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Susannah Johnson, Indian Captive, Gives Birth in the Wild and Commemorates the Spot 45 Years Later

In August 1754, Susannah Johnson gave birth to a daughter in the Vermont wilderness during a forced march by her Indian captors.

The French and Indian War had started, and childbirth in the woods was only the beginning of her ordeal. Hunger, fatigue, fear and pain accompanied her on her march to an Indian village. The Indians sold her into slavery to the French, who eventually put her and her family into a Montreal prison. To return to her home in Charlestown, N.H., Susannah Johnson had to sail to England first.

Forty-five years later, Susannah Johnson hired a stonecutter to create two stone markers. She had them placed on the exact spot where she bore her daughter Captive and where they spent the night.

The markers still stand, though only near their original location. People know them as the Vermont Indian stones.

Susannah Johnson

Susannah Johnson was born Feb. 20, 1729 or 1730, in Lunenberg, Mass., one of 12 children to Moses and Susanna Hastings Willard. She was descended from Maj. Simon Willard, who founded Concord, Mass., and Thomas Hastings, who immigrated to America in the Puritan Great Migration.

Old Fort No. 4

At the age of 14 she moved to Charlestown with her family. The New Hampshire settlement amounted to little more than a fort, a saw mill and a cluster of huts for about 10 families.

Susannah Johnson’s step-uncles settled Charlestown, but Indians killed one of them during King George’s War, the third of the four French and Indian Wars.

When still in her teens, she married James Johnson in Lunenberg, Mass.

James Johnson

Her new husband had already spent much of his life in captivity – but to the British. As a 10-year-old boy he went to sea with his uncle, a ship captain. His uncle died on the voyage, and the crew sold him to a ship taking Irish slaves to America.

When the ship landed in Boston, the boys were allowed to play on the wharf. Susannah Johnson’s great-uncle happened to walk by them, and he noticed young James Johnson, the only boy who spoke English. The great-uncle bought his indenture.

At the age of 20, James Johnson bought his freedom and obtained a lieutenant’s commission. He married Susannah Willard, and they moved to the northernmost British settlement on the Connecticut River. Known then as Fort at Number 4, it is now called Charlestown, N.H.

Charlestown

During the peaceful years between the third and fourth French and Indian wars, Charlestown doubled in size. James Johnson did some farming and traded with the Indians.

An Abenaki couple

By May of 1754, James and Susannah Johnson had three children. That spring, he decided to go to Connecticut on a trading trip. In Connecticut he learned about an imminent war with the French and Indians, but he didn’t think Charlestown was in any immediate danger.

When James Johnson returned home in late August, neighbors came over to celebrate his return. They ate watermelons, drank flip, made merry and stayed in the Johnsons’ log house until midnight. When the neighbors left, the Johnsons went to bed and slept soundly.

Susannah was in the last days of pregnancy, happy her husband had returned.

The Indian Attack

Just before sunrise on Aug. 30, 1754, the Johnsons’ neighbor Peter Labarree knocked at the door. James Johnson got out of bed and put on his clothes to let him in.

Susannah Johnson heard him open the door and then shout “Indians! Indians!” He went to grab his gun, but a crowd of Indians burst in. Some hauled her 14-year-old sister out of bed, another grabbed Susannah and four Indians tied up her husband.

The Indians led her to the door, fainting and trembling, then brought her three naked children to her. She realized she herself had no clothes on. An Indian gave her a gown. She asked for a petticoat, but he refused.

The Indians took some plunder, bundled it up quickly then ordered them to march. Two Indians grabbed her arms and hurried her through thorny thickets. She lost a shoe.

They walked for a little while until they heard alarm guns from the fort. That hurried the Indians. After walking a mile and a half, Susannah Johnson grew faint and sat down. An Indian drew his knife; she thought he meant to kill her, but he just loosened her dress.

Baby Captive

Image of Susannah Johnson giving birth

The marching party included 11 Abenaki Indians, who understood little English. Also included: James and Susannah Johnson, their son Sylvanus, 6, daughters Susanna, 4, and Polly 2, Susannah’s sister Miriam, 14, neighbor Peter Labbaree and Ebenezer Farnsworth, a hired hand.

Hours after they set out, Indians noticed the blood covering Susannah’s legs and feet, cut badly because she had lost her shoe. They gave her moccasins. Then they caught a stray horse, threw bags and blankets on top of him and put her on top.

They walked another eight miles or so before sleeping on the ground. On the next day’s march, Susannah Johnson sat on the horse, her husband walking next to her holding her on.

After about an hour, she went into labor. The Indians indicated they must go to a brook.

She later wrote of her distress. She was

…fifteen or twenty miles from the abode of any civilized being, in the open wilderness, rendered cold by a rainy day–in one of the most perilous hours, and unsupplied with the least necessary, that could yield convenience in the hazardous moment. My children were crying at a distance, where they were held by their masters, and only my husband and sister to attend me.

