at new london 30 7 years agoo. he lived with me 12 years and is now and has bin a free man ever sine. october the 6 1713. EBENEEZER JOHNSON' "It is thought that Col. Johnson came into possession of Toby in 1688, the year of the beginning of King William's war, and perhaps Toby was one of the northern Indians in alliance with the French, taken prisoner in that war. A tradition has been handed down that Col. Johnson, with his forces, surrounded an Indian village, and cut down, as they supposed, every one in it, and early the next morning as the Colonel was walking over the scene of the fight, a little Indian boy ran out of the bushes and clung to his leg with such a pleading look that the Colonel spared him, and brought him to his home by the Naugatuck. The manuscript quoted above seems to conflict with this interesting narrative," Sharpe concluded.
    Sharpe, well-versed as he was on the history of the white settlement of the area, may have been in error when he assumed the story conflicted with the document Sharpe found in the records.
    It should be noted that the document is dated October 7, 1713, and that 37 years previous was about the time of the Swamp Fort fight, when Col. Johnson was in service under Robert Treat. If we take Trumbull's account into mind, but disregard the location which he ascribed to it, the story becomes more plausible, and the tradition and the documents would appear to be in agreement.
    It would appear there is enough circumstantial evidence to support such a presumption. It should be noted that the expedition to the Swamp Fort fight began at New London, the same town cited in the signed record which Sharpe published. It is stated in that document Johnson secured the Indian boy of a Mohegan - which happens to be the tribe which cooperated with the English in that battle which resulted in the capture of 300 or more Narragansett women and children.
    It should be noted that Toby was a Narragansett Indian and was designated as such in the land records when he later obtained his land grant in Beacon Falls.
    Given the weight of these circumstantial parallels, it is possible that Trumbull and the legend of the Indian boy throwing himself at the feet of Col. Johnson to plead for