THE REVOLUTIONARY IVAR. 297 



Ambrose Bates, Private. Jona. Bates, Private. 



Zenas Lincoln, „ John Pritchet, „ 



Job Wilcutt, „ Adnai Bates, „ 



Samuel Bates, Jr., „ 



In the summer of 1776, on the eighth day of June, 

 Richard Henry Lee in Congress at Philadelphia submitted 

 the resolution which became afterwards the Declaration 

 of Independence. Six days after it was submitted, having 

 heard the news but not knowing whether Congress would 

 adopt it, we pledged ourselves at a town meeting to sup- 

 port it " with our lives and fortunes, if the American Con- 

 gress should declare the United Colonies independent of 

 the kingdom of Great Britain." Thus the Fourth of July 

 began here on the fourteenth day of June.* 



The lives and fortunes of the town were soon taxed. 

 August 22, 1776, they voted to raise fifty-two pounds to 

 give as a bounty, in addition to the province bounty, to 

 the four soldiers that were required of them for the 

 Northern army. These four men, whoever they were, 

 probably took part in the brilliant naval battle under 

 Benedict Arnold in Lake Champlain, October 1 1, 1776, and 

 rested with him at Ticonderoga if they were not slain in the 

 battle. Before this battle had been fought sixteen more 

 soldiers had been called by our town, September 19, with 

 a bounty of sixty-four pounds, to march into Connecticut 

 as a part of our State forces. In case these men were to 

 be ordered into the regular Continental army the town 

 voted, December 5, additional pay of forty shillings per 

 month wages. But the war had ceased to be a novelty. 

 Nearly two years had passed since the first excitements, 

 and men were not easily to be found that could leave our 

 already depleted communities. 



On December 9, 1776, the committee reported their 

 failure to raise men, so that twenty shillings more were 



* The moderator of this meeting was Abel Kent, the noble Isaac Lincoln, so 

 long moderator and the virtual father of the town, having died in 1775. 



