An equally cruel fate befell a trader named Tilly, who was taken alive by the Indians and tortured. Tilly came from Massachusetts Bay and was going up the river to Hartford. When he landed at Saybrook, as all travelers were obliged to do, he saw a paper nailed up over the fort gate with orders that no boat going up the river should stop anywhere between Saybrook and Wethersfield. These orders were put up by Lieutenant Gardiner because a boat with three men well armed in it had lately been captured by the river Indians. Tilly, however, refused to obey, and quarreled with Gardiner. "I wish you, and also charge you," said Gardiner to him in reply, "to observe that which you have read at the gate; 'tis my duty to God and my masters which is the ground of this, had you but eyes to see it; but you will not till you feel it." Tilly went up the river safely, obeying orders; but coming down, when he was about three miles above Saybrook, he went ashore with only one man and carelessly fired off his gun. The Indians, hearing it, came up, captured him, and carried him away. Gardiner called the spot where this happened "Tilly's Folly."

It was a winter of great responsibility and danger for Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, and all his courage and good sense were needed to carry him safely through it. Once he was himself wounded by Indian arrows and nearly lost his life. On the 22d of February, he "went out with ten men and three dogs, half a mile from the house, to burn the weeds, leaves, and reeds upon the neck of land" behind the fort, when, suddenly, four Indians "started up out of the fiery reeds," and the sentinels he had set to watch called to him that a great many more were coming from "the other side of the marsh." The Indians attacked his party, killed three or four men, and tried to get between the rest and the fort and cut off their return. "They kept us in a half-moon," says Gardiner, "we retreating and exchanging many a shot... defending ourselves with our naked swords, or else they had taken us all alive.... I was shot with many arrows, but my buff coat preserved me, only one hurt me." The English soldiers of those days wore back and breast pieces of steel over their buff coats. A few days later, the Indians, believing Gardiner dead, came again and surrounded the fort, and, as the old record says, "made many proud challenges and dared the English out to fight," but Gardiner ordered the "two great guns" set off once more, and the Indians disappeared.

Finding the fort at Saybrook so well defended, the Pequots fell upon the settlement at Wethersfield, killed a number of men working in the fields, and carried off two young girls. Flushed with this success, they paddled down the river in their canoes and when they passed the Saybrook fort they set up poles, like masts, in the canoes and, by way of bravado, hung upon them the clothes of the Englishmen whom they had murdered. The men in the fort fired on the canoes, but the distance was too great. One shot just grazed the bow of the boat in which were the two young English girls. The Indians passed safely and carried their captives with them to the Pequot country.

The Connecticut men now determined to put a stop to the depredations of the Pequots. It was a serious undertaking, for there were only about two hundred and fifty Englishmen in all Connecticut at this time, and there were several hundred Pequot warriors. Help was asked from the colonies in Massachusetts, and, meanwhile, about ninety men were collected from the three settlements of Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor and sent down to Saybrook under the command of Captain John Mason. A number of friendly Indians also went with them, and chief among these was Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans.

While this expedition was at Saybrook, taking counsel with Lieutenant Lion Gardiner and making ready, a Dutch boat put in at the fort on its way to trade in the Pequot country. The officers at the fort were unwilling to let the boat proceed, for there were articles on board for trade with the Indians that might be useful to the latter in war time, such as kettles, out of which the Indians could make arrowheads. The Dutch, however, promised that if they were allowed to go on they would do all in their power to obtain the release of the two captive English girls. So they were given permission and they sailed for the Pequot River. There the master of the boat went ashore and offered to trade with the Indians.

"What do you want in return for your goods?" asked the Pequot sachem.

"The two English maids," answered the Dutchman.

But the sachem would not consent. After a time, however, the Dutch captain succeeded in enticing several of the principal Indians on board his boat, and, having secured them there as hostages, he called to the others on shore that if they wanted their men returned they must bring the two young girls. "If not," said he, "we set sail and will turn all your Indians overboard in the main ocean so soon as ever we come out." The Pequots refused to believe him until the boat was actually under way and sailing down the river; then at last they yielded, gave up the two English girls, and received the seven Indians in return.

These two poor little girls reached Saybrook in a sad condition, worn out and frightened. The Dutch sailors had kindly given them their own linen jackets because the girls had lost most of their clothes, and Lieutenant Gardiner paid ten pounds out of his own purse for their redemption. The Indians seem, on the whole, to have treated them well. They were saved from death at first by the pity and intercession of Wincumbone, the same chieftain's wife who once before had saved Thomas Hurlburt. She took care of them, the girls said, and they told how "the Indians carried them from place to place and showed them their forts and curious wigwams and houses, and encouraged them to be merry." But they could not be very merry, and the elder, who was sixteen, said that she slipped "behind the rocks and under the trees" as often as she could to pray God to send them help. The Dutch governor was so much interested in their story that he sent for the girls to come to New Amsterdam (later New York), that he might see them and hear them tell of their adventures. At last, after all these journeyings, they were sent back safely to their homes in Wethersfield.

Soon after this, Captain Mason and his company set out from Saybrook on their expedition against the Pequots. After burning the Indian fort at Mystic, in which many women and children lost their lives, and killing several hundred Pequot warriors, they returned victorious. They reached the bank of the Connecticut opposite Saybrook at sunset, too late to cross the river that night, but they were welcomed by a salute from the guns of the fort; "being nobly entertained by Lieutenant Gardiner with many great guns," as Captain Mason expressed it. The destruction of the Pequots relieved Saybrook Fort from danger and secured the safety of the colonists in Connecticut; there was never again any serious trouble with the Indians. But the story is a cruel one, and we can only forgive it when we remember that the settlers felt that their own lives, and the lives of their wives and little children, were in constant danger from the attacks of the savages.

When the four years of his contract were ended, in the summer of 1639, Lieutenant Lion Gardiner left Saybrook Fort, which he had defended so bravely, and went to live on an island he had bought from the Indians. This island, still known as "Gardiner's Island," is at the end of Long Island and must have been very remote in those days, and far from any white neighbors. But Gardiner was on the best of terms with the Long Island Indians, and between him and their sachem, Waiandance, there was a true and generous friendship, founded on mutual respect and trust, which lasted throughout their lives. When Waiandance died, in 1658, Gardiner wrote, "My friend and brother is gone, who will now do the like?" It is a noble record of friendship between a white man and an Indian.

About the time that Lieutenant Gardiner left the fort, George Fenwick, who had come to Saybrook once before, in 1636, came again and brought his wife, Lady Fenwick. She was Alice Apsley, the widow of Sir John Boteler, and was called "Lady" by courtesy. They lived in Saybrook for a number of years. An old letter of that time says that "Master Fenwick and the Lady Boteler [his wife] and Master Higginson, their chaplain, were living in a fair house, and well fortified." In 1644, Fenwick, as agent, sold Saybrook to the Connecticut Colony. The next year Lady Fenwick died and was buried within the fort. Her tomb can be seen to-day in the old cemetery on Saybrook Point, to which it was removed in l870.

Although when the Pequot War was over Saybrook was no longer exposed to constant attacks from the Indians, yet, for a woman brought up as Lady Fenwick had been, in ease and comfort, life there must have been full of hardship. But she made no complaint. All that we know of her is good and charming. She loved flowers and fruits and had her gardens and her pet rabbits. She brought with her some red Devon cattle which she gave to Mr. Whitfield in Guilford. She has left behind her a memory of gentleness and kindness that still cling to the story of the rough, little pioneer fort, set in the midst of the salt marshes and surrounded by savage neighbors:—

"And ever this wave-washed shore Shall be linked with her tomb and fame, And blend with the wind and the billowy roar The music of her name."

One more fact deserves to be remembered in connection with Saybrook. Yale College was organized there in 1701 as the "Collegiate School" of the Connecticut Colony, and was not removed to New Haven until sixteen years later. Its site in Saybrook is marked now by a granite boulder with a tablet and inscription. About half a mile west of this monument are two old millstones which are said to have been in use in the gristmill belonging to the first little fort at Saybrook, the "Fort on the River," which was built and defended by the "Brave Lieutenant Lion Gardiner."



REFERENCES

1. Winthrop, John., History of New England. Edited by James Savage. Boston, 1825.

2. Gardiner, Curtiss C. "Papers and Biography of Lion Gardiner," in Lion Gardiner and his Descendants. A. Whipple. St. Louis, 1890.

3. Orr, Charles. History of the Pequot War. (Accounts of Mason, Underhill, Vincent and Gardiner.) The Helman-Taylor Co. Cleveland, 1897.

