Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Legendary Merrimack Landing Spots


According to legend back in 1697 a birch-bark canoe paddled by two women and a teenage boy neared the end of a 75-mile journey down the Merrimack River and looked ahead to where they'd finally make landfall by Bradley Brook in Haverhill, MA.  As I approached their landing spot this past Sunday (opening photo) I was thinking it has to be one of the most unusual canoe trips ever made down this river.  The idea for my paddling to this historic landing spot germinated the previous Sunday when I found myself looking down the Merrimack from an island at the mouth of the Contoocook River in Penacook (Boscawen), NH...
 I stood at the base of the island's Hannah Duston statue commemorating the gruesome events that occurred here, and imagined Hannah Duston, Mary Neff and Samuel Leonardson getting underway in the birch-bark canoe that had previously belonged to their captors.  Just earlier, in the middle of the night, the three of them had awakened and undertook the business of killing ten of the twelve sleeping Native Americans in their midst...two adult men, two adult women, and six children.  One child and an injured woman escaped.   Before leaving the island the three collected ten bloody scalps which they later alleged was done to provide proof of the deed.   Then, after taking a flintlock musket and damaging all the canoes except for the one they intended to use, they pushed off from shore.  Reaching refuge far downriver would require their navigating numerous riffles and falls along the way.  Legend says they chose to travel at night in order to avoid detection...making the journey even more challenging.  Legend also says that upon reaching Salmon Brook in Nashua, they paddled almost a mile up the brook to the home of John Lovewell where they spent their first night in relative safety.  So, what were they thinking as they approached their final landing place by Bradley Brook?

In order to reach the place where they landed I launched from Washington Landing Park in the Bradford section of Haverhill...

It's said that George Washington stepped from a ferry here on November 4th, 1789 after spending the night at Harrod's Tavern on the Haverhill side of the river.   Sounds like there was a lot of fanfare by everyone except the ferryman whose delay for some reason caused Washington to wait in the cold.

The morning had a classic raw November feel and paddling upriver into the cool northwest breeze I was glad to be wearing a wetsuit and pogies for warmth.

Saw the Amtrak Downeaster crossing the river on its way from Brunswick, ME to Boston, MA...

The south end of Stanley Island offered a welcome respite from the breeze and current...


Route 495, just beyond Stanley Island, is undergoing some major repairs...
 ...and had two American flags flying high from cranes...perhaps in recognition of Veteran's Day.

Just past the bridge was an immature eagle...
...who turned about putting his back to the wind...

I was paddling alongside an area called "The Neck" where the Merrimack makes a 180-degree bend.

On the strip of land inside the bend Covanta Haverhill operates a trash-to-energy facility which converts up to 1650 tons per day of solid waste into 49 megawatts of electricity.

Legend says Hannah, Mary, and Samuel landed on the shore opposite the top of the neck (where the arrow on map points)...

Before paddling to the spot, I paddled around the bend and looked upriver (actually southwest) to where three folks in the birch-bark canoe would have approached from back in 1697...

I turned around and followed the route they took to where they landed near Bradley Brook.  Just a short distance from this spot is a millstone marker commemorating the occasion...
The millstone is said to come from Bradley Mill which, long ago, stood nearby.

Unfortunately, the monument was overgrown with weeds, but a tablet at the base could be read...

From this spot Hannah and company would have walked approximately 2 miles to the site of the initial raid where the whole story started.  Can only wonder what they might have discussed as they concluded their journey.  The general court of Massachusetts would later, at the request of Hannah's husband, Tom, pay the group fifty pounds for the scalps.

I walked back to my waiting boat at the base of the steep bank...
...and noted the day was fast improving.

The return trip with current and wind at my back was easy.  An adult eagle looked toward the sun below Stanley Island...

On the river's right bank this tent encampment was noted to have a trash trail leading to the river...

Blue skies prevailed as I approached Basiliere Bridge...
...and temperatures were on the rise.

After landing at Washington Landing Park with some trash gathered up along the way...
... I drove across the Basiliere Bridge and visited the Hannah Duston statue in Haverhill's G.A.R. Park.  The statue was created by Calvin H. Weeks in 1879 and is impressive with the sculpted figure of Hannah atop...
...and smaller panels beneath her visually depict what took place on the island at Penacook.

One shows Hannah, Mary, and Samuel ready to commence the slaying of ten sleeping Native Americans...
...while another shows the three in the canoe and heading downriver...

Before leaving Haverhill I stopped at the spot where Hannah spent her final days...

It's marked with a sizable boulder...

After learning more about the Hannah Duston story: the raid on Haverhill in which Native Americans killed more than 20 of her neighbors, her home burned down, how she was taken into captivity only a week after giving birth, her infant daughter's brutal death, and the drastic measures she took in order to escape, I'm left not wanting to pass judgement on her actions.  However, I do have to wonder how she felt upon learning that, aside from the death of her infant daughter, the remainder of her family had survived.  It's possible that because she thought her whole family had been killed, it helped her in justifying her own murdering of sleeping women and children.

One other odd feature of the Hannah Duston legend is it's having Hannah, Mary, and Samuel paddling up Salmon Brook to the garrison house of John Lovewell in present-day Nashua.  It's said they spent the night there.  If my math is correct Lovewell's son, John, would have been five and a half years old at the time of Hannah's visit.  This boy would grow up to become the legendary "scalp hunter" Captain John Lovewell.  Several historians attribute his fervent desire to scalp Native Americans for fame and fortune to the fact that his maternal grandparents had been killed and scalped by Native Americans.  While apparently true, that incident happened before he was born, whereas at the time of  Hannah and company's visit (with the ten Native American scalps) he would've been at a very impressionable age.  Lovewell's illustrious scalp hunting career came to an abrupt end when, by a pond off the Saco River, he tried to kill a Native American whose only crime may have been duck-hunting...

The details (told in Lovewell's best light)...

Now, more than three hundred years later, there's more than a little food for thought, at least for me, in visiting some of these legendary places.

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