"Old Put" The Patriot Part 1

"Old Put" The Patriot.

by Frederick A. Ober.

CHAPTER I

BIRTHPLACE AND YOUTH

This is the life story of one who was born on a farm, and died on a farm, yet who achieved a world-wide fame through his military exploits.

It has been told many times, it will be told for centuries yet to come; for the world loves a man of high emprise, and such was Israel Putnam, the hero of this story.

He was born January 7, 1718, in Danvers, then known as Salem Village, Province of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, in New England. His father's Christian name was Joseph, his mother's Elizabeth, and Israel (as he was called at baptism, after his maternal grandfather, Israel Porter) was the great-grandson of his first American ancestor, John Putnam, who had come from England, where the original name of the family was Puttenham.

He had settled at Salem more than eighty years before, and his son, Thomas, built, in 1648, the house in which Israel was born in 1718. On the death of Thomas it had become the property of Joseph, who first occupied it in 1690, after his marriage to Elizabeth Porter.

Here the young couple pa.s.sed through the perilous "witchcraft times,"

during the worst period of which, in 1692 (it is a tradition in the family), Joseph Putnam kept a loaded musket at his bedside every night and his swiftest horse saddled in the stable, ready for a fight or a flight in case the witch-hunters should come to carry him off to jail.

They had accused his sister, who saved her life only by fleeing to the wilderness and remaining in hiding until the insane furor was over. He and his wife survived that gloomy period, and in the ancestral homestead lived happily for more than thirty years, raising a "baker's dozen" of children, of whom Israel was the eleventh.

On both the maternal and paternal side Israel Putnam was descended from a line of st.u.r.dy, prosperous farmers. The grandfather whose name he bore had married a daughter of William Hathorne, who came from England and settled in Salem about the year 1630, and who was an ancestor of the famous romancist Nathaniel Hawthorne. John Hathorne, son of William, was a military man and a magistrate. He presided at the infamous witchcraft trials in Salem, and, like the near relatives of Joseph Putnam, looked with severe disfavor upon any one who showed sympathy for the persecuted witches.

Joseph Putnam died in 1723, leaving his widow with eleven surviving children, nine older than Israel, who was then but five years of age, and one, little Mehitable, only three. Several of the older children were already married, and when, in 1727, Mrs. Putnam took a second husband, one Captain Thomas Perley, of Boxford, only the younger members of her family went with her to live in the new home. There Israel resided until he was about eighteen, and Boxford being only a few miles distant from his birthplace, in the same county (Ess.e.x), he made frequent visits to the old farm, to which he finally returned as part owner before he attained his majority.

Numerous anecdotes are still related of him in Danvers, all tending to ill.u.s.trate the early development of those high qualities for which in after-life he became conspicuous. Courage, enterprise, activity, and perseverance, says his original biographer, were the first characteristics of his mind. His disposition was frank and generous, as his mind was fearless and independent. From his earliest years he craved, and was always in pursuit of, some daring adventure, yet he was the most sober and apparently contented youth in the village, loving hard work, even seeking to perform a man's task at daily labor, while yet a mere stripling. Brought up mainly on the farm, spending his days in severe labor and his nights in sweet slumber, he became the peer of all his companions in athletic feats involving strength and skill. He could "pitch the bar," run, leap, wrestle with the best of them, and more than held his own with the most doughty champion. But he never boasted of his strength, nor sought occasions to display his skill, being content with their mere possession.

His sense of fairness and self-respect, however, would not allow him to become the b.u.t.t of other people's ridicule, and when the need arose for putting forth his energies in a good cause, he held nothing in reserve.

Such an occasion occurred the first time he paid a visit to Boston, the metropolis of his State. He was roaming about in rustic fashion, when he attracted the attention of a youth twice his size, who began to "make fun" of him. Young Putnam bore the insult as long as he could, then he "challenged, engaged, and vanquished his unmannerly antagonist, to the great diversion of a crowd of spectators."

