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Authors: Israel R. Potter Herman Melville

Commentator: Leonard Kriegel

The Life and Remarkable Adventures of

ISRAEL R. POTTER

ISRAEL R. POTTER

CORINTH AE 16 .25

LIFE AND REMARKABLE ADVENTURES OF ISRAEL R. POTTER

"Shortly after his return in infirm old age to his native land, a little narrative of his adventures, forlornly published on sleazy gray paper, appeared among the peddlers, written, probably not by himself, but taken down from his lips by another. But like the crutch-marks of the cripple by the Beautiful Gate, this blurred record is now out of print."

So Herman Melville, on June 17th, 1854, described this original volume in the Dedication of his fictionalized version of Potter's autobiography.

The present edition is a faithful republication of Potter's own story, reset from the Henry Trumbull printing in 1824. The reproduction of the original title page and frontispiece illustration are from a copy in the New York Public Library and used with their kind permission. Also reproduced is the title page and frontispiece illustration of the J. Howard printing in the same year.

LIFE and REMARKABLE ADVENTURES of ISRAEL R. POTTER

CONSULTING EDITOR: HENRY BAMFORD PARKES

CORINTH BOOKS NEW YORK

LEONARD KRIEGEL is an Instructor of English at The City College of New York. He has edited a book on the political philosophy of the Founding Fathers which is soon to be published and has written a number of stories and articles.

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 62-10046

Copyright 1962 Corinth Books, Inc.

THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE SERIES

Published by Corinth Books Inc. 32 West Eighth Street, New York 11, N. Y.

Distributed by The Citadel Press 222 Park Avenue South, New York 3, N. Y.

NOBLE OFFSET PRINTERS, INC. NEW YORK 3, N. Y.

INTRODUCTION

As it proved to be with so many of his countrymen, success was Israel's failure. He returned, in May, 1823, after an absence of 48 years, to an America that was already far different from the country he remembered leaving at the age of 31. He had grown older and now he looked back; America, too, had grown older, but now it looked forward. Israel had come home to die; America was far too busy in the conquest of itself to give death anything more than the platitudinous comfort of words. Israel petitioned the government for a pension; but the government was now stable, a government of laws and not of men, and so his petition was rejected. After his long exile Israel had come to understand that there were boundaries to any existence; American optimism made even the recognition of such boundaries an impossibility.

Perhaps it was also his limited perception that enabled Israel to devote almost half these memoirs to his years of exile; he records his sufferings in detail, a record that was so painful to Melville that he could do no more than hurriedly outline it in a few short, concluding chapters. One can scarcely see what other choice Melville could have made--such intense and unalleviated suffering can easily make of its victim a mock-epic buffoon. In his own story, Israel manages to avoid this fate, but only because he does not fully understand what is happening to him. Melville saw the truth; because it was so painful, however, he found himself unable to write it.

LIFE

AND

REMARKABLE ADVENTURES

ISRAEL R. POTTER,

WHO WAS A SOLDIER IN THE

AMERICAN REVOLUTION,

LIFE

AND

REMARKABLE ADVENTURES

ISRAEL R. POTTER,

WHO WAS A SOLDIER IN THE

AMERICAN REVOLUTION,

PROVIDENCE: Printed by Henry Trumbull--1824.

PREFACE

In the foregoing pages we have attempted a simple narrative of the life and extraordinary adventures of one of the few survivors who fought and bled for American Independence. There is not probably another now living who took an equally active part in the Revolutionary war, whose life has been marked with more extraordinary events, and who has drank deeper of the cup of adversity, than the aged veteran with whose History we now beg liberty to present the American public. Doomed by the fate of War to be early separated from kindred and friends, and to be conveyed by a foreign foe a prisoner of war from his native land, to a far distant country, where after having for 48 years experienced almost every hardship and deprivation of which adverse fortune is productive, providence appears at length to have so far interfered in his behalf, as to provide means whereby he has been enabled at an advanced age once more to visit and inhale the pure air of his native land. At the age of Seventy-Nine, an age in which it cannot be expected that the lamp of human life can long remain unextinguished, he has arrived among us, in a state of penury and want, to seek in common with his countrymen the enjoyment of a few of the blessings produced by American valour, in her memorable conflict with the mother country and in which he took a distinguished part.

