William Wallace Murcommuck was a Nipmuc/Narragansett basket maker and musician and lived in an abandoned building in East Elmore, Vermont with his wife Hattie for about a year before his death. He was known to folks in the Worcester/Calais/Elmore area having lived there once before. His wife Hattie was an 18-year-old white woman said to be pretty and refined.[1]

Friday, January 2, 1880 – The Burlington (Vermont) Weekly Free Press retold the story of “The Carr Murder Case” in which Royal S. Carr of sometimes Worcester and sometimes Calais, Vermont was convicted of 1st degree murder in the death of William Wallace Murcommuck, an Indian man. Royal had served time previously for the murder of a young woman in Vermont. He both admitted to the murder of William Wallace and, at times, blamed the murder on his cousin, Chester Carr. Chester, a resident of Calais, absconded to Canada shortly after Royal was arrested and never returned to the US.[2]

Royal Carr was executed for the murder.

Who was William Wallace Murcommuck?

William Wallace Murcommuck was the step-son of my 4th great-grandmother (one of the many Angenettes in my family). His father was Samuel Hazard, the son of Sampson Hazard who fought in the Revolutionary War. His mother was Olive Prince Hendricks,[3] a Hassanamisco woman from the Abraham line making him my 5th cousin, 5 times removed. William Wallace was born as William Wallace Hazard in Mendon, MA.[4]

How do we know that Murcommuck and Hazard were the same man?

The story of the murder was printed in multiple news outlets in both Vermont and Boston, MA. Some of the newspapers interviewed William Wallace’s wife, Hattie Kinney, or reported on Hattie’s testimony during the trial. Hattie let on that she was never married to William Wallace, instead she ran away with him when her parents tried to force her to marry someone else. She also revealed that his father was an Indian doctor in Connecticut. Nearly two years after the murder, it was reported in a Boston newspaper that Hattie had recently admitted that William Wallace’s true surname was ‘Hazzard’.[5]

There is only one family to be found in Connecticut featuring an Indian doctor father and a son named William Wallace, both with the last name Hazard and the son of the correct age. Samuel Hazard was a physician in Woodstock, CT from at least 1870 until his death in 1883.[6] He had at least two sons by his first wife, Olive –William Wallace born about 1842 and Samuel who was born in 1846.[7] William Wallace and Samuel Sr. were also counted in the 1859 Earle Report under the Hassanamisco Indians with the son living in an asylum.[8]

Why the name change from Hazard to Murcommuck?

William Wallace enlisted in the army in November of 1867 but had deserted by July of 1868 during the so-called Indian Wars in the Midwest.[9] By 1870, he was once again living in Massachusetts. He married Catherine Franklin from Pittsfield, MA while claiming to be a physician from Little Rock, AR.[10] The marriage may have been short-lived because it was reported by his Vermont neighbors and Hattie that William Wallace lived in the Vermont with a woman called Mary three to five years before his 1877 arrival with Hattie. The desertion and wife left behind in Massachusetts may be the reason behind William Wallace’s name change.

As for his choice of surname, Commuck is the surname of an ancestor of multiple 19^th century Nipmucs and Narragansetts living in the area where William Wallace grew up. Thomas Commuck may have been an ancestor of Samuel Hazard or of one of his relations. Thomas was a musician and composer who left New England in the early 1800s to join the Brothertown Indians in upstate New York. You can view his 1845 hymnal here.

Catherine Hamilton was listed as a widow in the 1880 census[11] which means she may have known that her husband was deceased. Samuel Hazard died in 1883 and hopefully knew of his son’s fate as well. Of Samuel and Olive’s two children, only one survived to adulthood. And there are no known children of William Wallace.

The Complexity of His Life

William Wallace Murcommuck’s life was one of movement, resilience, and reinvention, shaped by his Nipmuc and Narragansett heritage, the weight of his family history, and the challenging times in which he lived. From Uxbridge to Oxford, from Massachusetts to Vermont, he carried with him the legacy of his ancestors—those who endured, fought, and contributed to their communities in meaningful ways.

His untimely and unjust death at the hands of Royal Carr not only robbed him of his future but also severed a thread of his family’s story, leaving behind unanswered questions and a legacy marred by injustice. Yet, through the piecing together of his story—through the connections drawn between his aliases, his military service, and his heritage—William Wallace’s place in history becomes clearer. He was a man of complexity: a musician, a basket maker, a husband, and a son who shared in a rich lineage.

The revelation of his identity as William Wallace Hazard restores his name to his rightful place in his family’s and our community’s histories. Though his life was marked by adversity and loss, his story endures as a testament to the persistence of memory and the importance of reclaiming Indigenous and African American histories that have too often been obscured.

William Wallace Murcommuck’s story reminds us of the importance of understanding history in all its facets—the triumphs and the tragedies—and the imperative to seek justice for those whose voices were silenced. In doing so, we honor not just his memory but the enduring spirit of our people.

**Many thanks to historian Jill Mudget of Vermont Humanities for bringing William Wallace to our attention.**

Aquene, Cher

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[1] Newspapers.com. “William Wallace Murcommuck Murdered by Royal S Carr”. Burlington Weekly Free Press. 1880-01-02, Burlington, Vermont.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

[4] U.S., Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914. Ancestry.com, Lehi, UT. 2007

[5] Newspapers.com. “Pleading for a Murderer.”  Boston Post. Fri, Nov 5, 1880, Boston, Massachusetts.

[6] 1870 United States Federal Census. Census Place: Woodstock, Windham, Connecticut; Roll: M593_117; Page: 743B; Family History Library Film: 545616. 1880 United States Federal Census. Census Place: Woodstock, Windham, Connecticut; Roll: 110; Page: 467A; Enumeration District: 132

[7] Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

[8] Massachusetts: Earle Report of Native Americans, 1861. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2020). From The 1861 Massachusetts Earle Report of Native Americans from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Boston, MA: Massachusetts State Senate.  

[9] U.S., Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914. Ancestry.com, Lehi, UT. 2007

[10] Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988. Ancestry.com, Provo, UT. 2011

[11] 1880 United States Federal Census. Census Place: Washington, Berkshire, Massachusetts; Roll: 521; Page: 36d; Enumeration District: 043.