This is the entry for my 7x great grandfather Nathaniel Wilder in Ellery Bicknell Crane's Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts:
(VI) Nathaniel Wilder, son of Thomas Wilder (5) , was born in Charlestown, November 3, 1650, died July, 1704. He married Mary Sawyer, of Lancaster, daughter of Thomas Sawyer and his wife Mary and was born July 4, 1652. (See sketch of Sawyer Family.) He settled in Lancaster, was lieutenant in the company, and was killed by the Indians. The children of Nathaniel and Mary (Sawyer) Wilder were: Nathaniel, born 1675, settled in Petersham; Ephraim, born August 16, 1678, of Lancaster, representative in general court; Mary, born May 13, 1679; Elizabeth, born April 20, 1685, died 1707; Jonathan, born 1686, married, and was killed by the Indians 1707; Dorothy, born 1686, married Samuel Carter; Oliver, see forward.
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Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts: With a History of Worcester Society of Antiquity, Volume 1 Lewis Publishing Company, 1907 - Worcester County (Mass.)
Of course, seeing that "... was killed by the Indians...", I had to see if there was more to that.
What I found instead were the details of an incident twenty eight years earlier for which my ancestor was
charged with murder. It took place in the summer of 1675/1676, the year the town of Lancaster had
suffered two Indian attacks. Seven colonists had been killed , some others taken captive, and the town
had been deserted. On 11August four men, brothers Daniel and Stephen Goble, Daniel Hoar, and Nathaniel
Wilder were charged with the killings of six Indians, three women and three children.
To be continued.
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