Original Documents Related to "The Duston Family"

	"Indians Taking Salem Fishing Vessels"--First Church Records This brief description from the First Church of Salem's records offers some insights into the tensions between local Indians and the early settlers of Salem. (from Essex Institute Historical Collections,vol 2, 1860, p. 104) (courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum)
	"The Escape of the Duston Family," illustration from "The Duston Family" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. From The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge vol. II, published by the Boston Bewick Company, 1836 (courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum)
	Title Page of The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge containing "The Duston Family" vol. II, published by the Boston Bewick Company, 1836 (courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum)
	Illustration from first page of "The Duston Family" by Nathaniel Hawthorne from The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge vol. II, published by the Boston Bewick Company, 1836  (courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum)
	Second page of "The Duston Family"  (courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum)
	Last page of "The Duston Family"  (courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum)
	Illustration from Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative, 1770 Edition. Frontispiece of Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative, 1770 Edition. (courtesy of The American Antiquarian Society.)
	Hannah Duston's Conversion Statement to the Haverhill Congregation, 1724. (Haverhill Historical Society Collections) Twenty-seven years after her captivity experience, at 67 years of age, Hannah Duston acknowledges its place in her spiritual development. She states, "I am Thankful for my Captivity, twas the Comfortablest time that ever I had: In my Affliction God made his Word Comfortable to me." (Full Text of the Document)  Haverhill Historical Society Collections
	Mark of Philip, Alias Metacom Autograph of King Philip (courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum)
	A True History of the Captivity & Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, A Minister's Wife in New-England, London, 1682. Title Page of the London Edition of Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative, 1682, the first captivity narrative to become a best-seller.
	Title Page of Robert B. Caverly's Heroism of Hannah Duston : together with the Indian Wars of New England, 1874. Robert Boodey Caverly (1806-1887), Heroism of Hannah Duston : together with the Indian Wars of New England, 1874.
	Historical Address at Contoocook Island, June 17, 1874, Pages 388-389. From Heroism of Hannah Duston : together with the Indian Wars of New England, 1874, by Robert Boodey Caverly (1806-1887).
	Historical Address at Contoocook Island, June 17, 1874, Pages 390-391. From Heroism of Hannah Duston : together with the Indian Wars of New England, 1874, by Robert Boodey Caverly (1806-1887).
	Historical Address at Contoocook Island, June 17, 1874, Pages 392-393. From Heroism of Hannah Duston : together with the Indian Wars of New England, 1874, by Robert Boodey Caverly (1806-1887).
	Historical Address at Contoocook Island, June 17, 1874, Pages 394-395. From Heroism of Hannah Duston : together with the Indian Wars of New England, 1874, by Robert Boodey Caverly (1806-1887).
	Historical Address at Contoocook Island, June 17, 1874, Pages 396-397. From Heroism of Hannah Duston : together with the Indian Wars of New England, 1874, by Robert Boodey Caverly (1806-1887).
	Title page, Increase Mather's A Brief History of the War with the Indians in New England, Boston, 1676. Increase Mather's history was one of the first of many colonial post-war texts that made sense of Metacomet's uprising through the Puritan view of history. The slaying of Metacomet [or Metacom] in August 1676 ended the Indian threat to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Indian resistance to English colonization and expansion continued, however, well into the eighteenth century on the northern and western frontiers. In 1692, Increase Mather’s eldest son, Cotton Mather, would write, "Our Indian wars are not over yet." He went on to write his own history and interpretation of the continuing conflicts between Indians and Puritans and in the process helped define the mythology of the Puritan captivity narrative.  (courtesy of The American Antiquarian Society.)
	Title Page, William Hubbard's Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians, Boston, 1677. William Hubbard, Minister of Ipswich  (courtesy of The American Antiquarian Society.)
	Title Page, Decennium luctuosum by Cotton Mather, 1699. Cotton Mather (1663-1728) was the brilliant but arrogant son of Increase Mather. In his study of the Indian wars, he tells the story of the captivity and escape of Hannah Dustin and presents a Puritan view of history that puts the New England Indians on the side of Satan and the Puritans on the side of God. In the ongoing war between the forces of Christ and Satan, all of New England was a battlefield where Indians, witches, Quakers, and Catholics were “enemies of the Lord” and a threat to the Puritan mission. Years after the death of King Philip (Metacom), it was Cotton Mather who made a visit to Plymouth and yanked off the jawbone from the skull of Metacom, on display at Plymouth Fort for over twenty-five years.  (courtesy of the University of Virginia.)
