ONLY HUMAN

I've been thinking the last few days about the discovery that my ancestor Nathaniel Wilder was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of six Indians three women and three children. Tthere is always the possibilty that  the two men who were hung were the actual murderers while Nathaniel Wilder and Daniel Hoare merely looked on and so gained clemency.

I have a degree in history and was taught in college that we should not impose our present day beliefs and ethics when examining the events of the past. It's hard not to sometimes do that, though, when it's your own family history. Some of the Wilder genealogies published in the 19th century show that later generations changed the facts a little, saying it was only one Indian killed, a brave that had surrendered. One male Indian was easier to swallow than six women and children.

I took a course in philosophy at college and one day the professor asked us if world peace was possible.(This was back in the 1960's.) I said no, because we were all humans and had emotions like hate, greed and jealousy. The professor said I was a cynic and moved on to the next student.

Nathaniel Wilder's family and neighbors in Lancaster, Ma. had been attacked and besieged by Indians. Some had been wounded, some killed. So it's probable his involvement in the deaths were prompted by hatred. It was a human reaction, It doesn't excuse it, but it helps in understsanding what happened. He was only human.

And it's only human for me to wish he had been able to control his emotions.




 
  
   


    

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 49: NATHANIEL WILDER OF LANCASTER, MA. PT3

In August 1676 my 8x great grandfather Nathaniel Wilder and three other men were sentenced to death for the murders of six Indians: three women and three children.

On 26Sep 1676  two of his co-defendants,  Samuel and Daniel Goble were hung in Boston. Neither Nathaniel or the fourth man, Daniel Hoare, were executed at that time. In fact they never were. I have my own theory on why the death sentence wasn't carried out. My ancestor and Daniel Hoare were sons of two prominent residents of their towns. Hoare and the Gobles were from Concord where the murders took place but the Gobles were not from an influential family. Appeals for mercy were probably made and two weeks after the date on which they would have been executed the following ruling was made by the Court:

 Oct 1676. Upon the humble petition of Daniel Hoare & Nathaniell Wilder, presented to this Court, acknouledging the justice of this Court. & begging pardon for their lines, the Court haue granted their petition, and accordingly doe remitt the sentence of death passed against them, and order, that they pay prison ohardges and ten pounds apeece money, halfe towards the charge of witnesses. to be payd to the Tresurer of the country. and the other halfe to Andrew Pittime, & Swagon, ye Indians prosecuting against them: on payment whereof they are dischardged.
[Massachusetts Records.]


p118
The Early Records of Lancaster, Massachusetts. 1643-1725  W. J. Coulter,Pub.Lancaster,Ma. 1884


So for the sum of ten pounds my ancestor escaped the hangman's noose.

But I wonder. Two Indians had brought the accusation of murder against the four colonists. Five pounds in recompense for the loss of three women and three children probably did nothing to soother their grief and anger. So, when the town of Lancaster was attacked again by Indians in 1704 it may not have ben just coincidence that Nathaniel Wilder was killed, nor the death of his son Jonathan three years later in 1707. Another son, Ephraim, was severely wounded in that 1707 attack as well.

Perhaps the Indians exacted their own justice .

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 49: NATHANIEL WILDER OF LANCASTER, MA. PT2

I found details of my ancestor Nathaniel Wilder's murder trial in  Henry Stedman Nourse's book The Early Records of Lancaster, Massachusetts. 1643-1725:

Daniel Goble, thus executed with the murderers of the women and children of Lancaster, was a soldier, the ringleader in an atrocious murder of Indian women and children, during the popular excitement succeeding the Indian massacres. The sad story touched Lancaster, in the person of one of its most promising young men, and must not be passed over here.

" Wee the Grand Jury for our Soueraigne Lord the King doe Present & lndict Nathaniell Wilder of Concord [Lancaster] in the County of Midlesex in New England for that he not hauing the feare of God before his eyes & being Instigated by the Divil wth other his Accomplises at or on the 7th of August last, at or neere to Hurtlebury hill, in the woods in the precincts of Concord or neere therevnto did murder & kill three lndian weomen & three Indian Children contrary to the peace of our Soueraigne Lord the King his Crowne & dignitye the law of God & of this Jurisdiction. ‘ The Jurors fiinds this beill and leue hime to fl'urther triall.

RICHARD CALICOTT fi'oreman in the name off the rest off the Jurey.

[Endorsed] They finde a speciall vierdict. lf being present & seing the fact done & concenting, it be murder then we find him gilty according to lnditement, if not not gilty.

To the keeper of the prison in Boston.
You are hereby in his majtyc name, required to take into yo'safe custody the persons of Daniel Goble, Stephen Goble, Nathaniel Wilder & Daniel Hoare & them safely keepe, in order to their tryall for killing of seuerall Indians weomen & children wch they owned, and see that they be forth coming at the next court of Assistants, or whenever the authoritys shall giue further order, dated in Boston the 11‘h day of August 1676. By order of the Councill EDw" RAWSON Szcrery [Massachusetts Archives, XXX, 209, an, 221.]

The four soldiers were convicted and sentenced to death.

pp 117-118
The Early Records of Lancaster, Massachusetts. 1643-1725  W. J. Coulter,Pub.Lancaster,Ma. 1884

Now since I'm writing about the incident, Nathaniel Wilder wasn't executed.  His daughter Eunice,my 7x great grandmother was born after all this. I won't lie and say I wish Nathaniel had hung. But I am disappointed in Nathaniel, and I am pretty sure I know why he was spared.

I'll discuss that next.

To be continued,
 

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 49: NATHANIEL WILDER OF LANCASTER, MA. PT1

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.
-p202
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.