King George's War

King George's War, the American part of the War of the Austrian Succession, began when France and Great Britain went to war in the spring of 1744 and ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in October 1748. Billerica, which had lost Bedford and Tewksbury as separate towns in 1729 and 1734, was no longer on the frontier and suffered no attack at home, but its men served in the two great efforts of Massachusetts in the war: the capture of the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island in 1745, and the defense of the Connecticut River frontier in 1748. On June 16, 1748, three Billerica soldiers were killed in a single ambush near Fort Dummer and a fourth died after his return from captivity, a loss Hazen thought had brought "as deep and sudden sorrow to so many families in our old town" as any day except those of the Indian Raids of 1692 and 1695.

The Louisbourg expedition sailed from Boston under William Pepperrell on March 24, 1745, with about four thousand New England troops, and the fortress surrendered on June 16 after a siege. Hazen found only "scattered and imperfect rolls" of the men, but from them, counting men of the recently separated parts of the old town, he named Captains Josiah Crosby, Peter Hunt and John Stearns, Lieutenant John Lane, Ensign Samuel Hunt, Corporal Solomon Crosby, and Privates Nathaniel Cumings, Samuel Farmer, Samuel Galusha, John Hill, Francis Kidder, Thomas Richardson Jr. and David Tarbell, and perhaps William Tompson, later the town's colonel in the Revolution. His register makes Peter Hunt, a son of Samuel Hunt of the Wamesit garrison, captain of the eighth company of the Ninth Massachusetts regiment, and records that Samuel Farmer, born in 1725, "was in Louisburg expedition." In his corrections Hazen identified Captain Josiah Crosby as probably the old Sergeant Josiah Crosby, born in 1677, who in his will of 1743 described himself as feeble; Hazen thought he may have "yielded, at sixty-seven, to the impulses of his military career and the call of Pepperell, and gone to hardships and perils which proved fatal to the veteran," and his will was proved in October 1745. He added that Solomon Crosby probably died in the Louisbourg expedition.

In 1746 the news that a great French fleet under the Duc d'Anville had sailed to retake Louisbourg and attack the New England coast raised a general alarm. Instead of the invasion of Canada that Governor Shirley had planned, the troops were set to repairing forts and awaiting the attack, and when storms and dissensions disabled the fleet the churches held thanksgivings for what Hazen called "the interposition of God in answer to prayer."

On the upper Connecticut, Massachusetts held a line of posts at Fort Dummer, in what became Brattleboro, Vermont, at Ashuelot, now Hinsdale, New Hampshire, and at Number Four, now Charlestown. A muster roll of Captain Josiah Willard's company, which served at Ashuelot from February 10 to October 6, 1748, includes the Billerica men Josiah Crosby, Jonathan French, John Frost, Samuel Hill, Benjamin Osgood and Joseph Richardson, and probably Daniel Farmer. On June 16, 1748, a party of fourteen set out from Ashuelot for Fort Dummer by way of Colonel Hinsdale's fort and was ambushed by a large force of Indians opposite the mouth of Broad Brook. Three men were killed and scalped, "and, by a singular fatality, they were all from Billerica": Jonathan French, John Frost and Joseph Richardson. Seven were taken prisoner, one of whom, William Bickford, was killed at the first encampment, and four escaped across the river, among them Daniel Farmer, who was badly wounded. A party from Northfield came up the next day, buried the Billerica dead and found "great signs of the enemy." Josiah Crosby escaped by running up the river with an Indian close behind him; a ball passed by his ear, he turned and shot his pursuer, and trying to swim the river opposite Fort Dummer he sank and "was taken out by men from the fort."

Of the captives, Benjamin Osgood of Billerica and William Blanchard of Dunstable reached home on October 15. They had been held until August 29 and made to run the gauntlet, and Osgood, who had been redeemed by way of Louisbourg, died soon afterward "from the effect of the hardship and cruelties he had suffered." The dead were young men from established Billerica families: John Frost, a son of James Frost, was thirty-five and left a widow, Hannah Cornell, and three children; Jonathan French had been born in 1727; and Joseph Richardson was twenty-six. Hazen later gathered the names of the soldiers of this war into his list of "Soldiers in the Public Service, 1745-62," treating the eighteen years from Louisbourg to the end of the French and Indian War as one period of service.

People

• Peter Hunt: Son of Samuel Hunt; captain of a company of the Ninth Massachusetts regiment at the capture of Louisbourg, 1745.
• John Frost: Soldier of Captain Josiah Willard's company at Ashuelot, killed and scalped in the ambush near Fort Dummer on June 16, 1748.
• William Tompson: Possibly the 'William Thompson' on the Louisbourg rolls of 1745, in Hazen's judgment.
• Solomon Crosby: Corporal on the Louisbourg rolls of 1745; Hazen's corrections say he probably died in the expedition.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 142: King George's War; Louisbourg expedition of 1745 and the Billerica men named from the rolls; d'Anville's fleet.
2. Hazen, p. 143: alarm of 1746; Willard's company at Ashuelot, 1748; the ambush of June 16, 1748 and the three Billerica men killed; return of the captives.
3. Hazen, p. 144: Osgood's sufferings and death; Josiah Crosby's escape (Farmer to Nathan Crosby); Hazen's comparison with the massacres of 1692 and 1695.
4. Hazen, p. 147: introduction to his list of Billerica soldiers, 1745 to 1762, drawn from the Massachusetts Archives rolls.
5. Hazen, p. 150: key to the list: (l.) Louisburg expedition, 1745; (c.) service near the Connecticut, Northfield, Fort Dummer and No. 4, 1748.
6. Hazen, Genealogical Register p. 76: Peter Hunt, son of Samuel, b. 1690, captain of Co. 8, 9th Mass. Regt., at Louisburg, 1745.
7. Hazen, Genealogical Register p. 101: Benjamin Osgood, b. 1721, taken prisoner near Fort Dummer, redeemed via Louisburg, died soon after.
8. Hazen, Additions and Corrections p. 171: Josiah Crosby (b. 1677) probably the Louisburg captain; Solomon Crosby probably died in the Louisburg expedition.
9. Temple and Sheldon, History of Northfield (1875), pp. 262-263: the ambush of June 16, 1748, the three Billerica dead, the seven captives by town (Bickford's not given) and their return.