As it yet remains doubtful whether he will be so fortunate as to be included in that number to whom Government has granted pensions for their Revolutionary services, it is to obtain if possible a humble pittance as a remuneration, in part, for the unprecedented privations and sufferings of which he has been the unfortunate subject, that he is now induced to present the public with the following concise and simple narration of the most extraordinary incidents of his life.

LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ISRAEL R. POTTER,

I was born of reputable parents in the town of Cranston, State of Rhode Island, August 1st, 1744.--I continued with my parents there in the full enjoyment of parental affection and indulgence, until I arrived at the age of 18, when, having formed an acquaintance with the daughter of a Mr. Richard Gardner, a near neighbour, for whom entertaining too great a degree of partiality, I was reprimanded and threatened by them with more severe punishment, if my visits were not discontinued. Disappointed in my intentions of forming an union with one whom I really loved, I deemed the conduct of my parents in this respect unreasonable and oppressive, and formed the determination to leave them, for the purpose of seeking another home and other friends.

It was on Sunday, while the family were at meeting, that I packed up as many articles of my cloathing as could be contained in a pocket handkerchief, which, with a small quantity of provision, I conveyed to and secreted in a piece of woods in the rear of my father's house; I then returned and continued in the house until about 9 in the evening, when with the pretence of retiring to bed, I passed into a back room and from thence out of a back door and hastened to the spot where I had deposited my cloathes, &c.--it was a warm summer's night, and that I might be enabled to travel with the more facility the succeeding day, I lay down at the foot of a tree and reposed myself until about 4 in the morning when I arose and commenced my journey, travelling westward, with an intention of reaching if possible the new countries, which I had heard highly spoken of as affording excellent prospects for industrious and enterprising young men--to evade the pursuit of my friends, by whom I knew I should be early missed and diligently sought for, I confined my travel to the woods and shunned the public roads, until I had reached the distance of about 12 miles from my father's house.

At noon the succeeding day I reached Hartford, in Connecticut, and applied to a farmer in that town for work, and for whom I agreed to labour for one month for the sum of six dollars. Having completed my month's work to the satisfaction of my employer, I received my money and started from Hartford for Otter Creek; but, when I reached Springfield, I met with a man bound to the Cahos country, and who offered me four dollars to accompany him, of which offer I accepted, and the next morning we left Springfield and in a canoe ascended Connecticut river, and in about two weeks after much hard labour in paddling and poling the boat against the current, we reached Lebanon , the place of our destination. It was with some difficulty and not until I had procured a writ, by the assistance of a respectable innkeeper in Lebanon, by the name of Hill, that I obtained from my last employer the four dollars which he had agreed to pay me for my services.

From Lebanon I crossed the river to New-Hartford where I bargained with a Mr. Brink of that town for 200 acres of new land, lying in New Hampshire, and for which I was to labour for him four months. As this may appear to some a small consideration for so great a number of acres of land, it may be well here to acquaint the reader with the situation of the country in that quarter, at that early period of its settlement--which was an almost impenetrable wilderness, containing but few civilized inhabitants, far distantly situated from each other and from any considerable settlement; and whose temporary habitations with a few exceptions were constructed of logs in their natural state--the woods abounded with wild beasts of almost every description peculiar to this country, nor were the few inhabitants at that time free from serious apprehension of being at some unguarded moment suddenly attacked and destroyed, or conveyed into captivity by the savages, who from the commencement of the French war, had improved every favourable opportunity to cut off the defenceless inhabitants of the frontier towns.

