Angel of Hadley

The story contains many kernels of truth, although some appear to have been deliberately obscured by chroniclers of the time (notably Increase Mather) in order to protect Goffe.

He was one of 59 signatories to the death warrant of King Charles I in 1649, and continued to play an influential role in the English government during The Protectorate rule of Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s.

Goffe and Whalley fled to the New Haven Colony, where John Davenport, a sympathetic minister, sheltered them for a time, and the political leadership disclaimed knowledge of their whereabouts.

It is likely that Davenport connected them with John Russell, the minister at Hadley, Massachusetts, where the two men eventually settled into a highly secluded life.

Goffe was able to exchange letters with his wife in England through the mediation of Increase Mather, an influential Boston minister, and Daniel Gookin, a political leader in the Massachusetts government, is known to have overseen some of their financial affairs.

He gave a slightly more detailed account of the June 12 action, in which he implied (but did not explicitly state) that militia troops from Connecticut who had been stationed nearby were instrumental in fending off the Indian attack.

They had been sent north as part of a planned sweep of the Connecticut River valley, to be performed in conjunction with Massachusetts troops that were en route from the east.

The governor of Massachusetts was John Leverett, who had served in the Parliamentary Army during the civil war, and is known to have visited Hadley during the time Goffe and Whalley were there.

[2] It is also a likely source for "The Grey Champion", a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story that features an elderly Puritan man who brandishes a sword in defense of his people.

Jack Dunn wrote The Diary of General William Goffe published in 1982 which was syndicated in The Valley Advocate in weekly installments as "The Angel of Hadley".