Massacre on the Merrimack

July 13, 2015
A strong sense of place and vivid narration underscore journalist Atkinson’s tale of war, survival, and murder in colonial Massachusetts. Atkinson (Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man) opens with a heart-pounding account of the 1697 Abenaki raid on Haverhill, Mass., the English frontier town on the Merrimack River that was home to the Duston family. It was near the end of King William’s War, a bloody contest waged by the French, English, and various Native American tribes for control of northern New England. Thomas Duston got everyone in his family safely to the garrison house except his wife, Hannah, and their newborn daughter, Martha, who were taken prisoner. Grief-stricken when one of the Abenaki killed Martha, Hannah, a sturdy goodwife and devout Puritan, plotted and carried out a horrific revenge. Atkinson’s storytelling skills are superb; he crisply moves from events in Haverhill across the panorama of colonial rivalries in North America to Hannah’s captivity experiences. Yet there is a disconnect between Atkinson’s emphasis on the Merrimack landscape and the questions about motivations for Hannah’s revenge that he considers central to understanding her story. In failing to fully consider the religious, social, and cultural life of colonial women, Atkinson’s otherwise excellent account remains incomplete.