From The Hundredth Town by Harriette Merrifield Forbes, 1889, pp. 32-35.
One of the stories that the old people a hundred years ago told to their grandchildren was about Edmund Rice’s capture by Graylock, an old Indian living in the forests around Westborough, who occasionally made raids on the settlers. The women during the day were clustered together in the garrison-houses, while the men, with their guns near by, cleared their farms.
Edmund Rice was a young man, fitted by nature and circumstances to be a pioneer in a new country. He was bold and fearless, convinced that, whatever trouble might come upon others, he would live to make for himself a name in the annals of the new town. He would like to see the Indians attempt to capture him! Let Graylock come, — he might get the worst of it!
One morning Rice was swinging his scythe through the tall grass, with no suspicion of the dusky form creeping stealthily towards him.
With one quick, agile spring, Graylock was between him and his gun. He himself was armed, and all that Rice could do was to take in silence the trail pointed out to him, his captor following with levelled gun.
So they went for some distance, Rice, on the way, picking up a stout stick, upon which he leaned more heavily as they advanced on their journey.
There was but one chance of escape for him, and with his usual boldness and intrepidity he took it. Turning around quickly, when he saw that for a moment Graylock was looking in another direction, he felled him to the ground with his heavy stick. Leaving him dead, he ran back lightly over the fresh trail, and went on with his morning’s work.
This was probably before 1704, when the Indians revenged the death of Graylock by killing one of Mr. Rice’s sons and capturing two others. This massacre occurred near the garrison-house of his brother, Thomas Rice, which was situated on the Christopher Whitney estate, on Main street, then the “old Connecticut way.”
The account of this raid was written by Rev. Peter Whitney, the old Northborough minister and friend of Mr. Parkman. The latter doubtless heard the full particulars of the story from Timothy Rice, one of the boys. He writes: —
“On August 8, 1704, as several persons were busy in spreading flax on a plain about eighty rods from the house of Mr. Thomas Rice (the first settler in Westborough, and several years representative of the town of Marlborough in the General Court), and a number of boys with them, seven, some say ten, Indians suddenly rushed down a wooded hill near by, and knocking the least of the boys on the head (Nahor, about five years old, son of Mr. Edmund Rice, and the first person ever buried in Westborough), they seized two, Asher and Adonijah, — sons of Mr. Thomas Rice, — the oldest about ten, and the other about eight years of age, and two others, Silas and Timothy, sons of Mr. Edmund Rice, above-named, of about nine and seven years of age, and carried them away to Canada.”
In about four years Asher was redeemed. Adonijah married and settled in Canada, while Silas and Timothy mixed with the Indians, had Indian wives and children, and lost all knowledge of the English language. Timothy became one of their chiefs. They called him Oughtsorongoughton. In September, 1 740, he returned to Westborough and made a short visit. Mr. Parkman writes: “They viewed the house where Mr. Rice dwelt, and the place from whence the children were captivated, of both which he retained a clear remembrance, as he did likewise of several elderly persons who were then living, though he had forgot our language.” They then visited Governor Belcher. Timothy, as chief of the Cagnawagas, was quite prominent in the history of the time, and influential in keeping the Indians from joining the English during the Revolution. The Cagnawagas were the principal tribe of the Canadian Six Nations. They “peremptorily refused” to join the king’s troops in Boston, saying, that if they are obliged to take up arms on either side, “that they shall take part on the side of their brethren, the English in New England.” Both brothers were living in 1790.
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Note: In 2016, Jillian Hensley published In This Strange Soil, a novel about the capture of the Rice brothers. The book is available at the Westborough Public Library both in the Local Author collection and in the Westborough Center for History and Culture.
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