USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Bedford > History of the town of Bedford, Middlesex county, Massachusetts, from its earliest settlement to the year of Our Lord 1891 > Part 6
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Both companies reported at Cambridge on the fol- lowing day, and teams were soon on the road with supplies for the army. No Bedford men were at Lexington on the 19th. It fosters a sort of patriotic pride, that one of the daughters, Lucy Bowes, the wife of Rev. Jonas Clark, was the entertainer of Hancock and Adams. In 1776 the entire population of the town, including negroes and mulattoes, was 482. As- suming that to have been the number one year earlier, it appears that one-seventh of the entire population participated in the opening scene of the Revolution. Bedford had credit for seventy-three men, on May 1, 1775, in the regiment under command of Colonel Samuel Gerish.
The following is a letter from one of the selectmen :
" OOLL, GREEN.
" Sir,-I have Received a few lines from you, wherein you requested me to take a list of all that are liable to Bare arme, and in compliance to your request I have taken a list of All that are betwixt sixteen and sixty, that are liable to do dnty. There is eighty-eight in the list, including officers.
" Bedford, May the 15th, 1775."
January 1, 1777, the number of able-bodied men in town, from sixteen years upwards, was 131, including five negroes. In addition to the other burdens, this town had twenty-nine of the poor of Boston to sup- port, during the siege of that city. A Board of Over- seers of the Poor, separate from the selectmen, was first chosen at that time.
The Maxwell brothers were both in camp at Cam- bridge. Thompson went with the Bedford men to camp on the day following his experience at Concord, and there joined his company under Captain Crosby, from Milford, New Hampshire, in Colonel Reed's regi- ment. Hugh was senior captain in Colonel Prescott's regiment. Their experience in the Battle of Bunker Hill is told in Thompson's journal, and is to the honor of their native town :
" On the IGth of June Col. Reed was ordered to Charlestown neck. About twelve o'clock the same day a number of our officers passed us and went on to Bunker IIill. General Ward, with the rest, returned and went to Cambridge. In the evening Colonel Prescott passed with his regiment. My brother IIngh stepped out and asked Colonel Reed and myself if we would come on to the hill that night. We did so ; we went to Breed's Hill. We found Colonel Putnam there, with Colonel l'rescott's command.
" Colonel Prescott requested my brother IIngh to lay out the ground for the intrenchment. lle did so. I set upthe stakes after them. Colonel Prescott seemed to have the sole command. Col- onel Reed and I returned to our command on the neck abont eleven o'clock P.M. At day, in the morning, we again went to the hill, found Putnam and Prescott there. Prescott still appeared to have command : no other regiment was there but Prescott'e through the night. Captain Maxwell, after day, suggested, in my hearing, to Colonel Prescott the propriety of running an intrenchment from the northeast angle of the
night's work to a rail-fence leading to Mystic River. Colonel Prescott approved and it was done. I set up the stakes after my brother. Abont seven o'clock I saw Colonele Prescott and Putnam in conversation ; im- mediately after, Putnam mounted his horse and went full speed towards Cambridge. Colonel Reed ordered his men to their commands; we re- turned and prepared for action. At eleven o'clock we received orders from Colonel Prescott to move on. We did 80.
" We formed by order of Prescott down to the rail-fence and part on the intrenchment. We got hay and wadded between the rails, after doubling the fence by post and raile from another place. We remained there during the battle."
Maxwell also gives a detailed account of the battle, which is substantially the same as given in general history, and we omit it here.
In 1776 the town took action on the question of the Colonies declaring their independence, and voted thus : "That we, the said inhabitants, will solemnly engage, with our lives and fortunes, to support them in the measure."
The town hesitated on the adoption of a Constitu- tion and form of government, but in Angust, 1779, chose John Reed, Esq., as their representative, "for the sole purpose of forming a new constitution." He served in this convention, which was held in the meeting-house at Cambridge, twenty-one days. In the following May the form of government was sub- mitted to the people and received their approval in a meeting, three times adjourned, by a vote of twenty- five to one.
The Declaration of Independence was first read to the people by the minister from the pulpit of the old meeting-house, and is spread, in bold hand-writing, on the records of the town, " There to remain as a per- petual memorial," signed James Webber, town clerk.
CHAPTER IX.
MILITARY HISTORY.
Supplies for the Army-Financial Troubles-Vote for Governor under the Constitution in 1780.
