The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1875-09-30
BRAVE HANNAH DUSTON.
How She Escaped the Indians and has Suf-
fered Greatly from her Moiern Friends.

rered Greatly from her Modern Friends.
The Worcester Spy has letter from
Boston which contains the following:
You remember the exciting story of
Hannah Duston and the Indians that
in March, 1897, she, with her baby only
o week old and her nurse, were seized
by party of Indians who made an at
tack upon Haverhill, then a frontier
town. Mr.. Duston succeeded, by great
courage and GOODNESS, in saving the
seven older children and himself. The
savages killed the baby and forced the
two women to make terrible march in
snow and darkness to the Merrimack,
where the Contoocook empties into it.
Here the party camped, and when the
Indians were asleep the two women,
helped by boy, also a prisoner, scalped
ten of them, only one squaw escaping,
and made their way back to Haverhill.
II was wonderful piece of heroism and
physical endurance, and was told and
sung over and over again in the quaint
prose and unpoetical verse of that day.
The biographies and histories in use
when was child had queer wood cuts
| of the murder of the baby and the es-
cape of the women. Other records
| showed the ten savages dead in row-a
very droll picture and anything but i'm
pressive. Then for long time the
story and memory of the brave women
were neglected, and seemed in danger
of being forgotten. But in 1856 the
| Duston monument association was form
ed in the west parish of Haverhill
(where Mrs. Duston had lived and
died), for the purpose of buying and
improving the site of her house and
erecting monument there in her honor.
The money needed was raised by sub
scription. There was decided difference
of opinion as to the proper place for the
monument, many contributors desiring
to have it in the town square or some
other public place, and not on the out
of the-way Duston farm.
But the original plan was carried out,
and in June, 1861, a marble monument
twenty-four feet high, with lengthy in
scriptions, was erected on the supposed
site of the house from which Mrs. Dus-
ton was captured one hundred and sixty
four years before. The monument cost
81, 200. Strangely enough, some time
after, the monument disappeared, was
carried off bodily one night the base
which was left still stands to mark the
place, but the fate of the monument re-
mains q mystery. Nobody seems to have
cared enough about it to look it up; and
its disappearance remains one of the
most curious thefts on record, although
many shrewd guesses were made as to
the thief. In 1872 a second attempt was
made to commemorate the deeds of
Hannah Duston aud Mrs. Netf. Six
thousand dollars were raised by sub.
! scri ptiUu, tliitt pUILiou Of LlIe iSlaud of
ContoocoOk, at the mouth of the Contoo-
cook river, where the wigwam stood in
which Hannah Duston killed the In
dams, was given for tho site, and the
work went on energetically. In June,
| 1874, the completed monument was un-
yelled, and there was the usual glorifca-
ton, with an extraordinary address, and
more extraordinary poem from Mr.. r.
B. Caverley.
| The structure is of granite, crowned
by an awk ward, desperate-looking female
figure, who in the first draft carried a
hatchet, or tomahawk, perhaps, in one
hand, and held up flying scarf with the
other This arrangement of arms was
afterward altered, but not improved.
On one side is this inscription:
Heroum Costa
| Fides Justitia
| Hannah Duston
| Mary Neh
Samuel Leonardson
| March 90 1857
... Midnight
On the opposite side is: .-. B..
March
| Is 1867 80
The War Whoop Tomahawk Fagot
| and
Infanticides
were at Hayerhill
.. The Ashes of the Camp fires
at night
.. and ten of the Tribe
are here
On the third side is a list of names OF
Donors ; but as there was room for only
twenty two, the list ends with the words
| many, many, others.
Among the favored names printed are
Benjamin T. Butler and James G. Aver.
On the fourth side are these verses:
Ssatua
1874
Know We that we with many plant it,
In trust to the State we give and grant it
That the tide OF Time may never cant it
Nor mar nor sever;
That Pilgrims here may heed the mothers
That Truth and Faith and all the others
| With banners high in gloiious colors
May stand forever.
The names of five witnesses follow,
The monument stands in full viow from
the Northern railroad, few miles above
Concord, N. II.