Page:History of Gardner, Massachusetts (1860) - Glazier.djvu/119

Rh The roads belonging to Gardner are kept in repair at a cost of from fifteen to eighteen hundred dollars annually.

The Vermont and Massachusetts rail-road passes through the town from east to west, at about an equal distance from the center and south village, five or six miles in length.

Soon after the incorporation of the town, a militia company was formed of all the able bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, (according to the laws of the Commonwealth,) and chose William Bickford, Captain. This company continued to do duty, until the law requiring such duty was repealed. The following are the names of its commanders.

William Bickford, Reuben Haynes, Samuel Edgell, Aaron Greenwood, Abel Kendall, Benjamin Edgell, David Nichols, Arna Bacon, Ezra Moore, William Bickford, Jr., Ahio Temple, Levi Priest, Ezekiel Howe, Abel Jackson, Bartlett Stoddard, Henry Whitney, William Learned, George W. Cowee and Ephraim Wright.