Soldiers in King Philip's war. Containing lists of the soldiers of ...

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The first mention I have found connecting Capt. Scottow with the
Indian war is in the Colonial Records, Vol. 6, p. 57, at the session
of the Court convened October 13, 1675, as follows :
Upon the sad intelligence from Saco & the great danger of all those parts,
it is ordered, that there be 50 soldiers immediately from Boston & Charls
Tonne sent away in some vessel or vessells for the releife of those parts, and
that they be under the commaud of Leiftenn' Scottoway, and that Major
Clarke take care that this order be effected as to the dispatch of the men,
& furnishing ammunition & prouission for the voyage.
The "sad intelligence " was connected with the attack upon Saco,
the details of which are in Major Walderne's letter of September
25, 1675, given heretofore ; Robert Nichols and his wife were killed
just before this by the Indians who had made an unsuccessful
assault upon Major Phillips's garrison at Saco.
But previous to these occurrences, Capt. Scottow had fortified and
provisioned his house and gathered into it as many of the people as
would come. His garrison was the Jocelyn House on the "Neck,"
distant from the farms of many of the inhabitants, who reluctantly
abandoned their homes, cattle and crops to the ruin which was daily
threatened. It seems evident that Capt. Scottow, with the small
number of undisciplined men under his command, mostly inhabitants,
and those employed by him, was in no capacity to send out a relief
party to other parts of the town ;
and when the Indians attacked some
of these still remaining on their farms, it was plainly imprudent to risk
any small party such only as he could have sent, to the almost certain
ambushment and destruction, to which the burning, and firing of
guns seemed to invite them. His enemies sometime afterwards
sought to injure him by bringing charges of neglect to help his
neighbors, among other charges preferred against him. The Alger
brothers, Andrew and Arthur, had a large estate at that part of
Scarborough known as Dunstan, and so named by them for their
old English home, and they had there a fortified house, but upon the
opening of hostilities evidently withdrew their families into Sheldon'3
garrison at Blackpoint. When Major Walderne had returned home
he left sixty of his soldiers to garrison the different settlements,
Saco, Falmouth and Scarborough, and these were distributed according
to the need, at Scottow's, Shelden's and Fox well's garrisonhouses.
Capt. John Wincoll was posted at Foxwell's with a company
of soldiers, and in October was assisting the settlers to harvest
their corn. One of Capt. Wincoll's soldiers, Peter Witham, was
detailed to help the Algers get their grain, and said that a few days
after, as they with some of their relations were getting their goods
from their houses, they were attacked by the Indians, when Andrew
was killed and Arthur mortally wounded ; and the said Witham,
fifty-three years afterwards, being then seventy-two years old, testi-