Though the Indians remained aloof during her delivery, ‘they shewed some humanity,”

They built a small hut to shelter her, and at 10 am, she gave birth to a daughter, named Captive. The Indians expressed pleasure that they had another prisoner to sell.

More Misery

Captivity narrative by Susannah Johnson

The Indians let her rest during the day and made her a hut to sleep in at night. For two more days they marched on in glum silence and unvarying fatigue. On Day 5 they reached the banks of Lake Champlain, where they shot the horse she rode and ate it.

She couldn’t walk. Her husband had to carry her, which nearly killed them both.

“Inevitable death, in the midst of woods, one hundred miles wide, appeared my only portion,” she wrote.

They marched for four more days. At every meal, the Indians shared with them equally, and more than once they gave her a blanket, to shelter her from a thunderstorm.

On day 9 they reached East Bay in Lake Champlain. There, two Indians met them in four canoes, and they paddled all night to reach the western shore. The Indians built a fire and made the prisoners dance.

Again they embarked in canoes, and arrived at the French fort Crown Point at noon. The Indians took the prisoners to the French commander’s home. He gave them brandy, a good dinner, a change of linen and he put them up for four days. Susannah Johnson had a nurse, who dressed her infant in a French outfit she described as fantastical. Captive kept the outfit her whole life.

The Rest of the Story

They traveled north by water from French garrison to French garrison. Finally they arrived in St. Francis near Montreal, a village of about 30 wigwams and a Catholic church where a French friar said daily Mass.

Sylvanus went hunting with the Indians. Susannah Johnson wouldn’t see him again for years. The Indians put her in a large wigwam with three Indian men and three women. They took James Johnson to Montreal to sell him. Her daughters, her sister Miriam and Peter Labarree soon followed. In November, so did she.

After 11 days of travel she found her husband, children and friends in Montreal. Respectable people had bought them all and treated them well, except for the mayor, who treated her small daughter Polly badly.

James Johnson got two months’ parole to go to New England to raise cash to redeem his family. Massachusetts gave him 10 pounds and New Hampshire 150, but then the Massachusetts governor told him he had to stay.

When he didn’t return after two months, Susannah’s masters started to treat her badly. Finally James Johnson did return, only to be incarcerated with his family in a criminal jail. They were prisoners of war.

Susannah Johnson described conditions in the jail as shocking. The family all got smallpox, but survived.

Freedom

The Indian Stones, near the spot where Susannah Johnson gave birth

After six months the Johnsons persuaded the French authorities to transfer them to a civil jail. There they had decent beds, candles, food and fuel.

In the spring of 1757 they petitioned for their freedom, and got it. She found passage to England and from there she hoped to return home. Her husband had to stay behind. She, her two little daughters and her sister sailed for Plymouth, then went to Portsmouth. They then sailed to Cork. Then to New York, three years, three months and 11 days after her capture.

On Jan. 1, 1758 she embraced James Johnson, her ‘dearest friend’ in Charlestown. Charlestown had suffered from the war, so the family went to Lancaster. Her husband won a captain’s commission.

Captivity, slavery and imprisonment hadn’t killed James Johnson. But shortly after he won his freedom, he died fighting the French and Indians at Ticonderoga.

In October 1758, Susannah Johnson tracked down her son, now 11, who didn’t know her and spoke only broken English. He knew perfect Abenaki, however, after living with the Indians for three years.

Susannah Johnson eventually remarried and had more children. She published a book about her captivity in 1796, when captivity narratives had become a popular literary genre. Hers was no exception.

Indian Stones

In 1799, Susannah Johnson hired a stonecutter to engrave two slate slabs. One said,

On the 31 st of August 1754, Capt James Johnson had / a Daughter born on this Spot of Ground, being / Captivated with his whole Family by the Indians.

The other said,

This is near the Spot that the Indians Encamp/ the Night after they took Mr Johnson’s Family, / Mr Labarree & Farnsworth, August 30th 1754, and / Mrs Johnson was Delivered of her Child Half a mile up this Brook; // When troubles near the Lord is- kind, / He hears the Captives crys. / He can subdue the Savage mind, / And learn it sympathy.

She had the stone slabs placed on the spot where she gave birth to Captive, and the other near the place where they slept that night. In 1918, the stone markers were mounted on a single slab. You can still visit them.

Susannah Johnson died November 27, 1810.

To read her entire story, click here.

Elizabeth George based her young adult novel Calico Captive on Susannah Johnson’s story. You can find the Indian Stones at a small roadside pullout in southern Reading, Vt., on the east side of Route 106 at its junction with Knapp Brook Road.

