USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Plymouth > History of Plymouth, New Hampshire; vol. I. Narrative--vol. II. Genealogies, Volume I > Part 34
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On the day after the surrender Webster and his regiment were discharged.
David Hobart resigned the office of colonel of the eleventh regiment June 14, 1779.
For the remainder of the war Colonel Webster succeeded to the command of the regiment and was a member of the committee of safety, and had charge of supplies for the army and raising troops by enlistment and draft. June 16, 1780, the president of the State, Hon. Meshech Weare, addressed Webster a letter, of which the following is a copy, the original held by a descendant: -
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.
June 16th, 1780.
Sir : On receipt thereof, you are, without a moments delay, to give the necessary orders for raising the quota or proportion of men from your regiment, which you will find in the acts herewith sent you. Your men must rendezvous at Amherst by the 4th of July next, and you will take care that a trusty person or persons, conduct them to that place, where a muster-master will attend, to muster and pay them travel money from their homes to the place where they will draw provisions, and a Continental officer to give them further directions. A number of acts are sent you that each of your companies may have one, and, in case you do not procure the men by the first draft, you will understand that by the act you are to proceed in drafting until the number is completed.
(signed) M. WEARE, President.
Colo. David Webster.
The following letter of Colonel Morey to Webster shows the need of activity in raising men, particularly for the defence of the Vermont towns : -
ORFORD, 17th Oct., 1780. 9 o'clock Evening.
To Colo. David Webster.
Sir: By certain accounts we learn that the enemy made their appear- ance in Royalton and Sharon yesterday, that the former of said towns is entirely destroyed, and a part of the latter, the inhabitants taken pris- oners and continued as such, except the women and small children, who are released. The party is said to be about two hundred, and, by the last account, which has just come by Major Child, are making a stand in Royalton ; by one of the inhabitants that was taken and has since made his escape, we learn they shortly expect a reinforcement of about one thousand. Our men are pushing on in different quarters, but, as it is uncertain what the enemy's plan of operation may be, we think it prudent to call on our neighbors for assistance. I hope you will exert yourself to rally what men you can, and send them as soon as possible. Major Whitcomb with a party of about 160 set off today morning at daybreak by way of Onion River road, with designs to cut off the enemy's retreat, thereby I fear Coos is left too naked as to men, and perhaps a party on Onion River is too powerful for him. Major Child gives us further intel- ligence that Colo. Warner with his Regiment is entirely cut off and Fort George taken. It seems the enemy take different routes, and use their utmost to divide our force. You will, from the accounts I have given you, forward your men that way it may seem most conducive to our
c.
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BIOGRAPHY.
safety. Hope you will take care to notify the regiment below you of our circumstances. From yours, in haste,
Your most obt. and very humble servant,
ISRAEL MOREY.
Colo. Webster.
Dec. 25, 1784, Webster was made colonel of the fourteenth regiment. His commission is preserved, and the following is a copy : -
The State of New Hampshire.
State of New Hampshire
(seal)
To David Webster, Esquire, Greeting :
We, reposing especial Trust and Confidence in your Fidelity, Cour- age, and good Conduct, Do, by these Presents, constitute and appoint you, the said David Webster, Colonel of the Fourteenth Regiment of Militia, in the said State of New Hampshire. You are therefore care- fully and diligently to discharge the Duty of a Colonel in leading, order- ing and exercising said Regiment in Arms, both inferior officers and Soldiers, and to keep them in good Order and Discipline ; hereby com- manding them to obey you as their Colonel, and yourself to observe and follow such Orders and Instructions as you shall from Time to Time receive from the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Navy and Military Forces of said State for the Time being, or any your Superior Officers for the Service of said State, according to Military Rules and Discipline pursuant to the Trust reposed in you, and to hold said Office during good Behaviour.
In Testimony Whereof, we have caused the Seal of said State to be hereunto affixed.
Witness, Meshech Weare, Esq., President of our said State, at Exeter, the twenty-fifth day of December, Anno Domini, 1784, and of the Sover- eignty and Independence of the United States of America, the ninth.
M. WEARE.
By His Excellency's command :
E. Thompson, Secretary.
State of New Hampshire, Grafton, ss.
David Webster, Esq., within named, took and subscribed the oath of office agreeable to the law and Constitution.
