USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > A History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, vol 1 > Part 12
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All roads led to Taunton for the militia of the different towns of the Old Colony, after their organization at Plymouth, and there they reported, June 28, 1675, Captain William Bradford of Plymouth in command.
Philip's career of bloodshed in the Taunton section was not accom- panied with anything approaching the terrorism precipitated upon other parts of the province and colony, even. He was driven to Mount Hope, but on his way fled across Taunton river, burning the houses of John Tisdale and James Walker, and killing the former. It is evident that Philip was given plenty of time to repent, for it was not until October 4,
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1675, that the colonies combined, through their commissioners, in a declara- tion of war. On that date, Major James Cudworth was appointed com- mander-in-chief of the general forces; Captain John Gorham was chosen captain of the Plymouth company, to which Taunton's quota was at- tached, with Ensign Jonathan Sparrow as his lieutenant; and Lieutenant John Brown was appointed captain of the guard of twenty-five men at Mount Hope.
With Taunton men in line, the forces of the Massachusetts and Ply- mouth colonies marched to temporary headquarters at Wickford, Rhode Island, where they took part in that battle called the "Narragansett Swamp Fight," in which 300 Indians were killed and 700 were wounded, and 80 English were killed and 180 wounded, twenty members of the Ply- mouth companies being either killed or wounded. Of Taunton men, Wil- liam Witherell, James Bell and one named White, were wounded; while Lieutenants Israel Dean and William Hoskins were present at the fight. Captain John Gallup, who had lived here a number of years, and who was in command of a Connecticut company, was among those killed.
The events that occurred nearer home, though of comparatively small affair to us, were of importance to the growing community. It was on April 15, 1676, that the Taunton inhabitants made their brave reply to friends at the Cape settlements who urged them to leave Taunton and go to a place of safety. That reply, still preserved, thanks their friends, but prefers remaining by the post of duty.
Venturing too far from safer conditions, five men of the Taunton colony were killed June 26, 1676, when Henry Andrews, son of Henry, one of the First Regiment, James Phillips, son of William, also one of the First Purchasers, and James Bell and his two sons, met their death at Nesquabenansett. The incident of the negro Jethro is also recalled at this time. It was he who, a member of the household of Captain Thomas Willett, upon escaping from imprisonment in the camp of Philip, was able to inform the Taunton settlement of an intended attack of Philip. The latter, on July 11th, approached the village, but, finding that the inhabi- tants were alert, he retreated, though he burned two houses on his way. It was at about this time that Captain Bradford, in command of the Plymouth forces, had his headquarters in Taunton.
The exploits of Captain Benjamin Church were now so directed as eventually to bring the insurrection of that one year in colonial history to its close. July 31, 1676, he started in pursuit of Philip, when he learned that the latter intended to make an attack upon both Taunton and Bridge- water. These intended attacks Church was enabled to foil.
But meantime, on August 6, through the faithlessness to his tribe of an Indian deserter, twenty men from Taunton captured twenty-six natives at Lockety-Neck, between the Rumford and Coweset rivers, in the present Norton; and close to that time, the incident is related that Taunton villagers exhibited the head of the Indian Princess Weetamoe upon a pole at the Green. Church continued upon the trail of Philip, which ended in the death of the latter at Mount Hope; and the slaying of Anawan, Philip's lieutenant, at the noted Rock in Rehoboth, shortly afterwards, brought the war to a close. Comparative quiet reigned here up to 1689, at the out- break of the King William War, when the colonies, as a matter of course,
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stood ready to assist the crown so far as they might in the warfare against the French and Indians. Thereupon, orders came from the Gen- eral Court for the establishment of a watch in the various towns. On the town's behalf, seven Taunton townsmen wrote in reply, to the effect that ammunition all ready for use had been placed in accessible locations throughout the town.
As has been the case ever since that hour, Taunton lost no time in raising her quota of men and money. Samuel Gallup had command of the company in which Taunton soldiers served in the expedition to Can- ada, his sergeants being William Hack and Samuel Sabin, and his cor- porals John Quirk and Nicholas Peck, and with fifty-seven men in the company. The names of these men, as well as of those who participated in all ensuing war-period events up to the time of the Revolution, have been recorded and may be found for genealogical purposes in Samuel Hop- kins Emery's "History of Taunton."
