At 19 he fought with Rogers’ Rangers at the Battle of Quebec during the French
and Indian War. In 1777, he led a company of “artificers” fortifying West Point, where
they laid a heavy chain across the Hudson River to prevent British vessels from running
upriver. By 1779, his troops were ill-fed, poorly clothed and had not been paid. They
were approaching a state of mutiny. On furlough, Bolton returned to Colrain, where he
had valuable property, which he mortgaged, and raised what other funds he could. He
and the company remained at West Point until the end of the war.
A few years later Bolton moved to Warren, N.Y., where he lived with a daughter (perhaps Martha Elizabeth Bolton Patterson) until he died, penniless, in 1807, at the age of 67.
[Written by Belden Merims for the Colrain Clarion.]
