against a huge rock and fought like heroic knights in the old Arthurian
days, until all were slain. Afterwards their nine bodies were buried in
one wide grave, which was marked by a heap of stones; and many years
later a company of young Boston physicians exhumed the bones, and one
skeleton was identified as that of Bucklin of Rehoboth, because the jaws
contained a set of double front teeth.

In the Revolutionary struggle Attleboro men bore an active and honorable
part, and some of her noblest sons were under fire in the hottest
engagements of the eight years' war. A respected citizen of the town
recently told the writer that immediately after the battle of Bunker
Hill, Caleb Parmenter, Thomas French, and Isaac Perry proceeded to
Boston on foot, and joined the army then in command of General Ward; and
the first of the three, on whom Governor Samuel Adams afterwards
conferred a lieutenant's commission, was present at Cambridge when
General Washington assumed charge of the army. A company of men was also
raised in Attleboro for service at the siege of Newport, R. I., and in
the engagement at Quaker Hill they pushed bayonets with the British
three times in a single day, and two of their number, Israel Dyer and
Valentine Wilmarth, were slain.

At an early date in the history of the town two taverns (already
referred to) were established, which under successive proprietors
flourished for many years, and acquired a wide reputation for abundant
good cheer and excellent liquors. As model public houses of the time
they were not inferior to the Punch Bowl at Brookline, Bride's in
Dedham, or even the Wayside Inn in ancient Sudbury, made forever famous
by Longfellow. Each in its way was

"A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
* * *
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge and tiled and tall."

Hatch's Tavern, the older of the two inns, was John Woodcock's ordinary
enlarged to meet the demands of the times. It stood on the identical
spot where his garrison was planted, and until quite recently some of
the logs that formed the ancient stockades might be found built into the
older portion of the structure. In 1806 the original house was removed a
few feet to the south to make room for a new tavern, and there it is
still standing. The new house in which the original proprietor and
landlord made his enviable reputation was nee