care not only tollerates but 
 mainlaines us ye pure Institutions, for ye 
 
NICHOLAS FROST AND HIS FAMILY 
 
 pure Institutions, for 3'e Incouragemt of 
 godly psons both Ministrs and othrs, to 
 reside amongst us, but changing it, may 
 throw us back into our former Estate to 
 live under negligent masters, ye dangr of a 
 confused Annarchy, & such other incon- 
 veniences as may make us a fitt shelter for 
 ye worst men, delinquents & ill affected 
 psons to make their recourse unto, thereby 
 to exempt themselves from their justly de- 
 served punishment." 
 
 Charles Frost was a representative to the 
 General Court of Massachusetts in 1658, 
 and held the office for five years. The 
 same year that he was elected, the General 
 Court appointed his father, Nicholas Frost, 
 with Nicho : Shapleigh & Bryan Pendleton 
 "to pitch & lay out the de.iding 15'ne be- 
 tweene the tovvnes of Yorke and Wells. 
 
 Nicholas Frost died July 2cth, 1663, and 
 was buried within the stockade of the old 
 Garri-on. The Court divided his properly 
 among his five children. Charles was given 
 a double share "for his former care and 
 trouble" of his father; and the homestead 
 and five hundred acres of land fell to his 
 share. It included the great hill now 
 known as Frost's Hill, and a portion of this 
 land has remained in the family. 
 
 The inventory of Nicholas Frost's estate 
 includes 1042 acres of land, 27 head of cat- 
 tle, [9 hogs, 4 horses, and one servant boy, 
 7 1-4 years old ; stores of grain, farming im- 
 plements, tools, and house furnishings. 
 Charles Frost was administrator, and his 
 bond was ^1000. 
 
 Charles Frost's brothers were John ; and 
 Nicholas who was about sixteen years old 
 when his father died. His sisters were 
 Catherine, who married William Leighton, 
 and after his death married Joseph Ham- 
 mond, Register of Deeds and Judge of Pro- 
 bate ; and Elizabeth who married William 
 Gowine, alias Smyth. 
 
 After the death of his father, Nicholas 
 chose his brother Charles to be his guar- 
 dian, "untill lie come to twenty one years 
 of a^e ; so alsoe of his portion, amounting 
 
 to ye valew of one hundred pounds; thyrty 
 pounds wrof is in Lands, & tenn pounds he 
 already hath received by accept of schooel- 
 ing, cloathing & otherwise." 
 
 Charles gives a bond of two hundred 
 pounds, and agrees "to pay or cause to be 
 payd in due pportion after the rate of six 
 pounds p hundren, yearely, & yeare by 
 yeare, for the Intrest of ye sum of sixty 
 pounds, unto my sd brother Nicholas, in 
 merchandable dry Codd fish, or provissions 
 at Current prices, at or before the last day 
 of Octobr, yearely, being about four yeares 
 and six months from the date thereof. He 
 also agrees to re-deli\er the possession of 
 the Lands and the sixty pounds to his 
 brother Nicholas when he becomes of age. 
 Charles Frost signed this bond the 5 day of 
 March, 1663-4. 
 
 I find nil indenture, dated 25th of March, 
 1662, "Citty of Bristol!," and witnessed by 
 the Mayor, by which one Nicholas Frost 
 binds himself to Thomas Orchard "from the 
 day of the date hereof, untill his 
 first and next arival at New England. & 
 after, for & during the term of five years to 
 serve in such service & imploymt as hee 
 the sd Thomas Orchard, or his assigns 
 shall there imploy him according to the 
 costome of the Couiitrey In the like kind. 
 In consideration wrof the said Thomas doth 
 hereby covenant & grant to & with the sd 
 Nicholas to pay for his passage, to find & 
 allow him meat, drink, apparell, & Lodg- 
 ing, with other necessarys, dureiug said 
 term." At the end "to pay accorddmg to 
 the costome of the country." 
 
 In July 1663, Thomas Orchard assigns 
 Nicho : Frost over to serve William Scad- 
 locke for four years. Scadlocke lived on 
 the west side of Sacoe River near its 
 mouth. 
 
 Scadlocke, with the consent of Nicholas 
 Frost, assigned him to Francis Litllefejid 
 the Elder, who lived in Wells, next to 
 Joseph Bolles, and was a "Planter," or 
 "husbandman;" and was part owner in a 
 
FROST AND HIS FAMILY 
 
 saw mill and come mill at Webhanett falls. 
 Littlefejld had an apprentice at the same 
 time, who was to serve for eight years, 
 receiving board and clothes, and at the end 
 of his term to have "two sujts of apparell 
 & a mayre cowlt." 
 
 It has been said that this Nicholas Frost 
 was Charles Frost's younger brother. — 
 Dates and other facts contradict it. 
 
