USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. II > Part 56
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Bath 7th Company
Samuel Titus, Capt. Daniel Bedel, Lieut. Aaron Bayley, Ensign.
Henry Hancock, 2d Lt.
Bath, Commissioned 20th June 1780
Ebenezer Sanborn, Capt. Thomas McConnell
Joshua Sanders 2d Lt. Job Moulton, Ensign.
It is apparent from the statistical view that there would be serious practical obstacles in the way of an organization of a company of militia in the scattered townships to the north of Gunthwaite. Neither Lancaster nor Northumberland, the two most populous settlements, had enough men of military age for a company of the strength required by law. It is hardly to be supposed that people so much dispersed could effect very much for the purpose of maintaining a company of militia. The theory that they did not so unite in the early years of the Revolution seems to be sustained by the fact that the Coos forts were gar- risoned by companies or squads of rangers sometimes recruited from the northern towns within a wide circuit, and sometimes sent in from distant places. We may assume, in the absence of contemporary records, that the service constantly required in guarding and scouting this frontier, and in contributing to the requirements of a more general service, was a sufficient test of the devotion of these pioneers to the cause of independence, and that their duties in the fields and in the forts left no opportunity
544
History of Littleton.
or occasion for further organization into a company or companies in Morey's regiment of militia, to which territorially they would be constituent. Conditions did not change materially till the end of the war.
There are certain facts in the official records, pertinent in this connection, which have not been overlooked. It appears in the State Papers as early as January, 1776, that Edwards Bucknam, of Lancaster, in a vote of the Legislature appointing coroners for the county of Grafton, is accorded the title of captain. This may indicate that he had such command before he settled at that point or afterwards. No evidence is accessible to settle the question. Furthermore, in 1779 it appears that the settlers in those parts chose Nathan Caswell to be captain of some sort of local military organization. Whether it was merely a temporary measure or intended as an extension of the militia system is not disclosed by the record.1
The history of Morey's regiment derives interest from events which had a peculiar significance in the politics of the towns em- braced within its limits. A number of the leading men in these settlements were from Connecticut, and their ideas of govern- ment were naturally in accordance with their education and ex- perience in the Commonwealth from which they had emigrated.
Hanover, with its college and faculty, which constituted a Con- necticut colony of itself, was the intellectual centre for this movement, which took substantial form early in 1776. The form of government adopted for the time being by the Fifth Provincial Congress was not acceptable to the majority of the people in the towns now constituting the western part of Grafton County. Colonel Hurd and Lieut .- Col. Charles Johnston, however, were not partisans of the views which generally prevailed on this subject in their vicinity. Colonel Morey and Colonel Bedel were con- spicuous among the opposers of the party in power in the so-called Exeter government. The group of towns which included Gun- thwaite on the north and Lebanon on the south, in Grafton County, organized themselves by town groups and local committees for the management of civil and military concerns, and formally de- clined to recognize the new State government of New Hampshire. It will not be found useful to pursue the history of this contro- versy at length in this connection. It may be remembered, how- ever, that the Independents of the Connecticut Valley manœuvred with skill and persistence to accomplish such a union of Vermont towns with New Hampshire as promised either to augment the
1 State Papers, vol. viii. p. 21; Id. vol. xiii. pp. 474, 475 ; Id. vol. xv. p. 705.
545
The Militia in Northern New Hampshire.
influence of the western part of the State and to diminish in a corresponding degree the political power which the eastern sec- tion had acquired, or to sever themselves from New Hampshire and join with the proposed State of Vermont or New Connecticut under more favorable conditions than they could expect from New Hampshire. At two periods between 1776 and the close of the war - that is to say, in 1778 and 1781-1782, - these towns were in active union with Vermont as far as the formal action of both parties could accomplish such a result.1
Colonel Bedel, of Haverhill, and Colonel Brewster, of Hanover, were members of the Vermont Board of War,2 and Colonel Morey recognized the civil and military authority of Vermont, and as far as his authority and influence were effectual, his regiment was a component of the Vermont militia. Colonel Bedel's regiment, which had been organized under continental authority, was dis- continued by vote of Congress November 27, 1778. There is evidence that Colonel Bedel's connection with the Vermont con- troversy was a moving cause in this result.3 He represented the
1 Briefly stated, the contention of the New Hampshire party was that upon the dissolution of political relations between the colonies and the mother country, and more especially in respect to the territory in controversy between New York and New Hampshire, the towns, between the political units and the original sources of political authority, were invested with the right to determine for themselves the ques- tion whether to accord allegiance to the one or the other of the disputing States, or whether to erect themselves into a State independent of the mandate of any other association of towns or committees formed for the purposes of government. They urged that inasmuch as the New Hampshire Constitution of 1776 had never been submitted to the people or to the towns for ratification, and had been accepted by a part of the towns only, it was operative only upon such as had elected to ratify its provisions. The protesting towns took care not to do any act which could be con- strued as a ratification of that form of government in the six years from early in 1776 to 1782. Their argument was presented in the controversial and official litera- ture of that time with great skill and effectiveness. They succeeded in making themselves felt as a political force to be reckoned with by three established States and the Continental Congress, as well as the prospective commonwealth of Vermont.
