Men of Vermont – Gen. Samuel Fletcher

Men of Vermont: An Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters and Sons of Vermont.
Fletcher, Gen. Samuel.–Judge, councilor and Revolutionary soldier, was born at Grafton, Mass., in 1745, served a year in the French and Indian war, married [p.67] a daughter of Col. John Hazeltine, and gave up the blacksmith trade to which he had been trained, and moved to Townshend. He was one of the few men on the east side of the mountain active in the formation of the new state and was a member of the conventions of October, 1776, and January, 1777. He was at the Bunker Hill fight as orderly sergeant, then was made captain of militia, was at the siege of Ticonderoga and the Bennington fight in 1777 and on the way to the former at the head of a party of thirteen, he attacked a British detachment of forty, killed one and took seven prisoners without the loss of a man himself. He was promoted to be major and continued in the service until after the surrender of Burgoyne. He was afterwards a brigadier and major general in the Vermont Militia, represented Townshend at the first session under the new government in 1778 and also in 1779. He was councilor from 1779 to 1790 and in 1808, sheriff of Windham county from 1788 to 1806, and judge of the county court in 1778, 1783, 1784 and 1786. He was appointed a judge of the superior court in 1782 but refused to serve. He died Sept. 15, 1814. Physically he was a man of fine proportions and manly beauty, elegant in manners and bland and refined in deportment, while his intellectual equipment was strong and his courage, integrity and business capacity conceded. He was a fine writer and through much of his active life kept a journal, recording daily events of public importance, but it was unfortunately lost in the burning of the house of his son-in-law and executor. One of his daughters married Epaphroditus Ransom, afterwards Governor of Michigan.