4. Newton, Arthur Percival. The Colonizing Activities of the English Puritans. Yale University Press. New Haven, 1914.

5. Saybrook Quadrimillenial, November 27, 1885. Hartford, 1886.



THE FROGS OF WINDHAM

Once, in the days of Indian attacks on the small English settlements in Connecticut, a family of children had a narrow escape from capture by the savages. A party of Indians on the warpath passed near their home while their father and elder brothers were away working in the fields with the neighbors. It was the custom in those dangerous times for men to work together in companies, going from one man's fields and meadows to another's, and for greater safety they carried their firearms with them. They stacked the guns on the edge of the field with a sentinel to watch them and keep a lookout for possible Indians. Sometimes it was a boy who did this sentry duty, standing on a stump like a sentry in a box.

There was no one left at home that day but a girl fourteen years old and her four younger brothers. The mother had died not long before and the little sister was caring for the family. All unconscious that any Indians were near, she went down to the spring for water. As she lifted the full pail she caught sight of a dark, painted face peering at her from a thicket on the edge of the clearing. She dropped the pail at once and ran as fast as she could to the house, calling to the boys to run in too and help her close the heavy door. Doors were protected then by a thick wooden bar across them on the inside. The children hurried in and, working together, they got the bar in position before the Indians reached the house. But the two halves of the door yielded a little, just enough to let the edge of a tomahawk through, which hacked away at the wooden bar while the children stood watching, paralyzed with fear. Fortunately their own cries as they ran toward the house had reached the men in the fields, who dropped their scythes, seized their guns, and drove off the Indians. But the bar was half cut through before help reached the terrified children.

Stories like this one, and others with less happy endings, are common, not only in the written history of Connecticut, but in the unwritten traditions of Connecticut families. Whenever there was trouble with the Indians the settlers were exposed to these dangers. In the long wars between France and England for the possession of America, the Indians were often allies of the French, and then the English settlements suffered greatly from their attacks.

In 1754, not long before the beginning of the last "French-and- Indian War" (1756-63), there were several reasons why the people of Windham, in the northeastern part of Connecticut, were especially afraid of a surprise and attack by the Indians. Their town was on the border of the colony and less protected than some other places, and they also feared that they had lately given offense to the Indians by planning a new town on what was known as the "Wyoming territory" (in the present State of Pennsylvania). These lands were still held by the Indians, but Connecticut claimed them under her patent, and although the Windham people intended to pay the Indians fairly for them they were not sure that the Indians would not resent being forced to sell and be hostile to them in consequence.

News soon reached them that war had begun in the: Ohio country beyond the Susquehannah, and that an expedition against the French had gone there from Virginia under the command of a young officer named George Washington. They heard this name then for the first time and with indifference, of course, not knowing that it belonged to a man who would become very famous later, and be honored as no other man in America has ever been honored; but they understood at once that war-time was no time in which to plant a new town. The company which had been formed for the purchase of the Susquehannah lands, and which included such well- known men as Colonel Eliphalet Dyer and Jedediah Elderkin, therefore put off the undertaking until peace should come again.



Meanwhile, people in Windham grew anxious about their own safety. If the Indians were in truth offended, would not the French now encourage them to take their revenge? That dread of the cruel savages, which was continually in the minds of all Connecticut settlers in those early days, increased in "Windham as rumors reached there, from time to time, of uprisings among the Indians. On the spring and summer evenings of that year breathless tales were told about Indian attacks: old tales which, like the one at the beginning of this story, had been handed down from earlier days in Connecticut, and new tales of fresh atrocities on the borders of the northern settlements in Maine and New Hampshire. The children listened as long as they were allowed and then went to bed trembling, seeing fierce painted faces and threatening feather headdresses in every dark shadow. Older people asked each other what would happen when the men were called out to serve in the army and the women and children were left helpless at home.

"While the town was in this tense state of anxiety, those of its inhabitants who lived near Windham Green were awakened out of their sleep, one warm June night, by strange and unaccountable noises." There began to be a rumble, rumble, rumble in the air, and it grew louder and louder and seemed to be like drums beating. A negro servant, coming home late, heard it first. The night was still and black, and clouds hung low over the hot hillsides. He thought it might be thunder, but there was no lightning and no storm coming. He stopped and listened, and the sounds grew stranger and wilder. Perhaps it was witches, or devils; perhaps the Judgement Day was at hand! Terror seized him and he ran home breathless and awoke his master.

By this time others, too, were awake; windows flew open and heads were pushed out, and everybody asked, "What is it? What is it?" Some hurried out half-dressed, and frightened women and crying children gathered on the Green; they could not see one anothers' white faces in the darkness. The beating of drums drew nearer and nearer. "It is the French and Indians coming," cried the men; but no one could tell from which direction the enemy was advancing; the dreadful noise seemed to come from all sides at once, even from overhead in the sky.

By and by they thought they could distinguish words in the uproar. Deep bass voices thundered, "We'll have Colonel Dyer; we'll have Colonel Dyer," and shrill high ones answered, "Elderkin, too; Elderkin, too." As these were the names of the two lawyers in Windham who had been most prominently connected with the Wyoming plan,—the "Susquehannah Purchase" as it was called,—every one was sure that a band of Indians bent on revenge was approaching, and hearts beat fast in fear.

All night long the noises lasted, sometimes coming nearer, sometimes dying away in the distance, and all night long the people of Windham waited in dread and awful expectation. At last, toward daybreak, the dark clouds slowly lifted and with the first light in the east the sounds ceased. In the gray, early morning men looked at each other and then crept silently back, each to his own home. When the sun rose, clear and bright, and no French and no Indians had appeared, Windham regained its courage, and before the morning was over an explanation had been found of the strange noises of the night.

The frogs in the millpond had had a great battle, or some terrible catastrophe had overtaken them. Dead and dying frogs lay on the ground all about the pond, and their gurgles and croaks and clamor had made all the trouble and excitement. The story was soon told all over Connecticut, and everybody laughed, and ballads and songs were written about it, to the great mortification of the people of Windham. Yet the danger that explained the terror of that night was a real one in the history of many a Connecticut town, and therefore the Frogs of Windham have their legitimate place in Connecticut's story.

REFERENCES

1. Larned, Ellen. History of Windham County. Worcester, 1874.

2. Barber, J. W. Connecticut Historical Collections. J. W. Barber. New Haven, 1836.

3. Todd, Charles Burr. In Olde Connecticut. The Grafton Press. New York, 1906.

4. Sylvester, Herbert Milton. Indian Wars of New England. W. B. Clarke Co. Boston, 1910.



OLD WOLF PUTNAM

One day, long ago, some boys were out bird-nesting. They saw a nest they wanted high up in a tree and far out on a limb, in a hard position to reach, One of the boldest of them climbed the tree to try to get it, but a branch broke with him and he fell. A lower projecting limb caught his clothes, and he hung there head down, arms and legs dangling helplessly. He could not climb back and he could not drop down, because he could not get free.

The other boys below looked up, terrified, for the limb was high above ground; they could not reach him, and they did not know what to do. One of them carried a gun, and Israel,—that was the name of the boy who had climbed the tree,—catching sight of the gun as he swung in the air, cried out, "Shoot! Shoot the branch off near the trunk!"

The boy with the gun was afraid and hesitated. Israel's position grew more and more uncomfortable and dangerous.

"Shoot, I tell you!" he cried again. "Shoot! I'll take the risk."

The boy lifted the gun with shaking hands, took aim, and fired. The branch cracked off and down came Israel with it, head first; but as he fell he managed to grasp another bough with his hands, hold by it, and swing safely to the ground. The next day he went back alone, climbed that tree again, and brought home the nest.

This is a story told of Israel Putnam, afterward major-general in the American army in the Revolutionary War, and it shows the qualities of courage and perseverance, invention and quick decision, which made him useful to his country when he grew to be a man.

He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, January 7, 1718, and most of his boyhood was spent there. It is said that the first time he went to Boston as a little awkward country lad, some city boys made fun of him. Israel stood this as long as he could, then he suddenly challenged a bigger boy than himself, fought him, and beat him, to the great amusement of a crowd of spectators. After that the boys let him alone. He was strong and vigorous and loved all kinds of outdoor sports. Before he was grown he could do a man's full day's work in the fields and was very proud of it. When he was twenty-two years old he moved with his wife and baby son to Pomfret, Connecticut, bought a farm there, and cast in his lot with the people of this state, so that he is a son of Connecticut by adoption.

