GENERATION 11

GENERATION 10

Biography

JOHN ATCHINSON was born in 1646, and died 19 Sept. 1677, killed in an Indian attack on the Hatfield settlement. His wife's name was DELIVERANCE. Her surname is not known. She was also from Hatfield.

During the continuance of what is usually called "King Philip's War", the inhabitants of the isolated frontier towns were naturally filled with forebodings of danger to their homes and families. For their own protection and safety, the inhabitants of Northampton, Hadley and Hatfield united for mutual defense and assistance. These three town were occupied by troops from the eastern portion of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. At Northampton 26 soldiers were located, at Hadley 30, and at Hatfield 36. Hatfield was the most exposed, as it was the frontier town. Then they had a committee, called a council of war, chosen from the several towns. The object of this council of war was to provide better security to the inhabitants of the several towns. They counselled with the commander, Major Appleton, relative to the ways and means best to be used for the protection of life and property.

On August 25, 1675, a scouting party of ten was sent out and fell into an ambush, and nine were killed. Then on the 17th of September, Captain Lathrop and his company and several teamsters from Deerfield were attacked and massacred. Only a few escaped. Sixty-four were buried in one grave as the result of the "Bloody Brook" fight. Seventeen of the sixty-four were Deerfield men. In consequence of the numerous attacks by the Indians, the people, to better protect themselves, built a stockade, probably in the autumn of 1675, composed of posts of timber set in the ground, and about ten feet high. This stockade was built on both sides of Main Street, some twelve or fifteen rods from the east and west lines of the street, extending north from the Northampton road, not far from 100 rods. This stockade enclosed the bulk of the village. The houses of Isaac and John Graves were within the stockade. Unfortunately for them, on September 19, 1677, they were both employed in building a house for John Graves, Jr., about half a mile above the northerly end of the stockade, on a lot adjoining that of Sergeant Benjamin Waite. Without any warning or thought of danger, they were attacked by the Indians, and Isaac and John were shot down while engaged, as one tradition has it, "in laying shingles on the roof of the house," and with them were likewise two other men who were working with them, JOHN ATCHINSON and John Cooper. Eight others were killed, and we presume scalped, as the account speaks of them as being disfigured, and seventeen were made prisoners. All but one, Obadiah Dickinson, were women and children.