The following article is reprinted directly from J. P.C. Winship, Historical Brighton, Volume One, An Illustrated History of Brighton and its Citizens, (Boston: George A. Warren, Publisher, 1899), pp.51-58. This history adds to information found in The Bigelow Family Genealogy, Volume II.   Janis Pahnke, 5220 N. Melvina Ave, Chicago IL, 60630-1037, who provided us with a copy of this interesting excerpt, has sorted out the somewhat confusing relationship between the closely-connected Bigelow and Brooks families mentioned in the article:

     "The Brooks family and the Bigelow family were closely connected.  and it took me some time to straighten them out. Especially because they used the same names over and over in both families. Silas ⁶ and Jonathan ⁶ Bigelow ( John ⁵, John ⁴, Joshua ³, Joshua ², John ¹) were brothers that married 2 sisters - Anna and Susanna Brooks. They were the daughters of Abner and Anna (Hobart) Brooks. The girls had a brother, Samuel Brooks, whose daughter Anna Jane married Samuel ⁷ Bigelow, son of Jonathan ⁶ and Susanna (Brooks) Bigelow.
     To further complicate the family. . . Silas⁶ and Anna (Brooks) Bigelow both died rather young, and they had a 5-year old son, Silas Samuel ⁷ Bigelow who was then taken by his uncle, Samuel Brooks of Brighton, and raised. Samuel Brooks changed the name of this nephew to (maybe didn 't change it legally but he was then known as) Samuel 7 Bigelow."

     The ancestor, John ¹ Biglo, settled in Watertown and married Mary Warren.  They had thirteen children. Joshua ², the seventh child, born Nov. 5, 1655, married in 1676, Elizabeth Flagg. She was born March 22, 1657 and died Aug. 9, 1729. They had twelve children.  The line continued through [Joshua ³], John ⁴, John ⁵ and Jonathan ⁶. The latter, the second child of John, married in 1798, Susanna Brooks, daughter of [Abner and] Anna (Hobart) Brooks of Groton. He died Nov. 12, 1819. She died Oct.30, 1861. They had twelve children:

Samuel ⁷ Bigelow,  the seventh child [of Jonathan ⁶ and Susanna (Brooks) Bigelow], born Aug.22, 1807, married April 16, 1834, Anna Jane Brooks, daughter of Samuel Brooks. She was born in Brighton, Dec. 12, 1812, and died March 12, 1883. He was a lawyer by profession but became interested in business enterprises and is now living in Brookline. He will be ninety-one years of age Aug.22, 1898. He enjoys fairly good health and retains to a large degree the activity and mental powers of his early age.   Their children are mentioned in order of their ages:

George Brooks ⁸ Bigelow, born April 30, 1836, married June 2, 1869, Clara P. Bean of Boston, born March 26, 1847. In his youth he was one of a few who established a debating society from which merged the Brighton Library Association and course of lectures. He was graduated at Harvard and the Law School.  With his father he was the prime mover in establishing the horse railroad from Newton to Boston, via Cambridge. This route they and their associates were obliged to accept at the
time although they controlled a charter for a track over what was called the Mill Dam Road, direct to Boston. When they came to seek a location under this charter it was denied them by the public authorities because of the strong opposition from those who claimed the track would spoil the avenue for pleasure driving. He has followed his profession in Boston, and in addition to his other business he has been the attorney for the Boston Five Cents' Savings Bank for over twenty-five years.

Samuel Augustus ⁸  Bigelow, born Nov. 26, 1838. married Nov. 5, 1867, Ella H. Brown, now deceased. He is a hardware merchant of Boston, the head of the large corporation known as the Bigelow & Dowse Company.  He has one son, Samuel
Lawrence 9, born Feb. 23, 1870, a graduate of Harvard College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He will graduate, the coming summer, from the university at Leipsig, Germany, and in the fall is expected to take a position on the academic staff of the Michigan University at Ann Arbor.

