Connecticut’s lone death in the French and Indian War was:
Captain Thaddeus Mead
DOB/DOD: Born on November 18, 1726, in Wilton, Connecticut, and died in 1760 near Rensselaerville, New York. Other reports say he died in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
MARITAL STATUS: Married Rebeckah (Betts) Mead about Jul 27, 1748, in Wilton. Married Sarah (Hobby) Mead on July 7, 1754 [location unknown].
CHILDREN: Father of Rebecca (Mead) Keeler, Sarah (Mead) Utter, Edward Mead, and Mary Mead
FAMILY: Born to Jeremiah Mead (1702-1741) and Hannah (St. John) Mead (1703-1746). Brother of Stephen Mead, Hannah (Mead) Keeler, Jeremiah Mead and Matthew Mead
NOTE: Thaddeus Mead, son of Jeremiah born 1726, and Thaddeus Mead, son of Benjamin born 1730, appear to be co-mingled in recorded history. More work is needed to separate who married what woman and had what children.
CIRCUMSTANCES: Killed in the French and Indian War
REFERENCES: No. 37, v, 1, pg. 36 – The St. John Genealogy; Descendants of Matthias St. John, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1634, of Windsor, Connecticut, 1640, of Wethersfield, Connecticut, 1643-1645, and Norwalk, Connecticut, 1650 by Orline St. John Alexander, 1907 – https://https://ia801609.us.archive.org/35/items/stjohngenealogyd00alex/stjohngenealogyd00alex.pdf
- History and genealogy of the Mead family of Fairfield County, Connecticut, eastern New York, western Vermont, and western Pennsylvania, from A.D. 1180 to 1900 by Spencer Percival Mead (1901), pg. 126
- Early Connecticut Marriages as Found on Ancient Church Records Prior to 1800 By Frederic William Bailey, pg. 69
THE STORY OF THADDEUS MEAD
The year after the (French and Indian) War began, the General Assembly voted to raise a troop of 1,000 men to aid the British in their fight against France. As the war intensified the number was stepped up annually until, at the height of hostilities, in 1758 and 1759 as many as 5,000 Connecticut men were under arms.
Contrasted with the strong showing of volunteers from towns like Saybrook, Lyme, and Litchfield, Norwalkers dragged their feet: Fewer than a dozen men enlisted in the first call-up. But what Norwalk lacked in numbers was more than made up in the fidelity of her volunteers. Thaddeus Mead is a superb example.
Commissioned as a second lieutenant, he took part in the Crown Point Expeditions of 1755 and 1756. When several area militia companies were called upon to come to the relief of Fort William Henry during the alarm of August 1757, Mead was among the hundred horsemen who galloped northward from Norwalk to the foothills of the Adirondacks.
Advanced to first lieutenant, Mead served in the Connecticut Provincials for eight months in 1758 and the following year rose to a captaincy and command of his own company. In the summer campaign of 1760 in northern New York, the seasoned officer
led his company into the furious battle at Oswegatchie. The steady rain of French cannonballs and rifle volleys wounded and felled the veteran fighters. Among the dead was Captain Thaddeus Mead.
The townspeople of Norwalk experienced firsthand the vexations of a war otherwise far removed from their interests. In November 1757, inhabitants learned that Norwalk was to become winter quarters for 350 British regulars for whom the town had to supply lodging. The following year, Norwalk, Stamford, Fairfield, and Stratford were commanded to supply “Quarters and Firing” for a large number of troops.
Early in 1759 a flotilla sailed up the Sound from New York City, stopping at each shore town for soldiers to debark. Fifteen officers and 284 men of the Forty-Eighth Regiment
under the command of Sir James Cockburn came ashore at Norwalk. The town was ordered to build a guard house and a hospital, and to supply firewood for both buildings and bedding for the hospital. Although reimbursed for the costs of lodging soldiers, inhabitants detested quartering soldiers in private homes. Cockburn’s orders acknowledged this: “It will be much for the advantage both of his Majesty’s Service & the Country to have the Men Quartered in as Narrow Compass as Possible.”
As might be expected, incidents occurred and Cockburn ran afoul of both town and colony when he defied the law by refusing to hand over to civil authorities some soldiers
charged with misdemeanors. The selectmen took him to court on the matter and the
Assembly gave them wholehearted support by voting to pay Norwalk’s legal costs in the
case. Inhabitants were happy to see the last of this regiment.
Early in the war, Norwalk also had to accept a dozen French Acadians, who had been uprooted from their homes in Nova Scotia and scattered among Britain’s colonies. Brought to each town by constables and lodged at the colony’s expense with families willing to take French Catholics, these unfortunates were given little freedom, although
the Assembly did urge that families be kept together if possible. It is likely that some
Acadians remained in Norwalk, although no word about them appears in Town Proceedings, nor do new French names appear in subsequent town records.
No account of Norwalk’s part in the French and Indian War would be complete without reference to the Yankee Doodle story. Generations of Norwalkers have come to believe the charming tale that when a troop of citizen-soldiers, off to join with the British Regulars, rallied at the home of Thomas Fitch, the Governor’s son, his sister, Elizabeth, lamenting their unmartial attire, handed each man a feather to tuck into his hat.
The motley crew is said to have arrived at Rensselaerville near Albany still rakishly sporting the feathers in their hats. Their outlandish appearance prompted Dr. Richard Shuckberg, a British army surgeon attached to several units of colonial troops, to compose a derogatory ditty. He set the verses to a simple but catchy melody long used by Englishmen for a nursery rhyme and a ballad deriding Cromwell’s rule.
Appealing though this account may be, its authenticity is dubious. Thomas Fitch’s name does not appear on the military rolls of the French and Indian War nor was the British Army commanded by General Edward Braddock anywhere in the vicinity of Rensselaerville during the summer of 1755.
History notwithstanding, Norwalkers have adopted Yankee Doodle as theirs and have perpetuated the link between song and community with the Yankee Doodle Bridge, countless business establishments bearing the name, and the incorporation of the familiar air into Quinto Maganini’s musical score, “Early Days in Norwalk Town.”
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