8 TO: FROM: DATE: SUBJECT: Introduction John Williams was born on December tenth in the year 1664 in Roxbury Suffolk County Massachusetts in United States of America (USA). His father Samuel Williams was a Deacon and his mother was Theoda Park Williams. His grandfather Robert Williams was a well-known admitted freeman of Roxbury in 1638 and made John a cousin of Princess Diana. John Williams was not only learned but a scholar. He attended local school, Roxbury Latin School and later joined Havard College where he graduated with a Bachelor in Administration (B.A) in 1683. His Life History John Williams’s career begun as a school teacher in Dorchester where he taught for two years and during which time he studied divinity. He prophesied at the frontier settlement of Deerfield and selected as a pastor in March 1686. On twenty first July 1687, he married Eunice Mather whose father was Reverend Eleazar Mather of Northampton, and grandfather was Richard Mathar. They then got nine children. He was formally ordained as a pastor at a church gathering in the same place on seventeenth October 1668. During this time, Deerfield was in danger and was threatened by French and Indian attacks. As a Christian, he and his fellow church members believed that wars across the borders were occasional and that they were Gods way of showing that he was dissatisfied with the people of Deerfield who in John’s opinion showed no interest, enthusiasm or concern about the scripture and their spiritual ways left a lot of room for improvement. All the same, John was courageous expressed no fear during the war. He strongly encouraged and urged his people to stand firm onto their ground. Before the Queen Anne’s war began he tried to warn the Governor Dudley to strengthen the Deerfield fortifications in order to protect the residents from the attacks. Unfortunately the warning came in a bit too late. In the King Philips war between 1975 and 1976, Deerfield had previously been attacked by the French and Indians soldiers and burned down in the process. The Queen Anne’s war this time round was not so different. On the morning of February the twenty ninth of the year 1703, just before daybreak, the French and Indians attacked Deerfield, ransacking all homesteads while killing most of the inhabitants including two of John William’s youngest children, his six year old son John Jr and his six month old daughter Jerushah along with his African slave Parthena. The raid was part of the French colonization and was aimed at displacing the English colonial frontier by capturing those they found therefore unfortunately the survivors were not set free. They were taken into captivity and exposed to hardship such as exposure to harsh winter weather conditions, bad landscape, hunger and grief on a 300 mile march to Canada. Johns Wife who had was still trying to recover from her delivery of six months before the attack was way too weak to withstand the hardships brought about by the captiv.