A number of the more important collections of documents and historical treatises relating to this subject in its various aspects are mentioned in the preface to State Papers, vol. xxvi. p. ix. Several valuable contributions to the history of the same controversy are embodied in recent biographies of liistoric personages of that time. Among them the following are especially noteworthy : Elisha Payne, by William H. Cotton, Proceedings Grafton and Coös Counties Bar Association, vol. i. p. 497; Samuel Livermore, by Charles R. Corning, Id., p. 365; John Sullivan, by Alonzo H. Quint, address at the dedication of the Sullivan monument at Durham, Proceedings of that occasion, published by the State, p. 53; Meshech Weare, a Monograph, by Ezra S. Stearns, pamphlet, 1894; Id., Proceedings N. H. Society of Sons of the American Revolution, vol. i. p. 62.
2 Records of Governor and Council of Vt., vol. ii. p. 89.
3 See letters of Lieut .- Col. John Wheelock and General Waslington on this sub- ject, both of date November 20, 1778, and the comments of the historian of Hanover, Chase's Hist. of Hanover, p. 395.
VOL. II .- 35
546
History of Littleton.
adjoining towns of Bath, Lyman, and Morristown, as well as Haverhill, in the Vermont Assembly in 1781.1
1 Colonel Bedel was the most prominent figure from the region of western Grafton in the continental service. He was principally occupied in guarding this frontier and co-operating with the northern army. He ceased to be active in the field, after Con- gress in November, 1778, declined to continue his regiment under authority of the confederacy. Col. Moses Hazen was in a measure his successor, with a regiment partaking of the characteristics of the ranger service and witli continental commis- sion. The two men were in intimate relations, and Colonel Bedel was often called upon, after his formal retirement, to aid in the collection and forwarding of military stores in and from the Coos country. (Bedel Papers, State papers, vol. xvii. passim.) He was not in favor with President Weare, the executive head of the New Hampshire Revolutionary administration (Letter to the Delegates in Congress, August 19, 1778, and Vt. State Papers, 303, and in Vermont politics he was a strenuous opponent of the party represented by Governor Chittenden and the Allens. The Haldimand cor- respondence discloses an attempt on the part of the British-Canadian diplomats to enlist Colonel Bedel in co-operation with the leaders of the Bennington party in the truce that was proposed, with a cessation of hostilities against Vermont. (Coll. Vt. Hist. Soc., yol. ii. pp. 267, 273.) In view of the attitude of his political associates in the valley (Id., p. 173) the eventual conclusion of Colonel Bedel in respect to such a convention between Governor Haldimand and Governor Chittenden, the Allens and Fay, could be foreseen witli comparative certainty.
