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From: Bill Tufts <>
Subject: 1690 Massacre (Feedback)
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 14:06:27 -0500


Many thanks for the interest and input into my query yesterday.
It now appears the website I found saying the 1690 attack was on
Schenectady, "Maine," is wrong. It was N.Y. Knowing the family
background, Maine made no sense.

Jan <> supplied the following website, which goes
at length to describe the early history, and it gives a
description of the Schenectady attack. In it, "Beaverwyck" is
mentioned. I had "Beverwyck" from another record.

http://www.hopefarm.com/schenec1.htm

Schenectady, (says this site,) had about 80 homes and 400 people
at the time.

The site also explains the meaning of Corlaer. I had thought it
was only a placename, but it means more. This, too, is explained
in the above. Tom Dunn <> says there was
another attack by the same force about a month after the
Schenectady attack on Salmon Falls ME/NH border. Word of these
attacks must have raised alarm throughout Maine and other
frontier settlements. In this period, all adults would easily
remember King Philip's War a few years earlier. In that war, my
own ancestor was killed in Deerfield, MA., in Sep., 1675. While
reading Mr. Dunn's email, I began to wonder how the French chose
their target towns. The site Jan provided explained that there
was knowledge of Schenectedy; the Jesuits had converted some of
the Iroquois. But why did they select Salmon Falls? Was it also
known to the attackers?

Following is what I had put together previously in a timeline
file of events surrounding the Schenectady attack.

Aug. 5, 1689: in May, 1689, Britain and France went to war. The
British immediately sent word to N.Y. City to attack the French
in Canada. The British in NY got the Iroquois to attack and on
Aug. 5th., 1500 Iroquois attacked the small, unprotected
settlement on the south shore of Montreal Island at "La Chine."
The colonists, not knowing they were at war, didn't even have a
fort for defence. Twenty-four were killed and 70 were taken
prisoner. The Iroquois broiled and ate a couple of prisoners,
setting a fear into the colonists that lasted generations.

Feb. 18, 1690: in Quebec City, Gov. Frontenac learned his country
was at war with England and was ordered to make a retaliatory
raid on N.Y. City but, without the necessary troops, he reverted
to guerilla warfare and sent, instead, 100 French
coureurs-de-bois and 100 Indians against Schenectady, N.Y. They
arrived shortly after midnight on Feb. 18 and found a gate to the
fort open and unguarded. Sixty were brutally killed. According to
an English account, young children had their heads bashed open
against walls of buildings. The French version and a local
history says the young and old were spared.

Oct. 16, 1690: appalled at the brutal attack on Schenectady (Feb.
18, 1690), Sir. William Phipps led an armada from Boston and
destroyed the French settlement at Annapolis Royal in Acadia
(Nova Scotia). On October 16, 1690, his fleet of 34 ships dropped
anchor before the citadel at Quebec City and Phipps ordered a
complete surrender. Frontenac declined and three days later,
afraid of getting icebound for the winter, Phipps pulled anchor
and sailed back to Boston.

Again, many thanks to those who showed an interest. I still have
no proof that John Kierstead and his wife were among those killed
in the attack, but the timeframe and that attack exactly fits.

Bill

PS -(Jan, FYI, the Sara Roelofs you found was John Kierstead's
mother.)

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