278 HIS TOR V OF COHA SSE T. 



Francis Parkman's thrilling history of the romantic 

 exploit of Louisburg belongs therefore partly to us. If 

 there were no other soldiers from this community, the 

 whole precinct nevertheless participated in the victory ; 

 for the increased provincial taxes to carry on Governor 

 Shirley's patriotic ventures were paid by all. 



For ten years after this Louisburg expedition nothing 

 called forth our soldiers until the troublesome French 

 Acadians in Nova Scotia were to be banished in 1755. 

 One Cohasset soldier was Gideon Hayward, who happens 

 to be mentioned by Colonel Lincoln in 1759 as having 

 been with him in the Nova Scotia expedition of 1755. 

 Another is Robert Tower, who died in the army Septem- 

 ber 18, .1756, aged twenty-one, the grandson of Hezekiah 

 Tower. But not until the year 1757 did the first strong 

 excitement of war sweep through our precinct. 



It was when the French army of eight thousand men 

 was marching upon Fort William Henry of northern New 

 York held by only twenty-two hundred English soldiers. 

 General Webb at Fort Edward in his frenzy sent for 

 reinforcements, and among the hundreds who quickly 

 responded from Massachusetts were no less than twenty 

 men from Cohasset. The whole precinct had only one 

 hundred and fifty men in it that year, and the excitement 

 must have been intense to have taken so many. The 

 captain of one of the companies was Ebenezer Beal, 

 about fifty-six years of age, who had already gained ex- 

 perience at Louisburg twelve years before. He kept the 

 Black Horse Tavern at North Cohasset, where curses 

 upon the French were frequently enough aired in the 

 hearing of those who stopped on their way to and fro. 



The first lieutenant of the company was Daniel Lincoln, 

 some thirty-eight years old. The fourth sergeant was 

 Obadiah Lincoln, and the third corporal Elisha Tower, 

 Jr., both twenty-nine years of age. 



The following privates, with their ages as nearly as can 



