288 HISTORY OF COHASSET. 



Samuel Oakes, Private. Joseph Souther, Private. 



Joshua Oakes, „ James Stodder ,, 



Caleb Pratt, „ Benjamin Stutson, „ 



Oliver Pritchard, „ Reuben Thorn, „ 



Richard Prichard, „ Jesse Tower, ,, 



Elisha Stephenson, ,, Isaac Tower, „ 



Luke Stephenson, „ Jesse Warrick, „ 



John Sutton, ,, Gershom Wheelwright, „ 



All served time from 2 months 5 days to 2 months 21 days. 

 All but starred ones took advance pay of £^2. Pay ranged 

 according to time. Average pay for private, ^2) ^o-^' 



While this company was being enlisted there w^ere crises 

 in more than one family. Sons eager for a taste of war- 

 fare u^ere straining parental authority to the last notch, 

 wishing to go in spite of their parents' disapproval. 



Some of the cynical sort scoffed at the enthusiasm of 

 patriots. When on one occasion the pastor, John Brown, 

 urged men to enlist, one of these cynics taunted him upon 

 urging others to do what he himself dared not do ; but the 

 warlike preacher raised his cane and threatened to thrash 

 the "old Tory " who insulted him. This pastor who had 

 been a chaplain in the army at Halifax seventeen years be- 

 fore, now marched out at the music of drum and fife with 

 the Cohasset soldiers, and tradition points out the old elm 

 tree near the boundary in Hingham where he preached 

 his patriotic sermon to the volunteer soldiers. 



This first company of Cohasset soldiers were quartered 

 probably in Roxbury at the fort upon the hill, making the 

 extreme right of the American lines. They were part of 

 that motley crowd of sixteen thousand patriots bent on 

 pushing the British army of ten thousand drilled troops 

 out of Boston. George Washington had not yet been 

 made general of the army, and a confusion of military 

 methods and military authority prevailed. The British 

 general, Gage, issued a proclamation threatening with the 

 gallows all citizens captured bearing arms. 



