Hannah Duston Statue in Boscowan, NH

Hannah Duston (also spelled Dustin, Dustan, or Durstan) (born Hannah Emerson, December 23, 1657 – March 6, 1736,[1] 1737 or 1738[2]) was a colonial Massachusetts Puritan woman who was taken captive by Abenaki people from Quebec during King William's War, with her newborn daughter, during the Raid on Haverhill in 1697, in which 27 colonists were killed. In her account she stated that the Abenaki killed her baby during the journey to the island. While detained on an island in the Merrimack River in present-day Boscawen, New Hampshire, she killed and scalped ten of the Native American family members holding them hostage, with the assistance of two other captives.