MILITARY INTERESTS

The first celebration of our national independence, in all this region of country, was held in Chaumont in1802. The number in attendance was certainly more than a hundred persons. From Champion and Hounsfield, Watertown and Brownville, Sacket’s Harbor and Cape Vincent, and other points of settlement, the forefathers and foremothers came to do homage to the old flag and the land of the brave. Several were Revolutionary soldiers. Food and drink were plenty. Indians and squaws must also have joined the festivities. Rum and maple-sugar, shooting at a mark and wrestling, stories and songs, and fife and drum, could hardly have been wanting on this occasion, although there is no published report of the proceedings to guide us in making out the history of that fourth of July.

Considerable alarm was felt at Chaumont in 1812 lest the British should come, pillage their homes and burn them nor did they know but hostile Indians might take advantage of the war to pounce upon them and carry off their scalps. General Brown therefore advised the building of a block-house for defense, and this was erected the same year, on the north shore of they bay. Not long after, a squad of English soldiers visited the place, and promised not to destroy any property if the inhabitants would take down the block-house. This was done, and the material afterwards used on Point Salubrious, in the erection of a building for school and religious purposes. The artillery of this block-house, or fort, consisted of an iron gun which James smith had purchased some time before for two gallons of rum. It was found on the isthmus of Point Peninsula. Afterwards this gun was taken to Sacket’s Harbor, and from thence it went to Ogdensburgh, where it was captured by the enemy.

THE GREAT AMERICAN REBELLION

A full list of the names of the patriotic soldiers who went from this town in defense of the nation against slavery is given in the military chapter of the county. Lyme was loyal. The citizens held public meetings from time to time during those anxious years, on Point Peninsula, three-Mile Bay, and Chaumont, for the purpose of encouraging enlistments and raising money for her soldiers. In response to the several calls of the Government for troops, every quota was filled. A town-meeting was held in 1863, at which it was voted to borrow eight thousand two hundred dollars ($8200) for the purpose of paying one hundred dollars apiece to those volunteers who had enlisted from the town of Lyme since July 2, 1861.This was a just recognition of those men who would have served without it, and who had already smelt the powder of battle. At a special meeting of the township, held on the 15^th of January, 1864, it was voted to pay each volunteer who had enlisted since October 17, 1863, the sum of three hundred and twenty-five dollars ($325). As in many other towns, some of the boys were maimed for life, some never saw home again, and others were never heard of after their last battle. (Jefferson County History, L. H. Everets, 1878)