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BEN COMEE

A TALE OF ROGERS'S RANGERS

1758-59

BEN COMEE

A TALE OF ROGERS'S RANGERS

1758-59

BY

M. J. CANAVAN

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
1922

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1899,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped October, 1899.  Reprinted November, 1899;
February, 1908; October, 1910; September, 1913; November, 1916.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

BEN IS BORN IN LEXINGTON 1737—SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLFELLOWS

If you have occasion to pass through or to visit Lexington, be sure to put up at the tavern about a mile below Lexington Common on a little knoll near the main road.

In front of it stand two large elms, from one of which hangs the tavern sign. It is the best tavern in the place. You will find there good beds, good food, and a genial host. The landlord is my cousin, Colonel William Munroe, a younger brother of my old friend Edmund.

Sit with him under the trees. William will gladly tell you of the fight. Lord Percy's reënforcements met the retreating British soldiers near the tavern. Percy and Pitcairn had a consultation in the bar-room over some grog, which John Raymond mixed for them, for John took care of the tavern that day. After they departed, the soldiers entered and helped themselves freely to liquor from the barrels in the shop. Some of their officers knocked the spigots from the barrels and let the liquor run away on the floor. The drunken soldiers became furious. They fired off their guns in the house. You can still see a bullet hole in the ceiling.

William will show you the doorway where poor John Raymond, the cripple, was shot down by the soldiers, as he was trying to escape from the bar-room, and will point out the places near by, where houses were burned by the British. And as you sit with William under the trees you will see great six or eight horse teams, laden with goods from New Hampshire, lumber along heavily over the road. Stages from Keene, Leominster, Lunenburg, and other towns will dash up to the door and passengers will alight for their meals. On Saturdays and Sundays herds of cattle are driven through on their way to the Brighton cattle market. All is bustle and activity.

I was born in this old house in the year 1737. In my boyhood Lexington was a dull little village unknown to fame. But the 19th of April, 1775, made the world familiar with the name. And since the bridges, which were built over the Charles River a few years later, placed the town on the main highway between Boston and the Back Country, it is now, in this year 1812, one of the most thriving places in the county.

In my childhood we were remote from the main travelled roads. The Back Country hardly existed. People were just beginning to settle the southern part of New Hampshire, and were in constant fear of Indians. Their time was fully occupied in cutting down the forests, fighting the redskins, and raising a scanty crop for their own support. Occasionally a fur trader, driving a pack-horse laden with furs, passed through the town. The huts and log houses of the first settlers were still standing, and some of the people kept up an acquaintance and correspondence with their relatives in the old country.

My grandfather used to take me on his knee and tell me of events which happened far back in the seventeenth century. His father was a Highland lad, and during the wars between King Charles and Cromwell fought for the king in a regiment of Scotch Highlanders. At the battle of Dunbar the king's army was defeated, and several thousand Scotch soldiers were taken prisoners. Among them was my great-grandfather, David McComee.

In a few days they were drawn up in a line, and each man was tied to his neighbour by stout cords around their wrists. A guard of soldiers was put over them, and they were marched to Plymouth.

There they learned that they were to be sent to the colonies, as slaves or servants, with the right to buy back their freedom.

David McComee and some two hundred and seventy other prisoners were packed on board the ship John and Sara; and after a long voyage arrived at Charlestown, where they were sold at auction. David's master lived in Woburn, near Lexington, or, as it was then called, Cambridge Fields. He was treated in a kindly manner. A little piece of land was given him, on which he built a hut. He worked for his master on alternate days. The rest of the time was his own. In a few years David McComee had earned enough to pay back the price of his purchase money, and was no longer a redemptioner, but a free man and his own master. By this time, he was known as David Comee. He moved to Concord, and as he was a thrifty, hard-working man, before long he was the owner of a snug little farm.

In 1675 the terrible war with King Philip broke out. The Indians ravaged the land, and boasted that no white man should dare to so much as poke his nose out of his house. We had then but a little fringe of settlements extending a few miles back from the coast. Concord was on the frontier. Word came that the neighbouring town of Sudbury was attacked, and David Comee and ten companions started out to help the inhabitants.

My grandfather, who was then a small boy, said that after buckling on his iron breast and back plates, his father knelt with the family and prayed. Then he arose, kissed his wife and children, put on his steel cap, and taking his long firelock, started off to join the other men.

That afternoon they were lured into an ambuscade by the Indians, and most of them were killed. Reënforcements were sent to Sudbury. The Indians were driven off; and the next day David Comee was found lying in the water of the river meadow, scalped, and stripped of his armour and clothes.

