almost fancy she saw the clashing of swords; and, knowing her husband to be such a "liberty man," could almost see him falling a victim to British bayonets in the contest. But he returned in a few days after his time expired, safe and sound, with only one bullet hole about him, made in retreating from the Island. Fortunately that bullet was arrested by a small cheese she had a few days before sent him, and which he had crowded into his knapsack.

ABIGAL SALISBURY.

Abigal Salisbury, of Barrington, widow of George, who was Sergeant of a guard stationed at Rumstick Point, was another choice specimen of female patriotism. She was ONE HUNDRED YEARS of age when she applied for a pension, was married fifteen years before the war, and she, too, took an active part in the struggle for Independence, and knit stockings for the whole guard. Indeed, she was so fond of knitting that she continued it until her death. She showed the writer a pair of stockings she knit after she was one hundred years of age.

SARAH DYER.

Sarah Dyer, widow of Anthony Dyer, of Glocester, was another heroine of the Revolution. Her husband was a subaltern in a corps called the "Captain General's Cavaliers," an independent corps, chartered in 1775 expressly to fight the British; and it had as much fight in it as if it had been composed of Cossacks. She was ninety-three years old when she made an application for a pension, was married in 1763, and her descendants are now among the most wealthy and respectable citizens of Providence.

She informed the writer of many incidents which took place, and the efforts she made to sustain the "glorious cause." She, too, like Mrs. Matteson, went into the meadow in "hay time," raked and loaded hay, hoed and gathered in potatoes, and harvested corn; and she said she did it "cheer

fully," although it was rather laborious to do both "men and women's work" at the same time, or on the same day. Although ninety-three years of age when the writer was acquainted with her, yet her mind was active and her memory good, and she could go into the details of many of the most memorable events of the war.

ANNA ALDRICH.

Anna Aldrich, widow of Israel Aldrich, of Smithfield, was another of our Revolutionary mothers. Her efforts were marked by a zeal and perseverance which would do honor to a Roman matron. She was eighty-nine years of age when she applied for a pension, and was married in 1773. She gave the writer a sketch of her Revolutionary history; and if the women of the present day had to endure the hardships, in the absence of their husbands, she endured, very few would arrive to the great age she did, and with a mind and memory so little impaired even at the time she claimed the benefit of the pension Acts. She carried her baby into the field-cradled it in the boughs of a tree, secured in a blanket from reptiles-so that literally, in the words of an old nursery song, "When the wind blew, the cradle would rock;" and during the summer of 1777 she hoed corn and potatoes, raked hay, pulled flax, milked cows, made butter and cheese, mended the fences on the farm, raised three or four hundred weight of pork, fatted a "beef creature," and did the work on the farm generally-whatever her husband would have done had he been at home. Such was one of our Revolutionary mothers. Can it be thought strange that our Revolutionary fathers succeeded, when they were thus seconded by such wives?

There is one fact, which we will mention in this connection, respecting the mothers of the Revolution. We have generally found that they preferred to bear the names of their patriotic husbands, after they became widows, to a second marriage.— Our professional acquaintance with them has been such, that we can vouch for the truth of this fact, and, among others, we

will mention one instance. Molly Bowers was ninety-six years of age when she applied for a pension, and was married in 1771. She was the widow of Asa Bowers, who died with the small pox on his march from Providence to Ticonderoga, in 1776. She had been a widow SIXTY YEARS when she applied for a pension in 1836! Few, perhaps, had been in widowhood so long as Molly, but it was common to notice they had been widows from twenty to thirty years.

It is true, however, that some widows of the Revolution married a second time, but it is equally true that the memory of their first husbands was the most tenderly respected. We will mention one instance of this kind. Whoever has visited “Diamond Hill," in Cumberland, must have noticed a hill of almost equal height directly opposite, on the west side of the road. Up this hill led a winding, rough and rocky path, hardly passable for a carriage, and quite on the summit lived Hannah Tower, formerly the widow of William Emerson, Sergeant in the war of the Revolution. She was ninety-two years of age when the writer climbed up this hill to her house, to take her declaration on her claim for a pension, it being necessary, by the rules of the War Department, that such declarations should be made in Court or before a Judge. She was married to William in 1778, when he was in service.After the war was over, here William lived and here he died, and in a sacred spot near her house was his grave. She took the writer to the spot, and, with all the warmth of youthful affection, observed, "Here lies my William: a nobler and better man never lived, and by his side I intend to be buried.He was my guardian protector in the hour of danger." On his grave-stone was a suitable inscription to his memory, his marriage, his death, his "deeds of daring" in battle, &c. The old lady could never be persuaded to quit this spot, and it is presumed never did until her death. Here was the true spirit of a Rhode Island wife in the days of the Revolution!

As was before observed, the writer could fill a volume of these reminiscences of Rhode Island women during the war; and the above are specimens merely of that female energy ex

hibited by them, and they are now given without any disparagement to hundreds of others. Indeed, we might add that all the ladies, married and unmarried, were engaged, in one way or another, in sustaining the great cause of liberty. While some were at work on farms, others were engaged in making clothes for the army, or administering to the wants of the sick and wounded. But his principal object was to pay a tribute to the memory of the "sterner sex" during our Revolutionary struggle, and to collect the materials, and exhibit at one view, the efforts of the Government and people, and to publish the names, so far as they have come to his knowledge, of those who belonged to Rhode Island and enlisted in the army, as well as such historical and biographical sketches as would exhibit their predominant spirit in the cause; and he will take each year by itself, beginning with the year seventeen hundred and seventy-five.

13

SECTION I.

[1775.]

Soon after the battle of Lexington, April 19th, 1775, a spirit of resistance throughout the whole country was awakened ;blood had been spilt, and it called forth the most determined opposition to British tyranny. Men met together as if by instinct, without any previous call, in work-shops, in taverns, in town-houses, highways and byways, and determined, by the aid of the Almighty, to avenge the high-handed butchery. As the news spread, it touched the heart to the quick-it roused the energies of the soul to the highest tone of feeling, and to most manly and lofty action. The mechanic left his shop and took his gun-the farmer dropped his implements of husbandry and left the field. The writer was told by one in particular, who, when the news was brought to him, was

sowing oats."—He immediately left all, called his company together, (he was Captain of militia,) and, before sunset, was on his march to Boston, at their head. Boston was soon surrounded by a large army, determined the enemy should not have another opportunity to send detachments into the country to burn and destroy. It was soon after this memorable event that John Hancock, who always carried his purse in one hand and his life in the other, at a secret caucus held in an "old barn," where the friends of liberty were discussing the best mode of expelling the British from Boston, exclaimed, "Burn Boston, and make John Hancock a beggar, if necessary to accomplish this object!" How different this from the conduct of many of the rich men of those days!

Immediately after the battle of Lexington, the Legislature of Rhode Island were called together to devise ways and means to defend the country, and they passed an act to raise