Though I'm from Maine, I was
surprised to discover that my ancestor Jacob Farrar died in a Colonial Fryeburg
conflict. I am sure this is taught to local school
children from this area, but I had never heard of Lovewell’s Fight in
1725. When I read that Jacob had been
killed in this fight between the Native people and the early colonists from
Massachusetts, I had to research what this was about Lovewell’s fight or the Battle of Pequawket (the
Abenaki name of the area that is now Fryeburg, Maine).
The
more I studied the surnames of the men who were killed or survived, I realized
many of them were in my ancestry. Not
only were these men descendants of my ancestors, but were brothers, cousins,
and brothers-in-law to each other and my ancestors. This
one small skirmish affected several of my ancestral families which I was never aware
of until now, including another female ancestor.
The
fight occurred on May 9, 1725, during the war in northern New England. Captain John Lovewell led a privately organized company of scalp hunters, organized
into a makeshift ranger company, and Chief Paugus led
the Abenaki at Pequawket. Capt. Lovewell sought to profit from colonial
bounties on Native scalps, while Chief Paugus defended his people’s land
against encroaching settlers along the Kennebec River in
present-day Maine. Capt. Lovewell’s party consisted of 47 men, who were inexperienced
with ranging and with a smaller group than had accompanied Lovewell in past
expeditions. They left Dunstable,
Massachusetts (now Nashua, New Hampshire) on April 16, 1725. Their Indian guide and two other men returned
to Dunstable unable to continue. With
one of their men falling ill, they built a fort at what is now Ossipee, New
Hampshire where they left ten men including a doctor and supplies for their
return. The other 34 men pressed on to
Pequawket, some thirty miles away.
That
morning of the 9th while being led in prayer by the chaplain, they spotted
a lone Abenaki warrior. Suspecting he
was a decoy and more warriors were ahead, the men tried to hide their packs and
pursued the warrior, killing and scalping him.
However, a larger group of Abenaki warriors discovered their packs and
proceeded to wait for the men to return.
As the men returned single file, the warriors attacked, killing Capt. Lovewell
and his lieutenants instantly. During
the 10-hour battle Chief Paugus was also killed. The colonists retreated. Fourteen men were dead with four wounded,
three of them died on the return to the Ossipee fort. Abenaki deserted the area and left for
Canada. There are no known number of men the Abenaki lost.
Some
sources give the date of the battle as May 8th because they did not
want the fact that the chaplain who had led the prayer that Sunday morning had
been the first one to scalp the first Abenaki warrior on the sabbath. By making the battle the day before, it would
preserve the chaplain’s reputation.
A monument dedicated to those who died in the battle was erected in Fryeburg, Maine. The grave marker for those men who died there.
THE FARRAR FAMILY
Jacob Farrar was my 7th great-grandfather. He was born on October 23, 1692, in Concord,
Massachusetts, the son of Jacob and Susanna (Reddiat) Farrar. His family did not have any positive
incidents with the native people. His grandfather, also named Jacob Farrar had
been killed by Indians during King’s Philip’s War in 1675 in Lancaster,
Massachusetts. In another raid or massacre often
referred to in records, his infant uncle, Henry Farrar at age two was killed in 1676. His uncle John Farrar was
later killed in an Indian attack in 1707.
Jacob married Sarah Wood in 1714
and had a family of five children. In 1725, he was 33 years old, and the
temptation of the bounty placed on an Indian scalp at 100 pounds would have been hard to resist. With the hero, Capt.
John Lovewell leading them, it must have felt like a sure bet that this would
provide more money than he could earn for farming. Knowing his family’s relationship with native
people he must have felt it would be vengeance for his family relatives. He
enlisted from Concord and besides his family members who joined him, he
probably knew the other men from Concord in the company. Jacob
was wounded in the battle and said to have expired after midnight by the pond (now Lovewell Pond). His widow, Sarah was named administrix of his
estate on June 9, 1725, with her late husband’s uncle George Farrar and her
father, Josiah Wood as bondsmen. Inventory
of his estate contained books which prove that Jacob was literate. She remarried to David Parlin on April 9, 1726,
in Concord, Massachusetts, who became the guardian of her children. The division of the estate between Jacob’s
widow, Sarah Parlin and his children, Jacob and Ephraim Farrar, Sarah Conant
(my ancestor), Mary Melvin and Hannah Farrar occurred on August 8, 1743.
Mary Farrar was the sister to Jacob Farrar. In 1725, she was 30 years old and had married
David Melvin in 1715 in Concord, Massachusetts.
Her husband was 34 years old, and they had five children at that
time. David enlisted from Concord,
Massachusetts with his brother-in-law and his brother Eleazer Melvin. David was one of the 20 men who returned home
from the battle, probably to the relief of his wife and children, despite the
loss of her brother. David’s brother
Eleazer also survived the battle.
However, only 20 years later, both brothers joined the Siege of Louisbourg
in 1745 in what is now Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. David was made a Captain in Col. Willard’s
regiment. David was not so lucky this
time as he was wounded and died on November 17, 1745. However, his brother was also wounded, but survived,
dying in 1756. Mary (Farrar) Melvin
remarried to John Edwards in 1749. She died September 2, 1756, in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Joseph Farrar, son of George and Mary (Howe) Farrar, was the first cousin to Jacob Farrar. In 1725, he was 33 years old. He had married
Mary Hoskins in 1716 and had three children.
It was his father George Farrar who the bondsman for his cousin Jacob’s
widow in 1725. Both George and Jacob Farrar were grandsons of my 9th
great-grandparents, Jacob and Hannah (Hayward) Farrar. Joseph enlisted from Concord and was one of
the men who survived the battle and returned home. Although, it is not known why, but Joseph
died before August 13, 1733, when probate records show Nathan Brown was
appointed guardian for the children of Joseph Farrar, late of Concord,
Massachusetts.
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