Indian Stone: The Johnson Captivity of 1754
Reading, Windsor County, Vermont
Marker Inscription
INDIAN STONE Commemorate events in early history of Vermont. Captured by Abenaki for ransom at fort no.4, Johnson family, Miriam Willard, peter labaree and ebenezer Farnsworth camped here 30 August 1754 enroute to Montreal. The next day, a daughter was born to Mrs. Johnson in a shelter made by the Indian about on-half mile up Knapp brook
Erected by National Register of Historic Places
The Story
In the summer of 1754, as the French and Indian War flared along the northern frontier, an Abenaki raiding party captured the Johnson family and their companions at Fort No. 4 and marched them toward Montreal to be ransomed. On the night of August 30 they camped at this spot, and the next day Susanna Johnson gave birth to a daughter in a rough shelter the Abenaki built beside Knapp Brook. The child was fittingly named Captive.
Why it matters
The Johnson captivity is one of New England's most famous frontier ordeals, capturing how the imperial wars between Britain and France were fought through Native alliances and the taking of colonial captives.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the summer of 1754, the northern New England frontier was one of the most dangerous places in the British colonies. This was the eve of what Americans would call the French and Indian War — the North American theater of a global struggle between Britain and France for control of the continent. The upper Connecticut River valley, where Reading now sits, was a contested borderland: British settlements pushed north from Massachusetts and Connecticut, while French Canada and its Native allies pressed south from the St. Lawrence.
Fort No. 4, in present-day Charlestown, New Hampshire, marked the very edge of English settlement — the last fortified outpost before the wilderness stretched toward Montreal. Families who farmed near such forts lived with the constant knowledge that war could arrive at their doorstep without warning.
For the Abenaki, allied with the French, raids into this frontier were both an act of war and a long-standing practice. Captives could be ransomed, adopted, or delivered to French authorities in Canada, and the routes north — following rivers and brooks like the one beside this stone — had been traveled for generations.
People & events
On a late-August day in 1754, an Abenaki party seized the Johnson family and their companions near Fort No. 4 and set out on the long march toward Montreal. Among the captives were Susanna Johnson, her sister Miriam Willard, and the men Peter Labaree and Ebenezer Farnsworth — an ordinary frontier household suddenly swept into the machinery of empire.
The group camped at this spot on the night of August 30. What happened next is the reason a stone still marks the ground: the very next day, Susanna Johnson went into labor. In a rough shelter the Abenaki built for her about half a mile up Knapp Brook, she gave birth to a daughter — a child born into captivity, in the open country, far from any settlement.
That a marching war party paused to shelter a laboring woman, and that mother and infant survived the ordeal and the journey that followed, is what lifted this episode out of the ordinary catalog of frontier raids. It became one of the best-remembered captivity stories of colonial New England, precisely because it put a human face — a newborn's — on the imperial contest.
Its place in the American story
The captivity narrative is one of America's oldest homegrown literary forms, and stories like the Johnsons' shaped how generations of colonists understood their own frontier. These accounts were read, retold, and printed for decades, becoming part of the young nation's sense of its origins.
The episode also illustrates a truth easy to lose in the grand narrative of Britain versus France: the imperial wars were fought through Native alliances and along Native routes, and their costs fell heavily on ordinary families. Captives were currency, leverage, and sometimes new kin. The taking of the Johnsons was not a random act of violence but part of a strategic system that stretched from the frontier farm to the councils of Montreal and, ultimately, to the courts of Europe.
That this ground lies in Vermont — a place that would not become a state for decades — is itself a reminder of how contested and unsettled the map still was. The stone marks a moment when the future of the whole continent was genuinely undecided.
If you visit
Reading is deep in the quiet hills of Windsor County, and the setting does much of the storytelling for you. Knapp Brook still runs its course, and standing near the stone it takes little imagination to feel how remote this country was in 1754 — how far from help, and how close to the wilderness road north.
Give yourself a moment to think about scale. The marker commemorates a single night and a single birth, but that night sat inside a war that would decide whether North America spoke French or English. Small ground, enormous stakes.
This is a rewarding stop on a back-roads tour of the upper Connecticut valley, where the story of the colonial frontier is written in fords, brooks, and the sites of old forts. Come with a good map and a slow itinerary; the reward here is atmosphere and the chance to stand where an extraordinary thing happened in an ordinary-looking wood.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Susanna Johnson
- · Miriam Willard
- · Peter Labaree
- · Ebenezer Farnsworth
Related events
- · Abenaki capture at Fort No. 4, 1754
Themes & tags
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Indian Stones
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The Indian Stones near Reading, Vermont, mark the spot where, on August 31, 1754, a daughter was born to the captive Johnson family as they were being marched north by a Native war party during the tensions that erupted into the French and Indian War. The Johnsons' captivity and long journey to Canada became one of New England's best-known captivity narratives. The frontier of the upper Connecticut River valley was a dangerous borderland in those years.
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