Putnam patriot., 1918-07-05
Address Delivered By Justice l. N Mills at UnveiIng of Revolutionary Soldiers Tablet West Thompson
 Cemetery on July 4

of September left in perfect health, afflicted with a deathly sickness caus- ed by her exposure and over exertions ill 6oing the farm work during his ab- senee. From that disease she Ian guished until, on March Both follow inS. she died He was thus left. in the spring of 1777. the most critical veal of the war after l716, widow CT with five small children to care for and support 1 Soiace myself with the belief that his such unfortunate situ- ation explains his failure to enlist that year in the Continental Conneeti- cut line. as some of his fellow towns men lid Whatever may be the truth about h,m, l confidently affirm that his wife, my great grandmother, gave her life for the patriot cause as surely as aid Captain Joseph Elliott give his when. in Auugst, l775, he died from sickness; caused by over eXertion at the battle of Bunker Hill and ia she seize of Boston, or as Captain Steph- en Crosby gave his when, on Septem- Der b, l776, he died from over eNer- tion in Putnam's retreat from Man haitian Island Over there in the northwest corner of the old section of this burial ground the flag planted on Memorial Day waves over the grave of my great grandfather. but not over hers. In my heart at least 1t floats over hers as well. In very truth she ill her young womanhood died for her country, while he was permitted to life out his life and to pass away in his old age, long after the war ended. All honor to the patriot women of the Revolutioni They suffered and sacri- feed as much for the cause as did their husbands, and sometimes, as in the case of my great grandmother, vastly more. Our ancestors upon these farms here round about were of the good old middle class English stock. They respected their women folk and did not, even in those early days, as many other men did, require them to work in the fields On these farms in those days at normal times one might at the busy season have seen a woman doing light outdoor work. such as, during the having. in the morning spreading the swarth af- ter her husbands moving, or, in the afternoon, raking after the cart, but she was never seen at hard manual toll. During that battle autumn of 1776, when. as Miss Larned in her history states. practically every able bodied man from sixteen to sixty years of age of Thompson was away at the war, the women of Thompson had to do and did do the farm work of every description, and they did it cheerfully, with patriotic fervor.
 Speaking of the high regard which those men had for their women folks reminds me of a tradition of the doughty captain of the Brandy Hill company in the same regiment of generation later, in the War of 1872, as my father told it to me When the British fleet chased Decatur in the old Constitution into New London harhor the Governor ordered the Eleventh Regiment forthwith to repair to New London and defend the place against the apprehended British attack. The colonel summoned the men to muster early the following morning on Wood stock Common, near his residence. The Brandy Hill Company was one of the first to arrive, and as they sat up- on the grass waiting for the rest to muster, the good captain, to refresh himself for the coming march, took from his haversack piece of johnny cake, but as he haised it to his lips he blubbered out like grief stricken school boy "What is the matter, cap tain?" said a fellow officer, and the captain replied, in a ehoked voice, "I can't help it I cant help it I see here in this johnny-cake the print of my wife's fingers. may never see her again" For one, think no less of the good captain for that and doubt not that, if the British had actually landed at New London, as they did not, he would have acquitted himself most valiantly
 While today, with this memorial, we honor the memory of the Thomp- son men of the Revolution, let us not forget that eommendation and even reverence are due to the Thompson women of that period.
 Of those men, six died in the ser vice They, named in the order of their respective deaths, were Captain Joseph Elliott, Captain Stephen Cros- by. Hezekiah Davis, David Gay, Cal win Skinner and Theodore Gay, the youngest only eighteen and the oldest 1OfIY-SlN. nose IOfty men, Oilt VT more of them, participated in twenty different campaigns and battles, ren- dering in the aggregate an immense service, from which one may easily reconstruct all the material events of the war, except Ticonderoga, the seize of Quebec and the movements in the Carolinas and Georgia. Their cam paigns and battles included the rally after Lexington, Bunker Hill, the siege of Boston, Long Island, the re- treat from Manhattan Island, White Plains, Trenton, Princeton, Brandy wine, Saratoga, Germantown, Fort Miffin, Valley Forge, Monmouth, the Rhode Island Campaign, Battle of Rhode Island, the repulse of Tryon's Connecticut Invasion, Stony Point, Tarrytown and Yorktown. We may well be amazed and delighted at the wide range of their services, which far exceeds my fondest antieipations. They embrace the decisive victories of Bunker Hill, the capture of Boston, the battles of White Plains, Trenton, Saratoga, Monmouth, Stony Point and Yorktown. There were only four other such in all the war, namely Lex ington, Ticonderoga, Kings Mountain and Guilford Court House and by req son of locality it was practically im- possible for our men here to engage in any of those others Of all the bat ties of the war only one, Saratoga, found place in the Fifteen DeeIs-