were
packed on board the ship _John and Sara_; and after a long voyage
arrived at Charlestown, where they were sold at auction. David's master
lived in Woburn, near Lexington, or, as it was then called, Cambridge
Fields. He was treated in a kindly manner. A little piece of land was
given him, on which he built a hut. He worked for his master on
alternate days. The rest of the time was his own. In a few years David
McComee had earned enough to pay back the price of his purchase money,
and was no longer a redemptioner, but a free man and his own master. By
this time, he was known as David Comee. He moved to Concord, and as he
was a thrifty, hard-working man, before long he was the owner of a snug
little farm.

In 1675 the terrible war with King Philip broke out. The Indians ravaged
the land, and boasted that no white man should dare to so much as poke
his nose out of his house. We had then but a little fringe of
settlements extending a few miles back from the coast. Concord was on
the frontier. Word came that the neighbouring town of Sudbury was
attacked, and David Comee and ten companions started out to help the
inhabitants.

My grandfather, who was then a small boy, said that after buckling on
his iron breast and back plates, his father knelt with the family and
prayed. Then he arose, kissed his wife and children, put on his steel
cap, and taking his long firelock, started off to join the other men.

That afternoon they were lured into an ambuscade by the Indians, and
most of them were killed. Reenforcements were sent to Sudbury. The
Indians were driven off; and the next day David Comee was found lying in
the water of the river meadow, scalped, and stripped of his armour and
clothes.

Another Scotch redemptioner, named William Munroe, who was shipped to
this country in the _John and Sara_, settled at Cambridge Fields or
Lexington. My grandfather married his daughter Martha, and bought the
place where my Cousin William now keeps the tavern.

Our family had no love for Indians. We hated them bitterly. At the
present day, as we sit in our homes safe and without fear, we are apt to
forget the constant dread in which the colonists lived. From 1690 till
the end of the French war in 1763, few years passed in which the men on
the frontier were not fighting the redskins.

[Sidenote: BEN'S UNCLE JOHN KILLED]

In 1707 my Uncle John went "to the Eastward" in a company of soldiers to
help drive off a body of French and Indi