 There is a tradition that the young 
 Nicholas of our stor}' made several voyages 
 to and from England and America with his 
 uncle, Capt. John Frost, on the Anna of 
 Devon, and when Capt. John became feeble, 
 he gave Nicholas an interest in, and the 
 command of his vessel. He continued his 
 voyages until his death. We find this copy 
 of his last letter to his brother Charles 
 Frost ; 
 
 From Patoxon in Mary Land 
 Aprill : 2S : 1673 : 
 Loueing brother Charles : 
 
 My kind loue to you & your wife & little 
 ones; trusting in almighty these lynes will 
 find you in health, as I my selfe am at 
 present, & have been ever since my depart- 
 ure from you, thankes bee to god, for his 
 presrving mercy therein ; I have sent you 
 foure letters before thi, & could not as yet 
 understand whither you have any one of 
 them. I doe wonder at it. I was doubt- 
 full you had all bee dead, or your Rivers 
 frozen up, that you could not come * * * 
 put a letter on board wn soe many oper- 
 tunitys have prsented, or yt you had forgot- 
 ten m. I have sent you by Christopher 
 Addams, two Rowls of Toba : weighing 
 about sixty pounds, wch If come to your 
 hands, I pray you disposs of for money. I 
 did send you some by Mr. Be - ter, & 
 thought to have sent more, but have other 
 wise ordered It. Wee are ready to sayle 
 &. have been Laden this 10: days, but our 
 Mrchant hath not finished his bussiness ; 
 Wee are informed of some dutch Privaters 
 yt are upon this Cost ; I wis they may not 
 
 Cause us to goe to some port Contrary to 
 our orders. 
 
 I pray you present my scervice to Mr. 
 Vaughan, & my love to all my relations as 
 well in Boston as with you : soe hopeing 
 to see you in due tyme, I committ you to 
 ye protection of god, & remajne your loue- 
 brothertill death. 
 
 I doe 'request you in case of Mortality, 
 that I never return home, that all you have 
 in your hands as Well Lands as other es- 
 tate, bee devided aequally betwen yor chil- 
 dren & brother Leightons, when of age, 
 wch is desired by your bro'r, 
 
 Nicholas Fkost. 
 
 That same year, — August i, 1673, — Nich- 
 olas died in Limrick, Irehnid, but his' 
 property was divided by the Court equally 
 between his two brothers and sisters. 
 
 Mr. Vaughan, mentioned in the letter, 
 was son-in-law to Mr. Robert Eliot; and 
 the relatives in Boston were probably his 
 brother John's family. John Frost, "mari- 
 nor of Boston," was dead in 1687. His 
 widow's name was Mary, and his children 
 were Charles, Mehitable, Elizabeth and 
 Mary. Mary Frost, widow of "Capt. John 
 Frost, late of Boston, in ye county of Suf- 
 folk, Marinor," sold 340 acres of land in 
 Kittery, in 1705; and the land is described 
 as being that granted to Nicholas Frost, 
 father of the sd John Frost, by the select- 
 men of Kittery, in 1651, and a small lot 
 granted in 1653. 
 
 Other Frost families had .settled in this 
 section early. We find George Frost in 
 Cascoe in 1637. 
 
 John Frost, fisherman, of the Isles of 
 Shoals, was the son of John who owned 
 land at Bricksome ; and sold a tract of 
 land in York near the harbor's mouth in 
 1674; in 1678 he was dead, leaving a widow 
 Rose Frost, and daughter Annas Maxell, 
 and two sons, Phillip an J J> hn of the Isles 
 of ^^hoals. 
 
 William Frost was at Winter Harbor 1675. 
 
NICHOLAS FROST AND HIS FAMILY 
 
 In 1675, — two years after the death of 
 Nicholas Frost, jr., and twelve years after 
 Nicholas Frost, senior, died, we find a 
 Nijhol.is Frost at Kittery, buying 100 acres 
 of land of Abra : Conley, and 60 acres of 
 John Criford. The 60 acres he sold at 
 once to George Breu^hton; and the deed 
 of s.ile shows the mark of Nicholas Frost 
 and his wife Mary. And his mark is ver}' 
 unlike the mark of our Nicholas Frost. His 
 wife Mary was iwenty-one years of age ; 
 and was tht- sisttr of Edward Sniale. This 
 may h ivc been the Nicholas Frost who was 
 tried lur ilKft at the Court held in Yorke in 
 1690, and who brought disgrace on his 
 name at many other times. 
 
 .\t tlf- Point of Graves in Portsmouth, is 
 a slotie bearing the name of Elizabeth 
 Frost, and the date 1696. 
 