As already stated in the text, Colonel Bedel was a member of the Vermont Board of War in 1781-1782. From the standpoint of military strategy no one could better appreciate the importance of the fertile and populous middle and upper valley of the Connecticut as a source of supply for the continental army thian Colonel Bedel. He was keenly alive to the necessity of keeping a strong force well in hand in that region at all times ; otherwise invasion would be invited, and its disastrous consequences in the depopulation and devastation of the valley inevitable. Colonel Bedel's insist- ence upon this policy undoubtedly caused the discontinuance of his command. (Memoir of Gen. John Stark by Caleb Stark, 1877, pp. 161, 166, 179.) If he was after- wards in any sense a party to the negotiations with Governor Haldimand, it was without doubt moved by his skepticism as to the efficacy of the measure sanctioned by Congress for the defence of this region and a conviction that it was justifiable in the prospective failure of other protection to keep the enemy beyond our own boundaries by recourse to the methods of diplomacy. With the failure of the Inde- pendents of the valley as a controlling force, either in the politics of the one State or the other, which immediately followed the settlement of the boundary at the west bank of the river, Colonel Payne of Lebanon, Judge Woodward of Hanover, Colonel Bedel, Colonel Morey, and their associates found themselves in irretrievable political defeat and squarely face to face with the inevitable. With a few exceptions these men loyally adapted themselves to the settled conditions. Colonel Potter, in a note to his Military History, states that Bedel was a major-general of the second division of the N. H. militia after the war, and this statement is adopted by Governor Harri- man and other writers. (Adjt .- Gen's. Report, N. H., 1866, vol. ii. p. 242; " Granite Monthly," vol. iii. p. 513.) Noting the absence of any record to verify the assertion taking into account the significant fact that he is always designated as " colonel " in the Journals of the House in 1784-1785, while those known to have been commissioned as generals in the militia are invariably given the title in the same record whenever a military designation is attached, and considering the attitude of Colonel Bedel towards New Hampshire authority in the later years of the war, we are convinced that on this point Colonel Potter was in error. There was but one major-general in command of the New Hampshire militia at any one time until about the date of the decease of Colonel Bedel, and tliis office liad but two incumbents until 1786, first General Folsom and later General Sullivan. No official record mentions Colonel
547
The Militia in Northern New Hampshire.
Colonel Morey, notwithstanding his open and persistent sup- port of the independent movement, continued in command of the Twelfth Regiment until hostilities reached the verge of armed collision between New Hampshire and Vermont over the juris- dictional issue. He was then, on the 11th day of January, 1782, summarily removed from his command by the New Hampshire Legislature, and Lieut .- Col. Charles Johnston was made Colonel. This, the last experiment in any form of a union of the towns on the east side of the river with Vermont, shortly resulted in a definite and, unqualified failure. The leaders in the movement generally acquiesced in the result, but Colonel Morey could not bring himself to such compliance with the logic of events. He removed at once and permanently into Fairlee on the Vermont side of the river. There he passed the remainder of his days, and occupied a commanding position for many years both in civil and military affairs.
Colonel Morey was undoubtedly a consistent partisan. In an- tagonism to the Exeter party in New Hampshire his attitude was unequivocal and his conduct straightforward. In the politics of the new State of Vermont he was the same sturdy and persistent opponent of the Bennington party. This is not the place for a treatment of the negotiations between the Vermont leaders and the British-Canadian authorities in the latter part of the war period.1 As indicating the position of some of the prominent men on the east side of the river, then claimed as a part of Ver- mont, an extract from a report of one of the commissioners, dated September 30, 1781, is given : -
"I find that Congress are much alarmed, and have lately at great ex- pense employed a number of emissaries in Vermont to counteract under- hand whatever is doing for government. The principal of these are General Bailey, Colonels Chas. Johnston, Moron (Morey?), Brewster, and Major Childs on Connecticut River.
Bedel as a brigadier or major-general. In the two years intervening between the fail- ure of the union with Vermont and the inauguration of a State government under the Constitution of 1784, the animosities and disappointments engendered by the struggle between the States for jurisdiction over the territory between the Green Mountains and the Masonian line were becoming less appreciable before other interests and fresher issues. Colonel Payne for Lebanon and Colonel Bedel for Haverhill were returned to the new Legislature, and were at once accorded recognition commensurate with their character and ability. (State Papers, vol. xx. passim.)
Colonel Bedel died in 1787 in the full prospect of supplementing a useful and dis- tinguished military career by one as honorable on the civic side in public affairs. (See also Biography of Timothy Bedel by Edgar Aldrich, Proceedings N. H. Hist. Soc., vol. iii. pp. 194-231.)
1 Haldimand Papers, Coll. Vt. Hist. Soc., vol. ii. p. 55.
548
History of Littleton.
" This junto, of which General Bailey is the soul, are endeavoring to set the populace against their present leaders by insinuating to them that they are tories and intend to sell Vermont, &c." 1
It is entirely to Colonel Morey's credit that he was the subject of such criticism as this at the hands of the British-Canadian officials. Indeed, all the evidence which throws light on the character of the man at that time vindicates the loyalty and patriotism of Colonel Morey in the cause of independence.
