Tens of thousands of enlisted men served at Fort Ticonderoga during its period of service, but relatively few of their letters and journals have survived. Often, only one or a few letters survive from a much larger correspondence. Archelaus Tay of Woburn, MA, a soldier in the Massachusetts militia who marched to reinforce Ticonderoga in the summer of 1776, left his mark on the historical record through four surviving letters to his family.
At the time of his first letter, written from Winchester, just south of Woburn, on July 28, Tay was likely preparing to march. Looking ahead to the campaign, he wrote, “we are all in good health and good heart, we desire the prayers of all the good people of amarica”.
By August 19, Tay and his regiment had made camp at Mount Independence. He reported that “my Captin is sumthing poorly… Benjmian Thompson was [carried] off with the small pox to lake [George] yesterday”. He was not worried about smallpox himself, stating that “ther is no Danger as of the small pox Spreden in the camps”. The British were more concerning, as he had heard (incorrect) reports that “the [regulars] are within twenty miles of Crown pint, it tis expected that they will bee along soon.”
On August 27, 1776—250 years ago today—Tay wrote a third letter from Ticonderoga. “We are to be stationed this place for the present and I don’t think that we shall go any further but fortify this place as strong as possible”, he wrote. The campaign was beginning to wear on him. “I do not like soldiering,” he declared, “I do determine to come home as soon as my time is out.”
Tay never got that opportunity. On October 14 he wrote a final, panicked letter to his parents, saying that he was in “a poor and languishing state of health” and begging them to “come…and fetch me home. Fail not of coming, let the cost be what it will. If you don’t come quick I never shall come home.” He never did, dying on October 22, a week before his 25th birthday.
Learn more about Tay’s letters (object IDs MS.2082 and MS.7079.3) on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database: https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/30088 https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/30599