 A few years after the death of his father, 
 Ch.irles Frost was appointed Captain of 
 the militia in Kilter}'. The date of his ap- 
 pointment was Jul}' 6, 1668. 
 
 In 1669, he was one of the three Rep- 
 resentatives from Yorkshire to the General 
 Ciurt held in Boston. 
 
 In 1671 he was Town Clerk of Kittery. 
 
 In 1672, we find Capt. Charles buying 
 ten acies of sault marsh of Joseph Holies of 
 Wells, who was the Town Clerk and a 
 prominent man ; and three years later. — 
 Dec. 27, 1675. — he married Joseph Bolles' 
 daughter Mary. At the time of his mar- 
 riage Charles was forty-four years old and 
 Mary Bolles was thirty-three. 
 
 In 1675 King Philip's war began ; and 
 Capt. Charles Frost had charge of the 
 garrisons at Sturgeon Creek. The Indians 
 attacked Durham, Newichewanack and 
 Salmon Falls, and several of the settlers 
 were killed in each place ; among them 
 Capt. Frost's lieutenant, Roger Plaisted. 
 
 Capt Frobt in the following letter re- 
 ceived permission to garrison his house : 
 
 Capt. Frost and Sergent Neall, 
 
 Gentlemen : I thought to have meet 
 
 with you here at maior Shaply's but ender- 
 standing the guns were herd about Star- 
 geon Creek, it is well you tooke your march 
 as you did — my dasier and order is that you 
 garrison your owne house with ten men, 
 and doe your beste now the snow is upon 
 the grond, which will be Advantage upon 
 ther tracks. Your letter I reseved about 
 garrisoning your house. We have a party 
 of men upon your side, commanded by 
 goodman banmoie ; and John Wingut and 
 Joseph Fild are going out this night : and 
 in case you want men, goe to the garrison 
 above, and especially Samon faull, and 
 take men for any expedition : and all the 
 comanders of the garrisons are hereby re- 
 quired to Atand your order herein, and this 
 shall be your suficant warrent. 
 dated this 8 nomber, 1675, about 3 o'clock. 
 Your Servant, Richard Waldron 
 
 Sergent maior 
 I intend god willing to be at nachwan- 
 ack to morrow moining, therfor would da- 
 sier to her from you. R: W : 
 
 It was in September of the next year, 
 1676, that Major Waldron and Capt. Frost 
 received orders to kill all hostile Indians. 
 Two companies were sent from Boston with 
 the same orders ; and they came to Dover 
 on their way to Maine. There they found 
 four hundred Indians assembled at the gar- 
 rison o( Maj. Waldron, with whom they had 
 made peace at the death of King Philip, 
 one month before. The Boston companies 
 were for attacking them at once ; but Wal- 
 dron wanted to take them by stratagem. 
 He proposed to the Indians to have a sham 
 fight ; and then he sent orders for Captain 
 Frost to bring his company from Piscataqua. 
 Waldron and Frost with their men, and the 
 troops from Boston formed one party ; and 
 the unsuspecting Indians another. The 
 Indians were induced to fire the first volley, 
 when the whites surrounded and disarmed 
 them, and took them all prisoners. Those 
 who were known to be friendly il.iy dis- 
 missed. About three hundred strange In- 
 
diaus from the south and west were sent to 
 Boston ; seven or eight of these were known 
 to be murderers, and they were hanged. 
 The rest were sold in to foreign slavery! 
 
 Two days after this "base Yankee trick," 
 as the Indians rightly called it, Capt. Frost 
 and his men proceeded to Ossipee. Triis- 
 trum Harris was one of the company. On 
 the way he told Francis Smale that in case 
 he should fall by the hand of the enemy, or 
 howsoever his end should come, he intend- 
 ed his estate for the children of Captain 
 Frost's sister Elisabeth, who married Wil- 
 liam Gowen alias Smyth. He told the 
 same to John Tomson, another member of 
 the company. Shortly after this Harris 
 was killed by the Indians, and his property 
 divided among the Gowen-Smyth children. 
 
 In 1677, Waldron and Frost with 150 
 men, sailed from Boston to Brunswick and 
 the mouth of the Kennebec. They held 
 parley with the Indians in both places, and 
 rescued three captives. They killed Indians 
 and captured five ; and returned to Boston 
 without losing a man. 
 
 To appreciate the duties devolving on 
 Capt. Frost at this time, we must read the 
 following instructions from the Major Gen- 
 eral, — Daniel Denison, of Ipswich, Mass., 
 -April 12, 1677 : 
 
 Instructions for Capt. Charles Frost : 
 
 You must take notice that the party of 
 soldiers now sent you are designed chiefly 
 for the defense of Yorkshire & the dwell- 
 ings on the upper parts of Pascatay. You 
 are therefore, piincipally so to improve 
 them, by your constant marches about the 
 borders of Wells, Yorke, Nochiwannick, 
 Cocheco, Exeter, Haveril, &c., as you 
 shall have intelligence of the enemies' mo- 
 tion, whom you are upon every opportunity 
 without delay to persue & endeavor to 
 take Captive, kill and destroy. 
 
