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Church's First Expedition (20 Sep 1689, Falmouth)

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Date: 20 Sep 1689 [unknown]
Location: Falmouth, Mainemap
Surname/tag: Church Bassett
Profile manager: Murray Maloney private message [send private message]
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Historical event: 20 Sep 1689 at Falmouth, Maine
Epoch: King William's War (1688-1697)
Who was there: Category:Church's First Expedition (20 Sep 1689, Falmouth)
Hostile encounters with the Abenaki during the summer of 1688 “set off a panic in Massachusetts and on the Maine frontier” and rumors began to swirl that hundreds or even thousands of Indians along with French officers were assembling to "consult about a war with the English."[1] In September 1689, the governor and council of the Province of Massachusetts dispatched a militia force commanded by Major Benjamin Church, an experienced Indian fighter from King Philip’s War, to come to the aid of the northern settlers in Falmouth on Casco Bay. This force arrived in Falmouth on 20 September 1689, just in time to save the town from destruction.[2][3][4]
William Bassett was one of the senior militia commanders attached to Church’s command in this expedition.[5] A dispatch to Governor Simon Bradstreet in Boston from the front on 30 September 1689 refers to “Capt Basset” who is ill in Falmouth;[6] and a memorandum signed by Benjamin Church memorializing a war council held at Point Garrison in Scarborough in the Province of Maine on 11 November 1689 lists “Capt William Bassett” among the senior officers attending.[7]

Sources

  1. ↑ Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Kindle edition (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), loc 1874-89.
  2. ↑ Norton, In the Devil's Snare, loc 2012-27.
  3. ↑ Samuel Adams Drake, The Border Wars of New England, Commonly called King William's and Queen Anne's Wars (New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1910), 39-42; Internet Archive. Digital Images : accessed 18 Mar 2021.
  4. ↑ Thomas Church, The History of Philip's War, Commonly Called the Great Indian War, of 1675 and 1676. Also, of the French and Indian Wars at the Eastward, in 1689, 1690, 1692, 1696, and 1704 (Boston : J.H.A. Frost, 1827), 160-71; Hathitrust. Digital Images : accessed 16 Apr 2021.
  5. ↑ Norton, In the Devil's Snare, loc 2034.
  6. ↑ James Phinney Baxter, ed. Documentary History of the State of Maine, Collections of the Maine Historical Society, 2d ser., 24 vols. (Portland, Maine: 1869-1916), 4:467-68.
  7. ↑ Documentary History of the State of Maine, 5:3-5.




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Categories: King William's War | Church's First Expedition (20 Sep 1689, Falmouth)