Major John ⁸ Bigelow, born Feb. 4, 1841, was a graduate of Harvard in 1861 and in his college years planned to take the profession of a surgeon. [Editor's note:  This is the same Major John Bigelow, 9th Mass. Battery, featured in the cover story of Vol.25, No.2 (April 1996).] At this time he once amused the writer by assuring him that he could readily carve a chicken but he had not the heart to eat it. This peculiarity seems singular when it is considered that he was one of the bravest officers during the Rebellion; but he was not alone in this, some of the bravest warriors in the world's history had like peculiarities. The great Napoleon and Caesar were among the number. Major Bigelow enlisted in the Second Battery Light Artillery of Massachusetts Volunteers as lieutenant, July 31, 1861, when twenty years old, going from Harvard directly into camp. When this battery was in Baltimore, Maryland, the loyalists there were endeavoring to raise a battalion of artillery for the Army of the Potomac but were short of officers, and an earnest appeal was made to Major Bigelow and Capt. Wolcott, both then lieutenants of the second battery, to take hold and organize this battalion.  Governor Andrews favored it, and the two resigned from the Massachusetts service and took commissions from the state of Maryland. Major Bigelow was made adjutant of the battalion,
and Capt. Wolcott, a captain of one of the companies.
     At the Battle of Malvern Hills a section of one of the batteries of the battalion was engaged in trying to drive a company of rebel sharpshooters from a woods under whose protection they were able to do much damage to the Yankees. They shot the officer in charge of the section as well as a sergeant and corporal; the other men were demoralized and were about deserting their gun, when the Major discovered the trouble and dismounted his horse to work the gun. While pushing this forward, he was shot through the wrist of the right arm which was on the gun; making a sling with his handkerchief, he supported the injured arm and kept on firing until he had thrown the greater part of the ammunition in the limber chest into the woods and the rebels had fled. Having completed his task he went to the field hospital and thence was sent to Washington, riding all night in the rain on an artillery wagon. This experience gave him a broken wrist and a severe fever to treat, with the result that, after some two
years' service, the doctors decided that he was in so feeble a condition that he could not stand active service; consequently he resigned and came home to Brighton.
     After some months he found himself greatly improved in health, and when Governor Andrew sent him an invitation to take the captaincy of the Ninth Massachusetts Battery, he promptly accepted. This battery was made up of a fine set of men, recruited from Boston and vicinity; but they had the misfortune to be commanded by De Vecchi, an Italian, who was very arbitrary and unpopular with his men, so much so that he was retired, and the Governor appealed to Major Bigelow to take the
place. He joined his command in one of the forts near Washington and set to work to get the battery into good drill for active campaigning. This was barely accomplished when they were ordered to join the artillery reserve of the Army of the Potomac,
which was marching two days ahead following up Lee in his march through Maryland towards Philadelphia. The battery reached Gettysburg after the battle had begun and was promptly ordered to the front to support Sickles' Brigade, then being pressed by the enemy under Longstreet. Having in mind that this battery had never seen the enemy or been in an engagement before, it is proper to narrate some of its experiences in this battle, to show that the grit and spirit of Bunker Hill was not lacking in these Yankee boys.
     The following  is an abstract from C. Carleton Coffin's report of the battle: "I looked down upon the scene from Little Round Top. At three o'clock the Ninth Massachusetts Battery, Captain Bigelow, had nearly reached the Peach Orchard of Sherfey. The enemy was prepared. The fire soon extended along the entire front line.  The cannonade was furious, disembowelling horses and tearing up the earth.  The air was filled with strange unearthly noises.  The earth trembled with the tremendous concussion of two hundred pieces of artillery.  A division under Longstreet endeavored to gain Round Top; Sickles held them in check. 'You must hold this position till I can get two batteries on the ridge,' were the orders of Major McGilvery to Bigelow. The enemy were now close upon Bigelow.  The rebels rushed upon his guns. He blew them from the muzzles and filled the air with the shattered fragments of human bodies. Still they came on with demoniac screams, climbing upon the limbers and shooting his horses.  Five of his sergeants were instantly killed, three of his cannoneers were gone, twenty-two of his men were killed and wounded, and himself shot through the side: yet he held on till McGilvery got his two batteries in position.  He
brought off five limbers and two of his pieces, dragging them in part by hand. The rebels seized the four pieces with shouts of victory. McGilvery's battery drove them back by a flanking fire. At this time a fresh division of Sickles' corps, Humphreys, came up. Another charge was made and the guns of Bigelow were recovered."
     At Petersburg they were within two hundred yards of the Confederate entrenchments, and when the infantry was driven back by the fire of a masked battery, they were, as at Gettysburg, left alone on the field and stubbornly held the advanced position till nightfall.
     On Gettysburg battlefield there is a monument erected by the Ninth Massachusetts Battery under the command of the heroic Bigelow, with this inscription:   "Ninth Massachusetts Battery, Captain Bigelow, July 3rd and 4th, two guns, Lieutenant Milton commanding.  Only officer and guns effective after engagement on Trostle's farm, July 2nd, 1863."
     A second monument faces as the battery faced from 4 to 6 p.m. when it rendered the invaluable service with matchless heroism against fearful odds in Sickles' bloody fight of July 2nd. It consists of a rough boulder just as it was quarried, standing ten feet above the foundation. On the top is a sculptured tablet in bas-relief, sunk in about four inches, having a shotted border formed of twelve-pound shot, a pair of twelve-pound crossed cannon, a portion of the centre being covered with a scroll on

