Footnote # 1

Deerfield Town Book, January 5, 1686, town meeting.

Footnote # 2

Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family. (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), page 68.

Footnote # 3

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," George Sheldon, editor (Deerfield, MA: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 1889) page 1.

Footnote # 4

All the quotations in this segment are from Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," George Sheldon, editor (Deerfield, MA: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 1889) page 1.

Footnote # 5

All the quotations in this segment are from Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," George Sheldon, editor (Deerfield, MA: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 1889) pp. 1–2.

Footnote # 6

Stephen's word "travail" is usually modernized as "travel," but "travail," which means hard work, conveys the difficulty of his travels. We have modernized this and other spellings in the rest of this narrative. Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 2.

Footnote # 7

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," pages 2-3.

Footnote # 8

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 3.

Footnote # 9

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 3.

Footnote # 10

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 3.

Footnote # 11

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 4.

Footnote # 12

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 4.

Footnote # 13

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 4.

Footnote # 14

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," pages 4-5.

Footnote # 15

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 5.

Footnote # 16

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," pages 5-6.

Footnote # 17

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 7.

Footnote # 18

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 7.

Footnote # 19

Forty crowns equaled 10 pounds, at a time when the Reverend John Williams's annual salary was 80 pounds, and he was considered well off. Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," pages 6-7.

Footnote # 20

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 8.

Footnote # 21

Stephen Williams, "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity," page 8.

Footnote # 22

Stephen Williams's Diary, volume III, page 321, quoted in John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994) p. 189.

Further Reading

Calvert, Karin. Children in the House. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1992.

Demos, John. The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America. New York: Knopf, 1994.

Melvoin, Richard. New England Outpost: War and Society in Colonial Deerfield. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.

Morgan, Edmund S. The Puritan Family. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.

Sheldon, George. A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Deerfield, MA: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 1895.

Williams, Stephen. "What Befell Stephen Williams in his Captivity", in The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion. Northampton, MA: Hopkins, Bridgman and Company, 1853.