Bertha Frost

Nicholas Frost born: April 25, 1585 in Tiverton, Devonshire, England died: July 20, 1663 in Kittery, York, Maine married: January 1, 1630 in Devonshire, England to Bertha Cadwalla born: Feburary 14, 1610 in Tavistock, Devon, England died: July 4, 1650 in Sturgeon Creek, Kittery, York, Maine

The founder of Robert Frost's line in America was the Puritan, Nicholas Frost, who may have been on the lower coast of Maine as early as 1632, but who certainly landed with his Devonshire wife, Bertha Cadwalla Frost (b. 1610) and his two sons, John and Charles [ancestor of Robert Frost] -- from "ye Shipp Wulfrana. Alwin Wellborn, Master from Plimouth, Devon" -- in June, 1634, at Little Harbor, now Rye, New Hampshire.

After his daughter, Anna, was born there in April, 1636, Nicholas pushed up to the head of Sturgeon Creek, acquired a goodly acreage of land, and settled for life in what is now Eliot, Maine. Despite the fact that he was for the most part illiterate -- he signed a petition to Oliver Cromwell with his mark, a combination of N and F -- he served as one of old Kittery's first selectmen.

On July 4, 1650, his wife and daughter were captured by Indians according to Norman S. Frost, whose Frost Genealogy in Five Families, together with Everett A. Stackpole's Old Kittery and Her Families, is the authoritative work on the genealogy of the Frosts on this side of the Atlantic -- "and taken to a camp at the mouth of Sturgeon Creek. Nicholas and his son, Charles, were at York at the time, and on their return, attempted to rescue them, but were unsuccessful. Charles, however, killed a chief and a brave. The next day Charles, his father, and some of the neighbors went back to the camp but were too late. The camp was deserted, only the bodies of Bertha and Anna were found there."

Nicholas died a natural death in 1663 . . .

- excerpt from Newdick's Season of Frost: an interrupted biography of Robert Frost http://books.google.com/bo