There were very few diversions for the youth of Putnam's time, so long ago; but the boys, like those of modern times, indulged in bird's-nesting now and then. Climbing to a tree top one day, in his endeavor to secure a nest, "Young Put" had a fall, owing to a branch breaking in his hands. He was caught by a lower limb, however, and there he hung, suspended by his clothes betwixt heaven and earth. His cries attracted some companions, one of whom he commanded (as he had a gun) to fire a bullet at the limb and try to break it. This the boy did, after much coaxing on Putnam's part, and was so successful that his friend came tumbling to the ground. He was bruised and lamed, but no bones were broken; and the very next day the intrepid boy climbed up to the nest again, and this time secured it. That was the "way with 'Old Put,'" the man who in later years succeeded "Young Put" the youth. His motto was: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

He always tried, and with his utmost endeavor, to accomplish the task that faced him at the time. What is more, he generally succeeded; and that is the chief reason why he is considered worthy a biography. There are few men, perhaps, who did so many things worthy of emulation, and so few unworthy. Dangerously near the latter, however, was one act of his youth, when he caught a vicious bull in a pasture, and, having mounted astride the animal's back, with spurs on his heels, rode the furious creature around the field until it finally fell from exhaustion, after seeking refuge in a swamp.

Young Putnam's education, as may have been inferred already, was obtained mostly in the woods and open fields. While he possessed great mental endowments, as afterward displayed in his career, yet his early education was grossly neglected, in the school and college sense. Having mastered the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, he was considered well equipped for his destined calling, which was to be that of a farmer. Throughout his whole life he suffered from this neglect of early instruction. His letters, particularly, though they always "displayed the goodness of his heart, and frequently the strength of his native genius, with a certain laconic mode of expression, and an unaffected epigrammatic turn," were "fearfully and wonderfully made,"

the despair of his correspondents and the ridicule of his enemies.

It is doubtful if he had any greater ambition than to become a good farmer, as good as was his father before him, and like him, attain to a competency. He was already fairly well to do the year he became of age, for his father, after providing generously for the other children, had bequeathed to him and his brother David the homestead, house and farm attached. His mother was to have a home there so long as she desired; but on her second marriage she relinquished her claim upon the homestead, and the two brothers shared it between them. Israel's portion was set off in 1738, and the next year he built a home in a remote corner of the farm, but within sight of the house and room in which he was born. For, after the fashion of those primitive times, when early matrimony was encouraged, young Israel had been "courting" a lovely girl, the daughter of a neighbor, who lived about four miles distant from the home farm, near the boundary-line between Salem and Lynn. Hannah Pope was her name, and she also was descended from one of the first families of Salem Village. Being a sensible girl, she accepted Israel Putnam as soon as he proposed, and the 19th of July, 1739, they were married, when he was twenty-one years of age and she only eighteen.

Taking his young wife to the little house he had built with his own hands on the farm, there Israel Putnam and Hannah, his wife, began their married life. The next year a son was born to them, the first of ten children who blessed their union, and he was called Israel.

The house in which the first Israel Putnam was born, an old colonial, gambrel-roofed structure, still stands where it was erected by his grandfather in 1648, near the foot of Hathorne Hill, in Danvers, on the turn-pike road half-way between Boston and Newburyport. It contains many relics of Putnam's time, but the most interesting portion of the house itself is the little back chamber, with its one window looking out over the farmyard, where the infant Israel first saw the light.

Of the house which he himself built, on a distant knoll of the home farm, nothing now remains but the cellar and foundation stones, near which is the well he dug, now choked with rubbish and overgrown with brambles.

CHAPTER II

"OLD WOLF PUTNAM"

Judging from the stability of his position in Danvers, it would seem that young Farmer Putnam was established for life. He had land enough to satisfy any ordinary cultivator of that period, and a comfortable house in which dwelt with him wife and child, to cheer him by their presence.

But the future patriot felt within him an ardent thirst for adventure.

He longed for a wider field, and though to all appearances firmly rooted in the soil of Salem Village, he was already thinking of transplanting himself and family into that of another region. Hardly, in fact, had he settled in the home he had made than he began preparations for removal to what was then considered a comparatively wild section of New England.

