Person

Caleb Stark

A statue of a young person in colonial attire carrying a musket and in mid-stride.
By the town center of Dunbarton, New Hampshire, stands a statue in honor of Major Caleb Stark.

Courtesy of Dunbarton History Society

Quick Facts
Significance:
Major in the American Revolutionary War, Advocate for Veterans
Place of Birth:
Dunbarton, New Hampshire
Date of Birth:
December 3, 1759
Place of Death:
Oxford, Ohio
Date of Death:
August 26, 1838
Place of Burial:
Dunbarton Center Merrimack County, New Hampshire
Cemetery Name:
Stark Cemetery

Son of General John Stark, Major Caleb Stark served during the American War for Independence, most notably at the Battle of Bunker Hill. His eight years of service led him to later advocate for the rights of war veterans.

Born in New Hampshire, Caleb Stark grew up with his grandfather, Captain Caleb Page. His parents, then-Captain John Stark and Elizabeth Page, allowed Page to adopt their son.1 Stark lived with his grandfather until June 16, 1775. A few months earlier, colonial militia and the British military clashed at Lexington and Concord. This action sparked Caleb's father to head to Boston and establish a regiment. The young Stark wanted to join his father, but his grandfather refused. The elder Page believed Caleb was too young (under 16) and should not see "scenes of strife and carnage."2

Despite this refusal, Stark ran-away in the early hours of June 16. He packed some belongings, grabbed a musket, and rode a horse to his father's regiment's camp in Medford, northeast of Boston. When he arrived, Stark reportedly said to his surprised father, "I can handle a musket, and have come to try my fortune as a volunteer!"3

John Stark, now a Colonel, assigned his son to the company of Captain George Reid. The next day, the company marched to Charlestown and positioned themselves at the rail fence, which connected the colonial redoubt on Breed's Hill to the Mystic River.4 Here, Stark faced the advance of the British military. While the man to his side died, Stark remained unscathed during the battle and retreat.5

The Battle of Bunker Hill began Stark's eight years of service in the American Revolutionary War. Over the following years, Caleb Stark participated in campaigns from Canada to the Mid-Atlantic. He served at Trenton, Princeton, Ticonderoga, and Saratoga among other battles.6 At Saratoga, Stark suffered an injury to his left arm. Meanwhile, he progressed up the ranks, becoming a major before the end of the war.7

After the war, Stark began a life outside of service. He married Sara McKinstry in 1787. They had 11 children, including lawyer and writer Caleb Stark Jr.8

Into the early 1800s, Caleb Stark worked as a merchant in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.9 During the War of 1812, he ended this business and purchased a cotton manufacturing company in Pembroke, New Hampshire.10

In the decades after the American War for Independence, Stark became an advocate for veterans' rights. He had witnessed over the years how the leaders of the young nation repeatedly debated the extent to which war veterans and their families should receive pensions.11 In 1825, Stark himself submitted a petition to the U.S. Government for a war pension.12 This same year, he declined his election into the Bunker Hill Monument Association.13 He opposed the Association's plan to memorialize the Battle of Bunker Hill with a monument. The government had failed veterans and a monument should not overshadow this injustice. In his April 10, 1825, letter, Stark stated:

I have powerful national objects to the adoption of this project, for the following reasons: First, those who made this notable stand on this sanguinary hill have almost all passed to those shades where military honors are not more highly appreciated than they have been in the United States; secondly, the actors in this bloody scene (the Revolutionary War), after having performed their part in a manner perhaps unparalleled in ancient or modern history, were refused by the government the rewards that were so solemnly promised in the hour of the most critical danger: and... [the government] still continue[s] a deaf ear to the crying demands for justice claimed by the disbanded officer and soldier. And now, sir, in room of giving them the bread that was solemnly promised, the debt is to be paid by a stone!!14

Despite this firm belief, Stark attended the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument a couple months later. About 190 veterans attended, with Stark being the youngest veteran at the event.15

Stark continued advocating for veterans throughout the rest of his life. While the government granted his petition in 1828, Stark testified on behalf of other veterans. According to his son, "[Stark's] testimony secured pensions to all whose cases he represented at the war department."16 In 1835, an Ohio newspaper printed an article by Stark in which he noted the injustice committed by Congress towards veterans. Over the years, Congress had discounted payments and added obstacles for veterans trying to claim their promised land or pay.17 Stark did not win a claim to his own family lands in Ohio until 1837.18

Caleb Stark died August 26, 1838, while in Ohio.19 In reflecting on his father's life, Caleb Stark Jr. wrote, "His characteristics were indomitable courage and perseverance, united with coolness and self-possession, which never deserted him on any emergency."20

Footnotes

  1. In his memoir about his father Major Caleb Stark (included in the memoir of his grandfather Gen. John Stark), Caleb Stark wrote that Caleb Page felt "a strong affection for the child who had been born under his roof." Caleb Stark (Jr.), Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, with Notices of Several Other Officers of the Revolution (Concord, N.H.: G. Parker Lyon, 1860), 345, Internet Archive.
  2. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 345.
  3. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 346.
  4. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 347; Genealogical and Family History of the State of New Hampshire: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation, vol. 1., ed. Ezra Stearns (New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1908), 438, Internet Archive.
  5. Somone mis-reported to Colonel John Stark that Caleb had been killed in the battle, however he later reunited with his son. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 347.
  6. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 349-351.
  7. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 349-351.
  8. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 352; "Caleb Stark, Jr.," The Ledger, Litchfield Historical Society, 2010, https://ledger.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/ledger/students/2429.
  9. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 352.
  10. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 352.
  11. To learn more about this debate for pensions, please check out the following article: "Good and Sufficient Testimony:" The Development of the Revolutionary War Pension Plan - Journal of the American Revolution.
  12. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 366.
  13. George Washington Warren, The History of the Bunker Hill Monument Association During the First Century of the United States of America (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1877), 65-66, Internet Archive; Susan Martin, "Bread and Stones," The Beehive, Massachusetts Historical Society, March 23, 2020, https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2020/03/bread-and-stones/.
  14. Warren, The History of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, 65-66.
  15. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 353; Martin, "Bread and Stones."
  16. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 353.
  17. In some cases, land was promised to soldiers in order to encourage enlistment. To learn more about these Bounty-Land Warrants, see this short overview by the National Archives: Bounty-Land Warrants for Military Service, 1775–1855. Also see Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 361; Martin, "Bread and Stones."
  18. According to Stark's son, these lands were "granted for military services." Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 352.
  19. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 352.
  20. Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, 353.

Boston National Historical Park, Saratoga National Historical Park

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Last updated: March 9, 2023