King Philip's War

Type	War
Date	June 20, 1675 to August 12, 1676

King Philip's War, fought in 1675 and 1676 between the English colonies and the Wampanoag sachem Metacom, called Philip, with the Nipmuc, Narragansett and other peoples who joined him, came to Billerica when the town was barely twenty years old and had about fifty families. The town was never attacked in force, but for a year it lived as a frontier post: its families were gathered into fortified garrison houses, soldiers from other towns were quartered on it, its own men rode with the colony's troops, and its taxes and harvests suffered. Billerica lost one man killed, Timothy Farley, who fell at Quaboag (Brookfield) on August 2, 1675, and the selectmen reported at the end of the war that the town was "weakened both in psons & estates by reason of the distress of the war." Town historian Henry Hazen thought that Billerica, "and perhaps the Colony," owed much of its safety to the neutrality of the Christian Indians at Wamesit and their sachem Wannalancet, who would not join Philip.

The town had been warned before. In May 1667 the General Court ordered every town to build a fort or fortified house where "women, children, & the aged" might be secured, and on November 11, 1667 the selectmen agreed on a house of stone and brick, twenty-six feet by twenty-two, with iron bars in the windows; it was never built. As late as May 3, 1675 the selectmen ordered "the constables watch to cease this present summer unless greater need appear." The need came with Philip's attack on Swansea in June and the attack on Brookfield at the beginning of August. At a town meeting on August 13, 1675 the town, "the enemy being near and the warnings by gods providence upon our neighbors being very solemne and awfull," agreed to prepare "a place of safety for women and children," with all persons and teams to work on it and the cost divided as a town charge, and chose Sergeant Thomas Foster, Sergeant Joseph Tompson, Samuel Manning and Jonathan Danforth as overseers.

On October 8, 1675, under an order of the Council sent by Major Simon Willard, the selectmen and committee of militia assigned every household to a garrison. Sergeant Ralph Hill's house took the families at that end of the town; Sergeant Thomas Foster's took the south end, among them his son Joseph Foster, James Frost, Joseph Walker and Thomas Richardson; Simon Crosby's house took seven families; and the house of the Rev. Samuel Whiting, near what is now Charnstaffe Lane, was made "ye maine garrison & ye last refuge in case of extremity." The houses of Thomas Patten, James Paterson (the Patterson Garrison, the most northerly), Sergeant James Kidder and Jonathan Danforth were also garrisons, and on October 14, when Major Willard approved the orders, he allowed George Farley's house and Jacob French's, the mill house of Timothy Brooks at the falls of the Shawshin, and Job Lane's remote house on the Winthrop farm, which he was "allowed to fortify." Forty-eight families were enumerated. Families at the north end who had already left their homes were to be "entertained in ye body of ye towne." Every household was to help fortify its garrison and store its corn near it; brush was to be cleared away; no listed soldier might move out of town without leave; absence from one's garrison cost five shillings a day; and anyone who fired a gun without cause was fined two shillings and sixpence. The work on Mr. Whiting's house alone, under Peter Bracket, took thirty men and several cattle a little more than two days each.

Hazen located the garrisons in 1883. Ralph Hill's stood until about 1850 near the Boyden place; Foster's was southeast of Bare Hill and Crosby's northwest of it, near the fork of the Lexington and Woburn roads; Kidder's and Danforth's faced each other on West Street, now River Street; and Jacob French's was probably the old house with brick-lined walls then owned by James Fletcher, half a mile east of the village. The Jonathan Danforth House was, in Hazen's words, "the only structure in town which is an incontestible relic of that day" when it was taken down about 1879. George Farley's house stood on the homestead later occupied by the Abraham Jaquith House.

The town also organized a military company, with Jonathan Danforth as lieutenant and James Kidder as ensign, and some of its men served in the field. Timothy Farley and Corporal John French rode with Captain Thomas Wheeler's troop when it was ambushed near Brookfield on August 2, 1675; Farley was among the eight killed, recorded in the town book as "slaine by ye indians at quabaog," and French was among the five wounded and, Hazen wrote, "carried through life the effect of the wounds." Two wives about to give birth, those of John Marshall and of the pastor, went to Charlestown for safety, and both infants died within days. Billerica troopers took part in the winter scout between Groton, Lancaster and Marlborough, and a Groton petition of February 6, 1675/6 warned that "the towns from whence our forces are raised, especially Chelmsford and Billerica," were "weak and in want of more strength at home," so that their troopers asked for release. Samuel Hunt was in Captain William Turner's company at the Falls Fight on the Connecticut River in May 1676. When Massachusetts rewarded the soldiers with the "Narragansett" township grants half a century later, Hunt, John Needham, James Paterson, Nathaniel Rogers, John Shed, John Sheldon, John Stearns and Joseph Tompson, or their heirs, shared in them. In June 1676 the selectmen ordered the constables to impress labor so that "ye corne of those souldiers that are now in the country service should forthwith be dressed."

Soldiers from other towns kept the garrisons at Billerica. The colony treasurer credited about two dozen men "At the Garrison at Billerica" between November 1675 and September 1676, among them John Boyd, James Poply, Thomas Welch, William Chapman, Joseph Dowse, Daniel Baldwin, Stephen Coolidge, John Fisk and Francis Wainwright, and Simon Crosby, who kept the town's ordinary, billed the colony for billeting Lieutenant Edward Oakes's troop. The Council ordered the garrison soldiers at Chelmsford, Billerica and other towns discharged on January 11, 1675/6, but the burning of Lancaster on February 10 and of Groton in March brought the danger closer. Indians were seen from Billerica on the west side of the Concord River, and on his visit to Chelmsford in late March Major Willard ordered the "Billerikye Bridge" between the two towns fortified. On March 28, 1676 a county committee of Hugh Mason, Jonathan Danforth and Richard Lowdon proposed a garrison at Wamesit that could raise a thousand bushels of corn on the Indian fields and scout the woods toward Andover and west of the Concord, and rejected a proposed line of stockades across the colony. On Sunday, April 9, 1676, the day after Joseph Abbot was killed at Andover, came what Hazen called "a special alarm" in Billerica: Increase Mather wrote that "sundry of the enemy were seen at Billerica, and (it seemeth) had shot a man there," and a letter of John Cotton said "the Indians beset Billerica round about, the inhabitants being at meeting." About twenty of Woburn's best horses and men rode to the town's relief. Hazen concluded that no one in Billerica was killed that day, since the careful town records name no victim.

