Raid on Oyster River

On July 18, 1694, French-led Abenaki warriors joined by some Maliseet fell upon the English settlement that now forms Durham, New Hampshire, in what became known as the Oyster River Massacre or the Raid on Oyster River. King William's War provided the backdrop for this assault, which marked the second time in five years that the settlement had come under attack.

Among the numerous strikes against the Seacoast Region during that conflict, none proved as costly as this one, which claimed 104 settlers' lives. To this day it stands as the third deadliest disaster in New Hampshire's history. The war brought several other significant assaults as well, including the Cochecho Massacre at Dover Point in 1689, the raid at Salmon Falls in South Berwick during 1690, the strike on Sandy Beach in 1691, an attack on York in 1692, and finally the violence at Portsmouth Plains in 1696.

Historical context

Because the Nine Years' War played out mostly on European soil, the great powers of the day gave little in the way of men or supplies to their overseas holdings, and the colonies were largely left to defend themselves. This imbalance hit New France hard, since it had far fewer colonists than its rivals and so leaned heavily on alliances with Native peoples to make up the difference.

When French forces triumphed at the Siege of Pemaquid on August 2 and 3, 1689, near what is now Bristol, Maine, Massachusetts answered by dispatching 600 men toward the frontier. These troops assembled on August 28, 1689, under Major Jeremiah Swaine of Reading, Massachusetts, and then combed the surrounding country. Yet even with Swaine's force in the field, Indigenous fighters struck Oyster River, the settlement known today as Durham, New Hampshire, killing eighteen men along with what accounts describe as "three or four children," and dragging off a number of captives besides. That assault would become known as the first raid on Oyster River, sometimes called the Raid on Huckins' Garrison.

By 1693, four years on and following a string of clashes, English negotiators in Boston had begun working out terms of peace and trade with Abenaki communities across eastern Massachusetts. Frontenac, governing the French at Quebec, wanted these talks derailed, so that fall he dispatched Claude-Sébastien de Villieu into what is now Maine, instructing him to take command of the Acadian Indians and turn them against the English.

Villieu wintered at Fort Nashwaak, near modern Fredericton, New Brunswick. Local Indigenous groups remained split over whether war made sense, but Villieu's persuasion, backed by Father Louis-Pierre Thury and Father Vincent Bigot at Pentagouet, ultimately swayed them toward taking up arms.

Raid

On July 18, 1694, roughly 250 Abenaki warriors descended upon the English settlement at Oyster River under Villieu's direction. Two principal contingents made up this force, one drawn from the Penobscot and the other from the Norridgewock, both answering to the sagamore Bomazeen, also known as Bomoseen. Joining them were Maliseet fighters who had come from Medoctec. Because the settlement stretched along both banks of the Oyster River waterway, the attackers split into two parties to strike it simultaneously, with Villieu himself heading the Pentagoet and the Meductic/Nashwaaks contingent.

Striking at first light, the assault overwhelmed the settlement's modest defensive works with little delay. When it ended, 104 residents lay dead and another 27 had been dragged off as captives. Fires consumed half of the homes, garrisons included, after they had been stripped of anything valuable. Fields of crops were ruined and animals slaughtered, leaving those who survived to face hunger and ruin.

Following this triumph at Oyster River, Villieu went on to serve alongside Acadian Governor Joseph Robineau de Villebon, taking command of Fort Nashwaak, the seat of government for Acadia.

Legacy

The State of New Hampshire put up a historical marker, number 50, to mark this attack, calling it "Oyster River Massacre" when it went up sometime in the late 1960s. That sign came down in 2021, after the state's Commission on Native American Affairs filed a complaint with the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources arguing that the wording was "problematic." For several years afterward, no substitute sign stood in its place, a gap attributed to disputes between local and state officials who couldn't agree on how the new text should read. By early January 2026, word came that a fresh marker had finally been installed, bearing the title "Oyster River... is Layd Waste" and standing at a different spot within Durham.