Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1886-07-29

/ Sothem, told. them h wps not shqtsio1
l REBELLION, and entrested them to desist
from it and dispense. But all to NO
purpose. They went 70 the island.
| They forced an entrance i4 SPITE OF
| Captain Cochran, who defended It as
long as he could. They secured the
Captain, triumphantly gave three huz-
zas and hauled down the Kings col
ors." Captain Cochran made his re-
port. Il told 'them," he wrote, ION
their peril not to enter. Trey replied
they would. l Immediately ordered
three four-poundcrs to be fired on
them, and then the smali-arms, and
before we could be ready to fire again
we were stormed on all quarters. and
Immediately they secured me and my
men, and kept us prisoners about an
hour and half, during which
time they broke open the powder
house, and took all the powder away
except one barrel"
The powder being loaded aboard the
"gundolo," the vessel was sailed back
to Durham on the flood tide. arriving
in the early morning. The larger part
of the powder was buried under the
pulpit of the old ..meeting-house" in
front of Major Sullivan's residence
under the pulpit from which venerable
Parson Adams had for years back been
intoxicating lessons of patriotism. Two
or three mounds s'ill exist to show
where the foundation of this church
were laid. Over against the now va.
cant space, and in a little plot adjoin-
ing Sullivan's former residence, a plain
marble slab gives token that the re-
mains of the soldier-statesman were
buried there.
The captured powder, as before init
mated, played an important part at
the battle of Bunker Hill. In the Con-
tinental army gathered about Boston
there was terrible lack of ammuni-
ton. ''lt is fact" says Bancroft, re-
ferring to the day before Prescott occu-
pied Breeds Hill, ''that the Americans,
after collecting all the ammunition
north of the Delaware, had in their
magazine, for an army engaged in .
siege and preparing for fight, no more
than 274 barrels [kegs?] of powder. with
a gift from Connecticut, of So! barrels
more. When, as the British were form
ing for decisive charge on his holly
defended works, Prescott discovered
that he had barely one round of ammuni-
ton among his men, and gave the or
der to retreat, both his and Stark's men
would undoubtedly have been cut to
pieces or captured except for the gall
ing fire with which Stark, from behind
the grass-stuffed fence on Bunker Hill,
met the Welsh FuSilaers who were
marching to cut off the retreat to Cam
bridge. 1t is of tradition and some
part of record that until within even a
few moments of the Fusileers'
charge Stark was no better
equipped with ammunition than
was Prescott. But an ample supply of
powder arrived in the nick of time 1t
had been brought over from Durham,
sixty miles away. in old John Dcmcr-
tits ox-cart, and it was a part of the
store that had been buried under Par
son Adams pulpit. Failing it, Pres
colt might on that day have shared the
martyrdom of Warren, and Molly
Stark might indeed have been a widow
that night.
Sullivan was the first man in active
rebellion against the British Govern
mcnt, and he drew with him the prov
ince he lived in. In a recent address
on the history of that part of New
Hampshire. Rev. DR.. Quint. of Dover,
referred briefly to the attack on the
fort The daring character of this as
sault," he said, ''can not be over-esti-
mated. 1t was an organized invest
ment of a royal fortress where the
Kings flag was flying, and where the
Kings garrison met them with mus
kets and artillery. 1t was four months
before Lexington. and Lexington was
resistance to attack, while this was de-
liberate assault. "-BalLard Smith, IN
Harper's Magazine.