USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Oakham > Soldiers of Oakham, Massachusetts, in the revolutionary war, the war of 1812 and the Civil war > Part 2
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In reviewing the success of this organization, we remember that it owes more than we can express in words to the citizens of this town. Many of you have been more active in helping than the members of the association themselves. We do not forget your services, and I wish here, in behalf of the Soldiers' Union, to express our deep gratitude to all of you who have in any way encouraged and assisted us during the last nine years.
This is to be a Memorial Hall. The Soldiers' Union has erected here two plain marble tablets, on which are inscribed the names of the twenty-two soldiers from this town who fell in the war, and the four who have died since its close. Of this number, twenty died by disease; five fell in battle, two at Drury's Bluff, two at Cold Harbor, and one, just at the close of the war, at Petersburg; another, a captive, weakened by
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wounds, laid down his life, a neglected sufferer, in a Confed- erate prison. They left peaceful homes, to which they were bound by the tender ties of domestic affection. At their coun- try's call they went forth, in the vigor of youth, and with patriotic ardor, to maintain the honor of our government and defend the nation's flag. When the war closed and the troops returned in triumph, they came not with them. The homes from which they had gone forth were clouded with grief, when other homes were joyous with victory. Here are names of sons and brothers, husbands, fathers and friends, familiar names of the companions and playmates of our childhood, who fifteen years ago were so active among us in all that interests young men. To the memory of these fallen ones we dedicate these tablets, that they may be to us, as we gather here from time to time, a visible memorial of our departed comrades, and may perpetuate their names to other generations, when we who knew them have passed away.
To you, gentlemen, the official representatives of the town, and to your successors in office, we commit the keeping of these memorial tablets, in order that they may be preserved and pro- tected. We ask you to guard them sacredly, remembering the beloved names which they bear and the heroic sacrifices and deaths which they record.
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THE SOLDIERS' UNION
ADDRESS OF REV. F. N. PELOUBET
When at the close of the war Gen. Anderson went back to Fort Sumter with the same old flag which had been taken down at its evacuation four years before, and raised it once more over Sumter redeemed, he took his children with him to witness the ceremony. For his wife was a Georgian, and all her friends were secessionists. And both he and his wife being in feeble health, they knew not, if they should die, to what influences those children would be exposed. "But," said he, "if they see their father raise their country's flag, and witness these cere- monies, all the influences which can be brought to bear upon them will never make them false to the old flag."
We have gathered here this evening to dedicate this comely Memorial Hall, which sits with its sister church, twin stars, patriotism and religion linked together, a double crown upon your hill seen from afar.
Soldier hands with those of their fair sisters have helped to gather the means. Every farm has paid its proportion. Willing hearts have poured out their contributions to erect this beautiful building, where, below, the education of your youth shall fan the flame of love to country, and embody it in noble character, and, above, the names of those recorded on these tablets shall beckon them upward. And thus this building with its citizen and soldier builders, and the names recorded here, shall be endur- ing witnesses to children and children's children, so that no influences shall make them false to their country's flag, or their country's weal. It shall keep in mind that true interpretation of the old motto, "Our country, right or wrong-if right, to keep her right; if wrong, to make her right."
The words of a Massachusetts colonel to his regiment as he fell wounded in battle, "State colors to the front, Massachusetts forward," were heard through every town and village of our state, and the young men of this town Oakham, i. e. Oakhome, with hearts of oak as well as name of oak, listened to the call.
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Being pastor of the Oakham church, and citizen of the town before the war and remaining till it was ended, I was personally acquainted with most of these men. Sixteen were members of my church, three more of the Methodist church then existing here, and twenty-seven were members of the Sabbath School. It was with great pleasure that in my address of welcome to those who returned at the close of the war, I could say with truth that "so far as we can learn, you have to a man returned at least as good as you went away, and many we know, and all we hope, a great deal better. Many backsliders were made in the army, but not one hails from Oakham; there were cowards, but none were nurtured among these hills; there were deserters, but no Oakham man failed in the hour of trial."
Since then the returned soldiers have been scattered far and wide. One is now a pastor in the second largest city of New England; one is a professor in a college which, with only one peer and no superior, stands highest in this western world; one is a Christian lawyer in a rising western state; others are merchants, or mechanics, or farmers in this and other towns. But to-night in spirit and memory we are all here again.
