ESCOTT _Colo._
EPHM. COREY _Lieut._
JOSEPH BAKER _Lieut_
JOSHUA REED _Lieut_

To the Honorable General Court of the Massachusetts Bay.

JONAS RICHARDSON _Capt._
ELIPHELET BODWELL _Segt_
JOSIAH FOSTER _Leutn._
EBENR VARNUM _2d Lut._
WM HUDSON BALLARD _Cpt_
WILLIAM SMITH _Capn_
JOHN MARTEN _Surgt: of a Brec_:
LIEUT. RICHARD WELSH
In Council Decr. 21st. 1775
Read & Sent down
PEREZ MORTON
_Dpy Secry_

This paper is indorsed

Recommendation of
Salem Poor a free Negro
for his Bravery at ye Battle
of Charlestown
leave to withdraw it

Although histories have been written of the members and actions of
Col. Frye's regiment and Capt. Ames's company, of which Salem Poor was
a member, the account given of him shows that the story of his life
was not known. It is, however, noted in Miss Bailey's "History of
Andover" that he was a slave, owned by John Poor. At the Battle of
Bunker Hill, when Lieut. Col. Abercrombie, of the British forces,
sprang upon the redoubt, while the Americans were running in retreat,
and exclaimed, "The day is ours," Salem Poor turned, aimed his gun and
felled with a bullet the English leader. The deed was considered by
the officers of the regiment to be one of great bravery, as their
petition to the General Court of Massachusetts shows.

Other colored men serving at the Battle of Bunker Hill were Titus
Coburn, Alexander Ames, Barzillai Lew, all of Andover; Cato Howe of
Plymouth, and Peter Salem.

Among those who gave valued services in the Continental Army was
Deborah Gannett. She assumed the dress of a man, and under the name of
Robert Shurtliff, enlisted in the fourth Massachusetts Regiment,
Captain Webb, serving in the ranks without once revealing her sex from
May 20, 1782, to October 23, 1783, a period of seventeen months. By an
act of the legislature, Jan. 20, 1792, she was paid L34 by the State
for her services.

The extract below is from a discussion of the questions of pension and
bounty for Negro soldiers by James Croggon. It appeared in the
_Washington Star_.

"January 21 Gen. Jackson read an address to each of the commands
which had taken part in the battles, reviewing the campaign, and
saying of the engagement of January 8 that t