Captain Benjamin Ames (1724-1809)
Benjamin Ames is our 6th great grandfather by the following path: RWA → Fred Pemberton Abbott → Arthur Merrill Abbott → Justin E. Abbott → Rebecca Boynton Abbott → Thomas Boynton → Hannah Ames Boynton → Benjamin Ames
Captain Ames was born in Andover June 6, 1724. He and his wife Hephzibah Chandler (1726-1768) had eight children. Captain Ames was Captain of the Ames's Company of Minute Men in Col. James Frye's regiment from April 19, 1775. He is believed to have been at the Battle of Bunker Hill (Breed’s Hill). (DAR Ancestor #: A002194) He began his military service in 1757 as a private in Captain John Foster's Fourth Andover Company. He was made lieutenant in 1762. In 1775, Ames’s company was part of the 350 men from Andover who went to Lexington to fight the British, but the British had already fallen back by the time Ames and his men arrived. The company was then sent to Breed’s Hill where the company lost three men during the battle with the British.
There were four militia companies at Andover, containing in all four hundred men. The companies commanded by Captain Poor and Captain Ames appear in the muster rolls of the "Lexington Alarm" in the regiment of Col. James Frye.
Ames was an active member of the town of Andover. In 1777, he was elected Warden and Surveyor of Highways. He served on the building committee for the construction of the meeting house for South Parish in 1787.
The following entry is from the Essex Gazette newspaper with a dateline of Andover, February 2, 1775.
Last Tuesday at 2 o'clock P.M., the town foot companies of the 4th regiment of Militia in the County of Essex, Inhabitants of the North Parish in Andover, being mustered (after attending prayers for the direction of the God of armies), Col. Samuel JOHNSON, lately chosen first officer of said regiment, addressed himself to the companie and with great zeal recommended to them the necessity of enlisting themselves in to the serve of the province and in a short time fifty able bodied efficient men, being one quarter part of said companies - more than a third part of whom are heads of families and men of substance and Probity, willingly offered themselves : they were then escorted to an Inn, where they made choice of Captain, Thomas POOR, junr., for their captain, Ensign Benjamin FARNUM first lieutenant, and Samuel JOHNSON, junr. for second lieutenant. They then subscribed a covenant obliging them to conform to the Resolves of the former or any future Congress or General Assembly of the Province that hath or may have Relation to their Duty, and by said Convent subjected themselves to martial discipline for the term of one year from the time of their enlisting. And this day at two o'clock afternoon, when after attending prayers for direction, Col. JOHNSON enlisted forty-five able-bodied men as aforesaid and companies last mentioned, who immediately proceeded to make choice of Capt. Benjamin AMES for their captain, Lieut David CHANDLER first lieutenant and Isaac ABBOT for second lieutenant, and subscribed the convenient aforesaid. All being performed with great unanimity, seriousness and decorum, and the soldiers seeming rather to be animated than disheartened by the late disagreeable news contained in the king's speech.