As late as 1724 there was no house on the north side of the Nashua, but only scattered wigwams and grisly forests between this frontier and Canada.  In September of that year, two men who were engaged in making turpentine on that side, for such were the first enterprises in the wilderness, were taken captive and carried to Canada by a party of thirty Indians.  Ten of the inhabitants of Dunstable, going to look for them, found the hoops of their barrel cut, and the turpentine spread on the ground.  I have been told by an inhabitant of Tyngsborough, who had the story from his ancestors, that one of these captives, when the Indians were about to upset his barrel of turpentine, seized a pine knot and flourishing it, swore so resolutely that he would kill the first who touched it, that they refrained, and when at length he returned from Canada he found it still standing.  Perhaps there was more than one barrel.  However this may have been, the scouts knew by marks on the trees, made with coal mixed with grease, that the men were not killed, but taken prisoners.  One of the company, named Farwell, perceiving that the turpentine had not done spreading, concluded that the Indians had been gone but a short time, and they accordingly went in instant pursuit.  Contrary to the advice of Farwell, following directly on their trail up the Merrimack, they fell into an ambuscade near Thornton’s Ferry, in the present town of Merrimack, and nine were killed, only one, Farwell, escaping after a vigorous pursuit.  The men of Dunstable went out and picked up their bodies, and carried them all down to Dunstable and buried them.  It is almost word for word as in the Robin Hood ballad:—­

     “They carried these foresters into fair Nottingham,
       As many there did know,
     They digged them graves in their churchyard,
       And they buried them all a-row.”

Nottingham is only the other side of the river, and they were not exactly all a-row.  You may read in the churchyard at Dunstable, under the “Memento Mori,” and the name of one of them, how they “departed this life,” and

      “This man with seven more that lies in
      this grave was slew all in a day by
                    the Indians.”

The stones of some others of the company stand around the common grave with their separate inscriptions.  Eight were buried here, but nine were killed, according to the best authorities.

     “Gentle river, gentle river,
       Lo, thy streams are stained with gore,
     Many a brave and noble captain
       Floats along thy willowed shore.

     “All beside thy limpid waters,
       All beside thy sands so bright,
     Indian Chiefs and Christian warriors
       Joined in fierce and mortal fight.”