Dunstable, Massachusetts, USA
1691 - September 28 - Massacre

SOURCE: History of the Old Township of Dunstable: Including Nashua, Nashville, Hollis, Hudson, Litchfield, and Merrimac, N. H.; Dunstable and Tyngsborough, Mass., by Charles J. Fox, Nashua: Charles T. Gill, Publisher, 1846.
(pp. 62-63)

". . . In the summer of 1691 the war was renewed and the Indian ravages recommenced. Small scouting parties attacked many of the neighboring settlements. . . On the evening of Sept. 2, 1691, they suddenly appeared in this town, and attacked the house of Joseph HASSELL, senior. Hassell, his wife Anna HASSELL, their son Benjamin HASSELL, and Mary MARKS, daughter of Patrick MARKS, were slain. There is a tradition that Mary MARKS was killed between the Hollis road and the canal about a quarter of a mile above the Nashua Corporation.
They were all buried upon the little knoll where Hassell's house stood, and a rough stone without inscription points out the spot.* A second stone stood there until within a few years, having been preserved for so long a period as raised to the dead, but at length falling into the hands of a new proprietor, and standing in the way of his plough, it was taken up and thrown into the cellar by their side which is not yet quite filled up. . ."
*Hassell's house stood on the north bank of Salmon Brook, on a small knoll just in rear of Miss Alids' house, where the cellar and grave stones may still be seen. [presumably at the time of publication, in 1846]

". . . On the morning of the 28th Sept. the Indians made another attempt, and killed Obadiah PERRY and Christopher TEMPLE. There is a rock in the channel of Nashua river now covered by the flowage of the water, about 30 rods above the upper mill of the Nashua Corporation, which was called "Temple's Rock," and was reputed to be near the spot of his murder. It is said that they were also buried upon the spot just described.-- Perry was one of the founders of the Church, and a son in law of HASSELL. All of these are original settlers, active, useful and influential men, and all of them town officers, chosen but a few weeks previous.



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