History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 113

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 113

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Lieutenant Samuel Thompson left a diary of his experience in the campaign of 1758, which is one of the most interesting relics preserved connected with the early history of Wohurn. The original was burned, it is said, in the great fire at Woburn Centre, 1873. The whole was published, 1868, in Sewall's Woburn, app. ix. The diarist, his brother, Abijah Thompson, and a number of his townsmen were in the same regiment. They marched to Fort Edward. This post was "exceeding strong " and " commanded by a numerous artillery." They proceeded thence, in the direction of Lake George, to a fort at Half-way Brook, and to Fort William Henry. They remained at the lake when General Abercrombie and the "old countrymen " attacked Ticonderoga and were re- pnlsed. The body of Highlanders, regulars and pro- vincials denominated the " old countrymen," suffered great losses in killed and wounded, and returned to Fort William Henry in confusion after the assault on Ticonderoga. The regiment on duty there, the one in which the diarist was, witnessed their sad return. Later the regiment went again to the fort at Half-way Brook, and a fight occurring there with Indians, on July 20, 1758, in which it was engaged, it lost four- teen or more killed. The diary preserves the names of those killed in this fight, including three captains, two lieutenants, one ensign, and three non-commis- sioned officers, and the bodies of all were buried in one grave. After performing hard duty in scouting, guarding posts, and labor in the woods, the regiment was released about November 1st, and on November 6, 1758, the diarist arrived home. By the death of his captain, Ebenezer Jones, in battle, July 20, 1758, at Half-way Brook, Sergeant Thompson was advanced to the rank of a lieutenant.

Catalogue of some interesting documents of the provincial period that have been preserved in the Wymun Collection, in the Woburn Public Library:

Nehemiah Abbott, receipt for a soldier's gun, May 22, 1761.

Aaron Beard, for son, receipt for military service, Mar. 24, 1762.

Benjamin Brooks, and others, receipt for military service, April 6, 1,59.

Zechariah Brooks, by Isaac Snow, receipt for military service, Mar. 29, 1762.

William Buck, receipt for military services, April 30, 1760.

Jabez Carter, and others, receipt for military services (of a man), April 6, 1759.

John Center, receipt for military service, May 11, 1762.

Capt. Edwards, named in a lengthy lodging and meals' account, 1761- 1763, in James Fowle's handwriting.

Zachariah Flagg, for son Zachariah, receipt for military service, Feb. 7,1764.

Joseph Fowle, certificate of military service, 1757 (?) and Sarah Fowle, for Joseph, receipt for military service, Ang. 27, 1761.

James Fowle, representative from Woburn, 14 receipts to him, on ac- count of the public military business, 1760-1765.

Jonathan Fox, for his son Thomas, an enlisted soldier in the expedi- tion against Canada, in 1760, petition, 1760.

John Kendall and others, receipt on account military service, April 6, 1759.

John Kimball, receipt on account military service, May 11, 1762.

Daniel Kittredge, for son, receipt on account military service, Jan. 1, 1762. Refers also to a gun.

Benjamin Nutting, receipt for military service, Jan. 30, 1764.

Josiah Parker, and others receipt on account military services, April 6, 1759.

Jacob Reed, and others, receipt on account military service, April 6, 1759.

Benjamin Richardson, town order on account military service, Feb. 14, 174S.

David Richardson, for David, Jr., receipt on account military service, Mar. 6, 1760.

Simeon Richardson, twice an enlisted soldier in the expedition against Canada, legislative petition, and report of committee, Jan. 17, 1761. Same, receipt for military service, Mar. 30, 1761.

Benjamin Simonds, and others, receipt on account military service, April 6, 1759.

Timothy Slaughter, receipt for a man for the military service, from Medford, in the expedition against Crown Point, Sept. 4, 1756. An en- listment certificate of a private soldier with autograph of Slaughter, Sept. 4, 1756, has reference to the same business. The soldier was to be under Colonel Gridley in the expedition for reduction of Crown Point.

Elisha Tottingham, and others, receipt on account military service, April 6, 1759.

Edward Twiss, for son, receipt for military service, and the loss of a gun, Dec. 23, 1761. [A Timothy Twiss or Twist, of Woburn, in service, 1760, is mentioned in Sergt. David Holden's journal, published in pamph- let form by Dr. S. A. Green, 1889 ( Muss. Hist. Soc. Proc.) and this Timothy was later a soldier in the Army of the Revolution, and was probably tho son of Edward, above referred to].