SAMUEL LIVERMORE SAML EMERSON
Comissn.
VOL. I .- 26
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.
When the time came for considering the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, Webster stood with his friend, Samuel Livermore, in favor of the proposed new government. The feeling of the people was about equally divided, and Web- ster's influence was of great value. Chief Justice Livermore was undoubtedly the ablest in argument of any man on the floor of the Exeter convention. Out of 100 members 70 were against and 30 for the proposed new government. An adjournment was taken, the friends of the change went to work, and, on the assembling again, the vote was 57 to 47 for the United States constitution. The adoption by New Hampshire, as the ninth state, set the new government in motion.
Elected sheriff by the assembly, Aug. 3, 1779, State Papers, Vol. VIII, p. 826.
Webster was appointed sheriff of Grafton County in 1779, and retained the office until his resignation, in 1809, a period of thirty years. The red coat, drawn sword, and cocked hat of that officer are still matters of tradition in the county.
After his resignation of the office of sheriff, Colonel Webster passed his time in rest and quietness. He did not listen to the rude alarms of the War of 1812, but many of his kinsfolk took part in that struggle. After the peace of 1815, the old patriot continued to be a rugged figure in northern New Hampshire, as well known as " The Old Man of the Mountain " itself, - the " Great Stone Face " of Nathaniel Hawthorne. I am able to lay before my readers a sketch of Colonel Webster, as he then appeared, from the facile and accomplished pen of the Hon. Arthur Liver- more, a grandson of Colonel Webster's fast friend, Chief Justice Samuel Livermore. Mr. Livermore is a native of Holderness, of the Dartmouth class of 1829, formerly a member of the Grafton County Bar, but now an octogenarian, living in retirement at Broughton House, Manchester, Eng. He writes me as follows: -
It must have been as early as 1818 that I, with a younger brother, had crossed the river from Holderness to Plymouth under the care of a maid servant or our governess. We were within a hundred yards of Col. David Webster's house, which was then opposite the site of the
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BIOGRAPHY.
present Pemigewasset House, and we were proceeding in that direction when we overtook Col. Webster. I perfectly knew his form, for I had often seen him. But a sort of awe, with the bashfulness of childhood, made me averse to contact with him ; and I resolved upon a flank move- ment for avoiding it. But the old man saw me, of course, and hailed me and asked me for my name in the harsh voice, which converted into terror the vagne awe the sight of him had created, and confirmed my purpose of avoiding him. I had not the wit to pass on silently, pretend- ing not to have heard his question, but, resolutely pursuing my course, I irresolutely replied, " I cannot tell." The rear of my party soon came up while I was still near enough to hear him say to them, "There is a boy who says that he cannot tell his name."
Col. Webster was fully up to the average stature and was not corpulent, but was portly. His walk was slow, and he supported himself by two very long canes, in the use of which his arms were extended nearly on the level of his shoulders. He wore what I am led, by a process of negative induction, to pronounce to have been a three cocked hat - I feel sure only that it was not a hat of any other sort known to me. It is moreover certain that three cocked hats were not unknown to conservative heads at a time a little anterior; for Mr. Austin, father of the victim of Sel- fridge's pistol, and who subscribed " Honestus " to his political lampoons, was in his turn satirized by Robert Treat Paine :
Old Honestus's three cocked hat, Cover for wisdom and fat and fat.
Austin, in fact, was a remarkably lean old man.
Never was childish fear or aversion more misplaced than was mine on the occasion described ; for the old man, who asked me for my name, knew perfectly who I was and would have given me both his canes to do me a pleasure. . . . Col. David Webster was sheriff of the County of Grafton, 1779 to 1809, when he gave place to William Tarlton. The change was caused by the shifting political humor of the day, whatever may have been the color of the alleged motives. But it may not be impertinent to mind the undeniable fact that the sheriff had determined, from the beginning of his incumbency, upon a wise economy of its emoluments for the benefit of his own family during the whole term ; four, at least, of his sons were his deputies. One who knew them can- not without a disposition to mirth try to imagine a quiet cultivation of a mountain farm in Holderness, armed with a capias, and conveying his neighbor to Haverhill jail for a debt of $6.67. Days of small things. The early training of Col. Webster campaigning and scouting may account fairly for a military habit of his mind, and for the careful
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.
preservation of the red dress coat that kept alive the memories of his youth. . . .
