Halfway Brook

Col. Hinman versus Benedict Arnold, 1775
When he arrived at Fort Ticonderoga, Col. Benjamin Hinman used some major diplomacy in dealing with Colonel Benedict Arnold.

Benedict Arnold had joined Col. Seth Warner and Col. Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys the day before the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. Arnold demanded that he be leader. The Green Mountain Boys refused. A compromise made both Col. Allen and Col. Benedict leaders.

Two days after Fort Ticonderoga was taken, a detachment under Col. Seth Warner captured Fort Crown Point to the north. Col. Benedict Arnold then pronounced himself “commander-in-Chief of Crown Point.” So Allen stepped down.

Col. Arnold was in the area of Crown Point aboard a captured Sloop when Colonel Hinman arrived. Arnold would not relinquish his “command” of Crown Point to Col. Hinman. Arnold also refused Connecticut soldiers access (except upon condition) to the fort.

Col. Hinman was patient with Arnold, until a threat was made that two ships under Arnold’s command would be sailed to the British post at Saint John’s and surrendered.

Col. Hinman immediately sent a detachment to procure the ships and enlist all those of Arnold’s men who were willing. The rest were disbanded, ending the seven-day dispute over who was in command at Crown Point. Arnold’s authority was taken from him. But it did not stop him from bad mouthing the New England troops to General Schuyler when he arrived.—en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Hinman.

In the fall of the year the men at Ticonderoga were attacked with fever and dysentery and many of them died. My brother Reuben was very sick. (He died two years later.)

I (Asa Hickok) was taken sick with a fever late in the fall. It rendered me unable to go north with the troops to Fort Saint-Jean (John) south of Montreal in Canada, where we had been ordered to march.

Around December 1, at the start of winter, I was discharged from further service with a view to get to my brother’s who resided near the head of South Bay.

I appreciated the kind attention of Col. Hinman who was a friend of my father Justus. Before marching with his troops 169 miles to St. John, Col. Hinman procured a boat and hands to row me and other sick soldiers to the head of South Bay.

Col. Hinman directed me to go to my brother’s and from thence, home as soon as I was able. My brother picked me up and moved me to his house. I remained there until I was able to ride home to my father’s in Woodbury—as directed by Col. Hinman.

Asa Hickok “narrates” using his own words from his application for a Revolutionary War Pension. Other information is taken from Cothren’s Ancient Woodbury books, and letters from American Archives Series 4, Volume 2.

I was one of eighty Woodbury men who marched northwest with one thousand more under Colonel Hinman to defend Ticonderoga and Crown Point.

Our Regiment marched north first to Litchfield in Connecticut, then to Goshen, then northwest to Sheffield in Massachusetts, and next to Albany in New York. From Albany we marched north some sixty miles to Fort George at the south end of Lake George.

North and northeast some thirty-five miles was the garrison or Fort of Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, which we reached in June.
We were joined by three more companies of Colonel Hinman’s Regiment. All four companies were stationed at Crown Point, ten miles north of Ticonderoga.

Col. Hinman commanded until General Schuyler of New York arrived.

Repairing Roads
We repaired roads and bridges, removed the cannon, and did other necessary jobs to make Crown Point and Ticonderoga more defensible.

The forty-four miles of road from Fort George south to Half Moon (north of Albany) were especially in a wretched condition. Wagons could hardly pass each other.

Supplies From Woodbury
The third week of June, Shadrach Osborn, who was in charge of commissary, and Truman Hinman from Woodbury, purchased and furnished supplies for us at Ticonderoga. But more supplies were needed.

Waiting for Schuyler
On July third Col. Hinman sent a dispatch to the New York Provincial Congress. He requested troops furnished with tents. Our barracks were crowded and not convenient or good for the health of the soldiers.

Major-General Schuyler had not yet arrived by July 7 when Col. Benjamin Hinman wrote him:

I wait, Sir, with impatience for your arrival, as I find myself very unable to steer in this stormy situation. Sometimes we have no flour, and a constant cry for rum, and want of molasses for beer…the failure of those who provide give great uneasiness to the men; hope for better times on your arrival.

