USA > New Hampshire > Cheshire County > Fitzwilliam > The history of Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, from 1752-1887 > Part 25
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Jonas Forristall, Co. A, Second Regiment.
Levi A. Forristall, Co. F, Sixteenth Regiment.
Daniel M. Fiske, Co. F, Sixth Regiment.
Thomas J. Richardson, Co. F, Six- teenth Regiment.
Levi W. Rice, Co. F, Sixteenth Regiment.
Albert G. Stone, Co. A, Second Regiment.
Joseph E. Stone, Co. F, Sixteenth Regiment.
William W. Stone, Massachusetts Volunteers.
Josiah O. Taft, Co. A. Second Regiment.
Sylvanus C. Waters, Co. F, Sixth Regiment.
Lucius Whitcomb, Co. H, Sixth Regiment.
George II. Wilson. Co. II, Sixth Regiment.
Robert Walton, Co. C, Fourteenth Regiment.
Francis L. Whitney, Massachusetts Volunteers.
Albert W. Withington, Co. F, U. S. S. Total, 36.
THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT ASSOCIATION.
This was organized February 2d, 1866, and its name indi- cates its object. The first officers were : President, Rev. W. L. Gaylord ; Vice-President, Rev. G. W. Cutting : Secre- tary, Stephen Batcheller ; Treasurer, Joel Whittemore : Di- rectors, George W. Simonds, Samuel Kendall, Amos J. Blake, John M. Parker, and Norman U. Cahill. A co-operating committee, consisting of one gentleman and one lady for each school district, was appointed, and the association entered at once upon the work of raising funds for the erection of a suit- able soldiers' monument. For this purpose, and to awaken, if possible, a deeper and more general interest in the matter, a lecture was given in the Town Hall, November 25th, 1869, by Colonel Carroll D. Wright, of Boston, formerly of the Fourteenth Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteers. The subject was " The Shenandoah Campaign." Colonel Wright declined any compensation for his services.
In April, 1870, the funds in the treasury of the association
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
amounted to five hundred and forty-six dollars and ninety-one cents, and the town having appropriated one thousand dollars in aid of the object, a contract for making and ereeting a monument was made with a returned soldier. By a vote of the town, the monument stands in the village park. It is composed of four pieces of granite, viz., the base, which is plain, the plinth with a mould upon the top containing the in- seription in raised letters, " Soldiers who Died for their Coun- try in the Rebellion of 1861," the die, upon which are eut in raised letters, within sunken panels, the names of thirty-three soldiers to whose memory the monument was ereeted, and the shaft, upon one side of which are two swords crossed in raised work, and on the opposite side the inscription in raised letters, " 1871. What we do for them may be forgotten. What they did for ns, never."
As a committee to act in conjunction with the committee of the town, to arrange for the dedication of the monument, Messrs. George W. Davis and Norman U. Cahill were ap- pointed on the part of the association.
It was dedicated, with appropriate services, July 4th, 1871. At 10 A.M a procession was formed upon the Common under the direction of John M. Parker, Chief Marshal, as follows :
1. The Swanzey brass band.
2. A company of twenty-five returned soldiers.
3. Thirty-seven young ladies, dressed in white, representing the States of the Union.
4. Citizens generally.
The exercises took place in the park, under the direction of Dr. A. R. Gleason, President of the day. Amos J. Blake, Esq., was Toast Master. After music the Chairman of the Town Monument Committee, O. L. Broek, in an appropriate address, presented the monument to the town. It was ae- cepted on the part of the town by Norman U. Cahill, Chair- man of the Seleetmen, who made an address. Selections from the Seriptures were then read by Rev. E. H. Watrous. Prayer was offered by Rev. John F. Norton. The Declaration of Independence was read by Lewis M. Norton.
United States Senator, Hon. J. W. Patterson, who had been
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INCIDENTS RESPECTING FITZWILLIAM SOLDIERS. 305
engaged to speak on the occasion, having been delayed on his way to Fitzwilliam, addresses were made by Rev. J. F. Nor- ton, J. J. Allen, Esq., Rev. E. H. Watrous, Charles Bigelow, Ezra S. Stearns, Amos A. Parker, John N. Richardson, J. S. Adams, Esqs., Dr. Silas Cummings, and others. A pleasing feature of the dedication was the presence of the youth and children, in large numbers, from each of the schools in the town. At noon a bountiful collation was served, and this was followed in the afternoon by the toasts and addresses.