Among his contemporaries in the office of sheriff are found the names of Thomas Bellows of Walpole, Oliver Peabody of Exeter, Moses Kelley of Hopkinton, and James Carr of Somersworth. With some of these names is connected the tradition of the highest personal worth and social position. To have been chosen into such a peerage creates a prestige that cannot be disregarded in forming an estimate of the character of Col. Webster.
One of Colonel Webster's contemporaries wrote concerning him that " he became proprietor of valuable intervale lands, which, as the settlements increased, grew to a handsome estate. He was an enterprising, brave, liberal, honest, and useful man. He possessed the resolute spirit, and had the powerful constitution necessary and peculiar to the early settlers. He retained a remark- able degree of vigor and health until very near the close of his long life. He had survived nearly all his fellow-settlers, and passed his later years in the midst of a new generation."
Colonel Webster died in 1824, at the age of eighty-six, and was buried in the churchyard of Trinity Episcopal Church in Holderness. Near by are the tombs of Samuel and Arthur Liver- more, his old and distinguished friends, whose publie services, valuable as they were, have passed from the memories of men.
It is historical that slavery existed in New Hampshire, by law, in the time of Colonel Webster, and he was the owner of two slaves, whose bodies are buried beside that of their master. The original bill of sale of those two slaves is now in the possession of a great-granddaughter of Colonel Webster, and I copy it, in full, on account of its rare and curious interest : -
Know all Men by these Presents, that I, Jacob Whittier, of Methuen in the County of Essex, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, Yeoman, in consideration of the sum of Sixty pounds, lawful money, paid me, or secured by a note of hand, from David Webster, of Plymouth, in the Province of New Hampshire, Gentleman, have sold, and by these presents, do sell, unto the said David Webster, one negro- man, named " Ciscow," and one negro-woman, named "Dinah," wife of said "Ciscow," both being servants for life, and now in my possession;
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To Have and To Hold the said negroes, during the natural life of each of them respectively, to the said David Webster, his heirs and assigns, according to common usage, and the laws of said Province.
In Witness Whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal, the thirteenth of December, Anno Domini, 1769, in the tenth year of his Majesty's reign.
(signed) JACOB WHITTIER (seal) Signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of us,
Ebenr Barker Abigail Barker.
We have now finished our review of the life of Colonel Webster. He was a type of a class, - that wonderful race of men who were produced between 1640 and 1790 in New England, from the stock of the British Isles. They had that strain of governing blood that seems wanting in the Latin and Slavonian and African races.
Colonel Webster served well his generation and " fell on sleep." We may apply to him and his compatriots the old verse: -
Their bones are dust : Their good swords rust ; Their souls are with the Saints, I trust.
DAVID HOBART, son of Peter and Sarah Hobart, was born in Groton, Mass., Aug. 21, 1722. In the date of his birth in Volume II, April should read August. He was a grandson of Rev. Gershom Hobart of Groton, and great-grandson of Rev. Peter Hobart of Hingham. In 1744 David Hobart was styled of Groton. He removed before 1747 to Dunstable, living in the part of the town called the One Pine Hill. This part of the town was severed from Dunstable and annexed to Hollis in 1763. Among the residents of One Pine Hill, and neighbors of David Hobart, were John Willoughby, James Hobart, and Amos Phillips, who were also his neighbors in Plymouth. The inhabitants of this part of Dun- stable were dissatisfied with the settlement of Rev. Samuel Bird, the minister of Dunstable, and many of them attended the preach- ing of Rev. Daniel Emerson of Hollis. In the controversy con- cerning the minister, and in the contested measure of annexation to Hollis, David Hobart and his brother, Col. Samuel Hobart, were leading and controlling men.
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.
During the controversy concerning the annexation of this part of Dunstable to Hollis, which was warmly waged from 1746 to 1763, the inhabitants of the One Pine Hill section, in church and social relations and in all particulars except a legal consummation, were a part of Hollis. The births of their children were recorded in Hollis. The statement that the families living in this district immediately previous to 1763 were inhabitants of Hollis is often met and is mainly correct.
