As the years passed, William and Mary Neff were blessed with six children. Their home was on a rise of ground on the left side of the road running from the compact part of Haverhill out to the farm where Thomas and Hannah Duston lived after their marriage in 1677. Later on, their son William enlisted in His Majesty's Army serving elsewhere in Massachusetts, and in November 1686, their only daughter, Mary Neff, Jr., married Matthias Button, Jr.
At this point, the relationship between the Neff, Button and Duston families should be given. Matthias Button, Sr. married as his fourth wife the widow Elizabeth (Wheeler) Duston on June 9, 1663. The new Mrs. Button had a young son, Thomas Duston (who later became the husband of the Hannah Duston of our story). In 1663 Thomas Duston was about 11 years old and by his mother's second marriage, he suddenly acquired five young brothers and sisters: Hannah Button also 11 years old, Daniel 9, Abigail 7, Matthias, Jr. 5, Peter 3, and they all grew up together in the same household. Matthias Button, Sr., being a man of some means, saw to it that Thomas Duston, along with his own sons, received a good education, and he trained them all to be industrious and thrifty. The benefit of this training showed in the adult lives of Thomas Duston of Haverhill and of Matthias Button, Jr., who is recorded in history as one of the leading citizens of Plainfield, Connecticut.
By 1697, the year of the Haverhill massacres, we find Mrs. Mary Neff all alone except for her son Joseph. Mrs. Neff's husband "went after ye Army and died in February 1688/89 at Pemaquid, Maine," perhaps killed by Indians in 1691. Her three younger sons, who were all in their twenties by 1697, had left Haverhill for life adventures elsewhere. About 1690 or 1691, Matthias and Mary (Neff) Button, Jr. had migrated to Plainfield, Connecticut. It is easy to imagine that Hannah Duston and her babies, who lived nearby, filled an empty corner in Mary's heart.
An early writer has pictured Mrs. Mary Neff as having a very cheerful disposition and as being always ready to help others. Thus we find her on that fateful March 15th, 1697, at the Duston home taking care of Hannah Duston and her six-day-old baby, Martha. The Rev. Cotton Mather in his Magnalia gives one of the most complete and reliable accounts of this entire affair. In it he refers to Mary Neff as Hannah's nurse and she was certainly acting in that capacity at the moment. But the relationship between Mary Neff and Hannah Duston was a lot more than that; they were neighbors and friends and Mary's daughter and Hannah were sisters-in-law.
On the morning of March 15th, Thomas Duston had taken the older children with him when he went to work in a nearby field. He had taken his gun with him, not that he was expecting Indian trouble because there had been no incidents since the previous August, when two neighbors had been killed and their sons carried into captivity. But for years the men of Haverhill had always kept a gun with them wherever they went as they never knew when the Indians might attack.
The English had tried to maintain friendly relations with the Indians, but the French in Canada never ceased in their efforts to win the New World from the English and did all they could to incite the Indians against the English. They even offered the Indians bounties for English scalps and for live English captives who were then sold into slavery to the French in Canada. The result was that every time roving bands of Indians came near an English town, they were looking for scalps and captives. Just such a band was in the forest near Haverhill on the night of March 14th. The first warning came when Thomas Duston suddenly saw a number of Indians approaching the field where he was at work. Telling his children to hurry to the nearest garrison house, he grabbed his gun and jumped on his horse to ride home and try to save his wife and baby. But the Indians were so close he saw he could do nothing for her and returned to join his children. By means of walking behind the children while pointing his gun at the Indians, he managed to get them to the garrison house, probably that of Onesiphorus Marsh. No one will ever know why the Indians did not shoot them all.
