If local social media is accurate, the owners of the China Pond restaurant intend to close it, when their lease expires on October 7. The owners intend to spend more time with their family instead.
If I have understood my fortune cookies correctly, which is doubtful, zài jiàn is Mandarin Chinese for goodbye. (Apologies in advance for any Mandarin error). So, zài jiàn to China Pond. I hope you fare well in whatever comes next for you.
As I understand it – from very far outside – the owners had hoped to set up an American-style restaurant, as well as a couple of apartments, in the old Ray’s Marina complex. This proved to be impossible due to permitting issues. The current permitting issues, at least the insurmountable ones, are said to be with the State, and have to do with parking. This has gone on for several years now.
From afar, I have often wondered if they might rent the use of ten or a dozen spaces from the Dollar General complex across the street. I have never seen the Dollar General parking lot full, especially out at the margins, because most of its customers park naturally near the store entrance. Some spaces along the street would be relatively far from the Dollar General’s entrance and relatively close, if not actually closer, to the Ray’s Marina complex.
Too bad. It might have been sort of a win-win: extra money for Dollar General and parking access for the intended restaurant across the street. There is probably some sort of regulation that forbids such a solution. There usually is.
I shudder to think of the regulatory tortures of the damned that have been imposed upon these hapless restaurant entrepreneurs. This has been going on for a couple of years now. Again, from afar, they seem to have purchased the Ray’s Marina property. (I could be wrong). That is a pretty big investment. Now add a couple of years of Milton’s crushing tax burden to a non-performing property. And, as the cherry on top, a couple of years of legal expenses wrestling with boards and regulatory officials. Their working capital must be pretty much exhausted. Not a very “encouraging” prospect is it?
So, China Pond joins Stop, Drop & Rolls in leaving the so-called business district. Do a count: there are more businesses out of the business district than there are in the business district. We have really more of a business district museum than a business district. An exhibit of the business district that was, when there was a train depot and before the Spaulding bypassed the town. Is it time to just stop calling this the “business district”?
Social media has reported also that the antique store proposed for Milton Mills got bogged down in regulations too. And these were not State regulations. The owner said that Milton has some sort of extra layer of regulations above and beyond every other place in New Hampshire. Sort of like a “double secret probation.” He politely said that he is trying to work with the town on this. Of course, the town could just eliminate that extra hurdle – just to stay even with everywhere else. If they want really to move forward towards being “encouraging,” they could go on to whack a couple of more layers of nonsense too.
The ongoing Mi-Te-Jo expansion tragicomedy comes to mind. It would be difficult to imagine something with a lower environmental impact than expanding a seasonal campground. I mean, compared with hiring out the town as a landfill. But NIMBY. I suppose now Mi-Te-Jo will depart too and a housing development or something will spring up instead. Try that in your back yard. Much better than expanding a seasonal business.
I wonder if a Mi-Te-Jo failure to thrive will have any effect on that other store. The one near the bridge-that-was.
How about if we post Economic Revitalization Zone (ERZ) signs? I mean, as opposed to reducing taxes and regulations. That should do the trick. Yeah, that is the sort of thing you see in places that have check-cashing stores and title-loan shops instead of banks. (Rochester has a check-cashing store, a title loan shop, and ERZ signs). Is that where we are headed? I do not find that very encouraging.
How about if we just try liberty? (We pledge to it before every meeting). That seems to have worked in the past. You know, let us try what worked in the time before Economic Development, Planning, Zoning, and whatever boards and committees even existed. It has not been that long – within living memory.
If it is really vital that we have businesses for some reason – a reason that is never satisfactorily explained – let us return to the regulatory conditions that prevailed when businesses thrived.
Try to reproduce the conditions that existed when the business district created itself.
The minor league Pawtucket Red Sox’s contractual agreement with their “home” city of Pawtucket, RI has run its course. It was little mentioned in press reports, but the Pawtucket Red Sox (PawSox) organization shopped around for the best terms. That would be its fiduciary duty. It did the right thing.
