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For a small hill town, Cabot has always sent more than its share of sons and daughters to serve. From the men who cut the Bayley-Hazen Road through the wilderness to those who shipped out in the twentieth century's great wars, their service is woven through the town's story. What follows is an overview; the Society keeps the complete rosters and records at the museum.
Revolutionary War (1775–1783)
Nine Revolutionary War veterans lie in Cabot's first cemetery at the Center of Town. Several had served with Colonel Jacob Bayley to open the military road from Newbury toward Canada, and some later returned to buy land and settle the very country they had helped to open. Among them were the Lyfords — Thomas, a millwright and ranger, and his son Fifield, who served as a teenage aide.
War of 1812 (1812–1814)
By 1810 the town's enrolled militia numbered more than fifty men, furnished with a gun, cartridges, and flints. When the "military spirit ran at a very high pitch," a company of minute men enlisted from Cabot, Woodbury, and Calais under Captain Anthony Perry. On hearing the cannon of the Battle of Plattsburgh on September 11, 1814, Perry rallied his men and marched for Montpelier — only to learn on arrival that the British had already been beaten, whereupon most were discharged and went home, though a few horsemen "wished to get a stronger smell of powder" and pushed on to Burlington. Cabot volunteers of the war included Luther Swan, Simeon Walker, Leander Collis, Samuel Dutton, Ezra Kennerson, Peter Lyford, Jesse Webster, David Lyford, and Royal Gilbert.
Civil War (1861–1865)
Cabot sent nearly one hundred and fifty men to serve the Union — a remarkable number for so small a town. Five died in action and eighteen of disease, and others carried the effects of their service to early graves. The Society's records include the town's Civil War soldiers together with the stories of its regimental bandsmen, the men taken prisoner, and the Morrill brothers. A granite obelisk on Cabot Common honors those who did not return.
The World Wars
Forty-seven Cabot men served in World War I. The town's one officially reported wartime death was Charles Barnett (1896–1918), who died of pneumonia in October 1918 — almost certainly a victim of the influenza pandemic that killed more Americans than the war itself. A generation later, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, "young men and women barely old enough to drive, some not yet out of school, rushed to enlist," as the town's oral history recalls; Cabot, as ever, "was no exception." Some 149 men and women from Cabot served in WWII, and four men were killed and did not return home.
Korea and Vietnam
Twenty-four Cabot men and women answered the call during the Korean War (1950–1953), and forty-one Cabot men served in Vietnam (through 1975), then the longest military engagement in the nation's history. Their service, like that of the generations before them, is recorded and honored in the Society's collection.
The complete veteran rosters for each war — including the Civil War bandsmen, prisoners, and the Morrill brothers — are held at the museum and in the Society's research center. To honor a family member, add a name, or research a veteran's service, please contact the Society.