The Western news. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1933-current, 1935-07-18

in New York Il leader of the Green
- Mountain Boys named Ethan Allen
had Numbered at the gates Of odd IT, on the
shores of Lake Champlain and demanded the
surrender of the fort "n the name of the Great
Jehovah and the Continental Congress- The
king and his ministers had sent three more gen
erals, Burgoyne and Clinton and Howe to Bos-
ton to help General Gage "hang as rebels and
traitors all who continued to resist His Majesty's
Government
Stirring events, these! But In this sleepy lit
: tic village the possibility of war still seemed far
away and unlikely. Then suddenly It's calm was
broken A horseman gaoping In haste and
shouting: Express, no! Dispatches from Pha-
delphian rs he rode, drew up In a swirl of dust
before the inn. And this was the news he
brought:
On June II the Second Continental congress
had passed resolution that six companies of
expert rifiemen be Immediately raised In the
Colony Of Pennsylvania. two In the Colony OF
Maryland and two In the Colony of Virginia.
and that each company soon completed
Shall march TO join the army near Boston, to be
there employed ms light Infantry under the COM
mand of the chief officer of that army" This
chief officer had just been appointed He was a
Eirginlan named George Washington--the same
Washington who had distinguished himself at
that bloody business of Braddock' on the Mon
ongahea twenty years before and who was
even now riding north to throw Tommy Gage
out of Boston,.
So 1t was to be war;
Farmers jogging along the country roads on
their way to the grst mill, stopped TO talk of 1t
over stake-and-rivet fences with their neighbors
Packhorse men, setting out on trading expedl-
lions to the west carried word Of 1t to every
hackwoods settlement through which they
passed. And ut once In many cabin In the
clearing, lanky frontiersman reached up TO the
pegs above the fireplace and took down his long
rifle In his swift, sure hands 1t had barled
defiance at pontiac's warriors; 1t had brought
many squirrel tumbling down from the highest
branch Of tree; and 1t had stopped short the
bounding flight of more than one buck deer. But
there was bigger game afeld now, game which
offered target that no reman, be he expert"
or not, was likely to miss-the British Redcoats
So from their cabins In Buffalo Valley and the
other settlements along the west branch of the
Susqnehanna these backwoodsmen hastened to
Sunbury to enroll In the company which their
nelghbor John Lowdon, was forming. Lowdon
had been born of Quaker parents but apparently
he was apostate to the doctrines Of the Society
of Friends for he had fought as an ensign In
the French and Indian war. He was an inn
keeper at Lancaster for Time then moved to
Buffalo Valley where he was a leading member
OF the committee Of correspondence.
On June 25 I.owdon's commission as captain
Of rifle company was signed by President John
Hancock and Secretary Charles Thomson of the
Continental congress. Four days later he was
leading his company across the river to Nor
cumberland to be sworn Into the Continental
service. There they remained until one day early
In July when young Dick Grosvenor, the
pany drummer, beat the long roll to summon