Tenth Generation

1008. William SALISBURY was born on 12 May 1622 in Denbighshire, Wales. He died on 24 June 1675 at the age of 53 in Swansea, Bristol Co., MA. William Salisbury seems to have the dubious honor of the man who started King Phillip's War (1675-1676). The following is a passage from "Plymouth Colony, its History & People 1620-1691" describing the events of June 23 & 24 of 1675
"The Indians were looting various deserted houses when two white men, an old man and a boy, appeared on the scene. Seeing three Indians run out of a house, the old man told the boy to shoot, which he did. One Indian was hit, but got away. Later some Indians came to the garrison and asked why they shot the Indian, letting them know that he had died. The boy said it was no matter. Some of the others tried to let the Indians know that they did not feel so callous about the death, but the Indians went away in haste. Easton wrote that the next day, 24 June, Indians returned and killed the boy who had shot the Indian, his father, and five other white men. A contemporary letter from an unidentified Boston merchant to a friend in London reported something similar, saying that a man at Swansea, his wife, and his son of about twenty were shot by the Indians. The wife was defiled by the Indians, who also "skinned her head, as also the son." Richard LeBaron Bowen, in his history of Rehoboth, noted that the records showed only one father and son killed, William and John Salisbury, on 24 June. Thus, Bowen concluded that John Salisbury started the war, prompted by his father, whom Bowen called "a third rank inhabitant of Swansea." However, as is shown by her appearance in later records, Mrs. Salisbury did not die in this fight, which brings into question whether Bowen's supposition was correct. Benjamin Church later recalled that on a march of 30 June past the buned houses south of Swansea, the English troops witnessed this gruesome sight: "And soon after, eight more at Mattapoiset, upon whose bodies they [the Indians] exercised more than brutish barbarities, beheading, dismembering, and mangling them and exposing them in the most inhuman manner, which gashed and ghostly objects struck a damp on all beholders....They marched until they came to the narrow of the neck, at a place called Keekkauit, where they took down the heads of eight Englishmen that were killed at the head of Metapoiset Neck and set upon poles, after the barbarous manner of the savages." Vital records sent to Plymouth by Nicholas Tanner, Swansea Town Clerk, showed that nine males were buried at Swansea on 24 [sic] June: Gershom Cobb, Joseph Lewis, John Salisbury, John Jones, John Fall, Nehemiah Allen, Robert Jones, William Lohum, and William Salisbury (a thenth, William Hamon, was killed later, and buried on 29 June).

1009. Susannah COTTON was born in 1624 in Boston, Suffolk Co., MA?. She died on 16 September 1684 at the age of 60 in Swansea, Bristol Co., MA.

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