20
��Robert Rogers, the Rajiger.
��On such excursions he mingled much with the Indians, and somewhat with the French, obtaining by such intercourse sonie knowledge of their languages, of their modes of hunting, and their habits of life. He also acquired a fondness for the woods and streams, tracing the latter well up towards their sources, learning the portages between their headwaters, many of the Indian trails and the general topography of the great area just mentioned.
During the French and Indian wars small bodies of soldiers were often em- ployed to "watch and ward " the front- iers, and protect their defenceless com- munities from the barbarous assaults of Indians, turned upon them from St. Francis and CrowTi Point. Robert Rogers had in him just the stuff required in such a soldier. We shall not, there- fore, be surprised to find him on scout- ing duty in the Merrimack Valley, under Captain Ladd, as early as 1 746, when he was but nineteen years of age ; * and, three years later, engaged in the same service, under Captain Ebenezer East- man, of Pennycook.f Six years after- wards, in 1753, the muster rolls show him to have been a member of Captain John GofPs company, and doing like service. I Such was the training of a self-reliant mind and a hardy physique for the ranging service, in which they were soon to be employed.
I ought, perhaps, to mention, that in 1749, as Londonderry became filled to o\'erflowing with repeated immigrations from the North of Ireland, James Rogers, the father of Robert, a pro- prietor, and one of the early settlers of the township, removed therefrom to the woods of Dunbarton, and settled anew in a section named Montelony, from an
- New Hampshire Adjutant General's Report, 1866,
vol. 2, p. 95. t Same, p. 09. \ Same, p. 118.
��Irish place in which he had once lived.* This was before the settlement of the towTiship, when its territory existed as an unseparated part only of the public domain. He may, quite likely, have been attracted hither by an extensive beaver meadow or pond, which would, with little improvement, afford grass for his cattle while he was engaged in clear- ing the rich uplands which surrounded it. Six years only after his removal (i 755), he was unintentionally shot by a neigh- bor whom he was going to visit ; the latter mistaking him for a bear, as he indistinctly saw him passing through the woods. This incident was the founda- tion of the story said to have been told by his son, some years after, in a Lon- don tavern. The version given by Far- mer and Moore is as follows, viz. :t " It is reported of Major Rogers, that while in London, after the French war, being in company \vith several persons, it was agreed, that the one who told the most improbable story, or the greatest false- hood, should have his fare paid by the others. When it came to his turn, he told the company that his father was shot in the woods of America by a per- son who supposed him to be a bear ; and that his mother was followed sev- eral miles through the snow by hunters, who mistook her track for that of the same animal. It was acknowledged by the whole company that the Major had told the greatest lie, Avhen in fact, he had related nothing but the truth. J
- New Hampshire Gazeteer, 1823, p. 121.
t Historical Collections, by Farmer and Moore, vol. I, p. 240.
X The Great Meadow and the site of the elder Rogers' house is easily accessible to any person possessed of a curiosity to visit them. They are in the South-Easterly section of Dunbarton, some six or seven miles only from Concord. The whole town is of very uneven surface, and the visitor will smile when he reads upon the ground, in Farmer and Moore's New Hampshire Gazeteer, that he will find there bu: " few hills, nor any mountains." He soon learns that the declaration of its people is more correct when they assure him that its surface is a " pimply "one.
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