Pawtucket, and the State of Rhode Island, failed to come to terms with the “home” team. The best that Pawtucket and Rhode Island could offer was an $83 million project without any state bond involvement. That was nowhere near good enough.
Worcester’s economic developers offered more, which “encouraged” the PawSox to come to an understanding with them. The PawSox will invest a bare $6 million on new facilities in Worcester. Worcester will take out $100.8 million in bonds for the venture, up front, repayable over thirty years. The PawSox will contribute $30.2 million toward repayment of that, but spread over the thirty year period. The Worcester taxpayers will pony up the rest. If bond interest functions anything like mortgage interest, the “rest” will be a vastly larger number than $100.8 million minus $30.2 million equals $70.6 million. It might cost double the $70.6 million, or even more, before the bonds are “retired.”
So, the PawSox will become the WooSox, or something of the sort, when they take up their new residence in Worcester, MA. Grand. Hopefully, other businesses will flow into town in the WooSox wake. That is the idea, anyway – a WooSox business district.
Some other cities that have financed minor-league baseball stadiums have failed to cover debt payments with new revenue, and have had to dip into their general funds (WBUR, 2018).
Of course, even if new businesses do take up residence around the new stadium, they will have been subsidized by Worcester taxpayers. The taxpayers will have paid partially already for whatever those businesses might offer, before they even step into them. They pay to create those businesses and then they pay more after for the goods and services themselves. That sounds great, for those new businesses.
And, heaven forbid, what if the WooSox were to fail and go out of business before the period of thirty years elapses? The taxpayers would still be on the hook for those bonds. Even those not yet born and who would never have even seen the WooSox play.
What happens in thirty years? Well, the WooSox will shop around again, just as they should. Worcester can then try to further “encourage” them, as Pawtucket did. Perhaps the WooSox will want a new stadium, an exit ramp, or some other basket of goodies, in order to remain in Worcester. More taxpayer money. Failing that, the WooSox will be happy enough to become the Someplace-Else-Sox, if someplace else can come up with a better “deal.”
Well, here’s a thought. Will the taxpayers get tickets to the games at least? Yes, if they buy them. Seats sold separately.
By Muriel Bristol (Transcriber) | September 25, 2018
A puzzle posed by British puzzler Henry Ernest Dudeney. It was published in the Strand magazine in April 1930.
Smith, Jones and Robinson are the driver, fireman and guard on a train, but not necessarily in that order. The train carries three passengers, coincidentally with the same surnames, but identified with a “Mr.”: Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith and Mr. Robinson.
Mr. Robinson lives in Leeds. The guard lives halfway between Leeds and Sheffield. Mr. Jones’s salary is £1,000 2s. 1d. per annum. Smith can beat the fireman at billiards. The guard’s nearest neighbour (one of the passengers) earns exactly three times as much as the guard. The guard’s namesake lives in Sheffield.
What is the name of the engine driver?
The salary amount of £1,000 2s. 1d., or one thousand pounds, two shillings and one penny, is significant only in that it is not evenly divisible by three.
[Answer to Puzzle #5 to follow in the next Puzzle]
Return – the sheep is on one side and the wolf and cabbage are on the other
Take the cabbage over
Return with the sheep – the cabbage is on one side and the sheep and wolf (and farmer) are on the other
Take the wolf over
Return – the wolf and cabbage are on one side and the sheep is on the other
Take sheep over – all three have crossed over
Thus there are seven crossings, four forward and three back.
This river-crossing puzzle has spawned many “cosmetic” variations, such as fox, goose, and beans, and has appeared in the folklore of many lands. It appeared in the Simpsons episode Gone Maggie Gone with Homer Simpson trying to shuttle Maggie, Santa’s Little Helper, and a Jar of Rat Poison that Looked like Candy.
One of our more “waggish” commenters suggests a cosmetic variation of a selectman, a taxpayer, and the taxpayer’s money.
