Abenaki Warriors Attack Groton
On this day in 1694, Abenaki warriors raided the frontier town of Groton, on the western edge of Middlesex County. Striking at daybreak, they killed 20 people and took 12 captives, most of them children. More than 1,600 New Englanders were "carried off" by Native Americans between 1677 and 1763, when the Treaty of Paris brought the French and Indian wars to a close. Some captives were freed or exchanged; some were compelled or chose to remain with the Indians. One survivor of the Groton raid, John Shepley, spent four years as a captive in Canada before returning home. A second, Lydia Longley, chose to stay in French Canada, converted to Catholicism and became a nun.
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