Images: Stone marker with steps, By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34713735; small stone Indian stone By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34713733

This story was updated in 2022.

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Six Covered Bridges

Covered bridges have been around since the late 18^th century in the United States.

Uncovered bridges had short lifespans of about 15 to 20 years. So people started to cover them to protect the timbers underneath from the wind, rain, and snow.

Today covered bridges are more about rural charm than practicality.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana each has more covered bridges than any New England state, according to the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges.. Pennsylvania, with 219, has the most. But Vermont can claim the densest concentration of the old timbered structures, with 106.

New Hampshire once had close to 400 covered bridges, but that number has dwindled to 54. Rhode Island is the only New England state with fewer than eight covered bridges, with but one.

Here, then, are six covered bridges, one in each state. If you know of a covered bridge worth mentioning, please include it in the comments section.

West Cornwall Covered Bridge

There are about 90 covered bridges in Connecticut, where Ithiel Town invented the lattice truss in 1820. His design used latticework to carry a bridge’s load and allowed unskilled workers to build covered bridges quickly with local materials. Town, by the way, also designed the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford and Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven.

In 1864, the current incarnation of the West Cornwall Covered Bridge was built of red spruce and held together with wooden pegs. It’s one of the oldest covered bridges in the country. The key to its longevity was Town’s lattice truss design – and some heavy metal later in its life.

As more and more automobiles and trucks crossed the bridge, the West Cornwall Covered Bridge was closed to pedestrian traffic in the 1920s. In 1945, an oil truck weighing 20 tons fell through the bottom of the bridge. The State of Connecticut decided to replace the bridge in 1968, but a local group persuaded the state to save the bridge. Connecticut built a steel support deck that saved the bridge and won a Federal Highway Administration award.

It wasn’t painted red until 1957, which gave it iconic status. The bridge is featured in the opening scenes of the 1967 film Valley of the Dolls.

The bridge carries the Sharon-Goshen Turnpike (now Rte 128) over the Housatonic River in West Cornwall.

Sunday River Bridge or Artist’s Bridge

Maine once had 120 covered bridges, but fire, flood, development and the great freshet of 1896 reduced their number to eight.

Artist’s Bridge dates to 1872, deep in Maine’s back country on Sunday River Road in Newry. Some say the name of the bridge reflects its position as Maine’s most photographed and painted covered bridge. Other suggest plein air master painter John Enneking gave the bridge its name because he painted it so often. Locals then started calling it Artist’s Bridge.

Since then, artists may have put more paint on their canvases to illustrate the bridge than peoole ever put on its sides.

The Artist’s Bridge is northeast of the Sunday River Ski Resort, next to the crossing of the Sunday River by Sunday River Road.

Burkeville Covered Bridge

Timothy Palmer built Massachusetts’ first covered bridge in Amesbury in 1792, though it didn’t get its roof until 1810. Timber covered bridges were revived in the second half of the 20^th century, and a handful of ‘Massachusetts Modern’ covered bridges replaced historic wooden bridges that couldn’t be saved.

The Burkeville Covered Bridge in Conway is one of the oldest surviving covered bridges in the United States, having been built in 1870. It’s 107 feet long and considered a fine example of state-of-the-art wooden bridge building of the era.

A flood washed away the previous bridge. The roof caved in under a heavy load of snow in 1975, but volunteers restored it. In 1985, the Burkeville Covered Bridge was closed for safety reasons, but renovated and opened to vehicles in 2013. It is located on Main Poland Road just off of Route 116 in Conway.

The bridge is beloved in Conway, where it has been the site of fundraising dinners, memorial services and weddings (not to mention wedding photos).

Honeymoon Bridge

Think a bridge can’t be romantic? Think again. The Honeymoon Bridge in Jackson, N.H., got its name because so many couples share a kiss in front of it — and take photographs of themselves doing so.

The bridge dates to 1876 when Union Army Sgt. Charles Austin Broughton and his son Frank built it to access their dairy farm on Route 16A. Broughton was land agent for the Swift River Lumber Company in Albany, New Hampshire, an avid bear hunter, an accomplished fiddler, and a carpenter. Today the bridge ranks as one of the most photographed — and photogenic — covered bridges in New England.

The Honeymoon Bridge carries Village Street over the Ellis River in Jackson.

(Thanks to New Hampshire Covered Bridges by Richard Marshall.)

Swamp Meadow Covered Bridge

Rhode Island has but one covered bridge on a public road: The Swamp Meadow Covered Bridge in Foster, R.I.

Foster proposed building a covered bridge in honor of Rhode Island’s 350th anniversary in 1986. Volunteers began building the bridge in September 1992, using an Ithiel Town lattice truss on top of an existing steel bridge. The bridge was dedicated in May 1993, but vandals burned it four months later. The Foster Town Council immediately voted to rebuild it, and it was dedicated on Nov. 5, 1994.

