Links To The Past—

Remembering Those Who Fought The Original Fight For Freedom

By Kendra Bobowick

Pat Hubert feels a renewed awe for the trials her relatives endured.

She is impressed by “the courage they had in the face of terrible danger and death and knowledge that freedom did not come easily to them,” said the Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR) member when reflecting on her war-era ancestors.

Although she is a “daughter” far removed from those family members she knows only through research, she offers a current sentiment about the struggles of residents establishing homes here in the 1780s, specifically.

She said, “They made incredible sacrifices to provide us with freedoms we have today.”

Revolutionary War heroes are remembered especially this month, which commemorates the French allies’ march through the colonies. Those footsteps still echo for many, including Ms Hubert, who can find a connection to several men and women who fought for American freedom in the 1700s.

She names Evan Prothro, a maternal link, who was from South Carolina and fought in a brigade, and George Ulmer, a paternal link from Massachusetts who wound up in a naval battle along Lake Champlain.

By linking herself to colonists, and those colonists to battles, Ms Hubert reveals historic bloodshed still tainting lives today. Ms Hubert and Town Historian Dan Cruson both remember different details of revolutionary stories, and together weave impressions of strife and stitches of anguish into a dark backdrop. As colonists approached the late 1700s, England intended to quiet the voices of discontent in America, the New World. Some, including General George Washington, wanted their freedom from England while others sympathized with the British. However those loyal to the Crown were not always wearing British soldiers’ uniforms, but were colonists. Tories, or British loyalists within the colonies, intermingled with Patriots, who rebelled against the British.

Putting a child’s frightened face on the struggle within the colonies, Ms Hubert shares one story that is “amazing,” she said. Her story centers on Ebenezer Lockwood’s children.

“Ebenezer’s children were inside the house when the British surrounded the house. One of the children, Prudence, peeked beneath a curtain and saw them coming and putting logs and torches outside the house,” she said.

Ms Hubert explained that the adults had escaped into the woods nearby while the children were trapped.

She said, “Prudence saw [the British] start to torch the house and from the woods the men started shooting and scared off the British and were able to get the children.”

Enhancing the details of life throughout the Revolutionary War, Mr Cruson explains the extreme reactions colonists eventually had to British crusades. Protective actions grew stronger as the war progressed, he explained.

Like the armed men who surprised the British and saved the children from dying in a fire, others were also ready to fight.

Mr Cruson describes the growing militia saying, “A lot of men from Newtown grabbed weapons and spontaneously reacted to defend the homeland.”

He said that raids on Danbury and in Bethel increased concerns for safety. Coastal raids also took place from 1779 to 1781.

“In all of these raids, local people — militia — gathered and went to the raid,” Mr Cruson said.

Additional examples of Revolutionary War era life jump from the pages of Newtown 1705–1918 by Historian Ezra Levan Johnson. The chapters reveal that more than the British troubled colonists.

One chapter describes long-ago resident Lamson Birch, born in 1771 and living until 1859. His 88 years include the French military passing through Newtown along its march while assisting General George Washington in fending off the British.

In Newtown we find Lamson observing the French troops, led by Count de Rochambeau, who is commemorated on a plaque outside Hawley School, and will receive another recognition on June 29.

The chapters reveal, “In 1781, when the French army encamped…Lamson was a boy of 10 years and so vividly was everything impressed upon his memory that in after years he was considered authority on matters…to which reference is now made. His father was a Tory, and the family was regarded as a Tory family.”

Chronicling the surreptitious activities of Tories among the colonists, Newtown further details circumstances of the late 1700s, stating, “The son [Lamson] used to tell in his later years how the father [William Birch] was compelled to keep his gun hidden in the brush or under his barn…”

Lamson later becomes the second husband of another eyewitness to the Revolutionary war movements and both Tory and Patriot activities in town. Newtown provides background for Mary Ann Birch.

The book states, “Her father, too, was a Tory. He, with others of Tory proclivities, would hide in the woods, where they were accustomed to retreat when they expected to be molested by their more patriotic neighbors.”

The tale continues, “At one call of the Whigs (patriots) at Mr Glover’s [Her father’s] house, they found him in bed and amused themselves by pricking him with bayonets.”

A ceremony commemorating Rochambeau’s march will be held at Hawley School on June 29 at 4 pm when Mr Cruson will unveil a plaque depicting the French troops. Ms Hubert hopes to attend, along with reenactors traveling the entire route of Rochambeau’s March.

One war memento forgotten by the troops was found several years ago in a backyard on The Boulevard off of Church Hill Roar. Mr Cruson said one family found a six-pound canon ball.

“That’s obviously what it was and we know they had artillery along here,” he said.