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Windham's Frog Fright in the French
& Indian War
The rival claims of France and England to American territory
had involved the Colonies from the outset in frequent war and
bloodshed. The final controversy, extending from 1754 to 1760, cost
them many lives, much treasure and great suffering. The breaking out
of this War was at the darkest period of Windham's history.
Religious dissensions had divided and weakened her churches, and malignant
distempers decimated and desolated her families. Six of her
ablest ministers and many prominent public men had been stricken
down. Children had died in great numbers, so that scarce a household
was left unbroken. In those mournful days, when many hearts "were
trembling at the manifest judgments of God," a rumor of impending war
deepened the gloom. Tales of Indian atrocities and butcheries had
been handed down from generation to generation. War with France was
a war with ferocious savages, incited and guided by skilled brains and
backed by all the resources of civilization. The colonization scheme
by which many had hoped to escape difficulties and discouragements and
begin life anew under more favorable auspices, was likely to be blighted
or deferred. Her citizens would be called out to engage in this
deadly carnage, and her homes and villages left exposed to the incursions
of murderous savages. These gloomy prospects filled many hearts with
anxious forebodings and subjected Windham to that ludicrous panic more
widely known than any event in her history; to magnifying an uproar in her
Frog Pond into the clamor of an approaching army.
This memorable
incident occurred in June, 1754. Though war was not formally
declared, hostilities had begun. A Virginia regiment, led by Colonel
George Washington, was already in the field, laboring to expel the French
from possessions claimed by the Ohio Company. Delegates from many of
the Colonies were in session at Albany, endeavoring to concert a scheme of
common defence. The public mind was disturbed and
apprehensive. Windham's prominence in the recently-formed
Susquehanna Company gave her especial cause for anxiety. This
attempt to rescue from the Indians a large tract of land bordering on the
disputed territory might have aroused suspicion and hostility, and exposed
them to the vengeance of the enemy. The feverish enthusiasm with
which they had hailed that attractive scheme gave place to doubts and
misgivings, and premonitory croakings were heard on every side. Thus
troubled and perturbed, the residents of Windham Green were aroused from
their slumbers one sultry summer nights by sounds wholly unlike anything
ever before heard or reported even by the oldest inhabitant. Mr.
White's negro-man, returning from some nocturnal rendezvous, was the first
to hear these sounds and give the alarm to his master and the
neighbors. Rushing out from their beds, they listened with horror
and amazement. A din, a roar, an indescribable hubbub and tumult
seemed to fill the Heavens and shake the earth beneath their feet.
The night was still cloudy, and intensely dark. Sky, village and
surrounding country were shrouded in thickest blackness, and thus the
terrified listeners were thrown wholly upon conjecture and
imagination. Some feared that the Day of Judgment was at hand, and
that these unearthly sounds were but the prelude to the Trump of
Doom. Others seized upon the more natural but scarcely less
appalling explanation, that an army of French and Indians were marching
upon the devoted village. Distinct articulations, detected amid the
general Babel, made this conjecture more probably, and ere long the name
of Windham's most honored citizen, most prominently connected with the
Susquehanna Purchase, was clearly eliminated. "We'll have Colonel
Dyer," "We'll have Colonel Dyer," was vociferated in deep, guttural
tones. "Elderkin too," "Elderkin too," responded a shrill
tenor. Yes! both these noble young men were demanded by the
insatiate savages. The words "Tete," "Tete," next detected, inspired
some hope. It was possible that even then a treaty might be
effected. Thus in fear, terror, and conjecture passed the night--the
astounding clamor continuing till the breaking of day. That any
terrified Windhamite was so demented as to sally out with gun and
pitchfork to meet an arm of famished frogs en route for the
Willimantic, is extremely doubtful.
The morning brought a solution
of the mystery from families near the mill-pond. Windham's own
amphibious population had broken her peace and made all the disturbance.
The family of Mr. Follet, who owned the mill-privilege and lived adjacent,
were awakened by a most extraordinary clamor among the frogs. They
filled the air with cries of distress described by the hearers as
continuous and thunderlike, making their beds shake under them.
Those who went ot the pond found the frogs in great apparent agitation and
commotion, but from the extreme darkness of the night could see nothing of
what was passing. In the morning, many dead frogs were found about
the pond, yet without any visible wounds or marks of violence. There
was no evidence that they had been engaged in battle. Some
mysterious malarial malady, some deadly epizootic, had probably broken out
among them and caused the outcries and havoc. The report of their
attempted migration in search of water is positively denied by trustworthy
witnesses. There had been no drought, and the pond was abundantly
supplied with water being fed by a never-failing stream.
The
mortification of the Windham people upon this unexpected and humiliating
revelation is quite beyond the power of description:--
"Some were well pleased, and some were mad;
Some turned
it off with laughter;
And some would never hear a word
About the
thing, thereafter.
Some vowed that if the De'il, himself,
Should
come, they would not flee him,
And if a frog they ever
met,
Pretended not to see him."
No people were so fond of playing jokes upon others at these
same residents of Windham Green, and now that the joke was turned upon
them, no mercy was shown them. Those of their fellow townsmen who
had not been victimized overwhelmed them with banter and ridicule.
The tragic alarm was made the most comical of farces. The story flew
all over the County with innumberable additions and exaggerations--a bit
of choice fun, pleasently enlivening the cares and anxieties of that
mournful period. Rev. Mr. Stiles of Woodstock, forgetting his losses
and conflicts, thus playfully descants upon the affair to his
nephew:--
"WOODSTOCK, July 9, 1754.
"If the late tragical tidings from Windham deserve
credit, as doubtless they do, it will then concern the gentlemen of your
Jurispritian order to be fortified against the dreadful croaks of
Tauranean Legions; Legion, terrible as the very wreck of matter and the
crush of worlds. Antiquity relates that the elephant fears the
mouse; a hero trembles at the crowing of a cock--but pray whence is it
that the croaking of a bull-frog should so Belthazzarize a lawyer?
How Dyerful ye alarm made by these audacious long-winded croakers:
'Things unattempted yet in prose or
rhyme,
Tauranean terrors of Chimeras Dyer.'
I hope, sir, from the Dyerful reports from the Frog Pond,
you'll gain some instruction, as well as from the report of my Lord
Cook."
Nor was the report of the Windham panic confined to its own
County. Even without the aid of newspapers and pictorial
illustrations, it was borne to every part of the land. It was sung
in song and ballad; it was related in histories; it served as a
standing joke in all circles and seasons. Few
incidents occurring in America have been so widely circulated.
Let a son of Windham penetrate to the uttermost parts of the Earth,
he would find that the story of the Frog-fright had preceded him.
The Windham Bull-frogs have achieved a world-wide reputation, and with
Rome's goose, Putnam's wolf and a few other favored animals, will ever
hold a place in popular memory and favor.
[Transcribed by Nancy Washell August 2008]
"The History of
Windham County, Connecticut, Volume I" pp 560-563; by Ellen D.
Larned |
