Sketches of Framingham, Part 4

Author: Merriam, John M. (John McKinstry), 1862-
Publication date: 1950
Publisher: Boston, Bellman Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 150


USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Framingham > Sketches of Framingham > Part 4


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"Camp 8th Sept. 1780.


Dear Genl.


The present state of my health is such that I am constrained by a necessity that by no means corres- ponds with inclination to beg leave to resign the command I have the honor to hold in the army, and you may be assured Sir, that this application does not arise from any disgust to the Service, but orig- inates entirely from my ill state of health, and it gives me a most sensible pain to find myself reduced


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to so disagreeable a necessity when honor is to be reaped in the field of Danger.


I have the honor to be with the greatest respect Your honors Most Obed & most hum Servt


Jno Nixon B G


The Honble Major Genl Howe."


He received an honorable discharge dated Septem- ber twelfth. A receipt is on record for nine horses, eight days, and for 1,800 lbs. of hay, four bushels of oats and six and one-half bushels of wheat "for family use," in- dicating that his wife may have been with him and that comfortable provision with escort was made for their journey homeward.


Within two weeks after his departure, in the very vicinity of his activities, Major Andre was under arrest and Benedict Arnold's treason was known. Some of the members of the Court Martial which condemned Andre were Nixon's associates, and junior in rank, and it does not seem improbable that had he remained he would have served on this Court.


Upon his return to Framingham, General Nixon lived for some time at the Gleason tavern as a highly respected citizen. He was an original member of the old Middlesex Lodge of Free Masons organized under charter from Paul Revere. In 1803, however, he moved to Middlebury, Vermont, where he lived to an old age in the retirement, so far as I can learn, of a farmer's life. The record shows that he was given a pension of $150 per year for gun shot wound received at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and this was paid to him from the gov- ernment agency at Burlington.


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Temple states that, "By those who remember him General Nixon is described as a man of middle stature, quiet and affable, but firm and decided in his convic- tions, fond of the society of the young, never happier than when recounting to his grandchildren the stories of his campaigns and the lessons of life taught by his varied experience."


I have found this anecdote in the "Memoirs of El- kanah Watson."


"In approaching Middlebury we noticed an old man carrying a long staff and driving a cow, whose exact attitude, firm step and venerable appearance, attracted our observation, though so humbly em- ployed. In the course of the evening the same per- son came into a house where I had called, and I was not a little surprised to learn that he was the gallant Gen. Nixon of the Revolutionary. He is 80 years old. He told me that he commenced his mili- tary career at the age of 17 - that he commanded at the battle of Bunker's Hill a regiment of his neighbors' boys (as he called them) and, as he ex- pressed it, lost two-thirds of his best blood in that conflict. He was an efficient and most intelligent General Officer during the Revolution, and was conspicuous in many trying events and especially in the various battles in the vicinity of Saratoga."


There is a Trumbull picture in the Capitol rotunda at Washington "The Surrender of Burgoyne." I have a copy from the Museum of Fine Arts of Yale College, with an official reading. Burgoyne and Gates are the central figures, the sword of surrender is tendered, but Gates suggests a conference in the nearby tent. Prom- inent among the American officers are Rufus Putnam,


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John Greaton, both Nixon's colonels, John Glover, William Prescott, and John Brooks, all junior officers to Nixon, but Brigadier John Nixon, who blocked the approach of Burgoyne, and who led the attack in the fog of the early morning at Saratoga, is missing. The apparent explanation is the retirement of Nixon's later life compared with the activity of the younger men and the improbability of any picture of likeness coming to the artist's knowledge. But the omission, none the less, is disappointing.


John Nixon died in Vermont in 1815, eighty-eight years old, and is probably buried in the lot of his son John Nixon, Jr., in a country graveyard in Weybridge. It was my privilege in July, 1929, with Raymond J. Callahan and Ernest A. Hales of this Society, to visit Middlebury and check various traces of Nixon's life there, and to visit this place of his supposed burial.


A meeting was held under the auspices of this society in Framingham, October 17, 1927, the 150th aniversary of Burgoyne's surrender. Our committee had learned that General Leonard Wood, Governor General of the Philippine Islands, was a descendant of John Nixon, and an interesting correspondence resulted, which I will summarize as follows.


