Putnam patriot., 1918-07-05

the brother Of an ancestor of my good friend and neighbor, Dr. William D. Granger, who passed much of his youth in Thompson.
 Owing very likely to the sickness prevalent among the men, the regi- ment was not ordered to White Plains, but was sent to New Jersey, at Paulus Hook (now Jersey City), and later to Fort Constitution subsequent ly called Fort Leet, upon the Jersey shore just opposite the northwest cor her of Manhattan Island. Towards the end of the year the men were sent back home and painfully t0iIed their way over the frozen roads; doubtless as they west, from the scantiness of supplies, practically begging their way home from door to cocr.'
 At first consideration 1t seems strange that of those fifty-seFen men in the Thompson companies upon that expedition only twelve were buried here, although this was then, as It since, at least for the people of the old stock, has continued to be, much the most general place of intefment n tHe town. So far as known, only two others of those fifty-seYen are buried 1 elsewhere in Thamps0n. Perhaps the greet immigration from this locality,
 to settle Northern and Central New i ork after the Regsi atioHary W lar, chiefly under soldiecs land grants. l may account for this situation. l. would be most interesting to know, If
 one could, the burial place Of each of
 the other forty-thfee. but 1t has been impossible for me, with the data or fIFr1p at my eor,rpa d fp asqqYf ain he fact.
 In connection with this, the most famous exploit of the old Eleventh
 Regiment, we may for moment con
 slider the history of that notable or gaEization. It had an unbroken ex-
 istence for 109 years, from it's estab- lishment by the act of the Colonial Legislature in 1739 to it's termination
 in 184S by act of the State Legisla-
 ture passed in 1847. A first consti-
 tuted it comprised the towns of Can terbury, Voluntown, Plainfeld, Pom fret and killingly From time to time it's territory was changed, although 1t always included the north parish of Killingly, that is the present town of Thompson. At the time of the Revo- | lution it embraced Woodstock, Pom
 
 south parish, and in its later years 1t embraced also the town of Union. For one hundred years and more it
 was the leading institution of those | towns, the one thing in which the life | of their people most commingled Its company officers were elected by the
 men, and it's field officers were nomi- hated by it's commissioned officers,
 
 cepted and ratified by the General As sembly, Colonial or State. Hence the regiment was self governing demoe- raey and as such a leading political i pvaer in this locality. As a rule it's l officers were among the leading men 3f the regimental district the most influential and most ambitious Thus at the time of the Lexington alarm the colonel was Ebenezer Williams. head of the noted Pomfret family of | that name; the lieutenant colonel was l Israel Putnam, also of Pomfret, the most distinguished military man in | the entire county and perhaps the only one who had gained any consid- erable general fame in the recent l French War, and it's major was Will | liam Danielson of killingly, head Of
 the family after whom Danielson, or ''Danielsonville" as 1t was called in my boyhood, was named. The colonel | of the regiment usually managed to | have the annual muster or at least one 1 of them in his regime, held in his home town so that all of his neigh bors might have opportunity to view | the display and possibly to note his own importance. Thus when Moses | C. Sessions of Union was the colonel, l he had the muster held at Union Hill | and that training still remains the chief event in the history of that erst- while peaceful township. Those of us who have been at Union Hill can well imagine the effect of having a thou sand men turned loose there even for a single night as, owing to the dis
 tance, most of the men went there the evening before. It Is said that no
 person on Union Hill slept that night. Many amusing "reminiscences of that training were current here half a cen tury ago and might now entertaingly be recalled if the time permitted.
 It may not be generally understood by the present generation that we owe Thompson Common to the old regi- ment as that was originally, in 1771. set apart and donated by Benjamin Wilkinson as a training field for the Thompson companies and for the reg iment upon occasion. For our great grandparents the annual muster of the regiment was the great gala day of the year. For them it was the mod ern circus. picture show. county fair and camp meeting all combined. At least by it's wider scope, it had, as public attraction, the singing school. 1 the husking bee and even the pastors 1 annual donation party beaten to | frazzle My father, bravely clad in ' his regimentals as a major of the old | regiment, first saw my mother. a | Woodstock girl. at one of the May | Day musters on Woodstock Common. | The seeing l fancy was mutual, as the | wedding followed the succeeding l Thanksgiving Day. You may well | understand my regard for the old , regiment Except for it l might nev- CT have been. The female heart has ever been prompt to respond to the charm of the military, as we have had proof the past year These war brides of ours, however, have been only doing what their great grandmothers did abundantly in the early days of the Revolution, and what. no doubt. their female descend ants will continue tO do until the end 1