Inpressment warrants were also served upon twelve others, and it is stated that there were nine volunteers besides, a number of whom were natives of the local tribes. Impressments, which were similar in purpose to the draft of today, but which sometimes were more severe in treatment, were frequent during all these troubles, and every Taunton house was represented by. father or son, and sometimes by both, in the companies that went away to the frontiers. For examples of these, in July, 1692, there was an impressment of 30 men; again, in April, 1693, of 20; July 24, 1695, 6; July 31, 12; August 1, 8; March 13, 1695-6, 9; May 5, 1697, 20; July 25, 41. During these eight years, however, it will be seen that in one way and another Taunton was inclined to do her own share, whether by volunteer or draft. Then there came the call to the Queen Anne's War, 1702-13, in which the Colonists took part, and during the progress of the war on no less than fifteen occasions were press warrants issued in Taunton, including in their demands sixty men. In the so-called East- ward Frontier war that followed, in 1723, a Taunton man, Ensign William Canedy, was promoted to a captaincy.
There was scarcely any cessation of these border conflicts from now onwards, and it may well be supposed that the town of Taunton, always expectant of attack from one source or another, kept alive to the situation, with gifts of men and munitions. All the colonial towns felt that they were in a continuous state of siege, though the warfare did not approach their doors. But brave men who must go away from Taunton lost their lives, here and there. In the King George's War of 1745, Major Joseph Hodges and Lieutenant-Colonel Ebenezer Pitts were both killed in the expedition at Cape Breton. Other Taunton companies of men made their preparations to take part in the expedition, but they were not called; and it was in 1746 that George Godfrey, later to be appointed brigadier-general, was a private soldier on the frontiers of what is now Vermont. Provincial troops were sent to the borders in 1749, these including a Taunton troop of horse, with eleven officers and thirty-three men, in command of Captain Ephraim Leonard. Captain Thomas Cobb's company of thirty-one men with nine officers formed part of an expedition in the French and Indian campaign of 1754; and then, in 1755, ensued a rush of Taunton men in various expeditions, Captain Nathaniel Gilbert and Captain Job Smith
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REV. CALEB BARNUM, PATRIOTIC REVOLUTIONARY WAR CHAPLAIN
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both in charge of companies. Captain Richard Godfrey, in the second ex- pedition against Crown Point in 1755, had with him nine officers and twenty-two men, and his journal of his marches, with its minute details of events en route and in camp, is a remarkable memento of the soldiers' experiences of those times.
The record of enlistments and impressed men from Taunton during a succession of years from now on is voluminous, the report showing the results in 1756 as follows: Captain James Andrews' company, 15 men; Captain Joseph Hodges', 12; Captain Samuel Thacher's, 1; Captain Eph- raim Leonard's, 1; Captain Benjamin Williams', 7; Captain Joel Brad- ford's, 17. In the campaign of 1757, Captain Joseph Hall's return showed 74 men; Captain W. Arbuthnott's, 27, in the capitulation of Fort Henry; Captain Ebenezer Dean's muster roll in the relief of Fort William Henry, 40 men and 10 officers; Captain Joel Bradford's, enlisting for Crown Point, 9; Captain Thomas Thacher's, 2.
In the campaign of 1758 a few of the 2500 soldiers drafted from the militia of Massachusetts were from Taunton, and Captain Richard Cobb in his company had one Taunton man who went up to Lake George. The enlistments in Captain Samuel Thacher's company were two Taunton men; in Captain Andros' company, three, Nathan Cobb losing his life, and Samuel and John Stacey being made prisoners.
The Taunton soldiers in the campaign of 1759 were: of Captain Philip Walker's company, 24 men; of Captain Job Winslow's company, 18 men and 2 officers; under Captain Samuel Glover, 29; and there were four men with Captain Barrachiel Bassett at Lunenburg in March, and two were impressed by a warrant of Colonel Ephraim Leonard. Colonel Leonard gave a return of fifty-nine men of the Third Regiment of the county of Bristol, and three lieutenants. The muster roll of Captain Thomas Cobb's company in the campaign of 1760 gave the names of fifteen Taunton men, with two officers; Captain Job Williams' company, 12 men, 1 officer; Cap- tain Ebenezer Cox's, 16 men; Captain Philip King's, 4 men. In the cam- paign of 1761, Captain Sylvester Richmond's return showed seven Taunton men, and on the pay-roll of Captain Job Williams' company were fifteen Taunton men and four officers.
This warring and marching to and fro, so thoroughly shared by Taun- ton soldiers in the long series of campaigns, preceded the still greater over- throw of the rule of the Motherland.
CHAPTER VI.
TAUNTON IN THE REVOLUTION
Although a succession of unparalleled events has rapidly transpired during the generation of which we are a part, that have tended to enshadow and belittle the former times, it is to our credit that we still possess respect for all eras of our country's history, if only as stepping-stones that have led us up to the present. We must accept such as living facts of former days, appreciating their vital values to their generations and to our own.
