Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/437

 TOWN AND GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 349 in behalf of and the needs of the patriots at home and at the front. The towns were in close and constant touch with one another, and the Colony was in close fellowship with the sis- ter colonies. As a rule Barrington was prompt in answering the call for men, blankets, clothing, and such other material aid as she was called upon to render or voluntarily perform. So thorough was her enlistment of men that tradition has it that, at one time, every able bodied man in town was in some form of military service, leaving the direction of affairs and the work of the farms to the men over sixty, the women, and the boys under sixteen. After the first conflicts with the British, at Lexington and Bunker Hill, we are assured that our townspeople were up and in arms, ready for any call to duty. The Toivn and the Generac Assembly. In 1774 Mr. Nathaniel Martin and Mr. Thomas Allin rep- resented the town in the General Assembly, and were re-el- ected in 1775. In June, 1775, Captain Thomas Allin was directed and empowered by the General Assembly "to go to the house of each person in town and take an account of the powder, arms, and ammunition," and to make report to the Assembly at the next session. The same committee man was also instructed to collect all the saltpetre and brimstone in the town and send it with all possible dispatch to the town of Providence, to be sent forward finally to the Continental Congress at New York. Mr. Luther Martin was appointed to enlist one quarter part of the militia at Barrington, as minute men, "to meet to- gether and exercise themselves in military discipline, half-a- day, once in every fortnight." At the same session Viall Allen was made lieutenant, and Daniel Kinnicutt ensign of the Company of militia, under Captain Thomas Allin. 1776. In January Barrington was ordered to raise an Artillery Company of fourteen men, the Company to meet half-a-day a