Military History. 211 



value in the opening days of the Revolution ; and into that 

 struggle sprang, nut alone the embattled farmer, but with a value 

 far greater to the cause, the alert minute-man who had been at the 

 taking of Louisburg, the trained-baud men who, like their able 

 officers, had threaded the forests around Fort William Henry and 

 Frontenac, and the sturdy regiments whose leaders had climbed 

 the heights of Quebec with Wolfe, and seen the fall of Montcalm. 

 It is well for us not to forget that the troops of Great Britain 

 were met in 17TG, not by undisciplined levies, but by an Ameri- 

 can army, whose great commander was a soldier of many years' 

 invaluable experience in that best of military schools, service in 

 the field ; that the hard lessons learned by the young colonel 

 of twenty-one at Fort Necessity and Brad dock's defeat made 

 possible the general of A^alley Forge, Trenton, and Yorktown ; 

 that Putnam, with his English commission, attacking the Span- 

 iards in 1762 was preparing for the sturdy old Continental com- 

 mander of 1776 ; that Stark, the intrepid leader at Bennington, 

 was but the Stark of 1756, grown a little older and more experi- 

 enced; or that old Seth Pomeroy, fighting in the ranks, and old 

 Richard Gridley, pushing on with his artillery at Bunker Hill, had 

 both heard the roar of French guns in the campaigns which made 

 them veterans. These, with scores and hundreds of others, both 

 officers and privates, now enlisted in the ranks of liberty, gave to 

 a large force the true character and discipline of an army. 



One of the earlier of the settlements, situated upon the very 

 border of the Colony and adjoining the frontier of that of Ply- 

 mouth, Hingham was peculiarly liable to suffer from the differ- 

 ences which might at any time arise between the governments of 

 either province and their Indian neighbors. A realization of this 

 danger, and consequent thorough preparation, probably accounts 

 for the remarkable immunity from attack and depredation which 

 was so long the good fortune of the town, notwithstanding the 

 fact that the Indian trail to Plymouth led directly through its 

 southern part along the shores of Accord Pond. 



The Indians of Hingham formed a part of that great division 

 among the red men known as the Algonquins. This mighty race 

 comprised many powerful tribes, and occupied nearly the whole 

 territory of the northeastern United States. The strength of 

 the New England, and especially the Massachusetts nations had 

 been greatly reduced by a great pestilence shortly before the set- 

 tlement of Plymouth. For this the good King James was duly 

 thankful, and he gratefully says in his charter — 



" that he had been given certainly to knowe that within these late years 

 there hath by God's visitation reigned a wonderful plague together with 

 many horrible slaughters and murthers committed amongst the savages and 

 brutish people there heretofore inhabiting in a manner to the utter de- 

 struction devastation and depopulation of that whole territorye so that 

 there is not left for many leagues together in a manner any that doe 

 claim or challenge anv kind of interests therein." 