which is the legend, number of casualties, officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted men. Above is the Massachusetts coat-of-arms, the motto of the state, "ense petit placidem sub libertate quietem. Above in large block letters is "Ninth Massachusetts Battery, Captain Bigelow commanding." The tablet is surmounted by a wreath of laurel intersected by a palm branch.
     A third monument, at the Trostle house, marks the position of their lost stand from 6 to 6:30 p. m. on the afternoon of July 2nd, and is in the form of a dismounted limber chest of the artillery service. It is firmly planted on a massive rock at the angle of
the stone wall where they fought hand to hand.
     Major Bigelow was discharged Dec. 16, 1864, with the title of Brevet Major, and now resides in Minneapolis where he is engaged in running a flour mill of one thousand barrels a day capacity, besides looking after some patents yielding good royalties.

Anna Jane ⁸ Bigelow, the fourth child of Samuel Bigelow, born Nov. 2, 1842, resides at Brookune with her father, who is a remarkably well preserved old gentleman.

Charles ⁸ Bigelow was born March 9, 1845. He graduated from Harvard Scientific School, and after a year in Lake Superior copper mines, took up the manufacture of woolen goods, beginning with the rudiments of packing wool. He now is manager and one of the owners of the Webster Woolen Company, at Sabattus, Maine.

William Lawrence ⁸ Bigelow, born Sept. 6, 1846, married, Feb.28, 1885, Ella C. Morrison and resides in Minneapolis.  He graduated from the military school in Worcester, and spent three years in Japan in charge of a governtnent military school.
He has been a very extensive traveller, - twice around the world.

Frank Herbert ⁸ Bigelow, was born Nov.30, 1857, and died Oct. 30, 1887.  He never was engaged in active business. He suffered much from ill health in his later years.

     About 1861 the house was altered by Mr.Bigelow, but he regretted the change as the colonial style of house was more in harmony with the place. In 1864 Mr. Bigelow sold the estate to Jas. M. Murdock. It was subsequently purchased by Luther
Adams.

also see: FORGE: The Bigelow Society Quarterly Vol. 25, No.2; April 1996.
also: Capt. John ⁸ Bigelow
also: Obituary of Capt. John ⁸ Bigelow

rodbigelow@netzero.net 
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