>From History of Rye by L.B. Parsons The Brackett's Lane Massacre. Sandy Beach, in common with many others of the early settlements, suffered terribly from Indian raids, Men, women, and children were slaughtered or carried into captivity, houses and barns destroyed by fire, and cattle killed. The settler and his family, when they laid down for the night, had no assurance that they would not be aroused before morning by the whoop of the savages, to find their dwellings in flames and all chance of escape cut off. How many of the Sandy Beach pioneers perished throught these sudden and deadly attacks is not know, but the number was large. The records of Indian depredations on the settlement are very meagre and incomplete, but the most disastrous raid of which there is authentic record took place Sept, 1691, when a party of savages, variously estimated at from 20 to 40, came from the eastward in canoes and landed at Sandy Beach. They did not attack the garrison house there, but killed some of the defenceless families living on or in near vicinity to Brackett's lane ( now known as Brackett road), took a number of persons captive, and burned several small houses. Anthony Brackett,who, lived near Saltwater brook, was killed, and was buried on the eastern side of the highway: his will proved in 1692. Goodman Rand's family also suffered in this raid. It is said there were 2 of the Brackett children carried off by the Indians. One of them, a girl, finally reached Canada, and after she grew up and was married she came back to Rye and claimed a portion of her father's estate. She took a part of the cattle and a piece of the land was sold to pay her off. It contained about 7 acres: Jonathan Locke lived on it, and perhaps bought it: then Richard Lang, and later Samuel A. Trefethen, One of the Bracketts made up quite a number of verses about the woman coming back after her patrimony, which Thomas J parsons in his youthful days heard repeated. The brains of one or more children, too young to be easily carried into captivity, were dashed out against a large rock which stood on what is now Wallis Rd, near Brackett road. this rock, which tradition says bore the stains of blood for many years, was long ago removed in improving the highway. Thomas Walford was mortally wounded on the hill on Brackett road. After he was shot he crawled on his hands and knees to the house of a family named Foss, whose members had either fled to the woods or been massacred by the savages, and drank from a pail of swill he found on the kitchen floor. The hill was call Walford's hill for many years." Judy cats..dog@worldnet.att.net