Minute Man in the Revolutionary War

Aaron, Sr., was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, serving as a minute man in Capt. Thomas Johnson's company at Newbury, Vermont.

He was the son of John Hosmer (1700 to 1733) and Mehitable Parker (1703 to ?), of Concord, Massachusetts.

Aaron married Susanna Chamberlin, before Sept. 1763, at Newbury, Vermont. They were the first couple married in Newbury.

He married Abigail Chamberlain, at least according to the Gill, Massachusetts death record for their son Eldad, who was born in 1773 at Newbury, Vermont.

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From a story for the 100th Birthday of his granddaughter, Abigail Hosmer Welch

History mentions her grandfather, Aaron Hosmer, Sr., as living in Charleston, N. H., about 1740, and being one of Capt. Hobb's company who were attacked by the Indians, being then sixteen years old. In 1754 he was at Fort Dummer, Vermont. History states that Aaron Hosmer and Susanna Chamberlin were the first couple married in Newbury. No date of this marriage is given but it must have taken place previous to Sept. 1763, as Col. Jacob Kent married a couple at that date. After his marriage he went to Ryegate, living there several years, before he was found by General Whitelow in 1773. In 1759 Aaron Hosmer, Jr., was born, being the first child born in Caledonia County. At the beginning of the Revolution, he moved back to Newbury where there was a fort and joined Capt. Thomas Johnson's company of minute men May 16, 1775. In Newbury records, we find he took the Freeman's Oath with others in 1778. March 3, 1781 he sold his farm in Ryegate for 200 Spanish Milled Dollars and then moved to Groton and built a house that same year on what is now Charles Ricker's meadow. Later we find him living in Barnet, returning to Groton where he died in 1803, being 79 years old. The [Groton] Times, Saturday, August 7, 1897, p. 1-2.

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From the Vermont Historical Gazeteer: A Magazine, by Abby Maria Hemenway, 1877, p. 1158.

Aaron Hosmer, Sr., was not "one of the first settlers" [of Groton, Vermont]. He never even made a temporary residence in town, or cleared a rod of land. He was at that time a resident of Newbury, hunting constantly with the Indians of Newbury and Haverhill.

In his hunting excursions with the Indians, he frequently visited the ponds in Groton, Peacham, Cabot, etc., following up the Wells River and encamping on their shores. Tradition points out the place where he and his Indian associates once encamped on the meadows now owned by Orison Ricker. As well might be said that the untamed Indians who chased the timid deer through her trackless forests were its "first settlers." Gen. Whitelaw and John Allen, the agents of the "Scottish American Company" who came to Ryegate in 1773, report "Aaron Hosmer," then residing in a "rude shanty on the Connecticut river in Ryegate, with his family, about 2 miles north of the Wells, River." Other authorities place him at a later date in Newbury. He was never a "resident of Groton." Aaron Hosmer, Jr., who came to Groton at an early period, resided in the town until his death.

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Sources:

Hosmer, George Leonard, Hosmer genealogy, descendants of James Hosmer who emigrated to America in 1635 and settled in Concord, Mass., Technical Composition Co., Cambridge, MA, 271 pp., 1928.

Hosmer, James B., Genealogy of the Hosmer family, 1861.

Biography by Tom Brocher; last updated on 8 February 2024.