ton was present and spoke. I there met William
D. Kelley, who spoke to a portion of the crowd from a wagon. He was
then employed in a jeweler's establishment in Boston.

Groton sent a company of volunteers for the day numbering about
seventy-five men, under command of Captain William Shattuck, then a
sturdy Democrat and afterwards an equally sturdy Republican. Shattuck
was the grandson of Captain Job Shattuck, of Shays' Rebellion. Job
Shattuck had been a captain in the War of the Revolution, and he was
always an earnest patriot. He was also a man of wealth, having large
possessions in land, and being wholly exempt from the pecuniary
distresses that harassed the majority of men, from the close of the
war to the close of the century. Job Shattuck's action was due to his
sympathy for the sufferers and to his sense of justice. In every town
there were traders and small capitalists who had supplied the families
of soldiers who were absent in the service.

Either by mortgage or by executions, the creditors had secured liens
upon the homesteads of the soldiers and from 1783 to 1789 the liens
were enforced. Petitions went up to the General Court for a stay act.
James Bowdoin was Governor. The General Court did not listen to the
appeal. Daniel Shays and others organized forces for the suppression
of the Courts. Shattuck was the leader in the county of Middlesex,
and at the head of his force he broke up the Court at Concord. Finally
he was arrested. Major Woods, who had been an officer in the war, was
in command of the Government forces. Shattuck was secreted at the
house of one Gregg, who lived near where the house of John Gilson now
stands. The season was winter. It was believed that Gregg betrayed
Shattuck. When Shattuck discovered his peril, he fled and made his
way toward the Nashua River, which was then frozen. His pursuers
followed, but at unequal pace. When he had crossed the river, he saw
that the three men in sight were widely separated from each other.
Shattuck turned, and for a time he became the pursuer. The first man
ran, then the second, but finally Shattuck fell on the ice, with
sword in hand. His pursuers seized him. Upon his refusal to surrender
his sword, they cut the cords of his hand, and wounded him in the leg.
He was tried, sentenced to be hanged, and confined in the jail at
Concord.

The election of 1786 turned upon the questions at issue, and especially
upon the execution of the p