Michael Hodder and Q. David Bowers
The outcome of his petition is not preserved, but it can be assumed that as it bore his officer's endorsement it was most likely approved. Even so, however, release from training did not mean release from service in time of need: the township was too small to allow any of its members or their servants a permanent exemption, and besides, their own safety might require even the most infirm to hoist an arquebus into firing position. For Groton, and for Holden, King Philip's War (1675-1676) tested the township's will to survive.
The Holdens in King Philip's War
The great Indian tribe of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the Wampanoags, had welcomed the Mayflower Pilgrims and had happily ceded use of their lands to them. In their turn, the Pilgrims had happily accepted ownership of these lands. Neither party to the treaty really understood what the other meant, and so when the Wampanoags continued hunting across lands they felt were theirs, even if someone else was living there, and the Pilgrims complained the Indians were trespassing and breaking boundaries, both were right, according to their own interpretation. Eventually both would come to enforce their own understandings of what had been granted by the original treaty.
In 1662 Metacomet, called King Philip by the English settlers, became sachem of the Wampanoags, and while he pledged he would honor the treaty his father had signed earlier, secretly began planning to reassert the tribe's independence from the influence of the English colonists. Suspicions of his designs led to an indictment, fine, and partial disarmament of the tribe in 1671. Four years later an Indian informer revealed plans for a rising and was murdered for his pains. The colonists apprehended his killers, and after "trying" them according to English law, executed them. This breach of Indian control over Indian affairs inflamed those among the Wampanoags inclined toward war with the settlers. While Philip may have tried to soothe tempers, the colonists gave his name to what became known as King Philip's War.
Even before hostilities began, Groton's elders knew war was likely, and they prepared accordingly. Five of the township's larger houses were fortified with palisades and were designated as garrisons, or places of refuge in case of attack. Four of the garrisons were close together, while the fifth was about half a mile from the others. The first attack came on March 2, 1676, when a small group of Indians looted eight or nine houses, drove off some cattle, and caught and killed Timothy Cooper, a resident of the town. A week later four townsmen were surprised at work by another band and in the short fight that followed another Groton villager was killed, a second captured, the other two making good their escape to the nearest garrison.
The main attack came on March 13. A large war party, later said by the survivors to number over 400 warriors, descended on Groton and began going house to house looking for loot and victims. According to the account preserved by Abiel Holden, Richard and his wife Martha saw the approaching attackers and rushed into their house with their children. Richard armed himself and his eldest son, and they took positions facing the main door where they expected the Indians to break in. Martha and the younger children moved to the back of the house, away from the front door.
Within minutes the attackers had surrounded the building and began their assault on the front door, which did not withstand the battering long. Richard had shuttered the windows and extinguished all the candles in the house, and it was quite dark inside. When the Indians finally broke down the door, Richard and his son could not see their targets well enough to justify firing their single-shot firelocks. As they had planned, when the Indians swarmed through the front door Martha led her charges out the back and began running for the nearest garrison. Richard and his son, unable to see to shoot, backed away from the front of the house and escaped, joining Martha and the children, possibly behind Captain Parker's better-manned palisades. The other villagers had barely enough time to escape into the five fortified houses, where they also shut themselves up, waiting for the onslaught. The now empty town was abandoned to the Indians.
Huddled together for safety the settlers watched through their firing slits as the Indians methodically set about burning the abandoned homes and meeting house. Some 40 buildings were torched as they watched. The Indians then turned on the littlegarrisons, first assaulting the post commanded by Jonathan Nutting. The defenders could not hold off so large an attack and Nutting's palisades were quickly breached, the Indians rushing into slaughter the garrison. As the attackers burst in, one group of defenders led the women and children from the back of the garrison, successfully guiding them to Captain Parker's fortified house. The remaining defenders either died where they fought or made their escape during the confusion that began when the Indians turned from killing to looting.
After the fall of Nutting's garrison the attackers turned on Captain Parker's position. By now, however, the Indians were already counting the battle a victory. Faced with a more professional defense, the Indians broke off the engagement and withdrew from Groton, leaving the villagers in possession of the smoldering ruins that had once been their homes, Richard Holden's among them. After burying their dead and treating the wounded, the survivors left Groton, returning to the towns they had lived in before moving there. Richard Holden went back to Watertown, later to Cambridge, living for a time with his brother Justinian. Undaunted, he returned to Groton around 1684, rebuilt his house larger than before, and on his death in 1696, at the age of 88, was known as one of the more prosperous of the original inhabitants. He left behind him 11 children; seven sons and four daughters.
Justinian Holden was younger than his brother Richard and much more sedentary in his ways, settling in Watertown in 1634. His only move was to Cambridge, a few miles away, where he purchased a 294-acre farm and homestead in 1653 for 210 pounds sterling. He was a farmer first, but during the winter months he plied his trade as a carpenter. He rapidly prospered. In Watertown he was twice appointed constable, responsible for collecting taxes. In Cambridge he was twice named as town surveyor. By 1662 he had become important enough to be placed " ...in ye foremost seats ..." in Cambridge's meeting house. Like his brother before him, Justinian petitioned for release from militia training, writing the county court that he was "... disabled by the Providence of Gcid from attending the Countrey service in military exercises by reason of great deaftness, & Giddiness in his head besides other infirmityes of old age, he being now about 70 years of age..."
Justinian died in 1691, ten years after his petition was approved, at the age of 80. He left behind seven children by his second wife, whom he married when he was over 60; four sons and three daughters.
An inventory of his estate listed his worth at over 1,200 pounds sterling, a very large sum for the time. This figure included farms and dwelling houses valued at more than 1,000 pounds, armor worth 1 pound 16 shillings, and books appraised at 15 shillings. The item for books is perplexing, as it is believed that Justinian may have been illiterate. The books may have been for his children's education. The New England Holdens encouraged their children whenever they showed interest in learning. It was this spirit that ultimately led to Liberty Holden's later success. Liberty's acknowledgment of the debt he owed to his forebears, Richard and Justinian among them, led in turn to his interest in New England history, one he passed on to his son Albert and his granddaughter Emery May.