Raid on Oyster River

Raid on Oyster River
Part of King William's War
Historical marker about the raid
Date July 18, 1694 Location Oyster River, Province of New Hampshire (present-day Durham, New Hampshire) Result French and Wabanaki Confederacy victory
Belligerents
Province of New Hampshire	New France Wabanaki Confederacy (Abenaki, Maliseet)
Commanders and leaders
Francis Drew Thomas Pickford John Woodman	Claude-Sébastien de Villieu Louis-Pierre Thury Bomazeen Captain Nathaniel Assacumbuit
Strength
unknown	c. 250 Abenaki unknown Maliseet
Casualties and losses
104 inhabitants were killed and 27 taken captive	unknown

The Raid on Oyster River, also known as the Oyster River Massacre, happened during King William's War, on July 18, 1694, when a group of Abenaki and some Maliseet, directed by the French, attacked an English settlement at present-day Durham, New Hampshire.

Historical context

Massachusetts responded to the Siege of Pemaquid of August 2–3, 1689, in present-day Bristol, Maine, by sending out 600 men to the border region. Led by Major Jeremiah Swaine of Reading, Massachusetts, the soldiers met on August 28, 1689, and then scoured the region. Despite Swaine's presence, Indigenous people of the region attacked Oyster River (present-day Durham, New Hampshire) and killed 21 people, taking several others captive.

In 1693, the English at Boston had entered into peace and trade negotiations with the Abenaki tribes in eastern Massachusetts. The French at Quebec under Governor Frontenac wished to disrupt the negotiations and sent Claude-Sébastien de Villieu in the fall of 1693 into present-day Maine, with orders to "place himself at the head of the Acadian Indians and lead them against the English."

Villieu spent the winter at Fort Nashwaak in present-day Fredericton, New Brunswick. The Indigenous people of the region were in general disagreement whether to attack the English or not, but after discussions by Villieu and the support of Father Louis-Pierre Thury and Father Vincent Bigot (at Pentagouet), they went on the offensive.

Raid

The English settlement of Oyster River was attacked on July 18, 1694, by Villieu with about 250 Abenaki, composed of two main groups from the Penobscot and Norridgewock under command of their sagamore Bomazeen (or Bomoseen). A number of Maliseet from Medoctec also took part in the attack. The Abenaki force was divided into two groups to attack the settlement, which was laid out on both sides of the Oyster River waterway. Villieu led the Pentagoet and the Meductic/Nashwaaks.

The attack commenced at daybreak, with the small forts quickly falling to the attackers. In all, 104 inhabitants were killed and 27 taken captive, with half the dwellings, including the garrisons, pillaged and burned to the ground. Crops were destroyed and livestock killed, causing famine and destitution for survivors.

After the successful raid on Oyster River, Villieu joined Acadian Governor Joseph Robineau de Villebon as the commander of Fort Nashwaak, capital of Acadia.

Legacy

A New Hampshire historical marker (number 50) about the raid, titled "Oyster River Massacre", was erected by the State of New Hampshire in the late 1960s. It was removed in 2021 after the state's Commission on Native American Affairs deemed the marker's language "problematic" in a filing with the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources. A replacement marker has yet to be installed, reportedly due to disagreement between representatives of local and state agencies about revised wording.

See also

• Military history of the Maliseet people

Sources

Primary texts

• William L. Wolkovich - Valkavicius, "The Groton Indian Raid of 1694 and Lydia Longley", Historical Journal of Massachusetts Volume 30, No. 2 (Summer 2002)
• Acadia at the end of the 17th Century, p. 56
• A French account of the raid upon the New England frontier in 1694. Acadiensis. 1901
• Rev. John Pike, Journal of the Rev. John Pike, of Dover, N.H., ed. Rev. A.H. Quint (Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1876)
• Jan K. Herman, "Massacre at Oyster River," New Hampshire Profiles, October 1976, 50.
• Francis Parkman, Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, vol. 2 of France and England in North America (1877; reprint, New York: The Library of America, 1983)
• Jeremy Belknap, The History of New Hampshire, ed. John Farmer (Dover, N.H.: S.C. Stevens and Ela & Wadleigh, 1831)
• Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay (originally published 1764–1828; reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936), 2:55.
• Cotton Mather, Decennium Luctuosum (Boston, 1699); reprinted in Magnalia Christi Americana (London, 1702), 86.
• Everett S. Stackpole, History of New Hampshire (New York: The American Historical Society, 1926), 1:182.
• Samuel Adams Drake, The Border Wars of New England Commonly called King William's and Queen Anne's Wars (Williamstown, Mass: Corner House, 1973), 96.
• Jan K. Herman, "Massacre on the Northern New England Frontier, 1689–1694" (master's thesis, University of New Hampshire, 1966), 43.
• Kenneth M. Morrison, The Embattled Northeast (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 128.
• John Clarence Webster, Acadia at the End of the Seventeenth Century. Saint John, NB, The New Brunswick Museum, 1979.
• The address of C. Alice Baker - History and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Volume 4, p. 401
• Samuel Abbott Green, "Groton during the Indian Wars"; see: "King Williams War"