l, chiefly
women and children, were killed or carried off, and then the Indians
disappeared as quickly and silently as they had come, leaving many of
the houses in flames.

This raid upon Wells was only part of a combined attack on all the
settlements from that place to Casco. Those eastward of Wells had been,
as we have seen, abandoned in the last war, excepting the forts and
fortified houses; but the inhabitants, reassured, no doubt, by the
Treaty of Casco, had begun to return. On this same day, the tenth of
August, they were startled from their security. A band of Indians mixed
with Frenchmen fell upon the settlements about the stone fort near the
Falls of the Saco, killed eleven persons, captured twenty-four, and
vainly attacked the fort itself. Others surprised the settlers at a
place called Spurwink, and killed or captured twenty-two. Others, again,
destroyed the huts of the fishermen at Cape Porpoise, and attacked the
fortified house at Winter Harbor, the inmates of which, after a brave
resistance, were forced to capitulate. The settlers at Scarborough were
also in a fortified house, where they made a long and obstinate defence
till help at last arrived. Nine families were settled at Purpooduck
Point, near the present city of Portland. They had no place of refuge,
and the men being, no doubt, fishermen, were all absent, when the
Indians burst into the hamlet, butchered twenty-five women and children,
and carried off eight.

The fort at Casco, or Falmouth, was held by Major March, with thirty-six
men. He had no thought of danger, when three well-known chiefs from
Norridgewock appeared with a white flag, and asked for an interview. As
they seemed to be alone and unarmed, he went to meet them, followed by
two or three soldiers and accompanied by two old men named Phippeny and
Kent, inhabitants of the place. They had hardly reached the spot when
the three chiefs drew hatchets from under a kind of mantle which they
wore and sprang upon them, while other Indians, ambushed near by, leaped
up and joined in the attack. The two old men were killed at once; but
March, who was noted for strength and agility, wrenched a hatchet from
one of his assailants, and kept them all at bay till Sergeant Hook came
to his aid with a file of men and drove them off.

They soon reappeared, burned the deserted cabins in the neighborhood,
and beset the garrison in numbers that continually increased, till in a
few days the entire force that