USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > North Brookfield > History of North Brookfield, Massachusetts. Preceded by an account of old Quabaug, Indian and English occupation, 1647-1676; Brookfield records, 1686-1783 > Part 46
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After his discharge from the army, Gen. Putnam joined his family in Rutland, where they then lived, and resumed the occupations of farming and surveying.
In April, 1784, he addressed a letter to Gen. Washington, on the sub- ject of the projected settlement to be made by the officers and soldiers of the Army, in the Ohio country - a subject which seems to have en- tered deeply into his heart, and occupied a prominent place in his atten- tion ; and though the project was not then carried out, yet, all things considered, he may well be regarded as the projector and father of the settlements north-west of the Ohio river.
In August, 1784, he was employed by the state of Massachusetts to survey a tract of land, bordering on Passamaquoddy bay, and returned home in November.
It was in this year that Leicester Academy was incorporated. Gen.
V
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Putnam made a donation of £100 to its Fund ; and was appointed a member of its first board of Trustees.
In 1785, he was appointed by the Legislature one of a committee to make sale of the eastern lands held by the commonwealth, and also superintendent of the surveys to be made that year.
He was also appointed in June, same year, by Congress, one of the surveyors of the national lands, lying north-west of the Ohio river. At his request Gen. Tupper was appointed in his stead. And the report of those surveys was the moving occasion for the organization, through the influence of these two men, of " The Ohio Company."
In January, 1787, he volunteered to assist Gen. Lincoln in suppressing the Shays' rebellion. In April he was appointed by Gov. Bowdoin, a jus- tice of the peace ; and in May was chosen by the town of Rutland representative, and attended the spring and autumn sessions of that year.
In November, 1789, he was appointed superintendent of the affairs of " The Ohio Company." The first division of pioneer settlers left Dan- vers, under Maj. Haffeld White, December I. The second division left Hartford, Ct., the first of January following, under Col. Sproat. Gen. Putnam went by way of New York city, on business for the company, and joined the division Jan. 24, at Swatarra creek, Pa. On that night there fell a deep snow, which blocked up the roads, so that the party could get their wagons no further than Cooper's Tavern, now Strawsburg, at the foot of the Tuscarawas mountain, on the 29th of January. The snow in the mountains was about three feet deep. They therefore aban- doned their wagons, built four stout sledges, to which they harnessed their horses in single file, preceded by men on foot who broke a track for the teams, and thus after two weeks of exhausting labor, they overcame the mountain ranges, reaching Simrel's ferry on the Youghiogheny, Feb- ruary 14, where they found the party under Major White, who had arrived January 23.
By the first of April, having completed their boats and taken in their stores of provisions, they embarked on the western waters for the mouth of the Muskingum, which they reached April 7, and landed at the upper point, where they pitched their camp among the forest trees. The next day, Col. Sproat and John Matthews began the survey of the eight-acre lots, and in a few days after, the city lots and streets, of the town of Marietta.
From his arrival at Marietta, till the day of his death, Gen. Putnam was a leading spirit in all moral, religious, educational and military affairs of the colony, the Territory, and the State of Ohio. And thus the boy, cradled in adversity, became the man, whose home for twenty-seven years of his early manhood was in North Brookfield; and whose life illustrated the vital power of New England principles and institutions, in
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moulding character and giving impulses and a guide to conduct ; and in the end received the meed of honor and renown to which a well spent life gives title. He died May 4, 1824, in the 87th year of his age.
In person, Gen. Putnam was nearly six feet in height, stout, and com- manding ; features strongly marked, with a calm, resolute expression of countenance, indicative of firmness and decision. His manner was abrupt and prompt, yet not hasty, and withal conciliatory, especially during the latter years of his life. His memory was retentive ; and with his long and varied experience, he had at command a rich store of facts relative to the men and events of the two generations covered by his public career.
JOHN WAITE AND HIS SONS.
[From " Records of the Waite Family, " compiled by Henry E. Waite.]
AMONG the planters of Watertown, Mass., in 1637, was RICHARD WAITE, who received several grants of land there, and his homestead lot of six acres can now be pointed out. Of his three sons, John, Thomas and Joseph, the descendants of the former removed to Fram- ingham, Mass., Joseph removed to Marlboro, Mass., and Thomas re- mained in Watertown, where he appears to have acquired considerable property. His sons were John, Richard, Thomas, and Joseph : the two first died young men in the early Indian wars; Thomas removed to Lyme, Conn., and was the ancestor of Henry M. Waite, late Chief Justice of Connecticut, whose son, Morrison R. Waite, is the present Chief Justice of the United States ; also of Marvin Waite, a distin- guished lawyer of the Revolutionary period, and his son John Turner Waite, late Representative to Congress from Connecticut.