He worked hard in his new home, and in a few years he was in a fair way to be rich and prosperous. It was at this time that the incident happened that gave him his nickname of "Wolf Putnam."

Just across the narrow valley from his farm there was a steep hillside, and among its rocks a wolf had her den. She was old and wary, and did a lot of damage in the neighborhood by killing sheep and lambs. Traps were set to catch her and the farmers often tried to shoot her, but she always got away safely.

In the winter of 1743, she destroyed many of Israel Putnam's fine flock and he was greatly exasperated and made a plan with five other men to hunt her regularly, by twos in turn, until she was found and killed. She had once been nearly caught in a trap, and had only got out by leaving the claws of one foot behind her, so that her trail was easy to distinguish on the snow, one foot being shorter than the other, and making a different mark. One night they followed her all night long, and in the morning traced her back to her den in the hillside and made sure of its exact location. Then all day long they worked hard, trying to get her out. They burned straw and brimstone in the entrance of the cave, hoping to smoke her out; they sent in the dogs, but these came back wounded and bleeding and refused to go again. Putnam's own fine bloodhound refused to go in, and then he decided to try it himself and shoot the wolf inside the cave, since there was no way of making her come out. He took off his coat, tied a rope around his waist, and with a torch and a gun, crawled in on his hands and knees as well as he could. Far back in the deep darkness the blazing eyes of the wolf showed him her lair. She growled and made ready to spring at him, but he fired and fortunately killed her with the first shot, and the men outside dragged him and the wolf out together. Israel Putnam was a young man then and almost a stranger in the place, but his courage and resourcefulness that day made him known to the people and gave him a reputation among them.

In some ways he had been at a disadvantage in Pomfret, for the people there, even in those early times, cared much about education. Soon after the place was settled, a library association was formed to provide reading matter for the families living near. Ten young men from Pomfret graduated at Yale College in the class of 1759. Now, Israel Putnam's early education had been neglected. He did not love study, he loved outdoor life, and there was no schoolhouse near his home in Salem. He never learned to spell correctly. Some of his letters, which have been preserved, are almost impossible to read now, the spelling is so very curious. Later in his life, when he became a general in the army and was brought in contact with Washington and other educated and trained men, he was mortified and much ashamed of his own lack in this respect. He tried then to dictate his letters as often as possible so that people should not laugh at his ignorance. It made him careful to give his children a better education than his own.

In 1755, when he was thirty-seven years old, Israel Putnam entered the Provincial army for service in the French-and-Indian War, and rose to the rank of colonel before the war was over in 1764. He went with the Connecticut troops on several expeditions against the French forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain and Lake George. He had plenty of exciting adventures in this war, and long afterward, in his old age, he liked to tell them over to his friends and neighbors at home. Some of the stories have come down to us.

Once word came to the English camp at Fort Edward that a wagon train bringing supplies had been plundered by a party of French and Indians, and Major Robert Rogers, with his New England Rangers and a detachment of Provincial troops,—some of whom were under Putnam's command,—was sent out to intercept the enemy on their retreat. These rangers, or scouts, had been drilled by their famous leader until they almost equaled the Indians in their own mode of fighting, and they were of great use in the war. This time they were too late and the plunderers escaped, but as other parties were said to be hovering near, Rogers spent some days searching for them. He saw no signs of them and at last turned back toward the fort.

One morning, contrary to his usual practice, he allowed some of his men to fire at a mark for a wager. This was a dangerous thing to do because they could never be sure that there were no enemies lurking near. It happened this time that a large body of French and Indians were not far off, and, hearing the firing, they came up quickly and silently through the thick forest and hid themselves in ambush, Indian fashion, near a clearing in the woods where the tall trees had been cut down and a thicket of small underbrush had grown up. The English were obliged to pass this clearing on their way home and the only path across it was a narrow one used by the Indians, who always went through the woods in single file, one behind another, each stepping in the footprints of the man ahead of him.

The English were in three companies, the first commanded by Putnam, the last by Rogers himself. Putnam and his men had got safely across the clearing and were just entering the forest again, when suddenly, the enemy sprang out of their ambush and rushed upon them. Putnam rallied his men and made the best stand he could and the other companies hurried to his assistance. But in the sharp skirmish that followed, as Putnam aimed his gun at a large, powerful Indian chief, it missed fire. The Indian sprang upon him, dragged him back into the forest, and tied him securely to a tree. As the fight went on, bullets from both parties began to fly past him and to hit the tree, so that for a time he was in as great danger from his friends as from his enemies. When, at last, the French and Indians were repulsed, the latter marched Putnam away with them as their prisoner back to their camp. His arms were tied tightly behind him, his shoes were taken away so that his feet were bruised and bleeding, and he was loaded with so many packs that he could scarcely move. When he could stand it no longer he begged the savages to kill him at once. The Indian who had captured him came up just then and gave him a pair of moccasins, and made the others loosen his arms and lighten his load. But when they reached the camping-place a worse ordeal was before him. His clothes were taken off, he was tied again to a tree, dry brushwood was piled in a circle around the tree, fire was set to this, and, as the flames rose up and the heat grew greater, he felt sure that his last hour had come. However, word had reached one of the French officers that the Indians were torturing their prisoner, and he rushed in, scattered the burning brush, and unbound the prisoner.

The Indians who had captured Israel Putnam may not have intended to kill him, but it was their custom to torture prisoners taken in war, and both the French and the English officers often had great difficulty in controlling their savage allies.

Putnam was carried to Canada and treated kindly by the French, and a few months later he was exchanged and sent home with some other prisoners.

Once before he had had a narrow escape from the Indians and only his quick decision and courage saved him. He was on a river-bank when they crept up belind him. Calling to the five men with him, he rushed for the boat and pushed off downstream toward some dangerous rapids. The Indians fired and missed him, and the boat shot down the rapids. It came out safe below them,—the first boat that had ever done so,—and the Indians thought it must be under the protection of their own Great Spirit.

Two years after his unwilling visit to Canada as a prisoner, Israel Putnam went there again, this time with the army under the command of General Amherst. The French-and-Indian War was ending in victory for the English; Quebec had fallen, but a few other posts still held out, and this expedition was against Montreal. On the way there a French ship on Lake Ontario opposed the progress of the English, and a story is told of Putnam's original way of overcoming this difficulty.

"Give me some wedges, a beetle [that is, a large wooden hammer], and a few men of my own choice, and I'll take her," he said to General Amherst. He meant to row under the stern of the ship and wedge her rudder so that she would be helpless. Whether the plan was carried out, we do not know, but in the morning she had blown ashore and surrendered. Montreal, too, surrendered to the English, and in an Indian mission near there Putnam discovered the Indian who had taken him prisoner two years before. The chief was delighted to see him and entertained him in his own stone house.

When he returned to Connecticut at the end of the war, he found himself a hero and a favorite with everybody. So many people came to see him that at last he turned his house into an inn, and hung out a sign on a tree in front of it. That sign is now in the rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society at Hartford.

The next ten years, until the Revolution, he spent in peace on his farm. Just before that war began he drove a flock of sheep all the way to Boston for the people there who were in distress.

"The old hero, Putnam," says a letter written from Boston in August, 1774, "arrived in town on Monday bringing with him 130 sheep from the little parish of Brooklyn. He cannot get away, he is so much caressed both by officers and citizens."

The next spring he was ploughing in the field when a messenger rode by bringing the news of the battle of Lexington. Putnam left the plough in the furrow in the care of his young son Daniel, and without stopping to change his working clothes, set off at once on horseback for Boston, making a record ride for a heavy man fifty-seven years old.

His popularity in Connecticut made men ready to enlist under him. The battle of Bunker Hill was fought at Boston in June, and he took part in it. "The brave old man," says Washington Irving, "rode about in the heat of the action, with a hanger belted across his brawny shoulders over a waistcoat without sleeves, inspiriting his men by his presence, and fighting gallantly at the outposts to cover their retreat."

When Washington arrived at Cambridge to take command of the American army, Israel Putnam received from him his appointment by the Continental Congress as major-general. He held this rank through the rest of his life and fought in many campaigns of the Revolution. He was with the army in New York, and at the battle of Long Island; he was sent by Washington to Philadelphia to protect that city when it was threatened by the British, and later, he was put in charge of the defenses of the Hudson River.

