Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Ayer Sounds the Warning Horn

Captain Samuel Ayer was a Selectman, Constable and Deacon, a man of high standing in the community. Ayer heard distant gunfire from his garrison home in the North Parish just before the raiders descended on what was the first Ayers Village where Gale Park resides today. So sudden was the attack that Thomas Ayer’s wife and daughter were chased down and killed as they ran for the garrison. Thomas survived but a life or death defense of the safe house ensued as French and Indian warriors surrounded it and rammed the door with battering logs amidst a hail of musket balls. Legend has it that a lull in the battle allowed Captain Ayer to sound a horn four times, which was returned by two answering calls from Mill Street. This apparently unnerved the Frenchmen, as they must have thought English reinforcements were on the way and they made a hasty retreat with thirteen of their wounded companions. After assessing the damage and assuring himself that the compound was secure Captain Ayer set out with eight other men in pursuit of the marauders.

In spite of the damage inflicted it was becoming evident, that the raid on this village was much more costly than the French leaders ever anticipated. The English had proved to be resilient fighters and after the initial shock they responded with deadly resolve. At the garrison assaults, Frenchmen and Indians had fallen or were badly wounded and even in the savage invasions of solitary homes the settlers had fought back with a good measure of vengeance. The Indian leader Assacambuit was wounded in the foot and his raiders were now in full retreat scattering down Winter Street, across the Little River and racing for cover.

Commander De Chaillons was caught off guard when he reached the top of Long Hill. This was an open field and when Joseph Bradley’s men opened fire from the woods the trap was sprung. Captain Ayer and his party now numbered about twenty men and caught up to the enemy from the rear with his son and another company of men on the way. The skirmish lasted more than an hour before Captain Ayer was slain. He was a large man and had been shot in the groin and he bled so profusely that when told his father had been killed his son looked at the body lying in the grass and said that could not possibly be his father as he (the corpse) had on a pair of red breeches.

The French and Indians hid in the tall grass, as the men now numbering around sixty fired on them at will from long range. They could not stand and reload their muskets as they would be easy targets, so they lay low. The pursuing townsmen however, dared not advance to engage them in close combat as they knew the Indian's fighting skills were deadly. As a result the raiding party escaped to the cover of the forest and the engagement ended. In the aftermath many retreating Frenchmen returned to give themselves up having no provisions and suffering severely from the battlle.

The surviving colonists faced the grim task of burying their dead. The day was hot and the bodies would soon putrefy so a single grave was excavated at the burial ground where sixteen cadavers were laid to rest side by side. Their Pastor Benjamin Rolfe was among the casualties and so Colonel Richard Saltonstall offered a few solemn words. The soldiers killed were buried together in a mass grave. Enemy casualties were buried for the most part where they had fallen, Indians in shallow graves while the burial spots of Frenchmen were covered with fieldstones. A total of sixty-one persons died between sunrise and sunset on that fateful Sunday.

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