This record of "' Fitzwilliam in suppressing the great Rebel- lion" is necessarily incomplete after the lapse of twenty-two years since the close of the war, but the incidents that follow will give a more vivid impression of the stern nature of the conflict and of the self-denial and suffering involved in sustain- ing it, than can be gained from the preceding statements and tables.
What immediately follows has been furnished in substance by O. L. Broek, Esq.
In the Fourteenth Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteers were fifteen men from Fitzwilliam. Embarking March 20tlı, 1864, for New Orleans, they encountered a terrible storm of fifty-six hours' duration, which disabled their steamer, the Daniel Webster, and left them at the mercy of the winds and waves. They were finally resened, however, and after being for a short time in the Department of the Gulf, they were transferred to Sheridan's army in the Shenandoah Valley. By a mistake the division in which the Fourteenth Regiment had been placed was unexpectedly exposed to a most fearful fire of shot and shell, when one hundred and sixty men were killed in thirty minutes, George W. Feleh, of Fitzwilliam, being of the number. Stillman S. Stone captured a prisoner and took him with him when retreating. Darins H. Whitcomb did the same, but was obliged to shoot his prisoner, while he, the prisoner, was trying to escape. Later, when the Confederate Army had captured eighteen pieces of artillery and thousands of prisoners, and thought their victory sure, came Sheridan's famons movements, when the guns were recaptured and as many more taken, with many prisoners. In that fight Stillman
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
S. Stone received a ball in his arm and right side and was taken prisoner, but later was recaptured. His shattered arm was saved without amputation. Wright Whiteomb was wounded in the hand, a piece of a shell carried away his can- teen, and he had three bullet-holes through his elothes.
The celebrated poem, "Sheridan's Ride," commemorates this remarkable exploit.
Among the first to enter the army from Fitzwilliam in 1861 was William Dunton. He was in the first Bull Run battle, and in all the encounters on the Virginia Peninsula, from Will- iamsburg to Harrison's Landing. Later, in the second Bull Run fight, he was struck by a ball on the right cheek, which, passing through his mouth so as to break up the bone and teeth of the entire upper jaw, eame out just below the eye on the left cheek. Mr. Dunton fell, and was left by his comrades as dead, when, shortly after, they were obliged to retreat. Be- ing now a prisoner, he was stripped of nearly all his clothes and of almost everything he had by the enemy, and left to die. Finding his mouth and throat fast filling up from the swelling of the mangled flesh, he succeeded in getting his knife from his pocket and deliberately cut away the torn flesh, and so eleared his mouth as far as possible.
Hours now passed, and so did nights and days, and no relief was at hand. He could not ery out or even speak aloud, and could not have swallowed a morsel of food or a drop of water if he had had either.
For six days and nights he endured what must have been agony, but on the morning of the seventh day he was discov- ered by a party of our own men who were burying the dead. Hle was still alive, but so weak that the men at first despaired of his living till he could be removed to a hospital. Faint and exhausted he was at length placed in the hands of the surgeons at Washington, five of whom decided that no human skill could save him. Still, desiring to give him a chance for re- eovery, they dressed his wounds, inserted a small tube in his throat, and finally succeeded in having him swallow a few drops of brandy, which revived him. Mr. Dunton was fed in this way for more than a month, and still lives, after more than
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INCIDENTS IN THE ARMY.
twenty years, to tell the story of his sufferings, and to remind all who meet him of the enormous cost involved in saving our country.
Second New Ilampshire Regiment. As the Sixth Massa- chusetts Regiment was the first from that State to engage in deadly encounter with the Rebellion, so the Second New Hampshire Regiment was the first from this State to meet the foe in the terrible strife, and it was engaged in nearly all the battles in Virginia, from the first at Bull Run to the fall of Richmond. Fitzwilliam was largely represented in this regi- ment, and nearly one half of those who went from this town and belonged to it, were either killed, wounded, or died in prison. Daniel S. Brooks died in Libby Prison, at Richmond, Va., while others died of wounds or disease. The record of all the men from Fitzwilliam in this regiment is very honor- able.
The Third New Hampshire Regiment had its first experi- ence in the war when ordered to attack a strong battery near Secessionville, in South Carolina, from which the attacking forces had been three times repulsed, and lost one hundred and four men in the conflict.
Later it was one of the regiments that made the famous sunrise attack upon Morris Island, when eleven siege guns and two hundred prisoners were captured. In the siege of Fort Wagner that immediately followed, Lieutenant John M. Par- ker, of Fitzwilliam, commanded Company I, and the Third New Hampshire Regiment was given the post of danger and honor. A most desperate resistance was anticipated, but when the regiment advanced the next morning to charge upon the fort, it was found deserted, and the victory gained was bloodless.
