Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/390

 3°4

��MAJOR SAMUEL HUTCHINSON.

��MAJOR SAMUEL HUTCHINSON.

��BV REV. SILAS KETCHUM, WINDSOR, CONN.

��On the 6th of September, 1 770, Rev. Bezaleel Woodward, "writing from Leb- anon, Conn., to Rev. EleazerWheelock, then at Hanover, preparing a cradle for the infant college, says : " We have all of us been endeavoring to expedite

the removal But I fear madam

will not be able to set out so soon [as the 1 8th inst]. She, with Miss Nabby, propose to ride in the Post-Chaise, as soon as they can possibly be read}'. Hutchinson is to drive it for them."

The Hutchinson here named, to whom was committed the important trust of conveying through the wilder- ness, a distance of nearly or quite two hundred miles, the wife and daughter of the president of Dartmouth College, was Elisha, a son of Samuel, born in Sharon, Conn., 22 Dec, 1749. He was then fitting for college under the instruction of Dr. Wheelock ; was one of the company of seventy who shared with its founder the toils and privations of those first years of struggle which led to victory. He pursued his studies at the college, and graduated in 1775, in the same class with Nathaniel Adams, the Annalist of Portsmouth. He gave three years to the study of divinity, and was ordained pastor of the Congrega- tional church in Ashford, Conn, (not Westford, as Chapman has it, in his Alumni of Dart. Coll.), in March, 1778. On the 1 6th of July following, he married Jerusha Cadwell, described by Chapman {Alum.D. C, 18.) as being of Westford ; but her sister, Thankful, who married Gen. Amos Shepard, is said by Arnold {Hist. Sketches of Al- stead, 28) to be of Hartford. In Sept., 1 783, Mr. Hutchinson was dismissed from his pastorate in Ashford, and was installed the first minister of Pomfret, Vt., 14 Dec, 1784; dismissed 8 Jan., 1795. After this he appears to have resided in Pomfret till 1800, when he went to Zoar, Ms., where he united

��with the Calvinist-Baptist denomination and removed to Susquehanna, Pa., from which place he was compelled to flee by the Indians, who at that time invaded our western frontier, under But- ler and Brandt, and committed the massacre at Wyoming. He next set- tled in Marion, Wayne Co., N. Y. ; and in 1 8 14 became pastor of the Baptist church in Newport, N. H., where he continued in the active duties of the ministry till 182 1, and where he resided till his death, 19 April 1S33, — instead of April 9th, as Chapman has it. He married, for a second wife, Martha, daughter of Samuel Eddy, of Wash- ington Co., N. Y.

Samuel Hutchinson was his son, and was born in Ashford, Conn., 9 July, 1779; and died in Alstead (N. H.), 14 May, 1819. As a boy he la- bored on his father's farm in Pomfret, and attended school, when there was any, till he was fifteen years old. But, possessed of an active mind, and dis- playing some capacity for business, an opportunity was improved of introduc- ing him to a different sphere, and to far other scenes, than his Vermont home afforded.

In the July No. of this Magazine, I gave an account of Gen. Amos Shep- ard, who, as above stated, married a sister of Maj. Hutchinson's mother. In 1794, Gen. Shepard had been a merchant in Alstead seventeen years, held the highest military office under the governor, was one of the wealthiest and most conspicious men in the western part of the state. The follow- ing extract from a letter shows the manner of young Hutchinson's intro- duction to the care of his distinguished

uncle : —

"•Pomfrtt, 17th July, 1794. "Sir!

U I understand you are in want of a lad to assist in tending your store, and that you had entertained a favorable idea of

�� �