This is a transcription of the regiments and colonels from A List of The Revolutionary Soldiers of Dublin, N.H. by Samuel Carroll Derby, Columbus, Ohio: Press of Spahr & Glen, 1901.
REGIMENTAL AND COMPANY COMMANDERS.
A List of Regimental and Company commanders under whom Dublin men served in the Revolutionary War has been compiled and short biographical sketches have been added. These notices are, almost necessarily, very fragmentary and presumably erroneous in some details, but they are as correct as the writer has been able to make them. Additional facts and corrections will be gladly received. Even these brief accounts will, it is hoped, be helpful to those who have occasion to make similar investigations in the early history of the same neighborhood (southwestern New Hampshire) and serve to prolong the memory of men who deserved well of their fellow citizens and their country. The difficulty with which the few, brief data which follow have been secured, clearly shows that these local leaders and heroes are almost forgotten by a generation which has entered into their labors.
COLONELS.
SAMUEL ASHLEY of Winchester, who had a house in Ft. Dummer (Hinsdale, N. H.), 1749, was prominent in the civil affairs of western New Hampshire and took part in the campaign against Burgoyne. Later he was appointed a judge, 1776-1791, and removed, 1782, to Claremont where he died. In 1775 he commanded the militia of the 13th district.
NAHUM BALDWIN of Amherst, was paymaster in 1776; he commanded a regiment raised to reinforce Washington’s army in the fighting about New York during the autumn of 1776 (Sept.-Dec.). He was treasurer of Hillsboro county, 1776; a justice, and trustee of the confiscated estate of Zaccheus Cutler, an absentee (Tory). He was evidently a man of wealth and standing.
TIMOTHY BEDAL of Bath (b. Salem, N. H., 1740; d. Haverhill, N . H ., 1787); was a prominent figure in the history of western New Hampshire. He held a variety of positions; was justice of the peace and later (1783) a judge. He raised a company of rangers which was mustered in, July 29, 1775, and marched in Sept. of that year to join Gen. Schuyler in an expedition against St. Johns (Canada). In January, 1776, he was ordered to raise a regiment of 8 companies to join the “Northern Continental Army.” He also served as commander of a regiment in the northern army from Nov. 15, 1777 to June 1, 1779, and was an efficient officer; though cashiered in July, 1776, for alleged misconduct at the Cedars (Canada), (Am. Archives, I, pp. 158-70, 23I, 801), he was afterwards reinstated in command.
JONATHAN BREWER of Waltham (Mass.), b. 1726, at Framingham. He had seen much service in the French and Indian wars. Two of his brothers were colonels in the Massachusetts line. Col. Brewer as a regimental commander was succeeded by Col. Asa Whitcomb. Col. Brewer was stationed at Prospect Hill (Somerville), Oct. 6, 1775, and had been present at the battle of Bunker Hill (?) His later history is unknown, except that he was in service in 1776, and, June 4, 1776, petitioned for promotion.
JOSEPH CILLEY of Nottingham, b. 1735; d. 1799. He served, 1758, under Maj. John Rogers and was made sergeant; later he held a Captain’s commission from the royal government. In the Revolution he distinguished himself at Bemis’ Heights, Stony Point and Monmouth, and made a brilliant record as a soldier. In 1786 he became the first Major General of the N. H. militia (see N. H. S. P. XXI, 1790-94).
EPHRAIM DOOLITTLE, commanded a regiment which was in camp at Prospect Hill, Oct. 6, 1775, and in Sullivan’s brigade. He was Colonel of the 24th Mass. regiment for 3 months and 15 days, beginning, April 24, 1775, and was stationed, also, at Winter Hill. Of his later history nothing is known.
ENOCH HALE of Rindge, b. 1733 at Rowley, Mass.; was long a resident of Rindge, removed to Walpole and died at Grafton, Vt., 1813. He was a veteran of the French and Indian wars, having served in Capt. Bagley’s company of Col. Nathaniel Meserve’s regiment, 1757 and 1758. Col. Hale was in command of the 14th military district of N. H., and took part in the R. I. campaign. He was the first magistrate in Rindge and much employed in public affairs by the citizens of that town.
NATHAN HALE of Rindge, b. 1743; d. Sept. 23, 1780, a prisoner of war at New York; he was captured near Hubbardton, Vt., July 7, 1777. He was a soldier of experience and had served in the French and Indian Wars in 1745 and 1755. April 2, 1777, he was made colonel of the 2d N. H. regiment, succeeding Enoch Poor. Col. Poor’s regiment was at Medford, Oct. 1775; at Chimney Point (opposite Crown Point), July 8, 1776.
THOMAS HEALD of New Ipswich, b. Concord, Mass., 1733; d. at New Ipswich, 1806. He commanded a company of “men who marched from New Ipswich before daylight on the morning of April 20, 1775,” and served 13 days. He commanded a regiment of seven companies to reinforce Ticonderoga, Oct. 22-Nov. 16, 1776, and again, Jan. 29-July 12, 1777, for a similar purpose. In 1789 he was one of the petitioners for the Academy at New Ipswich.