Artemas Ward, fragment of an undated petition about difference of pay of a lieut .- col. and a major, he having served as a lieut .- col. in the French War. [The same Artemas Ward who was afterwards a major- general and the cominander-in-chief of the forces at the beginning of the Revolution.]

Jonas Wyman, by John Russell, order for wages for military service at Cape Breton, in Capt. Stevena'a co., of Andover, Nov. 28, 1745. [Jonas Wyman had died in the military service at Caps Breton .- Sswall's Wo- burn, 655. Another receipt, to Benjamin Wyman, by John Russell, in his behalf, is dated Sept. 24, 1745.]

Nourae's Military Annals of Lancaster contains the names of a number of natives of Woburn, who enlisted in the wars as inhabitants of Lancas - ter, e. g., Peter Kendall, aged 29, husbandman ; Stephen Kendall, 23, laborer; William Chubb, 25, weaver; Joshua Pierce, 22, honsewright ; and Richard Nevers, 20, blacksmith-all in Vernon's expedition to the West Indies, 174). Most of the men who served in that expedition died during their absence. Joshua Pierce, of the above expedition, was capt .- lieut. of Col. Willard's co., at Cape Breton, 1745. Matthew Wyman, aged 40, laborer, and Uriah Wyman, 21, apothecary, natives of Woburn, were in the Lancaster co. in the expedition against Nova Scotia for the capture of the Neutral French, 1735 ; and Jonathan Pierce, of Woburn, was in the military service in 1760, and is mentioned in Sergt. David Holden's journal, published by Dr. S. A. Green, 1889.

CHAPTER XXIX.

WOBURN-( Continued).

MILITARY HISTORY-THE REVOLUTIONARY AND LATER PERIODS TO 1861, ETC .- THE CIVIL WAR OF 1861-65.

THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD .- The military history of Woburn during the Revolutionary period began with a war at her very doors. The events of the opening struggle at Lexington and Concord, of the battle of Bunker Hill and of the siege of Boston

390

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

occurred within the hearing and observation of her inhabitants, and all her people were stirred by the exciting scenes around them. We have heard, as well as many others, relations of the terror these scenes inspired in the minds of the young and the aged, and of the anxiety that prevailed, and of the grief in households occasioned by the loss of friends who fell in battle or who lost their lives in other ways connected with the warlike experiences around them. To these distresses were added the ravages of the small-pox, which in those days always accom- panied the movements of an army. The irruption of this disease occurred in Woburn in May and June, 1775. Esquire Thompson, in his memoranda, records the following deaths: May, 1775, the Widow Jane Winn, Mr. John Burnam's child; June, 1775, Nehe- miah Wyman and a nurse-child, all of the small- pox ; and all these, he adds, and about twenty more had the small-pox at Mr. Joseph Winn's, 1775. The effect of these calamities on the prosperity of the people was considerable, and many persons unable to bear the strain died, giving an increased death- rate to the neighborhood, not counting the much greater mortality of the military losses in the vicinity.

, Had we space, we would like to enter upon this subject in much detail; but it is not feasible. In place of it, let us say that on the subject of the Battle of Lexington the narratives of Woburn participants are principally the following :

- 1. Sylvanus Wood's deposition on the events of the early morning at Lexington and on his making a British soldier his prisoner. This deposition was dated June 17, 1826, and has been several times pub- lished, notably in Dr. Ripley's "History of the Fight at Concord," and in Barber's Hist. Coll. Mass., 400- 401. Wood, on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, was an inhabitant of Woburn, living with Dea- con Obadiah Kendall at present corner of Russell and Cambridge Streets. At an hour before daybreak that morning he heard the Lexington bell ring, and, fearing there was trouble there, arose, took his gun, and with Robert Douglass hastened to Lexington, about three miles distant, where he found the Lex- ington company assembled. He inquired of Captain Parker, the commander, the news, and while talking with the captain, a messenger arrived and announced that the British were within a half a mile. The drum was then ordered to beat to arms. The captain asked Wood if he would not parade with his company, and Wood assented. The captain asked also if the young man, Douglass, with Wood, would not also join his company. Wood spoke to him, and he assented also. Then follows a description of the events that took place. Wood was stationed about in the centre of the company, which was formed at the north end of the common in single file. . While they were stand- ing, Wood left his.place, and went from one end. of the company to the other, and counted every man

