Massacre on the Merrimack
Hannah Duston's Captivity and Revenge in Colonial America

Massacre on the Merrimack, by Jay Atkinson is a true and compelling account of Indian captivity. In the1600's, English settlers in New England had to be on constant alert for Indian raids. One such raid occurred on March 13, 1697, in Haverhill, MA, one of many small farming communities on the front......more

What a page-turner! The story of Hannah Duston’s captivity and revenge will mark you forever. Atkinson plunges you into the cold water of the Merrimack river, makes you feel like brushing the snow from your shoulders, and marches you alongside the Indians into a world of wilderness now forever lost.......more

In my naïveté and wishful thinking I pictured a Thanksgiving feast with congenial, respectful and cooperative relations between Native Americans and settlers. However, this story catagorically puts that "Disney-like" image to rest. In fact, life on the frontier and relations with and among Native Am......more

An exciting narrative of the trials of Hannah Duston of Haverhill. But the book has a remarkable typo (1863 for 1683) and one continuing error: Throughout the story Atkinson uses "musket' and "rifle" interchangeably. Although rifling was invented for large field weapons in the fifteenth century, It......more

I re-read the author’s introduction to this book three times to understand why he wrote it the way he did. Major portions of this book are written as if the author was there - this can be done very well with history. Yet the excessive use of “savage” and careless language surrounding the murder of b......more