This was one of hundreds of little skirmishes that took place in the years between 1690 and 1755
when war broke out in earnest. Each one has its own story and each contributed to the history of our
country in some way.
One account is as follows (with our insertions in square brackets [ ]):
"Scouts under the command of Captain Eleazer [also sometimes 'Lazearus']
Melvin left [Fort] Dummer early May, 1748, going westward.
They reached the lake [Champlain] opposite Fort Frederick, when a party
of Indians in canoes was discovered. It seems that a
company of about thirty Indians had left Canada May 1 for the frontier
under the command of Sieur Manet. The Indians retreated
at the first firing, which also alarmed the men at the fort; three cannon
were discharged and one hundred and fifty men turned
out in pursuit of the enemy.
Captain Melvin retreated across the mountains to the head of the West River, halting with his men in
the town of Londenderry [what is now the town of Jamaica] May 31, long enough for his men to begin
shooting salmon for breakfast [a bit odd since Atlantic Salmon spawn
in the Fall, but there were undoubtedly some fish around], unaware that their trail
had been followed by a party of two Frenchmen and nine Indians under Sieur Louis Simblin.
Creeping through the underbrush until near their prey, the Indians pounced upon the English
who were separated from their arms in careless confidence, killing John Howard, Isaac Taylor,
John Dodd, Daniel Mann and Samuel Severance and wounding Joseph Petty. After only a slight resistance,
Melvin's party, demoralized, fled to Fort Dummer [a good 30 miles]. Their victors did not attempt to
pursue them but returned homeward to Montreal, in triumph, with five scalps.
Phineas Stevens led a company to the scene of the disaster, but failed to find Petty, who had given
out and was left by his companions in their flight; but sixteen men from Northfield, after a search of
five days, found his dead body and buried it."
The second account is as follows:
"On May 13, 1748, a party of 18 men under Capt. Eleazer Melvin left Fort Dummer on a scouting
expedition. They proceeded to a near-by fort in New Hampshire known as No. 4. There they were
joined by 60 men led by Captains Stevens and Hobbs and the two parties set out toward Lake Champlain.
When they reached Otter Creek Captain Melvin and his men crossed the stream and went toward Crown Point.
The party under Captains Stevens and Hobbs proceeded along the east bank on a separate expedition
returning to No. 4 two weeks later.
Captain Melvin's party reached Lake Champlain of May 24 and camped a few miles below Crown Point.
The next day they continued northward. While in sight of the French fort at Crown Point they fired
on a party of Indians in canoes. Three cannon were immediately discharged from the fort and 150
Indians were sent in pursuit of the white men, who retreated rapidly toward Fort Dummer.
By the morning of May 31 they had reached the headwaters of the West River in Londonderry.
Believing that their pursuers had given up the chase they stopped to rest and shoot salmon
for breakfast. Two Frenchmen and nine Indians who had been close behind them approached to
within a few rods of the scouts and opened fire from behind logs and trees. Offering little
resistance, Captain Melvin's men soon separated and fled to Fort Dummer. Five of them had been
killed and one was wounded so badly that he could not travel. The others left him by a spring
on a couch of pine boughs, where he died before he could return."
The Salmon Hole Massacre was a setback for the English position in the area. It deprived Fort
Dummer of five soldiers in an already small garrison. A rescue party was organized with 16 men from as
far away as Northfield, MA, to return to the Salmon Hole to search for bodies. The French and Indians
demonstrated that they controlled the area northwest of the existing English forts and were
able to strike at close range of those forts with near impunity.
