THE TARBELL FAMILY AND THE INDIAN WARS PT4

Samuel Abbott Green devoted quite a bit of research for his book to the Tarbell incident. He dicussed the various versions of what happened. He also found documents detailing the efforts made by Thomas Tarbell IV to find his siblings and bring them home. Green even made a trip to Montreal where he discovered what became of Sarah Tarbell :

During my visit to Montreal in the summer of 1877 I saw, at the Congregation of Notre Dame, the French record, of which the following is a translation: —
On Monday, July 23, 1708, the ceremony of baptism was performed on Sarah Tarbell, who was born at Groton in New England, October 9, 1693. Her parents were Thomas Tarbell and Elizabeth Wood, both Protestants, and she was baptized by the minister shortly after her birth. Having been taken by the savages on Monday, June 20, 1707, she was brought to Canada; she has since been sold, and has lived with the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, established at Lachine, where she abjured her religion on May 1. Her godfather was M. Jacques Urbain Robert de Lamorandiere, Secretary of M. l'lntendant; and her godmother was Madame Marguerite Bonat, wife of M. Etienne Pascaud, the deputy treasurer of the King in this country.
Her name Sarah has been changed to Marguerite.
[Signed] Mgte Bonat,
Pascaud,
Lamorandiere,
Meriel, Pretre.
 
The boys remained for many years with their captors at Caughnawaga, an Indian village on the right bank of the St. Lawrence River, directly opposite to Lachine.

 p110
  Groton During the Indian Wars  : J. Wilson and Sons, Cambridge , Ma. 1883

When John and Zachariah Tarbell finally returned to Groton, it was as grown men and strangers to their family:

 We find no further trace of these boys, now grown up to manhood, during the twenty-five years following this attempt to release the New England prisoners. In the winter of 1739 John and Zechariah Tarbell came back to Groton in order to visit their kinsfolk and see their native town. They were so young when carried away that their recollections of the place were of course very indistinct. It is not known now under what circumstances or influences they returned. An itemized bill of the expense incurred in bringing them back from Canada was made out against their brothers, Thomas and Samuel, and perhaps paid by them. Shortly afterward Thomas Tarbell petitioned the General Court for means to enable him to meet the necessary charges of the journey, besides the expenses of an interpreter; and a conditional loan was granted. The record does not say whether it was ever paid back by him.  ibid,p111

The Tarbell brothers were now more Native American than English, and returned to the families they had made for themselves in upstate New York,  Green traces the Indian side of the family right down to the time of the publication  of his book in 1877 .

It's quite possible I may have Tarbell cousins living there today,