who had paraded, and the whole number in line was thirty-eight. Just as he had finished and got back to his place, the British appeared before them. He then gives a circumstantial account of what hap- pened. He was intimately acquainted with the in- habitants of Lexington, and particularly with those of Captain Parker's company. After the British had begun their march to Concord, Wood, who had re- treated from the common with the other Americans, returned and found two men, Robert Munroe and Jonas Parker, lying dead at the north corner of the common, and others dead and wounded. He assisted in carrying the dead into the meeting-house, and afterwards proceeded towards Concord with his gun; and when he came near the Vile's Tavern in Lexing- ton, he saw a British soldier seated on the bank by the road. Wood approached him, holding his gun in readiness to fire if the soldier should offer to resist. He did not, and Wood took his gun, cutlass and equipments from him, and, proceeding with his pris- oner towards Lexington, and, meeting two other per- sons, delivered him to them. Wood then mentions the supposed further disposition of his prisoner, whose action partakes in a measure the character of a deserter, from the feebleness of his resistance, and concludes his deposition by saying : "I believe that the soldier who surrendered his gun to me was the first prisoner taken by the Americans on that day."

2. Loammi Baldwin's narrative on the movements of the Woburn men during the first half of the day and his own experiences. This is very interesting, and is included in Rev. Leander Thompson's sketch of Colonel Baldwin, given elsewhere. He would ap- pear from this narrative to have been'in command of the body of men belonging to Woburn, holding at the time a rank equivalent to that of major.

3. Samuel Thompson, Esq.'s, narrative on the same subject, with his own experiences and observa- tions. This has been several times published in fall or in part. It may be said to be a good general ac- count. According to this, the town was alarmed by the news of the regulais' march at two or three o'clock in the morning, and the men from the town were on their inarch towards Concord before sunrise. The Woburn complement arrived there early, and retired before the troops to Lincoln. Some had fired on the enemy from the Bedford road, ju-t out of Concord, where had occurred a slight skirmish. The Woburn party placed themselves behind trees and walls on each side of the road where the enemy would approach, and when the enemy came up, poured upon them a general fire, which both forces engaged participated in. The roadway being full of the regulars, the intenseness of the fire greatly an- noyed them ; but the walls on each side of the road were, however, somewhat of a.safeguard to them, as they stooped down to avoid the fire as they ran by ; but,; notwithstanding this precaution, many of them were struck at this point by the bullets of the Americans.

391

WOBURN.

Thompson said the Woburn men distinguished themselves in this engagement with much valor. The Americans had three killed in this particular skir- mish, one of them being the brother of Esquire Thompson-Daniel Thompson, of Woburn-who, his brother writes, "behaved very valiantly." When the Americans engaged the enemy in this skirmish, it was thought they had not more than one-third as many men as the regulars had. Thompson says, "I shot about ten rods at them near ten times, and thought I killed or wounded several ;" he was very confident that the number was four or five, if no more. He ap- parently based his calculation on the fact that when the rear of the enemy had gone by, he went where he had shot and found three or four of the enemy lying dead very near the spot ; and here he got one of their guns and some small plunder.

After this the Americans ran up and fired on the rear of the regulars, as they were marching rapidly along, and fired from every place where the land and turns in the road would give our side an advantage; and thus the British troops were pursued to Lexing- ton.

Thompson pursued with the rest, and followed on to the point where the enemy burned the houses in Lexington. He shot several times more, he said, but then returned home, beiug much fatigued. He was at this time forty-three years old.

A large portion of his narrative is taken up with a recital of the general events of the battle, and his whole narrative, with all the variations upon it, has been carefully copied iuto the volume containing the transcript of the greater portion of his extensive diary. These general facts are too familiar for repetition, and are not always correct, being based on mere hear- say. He says his brother Daniel, who was killed, was much lamented. That Asahel Porter, another Woburn citizen, was killed in the morning at Lexing- ton, with the seven Lexington citizens who then fell, at the time of the first fire. This was indeed true. Thompsonspeaks of the 18th of April, the day previous to the battle, as being Tuesday ; thus the battle was on Wednesday, an interesting fact to be remembered. He speaks of the Woburn men at Concord, after their arrival in the morning, as watching for a time, with others, the enemy's motions. In the fight near Tanner Brook, in Lincoln, he says, " Woburn party greatly annoyed the regulars," and of the battle as a whole, he says, the British troops "marched with great ex- pedition all the way," to the end of it.

He continues with a narrative of the events in Charlestown on April 20, 1775, and an account of the events of the siege of Boston to about the date of September 2, 1775, when the account suddenly ends.