 Having notice of any partie of the enemy 
 at any fi.shing place or other rendezvous, 
 you shall lay hold on such opportunity to 
 assault the enemv. 
 
 If you shall understand the enemy to be 
 too numerous for your smal partie, you shal 
 advise with Major Walderne, and desire 
 his assistance to furnish you with a gnattr 
 force for a present service, but if you judg 
 the opportunity or advantage may be hst 
 by such delay, you shall for a present ser- 
 vice require the inhabitants or garrison 
 souldiers of the place where you are, or so 
 many as may be necessary for you & s:,fe 
 for the place, immediately to attend you 
 upon such present service for destroying 
 the enemy. 
 
 In all your motions & marches, silence 
 and speed will be your advantage & se- 
 curity. 
 
 You must supply your present wants 'f 
 victuals & amunition for your snuldiei s cut 
 of the towiies and places where you come, 
 especially from Portsmouth, to wh' m I 
 have writt for that end, & if a larger Mip- 
 ply be wanting, you shall give notici lhe;e 
 of to myself or the Govtnour & Counstl. 
 
 The necessity & distress of those parts, 
 & confidence of your courage & indu-try, 
 doe require your utmost activity in the 
 management of this business, without 
 spending needeless expensive delayes. Up 
 and be doing ; & the Lord prosper your 
 endeavors. 
 
 You shall from time to time give intelli- 
 gence of all occurences of moment, to Major 
 Walderne and my selfe, and as much as 
 may be without prejudice of the service, 
 advise with Major Walderne and the Gen- 
 tlemen of Portsmouth, upon whom you 
 must principally depend for your present 
 supplyes. 
 
 In 1678, Charles Frost represented Maine 
 in the General Court at Boston. While 
 attending faithfully to his military and po- 
 litical duties, he still found time to attend 
 to his own affairs, and sold land, and often 
 served ss appraiser of property, or to settle 
 estates. On one occasion he was chosen 
 with John Wincoll, James Emery and Wil- 
 liam Govi'en alias vSmyth, to settle a 'con- 
 
NICHOLAS FROST AND HIS FAMILY 
 
 troversy usually ariseing betwen William 
 Furbush and Mary Forgisson, touching 
 the dividing lyne of thejr home Lotts." 
 
 In 1683, Charles Frost, Francis Cham- 
 pernown and Francis Hooke, settled an es- 
 tate in Saco. 
 
 In 1665, Charles Frost was appointed by 
 the Governor of Massachusetts, one of 
 President Danforth's Council of the Prov- 
 ince of Maine, for a term of six years. 
 These Councillors were also the Judges of 
 a Supreme Court, and Magistratef through- 
 out the province. 
 
 The Indian Wat known as King Wil- 
 liam's broke out in 1689, and Capt. 
 Charles Frost was appointed the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the military forces of 
 Maine. The date of his commission is 
 August 23, 1689. 
 
 From this time Major Frost was actively 
 engaged in military service. Knowing that 
 his life was in peril at all times, he made 
 his will in 1691. in which he disposed of 
 his large estate to his wife and children :^ 
 Mary, Charles, John, Nicholas, Sarah 
 Shipway, Abigail ffryer, Lidia, Elizabeth, 
 and Mehitable. 
 
 His three negroes, " Tony," 'Esq.," and 
 " Prince," he gave to his three sons. 
 
 The next year, 1692, the Indians led by 
 Canadian Frenchmen, descended on York, 
 and killed and carried captive over one 
 hundred and fifty of the settltrs, and 
 burned nearly all the houses. Doubtless 
 Sturgeon Cretk would have had a like vis- 
 itation, had not Majcr Frost kept his sol- 
 diers const. intl\ on the alert, watching for 
 the approach of Indian spies. Even then, 
 some of our settlers were killed, perhaps 
 when the Maj )r had gone with his soldiers 
 to the relief of other settlements. We quote 
 the following from a letter written by 
 Ichabod Plais'ed, and dated June 9, 1693: 
 
 " Last night we had four persons carried 
 away from the garrison by the Indians, and 
 one wounded. The place was at Sturgeon 
 Creek. And those carried away were Nich- 
 olas Frost's wife and two children and the 
 
 widow Smith." 
 
