is mentioned as being in the war (1761), but I judge that to be a mistake, as there was no John Terrell in the town of New Milford of age sufficient to answer that call.
The Eleventh Company of the Fourth Regiment was commanded by Captain Josiah Canfield, the Regiment being commanded by Colonel Wooster. There appear the names of Ashel, son of Nathan Terrell, and of Enoch, son of Caleb Turrill.
In the Tenth Company of the Second Regiment (Colonel Nathaniel Whiting’s) commanded by Captain Gideon Stoddard, the name of William Drinkwater appears. The following New Milford names are scattered through the Second, Third and Fourth Connecticut regiments: Bronson, Baldwin, Beach, Bardsley, Beebe, Bennett, Boardman, Booth, Buck, Buell (David, afterward a Revolutionary soldier) Bostwick, Camp, Comstock, Couch, Crane, Curtis, Drinkwater, and Ferris.
Captain Joseph Canfield raised a company in 1758, of which Jeremiah Canfield was the drummer. The last edition of the Colonial Records (issued only a year or so ago), the best existing authority upon the period, gives merely the names of the members of this company and the length of their service, with dates of enlistment and of discharge. Exactly what rôle they played it is impossible now to find out. There are many traditions in the families of their doings, but these family traditions are not as full as those of the Revolution, which, following so quickly, effaced memories which would otherwise have survived. There are some tales of Bill Drinkwater, of Stephen Terrell, and Thomas Drinkwater, but they are so indefinite that all which can be gleaned from them is that these men went as far as Quebec, and were in the battle on the Heights of Abraham, and, possibly, in some of the others.
Most of the members of this company must have returned, as their names appear in the town affairs after this period. There is no record of any loss of life, so far as I have been able to find, among the New Milford men who participated in the French and Indian War. Very little disturbance from Indians occurred in the vicinity of New Milford during this war; there is but one instance of trouble, I think, recorded. A very good understanding with the Indians was attained by the warm friendship between Waramaug, chief of all the tribes of the region, and the New Milford minister, Rev. Mr. Boardman, who attended old Waramaug on his deathbed. Quite an interesting tale is told of his death, but that will probably be recorded in another place. After the close of the French and Indian War there seems to have been little military activity in New Milford, except the keeping up of the two companies under the rigorous acts of the Colonial Guard. These were officered and drilled as they had been from their formation. It is not till the period of the Revolution is reached that the town takes on very much of a military character.
Canfield, Bostwick and Noble seem to have been the most prominent names in military affairs during the Colonial period.
The first company of which mention is made in connection with the Revolution is that of Lieutenant Ebenezer Couch, who served in the regiment of Colonel Andrew Ward. This company does not appear at all in either the Connecticut War Book or the rolls of the Connecticut Historical Society. The first notice of Ebenezer Couch in the Connecticut War Book is of his commanding a company of Colonel Canfield’s regiment at West Point and Peekskill in 1777. The only record of the company is in a roll which was in the possession of the late Colonel William J. Starr of New Milford, and which, I suppose, was among his papers when he died. It was raised in May, 1775. The names of its members are given in the roll of New Milford men in the Revolution, which is appended to this article and need not be repeated here.
Its history is rather indefinite. It seems to have been raised for the Lexington alarm, but, being too late for that purpose, it probably went to the Sound or to New York. The date of its discharge does not appear on any record, but most of the men are soon found on the rolls of other companies in the service.
In July, 1775, a company was formed in New Milford, commanded by Captain Isaac Bostwick, who was first commissioned on the sixteenth of that month and, later, was recommissioned at Boston. It joined the regiment of Colonel Charles Webb, under the name of the Seventh Connecticut Levy, served along the Sound, and then went to the siege of Boston. Its term of service was to expire in December, 1775. About the time it was to be discharged, it was reorganized as the Nineteenth Regiment of Connecticut Line, enlisted for one year. Most of the men of Captain Bostwick’s company, as well as those of Lieutenant Couch’s company, appear in the new organization. The company and regiment remained at the siege of Boston until after the evacuation of that place by the British, when they accompanied General Washington to New York, going by land as far as New London and thence by boat. They were put to work at first upon the fortifications of New York, then, on the completion of that work, they were taken over to Brooklyn, and were employed, on the left of the line, in completing the fortifications there. They were not engaged in the battle of Long Island, but they covered the retreat, after that disaster, and played an important part in the subsequent movements about New York. They rendered some aid to the Brigade of Connecticut Militia in the disastrous affair of Kipp’s Bay, moved with the army across the Harlem to Westchester, and were hotly engaged, with considerable loss, in the battle of White Plains.
After this battle, and before the capture of Fort Washington, they were brought down to Spuyten Duyvil creek, just at its junction with the Hudson, and were kept there furnishing guards, orderlies and escorts for the movements about the fort. While the Jumel mansion (then the old Morris house) was being used as the American Headquarters, many of Captain Bostwick’s men were frequently on duty about the place as guards and orderlies. The following is a tradition for which the only authority is the stories told by the old soldiers around John Turrill’s fireside many years after: During the engagement of the British with Fort Washington, a sergeant’s guard under the command of David Buell of New Milford, which had been placed at a picket station near the base of Inwood Hill, were separated, by the rapid advance of the Hessians up the Harlem River (a movement, which, but for the quickness of a soldier’s wife at the Morris house, would have resulted in the capture of General Washington), from their regiment across the creek and obliged to fall back to Fort Washington. Being hotly pursued by the advancing enemy, they were forced to take cover under the banks of the Hudson, to avoid the fire of almost an entire regiment. A small party of the Hessians endeavored to cut off their retreat to the fort and one of them succeeded in jumping down the bank in front of the New Milford men. Roger Blaisdell was in the advance, and, as the German stumbled down the bank in front of him, pushed him with a thrust of his bayonet into the river and the party reached temporary safety in Fort Washington.
The Fort was soon captured by the British, however, and our New Milford men found themselves in the unfortunate position of prisoners of war.
The prisoners, according to the stories told by them afterward, were moved down to a point about where Union Square is now, and were there confined in a barn, for three days, before any food was given them. Then, wagons from the British slaughter-houses arrived, loaded with the hock bones of the cattle killed for the British troops. These wagons having been backed up to the door of the barn, the hock bones were shoveled in on the floor, while the prisoners scrambled for what they could get. It is said that their hunger was so great that they seized the bones and gnawed them as a dog would. They were kept for three days in this barn, and were then conveyed down to that much-dreaded place of confinement, the Old Sugar House Prison, a sugar store-house, which was between Ann and Fulton streets. It was a building with a large central portion, and had two wings which projected on either side of a little courtyard. There were no cellars and the floor was of puncheons (hewn logs eight or ten inches thick) laid loose on the floor timbers. It was very strongly constructed in order that it might sustain the weight of the heavy casks of sugar and molasses which came from the West Indies.
The place where our twelve New Milford men slept was just inside one of the doors. The two projecting rooms on either side were occupied by the guard of the prison and the officers, respectively. A sentry paced up and down the front from the guard room to the room of the officers. The provisions furnished to the prisoners were exceedingly scanty and of so poor a quality that they had been condemned as unfit for the use of the soldiers and sailors of the British army. Their rations consisted mainly
