The Life and Times of Major-General John Stark, the Hero of Bennington.
Part I: Running the Gauntlet; "The young warriors of the tribe arranged themselves in two lines, each armed with a rod or club to strike John Stark."
Introduction:
John Stark is to New Hampshire what the idea of liberty is to our nation. In this first part of the series, we will be covering John’s upbringing, his capture by the Arosaguntacook Abenaki, his defiance in the face of savages, and lastly how he was able to gain the respect of his captors. However, in order to tell the story of the life of a man, you must begin with his father. For all men sing different songs, but their songs rhyme with that of their fathers’.
*expanded from the “Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark” by his son, Caleb Stark (December 3, 1759 – August 28, 1838).
The Life of the Father:
Archibald Stark (1697-1758), was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and received his education at the University of Glasgow. At an early age he moved with his family to Londonderry, Ireland, where he met and married John’s mother, Eleanor Nichols, the daughter of Scottish emigrants.
In 1720, he embarked with a company of adventurers for New Hampshire, where a considerable party of his countrymen had previously proceeded to form a settlement. After a devastating voyage, during which all his children died, the emigrants arrived in Boston late in autumn. As many of them were ill with small-pox they were not permitted to land, and were, in consequence, compelled to depart for the wilds of Maine (Maine was then a part of Massachusetts). At a place called Sheepscot, near the site of the present town of Wiscasset, they endured their first trial of the horrors of a northern winter in the forests of New England. In the course of the year following after encountering and enduring many severe hardships and privations, they joined their Scottish friends, who had proceeded them, at Nutfield, (Londonderry, N.H.) then a wilderness, rendered insecure by the frequent incursions of hostile savage, who, at that period, and for many succeeding years, harassed the frontiers. It was here at this house, on August 28th, 1728, that John was born. His house in Londonderry having been burned in 1736, he, in consequence, moved to that portion of land on the Merrimack River, then known as Harrytown, and settled upon a lot, which had been granted to Samuel Thaxter by the government of Massachusetts, a short distance above the Falls of Amoskeag.
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