In the old homestead at Danvers is still preserved the quit-claim deed signed by Israel Putnam, "of Salem in the County of Ess.e.x and Province of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay in New England, husbandman," which records the transfer by him to his brother David of his share in the ancestral house and acres.

In the local history of the town of Brooklyn, Conn., occurs this pa.s.sage: "In the year 1703, Richard Ames purchased 3,000 acres of land lying in the south part of Pomfret, where the village of Brooklyn now stands, which he divided into five lots and deeded to his sons. Directly north of this was situated a tract of land owned by Mr. John Blackwell, comprising 5,750 acres, which was willed to his son John, and afterward sold to Governor Belcher of Ma.s.sachusetts, who divided it into farms and sold them to different individuals, among whom was General Israel Putnam. This tract went by the name of 'Mortlake.' A beautiful stream which rises in the western part of the tract, and received its name from the former proprietor, Blackwell, empties into the Quinnebaug."

These several transactions in real estate, taken together, will sufficiently explain to the reader, perhaps, the subsequent movements of Farmer Putnam. After disposing of property to his brother David, and receiving therefor the goodly sum of 1,900, Israel Putnam joined with his brother-in-law, Joseph Pope, in the purchase of more than five hundred acres of land from Governor Belcher, for which they agreed to pay at the rate of five pounds per acre. They paid for it partly in "bills of credit on the Province of Ma.s.sachusetts," and gave a mortgage for the remainder. And so fertile was this wild land, and so thrifty was the young pioneer farmer Israel Putnam, that within little more than two years he had liquidated the mortgage and received a quit-claim deed from the Governor, as well as purchased his brother-in-law's portion of the tract they had bought together.

The two pioneers may have made a special trip to the Connecticut tract before deciding to purchase; for it was not in the nature of them to "buy a pig in a poke," as it were. And such a journey of nearly a hundred miles, mainly through a wilderness, was no child's task in those days. In after-years General Israel Putnam made many a longer journey, through wilds swarming with hostile Indians, too, and thought nothing of it; but this was the first of any account that he took very far away from home.

What the young wife thought when the enthusiastic adventurer came back with his story was never recorded. Neither, for that matter, was the tale he told her, as well as his friends and neighbors, many of whom, doubtless, would fain have dissuaded him from making what they viewed as a rash and risky move. Details of Putnam's life at this period of his career are lacking; but there stand the records, with their statement of facts. They can not be gainsaid. The very fact that he, a prosperous farmer, even then well off as to this world's goods, should make the adventure--the first of his family in America to abandon the home acres and seek others in the wilderness--is sufficient to attest his energy and ambition.

Sometime in the latter part of the year 1740 the young husband of twenty-two, with a wife under twenty and a babe only a few months old, set out to make his fortune in the rough country adjacent to his native State. Many of his race and family have since become pioneers in various parts of the world, and this country owes them much for blazing out the way in which others might follow; but young Israel Putnam was the first of them--the pioneer of pioneers, in the great American movement.

A second time he set himself to the building of a house and the establishing of a home, and as he found much of the material ready at hand--stone for foundations and timber for the building--it was not long before the farmer and his family had another roof-tree of their own above their heads. This structure has gone the way of the first, and long since disappeared, traces of the cellar and foundations only being visible; but the large dwelling-house which he later built, and in which he died, still stands at a little distance away. After clearing a portion of the land, and working the stones with which it was plentifully bestrewed into dividing walls, he planted an apple-orchard, sowed grain of various sorts, and increased as rapidly as possible his flocks and herds of live stock. His chief, perhaps his only, a.s.sistant in these earlier labors was a negro servant, who figures, though not greatly to his credit, in the narration of an adventure in which his master took part, about two years after his arrival in Connecticut.