One of his last exploits in the Revolutionary War was his famous ride down the stone steps at Horseneck, near Greenwich. The British, under General Tryon, invaded Connecticut in 1779, and threatened Greenwich, and General Putnam, who was in command there, after placing his men in the best position for defense, hurried off alone, on horseback, for Stamford, to bring up reinforcements. Some British dragoons, catching sight of him down the road, started in pursuit. They were better mounted than he and gained on him steadily. Putnam, looking back, saw the distance between them grow less and less. In a moment more they would overtake him; what should he do? He was on the top of the hill near the Episcopal Church, there was a curve in the road ahead, and a precipice at the side, with some rough stone steps up which people sometimes climbed on foot on Sundays, to the church, from the lower road at the bottom of the hill.

Putnam struck spurs into his horse and dashed around the curve at full speed. The instant he was out of sight he wheeled and put his horse over the precipice down the steep rocks. The dragoons came galloping around the corner and, not seeing him, stopped short in astonishment. Before they discovered him again, he was halfway down to the lower road. They sent a bullet after him which went through his beaver hat and he turned, waved his hand in a gay good-bye, and rode on to Stamford. It is said that General Tryon afterward sent him a suit of clothes to make up for the loss of his hat.

That same year he had a stroke of paralysis which disabled him so that he could never again take part in the war. He lived at home in retirement until his death on May 19, 1790. Perhaps no brave deed in his life was quite as brave as the cheerful and resolute way he met this hard blow near its end. He did not die as he would have liked, in the roar and thunder of battle; he was laid aside and the war went on without him. But after the first bitter disappointment, he regained his courage and good spirits, and no one heard him complain. People gathered about him and his last days were honored in his own home. When the war ended in 1783, Washington wrote him a letter which he counted as one of his greatest treasures.

Any number of stories are told of "Old Put," as the soldiers called him, of his adventures, and his odd humor. It is said that once "a British officer challenged him to fight [a duel]; and Putnam, having the choice of weapons, chose that they should sit together over a keg of powder to which a slow match was applied. The officer sat till the match drew near the hole, when he ran for his life, Putnam calling after him that it was only a keg of onions with a few grains of powder sprinkled upon it."

We have several descriptions of his personal appearance. He "was of medium height, of a strong, athletic figure, and in the time of the Revolutionary War weighed about two hundred pounds. His hair was dark, his eyes light blue, and his broad, good-humored face was marked with deep scars received in his encounters with French and Indians,"

"Putnam, scored with ancient scars, The living record of his country's wars,"

as a poet of those days expressed it.



There were greater generals in the Revolution than Israel Putnam, men who, partly because they were better educated, were better fitted than he to plan and carry out large operations. But he excelled as a pioneer, as a bold leader, and a brave, independent fighter. As a well-known historian says, "He was brave and generous, rough and ready, thought not of himself in time of danger, but was ready to serve in any way the good of the cause. His name has long been a favorite one with young and old; one of the talismanic names of the Revolution, the very mention of which is like the sound of a trumpet."

REFERENCES

1. Humphreys, Colonel David. Essay on the Life of the Hon. Major-General Israel Putnam. Boston, 1818.

2. Livingston, William Garrand. Israel Putnam. Pioneer, Ranger, and Major-General. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York and London, 1901.

3. Tarbox, Increase N. Life of Israel Putnam ("Old Put"). Lockwood, Brooks & Co. Boston, 1876.

4. Fiske, John. "Israel Putnam," in Appleton's Encyclopaedia of American Biography. Boston, 1891.



THE BULLET-MAKERS OF LITCHFIELD

In the Museum of the New York Historical Society there is a large flat stone with an inscription cut into one side of it, and in the other, three deep holes for three legs of a horse. Lying on a table near it are several large pieces of heavy metal with the old gilding almost worn off. One piece looks like the tail of a horse and another like a part of his saddle. These fragments of metal and the stone slab are nearly all that is left of a statue of King George the Third on horseback that stood on Bowling Green, at the lower end of Broadway in New York City, before the Revolutionary War.

One evening early in the war a mob gathered on Bowling Green. Led by the Sons of Liberty and helped by some of the soldiers, the crowd tore down the king's statue and broke it into bits. Bonfires were blazing in the streets and by the light of these ropes were thrown over the king and his charger and both were pulled down and dragged through the streets. An entry in Washington's Orderly Book at this time, forbidding his soldiers to take part in anything like a riot, shows that he did not fully approve of this proceeding. But the people were very much excited. It was the night of the 9th of July, 1776, and news of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia had just reached New York that afternoon. At evening rollcall the Declaration was read at the head of each brigade of the army and "was received with loud huzzas."

Independence was declared in Philadelphia on the 4th of July, and that day has been kept ever since as the birthday of the United States, but news traveled so slowly before the telegraph was invented that it was not known in New York until Monday, the 9th. Then bells rang, and as night drew on people lighted bonfires to show their joy, and not content with this, they hurried away to Bowling Green and pulled down the statue of the king and cut off his head. They acted at once on the statement of the famous Declaration which they had just heard read to them, that "A prince whose character is marked by every act that may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

Once off his pedestal, however, the king suddenly became valuable and precious to them, for he, as well as his horse, was made mostly of lead and he could be melted down and run into bullets. Lead was dear and scarce, and bullets were needed in the army. The king's troops now "will probably have melted majesty fired at them," some one wrote in a letter to General Gates. So the pieces of the statue were carefully saved and most of it was sent away secretly by ox-cart, so it is said, up into the Connecticut hills to the home of General Wolcott in Litchfield, for safe keeping. The general was returning there himself about this time from Philadelphia, and perhaps he took charge of its transportation. We shall hear of it again in Litchfield, for this story, which begins in New York, ends in Connecticut.

The story should really begin in London, for the statue was made there. The colonists sent an order for it after the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. This act had excited great resentment in the colonies because it was an attempt to tax the people without their consent. When it was at last repealed, they were overjoyed, and New York determined to express its renewed loyalty to the king by erecting a statue of him. The laws of the colony state that it was set up "as a monument of the deep sense with which the inhabitants of this colony are impressed of the blessing they enjoy under his [King George's] illustrious reign, as well as their great affection for his royal person."

The statue was of lead, dark, heavy, and dull like the character of the king it represented, but it was richly gilded outside and looked, at first, like pure gold. Some of the pieces in the museum still show the gilding. It must have been a brilliant ornament in the little city when, on August 1, 1770, it was placed on Bowling Green, facing the Fort Gate. But it did not stand there very long in peace, for the stormy days of the Revolution were approaching. England continued to impose taxes and the colonies to resist them, until the discontent of the people broke out in many ways. More than one attempt was made to injure King George's statue before it was finally torn down on the night of July 9, 1776.



If we want to know what the British thought of this last insult to their king, we shall find out by reading the journal of Captain John Montresor, an officer in the British army.

"Hearing," he writes, "that the Rebels [that is, the Americans] had cut the king's head off the equestrian statue in the centre of the Ellipps [near the Fort] at New York, which represented George the 3rd in the figure of Marcus Aurelius, and that they had cut the nose off, clipt the laurels that were wreathed round his head and drove a musket bullet part of the way thro' his head and otherwise disfigured it, and that it was carried to Moore's tavern adjoining Fort Washington, on New York Island, in order to be fixt on a spike on the Truck of that Flag-staff as soon as it could be got ready, I immediately sent to Cox, who kept the tavern at King's Bridge, to steal it from thence and to bury it, which was effected, and was dug up on our arrival and I rewarded the men, and sent the Head by the Lady Gage to Lord Townshend, in order to convince them at home of the Infamous Disposition of the Ungrateful people of this distressed country."

And there, in London, a year later, Governor Hutchinson, of Massachusetts, saw it at Lord Townshend's house in Portman Square. Lady Townshend, he said, went to a sofa and uncovered a large gilt head which her husband had received the night before from New York, and which, although "the nose was wounded and defaced," he at once recognized by its striking likeness to the king. We do not know what became of it after this, or whether it is still in existence.

There were one or two other pieces of this monument which also had eventful histories. The slab, on which the horse had stood with one foot in the air, was used as a gravestone for Major John Smith, of the Forty-second, or Royal Highland, Regiment, who died in 1783, and later it served for a time as a stepping-stone in front of a well-known house in New Jersey.

Nearly one hundred years after the Declaration of Independence the tail of King George's horse was dug up on a farm in Wilton, Connecticut, and a piece of his saddle was found there at about the same time. The tradition in Wilton is that the ox-cart carrying the broken statue passed through Wilton on its way to Litchfield, and that the saddle and the tail were thrown away there. Just why, no one knows; perhaps the load was too heavy; possibly—some people think—because it was found that they were not of pure lead and could not be used to make bullets. Most of the statue, however, seems to have reached Litchfield safely.