Another Scotch redemptioner, named William Munroe, who was shipped to this country in the John and Sara, settled at Cambridge Fields or Lexington. My grandfather married his daughter Martha, and bought the place where my Cousin William now keeps the tavern.

Our family had no love for Indians. We hated them bitterly. At the present day, as we sit in our homes safe and without fear, we are apt to forget the constant dread in which the colonists lived. From 1690 till the end of the French war in 1763, few years passed in which the men on the frontier were not fighting the redskins.

In 1707 my Uncle John went "to the Eastward" in a company of soldiers to help drive off a body of French and Indians from the settlements in Maine. He was killed there in a fight near the town of York.

He was my grandfather's eldest son, just arrived at manhood. I was a small boy when grandfather died; but I can remember how he straightened up, and a fierce fire came in his eyes, when the talk was of Indians. He was a strict member of the church, and never swore, but on these occasions he made use of some Old Testament phrases and expressions which, I thought, answered the purpose very well.

You may pride yourself on your Latin and your Greek. I never got so far in my schooling. But turn this book upside down and read it. You cannot and I can.

I might have become quite a scholar, if I had been properly brought up, for I learned to do this at Millicent Mason's dame's school before I was six years old.

She sat in a chair and held a book in her lap. We stood in front of her. She would point out the letters with her knitting-needle and ask, "What is that letter? And that? And that?" Then she would ask us what the word was. In this way, we learned our A B C's. Then one-syllable, and two-syllable words, and finally to read a book held upside down. I can do it now; and occasionally, if I find a friend reading, I surprise him by glancing over the top of the page and repeating a few lines of the text.

As I grew older, I went to the man's school and learned to read in the ordinary way. It was kept in a little old schoolhouse about twenty feet square, which stood on a knoll on the common. There was a great fireplace at one end of it; and the teacher sat in a great chair on a platform, with a table in front of him. We paid twopence a week for being taught reading, and threepence a week for "righting and siphering," as the town clerk entered it on his books.

Our teachers were young men just out of college, and the one who would serve for the smallest pay was the one always chosen. We had a new teacher every year.

At the lower end of the common was the old ramshackle meeting-house, facing down the road.

In front of the meeting-house were a couple of horse-blocks, on which the women dismounted as they rode to meeting on their pillions, behind their husbands or brothers.

On either side of the door were tacked up notices of vendues, lotteries, public proclamations, and the appointment of administrators. Between the school and the meeting-house were two pairs of stocks, in which we occasionally found some offender seated with his feet sticking out through the holes.

On the opening day of school, there was a man in each of them. One was a man who obstinately refused to go to meeting, and after being warned several times was clapped into the bilboes by the tythingman. The other was some poor vagrant who had tried to settle in the town, but because he was needy and shiftless he had been warned out, and as he did not go, was put in the stocks.

The school children gathered about them, seated on the hard boards, with their feet sticking out through the holes in the stocks, and discussed their crimes and punishment, and made bets as to the number of nails in the soles of their shoes. William Munroe, the blacksmith, came over from his shop with his leather apron on.

"Come, Sam, you want to get out of there, and sit in the seats with the righteous. It's never too late for the sinner to repent."

"Oh, go away, Bill. Let me alone. It's bad enough to sit here in these cussed stocks, till every bone in my body aches, and have the children stare at me, without you coming over to poke fun at me. I'm sick of it."

"That's right! A change of heart will do you good. See you in meeting next Sabbath."

The next day, Robert Harrington, the constable, drove up to the stocks with his cart.

"See here, Bob. Let me out. I give in. I'll go to meeting twice a day for the fifty-two Sabbaths in the year, and on lecture days and any other days that they want me to go."

"All right; I'll let you out, but they will expect an acknowledgment from you of your wrong-doing, in meeting next Sabbath."

"Just let me out of these stocks, and I'll do anything they ask."

Mr. Harrington released him, and then turned to the vagrant and said, "Come, old boy, you've got to move on. We can't have you on our hands."

He took him in his cart, carried him miles away, and dumped him in the road, just as you would an old cat that you wanted to get rid of; and warned him never to come back.

Next Sabbath the sinner made a "public relation" before the meeting, in which he confessed his grievous sins and promised to amend.

My greatest friend was my cousin, Edmund Munroe, a sturdy, trustworthy boy with great common sense.

