The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-03-09
Abouran Old Door.

Deerfe.d, Mass, has just had a curious
festival. Everybody has heard of the old
"Hoyt House." which was standing in that
village until within few years, and which
was the only building left when the town
was burned by the French and Indians in
17O4. For century and half this ancient
relic had stood almost unchanged from its
original appearance, though its timbers lit
was built in 1885, were really crumbling to
decay. But something over dozen years
ago, Mr.. Hoyt, its owner and occupant, found
it grown unfit to live in, and after many vain
endeavors to awaken interest in its purchase
and preservation by the town or by men who
presumably felt the value of so rare a rel
ic of old days, regretfully tore it down. Some
OF its timbers have been made into canes.
A little decaying fragment lies on the table
beside us at this moment 1t was broken
from the sill of the window through which
the Indians fired at Mrs. Sheldon as she
started up in bed. The old door, made of
treble oaken plank, ard studded SO thick
with wrought iron nails that the hatchets of
the Indians only succeeded in making a
small opening in it, was undecayed, and with
piece of board nailed over the hole, served
as door to the very last. 1t was retained in
the Hoyt family as an heirloom until four
years ago, when it was sold for the benefit of
the orphan daughter of David Starr Hoyt,
the lamented "Kansas martyr" to DR.. D. d
Slade of Boston, a gentleman of some anti
quarian tastes. A fruitless attempt was soon
after made to regain it for Deer6eld, and late
ly, the owner somewhat conscience-smitten
for retaining it, he says, renewed the nego-
tiations, and it was repurchased for its mere
cost-$11O.
So few weeks age, on the anniversary
night of that terrible sacking of Deerield in
1904, great festival was held in the sober
old town. There was a great gathering in
the town hall, and feasting and speeches, and
amid much glorifcation the old door was re-
stored to the village from which it should
never have departed. A correspondent of
the Springfield Republican says:
Rev. DR.. Crawford introduced the repossess.
ed treasure, and Rev. j. f. Moors of Green
field, only few years since of Deerfield, told
tuO UtOOuy Cudpucr VI ulStOTy SO We'll known
to us all, how Hertel De Rouville with his
200 Frenchmen and 142 Indians, marched 800
| miles from Canada in the deep SHOWS climbed
the palisades of the fort on the high drifts in
the dead of night, massacred the weak and
helpless, the infants. and all who attempted
either to fight or to escape, killing in all AZ
persons, one sixth of all the towns Iopula-
ton, and fired the houses one by one, save
two, one OF them, the noted old house that
lasted even to our day. This was filed with
men and women hastily gathered there, and
the door was so securely bolted that they
could nst force it. Their tomahawks were
welded fiercely to pierce the double door.
thickly studded with nails; but through the
hole thus made they thrust a gun and fired,
the ball passing through the neck of Mrs,
| Sheldon, who lay i'll upon her bed, and lodged
| in the timber beyond, where it was to be seen
| until the house was destroyed. Capt. Shell
| don's son and his wife, of the Springfield
| Chapns, leaped from their chamber window,
| by which his wife was so much injured that
| she could not walk. Her husband yield
ed to her entreaties and fled alone. She was
taken to Canada despite her lameness, and
| lived to return and rejoin her husband some
| two and half years afterwards. The In
| diaDs got in through the back door at last
| and before they left set the house ON fire; but
| those who had fled returned in season to save
it. There was sharp pursuit by those who es-
| capped, Joined by few soldiers, but with their
150 prisoners, and the bell of st. Regis, the
| object OF their journey, and all this slaugh-
| ter, the invading savages, white and red, went
their way unpunshed. That bell which
blessed by Catholic clergy, and fallen to the
use OF heretlcs, caused this holy crusade, still
sounds mathis and vespers from the steeple OF
st. Regis, in the solemn woods of the st.
Lawrence.