The Captain David Perry Web Site
KING GEORGE'S WAR
1. Childhood
1741-57
FRENCH & INDIAN WAR
PRE-REVOLUTIONARY YEARS
1st WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
(Revolutionary War)
WAR'S END, CONFEDERATION & CONSTITUTION
10. Plainfield, NH
1779-97
PARTISANISM
and
2nd WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
(War of 1812)
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LIFE OF DAVID PERRY.
PART THREE. THE NEW HAMPSHIRE YEARS.
(Chapter Ten Inclusive.)
Chapter X
Plainfield 1779-1797.
Selectman and Militia Service.
Rank: Captain.
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s there is history extant giving account of the principal events of the
whole war, I will confine myself merely to an account of my domestic
concerns. Nothing material with regard to them took place, until the
month of March, in the year 1779, when I left Connecticut, and moved into
Plainfield,•
New Hampshire.•
I lived in that town eighteen years. The inhabitants of this part of the country
were not much distressed after I moved here; for Burgoyne
was taken,• and
that pretty much stopped the enemy's progress to the northward, except a
party that came and burnt• Royalton (that being a frontier town in those days,)
and went off again without much opposition.
Vermont• was not at that time recognized as a state. New-York harassed
them on one side, and New-Hampshire on the other. Finally, what was
formerly called the N. Hampshire• Grants• that is, three tier of towns on the
east side of Connecticut River, joined with Vermont, in order to help her
obtain her state privileges. They at last agreed to give N. York thirty thousand
dollars to relinquish their claim, and by that means Vermont obtained of
Congress an admission into the union, on an equal footing with the original
states.
In 1783,•
peace• was
declared• between Great Britain and the United States,
and the army was disbanded and returned home to their friends,
without anything• for their toils and sacrifices, but the consciousness of having
"fought a good fight," and having won an invaluable inheritance for their posterity. The
states laid heavy taxes, in order to defray their individual expenses in carrying
on the war, which were burthensome to the people. But they finally paid into
the state treasuries enough to redeem the paper they had issued, to pay the
soldiers their bounty, which is more than could be said of the National
Government, until after the poor soldiers had disposed of their hard-earnings
for a tenth or twentieth part of its nominal value.
In 1785, I took a Captain's commission in the N. H. militia, signed by
Meshick Ware,• President; (for at that time there was no governor) and
served eight years. I also served nine years as Selectman of Plainfield.
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