	Title Page, Cotton Mather's Sermon, "Humiliations followed by Deliverences," published in 1697. ©The Huntington Library In this sermon, Mather gives the first account of Hannah Duston's captivity and escape from the Abenaki Indians. Mather interviewed Duston after her return to Haverhill, Massachusetts. A revised version later appeared in his Magnalia Christi Americana, 1702. (courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA)
	Title Page, The Whole Booke of Psalms, Cambridge, 1640. ©The Huntington Library The "Bay Psalm Book," the name generally given to The Whole Booke of Psalms, was the authorized hymnal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the first book printed in the English colonies. John Cotton wrote the Preface and Richard Mather, John Eliot, and Thomas Weld did the translation.  (courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA)
	Title Page, John Eliot's Indian Bible, 1663. John Eliot was an English missionary who came to Boston in 1631 and preached to the Massachusetts Indians in their native language. He translated the Bible into the local Indian language and helped set up "Praying Towns" around the colony. He became known as "the Apostle to the Indians."
	Title Page, Timothy Dwight's Travels in New England and New York, 1821. Timothy Dwight, Travels in New England and New York. S. Converse, Printer. New Haven, 1821.
	Title Page of the Second Edition of Mary Rowlandson's The Soveraignty & Goodness of God, Together, With the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed; Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, 1682, Cambridge, 1682. Rowlandson's narrative of her 11-week captivity among the New England Indians during King Philip's War is the original and classic Indian captivity narrative. It was the model from which the popular literary genre developed. The Soveraignty and Goodness of God was the first published narrative by an English-American woman and one of the first best-sellers in American literature. It was printed in 1682 in both London and in Cambridge. The London edition bore the title A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, A Minister's Wife in New England, downplaying the Puritan religious interpretation of the experience. Coincidently, Mary Rowlandson had a male Indian servant in her Lancaster house that twenty years later would be Hannah Duston's captor and "master.” Gordon M. Sayre states that Rowlandson's narrative provides the "foundation of a myth that transcends literature, reaching deep into Anglo-America's history and psyche."  (courtesy of The Boston Public Library, Rare Books Dept.)
	Title Page, Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana, 1702. London: Printed for Thomas Parkhurst, at the Bible and three crowns in Cheapside, 1702. "The Great Works of Christ in America"—Mather's history of colonial Massachussetts is a major work of early New England history through the Puritan imagination. In the General Introduction Mather states: "I WRITE the WONDERS of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, flying from the depravations of Europe, to the American Strand; and, assisted by the Holy Author of that Religion, I do with all conscience of Truth, required therein by Him, who is the Truth itself, report the wonderful displays of His infinite Power, Wisdom, Goodness, and Faithfulness, wherewith His Divine Providenee hath irradiated an Indian Wilderness."  (courtesy of The Boston Public Library, Rare Books Dept.)
	Title Page of the First Book of Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana, 1702. Magnalia Christi Americana, 1702, Book One. (courtesy of The Boston Public Library, Rare Books Dept.)
	Deposition of Hannah Bradley of Haverhill, 1739. In this brief account Hannah Bradley of Haverhill, a captive in the Indian raid of March 1697, offers a corroborative account of the events surrounding the Dustin escape on Contoocook Island. The transcription states that Bradley was shown seven hatchet wounds on the head of the surviving Indian woman who sought refuge in a camp in which Bradley was held. Bradley, herself, survived her long march and captivity. She was later redeemed at Casco Bay (Portland).  Courtesy of the Massachusetts Archives
	Commemorative Tablet near Contoocook Island, Boscawen, NH. The island is at the confluence of the Merrimack and Contoocook Rivers. It is approximately fifty-five miles across land from Haverhill, Massachusetts.
	Indian Village (From Hariot's "Relation") Illustration from A Popular History of the United States by William Cullen Bryant. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896.  (courtesy of The Boston Public Library, Rare Books Dept.)
	Map of Northeastern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire. Map of Hannah Duston's escape journey on the Merrimack River, from Contoocook Island in Penacook, NH to Haverhill, MA.  (courtesy of “The Story of Hannah Duston/Dustin of Haverhill, Massachusetts” Website )