Then there was Davy Fiske, a son of Dr. Fiske. Davy was a lean, wiry fellow, not much of a boy for study, but full of knowledge of the woods. He knew when every kind of bird came and departed. Could tell you the best place to hunt foxes. He knew what they would do and where they would go. If a wolf had been killed, Davy could give the whole story. If a bear had carried off a pig or a sheep, Davy would go miles to be one of the party to follow him up.

It must be admitted that, like many other hunters, Davy had imagination, and did not allow dull facts to hem him in when he told a hunting story.

Edmund used to take his dinners with his cousin, William Munroe, the blacksmith, whose house and shop were just below the common. I generally brought my dinner to school in a basket, and ate it in the school at noon time. After dinner, we would prowl about and explore. We used to climb the stone wall of the pound, and look into it, to see what stray cattle might be there; and wandered down Malt Lane to John Munroe's malt house and watched him change the barley into malt, and looked at the hams and sides of bacon that the people had brought to be smoked.

The most interesting place to us was the blacksmith's shop. If an ox was brought in to be shod, they drove him into a stall and fastened his head in the stanchions at the end of it. A broad sheet of canvas hung down on one side of the stall, and they pulled the free end of it under the belly of the ox, and fastened it by hooks to a windlass on the other side of the stall, about the height of one's head. William Munroe and his son Will took a few turns at the windlass, and the ox would be lifted off his feet. The sides of the stall were only eighteen inches high, and were of thick plank, with a groove in the top edge. They bent up the leg of the ox and rested his cloven hoof in the groove, and shod each part with a piece of iron.

But beside shoeing horses and oxen, the blacksmith made all kinds of implements, andirons, latches and hinges for doors. They fastened an iron edge to wooden shovels, and made chains and nails.

CHAPTER II

THEY TRAP MUSKRATS—BISHOP HANCOCK AND HIS GRANDSON JOHN

One day while we were pulling over a lot of old truck in a corner of the shop, we found some rusty muskrat traps. Edmund asked William if he used them. "No; I did considerable trapping when I was a boy. You and Ben may have them if you want them. Your father and I, Benny, trapped together one winter; and we used to go hunting wild turkeys too. There were a number of them over at Mt. Gilboa and Turkey Hill. They're pretty much all gone now. We had lots of fun with these traps, and I hope you boys will."

There were fourteen traps. We greased them up and put them in good condition. And one Saturday early in the fall we got Davy to go with us to the great meadows and look the ground over. Davy said, "We must find their paths." When we found one, we looked for the best place to set a trap. "Now, see here. Here's a place where they come out of the water; and they climb up on that old root. Take the axe, Ben, and cut a notch in it a little under the water; and I'll smear the notch with mud so that the rat won't notice it."

We opened the trap, and set it in the notch; and then fastened the chain, which was attached to the trap, to a stick; and drove the stick into the bank a little way up the stream. "Let's put the next trap in the path. Drive the stick into the ground, so that they can't carry the trap off. That's right. Now set the trap and sprinkle some leaves over it to hide it."

In some of the brooks we drove a couple of sticks into the bank, so that the trap would rest on them, a couple of inches beneath the surface of the water, and fastened the chain up stream. We drove a stick into the bank about ten inches above the trap, and stuck a sweet apple on the end of it. "There, that looks real tempting. A rat will come swimming along, and when he sees that apple, he will jump for it; and if you are lucky, he will fall into the trap."

"Who's that over on the island in the meadow?"

"Captain Wooton. He's girdling trees."

"What's he doing that for?"

"To kill them off. That's the way the Indians cleared their land. The trees die, and when they are dead, he sets them on fire in the wet season, and burns them up. He was a sea-captain, and married one of the Winship girls, and old Mr. Winship gave them this land."

"Well, let's hurry up and set the rest of the traps. I've got to get home to my chores."

Edmund lived on the further side of the meadows and close to them, and in going to school passed several brooks that flowed into them. I lived above the meadows, and had to go out of my way to reach them. So Edmund looked after nine traps, and I took care of five. Every morning we examined the traps, to see if we had caught anything, and to set them again, and bait them. If a trap was not in sight, we pulled on the chain, and generally found a muskrat in the trap, drowned, with his hair all soaked down on his sides. Sometimes we would find one alive in a trap in their paths, and sometimes only a foot.

Occasionally my little brother David went with me, and while I was baiting a trap, would run on, to see if there was anything in the next one. Once he came back to me, and said, "Benny, some mean fellow has been down here, and stuck a nasty black cat in the trap." The cat turned out to be a mink with a fine fur. After we had examined the traps, Edmund and I used to meet at a spot on Deacon Brown's farm, which was so pretty that folks called it "God's Creation"; and then we went over to the highway together, on our way to school.

