In a letter from Joel Ware, whose boyhood was spent in Swanzey, but who now resides in Illinois, he says, ‘I recall to mind two incidents related by Grandma’am Gay, as she was called, whose death at over ninety years of age, occurred at your father’s.  She told us that she had visitors at her house (E.W. Handy’s place) on the day of the battle of Bennington was fought, and that they heard distinctly the booming of the British cannon, and the rattle of Stark’s musketry.  She also told me that during the Colonial war of 1755, she staid a long time in the fort near the foot of Mt. Caesar; the Indians would come down from the top of the mountains as near the foot as they dared, and execute their war and scalp dances; and to show their contempt for the people in the fort would exhibit themselves in an insulting and shameful manner.’…”

Reference Data:

The History of Swanzey Co., N.H. fom 1734 to 1890, by Benjamin Reed, 1892, page 113