This, of course, is that famous encounter with the wolf, which has since become part and parcel not only of local tradition, but of American history. As many generations have been familiar with this story as related in story-books and primers, particularly during the early part of the nineteenth century, it will now be told in the language of a contemporary, Colonel David Humphrey, who was an aide-de-camp to General Putnam, and also to General Washington, during the Revolutionary War, and who wrote the first and best biography of our hero, which was published in his lifetime. "The first years on a new farm are not exempt from disasters and disappointments, which can only be remedied by stubborn and patient industry. Our farmer, sufficiently occupied in building an house and barn, felling woods, making fences, sowing grain, planting orchards, and taking care of his stock, had to encounter in turn the calamities occasioned by drought in summer, blast in harvest, loss of cattle in winter, and the desolation of his sheepfold by wolves.

In one night he had seventy fine sheep and goats killed, besides many lambs and kids wounded. This havoc was committed by a she-wolf, which, with her annual whelps, had for several years infested the vicinity. The young were commonly destroyed by the vigilance of the hunters, but the old one was too sagacious to come within reach of gunshot. Upon being closely pursued she would generally fly to the western woods, and return the next winter with another litter of whelps. This wolf at length became such an intolerable nuisance that Farmer Putnam entered into a combination with five of his neighbors to hunt alternately until they could destroy her. Two by rotation were to be constantly in pursuit. It was known that, having lost the toes from one foot by a steel trap, she made one track shorter than the other, and by this vestige the pursuers, in a light snow, recognized and followed the trail of this pernicious animal. Having followed her to the Connecticut River and found she had turned back toward Pomfret, they immediately returned, and by ten o'clock the next morning their bloodhounds had driven her into a den, about three miles distant from the house of Mr. Putnam. The people soon collected, with dogs, guns, straw, fire, and sulphur, to attack the common enemy, and made several unsuccessful efforts to force her from the den.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Wolf Den at Pomfret, Connecticut.]

"Wearied with the fruitless attempts (which had brought the time to ten o'clock at night), Mr. Putnam tried once more to make his dog enter, but in vain. Then he proposed to his negro man to go down into the cavern and shoot the wolf; but he declined the hazardous service. Then it was that the master resolved himself to destroy the ferocious beast, lest she should escape through some unknown fissure of the rock. His neighbors strongly remonstrated against the perilous enterprise; but he, knowing that wild animals were intimidated by fire, and having provided several strips of birch-bark, the only combustible material he could obtain that would afford light in this deep and darksome cave, prepared for his descent. Having accordingly divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and having a long rope fastened about his legs, by which he might be pulled back at a concerted signal, he entered head foremost, with the blazing torch in his hand. The aperture of the den, on the east side of a very high ledge of rocks, is about two feet square; from thence it descends obliquely fifteen feet, then running horizontally about ten more, it ascends gradually sixteen feet to its termination.

The sides of this subterraneous cavity are composed of smooth and solid rocks, as also are the top and bottom, and the entrance in winter, being covered with ice, is exceedingly slippery. It is in no place high enough for a man to raise himself upright, nor in any part more than three feet in width.

"Having groped his pa.s.sage to the horizontal part of the den, he found it dark and silent as the house of death. He, cautiously proceeding onward, came to the ascent, which he slowly mounted on his hands and knees until he discovered the glaring eyeb.a.l.l.s of the wolf, who was crouching at the extremity of the cavern. Startled by the sight of fire, she gnashed her teeth and gave a sullen growl. Having made the necessary discovery (that the wolf was in the den), Putnam kicked at the rope, as a signal for pulling him out. The people at the mouth of the den, who had listened with painful anxiety, hearing the growling of the wolf, and supposing their friend to be in the most imminent danger, drew him forth with such celerity that his shirt was stripped over his head and his skin severely lacerated.

"After adjusting his clothes, and loading his gun with nine buckshot, holding a torch in one hand and the musket in the other, he descended the second time. He drew nearer than before, and the wolf, a.s.suming a still more fierce and terrible appearance, growling, rolling her eyes, snapping her teeth, and dropping her head between her legs, was evidently on the point of springing at him. At this critical instant he leveled his gun and fired at her head. Stunned with the shock and suffocated with the smoke, he immediately found himself drawn out of the cave. But, having refreshed himself, and permitted the smoke to dissipate, he went down the third time. Once more he came within sight of the wolf, who appearing very pa.s.sive, he applied the torch to her nose, and perceiving her dead, he took hold of her ears, and then kicking the rope (still tied round his legs), the people above, with no small exultation, dragged them both out together."

