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|--Sarah
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|--William BUTTER
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[310] www.gendex.com
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|--Emery CURTIS
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|_Nancy Jo Curtis (PARKS) _|
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_James William "Jim" HUNT _+
_Joshua Travis HUNT _|
| |_Christina Dell MASSA _____
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|--Momoe HUNT
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|_Yukiko HUNT ________|
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_Jonathan MULKEY _+
_Rev. John MULKEY _|
| |_Nancy HOWARD ____+
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|--Dr Isaac MULKEY
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|_Elizabeth HAYS ___|
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_Thomas SAWYER _|
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|--Thomas SAWYER
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|_Mary PRESCOTT _|
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[336]
Some records indicate that Thomas Sawyer, Jr. was probably the first White child born in Lancaster. During the French and Indian War of 1705, 500 French Indians attacked Lancaster and took Thomas Sawyer, Jr and his son Elias prisoner along with
John Biglow. They were taken from Thomas' house and were taken to Canada. On arriving there Biglow and Elias Sawyer were delivered into the hands of the French Governo>
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He had been brave and caused the death of several of their number. He was destined to torture. He was taken out, fastened to stake,the fagots placed around him ready for a fire, and the Indians were assembled ready to rend the air with their
hideous cries, mingled with his groans of torture. At this moment a man appeared as a Friar, exhibiting what he claimed to be the keys of purgatory, and told them if they tortured Sawyer he would unlock purgatory and pitch them all in.
Superstition prevailed, and then unbinding Sawyer they delivered him into the hands of the French Govenor. Thomas Sawyer told the French Governor that there was a good place for a saw mill on the Chamblee River. They were very much in need of a
saw-mill, as there were none in Canada. Neither had they any man competent to build one. Thomas proposed that he and Biglow would build a mill, and the compensation should be their freedom. The terms were accepted. In a year's time they
completed the mill and received their freedom. But Elias Sawyer was kept another year to teach others how to keep the mill in order and run it. He was then amply rewarded and returned home
Thomas Sawyer, Jr., who seems to have inherited a share of his grandfather John Prescott's energy and capacity, established a second saw-mill in Lancaster before 1700 upon Dean's, now Goodridge's Brook, at the dam near the Deer's Horns school-house. Upon the Sawyer house-lot now stand the church and several dwellings of the Seventh Day Adventist Society in South Lancaster. Thomas Sawyer, Jr., m. Nov. 21, 1672, Hannah (???). Oct. 15, 1705, three men are carried away from Lancaster, from Mr. Sawyer's saw-mill. The three captives were Thomas Sawyer, Jr., his son Elias, a youth of sixteen, and John Bigelow, a carpenter of Marlborough. A younger brother of Elias, about fourteen years old, escaped through a window, it is said, when the others were captured.
From Whitney's history we derive the romantic story of the elder Sawyer's rescue after he had already been tied to the stake for torture. A friar successfully excited the superstitious fears of the savages by brandishing a key, and threatening with it to unlock the door of Purgatory and thrust them into its eternal fires, if they did not release their prisoner to him.
He was probably incited thereto by the French Governor, who wished to avail himself of Sawyer's promised skill in the construction of a mill upon the Chambly in Canada. The mill built -- the first in all Canada -- Thomas Sawyer and Bigelow came home. Elias Sawyer, son of Thomas, was detained a year longer, to run the mill and instruct others in the art of sawing.
The grave of Thomas Sawyer is in the old burying ground. He died "September 5th 1736, in ye 89th Year of his Age."
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Another account of Thomas Sawyer in "The Story of My Ancestors in America"
"Animated by the same indomitable spirit which characterized his father, he was one of the foremost leaders. Five years only had elapsed after the peace of Ryswick, when in 1702, Queen Anne's War began and the struggle of the Colonists, with save foes, was renewed. A party of Indians from Canada, in October, 1705, enterd the town of Lancaster.
Thomas Sawyer with his son, Elias, were taken by surprise, and carried away captive to Montreal. His younger son, Thomas, then a lad of fourteen years of age, escaped through a back window of the house, and during his father's captivity, was the stay and support of the family. the Indian captors hastening their journey, treated Mr. Sawyer with great cruelty on the way to Canada. Full of resources, it was not long, however, before he began to plan for an escape.
He reported to the French Governor, Vaudreuil, that there was on the river Chamblee, a fine site for mills, and the he would build a saw-mill for him, provided he would secure the release of his son, and of himself, from their Indian captors. The Governor at once accepted the offer, as there was not at that time a saw-mill in all of Canada, nor amillwright capable of building one. He accordingly applied to the Indians, for the release of the captives, and was successful in negotiating for the release of Eliase, the son, but no sum he could name, could purchase the release of Thomas Sawyer.
In the quaint language of the annalist of the time, "Being distinguished for his bravery which had proved fatal to a number of their warriors, the Indians were determined him to immolate." They accordingly led forth their victim, and bound him to the stake, piled about with materials so arranged, as to effect a lingering death. Anticipating the fiendish pleasure, of seeing their captive writhing in tortures, amidst the rising flames, the savages rent the air with their emoniacal yells, when upon a sudden, a Friar appeared, and with great solemnity held forth what he declared to be the key to the gates of purgatory, and threatened that unless they should immediately release their prisoner, he would unlock those gates, and send them all headlong to Hell.
Where no ransom offered could avail, superstition, as is often the case, aroused a sense of fear in those savages, and wrought the deliverance of the captive, whom they immediately released, and deliverd up to the Governor.
Mr. Sawyer at once set to work, and after a year's toil, built and completed the saw-mill, the first one ever erected in Canada, when he was set free, and returned to his home in Lancaster, where he was received as though risen from the dead. The son, Elias Sawyer, however, they detained a year longer, to instruct them in the art of sawing, and keeping the mill in order; at the end of which time, he was paid for his services, and he returned to his home in Lancaster.
After the peace of the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, no further incursions of savage enemies, checked the prosperity of the ancient settlement of Lancaster, MA.