Scalp Bounties and Lovewell’s War

by Tom Seymour

French Jesuit Father Sabastien Rale being killed by English colonists at Norridgewock. Rale is said to have incited hostilities. Far from being nomadic people of the deep woods, Maine Indians were quite cosmopolitan, in that they often lived in communal settings and tended crops. War began with the expansion of New England settlements along the coast of Maine. Photo courtesy Maine Historical Society

People over 60 years old might remember the famous painting by Cassily Adams of Custer’s Last Fight. The original was presented to the Seventh Regiment U.S. Cavalry, but the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association commissioned reprints and, at the end of the 19th century, these were distributed across the country and appeared in nearly every hotel, tavern and in most public places. Many of these prints remained in public view well into the 1950s.

One of the horrific highlights of the Custer painting was the depiction of scalped men and men in the process of being scalped. Countless youngsters were told to avert their eyes when passing this painting, but many no doubt defied authority and took a quick peek.

While the barbarism of scalping horrified viewers of the Adams painting, scalping had at least some little part in a famous battle that took place in what is now the State of Maine.

Continuing Strife

The second of four colonial wars, Queen Anne’s War was typical of the others in that English colonists contended with attacks by French, along with their Indian allies, dropping down out of Canada to wage a mostly guerilla-style war. One of the better-known facets of this war, at least to New Englanders, was the Deerfield Massacre of 1704.

The French and the Indians made a surprise attack on the sleeping Massachusetts village, killing everyone and burning buildings. In the end, 53 Deerfield residents were killed and 111 were taken prisoner.

Warfare of greater and lesser magnitude continued until, in 1713, peace was established with the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht. But this did not necessarily signal an end to strife between the Indians and colonists.

What was more, the treaty was nebulous regarding boundaries. Who owned what was arguable. Also, despite a meeting and signing of a treaty in Portsmouth on July 11, 1713, between the provincial governor, various councilors and members of the formally hostile tribes, the Indians later felt that their aboriginal rights had been abridged.

And so Indian depredations, retaliation for perceived ill treatment, were eventually renewed upon the northern colonies. While not an official, declared war, this phase of hostilities was known as “Governor Dummer’s War.”

Dummer’s War

With the end of Queen Anne’s War, settlers moved into Maine, building villages and starting small industries. But the Indians remonstrated, saying the settlers were stealing their land that God had given them. Real bloodshed was not far away at this point.

The year 1722 saw the beginning of open hostilities in the form of Indian attacks upon coastal Maine, where nine families from Merrymeeting Bay were either killed or captured. Then the Indians turned their efforts toward the fort at the mouth of St. George River, laying siege to the fort and, when that failed, casting about the countryside, killing settlers, capturing sailing vessels and prisoners, and burning houses.

This continued into late in the year, when Fort George in Brunswick was attacked and burned. Then in September, a large party of St. Francis Indians from Canada, along with Micmacs, attacked the colonial fortification at Arrowsic.

Attacks, murders, sieges and battles continued. Then in September 1724, Indians came to Dunstable, Mass., and captured two men working out in their fields. When the two were discovered missing, it was presumed they were captured and a small force of men set out to effect their return.

However, the group was led into an ambush and all but one man, Joseph Farwell, who escaped, were either killed or captured and taken prisoner.

View of the pond near Lovewell’s fight, which today is Lovewell’s Pond. Lovewell died of musket wounds from the battle. The pond was 2 miles from the Skoki Indian village, one of many active native villages in western Maine.

Lovewell’s Fight

In light of the continuing attacks, the colony decided to prosecute the still-undeclared war in a more forceful manner. To that end, the government offered bounties on Indian scalps. It was hoped that private companies of volunteer “rangers,” or scalp hunters, would put an end to depredations by the Indians. One man from Dunstable, John Lovewell, had an axe to grind with the Indians, because his grandparents had suffered death and scalping at their hands.

Lovewell raised a company of volunteers and conducted two successful raids on the Indians. But his third venture met with difficulty and this was what was later known as “Lovewell’s Fight,” or “Lovewell’s War.” The fight was also known as the “Battle of Pequawket,” which some colonials referred to it as “Pigwacket.” Pequawket was the main village of the Skoki Indians and was probably typical of Indian villages throughout northern New England. Far from being nomadic people of the deep woods, Maine Indians were quite cosmopolitan, in that they often lived in communal settings and tended crops.

On April 16, 1725, Lovewell and 46 volunteers headed out for the headwaters of the Saco River, where the Skoki Indians lived. As his lieutenant, Lovewell chose Joseph Farwell, the lone survivor of the Dunstable raid. Chaplain of the group, Jonathan Frye, was a young man who had not yet turned 21. Given the nature of their business, removing other human being’s scalps for bounty money, it seems ironic that Lovewell’s group would need, or want, a chaplain. In fact, it was their chaplain who is credited with taking the first scalp.

By the time the expedition had reached Ossipee Pond in New Hampshire, three individuals, including an Indian guide named Toby, fell ill and were compelled to return home. Then when another member became sick, Lovewell decided to build a fortification and leave the sick men, plus a surgeon there with a supply of food. This they would guard so that when the expedition passed by on their way home, they would have supplies waiting.