This is the story, told by one who knew Putnam intimately and who had it from his own lips, while neighbors were still living who were "in at the death" and could have refuted any misstatement or exaggeration. The deed, in truth, was characteristic of the dauntless young farmer, whose courage and heroic character (as his eulogist justly remarks) "were ever attended by a serenity of soul, a clearness of conception, a degree of self-possession, and a superiority to all vicissitudes of fortune, entirely distinct from anything that can be produced by a ferment of the blood and flutter of spirits, which not unfrequently precipitate men to action when stimulated by intoxication or some other transient exhilaration."

That was "Wolf Put," or "Old Wolf Putnam," as he came to be called thenceforth. But at no time in his active and wonderful career was he an old man when he performed his deeds of valor. The wolf-hunt, in fact, was mainly a young men's and boys' affair, Putnam himself being only twenty-four at the time, and the wolf having been traced to her lair by young John Sharp, a boy of seventeen.

The slayer of the old she-wolf was the hero of the time; but he bore his laurels modestly, though exaggerated accounts of the affair were published all over the colonies, and even in England, where they were exploited in the public prints. By rising to the occasion, and doing the right thing at the right time, he acquired a reputation for valor and firmness that stood him in good stead in those coming conflicts, the Seven Years' War and the Revolution.

Unknown to him, however, and unsuspected, were the heights to which he subsequently rose. He devoted himself to his farm, becoming the best agriculturist in the region in which he lived, and also performed the duties of a good citizen, never shrinking from his share of civic burdens. The youth of to-day could not do better than emulate the example of this ill.u.s.trious American; and they might do worse than take part in the patriotic pilgrimages annually made to the scenes of his early life. The citizens of his adopted State have religiously preserved intact the second house he built in Brooklyn, then Pomfret; and the she-wolf's den may still be seen, in the side of a wooded hill. The entrance-way is at present too low and narrow to admit the pa.s.sage of a boy, much less of a full-grown man; but that is said to have been caused by the falling in of the rocks, in the lapse of time since Putnam's day.

CHAPTER III

FIRST TASTE OF WAR

Israel Putnam's adventure with the wolf gave him an unsought, and in some respects undesirable, notoriety; but that he did not court this notoriety is shown by the fact that for the next twelve or thirteen years he lived quietly on his farm, attending to his duties as a cultivator of the soil and a simple citizen. During these years he acquired an enviable reputation as one of the best farmers in all the region of which Pomfret was the center, and had it not been for the lamentable struggle between the French and the English for supremacy in North America, he might have continued as the humble and prosperous citizen-cultivator to the end of his days. The breaking out of the prolonged strife which is known in history as the French and Indian War, found Putnam in possession of what in those days was considered a competency. Having received a good start from the paternal inheritance, he had not hidden his talents in a napkin, but had put them out to good purpose. He erected a large and substantial dwelling about a fourth of a mile distant from the first he had built in Pomfret, and here he lived most happily, with his good wife Hannah, surrounded by a growing family of healthy children.

In the year 1755, when active operations began in this war between England and France, fought out on the soil of America, Israel Putnam was thirty-seven years old and in the prime of life. There was no immediate necessity for him to volunteer in defense of the frontier, where the hostile French were gathering, for it was far distant from his home, the forests around which were threatened by no roaming savages with tomahawks and muskets. But his patriotic instincts were aroused by the reports of ma.s.sacres committed in other regions; he knew the tide must be met before it became irresistible and breasted in the North. Four great expeditions were planned by the English to frustrate the schemes of the enemy: against Fort Niagara, Crown Point on Lake Champlain, Fort Duquesne, and against the French in Nova Scotia.