On the beautiful broad South Street of that village, high in the Connecticut hills, the house of General Wolcott, afterwards Governor Wolcott, of Connecticut, still stands under its old trees much as it stood in the summer of 1776.

When the pieces of the leaden statue reached Litchfield, they were buried temporarily in the "Wolcott orchard under an apple tree of the Pound variety" that stood near the southeast corner of the house. And then, sometime later, there came a day when King George, who had once sat so securely on his solid steed, close to his fort in his good city of New York, was taken out of this last hiding-place and, together with his leaden horse, was melted down and run into bullets to be fired at his own soldiers.

Bullet-moulds of the time of the Revolution can be seen now in historical museums. Some of them are shaped like a large pair of shears. The work of running the bullets that day in Litchfield was done by women and girls, for the men were away at the war. The only man who took part in it, besides the general himself, was Frederick, his ten-year-old son, and he, many years later, told how he remembered the event, how a shed was built in the orchard, how his father chopped up the fragments of the statue with a wood-axe, how gay the girls were, his two sisters a little older than himself and their friends, and what fun they all had over the whole affair. A ladle, said to have been used in pouring the lead into the moulds, is still kept in the Historical Museum at Litchfield, and among Governor Wolcott's papers is a memorandum labeled, "Number of cartridges made."

Cartridges Mrs. Marvin, 6,058 Ruth Marvin, 11,592 Laura, 8,378 Mary Ann, 10,790 Frederick, 936 Mrs. Beach, 1,802 Made by sundry persons, 2,182 Gave Litchfield militia on alarm, 50 Let the Regiment of Colonel Wigglesworth have, 300 ——— 42,088

Mary Ann and Laura were Frederick's sisters, twelve and fourteen years old. Some of the bullets made, and which were given to the "Litchfield militia on alarm," were probably used the next year to repulse a British invasion of Connecticut, so that it was said then that "His Majesty's statue was returned to His Majesty's troops with the compliments of the men of Connecticut."

REFERENCES

1. Proceedings of the New York Historical Society. October, 1844.

2. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 2d Series, vol. 4.

3. Montresor, Captain John. "Journals." Collections of the New York Historical Society for the year 1881. Printed by the Society.

4. Kilbourne, Payne Kenyon. Sketches and Chronicles of the Town of Litchfield, Conn. Case, Lockwood & Co. Hartford, 1859.

5. Wokott Memorial.



NEWGATE PRISON

"Attend all ye villains that live in the state, Consider the walls that encircle Newgate."

Newgate is the name of a famous prison in London. It is called "Newgate" because it was first built, centuries ago, over a new gate in the wall of the city. Later, when these rooms over the gate became too crowded, a larger prison was built near by and called by the same name.

There was once a Newgate prison in Connecticut. It was named for the old English one, but, instead of being up over a gate, it was down underground in a copper-mine. There was no entrance to it except by a shaft thirty feet deep, and the colonists chose this place for its security, yet the history of Newgate in Connecticut is full of tales of the daring and successful escapes of its prisoners.

Copper Hill, where the prison was, is in what used to be the town of Simsbury, but is now East Granby. The copper-mines there were opened early in 1700, and were worked for about sixty years. The copper is said to have been of good quality. In 1737-39, coins were made from it—some say by Dr. Samuel Higley who owned a mine near his home. These coins were never a legal tender, but were used as "token money," because small change was scarce in the colonies. They are valuable to-day because they are very rare. Granby coppers have on one side a deer standing, and below him a hand, a star, and III, and around him the legend, "Value me as you please." On the other side are three sledgehammers with the royal crown on each hammer, and around them either the word "Connecticut," or the legend, "I am a good copper," with the date 1737. A third kind has one broadaxe and the legend, "I cut my way through." There is a specimen of each of the three kinds of Granby coppers in the Connecticut State Library at Hartford.

The mines were quite successful at first, but, as the colonists were not allowed to smelt and refine the ore in America, they were obliged to send it all the way to England, and this was very expensive. Sometimes, too, the ships carrying copper did not reach England at all. One was wrecked in the English Channel and another was seized by the French during a war with England. So in 1773, a few years before our Revolutionary War, the mines were given up and the largest of them was changed into a prison.

At first there were no buildings at all. There was nothing but a hole in the ground, closed by an iron trapdoor that opened into the shaft, where a wooden ladder was fixed to the rock at one side. At the bottom of the ladder there was a flight of rough stone steps leading farther down into the mine. All was dark and still except for the dripping of water along the galleries that led away into the heart of the hill. One cavern was blasted out to make more room and was fitted with wooden cells and bunks for the prisoners to sleep in, and at night a guard was set to watch the entrance up above and prevent any one from climbing the ladder and getting out. When everything was ready, the committee in charge of the work reported that it would be "next to impossible for any one to escape from this prison."

The first prisoner sent there was a man named John Henson, who was committed on December 22, 1773. He spent eighteen days alone in the mine; then, on the night of January 9, 1774, he disappeared. No one could imagine how he got out. But there was another shaft leading up from the mine, a very deep one, where the copper ore had been drawn out. It had no ladder in it and its opening had not been closed, because it did not seem possible for a prisoner to escape that way. Yet a woman drew John Henson up eighty feet through the shaft in a bucket used for hoisting copper. After that, this shaft, too, was carefully closed and a strong wooden guardhouse was built over the entrance to the other one.



More prisoners were soon committed to Newgate. "Burglars, horse- thieves, and counterfeiters," according to the law, were sent there and they were set to work mining copper, but instead of doing this, they dug their way out with the mining tools; so workshops were built aboveground where they made nails, boots and shoes, wagons, and other things. They slept in the mine as before, but at daylight they were called and came up the ladder in squads of three at a time under a guard, climbing as well as they could with fetters on their legs. They took their meals in the workshops and were chained to the forges and workbenches until late in the afternoon, when they went down again into the mine for the night.

When the Revolutionary War began, in 1775, political prisoners were sent to Newgate in Connecticut, just as such prisoners had often been sent to old Newgate in England. These men in America were the Tories, or Loyalists, who sympathized with the British and were often found giving them information and help. To protect themselves the Americans arrested them. Some of the first were sent by Washington from the camp at Cambridgik where the American army was besieging Boston.

Here is a part of his letter to the Committee of Safety at Simsbury; its date shows that it was written several months before the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia:—

CAMBRIDGE, December 7th, 1775.

GENTLEMEN:

The prisoners which will be delivered to you with this, having been tried by a court martial, were sentenced to Simsbury in Connecticut. You will therefore have them secured so that they cannot possibly make their escape. I am, etc.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

But the Tories were just as anxious as any other prisoners to escape if they could. Three times the wooden guardhouse over the entrance was set on fire and burned down. Once, when there were a great many Tories in Newgate, they made a concerted plan and carried it out successfully. The wife of one of them had permission, to visit him, and came to the prison one night about ten o'clock. Only two guards were on duty then at the mouth of the shaft. When the trapdoor was lifted for her, the prisoners were all ready and waiting on the ladder. They rushed out, overpowered the two men, took away their muskets, and got possession of the guardroom. The rest of the watch, who had been asleep, hurried in, and there was a desperate fight; one man was killed and several were wounded. At last the prisoners succeeded in putting all the guards down into the mine and closing the trapdoor upon them. Then they escaped themselves, and few of them were ever retaken.

A story is told of a Tory prisoner who, about the year 1780, made his escape in a remarkable and unexpected way. There was an old drain in the mine which had once carried off water, but when the mine became a prison it was stopped up with stone and mortar, except for a small opening where the water still ran off between iron bars. The outlet of this drain was far down on the hillside beyond the sight of the guards. The prisoner, Henry Wooster, who worked in the nail-shop, contrived to hide some bits of iron nail rods in his clothes and carry them back with him into the mine. He learned, with their help, to take off his fetters at night. Then, with the same bits of iron, he worked at the bars of the drain until, little by little, he loosened some of them and took them out so that he could crawl through into the drain. But the drain was too narrow in some places to let him pass and he was obliged to loosen and remove some of its stones. This was a long and hard task, but he was not easily discouraged. Each night he took off his clothed and his fetters, crawled into the drain, and worked until morning. Then he replaced the iron bars, dressed, put on his fetters, and was ready when the guards came down to go up to the shops with the rest of the prisoners. By and by he got nearly to the end of the drain. Then one night, while he was down there, a stone, which he had accidentally loosened, fell behind him and blocked his way back. He could not turn to reach the stone with his hands, for the drain was too narrow, he could not stir it with his feet, and he dared not cry out for help; time passed, and it was almost morning; he would be called and missed, and he shuddered to think of the consequences. At last, as he was about to give up in despair, he felt the stone move just a little. Bracing himself against the sides of the drain, he pushed it vigorously with his feet. Slowly, inch by inch, it rolled back until it fell into a slight depression so that he could pass over it. Bleeding and exhausted, he got to his bunk and into his clothes and fetters again just as the guards came down the ladder. A few nights later he finished his work and, with several other prisoners, escaped through the drain.

