Background
Joseph Frye was born March 19, 1712. He was the ninth of the thirteen children of Sergeant John and Tabitha (Farnam) Frye of Andover, Massachusets, where the family had long been of local prominence.
Joseph Frye was born March 19, 1712. He was the ninth of the thirteen children of Sergeant John and Tabitha (Farnam) Frye of Andover, Massachusets, where the family had long been of local prominence.
Frye began his military career, for which he is chiefly distinguished, in February 1744/5 as the ensign in Hale’s 5th Massachusetts Regiment which took part in the capture of Louisburg.
From March 1747/48, until June 1749, he served with the rank of captain. During 1754, he was a lieutenant-colonel in Winslow’s Kennebec expedition. Still, with Winslow, he was a major in the expedition planned by Gov. Shirley which expelled a portion of the Acadians in 1755, performing the unpleasant duty of burning houses and forcing the rebellious settlers to submit to English rule.
In 1757, after Lord Loudoun had set his hand to military affairs in North America, Frye was commissioned to raise 1, 800 troops to reinforce Gen. Webb for the proposed attack on Crown Point. When the English attempted to relieve the inadequate force within Fort William Henry in this campaign, the French and Indians under Montcalm surrounded both the fort and the relief forces, compelling Lieut. -Col. Munroe, Frye’s superior in command, to surrender, August 9, 1757.
The French were unable to control their Indian allies, who, mad for blood and plunder, massacred many of the disarmed troops. Frye, himself, after hand-to-hand combat, reached Fort Edward naked, half- starved, and half-crazed. Prevented by the terms of the capitulation from serving for eighteen months, Frye did not reenlist until March 1759.
From then to the close of 1760, he was the commanding officer at Fort Cumberland in Acadia. The chief problems of this routine service were feeding the destitute inhabitants who submitted to English control, disciplining his disorderly troops, and finally quelling an actual mutiny.
On March 3, 1762, in response to his petition, the Massachusetts General Court granted to Frye a township of land in the Maine district, and in 1770, he moved with his family from Andover to the new settlement, where he opened a store. The town was incorporated in January 1777 as Frye- burg, in honor of the grantee. He himself kept ten of the sixty rights and acted as proprietor’s clerk from June 23, 1766, to September 15, 1777.
On June 21, 1775, the Provincial Congress had appointed him major-general of Massachusetts militia. He served in this capacity at Falmouth from November to January 10, 1776, when he was appointed a brigadier-general in the Continental Army. He resigned on account of infirmities, April 23, 1776.
While a resident of Andover, Frye was representative to the General Court, 1751-55, 1762-63, 1764-65. He favored the separation of Maine from Massachusetts and was a delegate from Fryeburg to the Portland convention of September 1786, which met to consider the measure.
Joseph Frye married Mehitable Poor.
20 July 1720 - 16 July 1738
17 October 1678 - 17 May 1755
18 February 1714 - 6 March 1728
11 March 1698 - 31 May 1741
10 April 1701 - 2 October 1768
20 July 1720 - 16 July 1738
5 July 1703 - 22 March 1757
13 July 1718 - 12 July 1738
4 April 1714 - 4 January 1788
8 April 1741 - 4 February 1818
5 August 1751 - 10 February 1836
10 July 1743 - 20 January 1828
22 April 1753 - 17 April 1833
5 July 1758 - 27 May 1827