We record the names of our fallen heroes in marble, but we engrave them more deeply on our hearts and memories. Sweetly they sleep in our cemeteries, where every year you decorate their graves with flowers, those beautiful emblems of resurrection, every one of which, growing out of the same ground in which our heroes sleep, says resurgemus, "we shall rise again."
Those that lie in the valleys of the south, that sleep in unknown graves, God himself decorates with green and with flowers;
"Covers the thousands who sleep far away, Sleep where their friends cannot find them to-day; They who in mountain and hillside and dell Rest where they wearied, and sleep where they fell.
Softly the grass blades creep round their repose, Sweetly above them the wild flowret blows; Zephyrs of freedom fly gently o'erhead, Whispering prayers for the patriot dead."
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How we felt here the absence of those men! What a change it made in every department, to have so much young life flow out never to return! We missed them at home, in the church, in the Sabbath School, in the prayer meetings, in the social circles, in the literary lyceums, in the schools. We missed them everywhere. And yet we would not have them do otherwise than they did. We see now that to send forth loyal children to save their country is better than to keep ten thousand disloyal cowards at home. We see that the spirit of self-sacrifice for freedom leaves an unfading legacy as the years roll on. We should have been false to our town and its history, had we refused to hear the call for men. We should have been false to our church, and our fathers, and our God, had we been false to freedom. We should have been false to our education and our schools and our national institutions, had we allowed them to produce cowards and not men.
There are two kinds of monuments which we can rear to our soldiers' memory. One is such a monument as this in which we are now assembled, a building in which the youth shall be educated with better advantages than they have had, with this hall above in which lectures, lyceums, public meetings, and the transactions of town business shall continue through life the education begun in the rooms below. How much more appropriate and touching, more expressive and beautiful, is this than a shaft of stone however elaborate, for it not only points upward, but it is steps upward. It not only helps us to remember the dead, but plants in us the virtues for which they died. It is a Jacob's Ladder, not in a dream, by which the whole town may join in "stepping heavenward."
And there is something peculiarly fitting in the method by which it was built. The soldiers who returned safe from the war began to collect the funds; and we should never forget that they were as brave and true soldiers, and offered as much to their country, as those whose names are recorded here. Then the citizens with free hand, and the town by taxation, have com- pleted the amount. Then also our mothers and wives and sisters have had no small part in this building, taking their full
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share of the sacrifice and the work; and worthily, for they bore their full share of the burden and the sorrows of the war. Mother and wife balanced at home the sufferings of husband and son in the field. If ever we see, in heaven, the glorious army of earthly heroes, as many women will be in it as men, and soldiers' wives, and soldiers' mothers, and soldiers' daughters, though unnamed on tablets of stone, will be heard in the roll call of heroes and martyrs, and no crowns will be brighter, and no well dones worthier than theirs.
This Hall, then, built by the living in honor of the dead, we dedicate to the memory of those soldiers who have given their lives for their country, and to the spread of that Liberty and Loyalty, Righteousness and Peace, for whose sake they died.
And may the Good Father gather them and us around his throne in heaven, and say to all, Well done, good and faithful soldiers, enter into the joy of your Lord.
PRESIDENTS OF THE SOLDIERS' UNION
Major John B. Fairbank, 1866-1872.
Dr. J. G. Shannon, 1873-1876.
George W. Stone, 1877, 1878, 1886, 1887, 1890. Andrew Spooner, 1879.
Stephen A. Boyden, 1880.
William R. Barr, 1881.
Charles A. Ware, 1882, 1883. John E. Stone, 1884.
Edward J. Sargeant, 1885.
Gardner M. Dean, 1888, 1889.
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MEMORIAL HALL November, 1874
THE REVOLUTION
THE REVOLUTION
During the first half-century after the incorporation of Oakham, it was the custom of the Town Clerks to make note, on their books, of public business done by any officer of the town. The Treasurer's report of monies received and paid out by him was copied entire in the minutes of the meeting at which the report was presented. Sometimes the receipts for money were written in the Town Records and there signed by the persons to whom the money was paid. The names of school- teachers, and of those who boarded school-teachers; the names of those who came to preach as candidates when there was no settled minister, and of the persons who cared for them and for their horses, were entered on the records, with the amount paid for such services. That the Town Clerk, therefore, should copy in his reports the names of soldiers furnished by the town for any campaign, was to be expected, especially since the town gave its soldiers bounties, larger or smaller, in proportion to the difficulty of the service. The town records contain nearly complete lists of the men sent in answer to the many demands of the Provincial Legislature, and of the Continental Congress, but, since the bounties were often allowed as credit on the tax bills of the soldiers or of their fathers, the names of some soldiers do not appear on these lists.