Joseph removed from Watertown to the adjoining town of Sudbury, and had one son, JOHN, who, with his family, removed to Brookfield in 1746 and settled near Wickaboag pond, on the line between West Brookfield and Warren. He soon after removed to a large mansion on " Foster's hill," on the great "post road " from Boston to Albany, and opened the house as an inn, which soon became very popular and the favorite resort of travellers, and also of the soldiers and scouts on their way from Eastern Massachusetts to the Western frontiers during the French war. In fact, the house and its proprietor became so widely known that, although travellers were accommodated there for more than fifty years after any person of the name ceased their connection with the house, the name of the " Old Waite tavern " always clung to it. In 1825 the building was purchased by the late Alanson Hamilton, Esq., who occupied it as a private residence for many years, and in 1857 it was taken down, and the residence of Mr. Horace F. Watson now stands on its site. JOHN WAITE, the proprietor of the old tavern, had seven
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sons, viz. : John, born 1730; Joseph, born 1732; Thomas, 1735; Benjamin, 1737 ; Richard, 1745 ; Jeduthan, 1754, and William, 1756, who doubtless, during their earlier years, listened with wonder and admiration to the vivid descriptions, by the scouts and soldiers, of Indian barbarities, daring deeds and hair-breadth escapes, and who were thus early imbued with a desire to imitate the heroism of those so graphically described. However this may have been, these seven brothers have left a rare record as a family for their bravery, patriotism and self-sacrifice.
JOHN, the eldest, in August, 1748, at eighteen years of age, was corporal in Captain Thomas Buckminster's company located at Fort Dummer, and during the French war was in Rogers's corps of Rangers, actively engaged in reducing the fortresses of the French on Lake Champlain and fighting their red allies, then prowling through the wil- derness territory of Vermont. In 1761, he administered on his father's estate, and succeeded the latter as landlord of the old tavern for about twelve years, during which time he held various offices - was surveyor, constable, and on several committees. In 1773, his father-in-law, Cap- tain Nathaniel Wolcott, died, who in his will says : "I appoint my trusty and faithful friend and son-in-law, John Waite, to be my sole executor," etc. He purchased of his wife's brothers and sisters their interest in the Wolcott homestead, where he resided for nearly thirty years. The property was afterwards in possession of Jonathan Parks, and the house is still standing near "Wolcott's Mills," on the road from East to North Brookfield. Upon receiving news of the battle of Lexington, Waite, like many others, left his plough in the furrow, and collecting such of his neighbors as would volunteer, hastened to the scene of action, where he served as captain during the remainder of the year. In 1776 he was on the town Committee of Correspondence ; in 1777 on committee to consider petition relative to calling in the State's money. In July of this year, he was a volunteer in Captain Daniel Gilbert's company in Colonel Job Cushing's regiment, and served with the rank, but not the command of captain, and on the 5th of August was transferred to "Herrick's Rangers " and participated in the battle of Bennington. He also volun- teered, 2nd Sept., under Captain Asa Danforth, and was in the second battle of Saratoga when Burgoyne's army were defeated and surrendered to General Gates. In 1778, he was a member of the Committee of Safety, and on the town committee to instruct their representatives ; in 1779 he was sole representative of the town in the Convention at Con- cord ; in 1782, on committee to draw up instructions to their represen- tatives to have duties on certain articles repealed ; and he was moderator of the Town Meetings from 1778 to 1788, and on numerous other com- mittees. He was one of the six largest tax-payers of Brookfield, his
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annual tax amounting to £106 IIS. ; but having advanced several thou- sand dollars for the army, he was re-imbursed with continental money, which was of little value ; and having purchased large tracts of land in Vermont under the New Hampshire titles, and not living there to defend his possessions by force - as the settlers were obliged to do - against parties who claimed and took possession of his lands by virtue of a New York title, which was pretended to subvert that of New Hampshire, he became reduced financially, and selling his estates in Brookfield, he removed to a small farm in West Brookfield, where he died about 1815, leaving grandchildren, who are still living in North and East Brookfield and in Ashfield, Mass.
