In my childhood “history” was very neatly commemorated by little markers and monuments along the roadways of America. My Grandfather would predictably stop to read about whatever it was that had happened, wherever we were in our travels. Having now reached the age that he was then, I am grateful for his innate curiosity. Most of history, however, is unmarked, and often much less certain. So it is with a bridge over the Charles River linking Sherborn, Massachusetts on the east side with Medfield on the west. My in-laws, longtime residents of the area, always referred to it as Death Bridge and I often wondered how a thoroughly prosaic highway bridge acquired such an ominous name.
In actuality, the present structure is not and never was known as Death Bridge. It dates from 1964 when Route 27 was relocated north of its original path, now the driveway of 258 South Main Street in Sherborn. The old road ran through that property and down across the river to the western terminus of Hospital Road in Medfield. The yellow line on the map below follows its path.
Death Bridge was situated some 250 yards south of the present structure. Probably first constructed in the 17th Century and last rebuilt in 1914, the old bridge was much smaller and more aesthetically pleasing, if less suited to heavy suburban traffic than the present structure. The image below was probably taken around 1910 and thus predates the 1914 construction.
The remains of Death Bridge and the old road can still be seen when looking south from Route 27.
The name Death is not as sinister as it sounds. The Death family owned the farm on the Sherborn side of the bridge, Henry Death having purchased it from Jonathan Hill of Holliston in 1781.1 Jonathan Hill’s wife, Keziah Daniel, had inherited the property from her grandfather, Samuel Holbrook (1699-1763). His grandfather, Thomas Holbrook (1627-1705), first acquired the land in 1652. Morse’s Genealogical Register of the Inhabitants and History of the Towns of Sherborn and Holliston says of Thomas Holbrook:
He built his house at the latter place [Death’s Bridge], where the trace is still to be seen, and where he raised an extensive orchard, with the produce of which he practiced such hospitality as secured his buildings from the torch of the enemy while those of his nearest neighbor on the other side of the stream were in ashes.2
Morse’s reference is to the burning of Medfield about eight months into King Philip’s War (1675-1676). On 21 February 1676, some 300 warriors led by Monaco, a Nashaway sachem known to the colonists as One-Eyed John, attacked Medfield killing some 17 people and destroying between 40 and 50 homes and barns. Numerous accounts suggest that the raiders then crossed Death Bridge and attacked the Fairbanks Garrison House at Bogastowe (on the Milliis-Sherborn line), a little more than half a mile to the south, but spared Thomas Holbrook’s farm because of his generosity toward their people. The raiders burned the bridge, leaving a note affixed to the charred remains stating:
Know by this Paper, that the Indians that thou hast provoked to Wrath and Anger, will war these twenty-one years, if you will, There are many Indians yet. We come 300 at this Time. You must consider that the Indians lose nothing but their Life. You must lose your fair Houses and Cattle.3
The 1914 reconstruction of Death Bridge included a marker inscribed “Jonathan Wood killed here Feb. 21, 1676, by King Philip’s warriors. A family named Death lived here hence the name Death Bridge.” As I said at the outset, however, history is often less certain than markers suggest. Most sources state that 24-year-old Jonathan Wood and his 14-year-old brother Eleazer, residents of Bogastowe, had gone across the river to Medfield on the morning of the attack to retrieve a pair of oxen. On entering the unidentified barn in which the oxen were kept, the brothers were surprised, scalped, and left for dead. Morse’s Genealogical Register places the attack “on the 2d bank of the Charles R. opposite Death’s Bridge”.4 Eleazer Wood survived but suffered from “depression” for the remainder of his life. Jonathan’s widow Mary, who had taken refuge in Fairbank’s Garrison House, gave birth to a daughter on 22 February 1676 and died a few days later. Their orphaned daughter, Silence Wood, later married into the Holbrook family.
When Death Bridge was demolished in 1964 the marker was moved to Sherborn’s Old South Cemetery, just off Route 27 and west of the present bridge. Marker notwithstanding, there is no evidence to indicate that Jonathan Wood is buried here.
In his 2021 account of excavations at the Bogastowe site, archaeologist Paul LaCroix notes a lack of evidence to support the existence of Death Bridge in 1676 and offers a well-reasoned alternative theory that the message was affixed to Great Bridge, about 1.5 miles further south (where West Street presently crosses the Charles River). If this was the case then Thomas Holbrook’s farm was spared simply because Monaco and his warriors never actually reached it.5 LaCroix’s theory is bolstered by the lack of 17th-century home sites on the Medfield side of Death Bridge and the presence of multiple such homes near Great Bridge, all of which were burned in the attack.
Regardless of the bridge to which it was affixed, the note is attributed to a Native American by the name of Wowaus (1640-1709), known to the colonists as James Printer. Wowaus was a Christian convert educated at Hassanemesit, Reverend John Eliot’s “Praying Indian” village in what is now Grafton, Massachusetts, and later at Harvard’s Indian College. Wowaus’ command of English seems to have enabled him to move between cultures with relative ease. He is best known as the translator and typesetter for Eliot’s Algonquian Bible, first printed in 1661.
The farm owned by Thomas Holbrook and later Henry Death survives today, although the oldest portions of the present structure date from around 1775. In 1925 the property was donated to the Massachusetts Teachers’ Federation for use as a conference center and retreat. Known as Riverbank Lodge, it operated until 1936 when it was sold and returned to private ownership.
Of the world that existed on the morning of 21 February 1676, almost nothing remains. Sherborn’s Morse-Barber House (1674), and Medfield’s Dwight-Derby House (1651), Henry Adams House (1652), and John Turner House (1668) survive, probably much enlarged from their appearance at the time of the attack. Perhaps the spirit of those early years is most keenly felt in Sherborn’s Old South Cemetery. Sandwiched between relatively modern homes and only yards from the rushing traffic of Route 27, the place still retains an aura of antiquity. Established in 1655 and said to be the oldest cemetery west of the Charles River, many of the earliest graves here were intentionally unmarked. Most of those that remain are little more than fieldstones, the simplest reminders of a time when life in this tranquil suburban setting was a dangerous and uncertain proposition.
Middlesex County Southern District Registry of Deeds, Book 81 Page 151.
Reverend Abner Morse, A Genealogical Register of the Inhabitants and History of the Towns of Sherborn and Holliston (Boston: Press of Damrell & Moore, 1856) 140.
Reverend William Hubbard, The History of the Indian Wars in New England: from the First Settlement to the Termination of the War with King Philip in 1677, from the Original Work by the Rev. William Hubbard (Roxbury: Printed for W. E. Woodward, 1865) 171.
Morse, The History of the Indian Wars in New England: from the First Settlement to the Termination of the War with King Philip in 1677, from the Original Work by the Rev. William Hubbard, 264.
Paul Charles LaCroix, Bogastowe Farms Stone House Archaeological Investigation, Millis, Massachusetts 2009-2012 (Framingham: Damianos Publishing, 2021) 169.
As I read your enchanting account of Death Bridge, my mind can’t help but wander back to my own childhood, reminiscing about the quirky names bestowed upon bridges. Singing Bridge, Laughing Bridge—each with its own whimsical tale etched into our memory. Time to get curious about our history!