Massacre on the Merrimack

On March 15, 1697, Abenaki warriors, in service to the French, raided the English frontier village of Haverhill, Massachusetts. They killed twenty-seven men, women, and children and took thirteen captives, including thirty-nine-year-old Hannah Duston and her week-old daughter, Martha. Her daughter was murdered a short distance from the village, and Hannah resolved to get even. Two weeks into their captivity near present-day Concord, New Hampshire, Hannah Duston, and two of her companions, moved among the sleeping Abenaki with tomahawks and knives, killing two men, two women, and six children. Hannah and the others then escaped down the Merrimack River in a stolen canoe and returned to English civilization. Her courageous story gave hope to the English settlers, whose domain the French hoped to occupy, as the French and English continued to battle over dominance in the new world.