WILLIAMS, JOHN
(10 December 1664, Roxbury, MA-12 June 1729, Deerfield, MA). Education: B.A., Harvard College, 1683. Career: Minister, Deerfield, MA, 1686-1729.
There is something in the American character that loves a tale of captivity. Perhaps that interest has its origin in biblical tales of saints in bondage. Possibly it grows out of the early Puritan experience of fleeing from persecution in England. Certainly it draws on the same springs of feeling that create a peculiarly American sympathy with the poor and the downtrodden. Stories of captivity were some of the most popular literature of the colonial period, and they continue to fascinate Americans in the decades of the Vietnam War and Middle Eastern terrorism.
John Williams, minister of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was one of those early captives. As a young man he settled in frontier Deerfield in a house forty-two feet by twenty, built by townsmen who considered the presence of a minister a sign that their village was "on the map." The town stayed there until one bloody dawn in the year 1704. New England was involved in Queen Anne's War, one of the recurrent wars with France. Living on the farthest frontier of Massachusetts, the Deerfield colonists had drawn into a small stockade, containing only ten home lots. Many probably considered migrating to a safer spot, and even their minister later admitted in a nice Puritan phrase, "it was a dangerous thing to be set in front of New England's sins."
The snow had drifted to the tops of the fort, and a hard crust made travel easy for the unseen enemy during the night of February 29,1704. Toward dawn the town's sentinels had gone to sleep, and without warning "the enemy came in like a flood." Suddenly 350 Frenchmen and Indians were inside the walls. John Williams and his wife were awakened by the banging of rifles and tomahawks at their doors and windows. Thirty-eight men, women, and children were killed in the attack, the remainder, numbering over a hundred, were marched into captivity. From a hillside the disconsolate Puritans looked back at their burning town. In words reminiscent of William Bradford* in another wilderness, Williams wrote: "Who can tell what sorrows pierced our souls, when we saw our selves carried away from God's sanctuary, to go into a strange land exposed to so many trials."
Williams had lost two of his children in the attack, and his wife, who had recently borne a child, was ailing. Two days march from Deerfield she fell in a stream, and an Indian who recognized that she would not be able to keep up "slew her with his hatchet, at one stroke." The captives, including the three surviving Williams children, marched on for weeks through the snow, tormented by hunger, cold, and fatigue. Each night Williams wrung blood from his socks. Eventually he was separated from his children, who were taken on another route. Williams was marched to Montreal, then Quebec, and there faced another kind of trial. The French were eager to persuade him to "defect" to their faith. An Indian threatened to tomahawk him unless he kissed a cross; he refused. He was offered a chance to be reunited with his children if he joined the Catholic church; he refused.
After almost two years of captivity Williams was released with many of the other prisoners, including his two sons, but not his daughter Eunice. He arrived back in Boston on November 21,1706. The next year he published his account of his experience under the title, The Redeemed Captive, Returning to Zion. It was republished many times, eagerly purchased as a classic account of Puritan fortitude in the face of adversity. Williams bravely moved back to Deerfield, becoming minister of a rebuilt town. He was one of the heroes of his generation, and his son Stephen, also a captive, who later became minister of nearby Longmeadow, shared some of the glory of the redeemed captive.
The people of New England had more difficulty coming to terms with his daughter Eunice. She married a Mohawk, and raised a family among the natives. Eunice even made several visits to her family and friends in New England, bringing along her husband and children, all dressed in Indian costumes. Although the Puritans were apparently cordial to her, she must have seemed a strange contrast to her father and brothers. The New Englanders had difficulty comprehending a woman who would choose to adopt an alien culture.
But they had no difficulty at all in honoring the courage of a man who had preserved his Puritan faith in a time of trial. Williams's achievement must have encouraged them to believe that the fortitude of their Puritan ancestors was still active in New England long after the ftrst settlements.
Bibliography
A: Warnings to the Unclean: A Discourse preacht at Springfield ... at the Execl/lion of Sarah Smith (Boston. 1699); The Redeemed Captive, Returning to Zion (Boston. 1707); A Serious Word to the Posterity of Holy Men (Boston. 1729).
