John Hinsdale

Citations

1. [S1711] Don Gleason Hill, editor, The Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths, and Intentions of Marriage, in the Town of Dedham (Dedham, Mass.: Printed at the Office of "The Dedham Transcript", 1886), p. 4.
2. [S925] Battle of Bloody Brook, online http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/bloodybr.html, During September, 1675, bands of warriors roamed the Connecticut River valley, attacking villagers as they worked in the fields or traveled between villages on business. Unlike the English who were accustomed to fighting fixed battles on open plains, Amerindians fought from concealed spots and attacked small groups. This "American" way of fighting would be a problem for the British during the next century also. The colonists used these same guerilla tactics, which they learned fighting the Amerindians, to fight against the British troops in the American Revolutionary War.
   The military garrison at Hadley grew as more troops were sent there to aid the English settlers. Provisions had to be sent from the individual villages to feed these troops. On September 19, 1675, Captain Lathrop and 80 men were riding convoy for a wagon train loaded with threshed wheat on its way to the mill just north of the Hadley garrison.
   The group of carts started from Deerfield on this fateful morning. Even though the trail led through dense forest, no vanguard or flankers were sent out. The force was so large, surely no warriors would attack them. As the convoy emerged from the dense forest into a narrow, swampy thicket, it slowed down to cross a brook. Realizing the crossing would take a long time as each heavily-laden cart lumbered across, the soldiers tossed their rifles on top of the wheat and prepared to relax. Some soldiers began to gather the grapes growing alongside the brook.
   At a given signal, hundreds of warriors, who were lying concealed all around the spot, opened fire on the convoy. Chaos followed, bullets and arrows flew from every direction. Captain Lathrop immediately fell. Of the 80 soldiers, only 7 or 8 escaped; none of the Deerfield men who were driving the carts survived.
   Captain Moseley and a troop of 60 soldiers who were in the area heard the sounds of the ambush and hurried to the scene. For approximately 6 hours, a battle was fought with neither side gaining the upper hand. Each soldier fought in the Amerindian style: conceal yourself, select a target and shoot. Finally a troop of 100 Connecticut soldiers with a band of Mohegans arrived. Realizing they could not win now, the warriors disappeared into the forest. The surviving soldiers straggled back to Deerfield for the night. According to D. E. Leach in his book, Flintlock and Tomahawk, p. 88, "Moseley retired to Deerfield that night, and there he and his grim-faced men were taunted from a safe distance by a group of the enemy warriors who gleefully displayed articles of clothing taken from the English dead." The surviving soldiers returned the next day to bury the dead in a mass grave. The sluggish little brook was re-named Bloody Brook. Deerfield was abandoned shortly afterward and later the village was destroyed by King Philip's warriors.
   Today, in the town of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, there is a stone shaft marking the edge of the swampy area where the ambush occurred.
3. [S926] Kyle F. Zelner, "Essex County's Two Militias: The Social Composition of Offensive and Defensive Units during King Philip's War, 1675-1676", The New England Quarterly 72:4 (Dec. 1999): "On 18 September 1675, Captain Thomas Lathrop and his company of seventy-four soldiers were ordered to protect the wagon trains leaving Deer?eld, Massachusetts, from Indian attack. Since towns on the western frontier were not yet able to muster the necessary manpower for an adequate defense against King Philip’s warriors, the defensive force from Essex County had been gathered just the month before to strengthen vulnerable garrisons.’ In mid-September, as enemy activity up and down the Connecticut River Valley intensified, military and town leaders decided to abandon Deeriield. As the townspeople made their way toward Northampton, Lathrop's men felt they had little to fear. As a rule, the Indians did not attack large companies; instead, they preferred to take on unsuspecting frontier towns and garrison houses. Not one flanker or vanguard was sent out, and it was later reported that many of the men had stacked their weapons in the carts and were picking wild grapes along the trail. In a small clearing, the Indians attacked; hundreds of warriors charged the bewildered and outnumbered soldiers. That day Muddy Brook became forever Bloody Brook as Lathrop and much of his command.
4. [S289] George Sheldon, History of Deerfield, Massachusetts, Volume 2 (Deerfield: E.A. Hall and Co., 1896), 100-111.
5. [S742] L. M. Boltwood, Genealogies of Hadley Families (Northampton: Metcalf & Company, 1862), pp. 72-73. Father Robert Hinsdale and sons Barnabas, John and Samuel were slain in the Battle of Bloody Brook. Hereinafter cited as Genealogies of Hadley Families.