Finally Connecticut’s Governor Trumbull directed two companies (fifty men) of ship carpenters to march with their tools to work at Crown Point. They were to leave the second or third week of July. The Governor was concerned because few of the men taking supplies to Crown Point had had smallpox. And the men at Crown Point were exceedingly sick with smallpox.

It was August before Fort George could be set up as a major supply depot hospital for the Northern Continental Army.

Fort Ticonderoga captured
On May 10, 1765 a group of almost one hundred fifty Connecticut and Massachusetts men led by Col. Ethan Allen and Col. Seth Warner (both with ties to Woodbury), and Allen’s Green Mountain Boys captured the fort at Ticonderoga, north of Lake George (near Lake Champlain), in New York. They had been ordered to retrieve supplies for the fight in Boston. Colonel Benedict Arnold had joined them the day before.

Fall of Crown Point
Two days later Crown Point (eight miles north of Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain), fell to Capt. Seth Warner and 100 Green Mountain Boys. One hundred eleven cannons were captured from the British.

The important Lake Champlain waterway was now under the control of the Americans. Twenty-nine of the cannons were transported to Boston to help defend the Boston Harbor.

Connecticut men sent to guard the forts
A total of a thousand men from Connecticut, were sent under the command of Col. Benjamin Hinman of Woodbury to garrison (guard) the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Col. Benjamin Hinman, who fought in the French-Indian War, was commissioned Colonel of the Fourth Regiment of enlisted troops to defend the Colony.

Hickok brothers head to New York
In 1757 David and Gideon Hickok had marched to Fort William Henry at the south end of Lake George (forty miles southwest of Ticonderoga), during a skirmish of the French-Indian War.

Now brothers Asa and Reuben Hickok marched north with Col. Benjamin Hinman and the Woodbury men to secure Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point.

Asa Hickok’s daughter Hannah Hickok Eldred will be the mother of Mary Ann Eldred Austin. David Hickok’s daughter Hannah Hickok Smith will be the mother of five daughters.

We’ll meet Asa Hickok on his way to Fort Ticonderoga in the next post. As Asa and Reuben marched northwest to New York, the Battle of Bunker Hill took place in Boston, on June 17, 1775.

The next few posts feature Asa Hickok, my great-great-great grandfather at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The information is taken from the Revolutionary War section in my upcoming book, Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann.

Asa Hickok, his wife Esther Hinman, and their children (including Hannah Hickok who later married James Eldred) were the first of my ancestors to arrive in Lumberland, New York. In Asa’s request for a Revolutionary War Pension, he wrote that the family moved from Connecticut to Lumberland in 1812.

I was almost twenty-one when I entered the service under Colonel Benjamin Hinman of Woodbury, Captain David Hinman, and Lieutenant Benjamin Hungerford. It was around the first day of April 1775.—Asa Hickok.

Lexington Alarm April 1775
On April 19, 1775 the British and Americans clashed at Lexington and Concord, in Massachusetts.

Local militias which had begun when the English first settled the New World, were soon on their way to help in Massachusetts as the Continental Congress had promised.

 Woodbury, Connecticut, where the Hickoks lived, was one of fifty towns which hastily sent companies of soldiers some 133 miles to Lexington. (Asa did not mention Lexington, so he seems to have been somewhere else.)

Woodbury was western Connecticut’s recruiting headquarters during the entire war. Since the principal route of the Continental Army from Boston to western posts passed through Woodbury, the town became a prominent point for the collection of supplies.

Woodbury’s Truman Hinman and Shadrach Osborn, assistant commissary of purchase and an issuing commissary in Woodbury from May 1777–February 1781, were in charge. Provisions were issued to many marching parties and troops in winter quarters.

(Woodbury information taken from Cothren’s, Ancient Woodbury books.)