THE MINUTE MEN.
In August, 1774, a company of minute men were enrolled under the command of Capt. Bigelow, and met each evening after the labors of the day, for drill and martial exercise. Muskets were procured for their arming from Boston. Their services were soon required for the defence of the country. At eleven o'clock, A. M., April 19th, 1775, an express came to town, shouting, as he passed through the street at full speed, "To arms! to arms! the war is begun!" The bell rang out the alarm, cannons were fired, and in a short time the minute men were paraded on the green, under the command of Capt. Timothy Bigelow. After fervent prayer by Rev. Mr. Maccarty, they took up the line of march. When they arrived at Sudbury, intelligence of the retreat of the enemy met them, and a second company of minute men from Worcester, under command of Capt. Benjamin Flagg, overtook them, when both moved on to Cambridge.
The writer cannot forbear to mention a few of the names of these soldiers of freedom. Most of them have descendants now living, and living on the same farms that their illustrious sires or grandsires left, when they started with Captains Bigelow and Flagg, to repel the enemy at Lexington. Eli Chapin was the father of Mrs. Jonathan Flagg and Mrs. Capt. Campbell; Wm. Trowbridge was the father of Mrs. Lewis Chapin; Jonathan Stone, grandfather of Emory Stone, Esq., who now owns and occupies the same estate; Asa Ward, grandfather of Wm. Ward; Simon Gates, father of David R., who now lives on and owns the same estate; David Richards was in Capt. Flagg's company, but after he returned, concluding there was going to be "hot work," to use his own words forty years afterwards, he turned over to the tories. The organization of the army was immediately made at Cambridge, and Timothy Bigelow was appointed Major in Colonel Jonathan Ward's regiment. In the autumn of 1775, Major Bigelow volunteered his services, with his men from Worcester, in that expedition against Quebec, alike memorable for its boldness of conception, the chivalrous daring of its execution, and its melancholy failure. During their march from Cambridge to Quebec, Major Bigelow and his noble band endured severe hardships, reduced by hunger to the necessity of eating their camp dogs, and in their last extremity, cutting their boots and shoes from their feet to sustain life. Had that winter march through the wilderness been the exploit of a Grecian phalanx or Roman legion, the narrative of suffering and danger would have been long since celebrated in song and story.
One of the three divisions, penetrating through the forest by the route of the Kennebec, was commanded by Major Bigelow; and during a day's halt of the troops on this memorable march, Major Bigelow ascended a rugged height about forty miles northwest from Norridgewock, for the purpose of observation. This eminence still bears the name of Mount Bigelow. In the attack on Quebec, on the night of the 31st of December, Major Bigelow was taken prisoner, with those of his men who were not killed, and remained in captivity until the summer of 1776.