Redemption Rock- who was redeemed, and why?

Redemption Rock is located in a tiny quarter acre park in Princeton, Massachusetts, near the Westminster border on Route 140.   It is a small park with a big colonial history. 

During King Philip’s War, the town of Lancaster, Massachusetts was attacked by Native Americans on 10 February 1676. Mary White Rowlandson (1637 – 1711) and three of her children, and twenty other settlers were kidnapped for many months until a 20 pound ransom was arranged by John Hoar, a Concord resident.  The release and ransom of Mary happened in April right here at this large boulder, which was on the boundary between the white settlers and the wilderness where the native people lived.  

Later, she wrote a book called The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson published in 1682 in Boston and also in London.  It was considered a bestseller of its time. 

A first edition of Mary Rowlandson's book
published in Boston in 1682

John Hoar was the missionary to the praying Indians of the region.  He negotiated for her ransom, which was paid by some wealthy Boston women.  Hoar took Mary back to Boston to be with her husband, the Reverend Joseph Rowlandson, and two surviving children.  In 1677 he was called to be the minister at Wethersfield, Connecticut, where he died in 1678.  Mary took her children back to Boston where she wrote her memoir.  She married Captain Samuel Talcott in 1679, and died in 1711.

John Hoar (1622 – 1704) is the father of my 9^th great aunt, Elizabeth Hoar who married Jonathan Prescott (1643 – 1721) of Concord, Massachusetts.   Jonathan’s sister, Mary Prescott, is my 8^th great grandmother.  Mary’s second husband, Captain Samuel Talcott is my 2^nd cousin, 9 generations removed.

My genealogy link to Mary White Rowlandson:

                                                                        William Skinner m. Margery Trotter

                                                                                                I

                                                John Talcott m. Anne Skinner John Skinner m. Mary Loomis

                                                                        I                                               I

John Talcott m. Dorothy Mott     Joseph Skinner m. Mary Filley

                                                                        I                                               I

Joseph Rowlandson m.1 Mary White m.2. Samuel Talcott                John Skinner m.  Sarah Porter

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                                Aaron Skinner m. Eunice Taintor

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                                Charles Skinner m. Sarah Osborn

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                    Ann Skinner m. Thomas Ratchford Lyons

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                      Isabella Lyons m. Ingraham E. Bill

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                  Caleb Rand Bill m. Ann Margaret Bollman

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                             Albert Munroe Wilkinson m. Isabella Lyons Bill

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                          Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts

                                                                                                       (my grandparents)

For more information:

Redemption Rock Park  http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/central-ma/redemption-rock.html

The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, by Mary Rowlandson, Cambridge, Massachusetts: University Press, 1803 (facsimile reproduction of the original) available to read online at Google Book Search.

New England Captives Carried to Canada Between 1677 and 1760 during the French and Indian Wars, by Emma Lewis Coleman, (originally published in two volumes in 1925) Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2012.  

The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity, by Jill Lepore, New York: Alfred A. Knopf publishers, 1998.

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Copyright © 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo