Book review: History inside out

A bronze Daughters of the American Revolution memorial sits on the northwest corner of Winchester Street and Main in Keene, commemorating Nathan Blake, who built the first log house there. Blake was captured when Indian allies of the French raided the town in the spring of 1746, during King George's War, and was carried back to Canada. There he remained until 1749, when (according to the plaque) his wife ransomed him. What she paid, or where a poor, displaced refugee obtained any sizable sum of money, is not explained.

A peace treaty signed in 1749 would have led to Blake's release anyway, but colonial records also document that Nathan Blake was "redeemed" from Canada in a prisoner exchange in October of 1747, and brought back by a party commanded by Sergeant John Hawks. Ernie Hebert, a Keene native who noticed Blake's memorial as a child, must have questioned the chronology, and he spun his speculation about that incident into a book called "The Old American" (University Press of New England, 2000).