The particulars regarding Daniel Thompson, " who was slain in Concord Battle, on the 19th of April, 1775, aged 40 years," are very numerous. His epi- taph in Woburn first burying-ground has been oft- quoted, and the Thompson Memorial, recently pub- !

lished, gives a view of his house, and an account of his life, as well as one of his death. He was very en- thusiastic in the popular cause, and his end was a courageous one. He was killed in the limits of the town of Lincoln. It is said he was firing from behind the corner of a barn near the road where the British were passing, and that a regular, noticing the execu- tion done by his firearm, ran around the harn and shot him dead, through his back, while he was in the act of reloading. His adversary was killed a moment later by an American bullet. This is the generally accepted story. See also a description of the locality iu W. F. Wheeler's sketch of Lincoln, in Drake's Middlesex County, where the spot is described as near Cornet Ephraim Hartwell's house. His remains and those of Asabel Porter were interred in Woburn, on Friday, April 21, 1775, at which time the Rev. Josiah Sherman, of Woburn, delivered a suitable sermon and prayer, and a multitude of persons from Woburn and neighboring towns attended, and followed the re- mains to the grave. It was the office of his brother Abijah Thompson to carry the tidings of his death to the widow and children. The eldest child was about fourteen years old, and immediately went raving dis- tracted on account of it, a state in which he remained for a number of days.

4. William Tay's deposition on some of the earlier and later phases of the battle, comprised in a petition to the General Court, dated September 20, 1775. He signs himself William Tay, Jr., and begs leave humbly to show, that on the morning of April 19, 1775, he was aroused from his sleep by an alarm, occasioned by the secret and sudden march of the ministerial troops to- wards Concord ; that he, with about 180 of his fellow- townsmen, well armed, speedily took their march from Woburn to Concord, and upon their arrival there, with a number of their fellow-soldiers of the same regiment, who reinforced them, smartly skir- mished with the enemy, being deeply touched by the results of the events that had occurred at Lexington, where they had seen the bodies of those who had been killed in the morning on that fatal field. These scenes served to heighten resentment, and the peti- tioner, by the joint testimony of his fellow-soldiers, lent, at least, an equal part through the whole stretch of way from Concord to Charlestown, in the action that ensued. At or near the latter place the peti- tioner, with several others, passing by a house, was fired upon by three of the British troops planted within. The fire being returned by him and his party, two of these British soldiers were killed, and thereupon the petitioner, rushing, into the house, seized the survivor of them, who was a sergeant, by claspiug him in his arms, and subduing him by sundry cuffs, when he then resigned himself and weapons to the petitioner, there being no others then in the house. It so happened when the petitioner was engaged in securing his prisoner, that others of the American side were coming up and rushing into

392

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

the house, when some one to the petitioner unknown carried off the arms or weapons of the prisoner, which were afterwards found in the possession of a respecta- ble citizen of Concord, who, on the pretext of superior right, refused to give them up, and the petition had reference principally to their recovery. The petition is printed in full in the appendix to Frothingham's Siege of Boston, 368-69.

Asahel Porter, of Woburn, who was killed on the morning of April 19, 1775, at Lexington, was shot down by the British near the Common, when endeav- oring to effect his escape, having been made a pris- oner by them on the road, while they were on their way from Boston. He is said to have been the son of William Porter, and in 1773, when married at Seabrook, N. H., to Abigail Brooks, of the well-known Woburn family, called himself and bride in the marriage cer- tificate, still extant, as "of Salem, Essex County, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay ;" witnesses, John Brooks, Timothy Brooks and Mary Knowlton. His body, when found at Lexington, after he was killed, was lying close by the stone wall below the plot formerly called Rufus Merriam's garden, east of the Lexington meeting-house, as it existed in the earlier period. Here it was seen by Amos and Ebenezer Locke, of Lexington, who coming up that morning towards the easterly side of the Common, where the . British then were, found Asahel Porter, of Woburn, shot through the body, and under cover of a wall about twenty rods distant from the Common. It is said, on good authority,1 that Asahel Porter and one Josiah Richardson, of Woburn, set out for Boston Market during the night of the 18th of April, 1775, and that when near the present town of Arlington, being on the route the British had taken, they were halted by the enemy's column, deprived of the horses they rode, and forced to accompany their captors to Lexington as prisoners of war. They were released when the firing on the Common at Lexington oc- curred, on condition they departed without attract- ing any especial observation. To do this they were ordered to cross the fields at a pace no faster than a walk. Porter disobeyed, and rau after walking a few steps, and as a result was fired upon and killed.

His name is inscribed on the Lexington monument. His funeral occurred at Woburn, on April 21, 1775. No ancient stone to his memory is known to exist. A hundred years after his burial a monument was erected (April 21, 1875) to his memory by Post 33, G. A. R., near the supposed spot of his burial in the first burying-ground, the memorial consisting of a plain marble slab suitably inscribed.

