Mary Neff

Mary Corliss

Mary’s husband William Neff was born about 1642 in Newbury, Essex, Mass. His parents were William Nesse and Jerusha West. William died 7 Feb 1689 in Pemaquid, Maine.

On 15 Mar 1697 Mary Neff was nursing Hannah Dustin who had given birth the week before. They taken prisoner by the Indians in an attack on Haverhill and carried towards Canada.

http://minerdescent.com/2010/06/04/george-corliss/

The ordeal of Hannah Dustin is among the most horrific in New England colonial history. According to an early account by Cotton Mather, Dustin was captured on March 15, 1697 by a group of about 20 Indians and pulled from her bed one week after giving birth to her eighth child. Her husband managed to get the others to safety. The infant was killed when a member of the raiding party smashed it against a tree. Dustin and small group of hostages were marched about 60 miles from her home in Haverhill, MA to an island in the Merrimack River near Concord. Enlisting the help of others, including her nurse (Mary Neff) and an English boy previously captured, the group managed, amazingly, to kill 10 of their captors. Dustin sold the scalps to the local province for 50 pounds in reparation. A monument to Dustin can be seen in Haverhill and the site of her escape with companions Mary Neff and Samuel Lennardeen can be seen in Boscowen, NH. The Hannah Dustin Trail in Pennacook leads to another monument on the island on the Contoocook River.

”The deposition of the Widow Hannah Bradly of Haverhill of full age who testifieth & saith that about forty years past the said Hannah together with the widow Mary Neff were taken prisoners by the Indians & carried together into captivity, & above penny cook the Deponent was by the Indians forced to travel farther than the rest of the Captives, and the next night but one there came to us one Squaw who said that Hannah Dustan and the aforesaid Mary Neff assisted in killing the Indians of her wigwam except herself and a boy, herself escaping very narrowly, chewing to myself & others seven wounds as she said with a Hatched on her head which wounds were given her when the rest were killed, and further saith not.

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(reference given to the same event in; A Sketch of the History of Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury, from 1635 ...

By Joshua Coffin, Joseph Bartlett) March 15, 1697 the town of Haverhill was attacked by a group of Abenaki from Quebec. In the attack, 27 colonist were killed, and 13 were taken captive to be either adopted or held as hostages for the French (Wikipedia). One of these was Hannah Duston, her newborn daughter, and her nurse Mary Corliss.

While detained on an island in the Merrimack River in present-day Boscawen, New Hampshire, the captives killed and scalped ten of the Native family members holding them hostage, then escaped (Wikipedia).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Duston* Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Dec 1 2020, 18:39:49 UTC

GEDCOM Note

From The Neff Family History, First Generation: "By 1697, the year ofthe Haverhill massacre, we find Mrs. Mary Neff all alone except forher son Joseph. Mrs. Neff's husband 'went after ye Army and died inFeb. 1688/9, at Pemaquid, Me.' perhaps killed by an Indian arrow. Heroldest son, William, had also been killed by Indians in 1691. Herthree younger sons, who were all in their twenties by 1697, had leftHaverhill for life adventures elsewhere. About 1690 or 91, Matthiasand Mary (Neff) Button Jr. had migrated to Plainfield, Conn. so thatMrs. Neff's only daughter was too far away to see any more. It is easyto imagine that Hannah Duston and her babies, who lived nearby, filledan empty corner in Mary's heart. An early writer has pictured Mrs.Mary Neff as having a very cheerful disposition and as being alwaysready to help others. Thus we find her, on that fateful March 15th,1697, at the Duston home taking care of Hannah Duston and her 6-dayold baby, Martha. The Rev. Cotton Mather in his Magnalia, gives oneof the most complete and reliable accounts of this entire affair. Init he refers to Mary Neff as nurse and she was certainly acting inthat capacity at the moment. But the relationship between Mary Neffand Hannah Duston was a lot more than that: they were neighbors andfriends and Mary's daughter and Hannah were sisters-in-law." SeeHannah Emerson for a description of the raid on Haverhill and thecapture of Mary Neff.

Bill

Interestingly, there was a connection between Hannah (maiden name Emerson) and Mary (Corliss) Neff: Hannah's sister Elizabeth had an affair with Mary's brother-in-law Samuel Ladd (married to Mary's sister Martha) and was executed in 1693, hanged on Boston Common after being convicted of infanticide, the twin infants (fathered by Samuel Ladd) she gave birth to secretly in 1691 found in a shallow grave.