His son Nathaniel, at sixteen years of age, was quartermaster's-sergeant in the American army at Providence, R.I., in 1777, and served until the close of the war. In 1782, Nathaniel married Mercy, daughter of Jona- than Jenks of Providence, and grand-daughter of Rev. Samuel Winsor, whose father, another Rev. Samuel Winsor, married Mercy, daughter of Roger Williams of Rhode Island. The children of Nathaniel and Mercy Waite, born in North Brookfield, were : Sally, who died unmarried in 1861, aged 76 years ; Mercy, who died unmarried in 1877, aged 85 years ; and Otis, a soldier in the war of 1812, died in 1869, aged 80 years.
JOSEPH WAITE, the second of the seven brothers, entered the provincial army in May, 1754, at the age of twenty-one years, under Capt. Elea- zer Melvin, for the defence of the Eastern frontiers. The following De- cember he was corporal in Lieut. John Burk's company of Rangers in the Crown Point expedition stationed at Falltown in the line of forts con- manded by Colonel Israel Williams until the fall of 1755, when this com- pany were in camp at Lake George in Colonel Seth Pomeroy's regiment, and in December returned to Falltown, where they remained until Feb- ruary, 1756, when Waite was appointed ensign and John Burk captain in Colonel Joseph Dwight's regiment, with headquarters at Forts Edward and William Henry, the rest of the year. Among his associates were Robert Rogers, Israel Putnam and John Stark. In January, 1757, he was transferred to the corps of Rangers commanded by Rogers, whose instructions from the Commander-in-Chief were to enlist none in the corps but such as were " accustomed to travelling and scouting, and in whose courage and fidelity the most implicit confidence could be placed." In April, the Rangers were ordered to New York, and on the 20th of June they sailed for Halifax, where the English army made preparations to attack Louisburg ; but the arrival of a French fleet arrested their prog- ress, and in July the Rangers returned to the Western frontiers. Rogers's Journal, published in London in 1765, is, perhaps, the only account of the expeditions and services of this corps of men, which, during the long
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and bloody wars of Great Britain and France for the mastery in Amer- ica, constituted the right arm of the British forces. The disasters of the unfortunate Braddock, and his total defeat on the Monongahela, con- vinced the British generals of their utter inability to operate in America without the aid of a strong corps of Rangers composed of the natives of the country, whose knowledge of Indian warfare would enable them to prevent a similar surprise and overthrow. A commission was accord- ingly issued to Rogers to enlist and discipline the corps. The Rangers were raised in New England, were regularly paid by the Crown, and officered by the most hardy, intelligent and enterprising partisans of that day, many of whom were afterwards distinguished in the Revolutionary war. They were picked men, of extraordinary bodily powers, combined with mental energies the most acute, and were trained in a discipline of their own. Their services were attended by difficulties and hardships and beset with dangers, in which men of ordinary stamina would never think of engaging. Their chief theatre of action was the mountainous region of Lake George, between the hostile forts of Ticonderoga and Edward, which was the scene of ceaseless ambuscades, surprises and fierce con- flicts, and at this day, on the field of many a forgotten fight, are dug up rusty tomahawks, corroded bullets and human bones, to attest the strug- gles of the past. In summer, the Rangers passed down the lake in whale-boats or canoes, or threaded the trackless depths of the forest with undeviating foot, guiding their course by the stars, the wind, the streams or the trees : reading the signs of the forest as the scholar reads the printed page. In winter they journeyed through the swamps on snow- shoes, skated along the frozen surface of the lake and bivouacked at night among the snow-drifts, with no other food than the game they had killed on the march. They intercepted French messengers, encountered scout- ing parties of French and Indians, and carried off prisoners from under the very walls of Ticonderoga. As marksmen none surpassed them, and with a sensitiveness to sound approximating to that of instinct, they could detect the sly approach of the foe, or could mark, with an accuracy, al- most beyond belief, the place of his