FOUNDERS OF FORT NO. 4, CHARLESTOWN, NH
From:	Farns10th@aol.com - Janice Farnsworth
        
The Rangers
Source:  History of Charlestown, NH - Fort No. 4 by Rev.
         Henry H. Saunderson pub l876 

Chapter VI p. 89 - l04
p.89
It has been necessary, in this history (of Charlestown,
NH) to speak frequently of the "Rangers", and as from
the great changes which have been wrought in the condi-
tion of this part of the country, similar bodies of men
can never be employed hereafter, some further descript-
ion of this peculiar class of partisans, showing what
they did and suffered, can scarcely be without interest.

"Compared with the life of the Ranger," says B. H. Hall
in his History of Eastern Vermont, "that of the frontier
settler was merely the training school in hardship and
endurance.  In the ranging corps were perfected lessons, 
the rudiments of which are, at the present day, but
seldom taught.  Their duties were to scour the woods,
and ascertain the force and position of the enemy; to
discover and prevent the effect of his movements, by
making prisoners of his sentinels, and to clear the way
for the advance of regular troops.  In marching, flankers
preceded the main army and their system of tactics was
embodied in the quickness with which, at a given signal,
they could form in file, either single or otherwise, as
the occasion demanded.  In fighting, if the enemy was
Indian, they adopted his mode of warfare, and were not
inferior to him in artifice or finesse.  To the use of
all such weapons as were likely to be employed against
them, they were well accustomed and their antagonist
whoever he might be, was sure to find in them warriors
whom he might hate, but could not despise.  As marksmen
none surpassed them"  Nor was their training in other
things less perfect.  "With a sensitiveness to sound,
approximating to that of instinct, they could detect the
sly approach of the foe, or could mark, with an accuracy
almost beyond belief, the place of his concealment.
Their route was for the most part through a country
thickly wooded, now over jagged hills and steep mountains
and anon across foaming rivers or gravelly bedded brooks.

When an Indian track was discovered, a favorable point
was chosen in its course, and there was formed an ambus-
cade, where they would lie in wait, day after day, for
the approach of the enemy.

Nor were mountains, rivers and foes, the only obstacles
with which they were forced to contend.  Loaded with
provisions for a month's march, carrying a musket heavier
by far than that of more modern make, with ammunition 
and appurtenances correspondent - thus equipped with the
burden of a porter, did they do the duty of a soldier.
At night, the place of their encampment was always 
chosen with the utmost circumspection, and guards were
ever on the alert to prevent a surprise.  Were it summer,
the ground sufficed for a bed, the clear sky or the out-
spreading branches of some giant oak, for a canopy. Were
it winter, at the close of a weary march performed on
snow-shoes, a few gathered twigs pointed the couch made
hard by necessity, and a rude hut served as a miserable
shelter from the inclemency of the weather.  Were the
nights very dark and cold, and no fear of discovery
entertained, gathered around the blazing brush heat,
they enjoyed a kind of satisfaction in watching the
towering of its bright, forked flame, relieved by the
dark, black ground of the black forest; or encircling
it in slumber dreamed that their heads were in Green-
land and their feet in Vesuvius.  If a comrade were sick
the canteen or what herbs the forest offered, were
usually the only medicines obtainable; and, were he un-
able to proceed, a journey on a litter to the place
whence his company started, or to the point of their
destination with the exposure consequent thereupon, was
not always a certain warrant of recovery or the most 
gentle method of alleviating pain.

But, the great object was unattained so long as they did 
not return with a string of (Indian) scalps or a retinue
of captives.  When success attended their efforts, the
officers and soldiers shared alike in the bounty paid
and strove to obtain equal proportions of praise and
glory.  The partisans of the valley of the Connecticut
(river) were mostly from Massachusetts, Connecticut,
and New Hampshire.  Some of them had borne for many years
the barbarities of the Indians and were determined to hunt
him like a beast in his own native woods.  Not a few had
seen father and mother tomahawked and scalped before 
their very eyes, and some, after spending their youth
as captives in the wigwam, had returned, bringing with
them a knowledge of Indian modes of warfare and a burning
desire to exert that knowledge for the destruction of
their teachers.  To men in this situation, a bounty such
as was offered by the State of Massachusetts, was suffi-
cient to change thought into action and it did not 
require the eye of a prophet to foresee the result.
Great were the dangers they encountered, arduous the 
labor they performed, pre-eminent the services rendered,
and to this we may add, small was the reward which they
received; and some modern historians without any proper
appreciation of the true character of the Indians or the
circumstances of the times which in the early settlements
made such an order of men a neccessity, would deprive
them of the meed of prais, which is their due!  But a
due consideration of the barbarity of the enemy, by
which was created an actual demand for such a class of
partisans for the protection of the frontier settlements
will not only give us higher and better views of their
character, but will lead us to a cordial acknowledgement
of their magnanimity and bravery, and the importance and
value of the services which they rendered.