Prior to the Declaration of Independence, Mount Independence had a less grandiose name: Rattlesnake Hill.
Two years previously, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys had surprised and captured Fort Ticonderoga in May 1775. He famously did so “In the name of Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.” He was certainly an interesting man. He had rebelled against New York prior to the Revolution. He was a rebel’s rebel. The Revolution just sort of joined him. Guns from Fort Ticonderoga had been sledged to Boston, where they were used to expel the British from that city. Under threat of those guns, mounted on Dorchester heights, the British “evacuated” on their fleet to occupy New York City instead. (Boston celebrates a city government holiday on “Evacuation Day,” which is coincidentally also St. Patrick’s Day).
Fort Ticonderoga had been built by the French in 1755 and had seen better days. It stood on the New York side of the narrow bottom of Lake Champlain at its river outlet. It had been built with an eye to blocking any approach from the south (up the Hudson River from Albany and New York). Its strong defenses were less formidable when approached from the north (down Lake Champlain from Canada).
To improve those defenses, the Colonial forces built an ancillary fortress on Rattlesnake Hill in 1776. That was a sort of hilly semi-peninsula on the Vermont side (modern Orwell, VT) of the lake. They constructed also a rough military road, with log planking and bridges to span wet places, between there and Hubbardton, Vermont, and a pontoon bridge over to Fort Ticonderoga. News of the Declaration of Independence came there on July 18, 1776 and Rattlesnake Hill became Mount Independence.
British General Guy Carleton arrived there from Canada with his army in October 1776. He abandoned this initial invasion attempt when he saw the double-fortressed position with its approximately 12,000 defenders. Most of the Colonial forces dispersed to their homes for the winter not long after. Their enlistments had expired. Only a skeleton force of 2,500 remained to hold the forts over the winter.
The British planned a much more serious invasion attempt for 1777. They hoped to split New England off from the rest of the colonies. To accomplish this, General John Burgoyne’s army would proceed south across Lake Champlain from Canada and General Gage’s army would come north up the Hudson River from New York City. They planned to meet in Albany, control the Hudson River, and thus split the colonies in two.
All three Continental regiments of the New Hampshire Line marched westward from New Hampshire in May 1777 in order to reinforce Fort Ticonderoga’s skeleton garrison. It took them six or seven weeks to get there.
At the head of the Second Regiment, its commander, Colonel Nathan Hale (not the famous spy, but another one from Rindge, NH) rode on horseback with his staff. The Second Regiment’s national and regimental colors flapped in the breeze.
The Regimental and National Flags of the 2nd Regiment, New Hampshire Line
The colors they carried before them had been made in Boston in April 1777. The buff-colored national flag’s ring of thirteen interlocked state rings was based on a Benjamin Franklin design. It had also been used on Continental currency the year before. Its motto “We Are One” appeared in the center of the rings. The blue-colored regimental flag had a shield with “NH 2nd Regt” upon it and a banner or scroll appeared above with the motto “The Glory Not the Prey.” The two cantons were “mocks” or variations on the British Union Jack.
Colonial soldiers and engineers had built encampments for three brigades (enlarged or reinforced regiments) at Mount Independence in 1776. The defenses in progress there included a large shore battery, with a another horseshoe-shaped battery or citadel above it. They also built storehouses, workshops and had begun a star-shaped picket fort. Some of this work continued in the spring of 1777, including the beginnings of three new batteries along the peninsula’s eastern shore.
Mount Independence was as yet an unarmed and undefended construction project. When the New Hampshire regiments arrived, they joined the skeleton garrison of Fort Ticonderoga.
British General John Burgoyne and his army of 7,800 British and Hessian soldiers arrived soon after at nearby Fort Crown Point on June 30, 1777. It was unoccupied and his presence went unnoticed. He next had his troops drag cannons up onto the summit of Mount Defiance (Sugarloaf Hill), which overlooked both Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence. (“Where a goat can go, a man can go; and where a man can go, he can drag a gun.” – British Major General William Phillips, as his men brought cannon to the top of Mount Defiance in 1777). The British occupation of Mount Defiance remained completely unnoticed until July 5, when some British-allied Indians lit a fire there.