The State of Massachusetts has made accessible all the material which it possesses regarding the Revolutionary soldiers from the state, in the monumental work, in seventeen large volumes, Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War. In most cases the account of service given in these vol- umes confirms that given on the town records; but it is to be noted that the rolls of some companies have not been preserved, and that a man may have served in a company before or after the time covered by any existing roll. In general the presence of a man's name on the muster roll or pay roll of a company only, must be taken as evidence that he served in that company,
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and the statement, on the town records only, that the Town Treasurer paid a man a certain sum as bounty for a given campaign, is evidence that he served as a soldier in that cam- paign. But when the two records agree the proof is beyond question.
At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the able-bodied men of Massachusetts of military age (that is, between sixteen and sixty) had already been drilled as soldiers, and detachments of them could be sent wherever they were needed, without wait- ing for the organization and discipline of companies and regi- ments which was necessary at the breaking out of the Civil War. A committee of the First Provincial Congress recom- mended, December 10, 1774, that one-fourth at least of the soldiers of each town should equip themselves as minutemen, ready to march on the shortest notice for the defence of the province. These were to be provided "with effective Fire arms, Bayonet, Pouch, Knapsack and Thirty rounds of Cartridges and Ball," and were to drill three times a week. Each com- pany was to elect its own officers. The Oakham militia company was probably under the command of Captain Jonathan Bullard. The men detailed to serve as minutemen, about thirty in number, chose John Crawford Captain and drilled regularly every other day, according to the recommendations of the Provincial Congress.
The towns were advised to pay the minutemen a reasonable consideration, but the members of the Oakham company, like those in most other towns, were satisfied to equip themselves and drill without pay, provided the other soldiers of the town were also equipped and drilled; as is evident from a vote passed in town meeting March 6, 1775: "Voted that the Militia company & alarm men shall be equipt as well as possible & meet in the field and exersise, et cetera, which appears to satisfy the minutmen without any pay."*
On the night before the attack on Lexington, an alarm was sent out by messengers to the several towns which appears to
* On April 16, 1776, the town "Voted to give the Minute-Men the Ten Dollars they received [from the province] at the alarm on the 19th of April last (£3. os. od)."
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have reached Oakham on the afternoon of April 19. On the receipt of this alarm, Captain Crawford, with his company of minutemen, set out immediately for Cambridge, where they joined the Worcester County Regiment under the command of Colonel Jonathan Warner of Hardwick. On the town records there is no list of names of the minutemen, but the following names of Oakham men who marched on the alarm of April 19 are on the muster roll of Captain Crawford's company in the Massachusetts archives :*
Captain, John Crawford.
First Lieutenant, Isaiah Parmenter.
Second Lieutenant, Alexander Bothwell, 3d.
Sergeants, George Black, Samuel Metcalf, Benjamin Joslyn, Daniel Henderson.
Corporals, Silas Bullard, James Bell, John Boyd.
Drummer, Aaron Crawford.
Privates, Samuel Bell, Joseph Berry, Stewart Black, William Black, John Bothwell, William Bothwell, John Butler, George Caswell, Daniel Deland, William Harper Dunn, Joseph Eager, Nathan Edson, John Forbes, Joel Hayden, James McHerrin, Jacob Parmenter, William Stevenson, Isaac Stone, 2d.
On Sunday, April 23, 1775, the Provincial Congress at Water- town resolved that thirteen thousand six hundred men be raised by the province for eight months' service. Each company was to consist of fifty-nine men, including three officers. A week later the Committee of Safety ordered that one-half of the militia be sent immediately to Roxbury and Cambridge, and that the other half hold themselves in readiness to march at a minute's warning. On July 5 it was voted to provide each non-commissioned officer and soldier raised under this resolve with a bounty coat, or, if he preferred, to allow him its equivalent in money.