Probably our country, in all her wars and conflicts, has
never nourished up a more fearless and determined set of
men than were brought out by the circumstances and duties
of the times, in the old French and Indian Wars, from
l745 to l760.  In the first French War, (the Cape Breton,
war as it was called), Captain Phineas Stevens, in the
Ranger service was the commanding spirit of the times.
Dearly did the Indians pay for their raid on Rutland,
Massachusetts, when they killed two of his little
brothers and took him, then a youth of sixteen, prisoner
and carried him to Canada to learn their habits and mode
of warfare.  They got the better of him in that trans-
action, but never afterwards, for in all his battles
and skirmishes with them, which in number were many, he
was never in a single instance overcome!  And in this
servicehe was the exemplar and teacher of all that
followed. 

In the subsequent war which followed the peace of Aix
la Chapelle, this class of partisan leaders was more
numerous, and their commands embraced forces raised on
a larger scale.  I need not name them here, as their 
names will be found elsewhere in this book.

The Indians of whom mention has been frequently made,
who caused by their incursions, so much evil to the in-
habitants of Charlestown and other frontier townships
of New Hampshire, were a branch of the Abenaqui tribe,
whose location was at the village of St. Francis,
situated at the mouth of the river of the same name, in
Canada.  The Abanaquis were the original possessors of
the territory lying east of Lake Champlain, as the 
Iroguois were of the lands extending westward from that
lake. In modern times the tribe appears to have been
divided and subdivided and to have been called by differ
ent names, according to the different localities which
they were most accustomed to frequent.  These divisions
of the tribe also claimed for themselves particular
portions of territory which they regarded as theirs by
right, and on which they did not allow others, whether
Indian or white men, to intrude.  Thus, the Algonquins
claimed the territory north of the St. Lawrence;  the
St. Francis tribe the territory now occupied by Vermont
and a portion of Massachusetts, and that section of New
Hampshire which lies on, and west of the Merrimac River.
To the St Francis tribe also belonged the Coossucks, who
were the Indians claiming two sections of land on the
Connecticut River; one above the fifteen mile falls,
about Luenburg and the other below, about Newbury.  Their
name was intended to be descriptive of the territory they
possessed, the word, "Coos" it is said meaning pines and
"suck" meaning a river.  The St. Francis tribe regarded
the lands on the Connecticut River as among their most
valuable possessions, and affirmed, as the reason for 
their hostility to the English that they had settled
down upon them without purchase.  However this may have
been, they pertinaciously refused to give up their claim
to the lands on that river, and till the conquest of
Canada by the English, still appear to have entertained
the hope of again possessing them; and in the contest
for that possession they became the most blood thirsty
and cruel enemies which the frontier settlements on the
Connecticut in New Hampshire and Massachusetts ever had
to encounter.  Some of them settled at Newbury and
continued to live there after the close of the war, but
most of them retired to Canada.  The war had greatly
diminished their numbers, and especially had they rec-
eived a severe blow from the expedition of Major Rogers
from which, had the war continued, they could never have
recovered.   But peace proved to them more fatal than
war, for emigration, which had found its greatest ob-
stacle in the contentions of the rival nations, set in
immediately, in a broad and full current, the moment
it was considered that the contest was closed - and
colonization, which has always proved so destructive to
the red man, soon swept away not only the warriors of
the St. Francis tribe, who had battled for France, but
the Iroquois as well, who had been the allies of England.

*************************************************
* * * * NOTICE: Printing the files within by non-commercial individuals and 
libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter 
information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other 
sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any 
other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of 
contents. 



* * * *
The USGenWeb Project makes no claims or estimates of the validity of the 
information submitted and reminds you that each new piece of information 
must be researched and proved or disproved by weight of evidence. It is 
always best to consult the original material for verification.