The Colonial commander, General St. Clair, was completely surprised. British guns overlooked Fort Ticonderoga now, which made it completely untenable. He had little choice but to order an immediate evacuation of Fort Ticonderoga. The Colonial forces snuck out that night across the pontoon bridge to Mount Independence, under its British guns, and from there down the military log road to Hubbardton. They were headed for the Rutland, Vermont area.
Most of the sick and wounded were taken to bateaux boats at Skenesborough (now Whitehall, New York), while that was still possible. The baggage went there too.
Battle of Hubbardton
Colonel Seth Warner commanded the rear guard covering the Continental retreat toward Rutland, Vermont. His detail included his own Green Mountain Boys and Colonel Hale’s Second New Hampshire regiment. There were also some stragglers from other units, as well as some number of sick and wounded men.
Colonel Warner paused in Hubbardton, Vermont, on July 6, 1777, while the main force escaped down the Castleton road. He set his men to felling trees to make a obstacle of downward-facing branches on Monument Hill and to extend that position on either flank. The British did not appear that day and Colonel Warner decided to spend the night.
The next morning, July 7, at 5:00 AM, Colonel Warner’s pickets spotted approaching British scouts. There was an exchange of gunfire and the scouts retreated. A more substantial British force arrived at the bottom of Monument Hill at 6:30 AM. They attacked and were repulsed.
The British regrouped, attacked again, and were repulsed again. British General Fraser sent now for his Hessians. Meanwhile, his Grenadiers climbed the Pittsford Ridge beyond the Colonial east flank in order to block their escape route down the Castleton road.
The Hessian reinforcements arrived about 8:30 AM and counter-attacked on the Colonial northern flank, where the British were being hard-pressed. The Second’s commander, Col. Hale, and a detachment of seventy Second Regiment men were captured. Colonel Warner decided it was time to go. The Colonials withdrew across the Pittsford Ridge as best they could.
This is considered to have been a British victory, as they held the field when it was all over, but the rear guard had accomplished its mission. They forced the British to stop, deploy their forces, and fight. All of this took time, valuable time. After the battle, British General Fraser gave up his pursuit of the Colonial main body entirely.
The Battle of Hubbardton involved approximately 2,230 troops – 1,000 to 1,200 Americans, 850 British, and 180 Germans fighting for the British. It resulted in the deaths of 41 American, 50 British, and 10 German soldiers. Of the 244 wounded, 96 were American, 134 British, and 14 German. The British took 234 American prisoners. Total casualties, including prisoners, were roughly 27 percent of all participating troops.
Milton’s Private Enoch Wingate was wounded during this rear guard action. Captain Rowell’s next muster roll listed him as one of sixteen men that had been “Missing since July 7th.”
The Second New Hampshire Regiment continued to regard the captured Colonel Hale as its commander. His name headed all their paperwork, until as late as January 1779, when Lt. Colonel George Reid was listed as commander. Hale died in captivity in September 1780.
The fancy Regimental flags also went missing. They had been packed away with the baggage on the bateaux at Skenesborough to go down river. The British got the lot.
And next came Bemis Heights? Yes.
To be continued in Milton’s Winter Soldier, Part Three
National Archives. (n.d.) Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files (NARA microfilm publication M804, 2,670 rolls). Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
The Milton Board of Selectmen (BOS) have posted their agenda for a BOS meeting to be held Monday, September 24.
The meeting is scheduled to begin with a Non-Public preliminary session at 5:00 PM. That agenda has three Non-Public items classed as 91-A:3 II (c), 91-A:3 II (j), and 91-A:3 II (c).
91-A:3 II (c). Matters which, if discussed in public, would likely affect adversely the reputation of any person, other than a member of the public body itself, unless such person requests an open meeting. This exemption shall extend to any application for assistance or tax abatement or waiver of a fee, fine, or other levy, if based on inability to pay or poverty of the applicant.
