I love ancestry. I love knowing the stories, saying the names, and finding connections to places and events that could seem distant and unrelated ... but were, and are, part of my story. This morning I came across the following story - but my connection to it is what excites me.
I am a descendant of Deacon Samuel Wheelock - [on my father's maternal mother's side] - the first European family to settle in Shrewsbury, my hometown. Samuel had two sons: Gershom who built the first home in town, and his brother Samuel, Jr. from whom I descend. Samuel, Jr. married Huldah Rice from Westborough, the neighboring town. Samuel, Jr. and Huldah had a son whom they named Nabor, who is my 7th gr grandfather. Nabor is named for his maternal uncle, Nabor Rice, who was killed in an Indian raid in Westborough in 1704. Nabor's brothers Silas, age 9, and Timothy, age 7, along with his cousins Asher, age 10, and Adjoniah, age 8, were kidnapped by the Indians and taken to Canada, where they were converted to Catholicism and were assimilated into Native American Culture. Asher was the only one who ever returned home. Timothy loses his ability to understand English, and requires a translator to communicate with Europeans. Eventually, the Governor of Massachusetts asks Timothy, who was by now a Kahnawake clan chief who went by the Iroquois name Oughtzorongoughton, through his translator Mr. Tarbell, also a captured European, to intervene with the Native populations to ask them to not join forces with the British during the American Revolution. www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/four-rice-boys-captured-indians-1704-three-rice-boys-decide-stay/
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