IN January, 1776, the town furnished six cords of wood and two tons of English hay daily for the army at Cambridge. With each load of hay or wood went packages from the loyal homes to the absent members in camp and the sufferers in the hospitals. Two ot the strong young men of the town, who fought at Concord, fell early victims of camp-fever at Cam- bridge (Reuben Bacon and Solomon Stearns). The town offered a liberal bounty for volunteers in 1776, and at the close of the year voted "that those who had personally done a turn in any of the Campaigns without any hire be paid the amount of an average of those hired." The committee entrusted with the duty of equalizing bounty reported in November, 1777, a bill of £1746 16s. Families of the town cherish with pride the tradition that their grandsires were led by General Washington to Boston, after the
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evacuation by General Howe, and aided in the shout of joy when the British flag gave way to the thirteen gorgeous stripes of red and white.
It is impossible to make up a complete register or state the exact number of men furnished by this town during the Revolution, and equally difficult to cast up her entire public expenditures. Bedford's Province tax from 1774 to 1776 increased more than five-fold.
The opening of the war made a demand for money, and in May, 1775, the Provincial Congress empowered the treasurer to borrow and gives notes of the Province as security. Soon Continental bills were issued by the General Government. These bills were readily exchanged for cash for a while, but the repeated is- sues of such bills by both State and nation, and no specie to redeem them, together with the darkening days of the war, caused a depreciation in their value. The British officers and those who favored the royal cause lost no opportunity to weaken the confidence of the people in the bills of credit, until it required about seventy-five pounds in paper to procure one in specie. £1 or 20s. was worth in January, 1781, only 3d. Igr. The purchasing valne of any sum during the war after January, 1777, can only be determined by referring to a table of depreciation reported once a month, agreeable to a law of the State for the set- tling of contracts :
January 1, 1777, $1 in silver was rated as $1.05 in currency ; January 1, 1778, $1 in silver was rated as $3.28 in currency ; January 1, 1779, $1 in silver was rated as $7.42 in currency; January 1, 1780, $1 in silver was rated as $29.34 in currency; January 1, 1781, $I in silver was rated as $75.00 in currency.
In 1777 the town chose a committee at the March meeting to bire the soldiers that might be called for that year and empowered them to borrow money. The amount borrowed with interest was £377 38. 3d., paid as follows :
£
s. d.
For the Continental soldiers' hire. 236 10 0 For the bounty to the Rhode Island men 22 10 0 For the bounty to the men to Bennington 48 0 0
For one man to guard the Continental stores 0 0 For the thirty day men to join the Continental Army 24 C
0
For allowance for hiring the men 4 11 0
For fire-arms, lead and flints for town stock 35 12 3
£377 3 3
The above amount was assessed and paid that year. An item appears in the records May 8, 1777, which serves to show the cost of powder: "Then renewed the Town stock of powder from Andover 72 weight at six chellings per pound €21 12s."
The town allowed for bounties, £293. It was di- vided as follows : £
Ist Tour. 3 meu, 2 months, to Rhode Island, May 1, 1777, no boun- ty voted.
2d Tour. 8 men, 3 months, to Benniogtoo, Aug. 21, 1777, each £15. 120 3d Tour. 8 men, 30) days, " to take and guard the troops," Sept., 1777 (meaning Burgoyne's surrendered army), each £2 . 16
4th Tour. 5 men, 3 months, to Boston with Capt. Fariner, each £12 60
5th Tour. 8 men, 3 months, to Cambridge with Capt. Moore, April 1, 1778, £ll each . 88
John Reed to Rhode Island, the eame rate as those with Capt, 9
Farmer
£293
March 23, 1778, the town reimbursed Moses Abbot for money paid for guns, £18 Is. 3d .; also Joseph Convers for the same, £18 18. 3d.
July 29, 1778, William Page is charged with the overplus of money in collecting clothing by subscrip- tion for the Continental soldiers, £9 15s.
Careful research proves that there was scarcely a campaign during the war in which Bedford was not represented by her own citizens, and supplies of boots, shoes, blankets and clothing were continually fur- nished by the people, who bravely endured hardships in their homes. The soldiers, who had enlisted for three years, were paid in the depreciated currency, of which it was said, " a hat-full of the stuff' would not buy our families a bushel of salt," and many saw but little inducement to re-enlist ; and in 1779 the duty of fill- ing the town's quota became a serious matter. The town added to the commissioned officers three citizens to aid them in procuring men. They were Moses Abbott, Timothy Jones and Jonas Gleason. The commissioned officers were Captain John Moore, Lieutenant Eleazer Davis and Lieutenant Christo- pher Page.
