Individual Notes

Note for: Ebenezer Clemens, 29 Dec 1750 - 3 May 1836 Index

Burial:
Place: Charlton, Worcester, MA

Individual Notes

Note for: Gen. Israel Porter Putnam, 7 Jan 1717/1718 - 29 May 1790 Index

Christening:
     Date:   2 Feb 1717/1718
     Place:   Salem (Danvers), Essex, MA

Burial:
     Date:   1 Jun 1790
     Place:   Town Green, Brooklyn, Windham, CT

Individual Note:
      Israel Putnam (January 7, 1718 – May 29, 1790) was an American army general who fought with distinction at the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775) during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Although Putnam never quite attained the national renown of more famous heroes such as Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone, in his own time his reckless courage and fighting spirit were known far beyond Connecticut's borders through the circulation of folk legends celebrating his exploits.
        Putnam County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, in the lower Hudson Valley. Putnam county formed in 1812, when it detached from Dutchess County. As of 2004, the population is 100,570. It is part of the New York Metropolitan Area. The county seat is Carmel. Putnam county was named in honor of Israel Putnam, who was a hero in the French and Indian War and a general in the American Revolutionary War. Putnam County is one of the most affluent counties in America, ranked 11th by median household income, and 47th by per-capita income, according to the year 2000 census.
        Major General Putnam was the ranking Continental officer at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
        (More at: http://www.myrevolutionarywar.com/leaders/a-putnam_israel.htm.)
        By 1735 all the wolves of the Pomfret, CT neighborhood seem to have been slain save one old female that for some seasons more went on ravaging the farm-yards. Her lair was not far from Putnam's farm, and one night she slew sixty or seventy of his fine sheep. Perhaps no incident in Putnam's career is so often quoted as his share in the wolf-hunt, ending in his descending into the dark, narrow cave, shooting his enemy at short range, and dragging her forth in triumph.
        More at:
        Also see: "General Putnam's Wolf Hunt" in Putnam’s Monthly Historical Magazine, Salem Press Historical and Genealogical Record, Vol. V., Magazine of New England History, Vol. V., Jan.- Dec. 1895, Eben Putnam, publisher and editor, Salem, Mass.

Individual Notes

Note for: Joseph Putnam, 14 Sep 1669 - 1724 or 1725 Index

Individual Note:
      It is said that Israel's father, Joseph Putnam, was such an outspoken critic of the witchcraft persecutions which shook Salem in the final years of the seventeenth century that he earned the lasting disapproval of both relatives and neighbors. As a precaution against the time when he might be accused of being a witch (or a warlock), they say Joseph Putnam kept his musket loaded and a fast horse saddled at all times, ready for possible flight.
        Joseph Putnam will always be remembered for his opposition to Mr. Parris and the witchcraft trials. The position which he took could only have been maintained by one who, like himself, was allied with the principal families of the county. He opposed from first to last the proceedings which disgraced Dauvers and his immediate relatives and friends. This was a source of peril to even him, however, and for six months, one of his fleetest horses was kept saddled, ready at a moment's notice, should an attempt be made to seize his person. This fact was well known and it was also known that he would resist every attempt of that nature, even though it cost the lives of those who came to take him. It is a significant fact that his children were baptized in Salem, this being a very public manner of showing his disapprobation of the course followed by Mr. Parris. Joseph Putnam should be honored far above all others of his generation; for he showed that not only did he have the courage common to all of the family, but was above the ignorant superstition of the time by which such men as Judge Samuel Sewall and Cotton Mather were overcome.
        It is proper to state at this juncture, that the romantic tale of a sister of Joseph Putnam being accused of witchcraft at a session of the Court to which she had been drawn by curiosity, and her flight and concealment in Middleton woods, is entirely without foundation. Mr. Tarbox in his History of Gen. Israel Putnam quotes from Mr. Rice, but however thrilling and interesting a story this account may be, it has absolutely no foundation.