Old Put" The Patriot"

Table of

n to town, for the purpose of inciting men to make armed resistance to the iniquitous "Stamp Act," which had been passed and made a law early in 1765. While James Otis, Samuel Adams, and Pat

seems that one Mr. Ingersoll was appointed stamp-master by the Crown, and, on being requested to resign from such an obnoxious office by the Sons of Liberty, he returned an evasive answer. Consequently, a body of them mounted their horses and went out to meet him, as h

eputed by the Sons of Liberty to wait on the Governor of his State and inform him of the public sentiment

exed Governor, "if the stamped paper sh

hall visit you again,"

will you

t is deposited, and if you think fit, in order to screen yours

what wil

aper safely

uld refuse yo

e will be leveled to the

e. Elected a representative in 1766, Putnam was prepared to do all in his power to frustrate the intent of the Act; but, in common with his fellow citizens, was made happy by the news of its repeal.

her he received a compound fracture of his right thigh. The latter being imperfectly attended to, rendered that leg an inch shorter than the other, "which occasioned him ever after to limp in his walk." Notwithstanding these injuries, he

nn. So he moved himself and most of his belongings (including his stock of war relics and anecdotes) from the farmhouse to the "Green," nearly two miles distant, and there set up as "mine host" Putnam, putting out a sign of the Wolfe-not of the beast he had slain in early life,

e in full uniform, his eye fixed in an expression of fiery earnestness upon some distant object, and his right arm extended in emphatic gesture, as if charging

in the last war. By his courage and conduct he secured to himself a good share of reputation. When peace c

at last to have fallen into his proper groove, where he fitted exactly. Now nearly fifty years of age, with a record of ten years' fighting any one might well be proud of, a reputation no

first meeting-house, which was erected in 1734. It was in the year 1771 that the new church was erected, opposite the house that Putnam turned into a tavern, and the old tree that

not performed them long before he was called to go on a strange voyage in quest of lands in West Florida, which were reported to have been granted to the survivors of the French-and-Indian wars. The claims of the survivors were just enough; but their ques

e "orderly book" which he used in his Havana campaign. This book, doubly interesting to the present generation, is still preserved by a lineal descendant of Putnam, and attests to the fact that the soldier o

s for ye voige-good weathor. thorsday ye 7-this was a varey good Day and had almost all completed. Satorday ye 9

, according to the veracious diarist, "we waited on ye mannegor of the plantation who treted us very hamseley-walked with ous-shewed ous all ye Works and the mills to grind ye Cai

e Mississippi, by the way of New Orleans, which ended north of Natchez, to which spot General Lyman later returned and founded a settlement, where h

yearly getting more exciting, intense, and his soldier instinct was aroused. He keenly watched the trend of events, he discussed in his tavern the exciting new

nunciations of the British soldiery, like Otis and Adams, there was none more emphatic and in earnest. Between the massacre and the Boston "T

llow citizens into military companies and drilling them into proficiency, and he was made chairman of the "Committee of Correspondence" for Brooklyn. As such he bore to Boston, when the infa

, the tavern-keeper, the drover, but as the famous military man, hero of many battles, an American of renown. He was the guest of Dr. Joseph Warren, the patriot who was killed at Bunker Hill; but people of all classes and conditions united to do honor to "the celebrated Colonel Putnam," one of the "greatest military characters of the age," and "so well known throughout North America that no words are necessary to inform the public any further c

s in behalf of his fellow patriots, but during this visit to Boston he found almost as many friends on the British side as on the Colonial, including Governor Gage, with whom he had fought their common enemies, th

ve that a well appointed British army of say five thousand v

added, after a moment's pause, "if they should attempt it in a hostile manner (though the men of America