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gathering hordes of Indians, numbering at times, even into 

 the thousands. Accordingly it was deemed necessary, to 

 thoroughly provision those towns, and as a superabun- 

 dance of wheat had been grown and harvested on the fer- 

 tile meadows of Deerfield, it was ordered^^that this, amount- 

 ing to nearly three thousand bushels, should be sent by 

 wagons and carts to the beleaguered colony of Hadley for 

 security. 



This large shipment was to be conveyed and protected 

 by troops from the eastern settlements, who were sent up 

 for that purpose, a large part of whom, under the com- 

 mand of Capt. Lothrop, about eighty in number, volunteers 

 and drafted men, mostly from the various towns of Essex 

 County, started on a beautiful bright morning, Sept. 18, 

 1675. About half of their journey had been accomplished, 

 when in crossing a small, sluggish stream called "Muddy 

 brook'' in the south part of Deerfield, these men on a mis- 

 sion of mercy and necessity, were suddenly ambuscaded by 

 hundreds of Indians who surrounded them from all sides,, 

 and at almost the first discharge of their arrows, and their 

 guns, killed almost the whole escort, who fell, tinging with 

 their blood the water of that little stream, giving it the bap- 

 tismal appellation of "Bloody brook," which it has borne 

 to this day; only three of the whole company escaped. 

 Probably no event from the settlement of the colonies to 

 the eventful fight at Lexington ever wrought such dismay 

 and sorrow in the province of Massachusetts Bay as this. 

 In the quaint language of the old historian "they were most 

 untimely cut off, their dear relations at home mourning for 

 them like Rachel for her children, and would not be com- 

 forted because they were not." 



This sad affair has been celebrated in prose and in verse, 

 A fitting commemoration was held on the ground in Sept. 

 1835, when in the presence of a large assemblage of the 

 people of the vicinity, a neat marble shaft was dedicated 

 to the memory of the dead, the occasion illuminated by a 

 most eloquent oration by Edward Everett, delivered under 



