AN AFFLICTED FAMILY

Google "Groton+Indians" and you're more than likely to come up
with entries for several books on the subject by Samuel Abbott Green.
(He's probably my cousin but I've not found out how, yet.) Here from
one of those books is a summary of one branch of my family's bad
period of luck on the Massachusetts Bay Colony frontier. I've written
about some of these incidents before. Following the excerpt, I've listed
how the people mentioned are my relatives:


 AN AFFLICTED FAMILY.

JOHN Shattuck and his eldest son John, a young man nineteen years of age,
were killed by the Indians at Groton, on May 8, 1709. They were returning
from the west side of the Nashua River and were attacked just as they were
crossing Stony Fordway, near the present site of the paper mills, where they
were killed. John Shattuck was the eldest child of John and Ruth (Whitney)
Shattuck, of Watertown, where he was born on June 4, 1666. He married Mary,
eldest daughter of James and Elizabeth (Longley) Blood, who was born at
Groton on September 1, 1672. Mr. Shattuck was a farmer, as everybody else
was at that time. He owned land on the Nod Road which leads to the Four
Corners below the soap-stone quarry. During the autumn of 1882 Messrs.
Tileston and Hollingworth, of Boston, at that time the owners of the mill,
caused a suitable stone to be placed by the wayside, bearing the following
inscription:

NEAR THIS SPOT
JOHN SHATTUCK,
A SELECTMAN OF GROTON,
AND
HIS SON JOHN
WERE KILLED BY THE INDIANS,
MAY 8, 1709,
WHILE CROSSING STONY FORDWAY,
JUST BELOW THE PRESENT DAM.

1881.

By an oversight this inscription was not given in connection with the " Historical
Inscriptions " on pages 157, 158.

A remarkable fatality seems to have followed Mrs. Shattuck's kindred. Her husband
and eldest son were killed by the Indians, as has just been mentioned. Her father,
James Blood, was likewise killed, September 13, 1692. So also were her uncle, 
William Longley, his wife and five children, July 27, 1694; and three others of 
their children were carried away into captivity at the same time. A relative, 
James Parker, Jr., and his wife were killed in this assault, and their children 
taken prisoners. Her step-father, Enosh Lawrence, received a wound in an 
engagement with the Indians, probably in the same attack of July 27, 1694, 
which almost wholly prevented him from earning a livelihood for himself 
and family. The name Enosh is a variation from Enos, and not from Enoch, 
with which it is frequently confounded. This will be seen by consulting the 
Geneva version of the Bible, long used in preference to King James's
version, by the New England men, and out of which Enos Lawrence was
undoubtedly named. In this "Enosh" will be found where the authorized 
version has "Enos," in Genesis v. 6,7, 9-11. The three Tarbell children, 
who were carried off to Canada by the Indians, June 20, 1707, were cousins
of Mrs. Shattuck. John Ames, who was shot by the savages at the gate of 
his own garrison, July 9, 1724, was the father of Jacob, who married her 
niece, Ruth Shattuck. And lastly, her son-in-law, Isaac Lakin, the husband 
of her daughter Elizabeth, was wounded in Lovewell's Fight at Pequawket,
May 8, 1725. These calamities covered a period of only one generation,
extending from the year 1692 to 1725.
-"The natural history and the topography of Groton, Massachusetts:
together with other matter relating to the history of the town, Volume 1"
(pp185-186)

 Samuel Abbott Green (University Press, John Wilson and Sons, Cambridge,
Ma,. 1912)



This is how I'm related to the people in this :
Mary Shattuck is my 8x great grandaunt.
Her father James Blood is my 9x great grandfather.
Her uncle William Longley is my 9x great granduncle.
The three Tarbell children are the siblings of my 8x great grandmother.
John Ames is my 8x great grandfather.
Isaac Lakin is my 1st cousin 10x removed.


I haven't determine yet if I have any relationship with James Parker Jr.
and Enosh Lawrence.