to bring our garden products to town so that you people may live; it's a tarnation shame that we can't get any satisfaction when we want it." But sometimes the gateman came out ahead in the argument with the "kikkers," like the old darkey recently, on one of the southern turnpikes yet remaining, where a big touring car had twice rushed through the gates without stopping to pay toll. The next time they made the attempt the negro gate-keeper promptly shut the gate and brought them to a halt; with indignation the half-dozen occupants of the car declared they were entitled to pass without pay. "Why, look at your own board," said the spokesman, "it reads, 'every carriage, cart or wagon drawn by one beast, two cents; every additional beast, two cents'; we're not drawn by any beast at all." "No, sah," says the darkey, "but here's where ye come in," pointing to another clause, reading as follows: "Every half dozen hogs, four cents,' an' three times four is twelve," he added. The twelve cents was promptly handed over. It is related that when the army, headed by General Sheridan and his staff, left Winchester early in the morning, moving towards Stephens City, the column, just as day was approaching, reached a toll gate on the Old Valley pike in charge of a young and beautiful girl. Even war-hardened Sheridan was not proof against the persuasion of a pair of black eyes and a pretty face, and when toll was demanded straighway produced the tithe, setting an example that was followed by his staff. "But," said Sheridan, as he passed through the gate, "I cannot vouch for my army." Soon the soldiers came and the girl again lowered the toll bar and demanded toll. This was met by jeers from the guard, who marched on. All day long the dusty troopers passed through, and all day Charlotte Hillman stood at her post. For every ten soldiers who passed the gate she cut a notch in the gate. When peace came again over the North and South and the policy of the administration at Washington was one of magnanimity, Charlotte Hillman counted the notches on the toll gate and sent her bill to Washington, and the bill was paid.

The last of the turnpike companies in Massachusetts went out of existence many years ago, and only a short

time ago the town of New Haven, by the payment of $5000 to the Derby Turnpike Company, abolished the last toll gates on the public highways of Connecticut. It was at the old toll house on the Boston post road at the Connecticut line near Greenwich that was removed a few years ago, that Washington and his escort were permitted to pass free and were also given two barrels of ale by the keeper's wife. In some sections of the country, particularly in the West and South, the turnpike system remains to this day in some degree, and but recently the daily newspapers were filled with details of the "turnpike war" in Kentucky, where the highways have been for several years gradually being made free, but the exactions and quibbles of the companies had aroused the farmers to violent measures against the toll gates.

A prominent writer, referring to the Kentucky revolt, says: "Although the Kentucky farmers have resorted to some violence to gain their points, their actions have at no time equalled in riotous conduct those of the common people of Wales about fifty years ago, when a similar rebellion broke out against the turnpike system, and which resulted in the highway being made free. In no English-speaking country can this toll gate system be perpetuated in these days. The people will finally rise with violence if no other remedy is left to them." When the system was inaugurated, however, it was thought to be an equitable one, based on the principle that those who used the roads should pay for their support, and in their early days the turnpikes were a great advantage to the country, and by them an impetus was given to improved methods of road construction, some of which are with us to this day in our fine state roads. With the coming of the locomotive the tide of travel was diverted from the old highways, the day of the steam car followed, and now again we see travel returning in a large measure to many of the old roads with the swiftly moving auto, giving to them something of the life and travel that they enjoyed in the old departed days when the stage coach was in its glory and the old wayside taverns were often only a mile apart and the horse was the king of the road.

FITCHBURG SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION.

Read at a meeting of the Society, May 20, 1895.

BY JAMES F. D. GARFIELD.

The opening of the Revolutionary War was signalized by the gathering of the Massachusetts minute-men and militia on the nineteenth of April, 1775, to repel the raid of British troops sent out from Boston by Gen. Gage to destroy the military stores gathered by the patriots at Concord. The news of the midnight march of the hostile forces, the collision at Lexington green and the skirmish at the North Bridge in Concord,-was spread by swift couriers through all the neighboring towns and on to more remote sections. Immediately the highways and byways were swarming with armed men on their way to oppose the march of the British regulars. The news from Lexington is said to have reached Fitchburg as early as nine o'clock on the morning of the nineteenth, when signal guns were fired and the company of minute-men, fortytwo in number, under Capt. Ebenezer Bridge, took up its line of march, followed by the militia company numbering twenty-nine, under Capt. Ebenezer Woods. They reached Concord the same evening, and on the following morning continued their march to Cambridge, where they joined the ranks of those who had pursued the British in their disastrous rout on the day before.

