(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved. Contact us for information about using this image.
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In this re-creation from the early 20th century, members of a Puritan family say good-bye to their father as the ox carts filled with wheat pull away. This scene shows the often-told Deerfield story of Bloody Brook. During King Philip's war in 1676 a party of Native Americans attacked a group of English soldiers and farmers driving ox carts of wheat from Deerfield to Hadley. The event was known as "the darkest pages in the history of our town" and it reminded the pageant audience of the terrible price the first English settlers paid to start the frontier town.