The circumstance in which he was placed and the attitude lie assumed in State politics put him at a serious disadvantage in his relations with the dominant party in New Hampshire.2
In November, 1779, Capt. Joshua Howard, of Haverhill, was promoted to be second major in place of Major Hale.3 In the records this officer's name appears occasionally as Hayward, as well as Howard. There is nothing to indicate that any changes were made in the field officers of the regiment after the advance- ment of Lieutenant-Colonel Johnston until March 1, 1783, when the House of Representatives voted : 4-
" That Capt. Ebenezer Green [of Lyme] be and hereby is appointed Lieut .- Col. of the twelfth regiment of militia in this State."
" That Joshua Howard, Esq" [of Haverhill] be and he hereby is ap- pointed first Major of the twelfth regiment of Militia in this State."
"That Capt. Edwards Bucknam [of Lancaster] be and he hereby is appointed a Second Major of the twelfth regiment of Militia in this State."
The Council records, as now preserved, do not indicate a con- currence in these votes by this body. Perhaps there was an error of omission at this point on the part of the recording officer. It will be noted that Capt. Edwards Bucknam is named by his title. This may and probably does indicate that a company or companies had at this date been organized farther north than Gunthwaite (Lisbon),5 and that Captain Bucknam had been in command of one of them. There is significance in the appointment of a major to be located in the north part of the territory of the regiment. It presupposes a development of the organization either already in progress or expected in that direction.
The numbering of Morey's regiment in the Vermont military . establishment has not been ascertained with absolute certainty,
1 Coll. Vt. Hist. Soc., vol. ii. p. 178; Amory's Life of John Sullivan, p. 305.
2 Biography of Israel Morey by ex-Gov. Roswell Farnham, Proceedings N. H. Hist. Soc., withheld for reconstruction and revision.
3 State Papers, vol. viii. p. 834.
4 State Papers, vol. viii. p. 972.
5 State Papers, vol. viii. p. 21.
549
The Militia in Northern New Hampshire. .
though it was assigned as a regiment east of the river to the brigade of Gen. Peter Olcott. Col. Jonathan Chase's regiment, according to the historian of Hanover, became the third in the Vermont arrangement, and Morey's was probably the first.1
From the date of Colonel Johnston's advancement to the colo- nelcy in January, 1782, he continued in command, and his regi- ment existed territorially as it had been during the war until the State government had been reorganized under the Constitution of 1784.2 In the latter part of that year the laws governing the militia were remodelled on a peace basis, and a resulting rearrange- ment of regiments and reappointment or reassignment of officers ensued.
Twenty-five regiments of infantry were established, besides sev- eral regiments of artillery and cavalry. The northern regiment became the Twenty-Fifth, and contained the towns of Lyman, Lan- daff, Lincoln, Concord (alias Gunthwaite), Cockburne (Columbia), Franconia, Littleton, Dalton, Lancaster, Dartmouth (Jefferson), Northumberland, Stratford, Colebrook, and Percy (Stark). Joseph Whipple, of Dartmouth, became Colonel, and held the command until the reorganization in 1792.3 Bath was included in the Haver- hill (Thirteenth) regiment in 1784, with Moses Dow as Colonel.
This was an interesting and progressive period for the militia. John Sullivan was Major-General from 1784 to 1786, and subse- quently commander-in-chief for three years by virtue of his office as president of the State." The prestige of General Sullivan's name and his active influence promoted a healthful esprit de corps in the militia of the new State. With a general revision of the laws and reorganization of the militia in December, 1792, the towns of the Twenty-Fifth Regiment, with little change and with the adoption of a new feature, the battalion arrangement, became the Twenty-Fourth. Concord (Lisbon), Lyman, Littleton, Fran- conia, Lincoln, and Dalton were the first battalion, and Lancaster, Northumberland, Dartmouth, Percy, Coleburne (Colebrook), Cock- burne (Columbia), Stewartstown, and Stratford constituting the second. In 1793, Concord (Lisbon) and Lyman were severed from the Twenty-Fourth and joined with the Thirteenth Regiment. At the same time the battalion division was altered, and Lancaster, Littleton, Dalton, Franconia, State Hill (Bethlehem), and Jeffer- son constituted the first battalion, and the towns above them the
1 Records of Governor and Council of Vt., vol. ii. p. 88.
2 Biography by J. Q. Bittinger, Granite Monthly, vol. xv. p. 85.
3 Biography by Chester B. Jordan, Proceedings N. H. Hist. Soc., vol. ii. p. 289.
+ Amory's Life of John Sullivan, p. 437.
