Putnam patriot., 1918-07-05

debt of highest honor long overdue. Within the oldest section of this buri- al ground lie inferred the bodies of S5 men of Thompson, who served on the patriot side in the Revolutionary War. It contains also separate graveStones in memory of five other such men who died in that service at such distant points that their remains could not be brought home here, but had to be bur jed there in unnamed and now for gotten graves. Therefore this ceme- tery contains forty Revolutionary dead, thirty-fve actually and five constructively Possibly, and indeed quite likely. it contains even more, but these at least have been clearly identified The last survivor of them, Archelaus Sibley, died on the 2Sth ot June, 1853, at the age of ninety; and it is an interesting coincidence that his wife was the last survivor of the Thompson widows of the Revolution, she having died on October 13, 1863, in her ninety-first year.
 During the interim since the mak- ing of the treaty of peace Tn lfSS, and largely since Sibley's death, this republic which these men helped to found and firmly establish has ex- banded and prospered even beyond their fondest imaginings-in contl- mental area from S27,S44 to 3, 43.- 744 square miles; in population from 3,929,000 at the first census in 1790 to one hundred and five millions now; in wealth from S7,l35,7SO in 1850 to about two hundred and fifty billions now. with an annual income of about fifty billions; and in educational ia cilities and in every detail of com fortable living. Nevertheless, not until this late day has there been here a local memorial of the services of those men Now, thanks to the pa triotic reverence and loving care of that splendid organization known as "The Daughters of the American Revolution" this memorial to them has been reared--in its materials as simple and rugged as was the char acter of those whom 1t commemorates and as enduring as shall be the results of their toll and sacrifice In this community may their memory live as long as granite and bronze may en- dure; and may it serve as beacon light to loyal and patriotic action.
 Still the period back to that war is not so very long if measured by the longer of human lives The last known survivor of that patriot service lived until April 5, 1869, dying at the age of one hundred and nine years, six months and eight days; and the last widow of such a survivor died only on November II, 1906, one hun dred and twenty-three years after the close of the war The last Revolu- tionary pensioner, daughter pen stoned by special act of Congress, died in 1910 Sibley's life overlapped mine by two years. A child ten years old when he died would now be only seventy-five 1t would seem that there ought to be people in this vicin- ity who remember him well, but with some diligence of inquiry 1 have been unable to find any such, and yet, If the local traditions here current in my boyhood may be credited, the old veteran was by no means reticent; and. if the half of the tales he told in his latter years were literally true, the marvel is that any armed Britishers escaped his individual prowess and services. He was born in Sutton, Mass. and his service was rendered
 
 state. His declining years from 1892 on were eased by the pension of the grateful nation, and his widow re- ceived a pension from the second day after his death. Whatever may have been his individual worth in compari- son with that of his comrades, we to- day give special mention to him as the last survivor of the noble band.
 .e. ta CT acknowledgment to the services of the Revolutionary patriots generally. General Henry Lee, in the eulogium which he pronounced before Congress upon Washington few days after his death, declared that he was first in war, first in peace and first Tn the hearts of his countrymen." We may well apply that encomium to the pa triots as a whole. Certainly they were first in the war. This much IS demonstrated not only by the fact that they won in the end, but more especially by the fact that in the pro gress of the war they captured two large British armies, horse, foot and artillery, complete in every equipment the first the army of Burgoyne, and that, too, by their own unaided eff forts, and the second the army of Cornwallis. Since William the Con oueror landed on English shores, no other people ever did that to Eng land, and even in this present tre- mendous world war England has suf- fered the capture of only one entire army, and that small one for these times. When Cornwallis' army march ed out to formally surrender, it's bands, most appropriately at least from the British viewpoint, played the tune, "All the World Turned Upside Down." Except for the humanity of Washington the American patriots would have captured a third large British army, likewise complete, namely. that of Howe. When, in March, 1776, Washington planted his batteries upon Dorchester Heights and made his entrenchments there im- pregnable, the army of Howe lay be- meath him, pent up in Boston at the mercy of his cannon. Washington had but to lombard the town to compel Howe to surrender; but Boston had been "the cradle of liberty" her blood first had been shed in the com mon cause, and during the long seige her people had suffered great priva- tions; and for humanity's sake Wash ington stayed his uplifted arm and suffered his enemy to retire in safety o,t arJ barh0r r. xrO1ld he