5. The Rev. John Marrett's observations incor- porated in his interleaved almanacs. This gentleman was pastor of the church in the Second Parish, or Burlington. He does not appear to have been pres-

ent at the battle, and an account he wrote of the events of the day as he heard about them is published in Sewall's Woburn, 363. He had been ordained pastor of his church during the December previous to the memorable 19th of April, 1775, which day he records was " fair, windy and cold ; a distressing day," commencing "an important period." He says the adjacent country was alarmed the latter part of the night preceding, which corresponds with the state- ment of all the other Woburn authorities contem- porary with the battle. "Our men," he says, "pur- sued them to and from Concord on their retreat back ; and several [were] killed on both sides, but much the least on our side, as we pick't them off on their re- treat," This is evidently an allusion to the part of the action in which the Woburn men played a con- spicuous part, though the phrase "our men " may refer simply to the Americans in general. "We pick't them off" seems a singular expression for a clergyman to use, but he probably meant to say "our men," the Americans, "picked them off"-one of the current phrases of the day; alluding to the marks- manship of the Americans upon the British troops, as the enemy traced their way through the narrow defiles in the woods between the towns of Concord and Lexington, and were subjected to a brisk fire of musketry, constantly kept up, by the Americans, concealed in large detachments, behind trees, walls or buildings, where such chanced to be along the road traversed by the British in their retreat.

The Rev. Mr. Marrett would appear to have been present at the dinner on the 19th of April, 1775, pre- pared by his hostess, Madame Jones, the widow of his ministerial predecessor, for her distinguished guests, John Hancock and Samuel Adams, together with Miss Dorothy Quincy, the future wife of John Hancock, on that memorable day. The facts of the earlier part of the story are an oft-told tale. How Hancock and Adams and Miss Quincy, having wit- nessed the action on Lexington Common in the early morning, left the house of Rev. Jonas Clarke, of Lexington, where they had lodged the night pre- vious, and were conducted as a precautionary meas- ure for their safety to the house of Madame Jones, about four miles distant, in Woburn Precinct, now Burlington, the house afterward occupied by the Rev. Messrs. Marrett and Sewall, and now occupied by the latter's son, Mr. Samuel Sewall. This house had been occupied previously by the Rev. Thomas Jones, the husband of Madame Jones, and still previously by Sergeant Benjamin Johnson, who died in 1733, and who probably built it. Here the good lady of the house provided for her distinguished guests the elegant dinner above mentioned, exerting herself to the utmost to gratify them as highly as possible, fecl- ing honored by their presence and company. Among other delicacies prepared for the occasion was a fine salmon procured with infinite difficulty, being an un- usual dainty at that season. The hour for dinner

1 The late Col. Leonard Thompson, of Woburn, grandson of Samuel, Esquire.

393

WOBURN.

having arrived, the company sat down with expect- ant appetites. But scarcely had they seated them- selves when a man, terrified beyond reason, rushed into the room with a shriek, and led them to believe that the regulars were close upon them in hot pursuit of the two distinguished proscribed citizens, Hancock and Adams. He is quoted as saying : "My wife, I fear, is, by this time, in eternity ; and as for you," addressing himself to Hancock and Adams, "you had better look out for yourselves, for the enemy will soon be at your heels." The man was evidently a coward, fresh from the bloody scenes at Lexington, the sight of which distracted a mind evidently al- ready weak. There was really no danger whatever, as the enemy were then occupied in securing their own safety, and were busily engaged in fighting at several miles distance from the place where Hancock and Adams then were. But the appeal in the con- fused state of the affairs of the day had a startling effect on the company at table, and all instantly arose and prepared for concealment or flight. The coach in which Hancock and Adams rode was hastily put out of sight, being hurried into some woods, named Path Woods, some distance off, near the road to Billerica. Whether Hancock and his companions rode in the coach to this point in their flight, does not clearly appear. But this much is certain, that Mr. Marrett is said himself to have piloted the party along a cartway to Mr. Amos Wyman's house in a corner of Billerica, Bedford and Woburn Precinct, an obscure quarter, where the distinguished person- ages, who had intended to be the guests of Mad- ame Jones, having had neither breakfast or dinner on that direful day, were glad to dine off of cold salt pork and potatoes, served in a wooden tray. Cf. the narratives of this event in Sewall's Woburn, 364-366, and Rev. Mr. Sewall in Frothingham's Siege of Bos- ton, 60.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 113

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1034

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034