William Salisbury

Born 1635. He died June 24, 1675, in Swansea, Massachusetts.

Killed at the Outbreak of War

William Salisbury was born in 1635 and lived near Swansea, Massachusetts, having moved to Rhode Island shortly before King Philip's War erupted in June 1675. On June 23, 1675, William spotted several Indigenous men near a house he had recently abandoned and ordered his twenty-year-old son John to fire on them, wounding one fatally — among the opening acts of violence of the war. The next day, Indigenous fighters came to Swansea seeking William and John in retaliation; both were killed, along with seven other colonists. William's head was reportedly displayed on a pole along the road from Swansea to Mount Hope in the days that followed.