concealment. They were an equal match for the resolute Indian, whose birthright was an habituation to dar- ing deeds and wasting fatigue. They were, in fact, the most formidable body of men ever employed as partisans in the wars of this country, and in every regular engagement proved themselves not inferior to British troops. Their hardships and adventures, their marches and counter- marches, their frequent skirmishes and mid-winter battles, had made them famous throughout America ; and though it was the fashion of the day to sneer at the efforts of provincial troops, the name of "Rogers's Rangers " was never mentioned but with honor. The description and character of the Scout in Cooper's tale of "The Last of the Mohicans,"
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is not inapplicable to one of them. In March, 1758, Rogers was sent from Fort Edward with 180 men, including Ensign Joseph Waite, to re- connoitre in the neighborhood of Ticonderoga. A deserter from the army having informed the enemy of this scout, the Rangers were attacked on the 13th by six hundred Indians and one hundred French, who killed fifty of them at the first fire ; but the remainder fought with such " intre- pidity and bravery," as to oblige the enemy, nearly seven to one in number, to retreat, until, after a constant firing for one hour and a half, during which one hundred and eight of the Rangers were killed, the balance were so hard pushed by overwhelming numbers of Indians, that they were obliged to break and save themselves the best way they could. One company of nineteen men, being surrounded by three hundred In- dians, under the strongest assurances of good treatment, capitulated, when most of them were "inhumanly tied to trees and hewn to pieces in a barbarous and shocking manner." The snow was four feet deep, and Rogers, with some of his men, eluded pursuit, until they came to the summit of a mountain four hundred feet high, one-half of the height of one side being a smooth, steep rock, terminating in Lake George. Descending to the top of the rock, they slipped off their snow-shoes, and, without moving them, turned themselves about and put them on again ; and retreating along the brow of the precipice and down a ravine, ap- peared upon the frozen lake below. The Indians soon coming to the spot, and seeing the tracks all apparently approaching the rock, con- cluded they had cast themselves down the precipice ; but when they saw the bold Rangers making their way across the ice, they believed they had slid down the steep face of the rock ; and, considering them under the special protection of the Great Spirit, gave over the chase. The rock is still shown to travellers as " Rogers's Slide."
On the 5th of July the Rangers formed the advanced guard of Gen- eral Abercrombie's army of sixteen thousand men in the march against Ticonderoga, and beginning the attack upon the outer breastwork, were followed by the regulars and the provincial regiments, who, after toiling with repeated attacks for four hours under a galling fire, being greatly embarrassed by trees felled by the enemy with the branches outward. were ordered to retreat, the Rangers bringing up the rear, in the dusk of the evening. In this engagement the English lost 1,944 men in killed and wounded. Among the former was Lord Howe, the idol of the army, whose adventurous spirit led him, on more than one occasion, to accompany the Rangers on their scouting expeditions. On the 8th of August, Rogers and Putnam, with 530 men, met about the same number of the enemy under the French partisan Molang, and in the terrible encounter that followed, thirty-three of the Rangers were killed and taken prisoners -among the latter was Major Putnam - while 249 of
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the enemy were killed on the spot. On the 3d of March, 1759, the Rangers marched through the deep snow towards Ticonderoga ; on the 7th, travelling over fifty miles on snow-shoes and engaging in two skirmishes. The cold became so intense, that two-thirds of the detach- ment were frost-bitten, and some of them were frozen so badly, that the rest were obliged to carry them on their backs. On the 21st of July, General Amherst, with the army, embarked on the lake to attack Ticon- deroga and Crown Point. The Rangers were the advance-guard, as usual, and were continually ordered by General Amherst from one place to another to reconnoitre and begin the attack. The 11th of August the enemy evacuated their forts and retreated towards Canada.