 It would seem that Nicholas Frost, jr., 
 had no wife, from the fact that he wanted 
 his property divided between the children 
 of his brother, Major Charles, and the 
 children of his si.ster, Catharine Leighton, 
 as he requested in the letter written shortly 
 before he died. Therefore this captive may 
 have been the wife of the stranger Nicholas 
 who bought land at Sturgeon Creek in 1675. 
 Major Charles' youngest son, Nicholas, 
 was a mere child at this time, as his eldest 
 brother Charles was born in 1678, and his 
 brother John and one of his sisters were 
 older than Nicholas. 
 
 Major Frost's daughter Mary was mar- 
 ried in 1694 to Capt. John Hill, who was 
 then in command of Fort Mary, at Winter 
 Harbor, or Saco. He previously had charge 
 of the building of the Fort, which he named 
 in honor of Mary Frost. 
 
 In 1694, Major Frost built a saw mill 
 with James Emery, jr., and Noah Enie.ry, 
 on York pond brook, — on the land of James 
 Emery, senior. 
 
 Major Frost was elected a member of the 
 Governor's Council, in 1693 ; and from 1680 
 to the time of his death in 1697, (with the 
 possible exceptions of 1687-88,) we find 
 records of his frequent work as a Justice of 
 the Peace. 
 
 From 1689 we find him with his associate 
 Justices, four times each year holding "His 
 Majesties Court of Quarter Sessions," at 
 York and Wells. Some of the business 
 brought before this Court, is of interest to 
 us, when we remember that it occupied 
 Major Frost's mind : At the October ses- 
 sion in 1691 : 
 
 " It is ordered that there be a Day of pub- 
 lick thanksgiving kept on the 5th Day of 
 Novenber next, & all servile worke on that 
 Day is hereby prohibited." 
 
 " Days of Sollemn fasting and prayer," 
 were also appointed. 
 
 In 1692, the Court ordered a ferry to be 
 kept by John Woodman from Withers point 
 to Strawbery banke, and he was to keep a 
 
42 
 
 NICHOLAS FROST AND HIS FAMILY 
 
 sufficient boate or Gundelo for horse and 
 man. 
 
 In October, 1696, the Court ordered a 
 bridge to be built within six weeks over 
 Sturgeon Creek. 
 
 A letter written from fforte Loyall, Fal- 
 mouth, in September, 1696, states that 
 " Major Swaine with Major ffrost & Major 
 Swaines Life Gard, came to this Towne, 
 23th of this Instant, whare the 2 Comanders 
 had a very Loving Corrispondency to 
 Geather, & Conference to order matters for 
 the defence of the Country." 
 
 Honoored Charles Frost was present at 
 the January and April Sessions of Court, 
 1697, presiding with his associate Justices. 
 Then his name drops from the records. 
 
 He met his death Sunday, July 4, 1697. 
 He was returning from the Meeting House 
 in the Parish of Unity, where he had at- 
 tended service with his two sons and sever- 
 al neighbors. Within a mile of his Gar- 
 rison House, the party were fired upon by 
 Indians who had made an ambush near the 
 great Rock by the roadside. 
 
 Major Frost was killed. His sons Charles 
 and John escaped. 
 
 Dennis Downing, the blacksmith, was 
 killed. 
 
 The wife of John Heard was mortally 
 wounded. Her husband tried to put her on 
 the horse ; but she fell, and begged him to 
 leave her and save their children at home. 
 The savages chased him and shot his horse 
 which fell under him when near his Gar- 
 rison. He ran to its shelter and escaped 
 his pursuers. 
 
 The letter written by Joseph Storer of 
 Wells to Capt. John Hill gives an account 
 of the death of Major Frost, and the funeral 
 which he attended. 
 
 The night following the burial, the In- 
 dians opened the grave, took the body and 
 carried it to the top of Frost's Hill, sus- 
 pended it on a stake, — piercing the body. 
 The place where this savage act was com- 
 mitted, was the highest point, where the 
 
 fence now crosses the western side of the 
 hill. Elderly people remember a very 
 large old pine tree, which stood just across 
 the fence, near the supposed spot. Early 
 the next morning the Indians were heard 
 making most hideous noises on the hill. 
 Charles, (then about nineteen years old,) 
 went out to ascertain the cause, and dis- 
 covered that the body had been disinterred. 
 A few men hastily gotten together recov- 
 ered it, and a guard was kept over the 
 grave until a large flat stone was laid upon 
 it. The Indians feared this was a trap for 
 them, and troubled it no more. 
 
 Tradition says the stone was brought 
 from York woods some years before on a 
 dragg; and was intended to be used as a 
 door step at the old Garrison. It was nearly 
 twice its present size, being a flat irregular 
 stone of a peculiar formation. Some ye^irs 
 after the Major's death, t'.ie stons was 
 cut into its present shape, and lettered by a 
 Welch man from Portsmouth : 
 
 HERE lyeth Jnterrd ye body 
 
 of mj. Charles Frost aged 
 
 65 years Deed July ye 4th 
 1697 
 
 A line is cut around the stone, and in 
 each corner is a clearly chiseled fleur de lis. 
 Near by is the gravestone of the Major's 
 grandson, Eliot Frost, and other members 
 of the family. And all about are unmarked 
 and unknown graves. 
 
