Hannah (--?--)¹ (F)
d. 18 July 1692

Notes and Citations:

1. [S379] Charlotte Whitcomb, The Whitcomb Family in America : a biographical genealogy with a chapter on our English forbears "by the name of Whetcombe" (Minneapolis: by the author, c1904; reprint North Salt Lake, Utah, Heritage Quest), page 186.
2. [S371] "Ahnentafel of Elizabeth Joslin", 30 December 2003, Dennis J. Cunniff, to Thomas Clough (e-mail address), citing Wessler, Edith S., The Jocelyn-Joslin-Joslyn-Josselyn Family, reprinted, Higginson Books, Salem, Massachusetts, 1962. " [Peter Joslin] Escaped from Lancaster, Massachusetts to Marlborough with his parents after an Indian attack in 1675/6. Some time after 1680, when resettlement of Lancaster began, Peter returned, although the Indians continued hostile. The first pillaging took place, July 18, 1692, when a party of Indians attacked Peter's house. Sarah, Peter's wife, was baking, and fought the savages with her bread shovel until tomahawked. Widow Whitcomb, living with the family, was killed. Elizabeth Howe, Sarah's sister, a guest in the home at the time, was spinning for her imminent wedding, and singing, at the moment of attack. She and little Peter, age 5, were carried into captivity, where Peter was later killed. But Elizabeth Howe saved herself from insult and death by singing the simple ballads of the day, in response to the demands of her captors. She was in captivity three or four years when she was redeemed by the government . After her release, she married Thomas Keyes of Marlborough, to whom she had been engaged before her captivity. Though she lived to be 87 years old, she was never able to overcome the shock and terror she experienced at the time she was made a prisoner. When Peter returned from the fields, at some distance from the house, he found his wife and the three younger children barbarously butchered with hatchets, and weltering in their blood. Little Peter had begged to go to the fields with his father that morning because he said he had seen Red men skulking in the hemp near the house, but his father had quieted the fears of the child, and went afield leaving him to his terrible fate. After the massacre of his family, Peter removed to Leominster, where he purchased a large tract of land, and built a home on a commanding site, known as "Joslin's hill".