Lancaster raid

The Lancaster raid (February 10, 1675) was an attack on the frontier community of Lancaster, Massachusetts by Metacom (also known as "King Philip") during King Philip's War. Metacom led a force of 1,500 Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Narragansett Indians in a dawn attack on the isolated village (which then included all or part of the neighboring modern communities of Bolton and Clinton). They attacked five fortified houses. The house of the minister, Rev. Joseph Rowlandson, was set on fire, and most of its occupants (more than 30 people) were slaughtered. Rowlandson's wife Mary was taken prisoner, and afterward wrote a best-selling captivity narrative of her experiences. Many of the community's other houses were destroyed before the Indians retreated northward.