Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/400

 364 THE G1^\NITE MONTHLY.

From here the hills are pushed back, and on the west side are more abrupt, and aspire to a mountainous appearance, and the valley has widened into quite pretentious meadows. After receiving sundry additions from mountain lakes and beaver swamps, it quietly glides into the Connecticut, just at the foot of what was known by the first explorers, and in the early records, as the " Upper Coos Intervals," being already cleared lands when the white man came.

The first authentic record we have of any visitation to this section, other than that of the wild men of the woods, is from the narrative of John Stark, afterward the hero of Bennington, and whose memory New Hampshire's sons delight to honor.

Before the advance of civilization beyond the old military posts of the fron- tiers in southern New Hampshire, the settlers were a race of hunters and ran- gers. The necessities of the times trained every man and boy to the use of fire-arms. The deprivations and dangers of life upon the borders, and the vicissitudes of the camp, perilous conflicts, providential escapes and romantic adventures, were thickly woven into the lives of the pioneers.

The remembrance of most of them has passed away utterly, and of many others dim and doubtful traditions only remain. Some of these, handed down from the actors to their children, and by them rehearsed to a generation already gone, contain too much of reality and circumstance to be entirely fictitious, and yet investigation only excites questions and never-to-be-gratified longings. We can say of them, they were characteristic of the times of which they are narrated and possess shadows of fact, therefore are entitled to consideration.

Among the most skillful and noted of these pioneer hunters, and Indian scouts, were the brothers John and William Stark, of Londonderry, where they resided with their father until 1752. In March of that year, in company with two 'other adventurous spirits, David Stinson and Amos Eastman, they started upon a hunting expedition into the northern wilds. Upon the banks of the Asquarnchumauke, or what is now known as Baker's river, sixty miles into the heart of the wilderness, within the present town of Rumney, they built their camp, in regular hunters' style, of hemlock bark and evergreen boughs. In the vicinity they put out their traps, and prepared for a long hunt. They were very successful, and by the last of April had accumulated a valuable lot of furs, and were already anticipating a return to the settlements and their homes, when they were interrupted by a band of prowling Indians.

Titigaw, a chief of the Anasaguntacooks, with ten of his warriors, on their way from the northward for the purpose of ravaging upon the frontiers, came across the trail of the hunters, and lying in wait they captured John Stark while on the line collecting his traps. The other three would have fallen into an ambush, but that John ga\e the alarm as they were descending the river in their canoe. Stinson was shot before they could reach the shore, William Stark escaped, but Eastman was taken. Securing the furs and arms of the hunters, the redskins started up the river with their captives. Crossing over to the Connecticut valley, they proceeded to the upper Coos, from whence, says Stark's narrative, "they dispatched three of their number with Eastman, to the head- quarters of their tribe." The remainder, with Stark, employed themselves for sometime in hunting vipon a small stream called "John's River." The prisoner was confined at night, but liberated during the day, and allowed to try his luck at hunting. After a season spent in fishing and the pursuit of game here among the hills, during which time Stark doubtless explored the river which was to thereafter bear his name far up toward the mountains, on the 9th of June, they too, by way of Lake Memphremagog, reached the Indian village of the St. Francis, and' the end of liis captive journey.

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