Bissell Family History

Sarah Day Gunn first married Nathaniel Gunn and they had a son Samuel.  Sarah's father Robert Day had died and her mother Editha had married Elizur Holyoke.  Sarah moved to Springfield, MA to be with her mother and there she married Samuel Kellogg on 24 Nov 1664.  They lived in Hatfield, MA.  

At about 11 a.m. on 19 Sep 1677, while most men were working in the meadows cutting corn, Hatfield was attacked by Indians.  They came through "Middle Lane" and fell upon houses lying outside the stockade.  They torched the buildings of Samuel Kellogg at the corner of the lane.  His wife Sarah and infant son Joseph were killed and their son Samuel was seized and bound, taken prisoner by the Indians.  [It is unclear to me whether this "Samuel" is Sarah's son with Nathaniel Gunn or whether it's another, younger son also named Samuel that Sarah had with Samuel Kellogg.]  Other residents of Hatfield were injured, killed or captured -- the total was 17 taken hostage, 12 killed, others wounded and houses and barns burned.  

One of the residents, Benjamin Waite, had his pregnant wife Martha and three daughters taken captive.  After finally getting permission from the colonial governments in Massachusetts and New York in early December 1677 to meet the ransom demands of the Indians, Waite and Stephen Jennings (whose pregnant wife Hannah and children were also captives) traveled through deep winter snows to Lake George where an Indian helped them build a canoe and gave them a rough map of Lake George and Lake Champlain, then departed.  Ice in the lakes slowed their progress and they had to live off the land.  After surviving a blizzard the first week in January, they reached the Canadian frontier and with the help of the French governor in Quebec they found the prisoners in a wigwam in Sorel, Canada.  They paid 200 Pounds for the prisoners, including young Samuel Kellogg.  The colonists had to spend the winter in Canada, during which time Martha Waite had a daughter she named "Canada," and Hannah Jennings had a daughter she named "Captivity."  The settlers finally began their trip back home May 2, 1678 and Benjamin Waite wrote from Albany to the Hatfield settlement:

"Albany, May 23, 1678. "To my loving friends and kindred at Hatfield- These few lines are to let you understand that we are arrived at Albany now with the captives, and we now stand in need of assistance, for my charges is very greate and heavy; and therefore any that have any love to ourr condition, let it moove them to come and help us in this straight. There is 3 of ye captives that are murdered,-old Goodman Plympton, Samuel Foot's daughter, Samuel Russell. All the rest are alive and well and now at Albany, namely, Obadiah Dickenson and his child, Mary Foot and her child, Hannah Gennings and 3 children, Samuel Kellogg, my wife and four children, and Quintin Stockwell. I pray you hasten the matter, for it requireth greate hast. Stay not for ye Sabbath, nor shoeing of horses. We shall endeavor to meete you at Canterhook; it may be at Houseatonock. We must come very softly because of our wives and children. I pray you, hasten then, stay not night nor day, for ye matter requireth greate hast. Bring provisions with you for us. "Your loving kinsman,"Benjamin Waite."At Albany, written from myne own hand. As I hve bin affected to yours all that were fatherless, be affected to me now, and hasten ye matter and stay not, and ease me of my charges. You shall not need to be afraid of any enemies."

Excerpted from Wells, D. W. and R. F. Wells. 1910. A History of Hatfield Massachusetts. F.C.H. Gibbons, Springfield, Mass.

On receipt of the letters, a party from Hatfield immediately set off to escort the exhausted group home.

Stephen Jennings moved to Brookfield, MA in the 1690s.  He, his son Benjamin and four other men were killed in a surprise Indian attack while raking hay in their field on 20 July 1710.  Benjamin Waite was killed and skinned by a large group of French and Indians during the massacre at Deerfield on 29 Feb 1704 (it was a leap year), at the time of Queen Anne's War between the French and English.  The attackers outnumbered the villagers and the snow drifts were so high the French and Indians were able to scale the defensive palisade walls.  Three-fifths of Deerfield's residents were killed or captured.