[1] Described as an "immensely able, forceful and ambitious"[2] member of a well-off Puritan family, he left his English home and moved to what is now Dover, New Hampshire.

"By the 1670s the portion of Dover known as Cochecho [village] had become something like Waldron's personal fiefdom, and citizens in the other areas of settlement rarely challenged his social authority.

Within weeks, their ministry became the subject of a public petition by the Puritan townsfolk, 'humbly craving relief against the spreading and the wicked errors of the Quakers among them'.

Waldron, as the local crown magistrate, ordered them to be punished as vagabonds by being bound behind a cart and being made to walk over 80 miles (130 km) in a bitter winter through ten neighboring townships.

[11] At the end of King Philip's War, a number of Indians fleeing from the Massachusetts Bay Colony militia took refuge with the Abenaki tribe living around Dover.

At the time local Pennacook women were regularly allowed into the garrisoned homes of the Dover settlers when they requested shelter for the night.

I will protect you)[16] Their concern was justified, as on the night of 27 June 1689, native women seemingly staying peacefully overnight opened garrison house doors to waiting armed warriors.

One historian wrote, "In one bloody afternoon, a quarter of the colonists in what is now downtown Dover, NH were gone – 23 killed, 29 captured in a revenge attack by native warriors.

"[17] The elderly Waldron, once disarmed, was singled out for special torture and mutilation: the Indians cut him across the belly with knives, each saying "I cross out my account,"[18] and his house burned.