before their escape, one of their male captors showed Samuel Lennardson how to take a scalp: April 29...is signalized by the achievement of Hannah Dustun, Mary Neff, and Samuel Lennerson, who killed two men, their masters, and two women and six others, and have brought in ten scalps...May 12:...Hannah Dustan came to see us; . . . She said her master, whom she kill'd did formerly live with Mr. Roulandson at Lancaster...The single man shewed the night before, to Saml Lenarson, how he used to knock Englishmen on the head and take off their Scalps; little thinking that the Captives would make some of their first experiment upon himself. Sam. Lenarson kill'd him. Hannah's story is recorded in the diary of John Marshall (1634-1732), a bricklayer in Quincy, Massachusetts, who wrote the following entry for April 29, 1697: At the latter end of this month two women and a young lad that had been taken captive from Haverhill in March before, watching their opportunity when the Indians were asleep, killed ten of them, scalped them all and came home to Boston. [They] brought a gun with them and some other things. The chief of these Indians took one of the women captive when she had lain in childbed but a few days, and knocked her child in [the] head before her eyes, which woman killed and scalped that very Indian. Another reference to Hannah Duston is found in the journal of John Pike (1634–1714, son of New Jersey judge John Pike), in the following entry: March 15: The Indians fell upon some part of Haverhill, about 7 in the morning, killed and carried away 39 or 40 persons -- two of these Captive women, viz. Dunstan & Neff (with another young man), slew ten of the Indians & returned home w[i]th ye scalps. Although Hannah herself never provided a written account of her captivity and escape (there is no evidence that she was literate), the Haverhill Historical Society possesses a letter dated May 17, 1724, addressed to the elders of the church, declaring her desire to be admitted as a full member of the church so that she might take communion with the other congregants, and offering a confession. It seems likely to have been composed from dictation by her minister. In reference to her captivity, the letter states simply: I am Thankful for my Captivity, twas the Comfortablest time