On the 13th of September General Amherst, at Crown Point, detached Rogers, with two hundred Rangers selected for their bravery and experi- ence, to chastise the St. Francis Indians at their headquarters near Three Rivers in Canada, who, for half a century, had perpetrated their barbarities upon the settlers on the frontiers - their hatred of the English being fostered by the French, who offered bounties for prisoners and scalps. This famous expedition of the Rangers was one of those strikingly perilous incidents of border warfare - a small body of men marching four hundred miles into an enemy's country - that forcibly illustrates the adage that " truth is stranger than fiction." On the morn- ing of the 13th, the Rangers, including Joseph Waite, started out with the utmost secrecy as to their destination, passing down the lake undis- covered by the enemy, who were cruising about in great numbers. The tenth day out they landed with their force reduced to one hundred and forty-two men, by the accidental discharge of a keg of gunpowder, which disabled several, who were taken back to Crown Point. Leaving two men with the boats containing provisions for their return, they struck boldly into the wilderness. On the second day they were overtaken by the guard left in charge of the boats with the disheartening intelligence that a party of about four hundred of the enemy had discovered their boats, and half the number were pursuing them, which, being in the enemy's country, afforded little hope of escape. Their retreat by the boats having been cut off, they determined to outmarch their pursuers, destroy the village and attempt retreat by the way of Charlestown, N.H .; and Rogers accordingly despatched a messenger to General Amherst to have provisions at Coos, on the Connecticut river, about sixty miles above Charlestown, then the most northern English settle- ment, in case they ever lived to get there. For nine days they marched through wet, sunken bogs, the water most of the way a foot deep, encamping at night on hammocks made of boughs to keep them from the water. On the evening of the twenty-second day from Crown Point, they came in sight of the principal village of the tribe. Reconnoitring
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the place, they found the Indians engaged in a high frolic or dance, which was continued until 3 o'clock in the morning. Near the break of day, a general assault was made - so sudden, that the Indians had no time to rally or escape. The orders of General Amherst were, to " take revenge on the dastardly scoundrels for their barbarities and infamous cruelties." As the morning light increased, the fierce wrath of the Ran- gers was inflamed to the highest degree when they saw English scalps of both sexes, to the number of six hundred, suspended on poles and dan- gling in the air. Under this new force and irritation of their feelings and passions, they put forth their utmost exertions to avenge the blood of their friends and relatives, by utterly destroying the village and all they could find of its inhabitants. The village contained about three hundred Indians. Twenty women and children were taken prisoners, fifteen of whom were released, and over two hundred warriors were killed. The loss of the Rangers was one killed and seven wounded. At seven o'clock in the morning the affair was finished, which carried consternation and alarm into the heart of Canada and convinced the Indians that the " retaliation of vengeance " was upon them. After refreshing themselves for an hour, the Rangers immediately commenced their retreat, with such provisions as they could easily transport, and with the addition of five English captives they had retaken. Their pursuers pressing them in the rear and killing several of their number, they formed an ambus- cade upon their own track in the dusk of the evening and fell upon the enemy when least expected, thus putting an end to further pursuit. For ten days the detachment kept together, marching over steep, rocky mountains and through wet, dirty swamps, till they had passed the east- ern side of Lake Memphremagog, when their sufferings began to be severe -not only from the excessive fatigues they had endured, but from hunger. Their provisions failing, they were divided into small parties the better to obtain game, and were to meet at Coos. It is hardly possible to describe their consternation, upon arriving at Coos, to find that the party intrusted with provisions had been at the place ; but seeing nothing of the Rangers, and hearing guns fired, were frightened and hastily departed a few hours before their arrival. Discovering the fires of their retreating comrades, and that no provisions had been left, they were so disheartened that several of them died before the next day. Rogers gave up the command and told his men to take care of them- selves. Ground and beech nuts were the only sustenance to be pro- cured in the dreary forests, and to such extremities were they reduced, that they boiled their powder-horns, ball-pouches and other leathern accoutrements. Several perished in the woods of despair, hunger and exhaustion, and the total loss in this retreat amounted to forty-nine men. The skeletons of some of these unfortunate Rangers were found years afterwards.
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Joseph Waite, leading one of these companies in their retreat, came upon the northern branch of the principal river of what is now Brad- ford, Vt., and in a famishing state they followed down this river in search of game. Just as they entered the present site of Bradford, Waite and one or two others proposed to go in advance of the rest and see if they could find something to satisfy their hunger. After travelling two or three miles, they shot a deer, and when they had satisfied their appe- tites, they hung the rest of the savory meat upon a tree for the relief of their suffering companions in the rear ; and that they might know who killed the deer, and for what purpose the meat was there suspended, Waite cut his name in the bark of the tree on which the meat hung. When the rear came up and found the rich supply of food in readiness for them, they expressed their gratitude to Waite by giving his name to the stream they were then upon, which is still called Waite's River. After almost incredible hardships, they reached Charlestown, and re- freshing themselves, marched to Crown Point, where they arrived Dec. Ist, 1759, and joined the army quartered there for the winter under General Amherst, who recognized the services of Joseph Waite by hon- oring him with a captain's commission. The Governor of Canada hav- ing capitulated, General Amherst, at Montreal, on the 12th Sept., 1760, instructed " Major Rogers, commanding His Majesty's Independent corps of Rangers," with " Captain Waite's and Captain Hazen's com- panies " under his command, to ascend the lakes and take possession of Detroit and other western outposts included in the capitulation.
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