So now the band numbered only 34 men, including Lovewell. They continued on toward Pequawket and camped for the night by a brook running into what is today called Lovewell Pond. At this point the group was only two miles from the Indian village.

Bold Decision

The next morning, while the group was praying, someone fired a gun in the distance. The group headed toward the sound and soon saw a lone Indian. Captain Lovewell intuited that this individual was a decoy, placed there to lead his force into an ambush. So he put the question to his men, retreat immediately or confront the unknown numbers of Indians.

The answer was unanimous. The men told their captain that they had come to fight and rather than retreating in the face of the enemy and being called cowards, they would take their chances and continue on. The exact wording of the men’s decision is not known, although it has continued on through the years in the form of flowery prose. But the gist of the decision is the same. The company chose to continue on and face the Indians.

But before going forward, the men divested themselves of their packs, partially concealing them under cover of a patch of bracken ferns. This, they would later regret. Then they crossed a stream later named “Battle Brook,” and after that, encountered the lone Indian they had seen earlier, as he was returning to his village. Several men fired at him and he returned fire with a smoothbore musket loaded with shot, wounding Captain Lovewell and one other man. Others continued firing at the Indian, killing him. It is here that Chaplin Frye is credited with taking the Indian’s scalp.

In the meantime, a group of Indians, among whom was their leader, Paugus, located the hidden packs. Counting the packs, the Indians were easily able to determine that Lovewell’s force was vastly inferior in numbers to their own.

Battle Inaugurated

At around 10 a.m., Lovewell’s force headed back the way they came with the intent of gathering up their packs. They didn’t know that just ahead lay the Indians in ambush. The Indians rose up ahead of the rangers, yelling and screaming and shooting. Lovewell and his men met the charge in kind, running and yelling and shooting at the Indians. In the ensuing fire, an unknown number of Indians were killed and the rest fell back, but only briefly.

Regaining their determination, the Indians again rushed Lovewell and his men, now coming very close. At this point, Captain Lovewell was again hit, this time mortally. He leaned against a tree for support and continued firing. In the end, just before passing, his men noted that even though he was too near death to speak, he sat with his gun pointed toward the enemy.

Nine men were now dead, including Captain Lovewell, and several more men were severely wounded. Seeing victory in sight, the Indians attempted to surround the survivors. But Ensign Wyman, now in charge, directed the men to fall back toward the pond. There, they found Battle Brook on their right, a point of land to their left and in front, a stand of tall pines. A near-impenetrable bog protected them on the other side.

The Indians, unable to make their way to the men without being shot, kept up a siege for eight hours. They wailed, howled like wolves and barked like dogs. The defenders answered back, defiantly.

The Indians kept up a sporadic fire and in mid-afternoon, hit and delivered a mortal wound to Chaplain Frye. After this, the Indians withdrew a slight distance, ostensibly to discuss their options. Ensign Wyman crept near the Indians and fired, killing one man, possibly the Indian leader, Chief Paugus. Some authorities say that John Chamberlain, in a separate action, was responsible for killing Paugus. No one knows for sure.

The Retreat

The death of their leader, Paugus, demoralized the Indians and by late afternoon, they left the battleground, taking their own wounded with them and, surprisingly, forbearing to scalp the dead colonists. After waiting until they were certain that the worst of the danger had passed, Lovewell’s men began their retreat. Ten of them had died in the fight, 14 were wounded, one was missing and nine remained uninjured.

Earlier, Solomon Kies, suffering from three gunshot wounds and a resulting loss of blood, pulled himself along on the ground to the edge of the pond, there to enter the water so the Indians would not later mutilate his body. But there, he found a birchbark canoe and managed to get himself in it. Pushed by the breeze, the canoe drifted to the west side of the pond and there, Kies managed to regain his strength and composure and from there walked to the fort at Ossipee Pond.

Meanwhile, two other mortally wounded men were left to perish. Soon after, four others, so badly wounded that they could go no further, were left at their own request. It took four days for the emaciated remainder to reach the fort at Ossipee Pond. To their horror, they found that the fort’s defenders, frightened by the report of Solomon Kies, had fled, taking Kies with them. In fairness to these men, they supposed that the whole of Lovewell’s command had been wiped out and retreat was their most provident act.

The deserters had left some bread and pork, which the famished group fell upon immediately. This meager fare saved them from starvation. Now nourished enough for the remainder of the trip home, they left for the final leg of their journey. At home, they were welcomed as heroes.

Epilogue

Upon learning of the fight, a group of 88 men retraced Captain Lovewell’s steps to the scene of the battle. There, they buried the dead and carved their names on some of the larger trees around the battleground.

The Indians, disheartened and wanting no more to do with English settlers, departed from the area and sought protection in the wilderness. Their village was no more and would never again be populated. Thus, Lovewell’s, or Governor Dummer’s War, ended.

In later years, Lovewell’s fight was romanticized by generations of New Englanders. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “The Battle of Lovewell Pond,” and Henry David Thoreau included a bit about the battle in his book, “A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers.” And no one ever mentioned that Lovewell and his men had initially set out to profit by taking people’s scalps. That information has become overlooked and hidden by the mists of history.