Peter Thurston ²⁰⁷

   FamilySearch ID: LCZB-817. Find a Grave ID: 19659563.

  General Notes:

Brown Thurston's genealogy of the Thurston family contains a good deal of biography of Peter Thurston, a veteran of the battle of Lexington. More research on him is needed, but Brown Thurston typifies him as a strong and robust man who was an Indian fighter. During the War of 1812, in 1813 he decided to move from his Vermont home around Fletcher and take up the pioneer life in Ohio, probably on pension lands. Moving through New York State the family passed through Buffalo shortly after it had been burned by the British. Life was no doubt tough. The family recounted that years later, when he returned to Massachusetts to vist brothers, he advised them not to go west as long as they were comfortable where they were.

" Mr. Thurston was a remarkably strong and tough man, with double teeth all round both jaws. He was always cheerful and very agreeable to his friends, and was the champion of all his region at 'pulling sticks,' a game in vogue in those days to test the strength. Many experiences and tests of his strength and endurance are told by his children. He was, withal, a great and successful hunter and trapper, paying for his farm in Vermont by these means. Moose, deer, beaver, sable, marten, otter, and other game were plenty there. He was in the battle of Lexington. He was once taken prisoner by the Indians and with others carried to Montreal, kept some three weeks, when he made his escape and found his way back to Vermont, on foot, to a place since called Fletcher, which attracted his attention by the fertility of the soil, then a wilderness with only a few white settlers at long distances and no reads. He marked the trees and went on to Haverhill, where he married, and took his wife, with such effects as they could carry on horseback, and started for Vermont. They arrived in course of time, with no way-marks for much of the distance save the spotted trees. He erected a log-cabin, laid out his farm, began work with a will, and soon made the place attractive, so that several of their friends and relatives came and settled in that place, in Fairfax, and in Cambridge.

His descendants tell this curious incident in his life. He was told that if he would bite a live adder his teeth would never ache or decay. So on his journey from Montreal to Vermont he found adders swimming in a pond, caught one and bit it. The result was, his mouth was very sore and his teeth became loose. A friendly Indian squaw made him some tea and prepared a wash for his mouth from leaves and roots, which soon relieved him. His teeth never troubled him and remained perfectly sound till his death.

He lived in Fletcher till after his first wife's death, and in April, 1813, during the last war with England, he sold his place to his son Rufus, gave Edward a portion near by, and removed to Granville, Licking county, Ohio, with the rest of his family, his sister Wheeler, Samuel Chadwick, and several others. They fitted up long wagons, covered them with a coarse cloth manufactured by themselves, and attached two horses to each; supplied them with bedding, so they could be used for camping in nights, and with cooking utensils for baking bread and cooking game and fish, which they found in abundance on the way. These operations, together with fording streams, encounters with copperhead and rattle snakes, which were numerous, rendered the journey lively and often exciting. There were but few settlers on the route, and no hotels, making it necessary to camp out most every night during the two months it required for the journey. When they arrived at Buffalo, N.Y., the place had been burnt by the British and all the people fled. Some years after he returned home to visit his brother Moses and other friends, and reported they were well pleased with their Ohio home, but advised his brother, who asked him if he had better sell out and go too, that as long as he was doing well in Massachusetts he had better stay there. They were both members and he a deacon in the Baptist church. She joined the Methodist church in Ohio.", pp438-440 ¹⁹³

  Research Notes:

Was accompanied to Ohio also by Stephen Hopkins Fuller, his nephew, a physican. (see Thurston, page436. Stephen Fuller was the son of Peter Thurston's sister Phebe.

  Events

• Occupation. Farmer

• Military: False Event: Battle of Lexington - American Revolution, 19 Apr 1775. ²¹⁰ "He was in the battle of Lexington."
That he was in the Revolution at Lexington is evidently only a family tradition passed on in the Thurston Genealogies but there is no DAR Ancestor and then presumably no other records to indicate that he was there.

• residence, 1800, Sterling, Worcester Co., MA. Ancestry image is transcribed incorrectly
Image shows 1 male 16-25; 1 male 26-45;
2 females under 10; 1 female < 16; one female < 25

• residence, 1810, Fletcher, Franklin Co., Vermont. ²¹¹ This census shows 21 people in the household, 14 under the age of 16; 15 males, 6 females.
The line below is Peter Chadwick with a young family - 6 in the household.

• residence, 7 Aug 1820, Newark, Licking Co., Ohio. ²¹²

• Burial, 1827, Granville, Licking Co., OH. ²¹³ Old Colony Burying Ground Plot #824

Peter married Eunice Chadwick 22 Apr 1787 in Boxford, Essex, MA.²⁰⁶ (Eunice Chadwick was born 19 Aug 1759 in Lunenburg, Worcester Co., MA,²¹⁴ died 1 Aug 1802 in Fletcher, Franklin Co., Vermont ²¹⁵ and was buried in Cambridge, Lamoille Co., VT.)

• Intentions - Marriage, 22 Apr 1787, Boxford, Essex, MA.

Peter next married Hannah Butler, daughter of Thomas Butler and Jane White, in 1802 in Hollis, Hillsborough Co., NH. (Hannah Butler was born 18 Aug 1772 in Fairfield Co., Conn.,²¹⁶ died 23 May 1866 in Centerburgh, Knox Co., OH ^208,216 and was buried in Centerburgh, Knox Co., OH.)