Segreganset, Massachusetts

Bristol County regiment which went with the expedition that captured the fortress of Louisburg, on Cape Breton Island, in 174"), was commanded by a Dighton man, Col. Sylvester Richmond, who was born in 1698, so that he was forty-seven years old when he went on the expedition mentioned.1 How he acquitted himself as colonel we do not know, but his military conduct might have surpassed that of his associate officers or of his commander and yet not have been worthy of special commendation. There was no lack of bravery, but there was very little judgment shown in the conduct of the siege, and not much discipline among the troops. Only the mutinous condition of the garrison in the fortress made its capture possible. The siege was conducted in a most unsoldier-like manner, the rear of the besieging army being a scene of disgraceful confusion, the men being chiefly engaged in the unmilitary occupation of skylarking, running races, pitching quoits, wrestling, shooting birds, or chasing the balls shot from the fort, a bounty being paid for each one brought into camp. A wellconducted sortie from the fortress would have destroyed the undisciplined besiegers. On the 17th of June, however, the Dunkirk of America, as Louisburg was sometimes called, surrendered to the New England troops. " If any one circumstance," says a historian of that time, " had taken a wrong turn on our side, and if any one circumstance had not taken a wrong turn on the French side, the expedition must have miscarried."

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

Before undertaking the expedition Col. Pepperell, the amiable merchant who was placed in command, had consulted the celebrated preacher Whitefield, who gave his approval, and, after manner of the crusades, furnished a motto for the flag : " Nil desperandum Christo duce." The grand battery was captured without bloodshed in a singular manner. The warehouses in the northeast part of the town having been set on fire in the night, a strong wind drove the dense smoke into the battery, and caused such a panic among the French that they hastily abandoned the battery and fled into the city. In the morning, as a young lieutenant named Vaughan was reconnoitering with thirteen men, he observed that there was no smoke issuing from the chimneys of the barracks, and that the flag- Btaff was without a flag. He thereupon bribed an Indian to climb in through an embrasure and open the gate. He thus found himself in possession of the works, and immediately sent the following report to the general in command : " May it please your Honor to be informed that, by the grace of God and the courage of thirteen men, I entered the Royal Battery about nine o'clock, and am waiting for a reinforcement and a flag." Before reinforcements could arrive the French had sent a hundred men in boats to retake the battery, but Vaughan and his baker's dozen of New Englanders gave them so warm a reception that they were prevented from landing. Europe was astonished at this victory, and in England it was sought to claim all the glory for the navy at the expense of the provincial army.

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

The origin of the name is said to have been as follows: Informer times there were three distinct families bearing the name of Briggs in the town, and to distinguish them they were called respectively the "Stout Briggses," the " Buckhorns," and the " Whippoorwills." What was the signification of the latter appellation is not, perhaps, known at the present day. Possibly some members of the family lived in the woods, and were nocturnal in their ways. The " Buckhorns" were so called from certain curious protuberances like budding deers' horns that appeared on the heads of many of that branch of the name, even down to a late period. The "Stout Briggses" were distinguished for great bodily strength, the word stout being here used in its original sense of strong, and not in the later sense of corpulent as Washington Irving used it in his sketch of the " Stout Gentleman." According to the story which has been handed down, one Samuel Briggs, of the Buckhorn branch, lived not far from the locality that is now called Buck Plain ; how long ago the tradition does not state, but it was some time, probably, in the first half of the last century. Samuel was crossing the plain one day when he came upon a large buck lying under a rock among the scrub-oaks fast asleep. Being an active young man he determined, as he had no gun to shoot the animal with, to attempt to capture it alive. He therefore crept cautiously up to the sleeping deer, and sprang upon its back, seizing one of its horns in each hand. The astonished and frightened buck leaped to its feet, and made off at a headlong pace in the direction of the river, which was more than a mile distant, Briggs clinging to his back as best he could. On they tore through bushes, briers, and scrub-oaks, and reaching the river at last, the panic-stricken animal plunged in with its rider, who managed to drown and capture it. According to the tale, when Briggs reached the river he was very nearly in purls naturalibus, all of his clothing having been torn off excepting his shirt collar and wristbands. Mazeppa's famous bareback ride was a tame affair compared to Samuel Briggs' ride on the buck. Although the Cossack hetman's condition as to clothing was much the same throughout his involuntary ride as Briggs' condition was at the end of his, yet, unlike the latter, his clothes were not torn from him piecemeal by cruel thorns, nor was he in danger of falling off, being securely tied to his horse's back. While Mazeppa's ride has been the theme of poets like Lord Byron, of novelists like Bulgarin, and of

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Dighton Town - it names this place 1 more 1 time.