Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII. The Burning Op Royalton. With New Pacts And Traditions. The inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants were in constant danger of invasion by the British with their blood-thirsty redskins. As has been said, the frontier was kept quite constantly guarded, but this guard was not sufficiently large to prevent incursions of small bodies of the enemy, who, favored by the dense forests, and entirely familiar with their ground, slipped in from Canada, took the settlers unawares, accomplished their purpose of capture or destruction, and fled back to their covert in Canada, generally without loss to themselves. They avoided places where fortifications were built, unless they knew that no force was in possession. The raid on Barnard, August 9,1780, had added new anxiety to the already agitated minds of the settlers in Royalton and vicinity, but the building of forts at Barnard and Bethel seemed to offer protection. The fort at Royalton, which now, since the settlement of Bethel, was no longer on the extreme frontier, had probably been removed to furnish material for Fort Fortitude. For some reason the inhabitants were looking for the approach of the enemy from that direction, though now it is generally understood that the old Indian trails led northward in that direction, and their southern route was oftener by way of the First Branch of White river. So few remains of Indians have ever been found in the town, that it seems quite certain it was never occupied as a hunting ground by them, only as a camping place on their migrations to and from Canada. Tradition says one of their camping grounds was at the mouth of the First Branch. There seem to have been two routes very generally used by the Indians in their migrations; one by the St....