Thomas Akley and “a military Road over the Green Mountains”

The third Akley boy was Thomas, baptized at King’s Chapel on 25 May 1755. When he was nine years old, the Boston Overseers of the Poor sent him to live with the Rev. Jason Haven in Dedham.

In 1832 Thomas Akley applied for a Revolutionary War pension. He was then living in Brattleboro, Vermont. He said he was 77 years old and had been “born in Boston, Mass. in the year 1755,” confirming the match.

Thomas Akley testified that he marched in Dedham’s minuteman company on 19 Apr 1775, and:

A few days after Lexington Battle I inlisted for eight months under Capt. [Joseph] Gild and Col. [John] Greaton. . . . Served that term of eight months, at Roxbury, Dorchester and Cambridge, and was dismissed at Cambridge at the end of the term, without any written discharge.

also served one month more in the same company after the said eight months had expired, to supply the place of some recruits who did not arrive in camp as expected.

When asked about officers he recalled serving under, Akley said that from that year he “remembers Col. [John] Patterson’s regment, remembers General [Artemas] Ward.”

Akley moved to Vermont in 1776, and in the middle of that year he joined another unit alongside Phinehas Mather:

we enlisted into a company to go & open a military Road over the Green Mountains from Charlestown (N.H.) or No. 4. to the Lake, so that the New Hampshire & other eastern militia could march over to Fort Independence & the Lake

I enlisted at Guilford, Vt. on or about the first day of June AD 1776 and marched thro’ Brattleboro’, Dummerston, Putney, Westmoreland & Walpole, to said Charlestown, under Capt. [Samuel] Warriner & Maj. John Shepardson.

From Charlestown, I went to Springfield (Vt.) to Col [John] Barrets, who provided for us. Thence to Cavendish, where we were encamped awhile & employed on said Road, the bridges &c.

We repaired or opened the Road over the Green Mountains & when we got to Rutland, were billetted out some time, working upon the said Road & bridges. We made a Bridge at Rutland, over Otter Creek River.

While there there was an Alarm or Two by the movements of the Enemy on the Lake, and we marched thro’ Castleton & Hubbardston to Mount Independence. Genl [Benedict] Arnold was on the Lake about this time, and being compelled to retreat & leave the lake, is said to have burnt his ship before he gave up.

As near as I can recollect, our time expired the first of December 1776 & we returned thro’ Cavendish, Springfield, & so down the River as we went, to our homes. We were then under New York State, & probably called New York troops. . . . We were armed with Guns & tomahawks.

Several documents in Akley’s pension file are arguments that this road-building was an army project, not a civilian effort, and thus should count toward his military service.

Thomas Akley settled in Brattleboro and married Abigail Wilder in 1783. They had fourteen children between 1783 and 1808. Abigail died in 1840. Thomas survived until 28 Feb 1850, dying at ninety-four. Shown above, courtesy of Find a Grave, is Thomas Akley’s gravestone in the West Brattleboro Cemetery.

TOMORROW: More Akleys.