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DEERFIELD.

with her husband and children to Vermont, and purchased a tract of land, the title to which proved imperfect. A suit was brought to dispossess her, and she argued her case against Stephen R. Bradley and Royal Tyler, (afterwards Chief Justice of Vermont.) Judge Chase, who held the court, said that Luce made a better argument than he had heard at the bar of Vermont. Luce was a poetess, and commemorated in verse the event of the "Bars Fight," [See Vol. 1,pp. 175-6.} as follows:

"August ‘twas the twenty-fifth,
Seventeen hundred forty-six;
The Indians did in ambush lay,
Some very valient men to slay,
The names of whom I’ll not leave out.
Samuel Allen like a hero fout.
And though he was so brave and bold,
His face no more shall we behold.
Eleazer Hawks was killed outright,
Before he had time to fight,---
Before he did the Indians see,
Was shout and killed immediately.
Oliver Amsden he was slain,
Which caused his friends much grief and pain.
Simeon Amsden they found dead,
Not many rods distant from his head.
Adonijah Gillet we do hear
Did lose his life which was so dear.
John Sadler fled across the water,
And thus escaped the dreadful slaughter.
Eunice Allen see the Indians coming,
And hopes to save herself by running,
And had not her petticoats stopped her,
The awful creatures had not catched her,
Nor tommy hawked her on the head,
And left her on the ground for dead.
Young Samuel Allen, Oh lack-a-day!
Was taken and carried to Canada."

Among living men of eminence, originating in Deerfield, may be mentioned Dr. Stephen W. Williams, now a citizen of Laona, Illinois, Richard Hildreth, author or an excellrnt History of the United States, President Hitchcock of Amherst, Bishop Williams of Connecticut, Amariah Chandler D. D., of Greenfield, and Rodolphus Dickinson. A large number of the natives of Deerfield have received a
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Lucy Terry was only one of the black slaves in the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts, in the 18th century. Purchased by Ebenezer Wells about 1730, she grew up in that town and married a free black, Abijah Prince, in 1756. As a young girl, she was known as a storyteller. She was literate, judging by this poem, a tribute to the members of the Deerfield families whom Lucy knew and who were killed, injured, or captured in the last attack on Deerfield by Native people on August 25, 1746.

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