Bloody Brook
Sep 18, 1675

Deerfield, Massachusetts, like many outlying towns, was abandoned during Metacom's (King Philip's) War (1675-1676). In the hopes of saving Deerfield's rich harvest, the government sent a group of teamsters, with soldiers for protection, to gather the harvest and carry it south to the grist mills in Hadley. The convoy left Deerfield on September 18, 1675, and about five miles south they stopped to refresh themselves at a small stream known as Muddy Brook (in present-day South Deerfield, Massachusetts). There, a force of several hundred Native Americans launched an ambush, killing more than sixty of the party. The brook was renamed Bloody Brook. In 1835, a white marble monument was erected to commemorate the soldiers from Essex County and the seventeen Deerfield men who died that day.