On this fourth day of December A.D. 1832 personally appeared in open court before the Hon. John Dickinson Judge of the Court of Probate now sitting, Benen Foster a Resident of the Parish of Wakefield, County of York Province of New Brunswick aged seventy two years, who being first sworn according to law doth, on his oath, make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress passed June 7th 1832.
That he entered the service of the United States under the following named Officers & served as herein stated —
That in the early part of the year 1775 he was a volunteer and assisted at the capture of the British Armed Schr called the Margretta, commanded by Capt Moore that soon after that engagement he voluntarily entered as a private soldier in a company of Massachusetts Militia of which Jabez West was Captain and John Scott Lieutenant — in this Company, he marched to the City of St. John N.B. & there attakd the Fort and took it, made prisiners of war of the troops in it & sent them to the State Authorities, a Naval Force then entered the River St John and attacted us we resisted them and after a smart engagement compled them to leave the River. We next meet the enemy at a place called the Mahogomy Road and after a sharp engagement with them there, we were compled to give away & retreat up the St John River, — We again fell in with the enemy about seventy five miles up the St John River and again contended with them, and again we gave away and they drove us up the River, and into the woods and we had no way of escape but to travel across the wilderness to Machias, which we performed after eighteen days hard march without any provisions except what we could get by Killing occasionally some wild Game of the forest, and also suffering very much by night and by day from the inclemency of the weather & in addition to all other misfortune we had a wounded fellow soldier which we brot all the way with us slung in a blanket, and thereby saved his life. In this Company I served nine months.
1785 Survey of Machias Bay
I then served in Coln— John Allens Regiment of Massachusetts Militia in a Company of Artilery commanded by Capt Stephen Smith, of which William Albee was Lieutenant & when serving in this Company as a private soldier in the year 1776 he was in the engagement of Machias at the time the British attacked that place. In this Company he served for the term of two years or more, and that he had a regular written discharge which he kept for a long time, and that it is now lost. I was born in the town of Scarborough, County of Cumberland, State of Maine, in the year 1763 there is a Record of my birth in said Town of Scarborough, and he has also a Record of the same at his home. at the time he entered the service he was living at Machias in the County of Washington & State of Maine — Since the Revolutionary War, he has lived in the Province of New Brunswick, & that he expects hereafter to live in the City of Portland, County of Cumberland & State of Maine, that he entered the service as a volunteer, the particular day or month he does not now recollect, and that he has no documentary evidence. James W. Crocker & Joseph Getchell, are persons to whom he is known, and who can testify as to his character, for veracity and their belief of his services as a Soldier of the Revolution. He hereby relinquishes every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except the present, and declares that his name is not on the Pension Roll of the Agency of any State.
Benen Foster
SOURCE: Sherman, Sylvia J., Ed. Dubros Times. Maine State Archives. Augusta. 1975.
See the background for the depositions.
Benen Foster assisted in the capture of the schooner Margaretta in Machias Bay.