In Florida many of the reernits that had been sent to this regiment deserted to the enemy, and one of these, taken while attempting to desert the second time, was tried and shot, Lieu- tenant Parker as acting adjutant reading to him his death-war- rant. There were no more desertions.
The regiment at a later period did effective service in Vir- ginia, and lost in the terrible encounter at Drury's Bluff many of its brave men.
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
The Sixth Regiment was organized at Keene and first met the enemy at Camden, S. C. Later it took part in nearly all the battles in Virginia (in one encounter capturing seven officers and one hundred and six men), and suffered severely through the unfortunate explosion at Petersburg. In one of the at- taeks upon the works in that city, one hundred and fifty men started but only fifty entered the works.
This regiment left Keene with one thousand and forty-six men, and four hundred and eight more were added as recruits, but it returned with only four hundred and eighty-three men, and of these but ninety-eight belonged to the regiment orig- inally. It participated in twenty-two battles. At Antietam this with a Maryland regiment carried a bridge by storm that had resisted many attaeks, and General Griffin was the first man to eross it.
While in Virginia a negro servant was stooping over to stir his coffee, when a spent cannon-ball came rolling along and struek the negro on the back of the head, but after tumbling about for a time he jumped up, scratched his head, and fin- ished his preparation of his coffee.
The Sixteenth New Hampshire Regiment had one captain and nineteen men from Fitzwilliam, and was sent to New Or- leans, and after having been encamped at various places was ordered into the lowlands, that were full of malaria, where nearly all were sick and many died. Eleven only reached home, and of these two died at a later period. The history of these men is a sad one, but they were loyal, and did their duty under the most trying circumstances. See the Roll Record.
Three men are now living in Fitzwilliam who served in the Fifteenth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, viz., An- drew Fisher, Benjamin Whitcomb, and Charles F. Pope. Mr. Pope is not a native of Fitzwilliam, but settled in town soon after the close of the war. Mr. Fisher is a native of the town. Mr. Whitcomb is not a native of the town, but resided here before the war. Mr. Whiteomb was wounded in the hip at Fair Oaks. Mr. Fisher was promoted to sergeant and from sergeant to captain. He was highly recommended by his su-
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INCIDENTS-W. I. ELLIS-ETHAN BLODGETT.
perior officers to Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, for pro- motion, and in the battle at Ball's Bluff was one of the last to retreat, and this he did, taking off his coat, jumping into the river and swimming to the opposite shore. His hat was rid- dled with bullets. At Antietam he was wounded in the shoulder, and at Gettysburg he was captured, and was in Libby Prison for months. Mr. Fisher participated in forty-seven battles and skirmishes.
Warren I. Ellis, son of George W. Ellis, was one of four brothers who enlisted, two of whom died in the service, and the other two have since died of disease contracted while fight- ing for their country. Warren I. Ellis served in the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment, and when the Union forces were com- pelled to retreat after the battle of Ball's Bluff he, with hun- dreds of others, plunged into the Potomac and swam to an island in the stream. Mr. Ellis lost all his clothing and money, and slept under a haystack during the night that followed the battle. He was severely wounded in the shoul- der at the battle of Antietam, and, after recovery, was trans- ferred to the signal service, in which he remained till his dis- charge.
Ethan Blodgett enlisted July 19th, 1861, from Phillipston, Mass., and served in Company A, Captain George P. Hawkes, of the Twenty-first Massachusetts Regiment, Colonel A. Maggi. This regiment was in the second Burnside expedition, and par- ticipated in the engagements at Annapolis Junction and Roanoke Island. In the assault upon the rebel intrenchments at Roanoke Island, the Twenty-first Massachusetts and the Fifty-first New York were the first within the works, the first Union flag planted being the State flag of the Twenty-first Massachusetts. The Massachusetts official reports say that " the gallant Ethan Blodgett bore the flag, and planted it first on the rebel breastworks."
The National Tribune, a newspaper published at Washing- ton, D. C., has for some time given considerable prominence to reminiscences of the war. In a recent number, Colonel Hawkins, of the Ninth New York Regiment (Hawkins's Zouaves), elaimed for his regiment so prominent a position in
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
this engagement as to call out several communications in re- ply. One correspondent says :
The Ninth New York Zouaves did not charge the fort until the works had been carried by the Twenty-first Massachusetts and part of the Fifty-first New York. The State flag of the Twenty-first Massachusetts was the first to be planted on the works.