We invited General Wood to come as our guest of honor, to tell us of family traditions and to visit the site of the John Nixon home on the Sudbury side of Nob- scot. He replied stating that John Nixon was his great- great-grandfather and that he was interested in the in-


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vitation but unfortunately was due to leave for the Philippines in September. I then wrote urging him to come at an earlier date, and he replied if he were in the vicinity of Framingham he certainly would take advantage of the opportunity to see what is left of the old landmarks of the Nixon homestead and to talk things over with us. He added that he had heard much of John Nixon when he was a boy from his mother, Sally Nixon. This letter was dated August 3, 1927. Al- most immediately he was brought to the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and died there August seventh. His letter must have been among the very last to be signed by him.


I have found a broadside ballad in the library of the American Antiquarian Society, written by Lydia Learned, "schoolmistress, a voluminous writer in prose and verse, much of which was printed." (I quote from Temple.) It is a quaint and expressive tribute "To a Worthy Officer." It was written in 1778 when Nixon was in Framingham on a furlough, and although no name is given, undoubtedly is in his honor. It is a fit- ting conclusion of this sketch of John Nixon.


A Letter to A worthy Officer of the American Army


Your Honor, Sir, is call'd to lead forth those, Who are engag'd to go against our Foes; I hope you go, not in your Strength or Pow'r, But in his Name, whose Name is a strong Tow'r.


I hope you're aiming at our just Defence, More than obtaining a great Recompence; I hope God's Glory is your highest Aim, And the best good of these that fear his Name.


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The pow'rful Aid of Heav'n may you obtain, While in the important Service you remain; May all your Army now live in God's Fear, And for their Safety may his Pow'r appear.


O may God's Blessing be on all who are Now under your most kind religious Care; May God preserve you from your Enemies, And may you prosper in your Enterprize.


If Enemies you face, in Woods or Field May you cause them to fall, to flee or yield; If you engage with Foes on Land or Seas, May you destroy, or conquer them with Ease.


God grant you may gain Vict'ry over those, That are your Earthly and your Ghostly Foes; I wish the War may in a short Time cease, And you return Home to your Friends in Peace.


Sir, if your Lot be order'd otherways, And Wars continue yet for many Days; And if our Sins displease our Maker so, That he will not forth with our Armies go,


If you should fall into your Enemies Hand, And Captive go into a foreign Land; If you among your Foes should be confin'd, To God's just Will, Sir, may you be resign'd.


I hope you may find Favour in the Eyes, Of them that are our common Enemies; May Heaven grant you ev'ry needful Grace, And soon return you to your native Place.


But if in Wars it be your Lot to die, And pass from Time into Eternity;


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When you your Warlike Weapons lay aside, May you through Him who for his People dy'd,


A glorious never fading Crown obtain, When you shall leave this World of Sin and Pain; When you your Body leave to sleep in Dust, Having in your Redeemer put your Trust.


May your departing never dying Ghost, Be guarded safely to the Heav'nly Host; Where Wars and Fightings will forever cease, Where Captain of the Host is Prince of Peace.


Kind Sir, do not despise my Letter, Because I could indite no better; From your unfeigned Friend it came, And so I write my worthless Name. Lydia Learned.


Framingham, March 17, 1778.


Closely associated with this record of John Nixon is that of his nine years younger brother Thomas; John was Colonel of a regiment at Bunker Hill, Thomas was Lt. Col .; John was Brigadier General with Washington in the Manhattan campaign, Thomas was one of his Colonels; John was Brigadier General with Schuyler and Gates at Saratoga, Thomas was a Colonel. The manuscript orderly books kept by Thomas in the years 1778-79-80 are carefully preserved in the archives of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, and I have examined them with some care.


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Sabine has given a résumé of these books, as follows:


"They are six in number, contain several hun- dred pages, and embrace a record of events in camp, from June, 1777, to November, 1780. I find that he was stationed at Peekskill, Kingsborough and Stillwater in the course of the first men- tioned year; and at Farmington, Fishkill, Peekskill, Wright's Mill, Fredericksborough, the Highlands, Fort Constitution, Pine's Bridge and Soldier's For- tune during subsequent periods of the war. His regiment was variously designated. In 1778 and the next year it was called the "Fifth Battalion from the Massachusetts State;" at a former time the official return is of the "Regiment of Foot, com- manded by Colonel Thomas Nixon, Esq., in de- fence of Liberty." Again the return is of the "Regiment of Foot in the Continental service in favor of the United States of America," still again, the "Regiment of Foot from the Massachusetts State," the "Regiment of Foot from the Massachu- setts Bay, in defence of the United States"; and the "Sixth Massachusetts Regiment." These variations in the name of the same corps indicate the existence of a defective military organization.


