She was a small woman in her 20s killed in gruesome fashion in the wintry darkness on Feb. 8, 1690, during a surprise attack on the Schenectady stockade by French marauders and Native American warriors.
Sixty settlers, including 10 women and 12 children, were slaughtered in what came to be known as the Schenectady Massacre. The attackers torched the houses and barns and left with 90 prisoners and 50 horses loaded with plunder.
The estimated 200 inhabitants inside a stockade fortified with palisades of 10-foot-tall pine logs went to bed that fateful February night with gates open and unguarded. They felt assured Native American scouts they had sent to Lake George would forewarn them of any approaching attackers to prepare a defense…