Another correspondent adds :
Captain Ethan Blodgett was the man who carried it.
In the spring of 1862 Mr. Blodgett was taken sick, and was sent North to the hospital at Boston. He did not recover his health, and as there seemed to be no prospect that he would be able to return to the army, he was discharged, September 29th, 1862.
Benjamin F. Potter came to Fitzwilliam a short time before the commencement of the war. He served fourteen months in the Thirty-sixth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, and has lived in town since his discharge.
But if Fitzwilliam furnished a large company of men, not a few of whom proved themselves to be heroes in the great Civil War, the patriotic devotion and suffering of those trying years were not confined to them ; for, among the mothers, sisters, and daughters who remained at home and prayed and labored for the success of right, there were as patient and self-denying souls as ever lived, while among the siek, wounded, and dying in the field, this town had a heroine.
The facts that follow regarding Miss Hannah A. Adams, of this town, daughter of Captain J. S. Adams, were first given to the public some years since, in a volume entitled " Woman's Work in the Civil War," a book that has had far less circula- tion than it deserves. The whole of that interesting narrative, which is too long for insertion here, will well repay perusal.
Miss Adams, who became a school teacher at an early age, went West in 1856, hoping by the change of climate to check a predisposition to a pulmonary difficulty that had threatened her health and, possibly, her life.
The breaking out of the Rebellion found her a teacher in one of the public schools of St. Louis, Mo., in which capacity she was eminently successful, but, in common with all the
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MISS HANNAH A. ADAMS' SERVICE.
teachers from New England in that city, she lost her situation soon after hostilities commenced, most of the members of the Board of Education and others controlling the school funds being strong secessionists.
This cruel treatment only made Miss Adams more intensely loyal, and when the Ladies' Union Aid Society of St. Louis was formed in August, 1861, she not only assisted in the or- ganization, but was chosen its first secretary, an office which demanded untiring industry and patience as well as great exec- utive ability. This office she filled for more than three years. In the autumn of 1863, her only brother, a soldier from Fitzwilliam, died in the service .* Hastening to the hospital at Mound City, Ill., where she knew he had been under surgi- cal treatment, and full of hope that he might recover under her tender care, she found that he was already dead and buried. From this time forth her interest in the wounded and sick of the Union forces became, if possible, more intense, and noth- ing was too hard for her to undertake that promised the suffer- ers any measure of relief.
The stores of the Ladies' Union Aid Society and of the Western Sanitary Commission, to which she had access, were then large, and their rooms were open every day. Hundreds of the most patriotie and efficient women of St. Louis and vieinity were ready to aid in all possible ways, but, as a matter of course, their ready and self-denying secretary had the heavi- est part of the burden to bear. Hospital garments had to be received or manufactured, and then arranged and given out in the hospitals, and to the siek and wounded in the regimental camps, not only in and around the city, but in other parts of the State and region. Advice must be given, applications for aid answered, accounts kept, reports made, sanitary stores col- lected, and a thousand other matters of great importance at- tended to, all of which found Miss Adams ready for service and competent to meet the incessant demands that were made upon her patience and judgment.
* John S. Adams, of Fitzwilliam, Co. F, 16th Reg. N. II. Volunteers, enlisted for nine months, served 9 months, 23 days. Left sick at Cairo, Ill., Aug. 9, 1863, on his way home, and died at Mouud City Hospital, Aug. 16, 1863.
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
What she did for soldiers' families and for the widows and orphans, made by the war, in providing shelter, food, cloth- ing, and employment, cannot here be recorded, but thousands of these are now living to bless her memory. During the en- tire war St. Louis was crowded with troops, and in 1862 there were twenty thousand sick and wounded soldiers in the hos- pitals of that city and vicinity. In ministering to these in all the various ways that only a woman's heart could devise, Miss Adams found a field for the most self-denying effort. In 1863 she went to Nashville, Tenn., to open a special diet kitchen upon which reqnisitions could be made for the delicate articles of food that the very feeble and dangerously sick and wounded soldiers required ; and while in that city she secured the opening of the hospitals there to female nurses who had not previously been employed in them. The difficulties to be . surmounted in this effort were many and great, for the preju- dices against sneh an innovation were strong, bat all yielded at length to her good common-sense, womanly instincts, and persuasive manner.
Resuming her work in St. Louis early in 1864, she was con- stantly at her post till the end of the year, when she resigned her position, retaining the warmest affection of those with whom she had so long labored, and in the month of June, 1865, she became the wife of Morris Collins, Esq., of St. Louis.
