Our brave forefathers have exterminated all the Indians, and their degenerate children no longer dwell in garrisoned houses nor hear any war-whoop in their path.  It would be well, perchance, if many an “English Chaplin” in these days could exhibit as unquestionable trophies of his valor as did “good young Frye.”  We have need to be as sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish, or Church, or Lovewell.  We are to follow on another trail, it is true, but one as convenient for ambushes.  What if the Indians are exterminated, are not savages as grim prowling about the clearings to-day?—­

     “And braving many dangers and hardships in the way,
     They safe arrived at Dunstable the thirteenth (?) day of May.”

But they did not all “safe arrive in Dunstable the thirteenth,” or the fifteenth, or the thirtieth “day of May.”  Eleazer Davis and Josiah Jones, both of Concord, for our native town had seven men in this fight, Lieutenant Farwell, of Dunstable, and Jonathan Frye, of Andover, who were all wounded, were left behind, creeping toward the settlements.  “After travelling several miles, Frye was left and lost,” though a more recent poet has assigned him company in his last hours.

     “A man he was of comely form,
       Polished and brave, well learned and kind;
     Old Harvard’s learned halls he left
       Far in the wilds a grave to find.

“Ah! now his blood-red arm he lifts;
His closing lids he tries to raise;
And speak once more before he dies,
In supplication and in praise.

“He prays kind Heaven to grant success,
Brave Lovewell’s men to guide and bless,
And when they’ve shed their heart-blood true,
To raise them all to happiness.”
* * * * *
“Lieutenant Farwell took his hand,
His arm around his neck he threw,
And said, `Brave Chaplain, I could wish
That Heaven had made me die for you.’”
* * * * *

Farwell held out eleven days.  “A tradition says,” as we learn from the History of Concord, “that arriving at a pond with Lieut.  Farwell, Davis pulled off one of his moccasins, cut it in strings, on which he fastened a hook, caught some fish, fried and ate them.  They refreshed him, but were injurious to Farwell, who died soon after.”  Davis had a ball lodged in his body, and his right hand shot off; but on the whole, he seems to have been less damaged than his companion.  He came into Berwick after being out fourteen days.  Jones also had a ball lodged in his body, but he likewise got into Saco after fourteen days, though not in the best condition imaginable.  “He had subsisted,” says an old journal, “on the spontaneous vegetables of the forest; and cranberries which he had eaten came out of wounds he had received in his body.”  This was also the case with Davis.  The last two reached home at length, safe if not sound, and lived many years in a crippled state to enjoy their pension.