In April and May, thirty-five Oakham men enlisted for a term of eight months. Ten of the minutemen reënlisted on April 27 in the 5th Company (Captain Simeon Hazeltine) of the 8th Regiment, commanded by Colonel Jolin Fellows :
* Lexington Alarms, Vol. XII, p. 15.
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Joseph Berry, George Black, Stewart Black, William Black, Daniel Deland, William Dunn, Joseph Eager, James McHerrin, Jacob Parmenter, Isaac Stone, 2d. George Black was made Lieutenant, and Stewart Black, Ensign. Daniel Deland was Fifer. Four- teen others from Oakham enlisted later in the same company: Jacob Ames, Samuel Bullard, James Boyd, Daniel Crawford Deland, Stephen Foster, Joseph Gilles, David Henderson, Oliver Jackson, Aaron McCobb, Nehemiah Packard, Zephaniah Perkins, Asa Snell, Amos Temple, and Joshua Turner. James Conant and Luther Conant enlisted at the same time in Captain Soul's company of the same regiment. The names of Henderson, McCobb, Snell and Temple are not on the Oakham town records.
Lebbeus Washburn enlisted on May 27 in Captain John Pack- ard's company of the 9th Regiment, commanded by Colonel David Brewer; George Caswell and James Swinerton of Oakham, and William Johnson of New Braintree, whose name is on the Oakham town records, joined Captain Grainger's company, in Colonel Ebenezer Learned's regiment.
Silas Bellows, George Dunn, Thomas Gill, Robert Harper, Alexander McFarland, Jr., and Kerly Ward enlisted in Captain Seth Washburn's company of Colonel Jonathan Ward's regi- ment. Kerly Ward was made Corporal .. The name of Silas Bellows is not on the town records for this campaign. This regiment was at the Battle of Bunker Hill, but only a few of the companies were actively engaged; Captain Washburn's company was one of these. Silas Bellows, George Dunn, Alexander McFarland, Jr., and Kerly Ward were in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and Kerly Ward was wounded. Thomas Gill and Robert Harper did not join the company till fourteen days after the battle.
These eight-months' regiments were encamped at Roxbury and formed part of the right wing of the army under General Ward that besieged the British in Boston.
Captain Samuel Dexter of Hardwick raised a company for six months' service from Hardwick, New Braintree and Oak- ham, which formed part of Colonel Ebenezer Learned's regi- ment. Five Oakham men were in this company: Sergeant Isaiah
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Parmenter, Corporal Timothy Conant, Privates Archibald Forbes, Bartholomew Green, Matthew McGilligan (for James Dean). This regiment was in camp at Roxbury January 1, 1776.
Thirteen men served two months at Roxbury in the company of Captain Barnabas Sears: Sergeant Daniel Parmenter, Pri- vates Samuel Stone, James Banks, Sergeant Ebenezer Woodis, Privates Sheers Berry, James Blair, James Hunter, Arch Forbes, Moses Gilbert, Bartholomew Green, Joseph Green from Rut- land, Timothy Conant and Zephaniah Perkins. The last ten receipted, February 15, 1776, for ammunition to Captain Sears ; the names of the others are found on the town records only, but these records give no credit to Perkins for this campaign.
The British evacuated Boston March 17, 1776. April 9 a resolve was passed to raise eight companies of ninety men each "for the defence of Boston," to serve till December I, 1776. On the pay roll of the company of Captain Ezekiel Knowlton of Templeton, dated Dorchester, November 28, 1776, are found the names of Sergeant Asa Partridge, Privates George Harper, William Parmenter (for Solomon Parmenter) and Timothy Shaw (for Thomas White). William Smith of Oak- ham enlisted in this company, December 14, 1776, to serve till March 1, 1777, but he was credited to the town of Barre.
Early in 1776 measures were taken by the General Court to organize and train the militia, that soldiers might be ready to respond promptly to calls for reinforcements, especially for the Continental Army. By an Act of January 22, the number of Worcester County regiments was fixed at eight. On May 14, 1776, the Fourth Worcester County Regiment was organized at Brookfield. Ebenezer Foster of Oakham was chosen Adjutant of the regiment. The officers elected for the 8th or Oakham company were:
Captain, John Crawford.
First Lieutenant, Alexander Bothwell, 3d. Second Lieutenant, Asa French.
These officers received their commissions May 31, 1776, and continued in service till the close of the war.
