Josiah Farwell

     Josiah Farwell was born on 27 August 1698 in Chelmsford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.¹ He was the son of Captain Henry Farwell and Susanna Richardson.¹ He married Hannah Lovewell.² On 9 May 1725, in the fight at Pequawket, now Freyberg, Maine, that is known as "Lovewell's Fight," he was mortally wounded, and died near the field of battle.²
     
     Josiah Farwell was the only survivor of an Indian attack at Thorntons Ferry in which ten men, including his uncle Oliver Farwell, were killed:

     On the 5th Sept. 1724, Lieut. French with ten men under his command, started for the rescue of two of their friends and townsmen, Thomas Blanchard and Nathan Cross, who had been carried off by the Indians the evening previous. Oliver Farwell was one of this company. On arriving at the place where the two men had been laboring, they found evidence that the men had been carried off alive, and concluding the captors and their prisoners could not be far distant, decided on instant pursuit. They therefore bent their way up the Merrimac, till they reached what is now Thorntons Ferry. There they were waylaid, fired upon by the Indians, and all killed except Josiah Farwell, nephew of Oliver, who was vigorously chased by them for some time without either gaining much advantage, till he darted into a thicket, where they lost sight of him, and fearing he might have reloaded, abandoned the pursuit. Thus he alone escaped — to fall by the hand of the same savage enemy the next year.

This was during Dummer's War (1721-1725) at a place that is today near Nashua, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire.³

     Unlike earlier colonial wars, the French were not directly involved in Dummer's War. Also called Father Rasle's War and Lovewell's War, it was a conflict between the English colonists and the Wabanaki Indians in New England that culminated in a battle immortalized in song and in the writings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne as "Lovewell's Fight."

     Inhabitants of the remote towns along the Merrimac in Old Dunstable, in particular, were under constant threat of an Indian attack such as happened at Thorntons Ferry in 1724. Indeed, the raids were so frequent that multiple families were forced for their own safety to live together in garrison houses. It was general knowledge that many of these raids on English settlements were planned and carried forth from Pequawket Town, home of a Wabanaki tribe called Pigwackets by the English. This territory now forms the towns of Freyburg, Maine, and Conway, New Hampshire.

     Apparently unhappy with the way the war was going, and inspired by the Thorntons Ferry incident, a company was organized at Dunstable in the fall of 1724, with plans to go on the offensive against the Pigwackets. John Lovewell was Captain, Josiah Farwell, Lovewell's brother-in-law, was Lieutenant, and Jonathan Robbins, Ensign. These officers offered a petition to the Legislature in which they say —"That if said Company may be allowed five shillings per day in case they kill any enemy Indians and possess there Scalp they will imploy in Indian Hunting one whole year and if they do not within that time kill any, they are content to be allowed nothing for their wages, time and trouble." The petition was granted, but the terms were changed by the Legislature to a bounty of £100 for every scalp taken during one year.

     Captain Lovewell immediately took his company to the field. In all, he led three expeditions. The first two were hailed as successes and celebrated by the populace. On the first, they killed one Indian and took a boy captive; on the second, ten Indians were killed and plunder taken included skins, blankets, mocassins, snowshoes and rifles. The company, with Lovewell wearing a wig made of Indian scalps, paraded through the streets of Boston showing off the scalps taken on the second expedition.

     Pumped by fame and success, Lovewell organized a third expedition with plans to make a direct attack on Pequawket Town. Except for Lovewell, Farwell and Robbins, all members of the third expedition were new recruits. Among the forty-seven members of the company were Josiah's cousins, Thomas and Timothy Richardson and Captain Seth Wyman. Joseph and Jacob Farrar, who were first cousins, were also members of the third expedition. As far as has been determined, they were not related to the other four mentioned, though Joseph's son Joseph married a Richardson. On 7 May 1725, the company, thirty-four in number, some having been sent back or left at a fort for various reasons, reached the shores of Saco Pond, now Lovewell's Pond, about a mile from Pequawket Town. Early the next morning, the men left their packs so as to travel lightly and with less noise, and proceeded around the pond to where they had spotted a lone Indian. They succeeded in killing the Indian, but while they were gone, two returning war parties found the packs and waited in ambush. When the men returned, they were attacked from the front and rear by between forty and eighty braves. Lovewell and eight of his men were killed instantly; others were injured and one man deserted. The English fought back under the command of Seth Wyman and succeeded in gaining some cover. However, with their backs to the pond and Indians surrounding them elsewhere, there was no escape. The battle lasted ten hours with many casualties on both sides. Significant among the Pigwackets who were killed was the Indian leader Saugus. Of the English who engaged in the conflict, twelve were killed and buried on the field of battle; three were mortally wounded and died near the scene; nine were more or less seriously wounded; nine escaped injury. Of those who are of interest to this project, Josiah Farwell and Jacob Farrar were killed; Timothy Richardson was wounded and throughout the rest of his life partially incapacitated; Thomas Richardson, Seth Wyman and Joseph Farrar were among the fortunate who received no wounds.

     Though the war did not officially end for seven more months with the signing of Dummer's Treaty in December 1725, the significance of "Lovewell's Fight" is that it effectively ended hostilities between the English and the Wabanakis in Maine and New Hampshire. Those who participated in the battle were hailed as "Heroes of Pigwacket," and for their service, the forty-seven men of the third company and thirteen of the eighty-eight men of the second company were granted Suncook, now Pembroke, New Hampshire, on 6 August 1728.⁴