At the Duston house, all was pandemonium and terror. Mrs. Neff picked up the baby and tried to run with her to safety. However, she was 50 years old and could not outrun the Indian warrior who soon caught her and brought her back. Meanwhile, Hannah was ordered out of bed and told to dress herself, while the Indians ransacked her house and grabbed up everything they could carry off. They then dragged her out, minus one shoe (so it is said), and set fire to the house. A few of the Indians hustled Mary with the baby toward the woods. Stories vary as to the cause, but suddenly an Indian snatched little Martha out of Mary Neff's arms and swung it against an apple tree, dashing out its brains. One can imagine the feelings which filled Hannah Duston's heart at this point. The Indians rushed the two women along until they reached the spot in the woods where the squaws and children had been left. Here they were joined by other warriors who had killed twenty-seven and captured thirteen inhabitants of Haverhill.
Fearing pursuit, the Indians pushed on for about twelve miles that night. Several of the weaker captives who could not keep up the rapid pace were killed and scalped and left beside the path. Hannah Duston must surely have met this same horrible fate, since she was sick and doubtless filled with shock and grief at the wanton killing of her baby, had she not been helped along by the strong arm and encouragement of her friend, Mary Neff. The party pushed rapidly on for 150 miles or more, through dense forests and over rough, rocky ground. In March, it must have been a cold, terrible journey, with snow still on the ground and icy brooks to be crossed.
The group which claimed Mary and Hannah consisted of twelve men, women and children. One of the Indian men had lived in the family of Rev. Mr. Rowlandson of Lancaster some years before; he had learned to speak English and had been taught to pray. Later he had been converted by French priests and, strangely enough, would not let the children eat or sleep without saying their prayers. But the Indians tried to prevent Mary and Hannah from praying! With this Indian family was a fourteen-year-old boy, named Samuel Leonardson, who had been captured at Worcester about a year and a half before.
During the march northward, the Indians told the two women that when they reached the Indian Town, they would be stripped and made to run the gantlet. They described in frightening detail how they would be forced to run between two lines of Indians, men, women and children, who would beat them with clubs, tomahawks, etc. Spurred on by these tales, the cruel treatment they were receiving, and a desire to avenge the death of her baby, Hannah Duston is said to have planned a way of escape, which she was able to tell Mary and Samuel about secretly. Samuel, who also wanted to escape, got his master, Bampico, to tell him how he killed and scalped the English. Bampico responded with full details, little suspecting the thought behind the question.
The band of twelve Indians and their three captives parted from the other Indians and Haverhill captives about March 30, 1697, when they reached the Indians' home on an island at the junction of the Contoocook and Merrimack Rivers. This is now Pencook NH, about five miles north of Concord, NH. Now that they were "home" and the island was surrounded by rivers full of spring flood waters, the Indians relaxed. Samuel Leonardson was considered one of the [Indian] family and the two women were obviously too worn out to try to escape, so the Indians all went to sleep that night without setting a guard.
This was just the opportunity the captives had been hoping for. A little before midnight, when the Indians were all soundly asleep, Hannah, Mary and Samuel, each armed with a tomahawk or hatchet, stole silently to a position near the heads of the sleeping Indians. All three tomahawks fell as one, and so quickly and quietly did the three move along, ten of the twelve Indians were killed, with only one severely wounded squaw and a small boy they had intended to take home with them, escaping into the woods.
A deposition sworn to before Joshua Bayley of Haverhill, June 28, 1739, is of interest here. "The deposition of the Widow Hannah Bradley of Haverhill of full age who testifieth and saith that about forty years past the said Hannah together with the widow Mary Neff were taken prisoners by the Indians and carried together into captivity and above penny cook the Deponent was by the Indians forced to travel farther than the rest of the Captives, and the next night but one there came to us one Squaw who said that Hannah Duston and the aforesaid Mary Neff assisted in killing the Indians of her wigwam except herself and a boy, herself escaping narrowly, shewing to myself and others seven wounds as she said with a Hatchet on her head, which wounds were given her when the rest were killed, and further saith not." Hannah Bradley signed with her mark. The General Court granted Joseph Neff two hundred acres of land.
