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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Old Fezziwig" data-source="post: 2701898" data-attributes="member: 59">29 October 1675: Boston, Massachusetts Bay ColonyIt is unseasonably warm in Boston this fall, and the foliage has been late in changing.  War with the tribes allied with Metacom continues throughout Massachusetts and threatens settlements across the colony and down into Plymouth as well.  News of Moseley and Lathrop's defeat at Muddy Brook is still fresh, with casualties up towards the low seventies, although the bad luck is followed quickly by good at Hatfield.  Colonial authorities have started to inter praying Indians on Deer Island, just off the coast of Boston. Int. - The Home of Archibald Pitcairne - AfternoonBut this afternoon finds Pitcairne at study, reviewing his observations of the night before, has found irregularities in the paths and motions of the heavens, stars out of place, winking out, falling, almost rearranging themselves in the sky west of Boston. [1]His studies are interrupted, however, by the arrival of his batsman, Surean, and a man clearly enrolled in the colonial militia.  The man coughs politey, "Mr. Pitcairne, I presume?  My name is Winthrop.  Jebediah Winthrop.  I've been sent to talk to you about some abnormalities in the skies.  I was told you were the man to talk to."Int. - The Home of William Summerset - AfternoonElsewhere, one Mr. William Summerset finds his afternoon's work, some writing, interrupted by a knock on his door.  Through the window, he can see a colonist with a rifle waiting politely.  "Mr. Summerset, the captain would like to speak with you at once, sir."Ext. - Outside Boston, near the Charles River in Waltham - AfternoonAnd, finally, not so far away, but far enough away that it might as well be a world away, Tisaquantum, tracking some game along the river banks, finds himself face to face with a group of armed colonists.  They stare at him menacingly and start to advance towards him.  Shackles hang off the belt of a beefy man off to the left.[sblock]Footnotes[1] June 1675 saw a lunar eclipse.  Both Puritans and Indians would have seen this as portentous.  For the Englishmen, it was sign of divine disfavor; for some Algonquian tribes, this meant that the son of the sun and moon was walking the earth, bringing death [James D. Drake, King Philip's War: Civil War in new England, 1675-1676, U of Massachusetts P, 1999, p. 73-4].  Other meteorological phenomena aren't recorded that I'm aware of, but there is some basis for funny business in the historical record.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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