| Notes |
- Samuel Hurd was the son of Elnathan (37) and Thankful Nettleton Hurd, and was born at Killingworth, Connecticut, Nov. 1, 1734, in the very midst of blood and disaster. Strange indeed if he were not endowed with great physical strength, keen mentality, and a thirst for adventure. Just at this time the little colonies with their ever-increasing numbers were engaged in the most trying times America and the States ever experienced. It is scarcely possible that our people will ever again experience anything to compare with those days of the latter half of the 1700 period.
The beautiful mountains, hills, and valleys of New England were mostly thickly wooded or covered with stone, and had to be made tillable with only the strength of muscles and rude tools.
There was no means of travel except in rowboats or canoes in summer and snowshoes or on horseback in winter. When a settlement outgrew its facilities for growing crops, the younger families dashed out into the woods teeming with the bloodthirsty red men and ferocious wild animals, discovered a new "Eldorado", built a fortification, and, as in Samuel Hurd's instance, returned for their famihes when a habitation was found.
The young men of his generation had often heard of the fertile country that lay East of the Connecticut River. Samuel Hurd's father, Elnathan, had passed through the beautiful valley in his journeys to Charlestown, and with the famous scouts and Indian fighters, Eastman and Flanders, who were Samuel Hurd's close friends, the sturdy young giants of physical endurance pushed on over hill and up stream, carrying their canoes and provisions on their backs, hunting, trapping, and fishing en route.
Justus Hurd (126), Samuel's cousin, was with them, and the thought of the many thrilling experiences of these young men, so full of daring and narrow escapes as they followed the Indian trails familiar to their guide Eastman, dodging the French spy and evading the Indians, scarcity of food, etc., is so remote from the minds of the twentieth-century inhabitants of those same beautiful hills, valleys, and streams as to render these recorded experiences almost inconceivable.
To a few faithful ones, to the memory of these early experiences, credit is due for the reverence they held for their ancestors in the preservation of these annals.
As early as 1754, Newport town numbered eight settlers, and Samuel Hurd, with his father's family, became one of Newport's first citizens. He married Lydia Wilcox in 1756, the daughter of Stephen Wilcox, who was the son of William Wilcoxen, who with his wife came to America in 1650, in the good ship Planter.
The early privations of this family of Hurds and the seven other families were almost unbearable. Dependent entirely for food upon their crops and hunted game, the second year early frosts greatly injured and entirely destroyed some of the crops. A hard winter set in, and upon one occasion Samuel Hurd went to the settlement No. 4 (Charlestown) for grain. A blizzard detained him, and for five days the Newport colony was without a morsel of food except one wild turkey which Mrs. Hurd succeeded in bringing down as it flew into the barn for shelter from the cold. It is authentically recorded that she and her family would have perished had she missed her aim. Samuel Hurd, faithful to his trust, pushed on through the snow and arrived home with a supply of grain packed upon the backs of oxen, and saved the settlement from probable starvation.
Spring came, and with it the planting of crops. Newport was a growing colony, proud as an empire, governing itself, making its own laws and peacefully abiding by them. Friendly relations were established with the Indians and the land grants enabled Samuel Hurd to select for himself a beautiful tract of land for a home, but the words of R. W. Allen most beautifully describe the closing hours of this dream of peace.
" A fair summer morning gladdened the face of the earth. A flight of killdeer plover rose near at hand, the rays of the sun were peeping over Sunapee Mountains and glistened down the stream until the river seemed flowing on in burnished silver.
" The green meadows of the valley were awakening to their leisurely untroubled life, the atmosphere unpolluted with modern factories, smoke and dust, the stillness broken only by the songs of birds; a scene of perfect peace. After years of incessant toil and privations, Samuel Hurd's glimpse into the future of brighter years was broken by the call To Arms.' He bade farewell to the green slopes, tall blue peaks, and grassy vales, and resolutely plunged into the dark recesses of the Revolutionary War."
In 1775, ranging from Massachusetts shores to Connecticut's sea-lapped coast, and on to the White Mountains and back again, every man of forty had already seen twenty years of war and bloodshed. Taught to handle arms from the cradle, all were excellent marksmen; accustomed to fatigue and familiar with danger, they bore without complaint the greatest privations, and surmounted with alacrity the most formidable difficulties.
Samuel Hurd was destined to become a leader when he answered the call, and distinguished himself as Captain of the 4th Co., 16th Regiment N. H. Vol., under Col. Bellows, and was at times in service with Ethan Allen and the illfated Benedict Arnold.
He transported his company of 29 men from Newport to Castleton, Vt., at the expense of 40 shillings, and at Castleton the company's expense, as recorded in a bill still extant, was one pound six shilhngs, about $5.50. His salary as captain was $20 per month. Private's pay, $2 per month.
There are many references to Captain Samuel Hurd's service as a soldier in early histories of New Hampshire. He was at the battle of Bennington, Fort Ticonderoga, where the army suffered from privations and sickness, fever and smallpox, but he was one of the 83 minute men who landed at the garrison and took Ticonderoga, an account of which Ethan Allen wrote while in the British prison. Of Captain Hurd and his command of the boys whom he led to Cavendish to join the ''Green Mountain Rangers," Col. Burgoyne could scarcety have paid a more flattering compliment to them than he wrote to Lord Germaine in these words: "The Hampshire Grants, a country unpeopled, and almost' unknown in the Indian War, now abounds in the most active and the most rebellious race of men on the continent."
Captain Samuel's last account of his army life from his own journal reads: ''Nov. 30th (1777). The roads were impassable. We could not abandon the snowshoes. The air was still a severe cold. It was nightfall when we reached Westminster, another place for the collection and storage of the suppUes. Here we found the streets, running each way from the 'meeting house' (church), piled high on either side, for 100 yards or more, with barrels and hogsheads of pork, beef, lard and flour, besides great quantities of blankets, tents and clothing for the troops.
"Much of this had been captured from the British at the battle of Bennington. Here the women were paring apples for the army's use, so we all turned in and helped them.
"Dec. 21st, Sunday morning. Warmer. By this time we accomplished the first sLx miles of the journey home. We found ourselves in an evil Case, for the snow was getting wet and soft and held the four feet of our snowshoes so that at every step it became hard to lift our feet. We found good roads at No. 4 and Unity Hills, and at last reached our homes in Newport Jan. 3rd, 1778."
He immediate^ took up the daily routine, clearing up the wilderness and making a more comfortable abiding place. Captain Hurd and his descendants shed their blood in all the Indian Wars and in all the wars of the colonies and of the Republic. They charged the Lilies of France; defended first, then defeated, the cross of St. George, and have represented in battle Old Glory since it first floated. [5]
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1736 - 1810 (73 years)
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