 The site of the old Garrison can still be 
 seen quite a little distance down the hill 
 from the burying ground. Crossing the 
 highway, we go down into the middle of a 
 field, where the land slopes abruptly to the 
 marsh. On this spot stood the old Gar- 
 rison House, which was razed to the ground 
 in 1760, after standing one hundred and 
 twenty years. The old cellar was then used 
 as a dumping ground for all loose materials 
 about the field. A great many years later, 
 this field was plowed ; and much to the 
 surprise of all, there came up a beautiful 
 
NICHOLAS FROST AND HIS FAMILY 
 
 43 
 
 crop of tobacco all around the edge of the 
 old cellar. Wild parsnips used to grow 
 there; and every spring an old asparagus 
 root sends up its shoots close by. Whose 
 hand planted it we may not know. 
 
 This part of the field was plowed again 
 several years later, and a spoon was found 
 where the garrison stood. It has a mark in 
 the bowl, and on the mark are three tiny 
 spoons, with the word Dovde above. The 
 handle is straight with an ornamented end. 
 
 A gold ring was found there about the 
 same time. It has a round raised piece on 
 the back ; and on it is a heart with a crown 
 above it, and the letter L at one side. 
 
 Another relic found there, is the side of a 
 bottle with the name, "Sir William Pep- 
 pen 11" blown into the glass. Maj. Frost's 
 son John married Sir William Pepperell's 
 sister Mary His son Charles married Jane 
 Eliot Pepperell, a sister-in-law of Sir. 
 William. The Major's grandson Charles, 
 married Sarah Pepperell, a neice of Sir 
 William. It does not seem strange, there- 
 fore, that the glass relic was found there. 
 
 Major Charles Frost's son Charles dated 
 his will the 24 day of September in the 
 Eleventh Year of his Majts Reign, anno 
 Dom 1724, — a document so complete that it 
 is almost a biography of himself,— and, 
 among other silver treasures, he Gave the 
 Church in Berwick "My Small Silver 
 Tankerd." 
 
 The old Garrison house was vacated in 
 1756, when the Frost family then living in 
 it, moved into a new house near the bury- 
 ing ground. That house, too, has disap- 
 peared. Generation after generation of the 
 Fronts have gone to their long home; but 
 "the little brook by Nicholas Frost's 
 house," still runs on its way through the 
 marshes, as it did on that sad Sunday eve- 
 ning,— July 4, 1697. 
 
 NICHOLAS FROST'S ESTATE. 
 
 NATHAN GOOLD. 
 
 An inventory of the goods, lands. Cattle 
 & chatties with yr appurtenances, given p. 
 Nicholas Frost late of Kittery, deseased, 
 unto his Children, as by his deeds of gyft, 
 bearing date ye 12th day of Sept. 1650 : 
 
 Imps his wearing apj'arell 15 06 00 
 
 A homestall of dwelling house, 
 barne & other outhouses, orchards 
 Cornfields, meddows & Pastures 
 adjoining, Contayneing in all 
 300 acres more or less att 205 
 
 A former grant of Land of three 
 hundred acers frome ye proprie- 
 tors agent, Joyneing to his home 
 land, viddzt. Mr. Roger Gard 18 
 
 The long Marsh, by estimate Tenn 
 acers, & the grants of Land be- 
 longing to itt. Three hundred 
 acres more or less 60 
 
 Two acers & an halfe of sault 
 Marsh In York bounds 5 
 
 The house & Land at Kittery, 
 Joyneing to Willia. Leighton, by 
 estimation 30 acers 20 
 
 A grant of one hundred acers of 
 Land on the South side of 
 Sturgeon Cricke jo 
 
 One hodged of Wheate one Hodged 
 of Mault -J 
 
 7 aceis & 1-2 sorred with Inglish 
 grasse j^ 
 
 Pease and oates at Kittery i 16 00 
 
 Indean Corne & fruite on ye ground 6 
 Corne & oates up in ye Chamber i 
 Hay at home & Abroad 16 
 
 6 Oxen att ^^ 
 
 7 Cows att 32 
 Horses and Mayres in ye Woods 
 
 one ould Mayre att 10 
 one Mayre Cowlt at two years 1-2 
 
 ould ,0 
 
 I Horse 2 years 1-2 ould 7 
 
 one Cowlt of one yeare & 1-2 ould 6 
 
 [over] 
 
