Wars and Witch Panic
The war did not end when the smoke cleared. It changed shape — from burning garrisons to burning charters, from Iroquois canoes on the Richelieu to English cannon on the St. Lawrence, from frontier militia to courtroom spectral evidence. Between 1676 and 1692 both branches learned that peace treaties and prayer books are written on paper the powerful can rewrite overnight.
King Philip's War bled out through 1676. At the Great Swamp Fight sixty-eight colonists died and a hundred fifty were wounded; twenty-two more perished on the march home. Lt. Phineas Upham, carried wounded to Wickford, then dragged through the "Hungry March" where soldiers ate their own horses — died of his wounds at Malden, date unknown but autumn 1676. Groton burned 13 March; Richard Sawtelle fled thirty miles east to Watertown with his family, leaving one of five garrison houses in ashes. Widower William Taylor married widow Hannah Merriam 16 July 1677 — her first husband Henry Axtell killed on the Marlborough-Sudbury road in April 1676; she brought five children. Eliezer Taylor born April 1678 was named for Deacon William Ward's son slain in the war. Nashoba Praying Indians, rounded up to Deer Island, starved; Robert Robbins would buy their confiscated land in 1686. On the St. Lawrence, discharged Carignan soldier Mathieu Gervais married fifteen-year-old Michele Picard at Ville-Marie August 1676, farming four acres at La Prairie. Pierre Gaudin sold at Lachine and sailed to Acadia to build a mill. Marguerite Messier born at Chambly to Lt. Michel Messier and Anne Lemoine.
Prosperity and quarrel filled the years the English counted as recovery. 13 August 1677, Pierre Boucher deeded Île Jésus farm lot 8 to Guillaume Labelle and Anne Charbonneau — sharecroppers become the island's first landowners with three children, musket above the hearth. François Bélanger, sixty-five, accepted Frontenac's grant of Bonsecours seigneurie on the south shore — three miles of river front, six miles deep, domain title recorded October 1680; he gave L'Ange-Gardien farm to son Charles and started L'Islet. Nathaniel Gary died of smallpox at Roxbury 28 January 1678; widow Anne Mattle Douglas raised ten children, remarried Thomas Bishop in 1683. Agnès Bonhomme Morin insulted Governor Frontenac, was arrested, exonerated by the Sovereign Court — Frontenac raged at the clerk and locked him up for days. Jean Besset bought abandoned Chambly frontage July 1678. Joshua Lamb of Roxbury bought half of Roanoke Island in Carolina for £150 September 1677. Daniel Rice Sr. married Bethiah Ward at Marlborough 10 February 1681 — Ward blood tying Marlborough's deacon line to Rice farms.
In the 1680s Boston merchants began buying vast western tracts — square miles with vague bounds — then petitioning the General Court to confirm title if enough families settled within set years, with land reserved for church, school, and town house. New Hampshire chartered separately 1679, absorbed into the Dominion in 1686. France sent Troupes de la Marine — professional navy infantry who learned forest warfare; Denonville's 1687 expedition mustered 832 soldiers, 1,030 militia, and 800 Native allies against Seneca villages. Laurent Migneron's Beaupré grant west of the Sainte-Anne River was registered 1680. Raphaël Giroux married Marie-Madeleine Vachon at Beauport November 1681. Jean Pilote wed Marie-Françoise Gaudry 27 June 1678; Charles Carrier born at Lauzon December 1678. Dorothy Lamb born to Joshua and Mary Alcock at Roxbury June 1679. Daniel Rice Jr. born at Marlborough June 1684. John Leavens Jr., master carpenter, moved from Stratford to Roxbury, Connecticut, received into church April 1684.