B: AAP 1. 214-17; NCAB 1. 258; SHG 3, 249-62; Stephen W. Williams, A Biographical Memoir of Rev. John Williams (Greenfield, Mass., 1837).
There is something in the American character that loves a tale of captivity. Perhaps that interest has its origin in biblical tales of saints in bondage. Possibly it grows out of the early Puritan experience of fleeing from persecution in England. Certainly it draws on the same springs of feeling that create a peculiarly American sympathy with the poor and the downtrodden. Stories of captivity were some of the most popular literature of the colonial period, and they continue to fascinate Americans in the decades of the Vietnam War and Middle Eastern terrorism.
John Williams, minister of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was one of those early captives. As a young man he settled in frontier Deerfield in a house forty-two feet by twenty, built by townsmen who considered the presence of a minister a sign that their village was "on the map." The town stayed there until one bloody dawn in the year 1704. New England was involved in Queen Anne's War, one of the recurrent wars with France. Living on the farthest frontier of Massachusetts, the Deerfield colonists had drawn into a small stockade, containing only ten home lots. Many probably considered migrating to a safer spot, and even their minister later admitted in a nice Puritan phrase, "it was a dangerous thing to be set in front of New England's sins."
The snow had drifted to the tops of the fort, and a hard crust made travel easy for the unseen enemy during the night of February 29,1704. Toward dawn the town's sentinels had gone to sleep, and without warning "the enemy came in like a flood." Suddenly 350 Frenchmen and Indians were inside the walls. John Williams and his wife were awakened by the banging of rifles and tomahawks at their doors and windows. Thirty-eight men, women, and children were killed in the attack, the remainder, numbering over a hundred, were marched into captivity. From a hillside the disconsolate Puritans looked back at their burning town. In words reminiscent of William Bradford* in another wilderness, Williams wrote: "Who can tell what sorrows pierced our souls, when we saw our selves carried away from God's sanctuary, to go into a strange land exposed to so many trials."
Williams had lost two of his children in the attack, and his wife, who had recently borne a child, was ailing. Two days march from Deerfield she fell in a stream, and an Indian who recognized that she would not be able to keep up "slew her with his hatchet, at one stroke." The captives, including the three surviving Williams children, marched on for weeks through the snow, tormented by hunger, cold, and fatigue. Each night Williams wrung blood from his socks. Eventually he was separated from his children, who were taken on another route. Williams was marched to Montreal, then Quebec, and there faced another kind of trial. The French were eager to persuade him to "defect" to their faith. An Indian threatened to tomahawk him unless he kissed a cross; he refused. He was offered a chance to be reunited with his children if he joined the Catholic church; he refused.
After almost two years of captivity Williams was released with many of the other prisoners, including his two sons, but not his daughter Eunice. He arrived back in Boston on November 21,1706. The next year he published his account of his experience under the title, The Redeemed Captive, Returning to Zion. It was republished many times, eagerly purchased as a classic account of Puritan fortitude in the face of adversity. Williams bravely moved back to Deerfield, becoming minister of a rebuilt town. He was one of the heroes of his generation, and his son Stephen, also a captive, who later became minister of nearby Longmeadow, shared some of the glory of the redeemed captive.
The people of New England had more difficulty coming to terms with his daughter Eunice. She married a Mohawk, and raised a family among the natives. Eunice even made several visits to her family and friends in New England, bringing along her husband and children, all dressed in Indian costumes. Although the Puritans were apparently cordial to her, she must have seemed a strange contrast to her father and brothers. The New Englanders had difficulty comprehending a woman who would choose to adopt an alien culture.
But they had no difficulty at all in honoring the courage of a man who had preserved his Puritan faith in a time of trial. Williams's achievement must have encouraged them to believe that the fortitude of their Puritan ancestors was still active in New England long after the ftrst settlements.
Bibliography
A: Warnings to the Unclean: A Discourse preacht at Springfield ... at the Execl/lion of Sarah Smith (Boston. 1699); The Redeemed Captive, Returning to Zion (Boston. 1707); A Serious Word to the Posterity of Holy Men (Boston. 1729).
B: AAP 1. 214-17; NCAB 1. 258; SHG 3, 249-62; Stephen W. Williams, A Biographical Memoir of Rev. John Williams (Greenfield, Mass., 1837).