CHAPTER XIII.
EDUCATIONAL.
School Lands Leased-First Schools-Early Teachers-Discipline-Branches Taught-Supervision-Committees-Reports-Common-School Associa- tion-Lyceum-Farmers' and Mechanics' Club-Musical-Temperance Societies-Libraries.
T HIE fathers planted the school-house by the side of the church, knowing full well that ignorance and vice are associated together the world over.
This fact was so well understood that the Masonian propri- etors, in the disposal of their property, always stipulated in their grants that provision should be made in the division of the lands for the education of the children of the settlers. As we have seen, in the grant to Sampson Stoddard and others in 1765, of Monadnock No. 4, it was made a condition that one share, viz., two lots of one hundred acres each, should be set apart and reserved forever for school purposes.
The lots drawn for this purpose were No. 3 in Range 1 and No. 11 in Range 5. The former was located in the southeast part of the town upon the boundary of Rindge, the third lot from the line of Massachusetts. The latter was southeast of the central village, the Templeton road passing through it about half a mile below the house of Nahum Hayden.
The school lands, like the ministerial, could not be sold, but could be leased for a long term of years.
At a proprietors' meeting held May 21st, 1777, Captain John Mellen, Lieutenant Levi Brigham, and Joseph Grow were chosen a committee " to Dispose of the Ministerial and school lands and make returns at ye next Proprietors' meeting."
It does not appear that this committee did anything ; and at the next meeting, May 20th, 1778, Samuel Patrick, John Mellen, and Levi Brigham were chosen a committee " to dis- pose of the Ministerial and School Lands as they shall Think
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
Proper." This committee acted promptly, and within a month had leased the two ministerial lots and the school lot No. 11 in Range 5. The lease first recorded in the Proprietors' Record Book reads as follows :
This Indenture Witnesseth That we Samuel Patrick John Mellen and Levi Brigham All of Fitzwilliam in the County of Cheshire and State of New Hampshire Being Chosen a Committee for the Purpose of Dispos- ing of the Ministeriel and School Land in Said Town at A Legal Meeting of the Proprietors of Said Township held the Twentieth Day of May one Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Eight : we the Said Commit- tee Do therefore In the Name and Behalf of Said Proprietors Dispose of the following Land agreeable to A Vote Passed at sd meeting : That is we Do hereby Releas Remise and Quit claim unto Samuel Osborn of Said Fitzwilliam Yeoman : one half of the Lot No Eleven in the fifth Range in Said Town it Being the Southerly Part of the School Lot so Call'd : He the Said Samuel Osborn his Heirs and Assigns To Have Hold and Improve Said Land with the Appurtinances aud Previledges thereunto Belonging : During the Term of Nine Hundred and Ninety nine Years He or they Paying Annually To Said Proprietors Treasurer and his Soc- cessors the Interest of Forty two Pounds Ten Shillings L. M. at the Rate of Six per cent : Said Interest to be Improved for the Benefit of the School in Said Town And in Case the Said Samuel Osborn his Heirs or assigns Should Neglect or Refuse to pay Said Interest within Forty Days after it becomes Due : Then Said Treasurer or his Successors shall have Power to re-Enter upon the Premises and sell at Publick Vandue as much of Said Land as will pay Said Interest and Charges : he or they giving publick Notice thereof fourteen Days Preceeding Such Sale : and the overplus if any such there Be Shall be return'd to the owner within Twelve Days after the Sale ; and if it Shall So hapen that the Said S. Osborn his Heirs or assigns Shall at any time or times hereafter Pay the Principle Sum herein Specified Then he or they Shall be acquited from paying Said Interest to the End of Said Term :
In Witness whereof we have hereunto Set our Hands and Seals This fourth Day of June in the year of our Lord one Thousand Seven Hun- dred and Seventy Eight : it being the Second year of Independance
Signed Sealed and Delivered
in Presance of Benjamin Willis Nathan Rugg
Sam'l Patrick () John Mellen O Levi Brigham O
The north half of this Lot, No. 11 in Range 5, was leased to Ichabod Smith, cooper, for the same rent. The ministerial Lot No. 12 in Range 5 was also leased to Ichabod Smith for the interest on sixty-five pounds ; and the other ministerial Lot No. 16 in Range 1 was leased to Samuel Kendall, gentle- man, for the interest on eighty-three pounds and eight shil- lings. The terms and conditions were the same in all the leases. The lease to Esquire Kendall was dated June 20th, 1778 ; the other three were dated June 4th. As the country returned to
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