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General William North.
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1783. |
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elegant hospitality. In the latter part of her life she became blind;
and the world she had cheered was shrouded from her vision."1
She lived many years after the loss of her sight, continuing an active
correspondence with many friends by the hand of an amanuensis. She died
February 10, 181.9, aged seventy-eight years.
GEN. WILLIAM NORTH, son of Capt. John and Elizabeth
North, was born in Fort Frederic, Pemaquid, in 1755. After his father's
death his mother removed with him to Boston, where he was educated and
placed with a merchant with whom he remained until the port was closed
by the British in the fall of 1774. In the next year he volunteered to
accompany Arnold in his expedition to Quebec, but was prevented by sickness
from proceeding. He early entered the Revolutionary army; was commissioned
May 9, 1776, by the "major part of the council " of Massachusetts Bay,
second lieutenant in Capt. Gill's company of Col. Craft's regiment, of
train artillery, and continued in the service through the war. He was
commissioned by Congress captain in Col. Jackson's regiment of infantry
from May 10, 1777, and major in the second regiment of the United States
army from October 20, 1780; and was appointed inspector of the troops
remaining in service in 1784.
"In 1779 he was appointed aide-de-camp to Steuben,
and soon became his favorite. He aided the Baron in introducing his system
of discipline into the Continental army. Major North was with the army
in Virginia, and was present with Baron Steuben at the surrender of the
British army, commanded by Lord Cornwallis, in October, 1781." When the
war was over " North retired to private life, but afterwards was induced
to accept public employment; was several times elected to the legislature
of New York, was speaker of the assembly, and for a short period one of
the senators of New York in the Congress of the United States.2
During our troubles with France, in the presidency of the elder Adams,
Major North was appointed Adjutant General of the army which was raised
on that occasion, with the rank of Brigadier General."
"He has filled," 'says the memoir of the Cincinnati,'
of which he was a member, " a distinguished place in the history of his
country, not only in the war of Independence but in our subsequent annals.
He was a gentleman by birth, education and early
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1 Judge Weston's Reminiscences. 2
Appointed by Gov. Jay in 1798.
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