CAPTIVES, 1677

About the Book

A band of Indians attacked Hatfield, Massachusetts, on September 19, 1677, burning, looting, and killing. They carried off seventeen people, mostly women and children. Their destination, on foot, was Canada. Among them were Martha Waite, pregnant, and her three girls, ages two, four, and six. Captives, 1677, the story of this first Indian/Canadian kidnapping, is a stirring novel of courageous survival, love, and rescue. It follows the captives’ terrible ordeal and the rescue mission of Martha’s husband Benjamin Waite and his friend Stephen Jennings from Hatfield, to Count Frontenac’s court in Quebec, and back to Massachusetts with the captives’ triumphal return. A forgotten saga of American heroism is brought to vivid life in Captives, 1677.

About the Author

STUART VAUGHAN is a distinguished theatre director (over 40 New York productions). His contributions as a pioneer of American regional theatre have been recognized with two honorary doctorates. He has held Rockefeller, Fulbright, and Ford grants. His books A Possible Theatre (McGraw-Hill) and Directing Plays (Longman) have been influential. His plays Ghost Dance, The Royal Game, and Assassination 1865 have been produced. Captives, 1677 is based on the experiences of his wife Anne Thompson Vaughan’s distant great-grandmother, carried off to Canada by Indians and rescued by her husband, Benjamin Waite. Stuart Vaughan heads New York’s New Globe Theatre, Inc., and is also James Marsh Professor-at-Large at the University of Vermont.