Some of the Tories in Newgate were well-known and educated men. One was a clergyman named Simeon Baxter. He preached a sermon, one Sunday, to his companions in the mine, in which he advised them, if they could, to assassinate Washington and the whole Continental Congress. This sermon was printed afterward in London and proves how bitter the feeling was in those days between the Americans and the Tories.

After the Revolution, Newgate was the state prison of the State of Connecticut until 1827. New workshops and other buildings were added from time to time as they were needed. The wooden guardhouse was replaced by one of brick, and a strong stone room over the mouth of the shaft went by the nickname of the "stone jug." There was a chapel and a hospital, but the hospital was seldom used because there was very little sickness. The pure air and even temperature in the mine, where it was never too hot in summer nor too cold in winter, kept the prisoners well in spite of darkness and confinement, and men who were sent there in a bad state of health often recovered.

At one time there was a strong wooden fence, with iron spikes on its top, around the enclosure, but in 1802 it was replaced by a stone wall twelve feet high, with watch-towers at the corners and a moat below it. Some of the prisoners helped to build this wall, and when it was finished they were allowed to take part in a celebration. One of them, an Irishman, gave this toast at the feast: "May the great wall be like the wall of Jericho and tumble down at the sound of a ram's horn."

But the wall is still standing on Copper Hill after more than one hundred years and, although the prison is empty and the mines deserted to-day, a great many people visit the place every year because of its interesting history. Guides take the visitors down the steep ladder in the shaft and lead them through the underground galleries where copper was mined, and show them the caverns where the prisoners once slept in old Newgate Prison.

REFERENCES

1. Trumbull, J. H. (editor). Memorial History of Hartford County. E. L. Osgood, Boston, 1886.

2. "Newgate of Connecticut." Magazine of American History, vol. 15, April, 1886. See also vol. 10.

3. Phelps, Richard H. Newgate of Connecticut. American Publishing Co. Hartford, 1876.



THE DARK DAY

"'T was on a May-day of the far old year Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell Over the bloom and sweet life of the spring, Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, A horror of great darkness, like the night." WHITTIER.

"Yellow Friday," or "the Dark Day," in New England, was the l9th of May, 1780. For nearly a week before this day the air had been full of smoke and haze, and the sun at noontime and the full moon at night had looked like great red balls in the misty sky. Thursday night the sun went down red and threatening.

Friday morning it rose as usual, but, as the weather was overcast, it only peered now and then through the broken gray clouds. There were mutterings of thunder and a few drops of rain fell, big and heavy with black soot. Then the shower stopped and a stillness like that before a great storm settled over the land. The day, instead of growing lighter, grew darker and darker. Yet no storm came.

Strange colors edged the low-hanging clouds, red and brown and a brassy yellow, while the fields and woods below were a deep, unnatural green. The white roads and houses and the white church steeples turned yellow. Even the clean silver in the houses looked like brass. These colors foreboded an eclipse of the sun; yet there was no eclipse.

By noon it was as dark as early night, and the birds sang their evening songs and disappeared. Some of the smaller ones, frightened and fluttering, flew into the houses or dashed themselves against the window panes. Chickens went to roost, the cows came home from pasture, and the frogs croaked in the ponds.

Men planting corn in the fields stopped work because they could not see the corn as it dropped. Women at home lighted candles to find their way about the house. No one could see the time of day by the clocks, and white paper looked like black velvet. Many people were terrified and wondered what was coming. Some expected a great tornado; others said a comet was due and feared it portended some great calamity, perhaps a disaster to the armies in the field who were fighting England in the war of the Revolution. Still others, more ignorant and superstitious, were sure that the end of the world had come, that the last trumpet would soon sound and the dead be raised. One woman sent a messenger in haste to her pastor to ask what this dreadful darkness meant, but he only replied that he was "as much in the dark" as she.

Several gentlemen, who happened to be at the house of Reverend Manasseh Cutler, the minister in Ipswich, Massachusetts, have left us a record of their observations that day.

Mr. Cutler wrote in his journal:—

"This morning Mr. Lathrop of Boston called upon me. Soon after he came in I observed a remarkable cloud coming up and it appeared dark. The cloud was unusually brassy with little or no rain. Mr. Sewell and Colonel Wigglesworth came in. The darkness increased and by eleven o'clock it was so dark as to make it necessary to light candles ... at half-past eleven in a room with three large windows, southeast and south, could not read a word in large print close to windows .... About twelve it lighted up a little, then grew more dark.... At one o'clock very dark.... The windows being still open, a candle cast a shade so well defined on the wall that profiles were taken with as much ease as they could have been in the night. ... We dined about two, the windows all open and two candles burning on the table. In the time of the greatest darkness some of the dunghill fowls went to roost, cocks crowed in answer to one another, woodcocks, which are night birds, whistled as they do only in the dark, frogs peeped, in short there was the appearance of midnight at noonday.... At four o'clock it grew more light.... Between three and four we were out and perceived a strong sooty smell. Some of the company were confident a chimney in the neighborhood must be burning; others conjectured the smell was more like that of burnt leaves."

These gentlemen went over to the tavern near by and found the people there greatly excited and tried to reassure them. They proved to them from the black ashes of leaves, which had settled like a scum on the rainwater standing in tubs, that the darkness was not supernatural, but probably came from the burning of forests far away.

Dr. Ezra Stiles, who was then president of Yale College in New Haven, gave the same explanation. He says:—

"The woods about Ticonderoga [in New York] and eastward over to New Hampshire and westward into New York and the Jerseys were all on fire for a week before this Darkness and the smoke in the wilderness almost to suffocation. No rain since last fall, the woods excessively dry.... Such a profusion of settlers pushing back into the wilderness were everywhere clearing land and burning brush. This set the forests afire far beyond intention, so as to burn houses and fences.... The woods burned extensively for a week before the nineteenth of May and the wind all the while northerly."

A quaint old ballad, said to have been written about that time, gives a description of this Dark Day:—



"The Whip-poor-will sung notes most shrill, Doves to their cots retreated, And all the fowls, excepting owls, Upon their roosts were seated.

"The herds and flocks stood still as stocks, Or to their folds were hieing, Men young and old, dared not to scold At wives and children crying.

"The day of doom, most thought was come, Throughout New England's borders, The people scared, felt unprepared To obey the dreadful orders."

In Connecticut the legislature was in session at Hartford. It was like night in the streets of this city and candles were burning in the windows of all the houses. Men grew anxious and uneasy. As the darkness became deeper, the House of Representatives adjourned, finding it impossible to transact any business. Soon after, a similar motion for adjournment was made in the Senate, or Council, as it was then called. By this time faces could scarcely be distinguished across the room and a dread had fallen on the assembly; "men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which were coming."

Then up rose Honorable Abraham Davenport, a judge of Fairfield County and councilor from Stamford, a stern and upright man, strict in the discharge of his duty.

"I am against adjournment," he said. "The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought."

His strong words held the assembly. Its members rallied from their fears and, following his example, turned steadily to the transaction of the necessary business of the hour.

"And there he stands in memory to this day, Erect, self-poised, a rugged face half seen Against a background of unnatural dark, A witness to the ages as they pass That simple duty hath no place for fear."

WHITTIER.

REFERENCES

1. Barber, J. W. Connecticut Historical Collections, J. W. Barber. New Haven, 1836.

2. "The Dark Day." New England Magazine, May, 1834.

3. Dexter, F. B. (editor). The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York, 1901.

4. Cutler, W. P. and J. P. Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler. Cincinnati, 1888.



A FRENCH CAMP IN CONNECTICUT

On the Green of the old town of Lebanon a mound is shown to-day on the spot where a large brick oven stood in the winter of 1781—an oven in which bread was baked for the soldiers of the American Revolutionary Army. These soldiers, who might have been seen almost any day that winter in their gay uniforms, crossing and recrossing the Green, or gathered in groups about the oven, were, strangely enough, not American soldiers, but French hussars belonging to the Duke de Lauzun's famous "Legion of Horse."

