“After this it quickly began to snow, and when night came on they stopped:  and now down I must sit in the snow by a little fire, and a few boughs behind me, with my sick child in my lap and calling much for water, (being now) through the wound fallen into a violent fever.  My own wound also growing so stiff that I could scarce sit down or rise up, yet so it must be, that I must sit all this cold winter night, upon the cold snowy ground, with my sick child in my arms, looking that every hour would be the last of its life; and having no Christian friend near me, either to comfort or help me.”

     “...Fearing the worst, I durst not send to my husband, though
     there were some thoughts of his coming to redeem and fetch me,
     not knowing what might follow....”

“The Lord preserved us in safety that night, and raised us up again in the morning, and carried us along, that before noon we came to Concord.  Now was I full of joy and yet not without sorrow:  joy, to see such a lovely sight, so many Christians together; and some of them my neighbors.  There I met with my brother, and brother-in-law, who asked me if I knew where his wife was.  Poor heart! he had helped to bury her and knew it not; she, being shot down by the house, was partly burned, so that those who were at Boston ... who came back afterward and buried the dead, did not know her....  Being recruited with food and rainment, we went to Boston that day, where I met with my dear husband; but the thoughts of our dear children, one being dead, and the other we could not tell where, abated our comfort in each other....”

And here is the brief story of the return of her daughter:  “She was travelling one day with the Indians, with her basket on her back; the company of Indians were got before her and gone out of sight, all except one squaw.  She followed the squaw till night, and then both of them lay down, having nothing over them but the heavens, nor under them but the earth.  Thus she traveled three days together, having nothing to eat or drink but water and green whortle-berries.  At last they came into Providence, where she was kindly entertained by several of that town....  The Lord make us a blessing indeed to each other.  Thus hath the Lord brought me and mine out of the horrible pit, and hath set us in the midst of tender-hearted and compassionate Christians.  ’Tis the desire of my soul that we may walk worthy of the mercies received, and which we are receiving.”

This carrying away of white children occurred with surprising frequency, and we of a later generation can but wonder that their parents did not wreak more terrific vengeance upon the red man than is recorded even in the bloodiest pages of our early history.  In 1755, after the close of the war with Pontiac, a meeting took place in the orchard of the Schuyler homestead at Albany, where many of such kidnapped children were returned to their parents and relatives.  Perhaps we can comprehend some of the tragedy of this form of warfare when we read of this gathering as described by an eye-witness: