Page:History of Gardner, Massachusetts (1860) - Glazier.djvu/41

Rh a soldier in the Revolutionary war three years and three months. There are none of his descendants now residing in Gardner. Soon after they came here, (while they went by marked trees,) Mrs. Kneeland visited at Mr. Bancroft's, one of the neighbors; on her return home she lost the path and wandered several miles until she came to Otter river, and not knowing where she was, called loudly for help; having a child with her, they sat down on a log to rest, and being warm, she took off her bonnet; hearing a crackling of something coming towards her and thinking it must be a bear or a wolf, she screamed, when her own dog barked in answer: she always called that the most joyful moment of her life; when she got her child asleep she arose and told the dog to go home. She forgot her bonnet and never found it afterwards, or knew the place where the dog found her. Before the incorporation of the town they attended meeting in Templeton; at one time, the snow being deep, they put on rackets and walked four miles to meeting, carrying a child to be baptized. Mrs. Kneeland was a very enterprising woman, as the following anecdote will show: One night after her family had retired to rest she had ten yards to weave to complete the web; the cloth belonged to a lady in Templeton, and being in want of the pay she labored through the night and finished the web at the dawn of day. He m. Maria Stone; their ch. were:—1. Maria, m. Josiah Nichols; whose ch. were:—Andrew, Sarah, David, Levi, Sabria and Fanny. 2. Oliver, m. Betsy Baldwin; whose ch. were:—Israel, Lucy, Silas, Esther, Betsy, Levi, Abner and Edward. 3. John, m. Mary Johnson; whose ch. were:—Mary Cynthia, Electa, Lucy, Bial, Arza, Eliza and John W. 4. Miriam. 5. Asa, m. Hannah Cheney; whose ch. were:—John., Phyland, Hannah G., Dulcena, Asa, Maria, Abner, Leonard,