Cherokee Phoenix

EXTRAORDINARY STORY- In the years 1675-6, Capt. Samuel Appleton was commissioned to take command of

Published May, 3, 1834

Page 2 Column 4b

EXTRAORDINARY STORY- In the years 1675-6, Capt. Samuel Appleton was commissioned to take command of the companies which went scouting up the Connecticut River, with Captains Church, Mosely, 'c., and to unite with Maj. Treal, of Connecticut, in exterminating the Indians from Hadley and Deerfield, the scenes of many a sanguinary conflict. At this time, King Philip, who had been driven from the sea coast and the English settlements, into the interior, retired with many of his followers to the Northfield Indians; and by his influence excited them with a bitter and inveterate hatred towards the whites, and by their sudden excursions kept the surrounding villages in a constant state of alarm, and it was absolutely necessary for them to exercise unwearied watchfulness, for in any unguarded or unprepared moment they were made to feel the unforgiving enmity which actuated them.

Philip assembled a large body of Indians near the falls of Montagne, where he was surprised during the night by Captain Turner. Many of the Indians were seized with such panic that they fled to their canoes, which they launched in such haste, that they forgot their paddles and were carried over the falls. These falls are now called Turner's Falls. This was the last and most severe blow Philip received before he returned to his native country in Rhode Island where he soon after terminated his life and the war which brought so many calamities upon New England.- It was about this time that the inhabitants of these villages found it necessary for their own defence and security, to concert together, and with unwearied diligence to watch over and protect their families from the wiles and stratagems of their subtle adversaries, and to adopt some mode of communicating with each other, so that if they should be attacked, or their forts invested by a considerable body of Indians, the others could succor them. About this time a body of one or two hundred Indians, had been for some time prowling about the neighborhood of Squakaheage or Northfield, and the inhabitants of the surrounding villages collected about an equal number together and marched out to meet them and give them battle. They confronted each other upon two sand hills in the south part of the town, now called 'the farms.' The activeness of the Indians secured to them the fatal advantage of the first fire; and the consequence was a greater part of their enemies bit the dust and the rest fled; but the savages shouting with their peculiar cry, the national tocsin of war, pursued, and one by one they fell beneath the tomahawk and the scalping knife, excepting a solitary soldier who continued his flight to the south through the woods. Fear lent him wings, and altho' he did not gain upon his pursuers or they upon him, still hope buoyed him up that he might yet escape among the intricacies of the forest. After running about two miles, he entered a vast hollow, into which the river in certain seasons set back and overflowed it. Just before him lay prostrate across the path a large decayed tree; at one bound he cleared the trunk and instantly disappeared from their astonished sight, and though they searched carefully and diligently for his hiding place, they never beheld him again, but left the spot impressed with a superstitious awe, attributing his disappearance to the agency of evil spirits who they supposed inhabited the place. The commander of the detachment was killed upon a point of eminence called Mount Toby, being a peak of that ridge of mountains which runs parallel for many miles with the eastern shore of the Connecticut River, and a short distance southeast from where the battle commenced. A tall hemlock rears its head far above its fellows near the sequestered spot, and is the only mark to tell the little earthly mound where the unfortunate warrior fell. This place is called Beer's Point, in commemoration of the individual who there perished. The ____ soldier who escaped to relate the consequences, of this melancholy and disastrous defeat, was preserved by a singular fortuitous circumstances, for when he leaped the prostrate tree he found himself snugly secreted, and the leaves of the forest had so completely covered him and his place of refuge, that he defied the sagacity and dexterity of the lynx-eyed Indians to discover him.

The hollow, or rather the cove, was ever after called the Soldiers Cove. It is but a few miles north of Mille's River and on the banks of the Connecticut.