The Genealogy of one Vermonter, Darrell A. Martin

James was born in Chelmsford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, on 1 September 1729.¹ He was the son of James Dutton and Phebe (--?--). He married Edith Robbins in Chelmsford, Mass., on 24 September 1751.² He married Ruth Corey in Chelmsford, Mass., on 1 November 1754.³ He began military service on 7 February 1756 "under command of Jonathan Butterfield of Dunstable, Captain." He was in "His Majesty's Service" in Richard Gridley's Regiment of Massachusetts Provincial Troops, enlisted for the expedition to Crown Point, with his term to end December, 1756. The patriot Paul Revere, whose famous ride was almost two decades in the future, was an artillery officer in the same regiment. No attack was made on Crown Point that year, and the regiment spent most of the campaign felling trees.⁴ James died almost certainly at Fort William Henry during his military service in the French and Indian War in October 1756 in Lake George, Warren County, New York, at age 27. In August of 1756 Lt. Col. Ralph Burton, a British Regular officer, wrote to Lord Loudoun that Fort William Henry "stinks enough to cause an infection. They have all their sick in it. The camp nastier than anything I could conceive. Their necessary houses, kitchens, graves and places for slaughtering cattle, all mixed through the encampment." James as likely as not died of disease, although there were frequent raids and ambushes involving French scouts and their Indian allies, so it is just possible he fell during one of those actions.^5,6,7