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The impressions made upon Taunton by the War of the Revolution, for example, cannot be over-estimated. The independent state that was then won was the culmination of much struggle, and the independent govern- ment under which we now live is the continuous result. No one knows just when the murmurs began to precede the shouts of defiance against the over-exactions of an insufferable ruler, but Taunton was one of the foremost of New England towns to lead in a revolt that secured freedom from an autocratic oppression.
Though the word "Independence" was then unpopular in public, at any rate, and though legislative bodies and public men generally "totally disavowed" independence, yet it can now be seen that the latter was a persistent motive and undercurrent of the day's forces. The anger of the obdurate George III, because of the high-handed and rebellious procedure of the Boston tea party, resulted in the Boston Port bill, that closed Boston to all commerce, and then came the complete overturn and the strike for liberty. Small towns everywhere were fully as brave as cities in resist- ance; and there were brave souls in Taunton, for on September 28, 1774, indignation meetings were already being held at the court house, with Zephaniah Leonard as chairman, and David Cobb as clerk, and with pro- testing delegates present from Dartmouth, Rehoboth, Freetown, Dighton, Swansea, Norton, Mansfield, Raynham, Berkley and Easton, at which time resolutions were adopted against the "Pretended authority of a British parliament"-Bristol county's own Declaration of Independence, though not conceded as such at the time.
Yet, only a month later, or in October, 1774, the unpent spirit of the town asserted itself in the unfurling of a red flag on Taunton Green, with its inscription, "Liberty and Union; Union and Liberty." That was rebelry; and again, when Taunton women held their remonstrant tea party at Luscombtown, near the Neck of Land bridge, that, too, was rebelry. These incidents took place long before war was declared or intended. And the Declaration of Independence had not been signed at Philadelphia when Colonel Gilbert, Dr. Mckinstry, Daniel Leonard and other tories were ordered out of town. And it was a full year before that famous document was drawn up that Taunton's Committee of Safety, Inspection and Correspondence began to rule local proceedings.
The following were the active patriots of the hour in Taunton: George Godfrey, Esq., Major Richard Godfrey, Ensign Ichabod Leonard, Lieu- tenant Elisha Barney, Lieutenant Ebenezer Cobb, Lieutenant Benjamin Dean, Jr., Mr. Nicholas Baylies, Benjamin Williams, Esq., Colonel George Williams, Lieutenant Edward Blake, Captain Henry Hodges, Lieutenant Solomon Dean, Captain Simeon Williams, James Williams, Jr., Lieutenant William Thayer, Mr. Elijah Lincoln, Dr. David Cobb, Mr. John Adam, Mr. Josiah Crocker, Robert Luscombe, Esq., Mr. John Keen. This com- mittee was literally the moving spirit of the day, here. They took into their care the estates of Daniel Leonard, Dr. William Mckinstry, and other persons who had fled to Boston for Loyalist protection. They gave heed to every opportunity for the entry of the new State through Taun- ton's doors, though they knew it not. They warned merchants not to export any flaxseed; they took action with regard to the vending for the enemy's sake of rum, molasrs or English goods; and they voted to re-
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serve the money usually paid for the support of Boston's poor for Taun- ton's own use. The committee were in full cry after certain shopkeepers who were profiteering in the sale of salt. To their hands was also com- mitted the care of the Highland prisoners in Taunton, to "forbid their strolling or walking on the Lord's Day," or "at any unseasonable time of night, without leave from the head of the family to which they respec- tively belong."