November, 1779, the following bounties were al- lowed :
£
Ist Tour. 2 men to Rhode Island, £39 each 78
2d Tour. 2 men to Rhode Island, 48 bushels of Indian corn, each @ £9 per bushel 864
3d Tour. 3 men to North River, two of whom have £300 each . 600 The other to have £138 cash and 51 bushels of corn at $9 per bush. 587 4th Tour. 2 men to Boston, to have £22 10s. each . 45
5th Tour. 6 men to Claverick 113 months, @ $80 per month 640
£2814
There was added for interest 200
Total for year £3014
June, 1780, the town voted to hire the men called for to fill up the Continental Army, and that the treasurer borrow money, if needed. In September the committee reported and it was voted to raise and assess £5500 immediately to pay the debt ineurred.
Bushels.
Ist Tour. 7 men to North River, G months, to have each 120 Inish- els of corn . 840
2d Tour. 8 men to Rhode leland, 3 months, to have each 90 bushels of cern 720
1560
Oct. 2, 1780, " voted that ye eum of £8175 be immediately assessed and collected to enable the committee to procure the Beef re- quired from this town for the army " .. . £8175
By the resolve of December 2, 1780, Bedford was called upon to furnish eight men for three years or the war. The case now became doubly serious. The records show that previous calls for men had been met by citizens of the town, very generally ; but the sight of their illy-paid neighbors returning from three years of service, and the knowledge that hostile fleets were in our ports, and hostile armies were upon our soil,
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BEDFORD.
tended to dampen the most ardent patriotism. One man, Joseph Davidson, was hired by the town for $200 in hard money. Then the town was divided into seven classes to secure the full quota.
The report of the chairman of each class, as filed in the State archives, is as follows :
" Class I. Capt. Johu Moore, chairman ; provided a negro called Cam- bridge Moore (servant of the above), and agreed to give hini, as a boun- ty, Twenty head of cattle, three years old, in case he continued in the service three years.
" Class 11. Lieut. Moses Abbott, chairman ; hired a negro called Cæsar Prescott for the same number of cattle as the first class paid.
" Class III. Thaddeus Dean, chairman ; hired one Henry Kneelou, at the same rate.
"Class IV. Capt. Christopher Page, chairman ; ' this class, hy reason of disappointment, have not provided a man, but are still in pursuit to provide one.'
" Class V. John Reed, Esq., chairman ; hired one James lugles aud gave him as a bounty fifteen head of cattle, three years old, and nine buodred and ninety ponud in paper money.
" Class VI. Mr. William Page, chairman ; hired one John Williams, and gave him, as a bounty, the exchange for two unudred and fifty hard dollars in cesh.
" Class VII. Dea. Stephen Davis, chairman ; hired one Joseph Ross, and gave him, es a bouuty, the exchange for two hundred and twenty hard dollare.
" WILLIAM MERRIAM.
CHRISTOPHER PAGE,
" WILLIAM PAGE, SAMUEL LANE, JR.,
" Selectmen of Bedford."
While the several committees were at work procur- ing men, the town voted in January, 1781,
" To choose a committee to procure the portion of beef for the army, aud directed the assessors to assess euch sums as were necessary to answer the demands of the General Court or their committee then, or in the future.
"Agreeable to a Resolve of the General Court of ye 16 of June, 1781, hired one man to go to Rhode Island, he wes a citizen of the town, Samnel Ilartwell Blood, gave him a bounty of £19 108.
"June 30, 1781. The town sent seven men to join General Washington'e army at West Point. They received £19 168. each as a hounty 138 12
£158 28.
"July 2, 1781. Towo voted to raise £100 hard money, to buy beef, and on the 16th of the same mouth voted to raise £45 hard money, to pay the above-named soldiers what they shall need before marching, and di- rected the assessors to make an assessments for the balance."
It is plainly seen that town-meetings and assess- ments occupied the time and minds of the people. In addition to the demands for the war there were the ordinary expenses. It required £3000 of the depleted currency to meet the ordinary charges in the year 1780. 1
The financial condition of the town became alarm- ing, when in Sept., 1781, " Voted, to borrow £40 to pay interest on town notes." The town also held notes against individuals, received by constables in dis- charge of the oft-repeated rates.
