James Bemis

He was a soldier in the Rev. Enlisted at the age of 18. and served 3 years. His father was opposed to his enlisting, because he was so young ; one day however, while chopping wood near the road, a party of men came along who were going to join the Army at Boston. They told him the news of the Battle of Lexington, and this so increased his ardor to serve his country, that he struck his axe into a stump, " declaring that he would never take it out, till he had struck a blow for the liberty of his country." He joined the party, and reached the Headquarters of the army just before the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he joined Capt. James Lewis's Company (his sister Martha's father-in-law.) Col. E. Hales Regiment, which marched June 29, 1777 to reinforce the Garrison at Ticonderoga. In Sept. 1777 Capt. James Lewis raised another Comp. in the neighborhood of Marlborough, in which James Bemis was also a private.

THE BEMIS HISTORY AND GENEALOGY being an account, in greater part of the descendants of Joseph Bemis, of Watertown, Mass. ... By Colonel Thomas Waln-Morgan Draper ... Published 1900, San Francisco, California, p. 75, 76