The war was hardest on the Wamesit Indians, Billerica's neighbors at the junction of the Concord and Merrimack. Wannalancet withdrew to Penacook and then to the upper Connecticut, and his people at Pawtucket were falsely blamed for a barn or haystack and houses burned at Chelmsford. A party of fourteen Chelmsford men called them from their wigwams and two of the party fired, wounding five women and children and killing a boy; the Court had the Wamesits brought to Boston and for a time imprisoned them; a soldier at Woburn killed a young man on their way home; and six or seven old and sick people left behind in a wigwam were burned to death in it. The survivors fled to the woods and did not return until the war was over, and their reservation was sold off within a few years (see Annexation of the Wamesit Purchase to Chelmsford).

On August 1, 1676 the Council ordered "that the garison soldiers of Billerica, Chelmsford, & Groton be dismissed," and Philip was killed on August 12, although the war went on in Maine; Thomas Dutton of Billerica, impressed for the eastward expedition of 1677, was shot through the knee in the disastrous fight in which Captain Benjamin Swett was killed. On October 12, 1676 the selectmen, Jonathan Danforth, Ralph Hill, Joseph Tompson and John French, petitioned the General Court for an abatement of the war rates. Several families had moved to inland towns and paid their taxes there, and others had sent their cattle away "for fear of losing them here by ye enemie," so that the town's single country rate had fallen from £14 7s. 9d. in August 1675 to £11 10s. 3d.; the town had kept garrison soldiers "as much as 12 men's billet 35 weeks, or 420 weeks of one man"; and "several persons at this time having no bread corne," they wrote, "we all drew very heavily, not knowing how to pay our dues & maintain our families." In October 1677 the Court ordered that the families who had left, John Blood and Robert Blood, Michael Bacon, Timothy Brooks, Josiah Bracket, John Poulter and Joseph Foster, pay their ten rates in Billerica, thirty-one pounds in all. The garrison system set up in 1675 was kept and revived through the later Indian wars (see Indian Raids of 1692 and 1695), and in 1900 the Billerica Historical Society set a boulder at the corner of Concord Road and Charnstaffe Lane inscribed "Site of ye Maine Garrison House and Homestead of Rev. Samuel Whiting."

People

Samuel Whiting: Pastor whose house was made the main garrison and last refuge of the town in October 1675.
Jonathan Danforth: Lieutenant of the town company, overseer of the 1675 defenses, master of a garrison, county defense committeeman in 1676, and selectman who signed the petition for war-tax relief.
Ralph Hill II: Sergeant and master of the garrison at his end of the town; signed the 1676 petition as selectman.
Thomas Foster: Sergeant, overseer of the August 1675 defense work, and master of the garrison for the south end of the town.
Simon Crosby: Master of a garrison for seven families; billed the colony for billeting Lt. Edward Oakes's troop.
Joseph Tompson: Sergeant, overseer of the 1675 defense work and master of a garrison; selectman in 1676; a Narragansett grantee.
Thomas Patten: Master of one of the nine garrison houses of 1675.
James Patterson: Master of the most northerly garrison in 1675; later a Narragansett grantee for service in the war.
James Kidder: Sergeant and ensign of the town company, master of a garrison, overseer of the work on the main garrison; died April 1676.
Jacob French: His house was allowed as a garrison for four households in October 1675.
John French: Corporal wounded in the Brookfield ambush of August 2, 1675; selectman who signed the 1676 petition.
George Farley: His house was allowed as a garrison in October 1675; Timothy Farley, killed at Quaboag, was probably his son.
Job Lane: Allowed to fortify his remote house on the Winthrop farm with two soldiers; impressed for service.
Samuel Manning: One of four overseers of the town's defense work chosen August 13, 1675.
Samuel Hunt: Soldier in the Falls Fight of May 1676 and a Narragansett grantee.
John Shed: Assigned to the main garrison in 1675; a Narragansett grantee for his service.
John Stearns: Named by Hazen among the Narragansett grantees for service in the war.
Joseph Foster: Assigned to his father's garrison; one of the families the Court ordered in 1677 to pay their war rates in Billerica.
James Frost: Assigned with his family to Sergeant Foster's garrison in 1675.
Joseph Walker: Assigned to Sergeant Foster's garrison in 1675.
Thomas Richardson: Assigned with his family to Sergeant Foster's garrison in 1675.
Peter Bracket: Directed the work of fortifying Mr. Whiting's main garrison.
Michael Bacon: His family was sent to Timothy Brooks's mill garrison; he left town during the war and was ordered in 1677 to pay his war rates in Billerica.
John Blood: Left the town during the war; the Court ordered in 1677 that he pay his war rates in Billerica.
Robert Blood: Left the town during the war; the Court ordered in 1677 that he pay his war rates in Billerica.
Josiah Bracket: Left the town during the war; ordered in 1677 to pay his war rates in Billerica.
John Poulter: Left the town during the war; ordered in 1677 to pay his war rates in Billerica.

King Philip's War

King Philip's War

People

References