Person:Samuel Deming (8)

    Samuel did not marry until age 47 when he took Sarah Buck, also of Wethersfield, the daughter of Enoch Buck and Mary Kirby. She was 22 years his junior. His age not doubt impelled them to start a family immediately and their first child was born exactly nine months after their marriage. The haste turned out to be warranted as he died when the last of their five children was not quite four years old.
    As with his pioneering parents, there was no period during his lifetime when he and his family did not live in fear of attack from the Indians. Although there is no record of them having fallen victim, an account written of another Wethersfield family who were relatives of the Demings illustrates the gravity of the threat.
    It notes: "Hannah Dickenson married Mr. Gillett who was slain during the fight at Turner's Point in 1676. Hannah subsequently married Stephen Jennings and later she was captured by the Indians and taken to Canada. She escaped a year later and soon after gave birth to a daughter that she named 'Captivity', who as an adult married Abijah Bartlett, who was killed by the Indians. Hannah's sister Sarah Dickenson married Martin Kellogg by whom she had three children, all of whom were captured and taken to Canada. Mrs. Kellogg escaped. Later, her son Martin escaped but her daughter Joanna remained captive with the Indians and years later when she was an adult married an Indian chief. Joanna and her sister, who was also among those captured, learned to speak the Indian dialect and often acted as interpreters." (Taken from: A Family History, by Donovan Faust)

1. ↑ A. Donovan Faust (Foust). A Family History: The Ancestors of Thomas Wilson Faust. (1997).
2. ↑ Prindle, Paul W. Honor Treat, Wife of John Deming: Mother of Which of His Children?. American Genealogist (D.L. Jacobus). (Jul 1987)
   62:140.