We trapped muskrats till April, and got fifty-four muskrats and two mink. Skins are like oysters, good every month in the year that has an R in it.

How many were actually caught in our traps is another matter. A half-breed Indian named Tony lived in a little hut by the edge of the meadows. Frequently we found prints of his moccasins by our traps; and they would be baited with a different kind of an apple from that we used.

Probably Tony needed muskrat skins more than we, or at least thought that he did.

We disliked Tony and avoided him. We had our little scalping-parties or war-paths and ambuscades, in imitation of the Indians, but in spite of that we hated them heartily, and thought it a great weakness on the part of our minister, Bishop Hancock, when he spoke a good word for them.

He, Bishop Hancock, was of the salt of the earth. He was very old, but bright and strong, and as full of fun as a kitten. Old age seemed to improve him, as it does wine, and made him ripe and mellow.

When we saw him walking down the road, with his full-bottomed white wig, his black coat and small clothes, his black silk stockings, and his white Geneva bands, we gathered on one side of the road, folded our hands, ducked our heads, and made our manners.

He always had some funny or quaint remark to make to us. There was, perhaps, nothing wonderful in what he said, but his words always had a pleasant savour; and the day seemed brighter after he had spoken to us. He was himself like one of those serene peaceful days that come in the Indian summer near the close of the year.

He had so much common sense and so sure a judgment, that all the ministers of the county ran to him for advice, if any important matter came up. And he had such authority among them, that they called him Bishop Hancock, for he was as a bishop to them; and they loved and revered him as much as they would have hated a real bishop.

His grandson, John Hancock, came to live with him, and went to school with us. Young John was of our age, bright, quick-witted, with a kind heart, an open hand, and a full allowance of self-conceit.

He was always boasting about his Uncle Thomas, the richest man in Boston, of his wharf and warehouses and ships, and of his new stone house on the Beacon Hill.

"And after I go to college, I'm going to live with Uncle Thomas, and be a merchant like him," he used to proclaim.

Edmund, Davy, and I went up to Bishop Hancock's one noon with John, and made a careful and minute survey of the premises, after the manner of boys. We inspected the pigs beneath the barn, and got a pail of water and scrubbed them with a broom till we were satisfied with their appearance. Then we learned the names and good points of the cows and horses. When we got to the loft, Davy made a great discovery—a pigeon net stowed away on the rafters. Before we left, John had obtained a promise from his grandfather that he might use it to catch pigeons.

The next day we took it to a hill on the other side of the road, and looked for a place to spread it. John knew as much about pigeon catching as a hen does about skating. But he ordered us about, right and left, till Davy objected.

"See here, John! That place you chose is full of humps and hollows, and won't do. We want a level spot, where the net will lie flat; and we must have a good place near by, where we can hide. What's the matter with that open place over there, with the big clump of bushes behind it?"

"Well, I guess that's all right."

"Now, boys," said Davy, "peg down one end of the net. That's it. Spread it out. It lies like a tablecloth on a table. Fold it up, so that the pole will be on top. Now fasten the springs into the ground. Set them and rest the pole on them. Fasten the strings to each spring, so that when we pull, the springs will fly up, and throw the pole forward over the pigeons. That's right. Now let's try it."

We went back toward the bushes and pulled the strings. The springs threw the pole forward, and the net was spread out on the ground.

"How soon can we begin, Davy?" asked John.

"Not for three or four days. We'll fold the net up and set it; and you must come up here every evening and bait the ground by throwing down some grain. When the birds get used to the net, we can come up and catch them."

John reported to us daily that the birds were getting tamer, and were not afraid of the net.

On Saturday we went up and hid in the bushes. John held the strings of course. We could see the pigeons picking up the grain, and when a number were together, Davy said "Now, John!"

John pulled the strings, and the pole was thrown forward so that the net fell over the pigeons. We rushed up and stood on the edge of the net. As the pigeons poked their heads up through the meshes, we wrung their necks.

We set the net three times and caught a couple of dozen of pigeons. Then we went to the house, and John told of the pigeons he had caught.

"Didn't the other boys have anything to do with it?"

"Oh, yes, they helped, but I pulled the strings."

"I've noticed that it isn't always the man that pulls the strings who does the real solid work," said Mr. Hancock.

We did not have many quarrels or lawsuits in his time. If any dispute arose, he interfered, heard both sides, and settled the case. His decision ended the matter, for the defeated person knew that every one in town would stand by Bishop Hancock's law.