 491 II 00 
 
FROST AXD HIS FAMILY 
 
 Cattle ill the Woods 
 One Cowe i Heffer one Calfe 9 
 
 ;, Heffers 3 Stears i bull 18 
 
 one steare i bull 3 yeares 1-2 ould 10 
 oue Steare of 4 years ould 7 
 
 An ould Ox att 7 
 
 1 1 ould swine att 12 
 
 2 Sows 2 
 Three shoatts and 3 piggs 2 
 Two ould Carts, one peyre wheels 
 
 I slead, Copp Irons & roape, att 2 
 Three plows & ould Hodgeds i 
 
 3 yoakes, 3chaynes, i wheelbarrow i 
 I Tymber Chasse, i harrow & 
 lumber 2 
 3 beetles, 5 Wedges, i ould Hatchett 
 & five axes at 00 
 3 Hows, 2 Spades, one Shovell 
 
 I Iron Crow, 5 forke tynes, ould 
 
 Rakes 
 
 I Dungforke, i Cross cutt saw, 
 
 1 mattacke, 2 playnes att 
 
 In the Kitchen 
 one muskett, i fowling piece & rest 2 
 
 2 Iron potts, I Iron Kettle, 
 
 2 pott hookes att 4 
 
 3 brass Kettles, skellett & 
 
 I bayson att 3 
 
 Two andirons, one Tramell & 
 
 one peyr of Tonges 
 
 one frying pann, i grid iron, 
 
 I spilt, I flesh forke 
 
 3 Tynn pudding panns, 11 Wooden 
 
 trayes, Laddies, i scemmer, 
 
 one Lampe, all att 
 
 I wooden morter & pestell, 3 payles 
 
 I Curry Come, 12 Trenchers & lumbe 
 
 Working Towles 
 I mortessing axe, 2 adges 
 
 3 mayson's Hamers att 
 
 4 augers, 3 Chissells, 3 Gowges, 
 one square all att 
 
 14 
 
 
 10 
 
 06 
 
 GO 
 
 00 
 
 6 
 
 00 
 
 15 
 
 GO 
 
 G7 06 
 7 6 
 
 In the Inner Chamber 
 I bedsteade, i feather bedd & 
 bowlster, 2 pillows, one blankett 
 I peyr sheets, I Rugg & i Coverlidd 9 11 go 
 One Trundle bedstead & 
 feather bedd & feather 
 bowlster & pillow 5 
 
 I peyre sheetes, 1 blankett & Rugg i 
 I Chest, I ould blankett and 4 yds 
 of blanketting i 11 00 
 
 Two blanketts and Thread 14 
 
 A remnant of Canvice i 
 
 I Chest, 2 ould Chests 13 
 
 I peyer of Compasses, i peyer of 
 sheers, i Hammer 
 I Table, i frame, i Chayre 
 
 5 pewter dishes and 10 small peeces 
 of pewter all att 
 9 pewter spcones, 3 Oceamy spoones 
 
 1 Tinn drippine pann, i brish & 
 one Runlett all att 
 Prickers, Compasses and Lumber 
 Two peyres of sheetes i 
 
 2 bowlsters Cases, i pyr f>f sheeti s 
 2 peyre of Dimitty sheetes 2 
 4 pillow bearers att 4 
 12 napkines, i Table Cloath 14 
 
 6 Course Napkines, i Table Cloath 
 1 VV c.rm.'iii- pann att 
 
 7 06 
 
 5 
 
 15 CO 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 05 00 
 13 
 
 15 
 3 06 
 
 2 files, one Wrest, i Hamer, one 
 fore playne all att 
 
 In ye upper Chamber 
 2 Corne sives, 3 Meale sives 
 8 Sackes at 4GS, i bedsteade, 
 I Canvas bed, i feather bowlster, 
 
 1 ould blankett, i ould rugg 20s 
 
 2 saws i6s, 5 syths, 3 seads and 
 Tackeling att 15 
 
 8 reape hookes, 4 Howpes att 
 
 3 bushs of ground Mault att 
 3 bushs of wheate Meale & i 
 bushel of Indian Meale 
 
 1 Winnowing sheete, i pecke, i 
 saddle ould one wth a bridle 
 3 Tubbes & Some Lumber 
 3 pecks of Saull & some hopps 
 
 26 03 00 
 00 06 00 
 
 L«rc. 
 
1--ROST AND HIS FAMi 
 
 45 
 
 In the Cellar 
 One Chyrne, 2 Keelers 
 A Milke Ceene 2 Kellers 
 
 2 beere barrells & some sope 
 7 yds 1-2 of Course Cayrsey 
 
 3 blanketts i pillow case 
 
 trator was /'looo. The addition of the 
 figures in the above inventory make the 
 estate to value £6j^o 15 7. 
 
