Hannah Duston

Hannah Duston (born Hannah Emerson, December 23, 1657 - c. 1736) was a colonial New England woman who, having been captured during an Indian raid, escaped from her captors by killing them in the night and fleeing in their canoe. She is believed to be the first woman honored in the United States with a statue. (Due to the phonetic spelling of her time, her last name has also been written Dustin, Dustan, and even Durstan.)

Hannah, her husband Thomas Duston, and their nine living children were settlers in Haverhill, Massachusetts when in March 1697 the town was attacked by Abenaki Indians. Thomas fled with eight children; Hannah, her baby Martha, who was only six days old, and her nurse Mary Neff were captured and forced to march into the wilderness. The Indians took the baby from Hannah and killed her by smashing her against a tree. Hannah and Mary traveled with a family group north, during which time they were joined by Samuel Lennardson, a 14-year-old white captive. Along the way, they stopped at an island coord|43|17|16|N|71|35|28|W|type:isle_scale:10000_region:US-NH in the Merrimack River at the mouth of the Contoocook River near what is now Penacook, New Hampshire, where the party stayed some days. Hannah there led Mary and Samuel in a revolt after all the others were asleep, using the Indians' tomahawks to kill ten of the twelve Indians, including six children.cite web
date=December 9, 2007
author= Allitt, Patrick
url= http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/books/review/Allitt-t.html?8bu&emc=bu
title= City on a Hill
publisher= New York Times
accessdate=2007-12-09] (A young boy and a woman escaped.) The former captives immediately left in a canoe, taking with them scalps as proof of the incident and to collect a bounty.

They traveled down the river only during the night, and after several days returned to Haverhill. The Massachusetts General Court later awarded them a reward for killing the raiders. Hannah received 25 pounds, and Mary and Samuel split another 25 pounds. (various accounts say 50 or 25 pounds, and some accounts allege that only Duston received the award).

The event became well known, due in part to the account of Cotton Mather in his "Magnalia Christi Americana". [Mather, Cotton; Magnalia Christi Americana. Volume 2, Article XXV, pages 634-636 [http://hawthorneinsalem.org/Literature/NativeAmericans&Blacks/HannahDuston/MMD2098.html] ] She became more famous in the nineteenth century as her story was retold by Henry David Thoreau and in many genealogical histories. In 1879 a bronze statue of Hannah grasping a tomahawk was placed in Haverhill town square (now GAR Park), where it still stands, and another on the island in New Hampshire. Some of her artifacts are displayed at the Haverhill Historical Society.

Hannah was the daughter of early colonist Michael Emerson and his wife, the former Hannah Webster. In contrast to her celebrated story, Hannah's sister [http://www.arches.uga.edu/~wprokasy/Emerson2.htm Elizabeth Emerson] (1664-1693) was hanged after being convicted of murdering her illegitimate twin infants; the married father was not charged.

Footnotes

Bibliography

* Caverly, Robert B. "Heroism of Hannah Duston: Together With the Indian Wars of New England" (orig. pub. 1875). Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 1990. ISBN 1-55613-301-4
* Mather, Cotton. "Magnalia Christi Americana" (orig. pub. 1702). New York: Russell & Russell (Atheneum House), 1967. [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0007DLZGI ASIN B0007DLZGI]
* Namias, June. "White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier". University of North Carolina Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8078-4408-X
* Sayre, Gordon M., ed. "American Captivity Narratives." Houghton Mifflin, 2000. ISBN 0-395-98073-9

External links

* [http://www.hannahdustin.com/index2.html HannahDustin.com] site includes various versions of the story
* [http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Literature/NativeAmericans&Blacks/HannahDuston/Introduction.html HawthorneInSalem] gives Nathaniel Hawthorne's version, plus related documents, websites, etc.
* [http://www.hannahdustin.com/statuephotos.html Photos of the monuments] at [http://www.hannahdustin.com/index2.html HannahDustin.com]
*Find A Grave|id=4667|name=Hannah Dustin