for him to remove to the fertile Connecticut River valley. In 1635, he settled in Windsor, Connecticut at the confluence of the Farmington River and the Connecticut River; he lived there for the next twelve years and served as a civil Magistrate and military leader of the nascent Connecticut Colony. In 1640, he married Anne Peck from a prominent Puritan family; they had eight children. Pequot War 1636–1638 The main battle of the Pequot War started in the predawn hours of May 26, 1637 when Colonial forces led by Captains John Mason and lieutenant Robert Seeley, along with their Indian allies, attacked one of two main fortified Pequot villages at Mystic. Only 20 soldiers breached the palisade's gate and were quickly overwhelmed, to the point that they utilized fire to create chaos and facilitate their escape from within. Sergeant William Hayden of Windsor is credited with saving the life of Captain Mason inside the fort, using his sword to cut through the bow-string of one of the Pequot warriors aiming his weapon at Mason. The ensuing conflagration trapped the majority of the Pequots and caused their death; those who managed to exit were slain by the sword or musket from the others who surrounded the fort. Only a handful of approximately 500 men, women, and children survived what became known as the Battle of Mistick Fort.As the soldiers made the exhausted withdrawal march to their boats, they faced several attacks by frantic warriors from the other village of Weinshauks, but again the Pequots suffered very heavy losses versus relatively few by the Colonists. These two defeats broke the resources and spirit of the tribe, who then decided to retreat west to the Hudson River area. They were pursued along the southern coast, with other confrontations at Sachem's Head and the Fairfield swamp, suffering more deaths and capture. Pequot grand sachem Sassacus and his core band did make it to New York, but Sassacus was killed there by the Mohawks; they cut off his hands and head and delivered them to the Massachusetts Bay Colony without explanation for their actions. Mason recounted his experiences in the Pequot War in his narrative Major Mason's Brief History of the Pequot War, which was originally printed in 1677 by Increase Mather and later reprinted by Thomas Prince in 1736. The most prominent episode in Mason's lifelong career of public service was his overall command