Courtesy Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield, MA

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Home of Abigail (Nims) and Josiah Rising

Josiah Rising and Abigail Nims, captives from the 1704 raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts, were raised by the Kanienkehaka (Mohawk). They converted to Catholicism, married in 1715, and were provided land for their house by the Sulpician priests. Historian Kevin Sweeney notes that the Sulpicians were given land by the French government to establish a mission. Acting as seigneurs, the Sulpicians provided some of the land to families like the Nims’s. In the 1850s under the British regime, the seigneurial system was eliminated and tenants in most places in the Province of Québec became landowners. In later years in Oka, the Sulpicians claimed they still owned the land and families like descendants of the Nims lost land they had lived on for centuries. This 1908 photograph shows the Nims's home in Oka, Québec. Depicted in front of the house is Frederick C. Nims of Ohio with two of Josiah and Abigail Rising’s descendants, Mélina Malette Raizenne and Wilhelmine Raizenne. The identity of the fourth individual is unknown.

Date: 1908 
Topic: Portraits 
Materials: Photograph
Dimensions: n.a. 
Accession #: 2003.47.01


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