Bethia Coleman

Citations

1. [S290] Sylvester Judd and Lucius Boltwood, History of Hadley, including the Early History of Hatfield, South Hadley, Amherst and Granby Masssachusetts (Springfield, Mass.: H.R. Hunting and Company, 1905), Families p.22, giving 21 Sep, although the raid was on 19 Sep.
2. [S290] Sylvester Judd and Lucius Boltwood, History of Hadley (rev. ed.), 175–177.
   On the 19th of September, 1677, a year after the war was apparently closed, some Indians made an unexpected and destructive inroad upon Hatfield. About eleven o'clock in the forenoon, when a greater part of the men were dispersed in the meadows, and others were employed upon the frame of a house without the palisades, a party of Indians suddenly assaulted the latter, and shot down three men, and proceeding to other buildings, killed nine more persons, wounded four others, took seventeen captives, and burnt seven buildings....
   The persons killed, taken and wounded, at Hatfield, Sept. 19, 1677, were as follows:
   Killed. — Sergt. Isaac Graves and his brother, John Graves; John Atchisson; John Cooper of Springfield, aged 18; Elizabeth, wife of Philip Russell and her son Stephen, aged 3 years; Hannah, wife of John Coleman, and her babe Bethiah; Sarah, wife of Samuel Kellogg, and her babe Joseph; Mary, wife of Samuel Belding; Elizabeth Wells, aged two years, daughter of John Wells; in all, 12.
   Taken. — Sarah Coleman, aged four years, and another child of John Coleman; Martha, wife of Benjamin Wait, and her 3 daughters, Mary, aged 6, Martha, 4, and Sarah, 2; Mary, wife of Samuel Foote, and a young son, and daughter Mary, aged 3; Hannah, wife of Stephen Jennings, and two of his children by a previous wife; Obadiah Dickinson and one child; Samuel, son of Samuel Kellogg, aged 8; Abigail, daughter of John Allis, aged 6; Abigail, daughter of William Bartholomew, who lived at Deerfield before the war; in all, 17.
   Wounded. —A child of John Coleman; wife and daughter of John Wells; wife of Obadiah Dickinson.
   As the Indians retreated with the captives, they also attacked Deerfield:
   
   At Deerfield, — John Root was taken and then killed; and Sergt. John Plympton, senior, Quintin Stockwell, Benoni Stebbins [later escaped], and Samuel, son of Philip Russell, aged 8 or 9, were taken.
   A rescue mission, led by Benjamin Wait and Stephen Jennings, successfully redeemed most of the captives (being held in Quebec) in May 1678, as reported by Wait in a letter:
   "Three of the captives are murdered, — old Goodman Plympton, Samuel Foot's daughter, Samuel Russell. All the rest are alive and well and now at Albany, namely, Obadiah Dickinson and his child, Mary Foot and her child, Hannah Jennings and 3 children, Abigail Allis, Abigail Bartholomew, Goodman Coleman's children. Samuel Kellogg, my wife and 4 children, and Quintin Stockwell."