The first and third matters (the “c” items) appear to relate again to the recent tax abatement process.
To Repeat. In November, the BOS made a serious error in setting the 2017 tax rate. It affected all of the taxpayers, i.e., about 2,700 taxpayers, to a very large degree. Various figures have been given, ranging as high as $1.4 million. In December, the BOS suggested that those affected should file for abatements, which was a bit of shell game. An abatement fund of $20,000 could not possibly resolve an unauthorized tax levy of $1.4 million. This would be the fourth meeting that devoted agenda time to hearing abatements or appeals of rejected abatements.
91-A:3 II (j). Consideration of confidential, commercial, or financial information that is exempt from public disclosure under RSA 91-A:5, IV in an adjudicative proceeding pursuant to RSA 541 [Rehearings and Appeals in Certain Cases] or RSA 541-A [Administrative Procedure Act].
The second item (the “j” item) might also relate to abatements. Of course, it could be anything at all. It has been suggested to us since last time that it might have to do with discussing revisions of employee manuals and employee insurance buyouts, issues that have been mentioned in the open sessions.
The BOS intend to adjourn their Non-Public BOS session at approximately (*) 6:00 PM, when they intend to return to Public session.
The Public portion of the agenda has new business, old business, and the approval of minutes.
Under new business is scheduled: 1) Recording Clerk Agreement (Danielle Marique), and 2) Milton EOP Acceptance (Nick Marique).
We tried to research the somewhat cryptic acronym EOP, which will no doubt be explained (and accepted) in the meeting, but cannot decide to what those initials might refer. Possibilities include, but are not limited to:
Early Oil Project (the development of the Chirag oilfield),
Earth orientation parameters, a collection of parameters that describe irregularities in the rotation of the Earth,
Electroosmotic pump, a device that generates flow using an electric field,
Enhanced Outpatient Program, a program in the California Department of Corrections to provide care to mentally challenged inmates,
Ethernet over Power, a type of home networking in power-line communication,
Executive Office of the President of the United States, a part of the executive branch of the United States government often referred to as the White House,
Exchange Online Protection, an email filtering service, part of Microsoft’s Exchange Online family,
External occipital protuberance, part of the human skull, and
Hellenic Cycling Federation (Greek: Ελληνικη Ομοσπονδια Ποδηλασιας), the governing body of cycle racing in Greece.
None of these seem to be likely. It could refer to anything at all. Bureaucracies love their alphabet soup (and chapter heading numbers).
Under old business is scheduled: 3) Employee Handbook Update (Heather Thibodeau), 4) Insurance Buyout Discussion Follow up (Heather Thibodeau), 5) Town Report Printing Cost Discussion (Heather Thibodeau), 6) Building Permit Fees & Policy Discussion Follow up (Heather Thibodeau), and 7) Townhouse Heating/Cooling Discussion Follow up (Erin Hutchings).
The Employee Handbook and Employee Insurance Buyout items return from last time. Townhouse heating problems appear for the fourth time.
The Town Report Printing Cost discussion will be where they break it to Selectman Lucier that printing two Town Report publications could not possibly be cheaper than printing one. (After a diversion of staff resources to confirming the obvious). He has not noticed evidently that the tax assessment information he remembers as being in the back of the Town Report in days of yore is now available in an online system (Avitar) instead. A system for which we are already paying quite a bit.
Perhaps we could save the cost of printing two reports by just printing the URL of the Avitar database in the one report?
As for wanting to publish the names of tax delinquents in the Town Report. It is not difficult to see where that might end badly, very badly.
By Muriel Bristol (Transcriber) | September 21, 2018
Milton, N.H.
