Charles Frost (military officer)
Major Charles Frost (1631–1697) was an English-born military leader in Maine during King William's War.
Biography
[edit]Frost was born in Tiverton, Devon, England. He married Mary Bolles in 1660.[1] They had a daughter, Sarah Frost, born in 1666.[2]
Frost was stationed in Kittery, Maine (present-day Eliot, Maine). He was the highest-ranking military leader in Maine during King William's War until he was killed by Indians, along with a number of other local residents at Ambush Rock. He was reportedly killed for his role in Richard Waldron's subterfuge against several hundred Indians during King Philips War.[citation needed]
Aggrieved natives never forgot. According to Everett Stackpole's "Old Kittery and Her Families":[3]
The night after Frost's burial the Indians opened his grave, took out the body, carried it to the top of Frost's hill and suspended it upon a stake. His resting place was marked some years later with a flat stone, on which is a rudely chiseled inscription, "Here lyeth intrrd ye body of Mj. Charles Frost ager 65 years Decd July ye 4th 1697." The spot where he was slain is near a large boulder, on which is a suitable inscription. It is known as Ambush Rock.
On 4 July 1897, the newly formed Eliot Historical Society held a commemoration ceremony as their first public event, marking the 200th anniversary of the natives' killing of Frost.[4]
Charles Frost was the 5th great-grandfather of American poet Robert Frost.
Legacy
[edit]- Namesake of Frost Hill, Eliot, Maine (Natives dug up Frost's body and hoisted it upon a pole at the top of Frost's Hill)[5]
- Honored on a plaque at Ambush Rock in Eliot, where he died in an Indian attack[6]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ [2][dead link]
- ^ Stackpole, Everett Old Kittery and Her Families", 1903
- ^ "Old Eliot. v. 2 (1898)". HathiTrust. pp. 9 v.
- ^ "Charles FROST - Army - Military Page - Ancestry.com". www.ancestry.com.
- ^ "Ambush Rock - Historical - Town of Eliot, Maine". Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 19 October 2014.
Sources
[edit]- Exercises Of The Eliot Historical Society On Monday The Fifth Of July, 1897: In Commemoration Of Major Charles Frost On The Two Hundredth Anniversary Of His Massacre By The Indians, Sunday, July Fourth, 1697
- Memoir of Charles Frost (1888)
- "Old Eliot: a monthly magazine of the history and biography of the Upper Parish of Kittery, now Eliot" Vol. II., 249-262; X., 30; XII., 139 and 258
- "Maine Wills;" Maine Hist. Soc.
- Stackpole, Old Kittery and Her Families, p. 414 (1903)
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