French & Indian War Soldier's Grave - Coventry, CT

The headstone stands in the shelter of low stone wall on a windswept rise of ground in Coventry, Connecticut. It is a place of reflection and some poignancy.

Corporal Benjamin Carpenter, of the 1st Company, D Regiment, a veteran of the French and Indian War, died in 1785, only a few years after a Revolution created a new nation. When he fought for the King did he consider himself English, as so many British subjects in North America who fought in the French and Indian War did? When did he stop thinking of himself as British and start thinking of himself as American? Did it happen before 1776? After? Would he have marveled at the thought of an American flag (let alone a 50-star flag) marking his grave?

We may marvel that Corporal Carpenter lived to be nearly 90 years old, was born in 1695, which would have made him over 60 years old when the French and Indian War began. Not just a citizen soldier, but a senior citizen soldier.

He was in his early 30s when he married Rebeckah Smith, who was some ten years’ his junior. She died three years after him. This child of the 17th century, who became a solider late in life, and lived to see a new Republic born, had this new marble replacement stone placed in during the Great Depression by WPA workers. He might well have marveled at that, too.

Since he is gone, we may consider all these things, and marvel for him.

The Fort at No. 4

The Fort at No. 4 in Charlestown, New Hampshire is a re-creation of the fort which had stood in this area from 1740 to the 1760s. This was the northernmost English settlement along the Connecticut River in a time when New England could have become New France during the French and Indian War.


The settlers here were farming and trading families. They built a square of interconnected houses surrounded by a stockade, and crowned with a guard tower. Subject to a few Indian attacks, settler families abandoned the fort, replaced by militia troops in 1747, whereupon the fort was besieged again by French militia and Abenaki warriors. The seige lasted three days, but the English troops held out and the French and Indians withdrew to Canada. With the defeat of the French in 1761, and the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the need for the fort ended.


The fort illustrates for us today the commerce of the period, how important the river was for travel, and how the river opened up New England to settlers who found it difficult to travel otherwise through the dense forrests. Western New England is to a large extent demarcated from the eastern half by the settlement and commerce along the river. Our future industries, tourism, and even our accents derive from our north-south association, in an area of New England where Boston, the grand metropolis of American culture and history, has always seemed as distant as the moon.


Today there are costumed interpreters at The Fort at No. 4, and this replica of the 18th century should be included, along with Sturbridge Village’s 19th century and Plimoth Plantation’s 17th century replicas, as must see sights for New Englanders and travelers to New England, alike.

For more information on The Fort at No. 4, see this website.

Been there? Done that? Climbed the guard tower? Let us know.