Redemption Rock, Lancaster, Massachusetts

Redemption Rock, Lancaster, Massachusetts

Monuments -- Lancaster -- Massachusetts.; Memorials -- Lancaster-- Massachusetts.; Historic sites -- Lancaster -- Massachusetts.; Rowlandson family.;

Where Rev. Rowlandson's wife was saved from the Indians who had captured her. On Feb. 10, 1676, during an Indian attack on her hometown of Lancaster, Massachusetts Mary Rowlandson, wife of the village minister Joseph Rowlandson, was taken prisoner with three of her children by a band of Nipmuc warriors. Hoar, a prominent lawyer and Indian missionary, was requested by the Rev. Rowlandson to act as the colonial representative in the negotiation for her release. Hoar departed Lancaster on April 28, 1676 with two native guides, Nepphonet and Peter Tatatiquinea to meet King Philip's War party at Wachusett Lake, located in what is now Princeton, Massachusetts. On May 2, after eleven weeks in captivity, Rowlandson was released to Hoar for a [ce]20 ransom at the glacial stone outcropping known today as Redemption Rock. Rowlandson would go on to write a famous narrative of her experience as a captive, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson which became a bestseller throughout the English speaking world. It is considered to be a seminal work in the American literary genre of captivity narratives and also ranks as the first published book written by a colonial American woman.

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