France, being herself at war with England, had recently sent an army to America to help the colonies in their struggle against a common enemy, and the French commander-in-chief, the Count de Rochambeau, wrote from Newport, Rhode Island, to Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut, asking if the governor could provide winter quarters in Lebanon for a part of his forces—for the Duke de Lauzun and some of his Legion of Horse.

Governor Trumbull's home was in Lebanon. His house was near the village Green, and close beside it stood his store, which, by this time, had become famous under the name of the "War Office," because in this store the governor and the Council of Safety used to meet and talk over the important business of the war, and what Connecticut could do, as her share, to help the American army.

There is a story that Washington used to say when he needed more supplies, "Let us see what Brother Jonathan can do for us," and that this nickname, which is now used for the United States, belonged originally to Jonathan Trumbull. It is true that Washington often turned to him for help. He had approved the application of the Count de Rochambeau to Governor Trumbull for winter quarters for the French troops. But long before the arrival of these soldiers there had been busy times in Lebanon. Provisions of all kinds were brought from all over the state to the governor's store to be packed and sent off to the troops in the field. The governor was usually to be found there himself, weighing and measuring, packing boxes and barrels, dealing out powder and lead, starting off trains of loaded wagons and often large herds of cattle to be driven all the way to the army at the front. Messengers came and went, flying on horseback along the country roads, and sometimes they sat on the counter in the store, swinging their spurred boots, waiting for the governor to give them their orders. A piece of that counter, with the marks of their spurs in the soft wood, can be seen now in the rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford. Although there were dark days during the war when the state's treasury was exhausted and the people discouraged and the demands of the army hard to meet, yet

"Governor Trumbull never quailed In his store on Lebanon hill."

Somehow or other the supplies were found and little Connecticut became known as the "Provision State." Washington spoke of her governor as "the first of patriots." This is one of Governor Trumbull's proclamations to the men of Connecticut:—

"Be roused and alarmed to stand forth in our glorious cause. Join yourselves to one of the companies now ordered to New York, or form yourselves into distinct companies and choose captains forthwith;... march on; play the man for God and for the cities of our God, and may the God of the armies of Israel be your leader."

Lebanon was then on one of the main roads through New England, and many distinguished men stopped there at different times to see the governor. Washington came, and Lafayette, the young French nobleman whom Washington loved almost as a son, and who is, perhaps, "nearer to the hearts of the Americans than any man not of their own people." Lafayette holds this place in their affections because, before the French Government decided to send help to the colonies, he "came from France of his own accord and brought with him the sympathy of the French people," among whom also new ideas of liberty were stirring.

"From the moment I first heard of America," he said, "I began to love her; from the moment I understood that she was struggling for her liberties, I burned to shed my best blood in her cause."

Lafayette's countrymen, who spent the winter of 1781 in Lebanon, were the gallant soldiers of France. Their leader, the Duke de Lauzun, was a gay French nobleman, very handsome, very fond of good living, brilliant and witty as well as brave; nobody like him or his men had ever been seen before in Lebanon. The people of that quiet little town opened their eyes in surprise when the dashing French hussars, in their tall black caps and their brilliantly braided jackets, came galloping in over the muddy country roads. Governor Trumbull had made provision for them. Barracks were built for some on a farm which he owned just outside the town, and others camped on the village Green.

With their arrival life in Lebanon changed. At daybreak the French bugles blew the reveille. There were parades and reviews, there were balls and parties. Washington held a review of Lauzun's Legion when he passed through the place one day in March. The corps was finely equipped. Its horses were good, its men brave and handsome, and their uniforms vivid and trim. The hussars wore sky-blue jackets braided with white, yellow breeches, high boots, and tall caps with a white plume at the side. They made a great impression on the country people, who had seen their own men, dressed in homespun clothes, mount their rough farmhorses and ride away, just as they were, to the war. The duke himself was friendly and pleasant and popular with his new neighbors. He lived in a house lent him by David Trumbull, the governor's son.



Once, early in the winter, two distinguished visitors from the French army came to see him, the Marquis de Chastellux, who wrote a book of "Travels in North America," and the Baron de Montesquieu; and he gave a dinner for them to which he invited Governor Trumbull. In the marquis's book we can read a description of it and of Governor Trumbull as he appeared to these French gentlemen from the Old World.

"On returning from the chase," says de Chastellux (he had been out hunting squirrels), "I dined at the Duke de Lauzun's with Governor Trumbull. This good methodical governor is seventy years old. His whole life is consecrated to business, which he passionately loves, whether it is important or not. He has all the simplicity and pedantry of a great magistrate of a small republic, and invariably says he will consider, that he must refer to his council. He wears the antique dress of the first settlers in this colony." Then the marquis goes on to tell how the small old man, in his single-breasted, drab-colored coat, tight knee-breeches, and muslin wrist-ruffles, walked up to the table where twenty hussar officers were waiting and with "formal stiffness pronounced in a loud voice a long prayer in the form, of a Benedicite." The French officers must have been surprised; they were not used to simple country manners and to grace before meat on all occasions, but they were too polite and too well trained to laugh. "Twenty amens issued at once from the midst of forty moustaches," says the marquis, and in spite of the fun he makes of the old Puritan governor's stiff manners, we feel in reading the story that he fully appreciates his sterling good qualities.

Some of these pleasure-loving French gentlemen met a strange and sad fate, years later, in the terrible days of the French Revolution. The Duke de Lauzun was beheaded in Paris in 1793, his long and adventurous life "ended with a little spurt of blood under the knife of the guillotine"; and Lafayette spent five years in an Austrian prison.

There is another story of old Lebanon which is connected with the visit of the French soldiers. The French commander-in-chief, the Count de Rochambeau, had given to Madam Faith Trumbull, the governor's wife, a beautiful scarlet cloak, and one Sabbath day she appeared in the governor's pew in the Lebanon meeting-house wearing the French general's handsome gift. Now, in those hard times contributions for the army were often collected after service on Sundays, and the people not only gave money, but whatever else they could spare, Indian corn, flax, wood, shoes and stockings, hats and coats. Quietly the governor's wife rose in her seat and, taking the scarlet cloak from her shoulders, carried it down to the front and laid it with the other gifts. Later, it was cut into narrow bands and used to make red stripes on the soldiers' uniforms.

All that is left of those stirring times in Lebanon to-day is the little "War Office,"—restored and kept as a memorial of the Revolution,—and the mound on the Green where the brick oven stood in which bread was baked for the French soldiers who fought for American independence.

REFERENCES

1. Stuart, I. W. Life of Jonathan Trumbull./i> Crocker & firewater. Boston, 1859.

2. The Lebanon War Office./i> Published by the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the Revolution. Hartford, 1891.

3. Lodge, Henry Cabot. "Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of the Count de Rochambeau," in A Fighting Frigate and other Essays./i> D. Appleton & Co. New York, 1902.

4. Chastellux, Marquis de. Travels in North America. London.



NATHAN HALE

"To drum-beat and heart-beat A soldier marches by; There is color in his cheek, There is courage in his eye, Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat In a moment he must die."

The story of Nathan Hale is the story of a short life and a brave death. Connecticut has written his name on her Roll of Honor—the name of a man who was executed as a spy in the War of the Revolution. He was born in Coventry, Tolland County, on the 6th of June, 1755. His father, Deacon Richard Hale, who, as well as his mother, Elizabeth Strong, was descended from the earliest settlers of Massachusetts, had moved to Coventry, Connecticut, and had bought a large farm there. The children were brought up strictly, as they were in all New England families in those days, and no doubt there was plenty of hard work for them on the farm, but, as there were ten or twelve of them, we may be sure there was plenty of play, too.

It is said that Nathan was not a strong child at first, but grew vigorous with outdoor life; that "he was fond of running, leaping, wrestling, firing at a mark, throwing, lifting, playing ball," and used to tell the girls of Coventry he could do anything but spin. Stories told of him say that when he was older he could "put a hand on a fence as high as his head and clear it easily at a bound"; and that the marks of "a leap which he made upon the Green in New Haven were long preserved and pointed out." One of his comrades in the army wrote of him, "His bodily agility was remarkable. I have seen him follow a football and kick it over the tops of the trees in the Bowery at New York (an exercise which he was fond of)."

