Robert Lord, Jr.

Robert Lord, son of Robert Lord, the first settler, was a blacksmith. He was probably born  in England in 1634 just before his parents embarked for the new world.  He married Hannah Day in 1657 in Ipswich. He had sons, Robert, John, Thomas, James, Joseph, who removed to Cohanzey, N. J. and Nathaniel, who removed to the Isle of Shoals. 

He died November 11, 1696; and left a widow Hannah, who possessed the rights of commonage, and had horses on the common 1697. (2)

Robert Lord ll served more than twenty years in the Indian wars and became so inured to camp life and exposure that he could never afterwards sleep upon a feather bed. He is said to have been below the medium stature, but of powerful mold and one of the most athletic, strong, and fearless men in the Colonial service.

There is a tradition that the Indians themselves at one time, when confronted by Lord's rangers, proposed to decide the battle that was anticipated by an encounter between the champions of the two parties; to this the whites agreed, and Robert Lord walked to the front. The Indians selected the most powerful of their tribe, a perfect giant, full seven feet in stature. The two men were to meet at full run and take the "Indian hug" as they closed. The savages anticipated an easy victory. They came together like two infuriated bullocks with a tremendous shock, but in an instant the redskin lay stretched upon the earth, and the shouts of the Colonial scouts rang out in the forest. Not satisfied with a single experiment, they were required to rush and clinch again. In this encounter Lord took the "hip-lock" on his greasy antagonist and threw him with such force that a blood vessel was ruptured in the fall. The Indians took him up and carried him from the arena, fully acknowledging themselves defeated; they afterward reported that some white man's devil invested Lord with supernatural strength. (1)

Sources

1. Genealogy and Family History of New Hampshire, 1908
2. Hammatt, Abraham; The Hammatt Papers -- Early Inhabitants of Ipswich, Massachusetts 1633-1700. (1980)

Links

• http://www.bwlord.com/Lord/robert_lordb.htm