39

James Thacher.

Manuscript speech on his revolutionary service.

[Barnstable, MA, 3 September 1839]
Autograph Manuscript titled "Memorandum from Dr. James Thacher of Plymouth." 2 pages, 9½ x 7¾ inches; mounted on stub on left edge with paste staining in margins, manuscript numbers in upper margin. 

James Thacher (1754-1844) was a surgeon with the 16th Massachusetts Regiment during the war, and then practiced in Plymouth, MA. This speech was given at the bicentennial celebration of  his birthplace, Barnstable, on Cape Cod. Much of it discusses going off to war back in 1775: "The first sound of the Revolutionary War interrupted my peaceful pursuits & with the ardor natural to that age, I joined my countrymen at arms. . . . My spirit is animated by a view of your meeting house or training hill, & the recollection that on its summit your patriotic fathers who composed the militia of the parish were arrayed on the day when the tidings were received, that the blood of their countrymen had been shed at Lexington. The company immediately marched for the post of danger, & passing from the village an elderly man, Mr. John Annable, came tottering down the hill near the jail, where his house stood, to bid adieu to his only son who was a soldier in the ranks, & . . . said 'Joseph, my son, if you go into battle, behave like a man or never see my face again.'"

Dr. Thacher's oration was published in "The Cape Cod Centennial Celebration at Barnstable" (pages 55-56), along with other speeches from the day. The numbering on the top edge and the mount remnants on the left edge of this manuscript suggest that it may have been compiled into an album which served as a manuscript for the book. The handwriting matches Thacher's from a diary leaf held by the Society of the Cincinnati tipped into his published "Military Journal during the American Revolutionary War."

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