David Hobart was one of the grantees or original proprietors of Plymouth. In a series of meetings the proprietors ordered a division of a considerable part of the township into lots or farms, directed the construction of roads, the building of mills, the settlement of a minister, and adopted many measures to forward the settlement. In all of these proceedings he was a potent and influential factor.
Among the gracious measures fostered by Gov. John Went- worth was the construction of a road from Wolfeborough to Hanover. In 1771, after repeated solicitation, he persuaded the council and assembly to pass an act for the construction of pass- able road three rods wide " from the Governor's house in Wolfe- borough, through Tuftonborough, Moultonborough, Holderness, and Plymouth, and from thence on the straightest and best course to Dartmouth College in Hanover."
In the body of the act John House and Jonathan Freeman of Hanover and David Hobart of Plymouth were created a committee to locate the road from the Pemigewasset River to the college. The report of this committee appears among miscellaneous papers near the close of this volume.
Until the organization of the town in 1766, the proprietors exercised all the functions of local government and prosecuted many measures to forward the settlement. In these proceedings the capacity of David Hobart is clearly discerned and his future honors are foretold. Of the twenty-two committees chosen pre- vious to July, 1766, he was appointed on fourteen, and of nearly all he was the chairman, and especially was he selected if the
407
BIOGRAPHY.
business referred to a committee was of more than ordinary importance. One incident in the career of David Hobart is elo- quently expressive of the esteem of his associates. The proprietors of Plymouth were gathered around the box containing the num- bers of the farms which had been surveyed, and each was about to trust the goddess of chance while drawing a number which should designate a future homestead. At a moment of the keenest interest and excitement, the wheel of fortune was stayed until David Hobart and two others had selected farms for them- selves. It was an honor delicately expressed, and a fitting reward for eminent and faithful service. He selected lot No. 1 on the Pemigewasset and lot No. 30 on Baker's River. Both were inter- vale lots.
He removed to Plymouth in 1765. He was a selectman of the town, 1767 and 1768. At a meeting of the proprietors, July 20, 1772, Samuel Livermore and David Hobart were chosen "a committee or agents for the proprietors of Plymouth to wait on His Excellency the Governor in order to procure a new charter of the township of Plymouth." The object of this procedure was a better definition of the western boundaries and an incidental enlargement of territory. The petition was presented Nov. 28, 1772, and after a hearing, March 23, 1773, it was graciously dismissed. In 1773 the county of Grafton was organized, and a new regiment was added to the militia of the colony. David Hobart was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the eleventh regiment, of which John Fenton was the colonel, and David Webster captain, of the Plymouth company. The following year David Webster was promoted to major, succeeding Jonathan M. Sewall, resigned.
In 1774 David Hobart was one of the many signers of the petitions praying that the town of Plymouth be granted the privi- lege of representation in the colonial assembly, and during the same year he was one of the men who joined in the payment of the expenses of Abel Webster, a delegate to the first provincial congress.
John Fenton, the colonel of the regiment and the representative-
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.
elect to the colonial assembly in education and association was a spontancous Tory. David Hobart and the other men of Plymouth as naturally were patriots. At the outbreak of the Revolution the supreme service of David Hobart was begun. His devotion and patriotism are frequently noted in the history of the town during the earlier years of the war, and Chapters VIII, IX, and X should be included in this biography. The provincial congress, which in 1775 was the only governmental body in New Hamp- shire, had neither time nor authority to promulgate a system of laws or to create new military organizations. The congress assumed that the existing statutes, which did not interfere with the new plan of government, were still in force, and that the militia system created by the colony, with some imperative changes, could be utilized by the new government. The congress assumed the regiments as the colonial government left them. The Tories voluntarily vacated their commissions, the lukewarm were super- seded by men of approved fibre. Thus the army of a colony became the army of a State. New commissions were issued, and the seat of government and command was removed from Portsmouth to Exeter. In June, 1775, there was no colonel of the eleventh regiment, and the remaining field officers had not received new commissions. The congress directed the eight towns in the regi- ment to choose delegates to meet at the courthouse in Plymouth, and to select and recommend suitable men for the officers of the regiment. This convention of delegates, as stated in Chapter VIII, assembled June 23, 1775. There is no existing record of the proceedings, but without doubt the choice of the delegates is made known by the subsequent action of the provincial congress. The selection of David Hobart for this important trust was a natural proceeding and, to one acquainted with the early annals of the towns in interest, an expected conclusion. The assembled delegates remembered that in 1755 he had served, a sergeant, in the company from Hollis and vicinity, commanded by Capt. Peter Powers in Colonel Blanchard's regiment. In the same company was Deacon John Willoughby, and possibly he was a
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BIOGRAPHY.
delegate and proud to commend a comrade in the French and Indian War.
