Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

412 GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BAKNSTABLE FAMILIES.
field, "with no other covering than a cold and moist fleece of
snow." At the dawn of day the next morning they started on
their weary march, sinking ancle deep at every step in the snow.
At one o'cloclv they arrived at the Fort. It was built on an island,
containing five or six acres, in the. swamp, surrounded with
a thick hedge and strengthened with palisades. There were two
entrances, one "over a long tree upon a place of water ; the other
at an angle of the fort, over a huge tree, which rested on its
branches, just as it had fallen, the trunk being raised five or six
feet from the ground. The latter was judged to be the only accessible
entrance. Opposite the fallen tree there was an open
space within the Fort, defended in front by a log house, and flankers
on each side. In these the Indian sharpshooters were posted,
and to attempt to cross over on the fallen tree was almost certain
death. A part of the Massachusetts troops made the first attempt.
Capt. Johnson was killed on the tree, Capt. Davenport,
who followed, met with the same fate after entering the Fort, and
a large number of soldiers were wounded or slain by the galling
shots of the Indians. A soldier named John Raymond, of Middleboro',
was the first to enter the Fort.
After three or four hours of hard fighting, the English succeeded
in taking the Fort. Hubbard estimates that the Indians
"lost seven hundred fighting men, besides three hundred that died
of their wounds. The number of old men, women and children,
that perished either by fire or were starved with hunger and cold,
none of them could tell." There were about eighty of the Eng-
lish slain, and a hundred and fifty wounded that recovered after.
Sergeant Nathaniel Hall, of the Yarmouth troops, and John Barker
of the Barnstable, were wounded. I believe none from either
town were killed. Capt. Gorham never recovered from the cold
and fatigue to which he was exposed in this expedition. He was
seized with a fever and died at Swansea where he was buried Feb.
5, 1675-6. Mr. Thomas Hinckley was commissary general of the
forces, and his daughter Reliance, born Dec. 15, was so named
because the mother relied that God would protect the father in the
perils to which he was exposed.
In the second expedition to Narraganset, Yarmouth furnished
fourteen men under Capt. Gorham. The proportion furnished by
Barnstable was probably about the same number. No record of
their names has been preserved. The third expedition was commanded
by Capt. Howes of Yarmouth, and the fourth by Capt.
Pierce of Scituate. The latter were in the bloody battle at Rehobeth,
March 26, 1776. Of the nine who went from Yarmouth,
five were killed: John Matthews, John Gage, William Gage,
Henry Gage and Henry Gold. Five from Sandwich were slain :
Benjamin Nye, Daniel Bessey, Caleb Blake, Job Gibbs and
Stephen Wing. Barnstable six: Lieut. Samuel Fuller, John
Lewis, Eleazer Clapp, Samuel Linnell, Samuel Childs and Samuel