December 1997
Benjamin Church 1690 - Document 5 - Other Accounts
From Williamson, Vol. 1, Page 625
Major Church, the next day proceeded with his men, forty miles up the Androscoggin, to the Indian fort, where he recovered seven captives, killed twenty-one of the enemy, and took one prisoner. After plundering the fort, which contained some valuable property, he left it in flames.
His prisoner was Agamcus, called from his size Great Tom, who was a sullen fellow, and on the march had the cunning to escape from his careless keepers. Flying to some of the Sagamores, he told them such frightful stories about the tremendous Church and his forces, that the Indians fled into the woods,
leaving Brackett, taken the previous year at Falmouth, who arrived at Maquoit, about the time Church was reembarking his troops.
From Cotton Mathers' Magnalia Christi Americana, Book VII, Vol. 2, Page 528
The enemy appearing a little numerous and vexatious, the government sent more forces to break up the enemies quarters; and auxiliaries both of English and Indians, under the command of Major Church, assisted the enterprise.
About three hundred men were dispatched away upon this design in the beginning of September, who landed by night in Casco Bay at a place called Macquoit, and by night marched up to pechypscot fort; where, from the information of some escaped captives, they had an expectation to meet with the enemy, but found that the wretches were gone farther afield.
They marched away for Amonoscoggin fort, which was about forty miles up the river; and wading through many difficulties, whereof one was a branch of the river it self; they met with four or five salvages going to their fort with two English prisoners.
They sav'd the prisoners, but could not catch the savages; however, on the Lord's day they got up to the fort undiscovered, where, to their sorrowful disappointment, they found no more than one and twenty of the enemy, whereof they took and slew twenty.
They found some considerable store of plunder, and rescued five English captives, and laid the fort in ashes; but one disaster they much complained of, the captain of the fort, whose name was Agamcus, alias, Great Tom, slipt away from the hands of his too careless keepers.
But if this piece of carelessness did any harm, there was another which did some good; for Great Tom having terribly scared a part of his countrymen with tidings of what had happened; and an English lad in their hands telling some truth unto them; they betook themselves to such flight in their fright, as gave one Mr. Anthony Bracket, then a prisoner with 'em, an opportunity to fly four-score miles another way.
Our forces returning to Maquoit, one of our vessels was there carelessly ran aground, and compelled thereby to stay for the next tide; and Mr. Brackett had been miserably aground, if it had not so fell out; for he thereby got thither before she was afloat, otherwise he might have perished, who afterwards much improved in service against the murderers of his father.
From James Sullivan's History of the District of Maine, pg. 179-180
Colonel Church landed at Maquoit, and went directly to Pegypscott Fort, but found no person, either Savage or white man, there. ... when Church found none of the enemy at Pegypscott, he marched immediately for the fort on Ameriscoggan Falls.
He kept on the south side of the river; and on the plain, a mile south of the Falls, he saw an Indian, who was known by the name of Young Doney, with his wife, and two white captives.
Doney fled and got to the fort, but his wife was killed, and the captives set at liberty. Church with great difficulty crossed the river, and gained the fort, but not until Doney had alarmed it and the Savages, excepting one man, and two or three women, had made their escape.
The Indians ran under the fall of water, where a place is left between the cascade and the rock, and by that, and by other means, made their flight successful. There were several white captives in the fort, among whom was the wife of Capt. Huckins, who had been taken in a garrison at Oyster River, now Durham.
The wives of Worumbo and Haken, two sachems of the Ameriscogan tribe, made a successful application, for their own lives, and those of their children. There was an Indian taken in the fort, who was there on a visit from the Pennecooks.
The squaws begged his life, and obtained it, by bearing testimony to his humanity to captives, and of his helping them to escape, when their lives were in jeopardy. He was taken prisoner, but on the march of the army, being terrified by threatnings, he made his escape.
The Savages, excepting the wives of the two sechems, and their children, and the prisoner mentioned, were knocked on the head and buried.