Strafford co. The Salmon Fall river washes its whole E. boundary, a distance of 13 miles; and a branch of the same river crosses, from the S. part of Wakefield, and unites near the centre of the E. Boundary. Teneriffe, a bold and rocky mountain, extends along the E. part of Milton, near which lies Milton pond, of considerable size, connecting with the Salmon Fall river. This town was formerly a part of Rochester, from which it was detached in 1802. It lies 40 miles N.E. from Concord, and 20 N.W. by N. from Dover. Population, 1830, 1,273.
Our Board of Selectmen (BOS) try so very hard to avoid dancing a pas-de-deux (a “step-of-two,” a ballet or part of a ballet, that features two dancers only) They seem to devote a considerable amount of their time trying to work this out.
Strictly speaking, whenever two of the three of them are together that constitutes a quorum and makes for an official BOS Meeting.
Most recently, Chairman Thibeault touted the Milton Historical Society in the BOS Meeting of Monday, August 20. Rightly so. (Just don’t buy them a new roof with public money).
Vice-chairwoman Hutchings would like to go too, but has difficulties:
Hutchings: Can I have a comment on that?
Thibeault: Sure.
Hutchings: Only because Bonnie … Dutton? … calls me, every time you all have a meeting, and asks me to go to the meeting. Because I’m a member. But, because I never know if you’re going to be there and, since two of us can’t be in the same room without calling it a meeting, what can we do to …
Administrator Thibodeau: Tell me if you’re going and I’ll post a meeting.
Hutchings: But, see, sometimes I don’t know. It depends on if there’s a conflict with another meeting … I mean, what, there’s got to be a way to get around this, so that …
Thibodeau: I have to post a meeting.
Hutchings: Can we just have a standard posting? Do you go to all of their meetings?
Thibodeau: Now you’re going to …
Thibeault: Pretty much, if I can, and now that I’m one of …
Hutchings: So, can we just do a standard posting of it?
Thibeault: … the people that was elected Tuesday, I will be at almost every one.
Thibodeau. Yes, now you’re, what, vice-chair or something, or …
Hutchings: I mean it does make it difficult, with a three-member board, if I’m a member of the Historical Society and, now you’re the chairman or whatever, it does … you know, I mean, it makes it hard.
Thibeault: No, we can, … I mean, we can post it … I mean, … it’s a 91-A. We just need to be very cautious.
Hutchings: Right, can we post it?
Thibeault: We can’t make decisions about the town or talk about town business.
Thibodeau: Don’t talk about town …
Hutchings: And I get that, but can we just put a standard “blanket”? Does it have to be that we’re both going to be there? What can we do to circumvent?
Thibodeau: Well, you could say you’re not going to talk about the town.
Hutchings: Well, that goes without saying. I mean, it’s the Historical Society. It’s a total separate entity.
Thibodeau: And you’re not going to make any decisions. But, if you’re very cautious …
Thibeault: If we post it … when we’re going to go … just post it. E-mail Heather and have her post it, … just to be as transparent as we can. Again, it’s really not a meeting.
Hutchings: Right. Do we have a schedule of when you guys are meeting? Cause it seems …
Thibeault: I think it’s the second Tuesday. Or the first Tuesday, the first Tuesday of the Month.
Hutchings: The first Tuesday.
Thibeault: There’s probably going to be some adjustments.
They pretty much went around in a circle and arrived back at the start: posting every time they are in the same place as a meeting.
(By the way, Vice-chairwoman Hutchings, you might want to stay away from terms like “circumvent” and “get around” when you are talking about laws, even silly ones. Just a suggestion. It leaves a bad impression).
Consider the absurdity of it all. Hmm. We might even apply a logical reductio-ad-absurdum method or test to this process. Say two of the selectmen go to a pie contest or a parade or some other event. There are many people there, perhaps hundreds. The two selectman are standing together. Oh, well, that’s a meeting, definitely. Plain as the nose on your face.
How about if they move apart, say ten feet? Or different ends of the table? Well, they can still talk at ten feet. I guess the other people present there make it a more “public” meeting. We’re right here, we can hear you.
