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In August 1724 a carefully planned expedition of over 200 colonial soldiers headed up the Kennebec from Fort Richmond (Richmond, Maine). After stopping briefly at Ticonic (Winslow), where they left their whaleboats and a guard of 40 men, they continued north on foot towards Norridgewock (Narantsouak; today Old Point, Madison). Captain Johnson Harmon led the raid, with Moulton as second in command. Among the raiders were many York soldiers who, like Harmon, Moulton, and some other officers, had been present, had had relatives killed or captured, or had been made captives themselves in the raid on York in 1692. Coming within striking distance of Norridgewock about noon on 12 August, the raiding force was divided into two sections of some 80 men each. Captain Harmon, who chose to attack through the tribe’s cornfields, found no Indians and missed the whole fight. Captain Moulton led his men directly into the village. They were warned to silence and were under strict orders not to fire until the enemy had emptied their guns. The surprised warriors, about 50 or 60 in number, rushed out of their homes shooting wildly at the attackers, withstood a disciplined return volley, fired again, then retreated to join the women and children whose earlier flight they had been trying to cover. They were pursued by most of Moulton’s men, who cut them down in the river and in the forest. The old chief Mog* and Father Rale held out in the village. As he was firing from a cabin, Rale was killed by Lieutenant Richard Jaques, Harmon’s son-in-law, against orders from Moulton that he be captured alive. Norridgewock was looted and later burned, and the dead were scalped.
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