tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[B] Ebenezer Moore, born 1760, Oct. 10.

COL. TIMOTHY BIGELOW.

I.

A MONUMENT TO COL. BIGELOW.

It is well known in this community, that one of the descendants of Col. Bigelow is about to erect a monument to his memory within the enclosure of our beautiful central park. Col. Timothy Bigelow Lawrence of Boston, a great grandson of the subject of this notice, received permission from the city government, last year, to enclose a lot of sufficient size, and to erect such a monument as he might deem suitable and proper. It is understood that Col. Lawrence will commence this benevolent and patriotic work in the spring or early summer.[C] Let me suggest to him, to the mayor and council, and to all whom it may concern, the propriety of laying the foundation stone of this monument on the 19th day of April, which will be the eighty-fifth anniversary of the marching of the "minute men" from Worcester, under the command of Capt. Bigelow. It seems to me that Worcester cannot "afford" to let this opportunity pass without making some signal recognition of the event. Cannot the citizens of Worcester, for the first time in eighty-five years, gather with their families around the grave containing the last remains of her noble son?

II.

EARLY EFFORTS FOR LIBERTY.

The name of Timothy Bigelow stands conspicuous in the history of Worcester. As early as 1773, we find him on a committee with Wm. Young, David Bancroft, Samuel Curtis, and Stephen Salisbury, to report upon the grievances under which the province labored, and also upon what was then called the "Boston Pamphlet," which had been introduced at the town meeting in March. The writer of this article thinks that this "Boston Pamphlet" was John Hancock's oration in commemoration of the "Bloody Massacre" of the 5th of March, 1770. At the adjourned meeting, in May following, this committee made an elaborate report, recommending a committee of correspondence. The town adopted the report, and elected as the committee, Wm. Young, Timothy Bigelow, and John Smith. In December following, the leading whigs of the town assembled and formed a society, which afterwards took the name of the American Political Society, and Nathan Baldwin, Samuel Curtis, and Timothy Bigelow, were chosen a committee to report a constitution. This society, with Timothy Bigelow for a leader, did good service to the town and to the country. Their last and most powerful blow was struck in town meeting, 7th of March, 1774, when the society presented a long preamble and resolutions, which were considered by the royalists to be treasonable and revolutionary. "When these resolutions were read," said an eye-witness of the scene to the writer, "fear, anxiety and awful suspense, sat upon the countenance of every man of the whig party except Timothy Bigelow, the blacksmith; while the tories were pale with rage." After a few moments, James Putnam, the leader of the tories, arose. Putnam was said to be "the best lawyer in North America. His arguments were marked by strong and clear reasoning, logical precision and arrangement, and that sound judgment whose conclusions were presented so forcibly as to command assent." He made such a speech against the resolutions as had never before been heard in Worcester; and when he sat down, the same informant said that "not a man of the whig party thought a single word could be said,—that old Putnam, the tory, had wiped them all out." Timothy Bigelow at length arose, without learning, without practice in public speaking, without wealth,—the tories of Worcester had, at that day, most of the wealth and learning,—but there he stood upon the floor of the Old South Church, met the Goliath of the day, and vanquished him. The governor of Massachusetts Bay, and the crown and parliament of Great Britain, were brought to feel the effect of his sling and stone. Suffice it to say, the resolutions were carried triumphantly. This was the first grand public effort made by Col. Timothy Bigelow, in his part of the great drama of the American revolution.

III.

THE MINUTE MEN.

In August, 1774, a company of minute men were enrolled under the command of Capt. Bigelow, and met each evening after the labors of the day, for drill and martial exercise. Muskets were procured for their arming from Boston. Their services were soon required for the defence of the country. At eleven o'clock, A. M., April 19th, 1775, an express came to town, shouting, as he passed through the street at full speed, "To arms! to arms! the war is begun!" The bell rang out the alarm, cannons were fired, and in a short time the minute men were paraded on the green, under the command of Capt. Timothy Bigelow. After fervent prayer by Rev. Mr. Maccarty, they took up the line of march. When they arrived at Sudbury, intelligence of the retreat of the enemy met them, and a second company of minute men from Worcester, under command of Capt. Benjamin Flagg, overtook them, when both moved on to Cambridge.

The writer cannot forbear to mention a few of the names of these soldiers of freedom. Most of them have descendants now living, and living on the same farms that their illustrious sires or grandsires left, when they started with Captains Bigelow and Flagg, to repel the enemy at Lexington. Eli Chapin was the father of Mrs. Jonathan Flagg and Mrs. Capt. Campbell; Wm. Trowbridge was the father of Mrs. Lewis Chapin; Jonathan Stone, grandfather of Emory Stone, Esq., who now owns and occupies the same estate; Asa Ward, grandfather of Wm. Ward; Simon Gates, father of David R., who now lives on and owns the same estate; David Richards was in Capt. Flagg's company, but after he returned, concluding there was going to be "hot work," to use his own words forty years afterwards, he turned over to the tories. The organization of the army was immediately made at Cambridge, and Timothy Bigelow was appointed Major in Colonel Jonathan Ward's regiment. In the autumn of 1775, Major Bigelow volunteered his services, with his men from Worcester, in that expedition against Quebec, alike memorable for its boldness of conception, the chivalrous daring of its execution, and its melancholy failure. During their march from Cambridge to Quebec, Major Bigelow and his noble band endured severe hardships, reduced by hunger to the necessity of eating their camp dogs, and in their last extremity, cutting their boots and shoes from their feet to sustain life. Had that winter march through the wilderness been the exploit of a Grecian phalanx or Roman legion, the narrative of suffering and danger would have been long since celebrated in song and story.

One of the three divisions, penetrating through the forest by the route of the Kennebec, was commanded by Major Bigelow; and during a day's halt of the troops on this memorable march, Major Bigelow ascended a rugged height about forty miles northwest from Norridgewock, for the purpose of observation. This eminence still bears the name of Mount Bigelow.