Lafayette Artillery Company

Formation and early history

In 1804, in the wake of the reorganization of New Hampshire's state militia system, several new artillery companies were founded around New Hampshire. These included units in Somersworth, Walpole, Keene, Fitzwilliam, and Peterborough. Peterborough's artillery unit belonged to the Twenty-Second Regiment, a unit consisting of infantry companies from New Ipswich, Sharon, Mason, Temple, Wilton, and Peterborough. James Wilson, a lawyer and state legislator, served as the group's first captain. At the time, military service was compulsory, and being a member of the artillery was an honor—or at least it was more prestigious than being a member of the infantry. Little else is known about the artillery's early years except that, in response to the British Navy's blockade of New England during the War of 1812, several of its members served in the defense of Portsmouth in 1814.

In the 1820s, the artillery faced a decade of instability and change. Between 1804 and 1820, the organization had been led by only three captains, but from 1820 to 1832, five captains served an average of 28.8 months each. Artillery membership also began to change; as Peterborough industrialized, its residents were less inclined to join the organization, and membership from Wilton and Lyndeborough (which was annexed to the Twenty-Second Regiment some years earlier) increased. By 1833, the organization was headed by Eleazer Putnam of Lyndeborough, most Peterborough members had withdrawn, and the artillery moved to a new headquarters near Putnam's house in South Lyndeborough.

Incorporation and the Civil War

In 1837, the Artillery Company of the Twenty-Second Regiment petitioned to be incorporated, adopting the name "Lafayette Artillery Company," probably in honor of the French nobleman Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, who died in 1834. During this period the group acquired the brass cannon for which it still cares. In the 1820s the artillery may have possessed an iron cannon, but between 1835 and 1844 its cannon was a brass one which, in 1844, inspectors determined to be "unfit for service." In December, 1844, the New Hampshire Legislature passed an act granting the unit a new, 822-pound, six-pounder brass cannon, which the group picked up from Portsmouth. The gun had been cast in 1844 by the Ames Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, and remains in the group's possession today. Of interest to military historians, the group also maintains the original caisson, made at the Watervliet Arsenal (and so marked), complete in all-original condition (except the paint), including the wheels.

The group continued training, and in 1850 finally put its training to use at the regiment's annual muster. That year, the group attended the training muster at Amherst. The crowd of onlookers was considerably more boisterous than usual, however, and the artillery was called out to restore order. Nearly a half-century later, surviving members remembered how they chased a den of gamblers from the muster field and took as their prisoner a blanket, which they used to cover the cannon for many years.