AUNT SARAH'S KIDS
- westmohney
- Jun 30, 2022
- 10 min read
Updated: Aug 4, 2022
In the father's of new England we behold a body of men who...resolutely and deliberately exchanged...the comforts of civilized life for toil and danger, for an ungenial climate and rugged soil. ~ Gulian C. Verplanck
Dunstable
Dunstable was incorporated in October of 1673, late in the life of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the beginning, it encompassed 200 square miles, extending from Londonderry, New Hampshire, to Chelmsford, Massachusetts.
Just eight miles separated Chelmsford from Dunstable and both were equally vulnerable during the five French and Indian wars that raged around them. The map below shows "the frontier line," or the towns most at risk during Queen Anne's War.
the move to Dunstable
Aunt Sarah Howlett Cummings was the daughter of our immigrant grandfather and Ipswich founder, Thomas Howlett (9GGF). Aunt Sarah and her husband, John Cummings, had ten children, nine of them sons, all born in Boxford. In 1680, the couple made the fateful decision to move their family to the rough and tumble frontier town of Dunstable. Over the years, multiple wars and attacks on the town would take their toll on Sarah and John Cumming's children and grandchildren.
Like many frontier towns, Dunstable was deserted for most of King William's War. Two attacks in September of 1691 left seven townpeople dead and caused a mass flight out of the area. As it turned out, the Dunstable townfolk got out just in time. Only two years later, in 1694, the Masschusetts Council passed an act prohibiting the desertion of frontier towns.
attack on Cousin John Cummings, Jr.'s garrison home
In late 1697, the Cummings family returned to rebuild their home in Dunstable. On Dec 1, 1700, only three years after their return, John Cummings died at age 70. Just six days later, Aunt Sarah Howlett Cummings followed him at age 61. Their children, ranging in age from 43 to 23 and with families of their own, were left to face the perils of living in a frontier town. Only two short years after John and Sarah's deaths, another war reared its ugly head. Queen Anne's War, begun in 1702, put Dunstable right back in the line of fire.
In 1703, there was a attack on the house of Robert Parris. He and three of his family members were killed. Then in the summer of 1706, a band of 200 Mohawk descended on Dunstable. The Cummings property lay in the northern section of town in what is now New Hampshire. Outside of the city proper, their homestead was in a particulary insecure spot but two garrison houses stood nearby for the protections of the residents. Sadly, John and Sarah's oldest son John Cummings, Jr, (1C9X) 43, just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
In the attack, John, Jr. was wounded and his wife killed. John H. Goodale in his History of Nashua, N.H. wrote of the event:
At sunset a Mr. Cummings and his wife went out to milk their cows, and left the gate open. The Indians who had advanced undiscovered, started up, shot Mrs. Cummings dead upon the spot, and wounded her husband. They then rushed through the open gate into the house with all the horrible yells of conquering savages, but started with amazement on finding the room filled with soldiers merrily feasting. Both parties were completely amazed, and neither acted with much propriety. The soldiers, so suddenly interrupted in their jovial entertainment, found themselves called to fight when entirely destitute of arms, and incapable of obtaining them...
Miraculously, only one English soldier was killed in the fight and most of the Natives fled uharmed as well. Cousin John survived the attack. His arm was broken but he managed to run into the woods where "that night he lay in a swamp." The next day he was able to walk to a garrison house three miles east of Dunstable.
Another garrison that was attacked in Dunstable that same day was not so lucky. Half of the surprised soldiers there were killed.
Queen Anne's War didn't end until 1713, so fortified garrison houses were the norm for all Dunstable residents. In 1711, John Cumming's house was one of seven garrisons. He was reported as "having two families, two males, two soldiers, and twenty-one persons in all."
Note: Garrison houses increased exponentially during Queen Anne's War. A List of frontier garrisons made in 1711 showed Wells with ten and Haverhill with a whopping twenty-five.
Though John lived another twenty-six years after the death of his wife, I can find no record of another marriage. He died in 1732 at age 75.
Abraham's early death
Abraham (1C9X) was the fourth son born to John and Sarah Howlett Cummings. He and his wife, also named Sarah, had six children, five of them sons. Abraham died ca. 1706, leaving Sarah with six children between the ages of three and seventeen years old. When Sarah remarried in 1707, she moved with her new husband to Higham, MA about sixty miles from Dunstable.
After this marriage, we know that at least one of her sons went to live with other relative's families. That her daughter was the only one of her children who remained in Hingham, along with other cimcumstancial evidence, leads me to believe that all of her sons were taken in by relatives after her marriage.