These Orderly Books afford evidence also that Nixon's command was often much reduced. Thus, Jan. 6, 1777, the total number in camp was 262, of whom only 83 were fit for duty; and Aug. 8, the total was 361, of whom less than half were returned as able and effective. So, too, with a nominal force of 419 on the 2d of October the next year, there were but 274 fit for duty; and again the whole num- ber in camp, May 17, 1779, was only 287."


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Thomas Nixon returned to Framingham after his service but moved to Southborough in 1784. He was drowned in 1800 on a passage from Boston to Ports- mouth.


His son Thomas, thirteen years old, was a fifer, April 19, 1775, enlisted for three years in 1777, and again for three years in 1782, then a Captain of Militia, and Se- lectman. His grandson was Warren, the surveyor, who has left as a real work of art the beautiful map of Fram- ingham of 1832, "from actual surveys taken by Jonas Clayes and Warren Nixon" but "Drawn by Warren Nixon."


And the granddaughter of Warren Nixon is our Marcella Davis, efficient for many years as the curator of our Society.


Let me now turn to another personal record, that of Jonathan Maynard, in whose honor we have named a street and a school in Framingham. He was among the youngest of our Revolutionary soldiers and his service was made famous by a most unusual captivity. Here is the story as told by Temple.


"Jonathan Maynard of this town, then a student in Harvard College, enlisted in the eight months' service April 24, 1775, in Captain Thomas Drury's company. June 17, he was with his company at the battle of Bunker Hill. The next year he went with the army to New York, and was in the campaigns of '76 and '77 on the North River, and in the bat-


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tles of Stillwater and Saratoga. In 1778, he was lieu- tenant in one of the companies in Col. Ichabod Alden's 7th Mass. regiment, Gen. J. Nixon's brig- ade. While Alden's regiment was stationed at or near West Point, viz. May 30, 1778, Lieut. Maynard with a small party went out on a foraging excursion to a considerable distance from the camp, when they were set upon by a scouting band of Indians, and after a sharp skirmish taken prisoners. They were conducted for a distance of several miles away from the American lines, when a halt was made, and all but the lieutenant were tomahawked and scalped. As he wore a sword he was considered a greater prize, and was conducted to the camp of Brant their chieftain. The precise locality of this chief's camp at this date has not been ascertained.


After a brief consultation, it was decided to burn the captive. The fagots were collected, and he was tied to a tree, and the fire was ready to be kindled. Though a stranger to all in the group, and ignorant of the fact that the Indian chief was a Free Mason, as his last hope, Lieut. Maynard gave the Master Mason's sign of distress. This sign was recognized by Brant, who was standing by; and he ordered the execution to be postponed. Maynard was put under guard; and in due time, with other prisoners, was sent to Quebec. He was held in captivity here till Dec. 26, 1780, when he was exchanged.


Lieut. Maynard rejoined his company at West Point Jan. 4, 1781. His old colonel, Alden, had been killed by the Indians at Cherry Valley Nov. 11, 1778, and the regiment was in command of Col. John Brooks. Maynard received his lieutenant's pay of £8 per month for the full time of his captivity.


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A few weeks after his return, i.e. June 25, 1781, he was promoted to the captaincy of his company (his commission is dated Feb. 22), and continued in the service at various points on the North River, and as recruiting officer, till Nov. 19, 1782, when he re- signed and received an honorable discharge."


I have found in the proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society the diary of William McKendry, a lieutenant in Nixon's brigade, with interesting records relating to Lieutenant Maynard. This diary was pub- lished in 1886 and, so far as I know, there had been no reference to it in any former account of Maynard's captivity.


(May 30, 1778)


"Ditto 30th Saturday Capt. Partrick and Liet. Maynard with a No of Troops from Colo Aldens Regt Attacked a No of Indians Commandd By one Brant at Covers Kill 59 miles S. West from Albany 12 O'Clock A.M. with Capt Partrick 1 Liet 1 Serjr 1 Drum 1 Fife 29 Soldiers - 6 Militia was Killd One Capt 15 Continental - 2 Militia - 3 Wounded - Liet Maynard and 3 more were taken."