550
History of Littleton.
second.1 This was the status of the regiment until December, 1804. Coos County had been established in the previous year. The towns of Coos County were continued in the Twenty-Fourth Regiment, while Bath, Lyman, and Landaff were made a first battalion, and Littleton, Bethlehem, Lincoln, and Franconia con- stituted the second of the newly formed Thirty-Second Regi- ment.2 This regiment was now an established feature of the general arrangement continuing practically unchanged for half a century.
The commanders of the Twenty-Fourth Regiment in their order from 1793 to 1804 were Edwards Bucknam, of Lancaster, 1793 ; Jabez Parsons, of Colebrook, 1799; Joel Barlow, of Stratford, 1801; and Richard C. Everett,3 of Lancaster, 1804.
Benjamin Kimball, of Bath, in 1805, when the organization of the Thirty-Second Regiment for Northern Grafton was effected, became the first commandant.4
In estimating the number of enrolled militia in any town in the period succeeding the Revolution, it must be remembered that the Militia Act of March 18, 1780, continued the existing provision for two classes, - the train band, composed of youth and men from sixteen to forty years of age, and an alarm list, composed of men from forty to sixty years of age. By the Act of December 28, 1792, the alarm list was abolished and the military age was from eighteen to forty. It was made sixteen to forty in 1795 (June 10). This was the age for a long period afterwards. By the Act of June 24, 1786, towns which could furnish thirty-two privates and the proper number of commissioned and non-commissioned officers (thirteen) were required to establish one company ; but when a town had less than thirty-two privates and a sufficient number of officers they were joined to such other corps as the field officer might think proper.
By Act of December 24, 1792, which was really a new military code, the number of privates for a company was fixed at sixty- four, with no provision for a less number for the first company or a greater for the second.
Littleton, therefore, at some time between 1790 and 1800, as the census statistics would indicate, became entitled to a full com-
1 Compiled Laws of 1805, p. 246.
2 Compiled Laws of 1805, p. 251.
8 Biography of Richard C. Everett by Chester B. Jordan, Proceedings Grafton and Coös Counties Bar Association, vol. i. p. 437.
4 From 1792 to 1816 regimental commanders were, by law, accorded the rank of lieutenant-colonel commandant, and the incumbent held rank equivalent to that be- fore and after that period accorded to a colonel. An aid to the governor in the same period was also designated and ranked as a lieutenant-colonel commandant.
551
The Militia in Northern New Hampshire.
pany of sixty-four privates, independently of other towns. Per- sons in disability and the classes exempt by law would render the available enrolment less than the census might seem to permit.
A peculiar feature of the re-enacted provision of the law of 1780 relating to the body of reserves designated as the alarm list, and which existed with various modifications from 1775 to 1792, at one time including men from fifty to sixty-five years, at an- other those from fifty to seventy years, and at another those from forty to sixty, was a provision that a captain of a company in the alarm list should hold rank as colonel, lieutenant as lieutenant- colonel, and ensign as major. The reason for this peculiar rule in the rank of these officers is not apparent. At the date of the repeal of this law, Littleton could have had but a small contin- gent for the alarm list. The organization of this branch of the service, requiring certain military duties from men between the ages of forty and sixty, fifty and sixty-five, or fifty and seventy, was an outgrowth of the necessities of revolutionary conditions, and ceased to be a feature of the system within a few years after the settlement of permanent State and federal governments with reasonable certainty of continuing peace.
The population of Littleton is not given in the census of 1785. It is not known that any town organization existed for this muni- cipality till 1787. It may be assumed, however, that the neigh- boring towns sparsely settled, while the war was in progress, like Littleton, Dalton, Franconia, Lincoln, and Lyman, but afterwards steadily increasing in population, were now adopting methods of organization in the militia under existing laws, and that men and officers were distributed in some practicable way consistent with prevailing conditions. By the census of 1790 Littleton had a population of ninety-six. This would presuppose a military en- rolment of about twenty. In 1800 the population was three hun- dred and eighty-one, and the enrolment might be estimated at seventy-five. Doubtless the settlers maintained their connections after the war with the military, supplied a due complement of men, and were accorded official recognition in the companies. This supposition would account for some of the military titles that were borne by prominent men of this settlement. Among these were Capt. Peleg Williams, Capt. Thomas Miner, Capt. Samuel Learned, Capt. David Lindsey, Capt. Elkanah Hoskins,1
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