Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/131

 yohn Stark.

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��"Seven Years" or "French War," and were distinguished for good eon- duct, coohiess, and bravery.

John Stark, one of the above named brothers, and the subject of this roemoir, was born in London- derry, August 28, 1728. He resided with his father in Londonderry and Derry field until past his minorit}', their home occupation being that of farmers and millers. The father owned extensive tracts of land about Amoskeag falls, and was also one of the original proprietors of Dunbarton, then called Starkstown. Saw-mills and grist-mills were built and run by John Stark at both these places.

The settlements being at this time sparse, and surrounded by intermina- ble forests, abounding in game and ferocious animals, every young man of the settlers was naturalh^ a hunter, and quite as familiar with wood- craft and the chase as he was with the implements of agriculture, or the saws and stones of the mill. It was also a time of semi-war. The fierce remnants of the native Indian tribes, although nominally conquered at Love well's fight in 1725, still con- tinued to haunt tiieir ancient hunting- grounds for at least forty years later. The settler was obliged to be in readi- ness at all times to defend the lives of his family from the predatory sav- age, and his herds and flocks from the bears and wolves and catamounts of the forest.

Amid such surroundings, and daih^ accustomed to hardship, vigilance, and laborious exertion, the young boys grew into that stern and vigoi'- ous manhood which the necessities of the times required. Winter hunting expeditions to more remote parts of

��the wilderness were often organized for hunting and trapping the fur- bearing animals, whose peltries found ready sale for exportation, and the proceeds of which added materially to the family resources.

It was on one of these hunting ex- peditions, in March, 1752, that a party of four, of which John Stark was a member, was attacked by the Indians on Baker's river in the town of Rumney. David Stinson was shot and killed : William Stark escaped ; John Stark and Amos Eastman were captured, and taken through the wil- derness to the upper waters of Con- necticut river, and subsequently to St. Francis, in Canada, where they arrived in June, three months after their capture. The bold and defiant bearing of Stark during this captivity excited the admiration of his savage captors to such an extent that he was adopted by the chief sachem and treated with great kindness, after the first initiatory ceremony of running the gauntlet, in which ceremony he took an unexpected part by using his club on the Indians, instead of wait- ins; for them to use their clubs on him. On being set to the task of hoeins: corn, he carefully hoed the weeds and cut up the corn, and then threw the hoe into the river, declar- ing that it was the business of squaws, and not of warriors, to hoe corn. His boldness secured his release from the drudgery usually imposed on their captives, and they called him the "young chief."

Durino; this enforced residence with the Indians, he obtained a knowledge of their language and methods of warfare which proved of great ser- vice to him in his subsequent military

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