Hester Jones

She was captured by French and Indians in May 1704, when her husband and two boys were killed, taken to Canada.

From http://www.americanancestors.org/wg-vol-5-no-25/: Hester (Ingersoll) (Gurley) Jones, My Eighth Great-Grandmother by Deborah Southworth Sweet of New City, New York

The daughter of John Ingersoll, the immigrant, and his second wife, Abigail Bascom (who had a Plantagenet line), Hester (aka Esther) Ingersoll was born in 1652 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her first marriage in 1684 was to William Gurley, who drowned in the Connecticut River in 1687. Their son and only child, Samuel, my ancestor, was born posthumously sixteen days later.

Hester next married Benoni Jones and they started a small settlement, called Pascommuck, at the north end of Mt. Tom, in Northampton, Massachusetts, with a few other related families. Hester and Benoni had four children. The Jones house was the most fortified in the settlement, and so, on May 13, 1704, most of the settlers were there when the Indians attacked and set the house on fire, driving everyone out into the open. Hester no doubt witnessed the deaths of her husband Benoni and two of her young sons, Ebenezer and Jonathan, and the scalping of another son Benjamin (who survived).

Hester and two others were forced by their captors to walk to Montréal, Québec, where she eventually came to the l'Hotel Dieu, a hospital run by the Hospitaliers of St. Joseph, a group of Catholic nuns. Hester took ill and was cared for there by the good sisters, who quite naturally for the time, had conversion to Catholicism as a prime objective. However it is said that Hester kept to her faith until the end, only agreeing to convert on her deathbed after being promised that if she recovered she would be sent home. She died on Nov. 27, 1705, and was buried in the churchyard there.

The undaunted courage of this woman, who had suffered so much tragedy in her young life, is an impressive legacy to all her descendants, and a great fireside story on those long, cold, winter nights.

Birth: Aug. 3, 1665 Westfield Hampden County Massachusetts, USA Death: Nov. 27, 1705 Montreal Quebec, Canada

Hester INGERSOLL, daughter of John and Abigail (BASCOM) INGERSOLL was born on 9 Sep 1665 in Northampton, Mass.
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Hester INGERSOLL married first, 1684, to William GURLEY )1665-1687) William GURLEY was drowned in the Connecticut River on 1 May 1687, at the age of twenty-two years. Their only child, Samuel GURLEY, was born 6 May 1686 and baptized 17 May 1687 at Northampton, MA. Samuel GURLEY married abt. 1712 to Experience RUST at Hatfield, Hampshire Co.., MA. He died 23 Feb 1760 at Coventry, Tolland Co., Conn. Ref: Cutter, William Richard, et.al., GENEALOGICAL AND FAMILY HISTORY OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT (N.Y. 1911), pp.1592-1593.
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Hester (INGERSOLL) GURLEY, widow of William GURLEY, married second, 23 January 1689, to Benoni JONES of Northampton, MA.
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Hester (INGERSOLL) GURLEY-JONES died on 27 Nov 1705 at Hotel Dieu Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada and is buried in the Historic Hotel Dieu Churchyard.

Burial: Hotel-Dieu (Historic Hospital) Montreal Montreal Region Quebec, Canada