(June 3, 1778)


"Ditto 3d Capt. Partrick and ye men Killed with him were Buried By ye Militia."


(June 6, 1778)


"Ditto 6th Capt Partrick's Cloathing were sold at Vendue in Albany Amt £ 64 .. 15 .. 0: £ Money Liet. Maynard sold Ditto."


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The sale at auction of such money as Maynard had left in camp with the clothes of the persons actually killed shows that captivity by the Indians at a time of such bitter hatred was deemed to be equivalent to death.


The credibility of this story is enhanced by a descrip- tion of Joseph Brant found in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History. "As a youth he had been placed in the school for instruction of Indians which was conducted by Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, afterward President of Dart- mouth College, he was a man of good personal appear- ance, enough of his life had been spent among the whites to make him feel at ease in European costume; he had served Guy Johnson, a prominent loyalist, as private secretary, and had traveled with him to Montreal and to England where he was received with consideration, and possibly presented to the King." His picture, said to be owned by the Earl of Warwick, is reproduced by Winsor, together with his autograph.


There is an interesting reference in Temple to Mat- thew Bridge the second minister in our town record, whose pastorate extended from February 19, 1745-46 to September 2, 1775. On the outbreak of the Revolution he volunteered his services as chaplain to the American army at Cambridge and was with Washington in the early days of his command. Ebenezer Eaton, who knew him well, described his appearance as dignified and im- posing and adds, as stated by Temple, "He was more than six feet high, his hair very black which he wore in curls over the cape of his coat, his eyes black, his figure erect and bony resembling that of General Wash- ington by whose side he had seen him stand when the army was stationed at Cambridge." While in the dis- charge of his duty he incurred an epidemic disease and


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died shortly after his return home in the fifty-fifth year of his age and the thirtieth of his ministry.


The legislative progress in these years of change is a part of our Revolutionary record. I have referred to the Provincial Congress, the hold-over government of 1774-75. The term "General Court" was again used July 19, 1775, under instructions from the Continental Congress. A council was organized which ignored the royal Governor and Lt. Governor, the majority of the Council to have the executive power. And then came the question of a new Constitution, and finally a form of Constitution was prepared by the General Court, presented to the voters and rejected in February, 1778, the prime reason for rejection being the absence of the bill of rights. But immediately following, the General Court called a Constitutional Convention which met first at Cambridge, September 1, 1779, and then ad- journed to Boston, January 3, 1780, and held sessions from day to day until a draft was approved March sec- ond and submitted to the voters for adoption. This begins with the preamble and the bill of rights, than which there is no clearer statement in existence and finally by a decisive vote the early colony of Massachu- setts Bay, later the State of Massachusetts Bay, became the Commonwealth of Massachusetts under our present Constitution, and on October 25, 1780, was held the first election.


The delegates from Framingham in the Constitu-


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tional Convention were the Honorable Josiah Stone and Benjamin Edwards, Esquire.


Josiah Stone had given distinguished service in the Provincial Congress, as already stated, and was the logi- cal delegate from Framingham. His record is summed up as follows in Temple's Genealogical Register:


Selectman; town treasurer; town clerk; repre- sentative; delegate to the Provincial Congress 1775- 6; state senator and counsellor; held, also, several military commissions; justice of peace and special judge of the Court of Common Pleas; was admitted to the church October 25, 1761. He was suddenly killed April 12, 1785, in his saw mill at the Falls by falling from the carriage of the mill while plac- ing a log.


A son Josiah, Jr., a Selectman, was known as Major and owned the mills at Saxonville, Micah Stone of the next generation was a merchant and President of the Framingham Bank, remembered for legacies to the First Parish and the Framingham Academy.


Benjamin Edwards, the other delegate, had the title of Captain. He is first mentioned by Temple as a mem- ber of a Committee appointed at a town meeting to instruct the Representative elect "that you do not act nor consent to any act that can possibly be construed into an acknowledgment of the validity of the act of the British Parliament for altering the government of the Massachusetts Bay." He served as a member of the Committee of Inspection in 1775 and of the Committee of Correspondence in 1777 and again on the committee in 1780 to raise the twenty-one men called for by draft. His home was on the old James Mellen homestead on


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Winter Street near the present Dorr estate. There are no descendants now in Framingham.