Col. HERCULES MOONEY of Durham, b., Ireland, about 1715; d. April, 1800, at Ashland, N. H.; had been a captain in the expedition against Crown Point, 1757, and was a member of the Committee of Safety, 1778-79. He was Lt. Col. in Col. Pierse Long’s regiment from Sept. 1776, to July, 1777, and Col. in Rhode Island for six months, 1779-80, engaged in defending that state.
MOSES NICHOLS of Amherst, b. in Reading, Mass., June 28, 1740; d. May 23, 1790. Moses Nichols was a physician, and a prominent citizen of Amherst. He led a regiment in the Bennington campaign and again, in 1778, in the Rhode Island campaign. Col. Nichols was the commanding officer of the 8th military district, and was often moderator in Amherst town meetings and five times a delegate to the Provincial Congress at Exeter.
ENOCH POOR of Exeter, b. Andover, Mass., 1737; d. Sept. 8, 1780, some reports say, killed in a duel by a French officer; Jos. Bass says, N. H. S. P., XVII, “he died of a putrid nervous Fever.” He had been appointed Colonel, May 23, 1775, of the 2d regiment, and was made Brig. Gen., Feb. 21, 1777. He took part in the Canada expedition, in the campaign against Burgoyne in 1777, was at Valley Forge, and was active in the campaign against the Six Nations in 1779. The following year he commanded a brigade of light infantry under Lafayette, and showed himself an excellent officer, whose loss was deeply felt in the American army. It is noteworthy that Gen. Poor had seen no service previous to May 23, 1775, when he was commissioned colonel. At Saratoga his brigade included the three N. H. regiments, with others. He settled in Exeter about 1765 and was a shipbuilder.
JAMES REED of Fitzwilliam, b. Woburn, Mass., 1724; d. 1807, at Fitchburg, Mass.; removed from Lunenburg to Fitzwilliam, where he was the second settler and most prominent citizen. He was a brave and efficient officer. At Bunker Hill he led one of the N. H. regiments (3d) and remained its commander until in consequence of a severe illness contracted in the service during the late summer of 1776, he became blind and was retired. Congress made him a Brig. Gen., Aug. 9, 1776. He was succeeded by Col. Alexander Scammel. For a time he resided in Keene and presented, in his blindness, a pathetic figure which appealed strongly to public sympathy.
GEORGE REID of Londonderry, b. 1733; d. 1815. He held a captaincy under Col. Stark and was present at Bunker Hill. Jan. 1, 1776, he was captain in the 2d(?) N. H. regiment, became its Lt. Col. in 1777, and in 1778, its colonel. He was present in many battles; among these were Long Island, White Plains, Trenton, Brandywine, Germantown, Stillwater, and Saratoga. He took an active part in the campaign against the Six Nations and spent the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge. Col. Reid was a justice of the peace in Londonderry, and was appointed Brig. Gen. of militia, 1786. At the end of the Revolutionary War the small remnant of the N. H. troops was stationed in northeastern New York and, under the command of Col. Reid, defended the valley of the Mohawk from the raids of Indians and Tories.
PAUL DUDLEY SARGENT of Amherst, b. Salem, Mass., 1745; d. at Sullivan, Me., Sept. 28, 1827. His father was Col. Epes Sargent, a well-known citizen of Gloucester, Mass. He was sent as a delegate from Amherst to the first four sessions of the Provincial Congress at Exeter, N. H. Oct. 6, 1775, Col. Sargent was in command of a regiment near Boston, which had at least two N. H. companies (William Scott’s and Jere Stiles’s) and many N. H. men scattered through other companies. Col. Sargent was wounded at Bunker Hill, and he may have commanded there the extra companies of Col. Stark?s regiment. Col. Sargent had endeavored to raise a regiment, but had not raised a full quota of companies before the 17th of June, 1775. There is some obscurity about his position in the N. H. service, possibly he was Col. of a Mass. regiment, or of troops from both N. H. and Mass. Stark and Reed were better known than Sargent in N. H., and men enlisted more readily under them. It is probable that his commission was issued by Mass. He commanded a brigade in the campaign about New York, 1776, and took part in the battles of Harlem, White Plains, Trenton and Princeton. After the Revolution he was judge of probate, and of common pleas, in Hancock county, Me.
ISAAC WYMAN of Keene, b. —; d. —. Col. Wyman was a conspicuous figure in the early history of Keene. He had fought in the French War (Crown Point expeditions of 1757 and 1758) and, at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, was advanced in years and therefore appears in military affairs, chiefly at the opening of the struggle. Col. Wyman led a company to Cambridge, April, 1775; was Lt. Col. in Col. John Stark’s regiment and led 200 men to reinforce Col. Prescott at Bunker Hill on the morning of that battle, being followed in the afternoon by the remainder of Stark’s regiment and the whole of Reed’s. He commanded a regiment which was mustered, July 16, 1776, and ordered to reinforce the army in Canada, and served till Dec. 1 of that year. After that time Col. Wyman was engaged in civil life. He was one of the justices of the peace in Keene, and a person of note in that neighborhood.