I was playing in the yard with John one afternoon, when Mr. Hancock came to the window. He had on a gorgeous flowered silk dressing-gown, and instead of his big white wig, wore on his head a cap or turban of the same gorgeous silk. I hardly knew him, and stared at him.

"What's the matter, Benny? Oh, it's the dressing-gown and cap. You probably took me for some strange East India bird—a peacock, perhaps. It's nothing but some finery my son Thomas sent me to put on in the house. After wearing black all my life, it is very pleasant to move through the rooms looking like a rainbow."

"You did kind of startle me, sir. I suppose Joseph's coat must have looked a good deal like that."

"Ha, ha, Benny, I guess you're right. And it aroused envy. Mrs. Hancock said yesterday that this would make a fine gown. I must be careful to whom I show myself in this attire.

"I hear that there is a quarrel between Sam Locke and Jesse Robinson over the boundary line between their farms up on the old Salem road.

"I want you to go up there, John, and tell them that I wish both of them to meet me at the boundary line to-morrow afternoon at five o'clock. You might go with him, Benny, if you have time."

We did our errand, and the two men, in rather a surly manner, promised to meet Mr. Hancock. The next afternoon Mr. Hancock gave us a couple of stakes, which he told us to sharpen, and then we went up to the Salem road together. We found Sam and Jesse sitting on a stone wall, waiting.

Mr. Hancock said: "Well, neighbours, I hear that you have a dispute over your boundaries, and that you're going to law about it. That won't do at all. I'm not going to have you spending your money fighting this matter in one court and then in another, till your money is gone. We can clear up the trouble here to-day. State your cases to me, and I can give as good a decision as any court. Go on, Sam, and tell your story. Wait till he's through, Jesse, before you say a word." Sam told his side of the case, and then Jesse, and then Sam had a second chance, and after him Jesse again.

Though Sam and Jesse were supposed to do all the talking, yet the bishop had his say, too. And he was so sensible and genial that soon there was a different feeling between the two men. He told stories of their fathers when they were boys; what great friends they were, and how they bought adjoining farms to be near each other. "And as for that onion bed which marked the southern boundary of Jesse's farm, I have a very good idea of where it was. And probably we can see now where it was by the difference in the grass." He walked along and said, "A big stone with a flat top stuck up about twenty feet from the edge of the bed."

"Why, that's just ahead of us," said Jesse.

"I thought so. And now that I've heard your stories, and remember the onion bed and the stone, I think that this is the boundary line. Drive a stake down here, Benny. Now, neighbours, we've got it settled without costing a penny, and I want you to shake hands and be as close friends as your fathers were; for you're both good fellows."

How we did enjoy that old man! One day Edmund and John and I were seated in his yard, near the stable, mending the pigeon net, and Bishop Hancock was oiling a harness hanging just inside the barn, when the gate opened, and two old fools came into the yard.

"Good morning, Mr. Hancock."

"Good morning, neighbour Hall and neighbour Perry. You've caught me in a nice mess. There's nothing very ministerial about this. Quite different from preaching a long sermon at you; and to tell the truth, I half believe we preach too much. My friend Cotton Mather had a story of an old Indian who was in jail, about to be hanged for some crime.

"A minister visited him in his cell and prayed with him and preached at him till the Indian begged the jailer to hurry up the hanging. He preferred it to any more talk.

"This harness was getting about as rusty as my old bones and needed oiling badly. And now, neighbours, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Well, Mr. Hancock, your remark just now about your age is to the point. Some years ago you had the help of your good son Ebenezer, whose loss we all deplore. And some of us have been considering your great age, and the numerous and hard duties you perform; and we have thought it might be well if you had some assistance and aid. We know that it used to be common to have a couple of elders to assist the pastor; and thought that you might find it pleasant to revive the office, and have the help of two elders."

Mr. Hancock thought for a moment and said: "That's an excellent notion. But where can we find men ready to fulfil the duties of the office?"

"Well, Uriah and me have been talking it over, and we would be willing to take the office, for the sake of helping you."

"I suppose you know the duties of elders?"

"No! But you know all about it, and could tell us."

"Well, gentlemen, the duties of elders have never been very clearly defined in the church. But latterly they have settled down to this. The younger elder is to brush down and harness the pastor's horse when he wishes to ride out, and the elder is to accompany him, when he goes out of town, and pay his bills. I should be glad to have you appointed."

Uriah gave a gasp, and said: "Hello! It looks as if there was a shower coming up, and my hay's out. Good-by, Mr. Hancock; we'll see you another day."

The bishop looked after them, as they walked away, and turned round with a twinkle in his eye. Seeing us laughing, he laughed too, and said:—