We know that the Cummings family in Dunstable kept in touch with their Howlett and Cummings relatives in Topfield because, after Abraham's death, one of his sons went there to live with cousins who took him in. Topsfield is approximately thirty miles from Dunstable.
Our cousin Thomas Howlett (1C9X) of Topsfield was a nephew of Aunt Sarah Howlett Cummings. He married Rebecca Cummings, a niece of Aunt Sarah's husband, John Cummings. Since they both had blood ties to Abraham and Sarah's children, and they had no children of their own, Thomas and Rebecca were probably happy to take fifteen-year-old Joseph (2C8X) into their home. Joseph ended up spending the rest of his life in Topsfield. When Thomas Howlett died in 1713 at age 41, he left his entire estate to his young cousin. Joseph, 21 at the time, inherited property located in the "deep woods" of Topsfield which had originally belonged to our immigrant grandfather, Thomas Howlett.
Cousin and heir Joseph Cummings, born in 1692, died in Topsfield in 1794 at the ripe old age of 102. A death notice in the Salem Gazette wrote about him:
...by a uniform piety, integrity, temperance, cheerfulness and benevolence, he supported an amiable and unblemished character. He was not favored with the advantages of education; but strong mental powers, inquisitive turn of mind, and a tenacious memory had enabled him to acquire and retain a good knowledge of the principal events and public transactions of the last hundred years. Possessed of a rich fund of interesting and entertaining anecdotes, he was a living history of nearly a centry...When nearly a hundred, he would readily mount his horse from the ground; and his reason continured to his last moments...His descendants were 2 children, 23 grandchildren, 116 great-grandchildren, and 32 great-great-grandchildren, total, 173.
Cousin Eleazor Cummings
Abraham and Sarah Cumming's youngest child, Eleazor (2C8X), was only three when his father died. Sadly, his own children would suffer a similar fate. Since Eleazor lived in Dunstable as an adult, he was either taken in by relatives in Dunstable after his father's death or he returned from Hingham where his mother lived. In 1629, Eleazor married our aunt Rachel Proctor (6A) of Chelmsford only eight miles from Dunstable. A little back story on our Proctor family is in order here.
Grandpa Samuel Proctor of Chelmsford
Our grandfather Samuel Proctor (7GGF) was the son of our immigrant grandparents Robert (8GGF) and Jane Hildreth Proctor (8GGM) of Chelmsford. Samuel was one of twelve children born to the couple. Before Robert died in 1697, he conveyed most of his property to his six sons. Samuel duly recieved his portion and spent the rest of his life in Chelmsford.
It appears that Grandpa Samuel lived an absolutely unremarkable life in Chelmsford. The last name of his wife, our Grandma Sarah Proctor (7GGM) who he married in 1694 is unknown.
Samuel and Sarah's biggest claim to fame seems to be that fact that they, like Samuel's parents, had a whopping twelve children. Samuel died in 1740 at age 74. From his will papers: "Samuel Proctor, yeoman of Chelmsford, made his will and signed it with his mark (meaning he was illiterate) on 7 March 1739/40" He left bequests to his six sons, including our grandfather Daniel (6GGF), and two of his grandsons, Abraham, Jr. (1C7X) and Eleazer (1C7X) Cummings (1C7X) of Dunstable.
Grandma Sarah Proctor died seventeen years later at about age 87 but it appears that no gravestone graces her buried body.
Samuel and Sarah Proctor's fifth child was our Aunt Rachel Proctor (6A). In 1729, Rachel married Eleazor Cummings who lived in the nearby town of Dunstable.
Eleazor and Rachel
After their marriage, Eleazor and Rachel moved to Nottingham, New Hampshire.
Eleazor and Rachel's first child Eleazer, Jr. was born in Nottingham in 1730. Another child, Abraham, was born in 1734. Luck, however, was not a friend to Eleazor and Rachel Cummings. Rachel died either in childbirth or shortly after her second son was born. We know this because, when Eleazor, Sr. died only two years later in 1736, his probate records name his new wife Mary as administrix. Possibly because she was such a new wife, Mary refused to administer Eleazor's will so his brother Josiah (2C8X) took over the job.
Rachel's brother, our grandfather Daniel Proctor (6GGF) of Chelmsford, was appointed guardian of the two young boys, only two and five years old. These are the grandchildren who were remembered in Grandpa Samuel Proctor's will in 1740.
Cousin Ebenezer French
John and Sarah Howlett Cumming's only daughter Sarah, Jr. (1C9X) married a man named Samuel French (no relation to either of our French families). Their son Ebenezer French (2C9X) was killed in 1724 in yet another skirmish with Natives.