How about if they move further apart, say fifty or sixty feet? Or sit at different, widely-spaced tables. They could still shout something out, I suppose. Alright, let’s say they are on opposite ends of the crowd, hundreds of feet apart. They would have trouble communicating, even by shouting. Are they still in the same “meeting”? Obviously not, to think that would be absurd.
But if they moved closer together again? There’s a crowd there. How could we know they didn’t do that? Someone would have to watch them all the time. Or they would have to post it as a meeting.
How about if all the selectmen wore bodycams all the time instead? No, I suppose that’s a non-starter.
Is it time to expand the BOS to a five-member board? It might solve some of the smaller issues, like a Milton Historical Society meeting. The same problems would persist for larger public events. (Politicians tend to gravitate to large public events). The quorum number would just be bigger – three, rather than two. But a five-member board might have other advantages.
Lots of NH towns do have five-member boards instead of three-member boards. Even the residents of that other Milton – Milton, Massachusetts – discussed expanding their board last year (see References below). They mentioned better representation, spreading the workload, more heads being better than fewer heads, etc.
With five-member boards, two of them are a “subcommittee” instead of a “meeting.” And subcommittees could meet to hash out problems – you know, green eyeshade stuff – like reducing our tax burden.
Maybe a really efficient subcommittee could find and figure out how to return last year’s supposed $1.4 million tax overage? The full board seems unable to work that out. Not even in an unrecorded workshop meeting. They just dance away from it.
On a warm April day, an older Milton man, Enoch Wingate, stood before Judge Richard Dame in the Strafford Court of Common Pleas in Dover. He had a tale to tell, or, in proper legal parlance, a “declaration” to make.
On this seventh day of April 1818 before me the Subscriber, one of the Judges of the Court of Common pleas for the County of Strafford in the first District in the state of Newhampshire, personally appears Enoch Wingate aged Sixty four years, resident in the town of Milton in the county of Strafford and state of Newhampshire aforesaid, who being by me first affirmed according to law doth on his solemn affirmation make the following declaration in order to obtain the provisions made by the late act of Congress intitled An act to provide for certain persons engaged in the land and naval Service of the united states in the revolutionary war.
That the said Enoch Wingate inlisted at Rochester in the state of Newhampshire in the company commanded by Captain William Rowell in the Newhampshire line Second Regiment commanded by Col. Hale in the month of April or May 1777.
That he continued to serve in said Corps in the Service of the United States untill the 22 day of June 1780, when he was discharged from said Service at Dover in the State of Newhampshire having Served three years for which he enlisted.
That he was wounded in retreating from mount Independence, rejoined the army at Bemis heights, was at the taking of Gen. Burgoyne’s Army, marched to Pennsylvania, was in the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, was with General Sullivan in the Indian Country. –
And that he is in reduced Circumstances and stands in need of the assistance of his country for support. And that he has no other evidence of his said service except the discharge hereto annexed.
Solemnly affirmed to be true and declared before me, the day and year aforesaid.
Outside, after court, I caught up with him near a tavern. Sire Wingate, you certainly saw a lot of hard service. I’d like to hear about it. It’s a warm day. Here, have a seat in the shade, let me get you a nice, cool cider.
Enoch Wingate was about twenty-three years old when he walked from the Milton-to-be part of Rochester into Rochester as-is. It was a late April morning in 1777. He probably went to participate in a militia training day. These were festive occasions – a sort of holiday almost – featuring muster gingerbread, hard cider, rum, music, and, of course, some militia drills and training.
Colonel Stephen Evans of the Fourth New Hampshire Militia Regiment sent his sergeants out from Exeter. He wanted men for the New Hampshire Line regiments. The Continental Line was a reorganization of the existing state regiments into Continental regiments. General Washington had sought – begged really – for longer enlistments and a more professional structure.
The New Hampshire Line would consist of three Continental regiments manned with New Hampshire’s quota of volunteers or, if there were not sufficient volunteers, New Hampshire’s draftees. The older New Hampshire state regiments were the base on which these new regiments would be built. For instance, the 8th New Hampshire Regiment became the core of the new Second Regiment, New Hampshire Line. The new enlistment terms would be for three years, rather than one or less.