The Swamp Meadow Covered Bridge, in the rural northwest corner of the state, crosses Hemlock Brook on Central Pike.

Mount Orne Bridge

Dating to at least the 1870s, the Mount Orne Bridge was built in the days when people could make money charging tolls to cross covered bridges.

The Union Bridge Company operated the span as a link between River Road in Lunenberg, Vt., and Elm Street in Lancaster N.H., until a log jam wiped it out in 1908. Thereafter the two towns rebuilt it.

The Mount Orne Bridge enjoyed a small spot of notoriety in 1969 when a fully loaded salt truck tried to test its limits and plunged through the bridge deck. The truck was a sight, with its rear-end caught on the bridge and its nose resting on the frozen river below. Fast-acting rescuers dislodged it and scooted it off to the shore before the salt that spilled from the truck could melt through the ice and plunge it into the river.

The Mount Orne Bridge joins Elm Street (N.H. Rte. 135 in South Lancaster) with River Road (Town Highway 1) in Lunenberg.

Images: West Cornwall Covered Bridge, The George F. Landegger Collection of Connecticut Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.; Forms part of: George F. Landegger Collection of Connecticut Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.; Gift; George F. Landegger; 2011; (DLC/PP-2011:166). Sunday River Bridge, By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33815556; Burkeville Covered Bridge, By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52272138; Mount Orne Covered Bridge, By Denimadept – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2609551

This story was updated in 2023.

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George Sewall Boutwell Warns Against Empire (Or Does He?)

On May 2, 1879, The Hon. George Sewall Boutwell was offering “a thousand acres of land in Groton, Mass., to negro exodus people.”

George Stalwart Boutwell

Though the offer was apparently not accepted, it was typical of George Boutwell, a champion of equality for African-Americans and of fairness for oppressed people around the world.

He had a long and distinguished political career as the first commissioner of Internal Revenue under President Abraham Lincoln. secretary of the Treasury under President Ulysses S. Grant, and U.S. senator and representative from, and governor of, Massachusetts.

On Jan. 18, 1866, he gave a speech before the U.S. House of Representatives arguing African Americans should have the right to vote in Washington, D.C. He said that by emancipating black people “we recognized their manhood, ” and as a result, they should have the right to vote. He argued the government is better if it includes everyone.

The unity of sentiment in the loyal states was due to the fact that every man felt that the government was his own.

Chestnuts and Oxen

George Boutwell was born January 28, 1818, in Brookline, Mass. He grew up on the family farm in Lunenberg, Mass., and attended public school until the age of 17. During summers he picked chestnuts and tended oxen. After he graduated he worked as a clerk and storekeeper in Groton, Mass. At 18 he began studying law with a lawyer whose office was above his shop. But he didn’t gain admission to the bar until he was 44.

He started his political career as a pension agent for Revolutionary War widows and traveled to Washington, D.C. There he met an enslaved African-American woman whose youngest son was sold to a buyer in Louisiana.

His conversation with her transformed him into an ardent abolitionist. He strongly supported Abraham Lincoln and helped found the Republican Party.

Boutwell as Treasury Secretary got along well with President Grant. He persuaded him to support the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act. The bill allowed suspension of the writ of habeas corpus to fight white supremacist groups during Reconstruction. Grant wasn’t sure if he should support the bill. Boutwell, however, told him how African Americans were terrorized, tortured and murdered in the South. Grant decided to support the bill, and it passed.

Boutwell believed continued oppression of African-Americans would cause social unrest and violence. In his memoir, Reminiscences of 60 Years in Public Affairs, Boutwell wrote,

The Dorr War in Rhode Island and the struggles in Kansas, are instances of the danger of attempting to found a social order upon an unjust or unequal system for the distribution of political power.

Anti-Imperialism

In the late 1890s, Boutwell grew disenchanted with the imperialism of President William McKinley. He left the Republican Party after the annexation of the Philippines and became the first president of the American Anti-Imperialist League.

A quote attributed to him — and sometimes to Henry David Thoreau — turns out to have been written by the novelist Taylor Caldwell.

Every ambitious would-be empire clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes.

That is a lie, and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it! If America ever does seek Empire, and most nations do, then planned reforms in our domestic life will be abandoned, States Rights will be abolished in order to impose a centralized government upon us for the purpose of internal repudiation of freedom, and adventures abroad.

The American Dream will then die—on battlefields all over the world—and a nation conceived in liberty will destroy liberty for Americans and impose tyranny on subject nations.

Whoever said it, it still has relevance.

George Sewall Boutwell died February 27, 1905. Half a century earlier he had built a home in Groton. His daughter Georgianna donated it to the Groton Historical Society. The Gov. George S. Boutwell House opens in the summer as a museum.

This story last updated in 2022.

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