And, though but comparatively few men gathered in Philadelphia could sign the greater Declaration, there were as brave men in Taunton, placing their signatures to our own "Solemn League and Covenant," which expressed their independent stand, as prescribed by the Province laws of May 1st, 1776. These were the local signers :
John Godfrey, John Thayer, Henry Hodges, Jr., Abiathar Hodges, James Hodges, Jonathan Thayer, Stephen Haskins, Jr., Luther Haskins, John Holmes, Nathaniel Briggs, Nathaniel Briggs (2nd), Jacob Burt, Abraham Burt, John Hodges, Simeon Cobb, David Burt, Dan. Haskins, Isaac Burt, Ebenezer Cobb, Levi Harlow, James Codding, Aaron Knapp, Gideon Hicks, Moses Knap, Edward Knap, Abiathar Knap, Sepharim Knap, James Tisdale, Daniel Short, Henry Brant, .Nathaniel Dean, Abel Burt, Abel Burt, Jr., Nebadiah Lincoln, Aaron Pratt, Ben. Crossman, Timothy Hodges, Nehemiah Haskins, Jr., William Haskins (3rd), Samuel Haskins, Eli Haskins, William Haskins (2nd), Richard Cobb, James Lincoln, Eb'n. Cobb, Jr., Rufus Cobb, Simeon Cobb, Timothy Haskins, Pelitiah Estey, Samuel Hayward, Jona. Harvey, Alpheus Haskins, Philip Mason, Samuel Stacey, Job Stacey, Job Stacey, Jr., George Woodward, John Briggs, Ephraim Briggs, Amos Stacey, James Harvey, Ebenezer Willis, John Willis, Nathaniel Dean, James Woodward, Daniel Briggs, David Stacy, Seth Hodges, Silas Antelly, Thomas Hodges, Morgan Cobb, William Hodges, Samuel Tower, Alexander Smith, Elisha Woodward, Ichabod Leonard, Dan. Wilde, George Reed, Isaiah Reed, Zephaniah Hodges, Jonathan Barney, Jacob . Barney, Nehemiah Dean, Samuel Gardner, Benjamin Williams, Jno. Jones, James Leonard, Zeph Gary, Seth Pollard, Joseph Harvey, Rufus Leonard, Oliver Dean, Enos Dean, George Reed, Jr., Levi Torrey, Benoni Tisdale.
Yet at the same time special honors were then accorded Taunton's signer of the National Declaration of Independence, Robert Treat Paine, who for twenty years, or from 1761 to 1781, lived here, though he was born in Boston, in 1731. He removed from Taunton to Boston, where he was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court in 1790, and where he died May 12, 1814, at the age of eighty-three years. The Robert Treat Paine monument, by Richard E. Brooks, sculptor, was dedicated at Taunton, November 15, 1904.
Taunton's Minute-Men had been chosen in 1775 in the companies of Abiathar Leonard, James Williams and Robert Crossman, according to the recommendations of the Provincial Congress-these marching from Taunton to Roxbury, April 10, 1775. The names of these courageous men and those of others in the muster rolls are fully recorded in the volumes of the "Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolution," as well as in S. H. Emery's "History of Taunton." The task of recording them has been a voluminous one and a life work, and there are no books that receive more frequent consultation by patriotic societies for purposes of Revolu- tionary pedigree.
Upon the call of Congress in 1775 that 13,600 men be raised in Massa- chusetts of the 30,000 required for the colony's defence, Taunton furnished one entire company-Captain Oliver Soper's, in Colonel Timothy Walker's
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regiment-though there were enlistments from Taunton in eight other companies.
The reorganization of the Bristol county militia was completed in the spring of 1776, and Colonel George Godfrey, formerly colonel of the East Division of the Third Regiment of the county, was made brigadier-general, seven companies of the Third Regiment being from Taunton, under Cap- tains Elisha Barney, Edward Blake, Joshua Wilbore, Ebenezer Dean, Robert Crossman, Josiah King and Ichabod Leonard. Throughout the Revolution, Taunton men made their enlistments, or were drafted for varying periods in different companies, under different leaders; but upon the expiration of their time they were subject to the orders of the brigadier- general for the rendering of service in their own respective companies in the Third Regiment.
Enlistments began, upon the organization of the Bristol county brigade in 1776, in the companies of Captains Oliver Soper, Matthew Ran- dall and Joshua Wilbore; and a regiment from that brigade was secured in August that year for two months' duty in New York, under command of Colonel Thomas Carpenter, among the field and staff officers being : James Williams, Jr., major, and William Sever, adjutant, both of Taunton. Also, a company from Taunton, under command of Captain Robert Cross- man, was enrolled from the Taunton companies of the Third Regiment for service under Colonel Carpenter, while enlistments of Taunton men were recorded in the company of Captain Zebedee Redding. The five companies in the Bristol county brigade performed service at Warren, Rhode Island, in 1776, when the field and staff officers were Colonel George Williams, Lieutenant-Colonel Zephaniah Leonard, Adjutant Mason Shaw, Major James Williams, Jr., and Quartermaster George Williams (2nd).
Upon the occasion of the alarm in Rhode Island, December 8, 1776, Taunton soldiers were on duty with their companies in command of Cap- tains Edward Blake, Lieutenant Noah Dean, Captain Joshua Wilbore, Robert Crossman, Ebenezer Dean and Samuel Fales; and in that year, too, there were a large number of drafts from this section for service in New York.