The final chapter of this "Era of the Revolution" was the ratification of the Federal Constitution. On May 25, 1787, delegates from seven states met in Conven- tion at Philadelphia with Washington as President and after earnest study and debate framed a constitution which was signed September seventeenth and referred to the Legislatures of the states for ratification to be- come operative when ratified by nine states. There was jealousy between the larger and smaller states, and the period of hesitation carried along from month to month. Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware were the first to adopt it then followed Georgia and Connecticut. Then came the issue in Massachusetts with Virginia a keen observer. Madison wrote to Washington that if the Constitution should be rejected in Massachusetts, it would be rejected also in Virginia, but were Massachu- setts to decide favorably Virginia would follow.


By singular coincidence while I have been reading about this matter, I have received from our friend Dr. Enos H. Bigelow, the printed record of the "Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Common- wealth of Massachusetts held in the year 1788, and which finally ratified the Constitution of the United States." It was a large convention, some 360 delegates. John Hancock was chosen President. The delegate from Framingham was Captain Lawson Buckminster. Sessions were held from day to day from January ninth to Feb-


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ruary sixth. Then a yea and nay vote was taken whether or not the Convention in the name and behalf of the people of the Commonwealth should assent to and ratify the said Constitution for the United States of America, and 187 answered "yea" and 168 "nay," a majority by the narrow margin of 19 votes. Lawson Buckminster from Framingham voted "yea," while the delegates from Natick, East Sudbury (now Wayland), Holliston, Westborough, Marlborough, Northborough, Grafton, Milford, Bedford, Billerica, Watertown, Med- way and Acton all voted "nay." The only other "yea" from the nearby Middlesex towns was from Hon. Joseph Hosmer of Concord. Sabine in his interesting account of this Convention, calls the issue a "momentous ques- tion" and says that Framingham, by vote of her dele- gate, was one of ten towns in which a change of vote would have recorded Massachusetts as refusing ratifi- cation. It is a satisfaction to find Buckminster's vote in agreement with John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, Christopher Gore, General William Heath, General Benjamin Lincoln, Fisher Ames, Rufus King, Theophilus Parsons, Francis Dana, Theodore Sedgwick and other leaders of public opinion of this time.


The Buckminster name is the most prominent name in the early history of Framingham, now commemorated by "Buckminster Square" the site selected for the Fram- ingham Minute Man. The record of Colonel Joseph's father, and Major Lawson's son, is particularly note- worthy. The father built his home on the curving cor- ner where Maple Street turns from Main Street, the house later occupied by Col. William S. Hastings and Orre Parker, now moved and occupied by Filmore H. Masterman. He was a soldier in the French and Indian War and commissioned Colonel in 1739. He served as


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town clerk thirty-one years, Selectman twenty-eight years and representative nineteen years. He was on hand, eighty years old, when John Adams and Elbridge Gerry stopped at the tavern kept by his son Thomas to show them the Knox cannon in January 1776. Lawson, the son, followed his father as town clerk for twenty-four years. Thus for fifty-five years our town records, as pre- served in our town vaults, are the work of a Buckmin- ster - father and son. Lawson was also Selectman. He built the Moses Ellis house, now the headquarters of Little Trees Farm, in 1768 where he kept a public house. His great service, as so clearly described by Sabine, was in the Convention at the time of the ratification of the Federal Constitution.


Referring again to this Convention, I have been much impressed with the debates as I have read the record. They reflect study, wisdom and patriotism, not of the few but of the many, the cross section of citizenship. The ratification was received with great joy, manifested by a grand procession moving from Faneuil Hall through the streets of Boston, a prominent feature of which was The Ship Federal Constitution on runners, drawn by thirteen horses, manned with a full crew of officers, seamen and marines, with full colors flying, followed by captains of vessels, eighty-five seamen, dressed in ribbons, and about 250 of the principal mer- chants in town.


And listen to these stanzas, the first, middle and last of a song "The Raising," descriptive of the building of our Federal Government, "A Song for Federal Me- chanics."


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I.


Come muster, my lads, your mechanical tools, Your saws and your axes, your hammers and rules; Bring your mallets and planes, your level and line, And plenty of pins of American pine;


For our roof we will raise, and our song still shall be- A government firm, and our citizens free.




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