Hannah, Mary and Samuel quickly loaded one of the canoes with some food and weapons, including the gun of Hannah's captor, and the hatchet and scalping knife said to have been used by Hannah (now on view at the Duston Family Association quarters in Haverhill). They hastily chopped holes in the other canoes so they could not be used for pursuit, and started out. Hannah is said to have insisted on a return to the island to secure the Indians' scalps as a proof of their story. In any event, the ten scalps were wrapped in linen stolen from Hannah's house and taken back to Haverhill.
They traveled at night, taking turns guiding the canoe down the Merrimack River and sleeping. They hid during the day, in constant fear of pursuit and roving bands of Indians. They finally reached the home of John Lovell at what is now Nashua, NH. A monument was erected there in 1902 commemorating the event. The next morning the weary travelers reached Bradley's Cove, leaving the canoe there and going the rest of the way to Haverhill on foot. The two women had been given up for lost, so that one can imagine the joy and excitement their return and their story created.
Although the bounty of 50 pounds on Indian scalps had been revoked in 1696, Mr. Duston felt that the two women and the boy had done a tremendous thing in destroying some of the enemies who were killing innocent women and children. So after the three had had a chance to rest and recover somewhat from their experiences, they all went to Boston with their trophies, arriving April 21, 1697.
Mr. Duston filed the following petition which was read in the House of Representatives June 8, 1697 (Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 70, p. 350):
To the Right Honorable the Lieutenant Governor and the Great and General Assembly of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay now convened in Boston
The Humble Petition of Thomas Duston of Haverhill Sheweth
That the wife of ye petitioner (with one Mary Neff) hath in her Late captivity among the Barbarous Indians, been disposed and assisted by heaven to do an extraordinary action, in the just slaughter of so many of the Barbarians, as would by the law of the Province which, a few months ago, have entitled the actors unto considerable recompense from the Publick.
That tho the-of that good Law-no claims to any such consideration from the publick, yet your petitioner humbly-that the merit of the action still remains the same; and it seems a matter of universall desire thro the whole Province that it should not pass unrecompensed.
And that your petitioner having lost his estate in that calamity wherein his wife was carried into her captivity render him the fitter object for what consideration the public Bounty shall judge proper for what hath been herein done, of some consequence, not only unto the persons more immediately delivered, but also unto the Generall Interest.
Wherefore humbly Requesting a favorable Regard on this occasion
Your Petitioner shall pray etc
Thomas Du(r)stan.
The day the petition was read in the House of Representatives, it was voted "that the above-named Thomas Durstan in behalf of his wife shall be allowed and paid out of the publick Treasury Twenty-five pounds; and Mary Neff the sum of Twelve pounds Ten Shillings, and the young man (Samuel Leonardson) concerned in the same action the like sum of Twelve pounds Ten Shillings." The larger sum granted to Mr. Duston was probably because of his "lost estate," in other words, the burning of his house and household goods.
The unusual and astonishing exploit of Mary Neff, Hannah Duston, and Samuel Leonardson created quite a stir throughout the Colonies and the two women received many gifts. The only one which seems to have been preserved is the silver tankard presented to them by Gov. Sir Francis Nicholson of Maryland, now in the possession of the Duston Family Association of Haverhill, Massachusetts. There are three statues commemorating these three people and their tremendous adventure. The first one was erected in 1861 at Haverhill, a block of Italian marble five feet square and twenty-four feet high. The second statue was erected at Penacook, NH, in 1874, and the third stands in G.A.R. Park, Haverhill (1879). In spite of this exciting experience, Mary Neff lived at Haverhill in her own home to the age of 76 years.
An inventory of Mary Neff's estate can be found in the Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Records #19221. The inventory was taken in 1722 by Daniel Little, Philip Haseltine and Jonathan Emerson.
Many thanks to Mary Neff's descendant, Jayne, for sharing this excellent account with us.