Jan. 22, 1782, " Voted, that ye treasurer receive money of ye delinquent constables agreeable to tlie depreciation scale, only excepting such sums of money as they may have collected before this time and it re- maining on hand." The same course was pursued in discharging the town's debts. The selectmen were directed to assist the treasurer in casting the notes and the interest. At the same time " Voted, to raise £225 for paying notes." Constables were authorized
to discount the rates of individuals from notes held' against the town, when they could no longer respond to the calls with cash. While in the midst of the fi- nancial difficulty the people manifested their integ- rity in dealing justly with individuals who had entered the service in the early years of the war without re- gard for remuneration : " Voted, John Lane, Jr., fourteen ponnds in specie, for his services in the army in 1776, and Oliver Reed and Elijah Bacon the same sums for hiring men in 1777, as those had who did personal service in that campaign, $25 each." In January, 1779, the town voted " to abate half of Job Lane's war rates in consideration of his wounds re- ceived at Concord fight." In the following year voted " to abate his poll rates for every year since the war began." In 1783 voted " to abate Ebenezer Fitch's rates for being in the service in 1775." He was a "minute-man " at Concord, April 19, 1775, and at Cambridge ten days. March, 1782, the town was divided into three classes to hire three men to serve for three years or during the war.
That this obligation was readily discharged appears from the following : Springfield, July 3, 1782. " Recd. of Mr. Moses Abbott forty-five pound as a bounty to serve three years in the Continental Army for the town of Bedford. William Grant."
Boston, May 11, 1782. Receipt from Cæsar Jones for bonnty of sixty pounds for similar service.
Boston, May 13, 1782. Receipt from Zephaniah Williams for same amount as paid to Jones.
It is noticeable that three negroes, relics of the days of slavery in this town, not registered as liable to do military duty, were in the army during the greater part of the war-Cambridge Moore, Cæsar Prescott and Cæsar Jones.
Oct. 26, 1782. Town authorized their treasurer to take up a number of grain notes and substitute notes for hard money, allowing six shillings for each bushel specified and interest for said amount from the time the grain became due.
In justice to the Revolutionary fathers of this town it is recorded that not the slightest evidence can be found of inclination to repudiate the least obligation, either legal or moral.
From the evidence at hand it appears that the men of this town suffered the greatest hardship at the bat- tle of White Plains, New York. Moses Fitch was wounded in the shoulder, and was being aided off the field when his comrade, Sergeant Timothy Page, was killed.
Thomas Cleverly, another Bedford man, escaped, but lost everything excepting what clothing he had on.
In December following this battle, Congress vested Washington with full power to raise an army and gather provisions and to take whatever he might want for the use of the army, if the owners refused to sell. He also had power to arrest and confine persons who refused to take the Continental currency. This was
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BEDFORD.
the condition of affairs when Moses Fitch was able to leave the bospital ; he returned to his home disabled for life, having received for his services a portion of the currency that had but little purchasing value. He was pensioned for life.
With a population ranging from 470 to 482 engaged in agricultural pursuits, it is wonderful that the town could meet the frequent demands for men and money. Besides the regular calls there were continual de- mands for delicacies for the sufferers in the hospitals and comforts that could not be furnished by the reg- ular channels of supply. To these the straitened inhabitants were continually responding. The women were husy spinning and weaving. In 1776 the town furnished twelve blankets for the army by order of the General Court of Jannary 4, 1776. Shirts, stock- ings, shoes and other articles of dress for the soldiers, in addition to the quantities of beef, were supplied by the people of Bedford. The treasurer's accounts show the cost of a blanket to have been £90, but according to the scale of depreciation, $2] in silver would have satisfied the husy honsewife. In 1780 " Esq. John Reed " was allowed $25 per day for services and ex- penses, twenty-one days, in forming the Constitution, but he actually realized less than one dollar per day, as one Spanish milled dollar was equal to forty-two of the old emission on April 1st, and before the close of that year was equal to seventy-four.
The $1.00 bill, about two inches square, had on its face the Latin words "Depressa resurgit," which is, in our tongue, " The down-trodden rises."
Under the new Constitution of 1780 the vote in this town for Governor, taken on September 4th, gave the successful candidate, John Hancock, twenty-five ballots against two for James Bowdoin. "Esq. John Reed" was sent to the General Court in 1783 and granted five shillings per day for his services while he attended the court. The town chose a committee to give him instructions in relation to the return of ab- sentees and conspirators.
To be eligible to the office of representative at this time, one must be an inhabitant of the town and be seized of a freehold of the value of £100 in the town or any estate to the value of £200. The representa- tive was chosen in the month of May, ten days at least before the last Wednesday. The members of the Executive Department were chosen on the first Monday of April, and inducted into office on the last Wednesday of May following.