David Hobart was an ensign of the Hollis company of colonial militia when he removed to Plymouth. Subsequently he dem- onstrated his capacity in military service as a captain of the Plymouth company and as a lieutenant-colonel of the eleventh regiment of colonial militia. At this date, Colonel Fenton being eliminated, he was the superior in military rank of any person living within the territorial limits of the regiment. For similar reasons Maj. David Webster was recommended for promotion at this time. The provincial congress, Aug. 24, 1775, appointed Lieut .- Col. David Hobart colonel, and Maj. David Webster lieutenant-colonel of the eleventh regiment of the reorganized militia. The commissions were dated Sept. 5, 1775, and soon after Samuel Shepard of Holderness and Alexander Craig of Rumney were appointed and commissioned majors.
In the revolutionary period the State was divided into fifteen and later eighteen military districts, called regiments. Every man liable by law to military duty, living within a district, was a constituent part of the regiment. In any mention of the regiments of Colonel Cilley or Colonel Scammell, reference is made to a collected number of organized companies under arms constituting a regiment. The regiments of Colonel Hobart and the other colonels of the same class were the aggregation of a number of citizens liable to military duty and enrolled in companies. In such connection the term regiment was sometimes employed to designate a territory or section of the State to which reference was made. The statement that men out of Colonel Hobart's regiment enlisted into Colonel Scammell's regiment finds many parallels in the Revolutionary War rolls to designate the section of the State in which the recruits of Colonel Scammell's regiment were raised.
The duties of a colonel of one of the regiments of militia were onerous and exacting. He directed the organization and military exercises of the companies in the several towns of his regiment,
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.
and was charged with a general supervision of military affairs. In a call for men the quota was assessed upon the regiment, and the colonel made a division of the demand among the towns. He promulgated the military orders issued by the State govern- ment, and was held responsible for the attitude and efficiency of the militia of his regiment.
The public men of the Revolution, the generals, the judicial, executive, and legislative leaders were beset with problems and perplexities. The conditions were new and constantly changing. The untested fibres of government were loosely woven, and every leader in civil or military affairs was a pilot, without a written chart, upon unknown waters. The weak fell by the wayside, and only the wise and the strong were enduring factors. Col. David Hobart survived the exacting ordeal. As told in another chapter of this volume, he promptly filled every quota and faithfully responded to every demand of the government and every call for help from the northern frontiers. The record of the eleventh regiment in the Revolution is a completed page in the annals of New Hampshire.
In the spring and early summer of 1777 there were imperative calls for men to check the progress of the enemy, to reinforce and save, if possible, Ticonderoga, and to resist an invasion of Ver- mont. Added to these requisitions was the call for men enlisted for three years or for the war to fill the continental regiments. The manner in which Colonel Hobart met these accumulating demands was an exacting measure of his capacity and resources. His ability and his successful labors in these efforts are disclosed in Chapter X. In this connection it is necessary to repeat that Colonel Hobart was selected to command the companies raised in his own and in the regiments of Colonels Morey, Chase, and Bellows. With these companies he joined General Stark at Charlestown and marched to Bennington. In the battle that ensued he proved himself a brave man among brave men, and won the commendation of General Stark. In General Stark's report of the battle he is called Colonel " Hubbard," and Belknap
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BIOGRAPHY.
and Barstow and other historians have incorrectly written the name, but no error can lessen the fame of Colonel Hobart. Of him Chandler E. Potter, in Military History of New Hampshire, has written " Colonel Hobart fought with great bravery in the battle of Bennington, and received due credit from his general on that occasion. He, with Colonel Stickney, led the detachment against the Tory breastwork, where there was the most desperate fighting. The Tories expected no quarter, and gave none - fight- ing to the last like tigers. They were completely surrounded within their fortifications, and the work of death was finished with bayonets and clubbed muskets. Hobart and Stickney saw the work thoroughly done."
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