A prudent father took care that his son learned a trade. Edmund was sent to Concord and became a cordwainer or shoemaker. Davy Fiske was a weaver, and soon after the fox hunt I was apprenticed to Robert Harrington, to learn the blacksmith's trade. He was a large, strong man, of a kindly nature, and was an excellent bass singer. As we worked together in his shop, with his son Thaddeus, we frequently sang psalm tunes, and his younger son Dan piped in a treble.
One day Major Ben Reed rode up, and brought his horse in to be shod.
"Well, Robert, we're going to have war again with the French. Governor Shirley's got word that they are making a settlement and building a fort down on our eastern frontier, and has ordered Colonel John Winslow to raise a regiment, and go down there to put a stop to it. Captain Frye of Littleton is raising a company, and if any of the boys want to join the expedition, they'd better enlist with him."
Davy Fiske's two older brothers, Jonathan and John, did enlist. They joined this company, and so did Joe Locke.
The regiment went up the Kennebec, built a fort, and then half of them went further up the river, to the Great Carrying Place, but found no settlements, no French nor Indians, nothing but immense and terrible swarms of black flies, midges, and bloodsucking mosquitoes; and after considerable blood was shed on both sides, they retreated and returned home.
This was but the beginning of the great struggle that we had with the French for seven long years. In the next year, 1755, early in the spring, Colonel Winslow was again ordered to beat his drums through our Province, and raise a regiment to proceed against Acadia; and Captain Spikeman began to enlist a company in our county.
The captain made his headquarters in Concord at Rowe's Tavern, which was kept by Edmund's uncle, Captain Thomas Munroe.
Several times, a sergeant, corporal, and a couple of drummers came down to Lexington, and marched through the town, beating a rub-a-dub on their drums. The sergeant would speak to the crowd, and try to get them to enlist. He would promise them—well, what wouldn't he promise them? Lands, booty, rich farms, the chance of becoming a general at least. He was an oily-tongued fellow, and Uriah Hall's son Uriah, Phineas Parker, and Tom Blanchard enlisted with him. He and his drummers stopped at our shop one day, and he came in. He placed his halberd in a corner, brushed the dust from the top of a box, and sat down.
EXPEDITION TO ACADIA
"Well, which of you young men is going to serve the King? There never was such a chance for a soldier as this. Here we are, going down to the richest country in the world, to turn these Acadians out of house and home; and any soldier who wants a farm can have it for the asking. Richest soil in the world. You can raise anything there. Level as a table, all cleared, not a stone in it, farm tools, housen and outhousen, and everything all ready for you. Hundreds of acres for the asking, and lots of booty besides. What better chance do you want?"