 
Once, in the days of Indian attacks on the small English settlements in Connecticut, a family of children had a narrow escape from capture by the savages. A party of Indians on the warpath passed near their home while their father and elder brothers were away working in the fields with the neighbors. It was the custom in those dangerous times for men to work together in companies, going from one man’s fields and meadows to another’s, and for greater safety they carried their firearms with them. They stacked the guns on the edge of the field with a sentinel to watch them and keep a lookout for possible Indians. Sometimes it was a boy who did this sentry duty, standing on a stump like a sentry in a box. There was no one left at home that day but a girl fourteen years old and her four younger brothers. The mother had died not long before and the little sister was caring for the family. All unconscious that any Indians were near, she went down to the spring for water. As she lifted the full pail she caught sight of a dark, painted face peering at her from a thicket on the edge of the clearing. She dropped the pail at once and ran as fast as she could to the house, calling to the boys to run in too and help her close the heavy door. Doors were protected then by a thick wooden bar across them on the inside. The children hurried in and, working together, they got the bar in position before the Indians reached the house. But the two halves of the door yielded a little, just enough to let the edge of a tomahawk through, which hacked away at the wooden bar while the children stood watching, paralyzed with fear. Fortunately their own cries as they ran toward the house had reached the men in the fields, who dropped their scythes, seized their guns, and drove off the Indians. But the bar was half cut through before help reached the terrified children. Stories like this one, and others with less happy endings, are common, not only in the written history of Connecticut, but in the unwritten traditions of Connecticut families. Whenever there was trouble with the Indians the settlers were exposed to these dangers. In the long wars between France and England for the possession of America, the Indians were often allies of the French, and then the English settlements suffered greatly from their attacks. In 1754, not long before the beginning of the last “French-and-Indian War” (1756-63), there were several reasons why the people of Windham, in the northeastern part of Connecticut, were especially afraid of a surprise and attack by the Indians. Their town was on the border of the colony and less protected than some other places, and they also feared that they had lately given offense to the Indians by planning a new town on what was known as the “Wyoming territory” (in the present State of Pennsylvania). These lands were still held by the Indians, but Connecticut claimed them under her patent, and although the Windham people intended to pay the Indians fairly for them they were not sure that the Indians would not resent being forced to sell and be hostile to them in consequence. News soon reached them that war had begun in the: Ohio country beyond the Susquehannah, and that an expedition against the French had gone there from Virginia under the command of a young officer named George Washington. They heard this name then for the first time and with indifference, of course, not knowing that it belonged to a man who would become very famous later, and be honored as no other man in America has ever been honored; but they understood at once that war-time was no time in which to plant a new town. The company which had been formed for the purchase of the Susquehannah lands, and which included such well-known men as Colonel Eliphalet Dyer and Jedediah Elderkin, therefore put off the undertaking until peace should come again. [Image: The Wyoming Massacre] Meanwhile, people in Windham grew anxious about their own safety. If the Indians were in truth offended, would not the French now encourage them to take their revenge? That dread of the cruel savages, which was continually in the minds of all Connecticut settlers in those early days, increased in “Windham as rumors reached there, from time to time, of uprisings among the Indians. On the spring and summer evenings of that year breathless tales were told about Indian attacks: old tales which, like the one at the beginning of this story, had been handed down from earlier days in Connecticut, and new tales of fresh atrocities on the borders of the northern settlements in Maine and New Hampshire. The children listened as long as they were allowed and then went to bed trembling, seeing fierce painted faces and threatening feather headdresses in every dark shadow. Older people asked each other what would happen when the men were called out to serve in the army and the women and children were left helpless at home. “While the town was in this tense state of anxiety, those of its inhabitants who lived near Windham Green were awakened out of their sleep, one warm June night, by strange and unaccountable noises.” There began to be a rumble, rumble, rumble in the air, and it grew louder and louder and seemed to be like drums beating. A negro servant, coming home late, heard it first. The night was still and black, and clouds hung low over the hot hillsides. He thought it might be thunder, but there was no lightning and no storm coming. He stopped and listened, and the sounds grew stranger and wilder. Perhaps it was witches, or devils; perhaps the Judgement Day was at hand! Terror seized him and he ran home breathless and awoke his master. By this time others, too, were awake; windows flew open and heads were pushed out, and everybody asked, “What is it? What is it?” Some hurried out half-dressed, and frightened women and crying children gathered on the Green; they could not see one anothers’ white faces in the darkness. The beating of drums drew nearer and nearer. “It is the French and Indians coming,” cried the men; but no one could tell from which direction the enemy was advancing; the dreadful noise seemed to come from all sides at once, even from overhead in the sky. By and by they thought they could distinguish words in the uproar. Deep bass voices thundered, “We’ll have Colonel Dyer; we’ll have Colonel Dyer,” and shrill high ones answered, “Elderkin, too; Elderkin, too.” As these were the names of the two lawyers in Windham who had been most prominently connected with the Wyoming plan,—the “Susquehannah Purchase” as it was called,—every one was sure that a band of Indians bent on revenge was approaching, and hearts beat fast in fear. All night long the noises lasted, sometimes coming nearer, sometimes dying away in the distance, and all night long the people of Windham waited in dread and awful expectation. At last, toward daybreak, the dark clouds slowly lifted and with the first light in the east the sounds ceased. In the gray, early morning men looked at each other and then crept silently back, each to his own home. When the sun rose, clear and bright, and no French and no Indians had appeared, Windham regained its courage, and before the morning was over an explanation had been found of the strange noises of the night. The frogs in the millpond had had a great battle, or some terrible catastrophe had overtaken them. Dead and dying frogs lay on the ground all about the pond, and their gurgles and croaks and clamor had made all the trouble and excitement. The story was soon told all over Connecticut, and everybody laughed, and ballads and songs were written about it, to the great mortification of the people of Windham. Yet the danger that explained the terror of that night was a real one in the history of many a Connecticut town, and therefore the Frogs of Windham have their legitimate place in Connecticut’s story. |
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