Likely, Wingate had read (or heard read) Thomas Paine’s recently-published polemic Common Sense. It began:
THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. …
The sergeants were persuasive too. The Rochester militiamen had all seen newspapers that told of General Washington’s victories last winter at Trenton and Princeton over the British and their Hessian mercenaries. The sergeants pointed out that most of those soldiers’ enlistments had expired already. Who would now fill the ranks? Who will preserve our liberty? New Hampshire needs you. (And there is that enlistment bounty too – £20).
Wingate was one of the twenty-three Rochester men (and one from Wolfeborough) that enlisted that day. His younger cousin (or brother), Daniel Wingate, Jr., signed up too. Col. Evans recruited for the First Regiment, but the two Wingates ended up in Captain William Rowell’s Eighth Company, in the Second Regiment, New Hampshire Line.
In a week or two, all that they had to settle their affairs and make their goodbyes, they marched. From Rochester, they likely marched next either to Exeter, the capital, or to Portsmouth, where their guns awaited them. The Continental Congress had purchased three thousand French muskets. The Mercury delivered a partial shipment from Nantes, France, to Portsmouth that very same month. Those muskets would be enough to outfit some, if not all, of the New Hampshire Line regiments.
The men called them “Charlesville” muskets, because they were made at the armory in Charleville-Mézières, France. They were the newer model, the 1766 one, not the older 1763 model. (There would be a 1777 model next). They fired a smaller 69-caliber bullet versus the British Brown Bess’ 75-caliber. The ammunition was lighter to carry. The muskets were lighter also than the British Brown Bess muskets while still having good stopping power. They were accurate out to 110 yards against a mass of men. The ramrod had been redesigned. They were long and sleek, with a bayonet way out on the business end.
Wingate’s had a walnut stock and its State, battalion, and serial number were stamped on the barrel: NH 2 B No. – well, forty-one years on, he forgets the exact number – 500something.
But how came you to be wounded at Mount Independence? For that matter, where is it and what happened there?
Aah, I could tell you something about that, he said, while looking into his empty mug.
National Archives. (n.d.) Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files (NARA microfilm publication M804, 2,670 rolls). Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
You may have noticed the unusually large numbers of squirrels around us. Sadly, many are seen as large numbers of squirrel roadkill.
What on earth is happening? A number of newspaper articles, radio broadcasts, television segments have tried to answer that question. In sum, the past two years of high acorn density have produced a rodent population boom, leading to a rise in traffic-related squirrel fatalities as the youngsters grow up and move out.
For more detail, The Exchange’s particularly informative and interesting radio broadcast from September 10 is worth a listen. (In Appreciation of Squirrels (57:16), from NH Public Radio (NHPR)). It seeks to explain it all: acorns, squirrels, crows, foxes, coyotes, and even bears.
By Muriel Bristol (Transcriber) | September 18, 2018
The eighth-century English scholar Alcuin devised the following puzzle for the Emperor Charlemagne.
A traveler comes to a riverbank with a wolf, a goat and a head of cabbage. To his chagrin, he notes that there is only one boat for crossing over, which can carry no more than two passengers — the traveler and either one of the two animals or the cabbage. As the traveler knows, if left alone together, the goat will eat the cabbage and the wolf will eat the goat. The wolf does not eat cabbage. How does the traveler transport his animals and his cabbage to the other side intact in a minimum number of back-and-forth trips?
[Answer to Puzzle #4 to follow in the next Puzzle]
Turn on a switch and leave it on for several minutes. Then turn it off and turn on a second switch. Go to the attic. One light is burning: the one that switched on second and is still active. Feel the two bulbs that are not burning. One of them is still warm from having been switched on by the first switch for several minutes. By a process of elimination, the remaining bulb (the cool one) is activated by the third switch that was never used.
Milton Observer 