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At a town meeting held May 21, 1776, six weeks before July 4, the town "Voted without Contradiction that if the Honl. Congress should for the Safety of the Colonies declare them Independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain, that they [that is, the people of Oakham] solemnly engage, with their lives & fortunes to support them in the measure."
The town furnished four men for the Ticonderoga campaign but it is not easy to decide just who the men were. John Boyd, Benjamin Foster, Joel Hayden and Jacob Parmenter, on July 29, 1776, were voted £12 bounty from the town for this campaign. The names of Hayden and Parmenter are on the town records only. Boyd, Foster, and also Stewart Black were enrolled in Captain Nathaniel Hamilton's company, which consisted mostly of Brookfield men and was in service at Ticonderoga Mills and Fort Edward from August 3, 1776, till February 1, 1777, in Colonel Samuel Brewer's regiment. David Henderson and John Harper were enrolled for the same service, in Captain John Howard's company of the same regiment, and Daniel Deland went in Captain Noah Allen's company of Colonel Asa Whit- comb's regiment. Eleven citizens (Isaac Stone, Joseph Hudson, James Ames, William Green, Mat. Galt, Ebenezer Foster, James Blair, Skelton Foster, Jacob Adams, John Butler and Heman Bassett) promised to advance to the Treasurer one hundred and sixty dollars "to replace the Money paid by him to the four Canady Soldiers who Inlisted in July last as soon as may be."*
June 25, 1776, it was resolved to raise two thousand men to serve in New York till December 1, 1776. As far as is known to the writer, no muster rolls have been preserved for this, and for the following campaign to New York. All names here given on these two lists are found on the town records only. In addition to the State bounty of £3, a town bounty of £6 each was promised to those who should enlist in response to this call. The men named below agreed to be responsible for the ten soldiers needed for this campaign: Ensign Isaiah Parmenter, Captain Jonathan Bullard, Ensign William Banks, Edward Partridge, 2d, Silas Partridge, Joseph Craige, George Caswell,
*Town Records, Vol. I, pp. 152 ($160), and 171 (£48).
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THE REVOLUTION
James Brown (half a man), John Brown (half a man), Aaron Crawford (half a man), William Crawford (half a man), Nathaniel Weeks. Ensign Parmenter probably went in charge of the men sent on this service.
Robert Wilson, Alexander Wilson, Jonathan Cunningham, Samuel Davis, Isaiah Butler, John Harmon, John Bothwell and William Smith agreed to be responsible for eight soldiers to be sent to New York for three months' service. The two Wilsons, Bothwell and Smith, without doubt, went themselves on this campaign.
On account of the critical situation of the Continental Army in New York in September, 1776, one-fifth of all the able-bodied men under fifty were called for to serve two months. Lieutenant Asa French, with Corporals Samuel Metcalf and William Both- well, and Privates Abraham Bell, James Bell, Jr., Silas Bullard, Nathan Edson, James Forbes, John Forbes, Benjamin Knight, and a recruit, Jacob Brooks, hired by Deacon Allen and Nathan Edson, were detailed for this campaign and joined Captain Abner How's company of Colonel James Converse's regiment, which was in service at Dobbs Ferry, Tarrytown and North Castle. James Banks was detailed to go but did not join the regiment. Ichabod Packard also has credit on the town records for this campaign. The recently-discovered pay roll of Captain How's company made out by Lieutenant French, Commandant, is printed among the Addenda in this book.
Joseph Osborn, Jr., was a soldier and probably lost his life in one of these campaigns, as appears from a vote of the town April 18, 1777, "that Joseph Osburn's Campagn rate of £3-5-10 be allowed him for his son Joseph's Service in the war, who is now deceased."
It is not possible to tell in every case whether the man who received credit on the town records went himself or secured some one to go in his place. There is very little on the town records about soldiers until September 19, 1776, when the ques- tion was raised about the claims of those who had already served. When Captain Crawford received a call for soldiers to serve within the state he detailed the men to go, or called for
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voluntary enlistment. When the service was beyond the limits of the state, citizens would sometimes come forward and guar- antee to be responsible for the number of men required. Some of them would go themselves; some would secure other men to go. The committee that made, in 1777, the lists of men who had served before the call for Continental soldiers, was "chosen to receive and adjust the Claims of the Persons in Town for any service done in the present war, whether by themselves or other ways." This committee reported March II, 1777.
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