Tradition has preserved many incidents of life in the garrisons. In
times of unusual peril the settlers generally resorted at night to the
fortified houses, taking thither their flocks and herds and such
household valuables as were most likely to strike the fancy or
minister to the comfort or vanity of the heathen marauders. False
alarms were frequent. The smoke of a distant fire, the bark of a
dog in the deep woods, a stump or bush, taking in the uncertain
light of stars and moon the appearance of a man, were sufficient to
spread alarm through the entire settlement and to cause the armed
men of the garrison to pass whole nights in sleepless watching. It is
said that at Haselton's garrison-house the sentinel on duty saw, as
he thought, an Indian inside of the paling which surrounded the
building, and apparently seeking to gain an entrance. He promptly
raised his musket and fired at the intruder, alarming thereby the
entire garrison. The women and children left their beds, and the
men seized their guns and commenced firing on the suspicious
object; but it seemed to bear a charmed life, and remained
unharmed. As the morning dawned, however, the mystery was
solved by the discovery of a black quilted petticoat hanging on the
clothes-line completely riddled with balls.

As a matter of course, under circumstances of perpetual alarm
and frequent peril, the duty of cultivating their fields, and gathering
their harvests, and working at their mechanical avocations, was
dangerous and difficult to the settlers. One instance will serve as an
illustration. At the garrison-house of Thomas Dustin, the husband
of the far-famed Mary Dustin (who, while a captive of the Indians,
and maddened by the murder of her infant child, killed and scalped,
wit the assistance of a young boy, the entire band of her captors,
ten in number), the business of brick-making was carried on. The