Even though Queen Anne's War had ended in 1713, the Wabenaki Nation in Maine were increasingly displeased with English treatly violations and further encroachment onto their lands. A series of raids on English towns began in Maine in 1622. This conflict would become known as Dummer's or Father Râle's War. By the fall of 1624, the war had made its way down to northern Massachusetts. On September 4, 1724, an attack by Wabanaki Natives was made near Dunstable with two men taken captive.
Ten men from Dunstable went in seach of the missing men led by our cousin Lieutenant Ebenezer French. When they came to a spot that showed evidence that the men had only recently been taken, the party decided "upon instant pursuit."
One of the group, another cousin of ours, Josiah Farwell (3C8X), advised a "circuitous route" in order to avoid an ambush. According to some reports, a "misunderstanding" between Ebenezer French and Josiah Farwell only a few days before had left them a bit "peeved" at one another. Cousin Ebenezer insinuated that Cousin Josiah's advice was due to cowardice. He called out "I am going to take the direct path; if any of you are not afraid, let him follow me."
Note: Josiah Farwell was the son of our cousin Susannah Richardson (2C9X) who had married Henry Farwell.
The entire company decided to follow their leader, including Josiah who took up the rear. They went far up the Merrimack River to what is now Thornton's Ferry in New Hampshire.
Note: Fifteen years later, our cousin Jonathan Cummings would own the land that eventually became Thornton's Ferry. He ran a ferry across the river there.
It was there, at Thornton's Ferry, that the men were ambused by the Wabanaki. Most were killed instantly. The Natives pursued the few fleeing men, our cousin Ebenezer French among them. Ebenezer was killed about a mile from the ambush spot. The only man to escape death was the one man who had adivsed caution, Cousin Josiah Farwell.
Eight of the bodies were recovered and buried in a common grave. In addition to our cousin Ebenezer French, our cousin Ebenezer Cummings (2C8X) was killed. He was the son of John Cummings (1C9X), the victim of the 1706 attack in which his wife was killed and he was wounded. Also killed was Josiah Farwell's uncle, Oliver Farwell, who was married to our cousin Mary Cummings (2C8X), granddaughter of John and Sarah Howlett Cummings. Lastly, our cousin Daniel Baldwin (2C8X) of Woburn was also killed. These men were all buried in the common grave.
A marker was placed by the family of Thomas Lund at the spot of the grave with the following inscription:
Memento mori. Here lies the body of Mr. Thomas Lund who departed this life, Sept. 5, 1724, in the 42d year of his age. This man with seven more that lies in this grave was slew all in a day by the Indians.
Cousin Josiah Farwell, lone survivor of the ambush, was married to Hannah Lovewell. She was the daughter of famed Captain John Lovewell who, after the September 4th ambush, led three expeditions against the Wabenaki. Two of John and Sarah Howlett Cumming's grandsons were involved in these expeditions. That story will be told in our next post.
Note: Josiah Farwell reported that he lost his gun, a coat and £3 the day of the ambush. He was awarded £5 by the town as compensation.
Cousin Jonathan Cummings, ferryman
Because there were not many bridges spanning the Merrimack River in the eighteenth century, ferries proved to be an important mode of transportation for more than 130 years. The ferry that became known as Thornton's was in Merrimack, New Hampshire, only 15 miles from Dunstable and originally part of the Dunstable grant.
Acccording to James L. Garvin, who wrote a history of the ferry, "ownership of this land parcel (Thornton's Ferry) has been traced back to 1739. In that year, Jonathan Cummings, a farmer in Litchfield," purchased an 81-acre portion" which included the ferry site.
Ferryman Jonathan Cummings (2C8X) was another of John and Sarah Howlett Cummings' many grandchildren.
Historian Ezra Stearns wrote of a friendly rivalry between Cousin Jonathan and Christopher Temple. Stearns writes of their relationship:
Christopher Temple had a rival in Capt. Jonathan Cummings, who owned and occupied the Lutwich or Thornton farm (before them) and there maintained a ferry nearly thirty years. It will be remembered that Captain Cummings and Mr. Temple occupied adjoining farms in Merrimack. They were neighbors and friends. At the suggestion of Mr. temple, Captain Cummings applied to the court (in 1736) for a license to keep a ferry. After the removal from Merrimack of Mr. Temple, Captain Cummings contended for the exclusive right to maintain a ferry and there was a continued contention between him and the new tenanats of the Temple farm. For many years two ferries were continued and at this late day it is impossible to determine which party secured the greater profit or got the best of the quarrel.
Jonathan got out of the ferry busness when he leased his farm to Edward Goldstone. Later, Matthew Thornton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, acquired the propery and it was known ever after as Thornton's Ferry.
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