In 1689, amid King William's War—a part of the broader Nine Years' War—Hanna Dustin, her nurse Mary Neff, and captured boy Samuel Lennardson were taken by Abenaki warriors from Haverhill, Massachusetts to a Native American village. In a dramatic escape, Dustin and her companions killed and scalped several captors. This event underscores the intense conflicts between English settlers and Native American tribes in New England during this turbulent era.