CHAPTER X.
MILITARY HISTORY.
Shays' Rebellion and Subsequent Troubles-Civil War-Bedford's Honored Dead.
BEDFORD was reluctant in voting to adopt the Con- stitution, but having done it, she was true to its
provisions. In the County Convention at Concord, August 23, 1786, "to consult on matters of public grievance, under which the people labor," John Merriam and Timothy Jones represented the town. They were active in all measures adopted to quiet the minds of the people who attempted to oppose the government. Captain Christopher Page headed a large company of militia in Shays' Rebellion, and in the following year the town voted " to pay each man who went to Concord and Stow to join General Lin- coln six shillings per day."
Foreign troubles and the war with the Western In- dians were occasions for calls for soldiers by the Gen- eral Government, and the town voted on August 28, 1794, " to give each soldier that shall voluntarily en- list the sum of eighteen shillings as a bounty, and to make them up $8.00 per month, including the state pay, in case they are called upon to march, and for the time they are in actual service." The soldiers that enlisted were Moses Abbott, Jr., John Reed, Jr., Eleazer Davis, Jr., John Merriam, Jr., Joh Webber, Asa Wehber, William J. Lawrence and William Kemp.
In 1798 troubles with the French aroused the peo- ple in this town as elsewhere. Many leading citizens adopted and wore the constitutional badge of attach- ment to the Government. The town voted on No- vember 5th " that the Selectman be directed to show out to the officers from the town stock as much pow- der and ball and as many flints as the law requires for each soldier of said company on their inspection days, and also that the selectmen be directed to fur- nish each soldier on muster days with sixteen car- tridges out of said town stock." The alarm of war with Great Britain in 1807 was an occasion for action, and the town voted " to make up to the soldiers that may voluntarily turn out in defence of our country, $14.00 per month as wages, if called into active ser- vice, and to give the men, ordered to be discharged from Captain Lane's Company, if they should volun- tarily turn out, $3.00 per man, as an encouragement to the same, whether they march or not."
December 27th the town "granted to Captain Lane's soldiers who should enlist in the defence of our coun- try for the term of six months $13 per month as wages during the time they are in actual service."
The 1812 or Madison's war, was a time of anxiety and increased military duty. The order came for the Bedford company to march at once for the defence ot Boston; a night was passed in the preparation, women cooked, while men and boys made cartridges. It was on a beautiful Sabbath morning of Septemher that the fife and drum summoned the militia together at the old meeting-house, Captain David Reed in command. With saddened hearts the entire people assembled for a brief religious service. After words .of exhortation and earnest prayer from the patriotic pastor, came the partings and the march.
The last person who lingered outside the meeting-
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BEDFORD.
1
house, and watched with tearful eyes the departing troops, was the venerable deacon, who, still suffering from the wounds received in the Revolution, felt most keenly the parting from his son. It required but a few days to prove that the call had been a mistaken one, and the company were gladly received to their homes.
In 1815 the Commonwealth reimbursed the town " for rations furnished the militia when called to Bos- ton."
Bedford saw but little of military life for nearly a half-century after General Jackson's victory at New Orleans.
The militia observed the spring " training," when officers were elected and the fall preparations for muster.
The full company of the town was in attendance at the reception tendered Marquis de Lafayette, in 1825, when the corner-stone of Bunker Hill monument was laid. For some years the military duties were but little more than a dull routine, unless enlivened by a sham fight, ending in a representation of the snr- render by Lord Cornwallis to Washington. The town had no organized company after 1833. The sentiment of the town was with the Government in regard to the Mexican trouble. In March, 1847, res- olutions were adopted and placed upon the records of the town. They begin as follows :
" Resolved,-That we approve of the course our government has pursued in proseenting the war with Mexico for the attainment of ne. gotiations for an honorable peace."
The years that followed the Mexican trouble fur- nished important subjects for debate, and the citizens of this town organized a lyceum, where perfect free- dom of speech was enjoyed. The Fugitive Slave Law, the Kansas and Nebraska Bill and many kin- dred themes were earnestly discussed. The people heartily indorsed the acts of Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson and other unflinching defenders of the cause of freedom. The brutal attack of Preston Brooks upon Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber, at Washington, was felt by the citizens of this town as a personal insult. A legal meeting of the voters was immediately called and resolutions adopted and placed upon the records.
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