After the expiration of my four months labour the person who had promised me a deed of 200 acres of land therefor, having refused to fulfill his engagements, I was obliged to engage with a party of his Majesty's Surveyors at fifteen shillings per month, as an assistant chain bearer, to survey the wild unsettled lands bordering on the Connecticut river, to its source. It was in the winter season, and the snow so deep that it was impossible to travel without snow shoes--at the close of each day we enkindled a fire, cooked our victuals and erected with the branches of hemlock a temporary hut, which served us for a shelter for the night. The Surveyors having completed their business returned to Lebanon, after an absence of about two months. Receiving my wages I purchased a fowling-piece and ammunition therewith, and for the four succeeding months devoted my time in hunting Deer, Beavers, &c. in which I was very successful, as in the four months I obtained as many skins of these animals as produced me forty dollars--with my money I purchased of a Mr. John Marsh, 100 acres of new land, lying on Water Quechy River about five miles from Hartford . On this land I went immediately to work, erected a small log hut thereon, and in two summers without any assistance, cleared up thirty acres fit for sowing--in the winter seasons I employed my time in hunting and entraping such animals whose hides and furs were esteemed of the most value. I remained in possession of my land two years, and then disposed of it to the same person of whom I purchased it, at the advanced price of 200 dollars, and then conveyed my skins and furs which I had collected the two preceding winters, to NO. 4 , where I exchanged them for Indian blankets, wampeag and such other articles as I could conveniently convey on a hand sled, and with which I started for Canada, to barter with the Indians for furs.--This proved a very profitable trip, as I very soon disposed of every article at an advance of more than two hundred per cent, and received payment in furs at a reduced price, and for which I received in NO. 4, 200 dollars, cash. With this money, together with what I was before in possession of, I now set out for home, once more to visit my parents after an absence of two years and nine months, in which time my friends had not been enabled to receive any correct information of me. On my arrival, so greatly effected were my parents at the presence of a son whom they had considered dead, that it was sometime before either could become sufficiently composed to listen to or to request me to furnish them with an account of my travels.

Soon after my return, as some atonement for the anxiety which I had caused my parents, I presented them with most of the money that I had earned in my absence, and formed the determination that I would remain with them contented at home, in consequence of a conclusion from the welcome reception that I met with, that they had repented of their opposition, and had become reconciled to my intended union--but, in this, I soon found that I was mistaken; for, although overjoyed to see me alive, whom they had supposed really dead, no sooner did they find that my long absence had rather increased than diminished my attachment for their neighbor's daughter, than their resentment and opposition appeared to increase in proportion--in consequence of which I formed the determination again to quit them, and try my fortune at sea, as I had now arrived at an age in which I had an unquestionable right to think and act for myself.

I remained with my friends at Cranston a few weeks, and then hired myself to a Mr. James Waterman, of Coventry, for 12 months, to work at farming. This was in the year 1774, and I continued with him about six months, when the difficulties which had for some time prevailed between the Americans and Britons, had now arrived at that crisis, as to render it certain that hostilities would soon commence in good earnest between the two nations; in consequence of which, the Americans at this period began to prepare themselves for the event--companies were formed in several of the towns in New England, who received the appellation of "minute men," and who were to hold themselves in readiness to obey the first summons of their officers, to march at a moment's notice;--a company of this kind was formed in Coventry, into which I enlisted, and to the command of which Edmund Johnson, of said Coventry, was appointed.

It was on a Sabbath morning that news was received of the destruction of the provincial stores at Concord, and of the massacre of our countrymen at Lexington, by a detached party of the British troops from Boston: and I immediately thereupon received a summons from the captain, to be prepared to march with the company early the morning ensuing--and, although I felt not less willing to obey the call of my country at a minute's notice, and to face her foes, than did the gallant Putnam, yet, the nature of the summons did not render it necessary for me, like him, to quit my plough in the field; as having the day previous commenced the ploughing of a field of ten or twelve acres, that I might not leave my work half done, I improved the sabbath to complete it.

About noon, a number of the enemy's boats and barges, filled with troops, landed at Charlestown, and commenced a deliberate march to attack us--we were now harangued by Gen. Putnam, who reminded us, that exhausted as we were, by our incessant labour through the preceding night, the most important part of our duty was yet to be performed, and that much would be expected from so great a number of excellent marksmen--he charged us to be cool, and to reserve our fire until the enemy approached so near as to enable us to see the white of their eyes--when within about ten rods of our works we gave them the contents of our muskets, and which were aimed with so good effect, as soon to cause them to turn their backs and to retreat with a much quicker step than with what they approached us. We were now again harangued by "old General Put," as he was termed, and requested by him to aim at the officers, should the enemy renew the attack--which they did in a few moments, with a reinforcement--their approach was with a slow step, which gave us an excellent opportunity to obey the commands of our General in bringing down their officers. I feel but little disposed to boast of my own performances on this occasion, and will only say, that after devoting so many months in hunting the wild animals of the wilderness, while an inhabitant of New Hampshire, the reader will not suppose me a bad or unexperienced marksman, and that such were the fare shots which the epauletted red coats presented in the two attacks, that every shot which they received from me, I am confident on another occasion would have produced me a deer skin.

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