Seth Pomeroy, born in Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 20th of May, 1706, was an ingenious and skilful mechanic, following the trade of a gunsmith. He entered the military service early in life, ranking as captain in 1744, and as major at the capture of Louisburg by the English in 1745. On the morning of the 17th of June, 1775, he entered Ward’s camp at Cambridge as a volunteer, having heard the artillery at Charlestown and feeling it a personal summons. Borrowing a horse from General Ward, he eagerly pushed on, but reaching the Neck and finding it swept by the fire from the British sloop-of-war “Glasgow,” lying in the harbor, he gave the horse to a sentry, and shouldering his gun, proceeded on foot, too honest to risk the life of a borrowed animal. Upon reaching the hill, and taking his place with Stark behind the rail-fence, he was recognized and greeted with shouts all along the line. On the 22d of June, 1775, Congress commissioned him senior brigadier-general; but this causing some dissatisfaction among the seven others raised to the same rank at the same time, he declined his appointment, and soon after retired to his farm. In 1776, however, when New Jersey was overrun by the British, he marched at the head of the militia of his own neighborhood to the rescue of Washington. He reached the Hudson River, but never returned, dying at Peekskill, New York, on the 19th of February, 1777.
DAVID WOOSTER.
David Wooster, born in Stratford, Connecticut, on the 2d of March, 1710, graduated at Yale in 1738. At the breaking out of the war between England and Spain in 1739, he entered the Provincial army with the rank of lieutenant, but subsequently was given command of a vessel built and equipped by Connecticut for the defence of her coasts. In 1745, he took part in the expedition against Louisburg as commander of the war vessel “Connecticut,” which conveyed the troops to Cape Breton. The next year he visited England and was given a captain’s commission with half-pay for life. Returning to America, he served through the French and Indian War; but when troubles began to arise between the American colonies and the mother country, approving the demands of the former, and believing his allegiance was due to them, he resigned his commission in the British army in 1774, and was one of the originators of the expedition by which Fort Ticonderoga was captured in May, 1775.
With the organization of the Continental army, Wooster was made brigadier-general on the 22d of June, 1775, and ordered to join Montgomery in the Canadian expedition. On the death of that officer, the command for a time devolved upon Wooster, and he acquitted himself to the satisfaction of Congress. Returning to Connecticut, he resigned his commission in the Continental service, but was made major-general of the militia of his native State. During the winter of 1776–77, he was employed in raising recruits and in protecting the military stores which had been collected at Danbury. On the 26th of April, 1777, Governor Tryon, at the head of two thousand British regulars, attacked the town, destroying the stores and retreating. Wooster and Arnold, collecting about six hundred militia, went in hot pursuit; but the undisciplined recruits gave way before the British artillery. Wooster, endeavoring to rally his men, exclaimed, “Come on, my boys! never mind such random shots!” when he was pierced through the body by a musket-ball. Carried back to Danbury, he lived but a few days, dying on the 2d of May, 1777. On the 17th of June, Congress passed appropriate resolutions, and voted $500 for the erection of a monument. This duty being neglected, the hero’s grave soon became unknown. In 1854, a handsome monument of Portland granite was erected to his memory in Danbury.
JOSEPH FRYE.
Joseph Frye, born in Andover, Massachusetts, in April, 1711, was enterprising and intelligent, and at an early age represented his town in the General Court of the county. Entering the army, he was present at the siege of Louisburg and wrote the terms of the surrender. He was a colonel when Montcalm captured Fort William Henry in 1757. Being seized and stripped by an Indian, he was led away to torture; but overpowering and killing his captor, Frye fled into the woods, succeeded in eluding the savages, and after several days reached a place of safety. In June, 1775, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts appointed Colonel Frye a major-general, and the 10th of January, 1776, Congress gave him the rank of brigadier-general in the Continental army. His age and infirmities, however, compelled him to retire soon after from active service. Removing with his family to the frontier of Maine, he founded the town of Fryeburg, and died there in 1794.