It was during this campaign that Rev. Caleb Barnum died of illness contracted in the army. He had been seventh pastor of the Congregational church in Taunton, and was serving as chaplain in Colonel John Greaton's regiment.
In the campaign of 1777, David Cobb, of Taunton, was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of Colonel Henry Jackson's Sixteenth Regiment of the Continental Line; and at the same time Hodijah Baylies entered the ser- vice as a lieutenant of a company in this regiment. In the latter part of that year many Taunton men were engaged in secret expeditions, and were on duty upon various alarms. The population of Taunton over six- teen years of age then was 826. In 1778, James Williams, of Taunton, was appointed the superintendent for Bristol county to receive and send forward men for completing fifteen battalions of Continental troops "to be raised in the State of Massachusetts Bay."
A town meeting was held here in April, 1779, to choose a committee "to hire for the town as reasonable as may be the men for the Continental or State service that the town or several captains or commanders of com-
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panies shall be called upon to raise for ye future." The next year, August, 1780, these companies performed service in the Third Regiment, attached to the Bristol county brigade, under command of Brigadier-General God- frey, at Howland's Ferry, in Tiverton, at the alarm, and under Captain Joshua Wilbore, Josiah King, Ichabod Leonard, James Macomber, Peletiah Eddy and Edward Blake. In the 1781 campaign every effort was made to furnish the last quota of Taunton for the Revolutionary War, and Taun- ton not only furnished men, but also munitions, food and clothing.
April 19, 1783, the war was ended. We think of those men today, and of many others who served from Taunton, as part of the grand army of the Revolution who guarded the town and country, and defended the prin- ciples of liberty as they knew them, through those trying times. We respect the Spirit of '76 as forerunner of the Spirit of '61, and of the still greater struggle of our own times for world freedom.
Shays' Rebellion .- There are but few communities that, while the great body of the State has been progressing through its wars to the hoped-for haven of its ideals of national freedom, have not had their own local antagonisms. Such an uprising, throughout Massachusetts, at least, was that called Shays's Rebellion, and whose performances clashed with court sittings at Taunton.
The American people had won what they had fought for-a separate state of democracy. Now they found themselves in rough waters again, for while on their way to those clearer spaces of liberty that were their goal, they must battle through the shoals of a new and heavier kind of taxation in order to pay their own debts of war. Great was independence, but the debt thereof was to be surmounted. Hence Shays's Rebellion, and attempts at lawlessness on the part of certain elements of the community. So it was that the great burden of taxation necessarily borne by the coun- try after the Revolutionary War, and the general discontent of the people that so large a part of the populace must barter, instead of having a regular circulating medium, were the main causes for the gathering of mobs in many sections, upon which occasions they were frequently incited to deeds of lawlessness. At this period the courts were burdened with suits for ordinary debts, and men like Daniel Shays were impatient of the new struggle and determined upon open rebellion and violence. "General" Daniel Shays had been a captain in the Revolutionary army, and as he was now among the bitterly disaffected, he was looked upon as the mili- tary leader of the insurrection that went by his name.
There are traditions many concerning doings and sayings at that time, but the plain facts are that one of many mobs in the State gathered at Taunton to try to prevent the sitting of the October term of the Supreme Court in 1786; but the government received successful protection from the militia of this division. The insurgents, 182 in number, under the lead of Captain David Valentine, of Freetown, appeared in Taunton, some with arms, after having alarmed the countryside with circulated reports of their rebelry. General David Cobb, who was not only a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, but also a major-general of the Fifth Division of the Militia, made such concise explanations of the intentions of the court and the militia that the mob soon dispersed. The field-piece in use at that time on the part of the militia is the cannon now preserved at Historical
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Hall, in Taunton, and known as "Old Toby," from Tobias Gilmore, a col- ored soldier from Raynham, a member of the military household of Wash- ington, and for whom the cannon was purchased. On October 15, 1897, the Old Colony Historical Society dedicated a tablet at the Green opposite the court house to mark the spot where the dispersal took place.
The Embargo of 1807, and the War of 1812-14, that was sure to ensue, may well be looked upon today as a sort of stumbling-block set in the path of the young Republic pursuing its way through the new-found fields of a national freedom. Nothing might long withstand her progress, but hostile events of that period were of such a character as to hinder the advancement of the nation. The British spoliation of American vessels of their crews, beginning with the impressment of four seamen from the "Chesapeake" by the man-o'-war "Leopard"-three of those men being Americans-again roused the guards of the nation. The outrage took place in June, 1807, and soon after, in that month, the Third Regiment, Bristol County Brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Lincoln, was "ready, armed and equipped, to march at a moment's warning."
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