The picturesque StLawrence . e destruction of Deerfieldby the French and Indians in 1704. Manycaptives were taken through the winter snowsto Canada, and Eunice Williams, the littledaughter of the Deerfield minister, was lodgedamong these mission Indians. Most of thecaptives were ransomed later, but the Indians,or the missionaries in their name, would not letthe little girl go. Her father visited her soonafter she had been sent to the mission, and lestshe should become a convert to the Catholicreligion, exhorted her to remember all the piousteachings of her home. She is there still,writes Willi
The picturesque StLawrence . e destruction of Deerfieldby the French and Indians in 1704. Manycaptives were taken through the winter snowsto Canada, and Eunice Williams, the littledaughter of the Deerfield minister, was lodgedamong these mission Indians. Most of thecaptives were ransomed later, but the Indians,or the missionaries in their name, would not letthe little girl go. Her father visited her soonafter she had been sent to the mission, and lestshe should become a convert to the Catholicreligion, exhorted her to remember all the piousteachings of her home. She is there still,writes Williams two years later, and has for-gotten to speak English. What grieved himstill more, she had forgotten her catechism. Time went on, and Eunice Williams, the name-sake of her mother who had been slaughtered onthe march northward, remained in the wigwamsof the Caughnawagas. She was baptized andeventually married an Indian of the tribe, whothenceforward called himself Williams. Theirchildren therefore bore her family name. Her. Sai/nii vessels at the Montretd wharves The Rapidb 69 father, who went back to his parish at Deerfield,never ceased to pray for her return to her countryand her faith. She actually made a visit to her re-lations in 1740, dressed as a squaw and wrappedin an Indian blanket; but nothing would per-suade her to stay. On one occasion she was in-duced to put on civilized dress and go to church;yet immediately after the service she impatientlydiscarded her gown and resumed her came again the next year, bringing two of herhalf-breed children, and twice afterward re-peated the visit. She and her husband wereoffered a tract of land if they would settle inNew England; but she positively refused sayingthat it would endanger her soul. She lived to agreat age, a squaw to the last. The case of Eunice Williams was far frombeing an isolated one, and a missionary at theIndian town of St. Francis, writing in 1866,remarks, If one should trace out all the Englishfam
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjohnsonc, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1910
