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Pawlet, Vermont in the Revolutionary War
Originally Part of New Hampshire Colony
Our citizens sympathized with the other
towns on the Grants in the controversy with New York; but we have no
distinct account of any organization of a military force until 177, when a
military station was in existence which was for a time a frontier
post. When Burgoyne came up from Canada sweeping all before him,
most of the settlers north of us fled to the south and some of our
citizens joined in the stampede. Most of them, however, soon
returned and the presence of such gallant officers as Col. Warner and
Col.
Herrick soon reassured them.
During this year (1777) Col. Herrick's
famous regiment of Rangers, the prototype of the whole family of rangers
which have figured so largely in our national history, were organized
here. They were the terror of all the country round. They
"hung like a gathering cloud on his flank," as Burgoyne said in
one of his despatches [sic] They obstructed his advance by felling
trees in Wood creek, and rolling large stones in his path so that he was
compelled to cross Fort Ann mountain with his heavy train of artillery on
a road then and now almost impassable. They harrassed [sic] his
rear, and though, of course, unable to cope with him in battle, they cut
off his supplies and in a thousand ways obstructed his march. We
find it recorded in history that in "September, 1777, five hundred
men under Col. Brown were sent from Pawlet to attack Ticonderoga, Mount
Defiance and Mount Hope. The work was accomplished by surprise,
Sept. 18, not losing a single man." Whether these troops were
the same that constituted Col. Herrick's regiment of Rangers does not
clearly appear. Capt. Parmalee Allen, son of Timothy
Allen,
commanded one company of the Rangers, Capt. Ebenezer Allen, the first
settler in Poultney, commanded another.
The troops stationed in this town seem to
have been under the control of the Continental Congress, but were paid by
the Vermont Council of Safety, the then government of the state.
During the latter years of the war, and at its
close there was a large influx of settlers in this town, many of them
fresh from the battlefield. Over seventy revolutionary soldiers came to this town, the
most of them remaining till their death.
Their longevity shows them to have been men
of the highest physical and moral stamina, and the current notion that war
demoralizes its votaries is hardley verified in their case.
They, as a class were distinguished for industry, thrift and
enterprise, and though the fires of the revolution had consumed their
substance and "tried their souls" nearly all of them succeeded
in establishing a home and acquiring a competence.
Annexed is a list of revolutionary soldiers
who settled in this town, with the rank, and the age and year of decease
of each one so far as we have been able to ascertain.
A few of them drew pensions under the act of congress, 1818, and of
those who survived until 1832 nearly all drew pensions.
A few widows of those deceased also drew pensions, but not
generally.
Source: Pawlet One Hundred Years by
Hiel Hollister 1867, J. Munsell, Albany, NY.
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