Green River II - Haunted Bridge Traditional Cache
gc2002: Geocache container retreived today. Thanks to all who visited.
Green River II - Haunted Bridge
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Cache placed at site of colonist's death in 1704 at Greenfield,
Massachusetts. Small container contains logbook and small items.
Very brief hike up trail.
Cache hidden at popular place for swimming and fishing.
Eunice Williams' ghost haunts this site and her glowing apparition
has been seen several times by persons in the evening hovering over
the waters. She was killed by tomahawk on the shore of the
riverbank.
Directions- Take Exit 26 off Interstate 91.
Follow rotary to Rt 2 West (shelburne/adams) and take a right at
1st lights onto Colrain Road. Follow Colrain Road past GCC on left
and take a right onto Nash Mill Road. Drive past swimming area on
left and at end take a left onto Leyden Road heading north.
Follow Leyden Road all the way up to Eunice Williams Drive on left.
There is a sign for covered bridge. Don't worry about the closed
signs. Park anywhere to the side near the end of the road. Trail to
cache begins near large stone boulders.
There is a historical marker here paying tribute to Eunice.
This bridge has been closed to traffic for a few years.
A great swimming hole during the day but very creepy at night!
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Historical narrative from "The Redeemed Captive":
Just before dawn, February 29, 1704, a band of 300 French and
Indians attacked the Massachusetts frontier village of
Deerfield.
As Indians invaded his bedroom, the Rev. John Williams, minister of
the Congregational church, expected “an imminent passage through
the valley of death.”
“Taking down my pistol, I cocked it and put it to the breast of the
first Indian who came up, but my pistol misfiring, I was seized by
three Indians who disarmed me and bound me naked.”
The misfiring saved Williams’ life. If he had succeeded, the
remaining two Indians would have killed him. But he survived for
what? He was to face more than two years of physical and mental
anguish.
The attackers had killed 49 villagers, including two Williams
children and a Negro woman member of their household. The surviving
111 people, many of them small children, faced a forced march of
300 miles through the wilderness, in the worst of winter, to
Canada.
It resembled the Bataan Death March of World War II. They were
poorly clothed, ill-fed, and sick. The Indians killed those who
could not keep pace, including Williams’ wife, Eunice, who had
recently given birth. They suffered their hardship with amazing
resignation, continuing to assert their faith in God.
Eunice knew she was going to die.
“My wife told me her strength of body began to fail, and that I
must expect to part with her; saying, she hoped God would preserve
my life and the life of some if not all of our children with us.”
The next day she fell wading a river (Green River). An Indian
killed her with one stroke of his tomahawk. A hatchet also fell
that day on the suckling infant of a neighbor and on an 11-year-old
girl.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Uvqqra va ubyybj cneg bs oebxra gerr haqre onex cvrprf. Erpgnathyne cynfgvp pbagnvare, oyhr gbc. Ercynpr naq eruvqr pnershyyl.