Person

John and Joseph Eastman

The Eastman family of Hopkinton, New Hampshire, was a patriotic bunch. Father John (born 1739) and eldest son Joseph (born 1763) both enlisted for 3-year terms in the Continental Army on April 10, 1777. As father and son – yes, Joseph was 13 when he joined – they served together as soldiers in Captain Hutchin’s company of the 1st New Hampshire Regiment. Their neighbor and cousin, Thomas Eastman (born 1755), joined the company too. Together, the Eastmans would fight for United States independence!

Unfortunately, the campaign ended up ruining their family. The first to fall was John—he was “shot through the head, and died instantly” in the July 8 Battle of Fort Anne, NY. Joseph became sick that summer and was committed to the general hospital at Albany. He struggled for months to heal, but died there at the end of October at age 14. Back in Hopkinton, Judith Eastman was now a widow and left to raise her remaining six children.

Thomas wasn’t unscathed either – he was “wounded in the head” by a British musket ball in the September 19 Freeman’s Farm (the First Battle of Saratoga). He was also sent to the hospital in Albany; unlike his cousins, he lived. But he would never be the same again, and for the remainder of his life suffered from “convulsive fits” and “a constant dizziness of the head.” Discharged, he returned home, married in 1781, and had six children. He died in 1839.