Battle of Bloody Brook - South Deerfield, MA - Battlefields on Waymarking.com

In the late 17th century Deerfield, MA was the frontier for British settlements in North America. Consequently, is was vulnerable to attack by Native American tribes. Between 1675–78 the King Philip's War raged throughout colonial New England. It was the deadliest war, per capita, in the history of European settlement in North America.

Capt. Thomas Lathrop along with militia and teamsters were dispatched by the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to transport the abundant harvest of corn from Deerfield to Hadley, MA. On September 18, 1675, the wagons reached South Deerfield when the local Nipmuc warriors launched an attack. They killed Captain Thomas Lathrop and most of the men. Ever since, the brook that runs through the area, once called Muddy Brook, is now named Bloody Brook.

The the site of the Battle of Bloody Brook is marked by a monument. A 15' high marble obelisk sits on top of a 10' high, multi-tiered four post base. The south side of he obelisk is inscribed:

Erected August
       1838

Between the posts on the south side of the base is the inscription:

On this Ground
Capt. THOMAS LATHROP
and eighty four men
under his command,
including eighteen
teamsters from Deer
field, conveying stores
from that town to
Hadley, were ambus
caded by about 700
Indians, and the Cap
tain and seventy six
men slain, September
18th 1675. (old style)

The soldiers who
fell, were described
by a contemporary
Historian, as “a choice
Company of young
men, the very flower
of the County of Essex
none of whom were
ashamed to speak with
the enemy in the gate.

"And Sanguinetto tells you
where the dead
Made the earth wet and turned
the unwilling waters red."

"The Same of the slain is
marked by a Stone slab,
21 rods southerly of this
monument.”

The two lines of poetry of the penultimate paragraph are from Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.