 In the Darie 
 30 younds of butter att 
 17 Cheeses att 
 
 4 Cheese fatts & covers & 30 
 Trayes att • 
 
 5 earthern panns 6 earthern potts 
 4 small earthern vessells 
 I peyre of scyles bjC, 2 weights 
 Tallow Candles & Sugar 
 one Cheese presse att 8 
 
 In Silver 14 13 07 
 
 A servant boy 7 years 3-4 14 00 00 
 
 36 14 7 
 Debt due to the Estate p. book 
 or bill 81 2 o 
 
 The Estate is Dr. to severall prsons 
 
 In the whole 24 1 1 6 
 
 p : Edw. Risworth 
 Roger Playsteade 
 John WincoU Apprizers. 
 Charles Frost doth attest upon oath be- 
 fore this Court yt this Inventory above 
 written is a true Accopt of those particular 
 goods, Lands & Chattels left by his lather 
 Nici: Frost, lately diseased well hee, ye sd 
 Charles gave unto ye apprizers. Taken 
 this 3d of Uctobr, '63 
 
 p : Edw. Richworth, Assotiate. 
 The Court was held at Wells, Sept. 29, 
 1663, and^CharlfcS Frost's bond as adminis- 
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY. 
 
 We bring this series of Commemorative 
 Papers to an end with the Letter and the 
 Poem of Mr. George W. Frosst of Wash- 
 ington, D. C, — written in anticipation of 
 this day and its exercises. The Letter is 
 addressed to his relative, Mr. Howard 
 Furbish: 
 
 June 30, 1897. 
 Dear Cousin Howard : It would be im- 
 possible for you to know, or even think, 
 how much I regret that my health will not 
 permit me to mingle with the good people 
 of Old Eliot, at the Commemoration, 
 to be held near the old Homestead, — 
 July 4, 1S97. 
 
 When it was announced that the Eliot 
 Historical Society, and other interested 
 parties, would observe the Two Hundredth 
 Anniversary of the Massacre of Major 
 CHARLES FROST, I indulged the hope 
 that it was possible for me to be present. 
 
 .AS i ai.i the oldest living member of the 
 Frost family who inherited the original 
 Home-read, I had a great desire to v^itness 
 the honor to be given to his memory. 
 
 Since it will be impossible for me to meet 
 my "kith and kin," I .send best wishes for 
 the great and interesting Day, and the 
 accompanying Lines, which the occasion 
 has suggested : — 
 
 Two Centuries Numbered with the Brave.' 
 
 GEORGE W. FROSST. 
 
 As I aspire in this rude song of mine. 
 
 To make his name in greater lustre shine, 
 
 And though his dust lies slumbering^ in the grave, 
 
 He left a name unstained, heroic, brave ; 
 
 A name which echoes through the tented past 
 
 Like sound of charge, rung in a bugle's blast. 
 
By heaven 'tis often given to the great, 
 
 To find their day of fame the hour of fate ; 
 
 So with the Father of old Eliots sons and daughters, 
 
 Who walked with Death near Old Piscataqua's waters, 
 
 Which still will bear his glory on the tide, 
 
 Till in Eternity their waves subside. 
 
 Fate full of heaven! its mercy and its power,— 
 
 Man made immortal in his mortal hour, — 
 
 So Major Charles with thee; the hour that wrought 
 
 Thy fame, thy footsteps to the grave hath brought : 
 
 The same thy closing and thy opening scene, 
 
 But, Oh ! with many a sad, sad year between. 
 
 Thus fate pursued the paths marked out by Fame 
 
 With laggard speed and with misguided aim, 
 
 Till Glory's courses thou hadst gone around, 
 
 And Fate o'erlooked thee where first fame had found ; 
 
 But not until the cycle thou hadst run 
 
 Of all Old Eliot's warriors known beneath the sun. 
 
 And endless thus as the Creator's span, 
 
 Must be the memory of this noble man 
 
 Whose name a calm and steady radiance throws 
 
 On Eliot's early history, like the sun's repose ; 
 
 Two centuries has he slumbered in the grave. 
 
 Two centuries he's been numbered with the Brave ! 
 
 Had I the power I well might pause to scan 
 The varied years of this heroic man ; 
 Might follow through his strange heroic life, 
 Where oft was seen the Indians bloody knife ; 
 .\nd tell how fields were stained in this fair clime, 
 By blood and tears, rapacity and crime. 
 
 Where the wild Indian dance or war-whoop rose, 
 The scene is now of plenty and repose ; 
 The quiver of the Indian race is empty now, 
 His bow lies broken underneath the plow ; 
 And where the wheat fields rustle in the gale. 
 The vanished Indian scarcely leaves a trail. 
 
 ■My 'II 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 983 532 3