But he was fond of study, as well as of play, and he must have done well at the Coventry School, for his parents determined to send him to college. He was fitted for Yale by the minister in Coventry, as there were then no preparatory schools such as we have now. When he was fourteen he entered Yale College at New Haven with his brother Enoch, who was a year and a half older than he. They were known in college as Hale Primus and Hale Secundus.

At Yale Nathan studied well and took a good stand. He became, too, one of the most popular men in his class. He made many friends, and their letters to him show us how much they loved and admired him. At one time he was president, or "chancellor" as it was called, of the Linonia Debating Society; at another he was its secretary, or "scribe," and the minutes which he kept then can be seen now, in his own handwriting, in the Yale Library.

He was nearly six feet tall, broad-shouldered, wit blue eyes and brown hair, a pleasant voice, and a manner that was both attractive and dignified. A gentleman in New Haven who knew him well said of him, "That man is a diamond of the first water and calculated to excel in any station he assumes."

After he graduated in 1773, he taught school for a few months in East Haddam. The country schools were very simple in those days. There were few books; a Psalter and a spelling-book were the most important ones used. There were no blackboards, and the teacher set "copies" on paper, and read out the "sums" in arithmetic, and often the whole school studied aloud. One of Nathan Hale's pupils in East Haddam, who lived to be an old lady, said of him as a teacher, "Everybody loved him, he was so sprightly, intelligent, and kind and withal so handsome."

He was soon offered a better position in New London as the master of a new school in which he was expected to teach Latin as well as English. He wrote in one of his letters from New London:—

"I am happily situated here. I love my employment and find many friends among strangers. I have a school of thirty-two boys, half Latin, the rest English. In addition to this I have kept, during the summer, a morning school, between the hours of five and seven, of about twenty young ladies."

The schoolhouses in East Haddam and New London where Nathan Hale taught have been restored and are kept now as memorials of him.

While he was teaching in New London the war with England broke out. There was great excitement when the news came of the battle of Lexington (April 19, 1775), and a public meeting was held at which he is reported to have said, "Let us march immediately and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence." He could not march immediately himself, for he was teaching school, but when summer came he entered the army as a lieutenant, and was soon made a captain. In September he went with some of the Connecticut troops to join Washington's army which was besieging Boston. The American flag was not adopted until the next year, and as the colors appointed for his regiment, the Seventh Connecticut, were blue, they marched away from New London under a blue banner. His camp-basket, a powder-horn made by him, and his army diary are still in existence, and can be seen in the rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford.

Here are some of the entries in his diary that fall and winter:—

"Friday 29th (Sept.)—Marched for Cambridge. Arrived 3 o'clock, and encamped on the foot of Winter Hill.

"Sat. 30th—Considerable firing upon Roxbury side in the forenoon.

"October 9th, Monday—Morning clear and pleasant but cold. Exercised men 5 o'clock, one hour.

"Sabbath, 22d—Mounted picket guard. Had charge of the advance picket.

"Monday 6th (November)—It is of the utmost importance that an officer should be anxious to know his duty, but of greater that he should carefully perform what he does know.

"Tuesday, 7th—Left picket 10 o'clock.... Rain pretty hard most of the day. Studied the best method of forming a regiment for a review, manner of arranging the companies, also of marching round the reviewing officer.

"A man ought never to lose a moment's time. If he put off a thing from one minute to the next his reluctance is but increased.

"Wednesday, 8th—Cleaned my gun, played some football and some checkers.

"22d, Friday—Some shot from the enemy.

"Feb. 14, 1776, Wednesday—Last night a party of Regulars made an attempt upon Dorchester.... The Guard house was set on fire but extinguished."

During this time many of the soldiers became discouraged with the hard work and poor food and pay, and we learn from his diary that Captain Hale offered to give the men in his company his own pay if they would stay on for a month longer. The diary and all his letters are full of courage and hopefulness.

In March, the British army, which had been shut up so long in Boston unable to get away by land, took ship and sailed for Halifax. Washington believed the next point of attack would be New York and he moved his army there to protect the city. So Hale's regiment marched back to New London and embarked in transports for New York. The last six months of his short life were passed in and near New York.

The spring was spent in fortifying the city, and in June Captain Hale wrote to his brother Enoch, "The army is every day improving in discipline and it is hoped will soon be strong enough to meet the enemy at any kind of play. My company, which was small at first, is increased to eighty, and a sergeant is recruiting, who I hope has got the other ten which completes the company."

When the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed, the soldiers received the news with great enthusiasm, and felt that they had at last an independent country of their own to fight for and, if need be, to die for.

The British army arrived and encamped on Staten Island. It was a finely equipped force of twenty-five thousand men with a fleet of ships to support it, and was in every respect better and stronger than the half-trained militia that made up most of the American army. The battle of Long Island, late in the summer, ended in a defeat for the Americans, and Washington's skillful retreat at night across the East River from Long Island to New York was all that prevented a greater disaster. Many of the men in Captain Hale's company had been recruited along the Connecticut shores, and there is no doubt that these sailors under his command were very useful that night in getting the troops safely back to New York.

After this the condition of things became very serious, for the British had got possession of Brooklyn Heights, which commanded the city over East River, and they might cross at any time and attack it. Washington ordered companies of rangers, or scouts, to be formed to keep a sharp watch on the enemy's movements, and Captain Hale accepted an appointment in this body of picked men. It was commanded by Colonel Knowlton, who was also a Connecticut man and had been a ranger himself in the old French-and-Indian War. He was a brave officer, and when he lay dying in the battle of Harlem Heights he said, "I do not value my life if we do but get the day." Captain Hale must have been glad to serve under such a leader.

Meanwhile, Washington had moved the greater part of his army outside New York to avoid being shut up in the city as the British had been in Boston, and was anxiously expecting an attack. But none came, and his suspense grew greater and greater as time passed and he got no information as to what would happen. "Everything depends on obtaining intelligence of the enemy's motions," he wrote to his officers, "I was never more uneasy than on account of my want of knowledge," and he begged them to send some one into the enemy's camp in disguise to find out what their plans were, and when and where they would attack.

It was not easy to get any one to go, for it meant being a spy. Spies are necessary in all wars because the commanding general must have information about the enemy's movements. But soldiers hate a spy, who comes into their camp as a friend when he is really an enemy, and honorable men do not like to do this. It is usually done by men who care most of all for the money it brings. The service, too, is so dangerous that the general may not command it, he may only accept it when it is volunteered. If a spy is caught within the enemy's lines no mercy is shown him; his trial is swift and his death certain; in those days the penalty was hanging.

This time a man of intelligence was needed and Colonel Knowlton explained the matter to some of his officers. One of them is said to have replied: "I am willing to be shot, but not to be hung." But there was another who looked at it differently, and this was Captain Nathan Hale. It seemed to him that if his country called it was his duty to go, at the sacrifice, if necessary, of both his honor and his life. And the more he thought of it the more sure he was that it is the motive with which a deed is done that makes it good or evil, and that a service which his country demanded could not be dishonorable.

He asked advice from his friends, especially from Captain William Hull, of his old regiment, who had also been one of his fellow students at college. Captain Hull urged him strongly not to do it. He reminded him how men feel about a spy and told him, too, that it was doubtful if, with his frank, open character, he could ever succeed in deceiving people and pretending to be what he was not. He begged him for the sake of his family and his friends to give it up because it might end for him in a disgraceful death.

Captain Hale replied, "I am fully sensible of the consequences of discovery and capture in such a situation. But for a year I have been in the army and have not rendered any material service while receiving a compensation for which I make no return. Yet I am not influenced by the hope of promotion or reward. I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary. But," he added, taking his friend's hand affectionately, "I will reflect, and do nothing but what duty demands."

He decided to go, and left the American camp the second week in September. He was to cross to Long Island and approach the British position from the rear, and he was to go as a schoolmaster looking for employment, which was the best disguise he could assume as he had once been a schoolmaster and might easily pass for one again. Just what his orders and instructions were we do not know, as the service was a secret one.

His faithful sergeant, Stephen Hempstead, of New London, went with him part of the way. On account of British ships cruising in the East Elver and in the Sound, they were obliged to go as far as Norwalk, Connecticut, before it was safe to cross. Hempstead tells us that at Norwalk Captain Hale changed his uniform for a plain suit of citizen's brown clothes, with a round, broad- brimmed hat, took off his silver shoe-buckles, and left all his papers behind except his college diploma, which he thought might be useful. Then he said good-bye to Hempstead, telling him to wait for him there, and an armed sloop commanded by Captain Pond—probably Charles Pond, of Milford, a fellow officer in Hale's regiment—carried him over to Huntington on Long Island.