Colonel Jonathan Chase commanded the
Cornish, New Hampshire regiment in the Revolutionary War. His troops
were in the Battle of Saratoga, and witnessed the surrender. When he
was gone, his wife Sarah was busy at home running the farm, a tavern,
a ferry, and raising seven children.
Jonathan married his first wife,
Thankful Sherman, when he was 22 and she was 20. She had three
daughters, and died in 1768, at age 28, when her daughter Prudence
was 8, Mary was 5 and Elizabeth was 3. Jonathan remarried 2 years
later. Sarah Hall was 28 at the time and Jonathan was 38.
Sarah married Jonathan, became an
instant mother to three young girls, and soon had a baby son,
Jonathan Jr, born in 1771. Jonathan soon had a brother, David, born
in 1773, and a sister, Sarah, born in 1775. Thus when Jonathan led
his troops on the way to Saratoga in 1777, she was left with two
teenage girls, a twelve year old, and three little ones, the youngest
being 2. The Chases had a farm, kept a tavern, and ran the ferry
across the Connecticut River, between Cornish and Windsor. That in
itself had to have been really tough to handle, in addition to the
worries about the possibility of her husband being killed or injured
in a war.
Jonathan came home from Saratoga and
settled down to running the many family businesses and raising his
family, which soon expanded with the birth of Lebbeus, Pamela, and
Gratia. After the Saratoga campaign, the war moved out of New
England into the Middle Atlantic colonies and then into the south.
Although the war had moved south, New England men still had to be
ready at a minute's notice, in case hostilities broke out again. The
militia held drills on town commons throughout New England, and each
member of the militia was expected to have all the necessary
equipment on hand and ready to go should the need arise.
Albert Stillman Batchellor, in his
address to the New Hampshire Society of the Sons of the American
Revolution, in 1900 said that , “each officer and private soldier
had to have a firearm, a ramrod, a worm, priming wire and brush,
bayonet, scabbard and belt, sword, tomahawk or hatchet, a pouch for a
cartridge box holding at least 100 buckshot, a jackknife and tow for
wadding, six flints, one pound powder, forty lead balls, a knapsack,
a blanket, and a canteen or wooden bottle that held one quart of
water”. This amount of equipment posed a serious economic challenge
for many men in a community that did not see much money. Towns were
required to pay for equipment for men who couldn't afford it, and
they did so by asking for donations. Most of the wealthier men
equipped several others besides themselves. I'm sure Jonathan Chase
donated money or equipment to a good number of the soldiers in his
command, and probably several others were equipped by his father and
uncle. Often if a man was too old to serve in the militia, if he had
enough money he would help provide the equipment for someone younger
but not as well off.
Three years after Saratoga, Jonathan's
regiment did get the call to march again. This time it really was on
a minute's notice, in response to the raid on Royalton on October
16,1780. Although the war had moved south, the Connecticut River and
Lake George and Champlain were still important thoroughfares during
those days of using waterways for transportation, and in late 1780
the British thought that since the war had moved out of the area,
they could make a surprise attack on some northern settlements and
regain control of these northern waterways. Many Indian tribes were
allies of the British because they felt the British were more fair
than the colonials when it came to respecting native property rights.
As a result, British troops combined with a war party of Mohawks and
Abenakis to attack the town of Newbury on the Connecticut River.
When they decided that Newbury was too well defended, they went to
the very young and virtually undefended village of Royalton on the
White River instead.
Royalton at that time was just a bunch
of cabins along the White River. Many of the cabins were inhabited
by young families or single young men, who were easily overwhelmed by
a combined Indian and British war party of 265. Most of the town's
residents were captured and taken to Canada as captives, where they
were held as prisoners of war until they either died of disease or
were released at the end of the war. Some men were killed when they
resisted being captured or tried to fight back, and a few people
managed to escape capture by running or hiding. The attackers burned
all of the buildings killed the livestock and destroyed the crops,
leaving the little village of Royalton in smoking ruins.
Some soldiers from New Hampshire did
arrive in the vicinity of Royalton and engage the enemy, but not very
successfully. After an exchange of gunfire, the enemy managed to
escape without being damaged, and continued northward, with captives
in tow. By the time Jonathan and his men made it to Royalton, they
were found the fledgling town reduced to smoke and ash, with its
inhabitants either taken prisoner or having fled for safety.
Until the British surrendered at
Yorktown, the Royalton raid, and similar raids on Sharon and
Tunbridge, left people in the Northern Connecticut River Valley in a
state of heightened alert. Town militias stepped up their muster
days and were even more prepared to defend themselves and their
neighbors at a moment's notice. Certainly Jonathan and Sarah, with
their brood of children to protect and care for, kept their eyes and
ears open and their children close by during those dangerous times.
If you are interested in reading more about the Royalton Raid, Vermont history.org has an article on George Avery, taken captive during the Royalton Raid and brought to Canada, where he survived, had plenty of adventures, made it back to his family on Cape Cod and eventually moved back to the Upper Valley and settled in Plainfield. It's a great story. It took me much longer than it should have to write this post because I read that whole story.
I also ordered a book on the Royalton Raid from Amazon.com - "We Go as Captives" by Neil Goodwin. It hasn't come yet, so I can't give a recommendation - but it has gotten good reviews and it should be great summer reading.