Since this paper was read before the Society it has been carefully revised and much information added regarding the personal history of the men who served on the quota of Fitchburg; and to this has been added a list of such Revolutionary soldiers as made Fitchburg their home in years subsequent to the war, but whose service was credited to other towns. In collecting this additional information the writer is largely indebted to the assistance of Hon. Ezra S. Stearns of this Society, without whose kindly aid the work could hardly have been undertaken.

Fitchburg, then a town but eleven years from date of incorporation, with a population of probably not over seven hundred, turned out a force numbering in all seventyone men. Lunenburg sent a company on the twentieth, numbering sixty men under Capt. George Kimball, and probably a company on the nineteenth, under Capt. John Fuller, though the roll of this company has not been found. Leominster sent three companies-one under Capt. John Joslin, numbering forty-one men, one under Capt. Joshua Wood, of thirty-four men, and one under Capt. David Wilder, of twenty-four men. Of the latter company, six were Lunenburg men. Westminster also sent three companies-Capt. Noah Miles, sixty-seven men, Capt. John Estabrook, twenty-six men, and Capt. Elisha Jackson, twenty-five men. Ashburnham responded with two companies—one of thirty-eight men, under Capt. Jonathan Gates, and one of thirty-three men, under Capt. Deliverance Davis. Ashby sent two companies-the first, under Capt. Samuel Stone, of forty-six men, the second (April 20), under Capt. John Jones, of thirty-one men; Townsend sent a company of fifty-seven men, under Capt. James Hosley, one of twenty men, under Capt. Samuel Douglas, and a squad of fourteen, under Lieut. Daniel Sherwin. Shirley sent a company of eighty men, under Capt. Henry Haskell. Thus it appears that this cluster of eight Worcester and Middlesex towns sent forward in the neighborhood of seven hundred men in response to the Lexington alarm.

The retreat of the British troops from Concord and Lexington, with the gathering of the patriot forces at Cambridge, marks the beginning of the memorable siege of Boston, whereby the hostile forces were confined within the limits of that city and their supplies from outside effectually cut off, resulting in the evacuation of the city in March of the following year.

After the stirring events of the nineteenth of April the militia companies gathered at Cambridge were disbanded, with a view to a better organization for active service, and companies were immediately reorganized and men enlisted to serve for eight months. A company was formed, composed of thirty-nine men from Lunenburg and twenty

three from Fitchburg, under command of Capt. John Fuller of Lunenburg, with Ebenezer Bridge of Fitchburg as lieutenant. Most of the Fitchburg men were from Capt. Bridge's company of minute-men. Another company was recruited, made up largely of Lunenburg men, with seven from Fitchburg, of which Josiah Stearns of Lunenburg was captain, and William Thurlow of Fitchburg lieutenant. Capt. Ebenezer Woods and eleven other Fitchburg men enlisted under Capt. James Burt of Harvard.

While the quota of Fitchburg during the first years of the war was supposed to be eighteen men, it appears that there were at least forty-two men from the town engaged for longer or shorter periods during the siege of Boston, 1775.

A call was made the same year for thirteen thousand coats for the patriot army, the requisition to be apportioned on the several towns in proportion to the amount of their last provincial tax. The schedule of apportionment required of the town of Fitchburg, eighteen coats; of Lunenburg, fifty-seven; of Leominster, forty-three; of Westminster, thirty-seven; of Ashburnham, twelve; of Ashby, twelve, and other towns in proportion. The coats were required to be made of good, plain cloth, preference being given to that manufactured in this country, and were to be delivered to the committee of supplies without buttons. The selectmen were to cause a certificate to be sewed to the inside of each coat, showing from what town it came, and by whom it was made; and if the cloth was made in this country, by whom it was made. The town authorities were assured that the coats furnished should be delivered to the men from the town which furnished them, so far as possible, and the committee of supplies were to have the coats "buttoned with pewter buttons," and the number of the regiment stamped upon the face of the buttons.

In the years subsequent to the evacuation of Boston repeated calls had to be made, and finally a draft was resorted to, in order to keep the quota of the town full. In 1778 a return was made of the male inhabitants of each town of Worcester county, subject to military duty, with the number of men then in service, and the deficiency,