Background
Nathaniel Freeman was born on March 28, 1741, in Dennis near Yarmouth, Massachusetts. His parents were Martha Otis and Edmund Freeman, through whom he was descended from Edmund, the original settler of Sandwich.
Nathaniel Freeman was born on March 28, 1741, in Dennis near Yarmouth, Massachusetts. His parents were Martha Otis and Edmund Freeman, through whom he was descended from Edmund, the original settler of Sandwich.
After studying medicine under Dr. Cobb of Thompson, Connecticut, Freeman returned to Sandwich about 1765 and began to practice. Then, at the suggestion of his great-uncle, James Otis, Sr. , he read the law.
Freeman soon became prominent as an able young patriot devoted to the American cause. Frequently a moderator in Sandwich town meeting, he molded patriot sentiment and checked the activities of spirited neighbors who favored the British connection.
At the head of a large mob of determined men, he dramatically prevented the courts from opening at Barnstable in September 1774. Soon after he was brutally attacked by a band of Loyalists who left him for dead, but he recovered.
He became a member of the Sandwich committee of correspondence, and also represented the town at the Watertown Provincial Congress in 1775 by the authority of which he was successively appointed lieutenant-colonel, then a colonel, of the first Barnstable county regiment.
He negotiated with the Penobscot Indians and took part in the expedition against the British who held Rhode Island. At Cambridge, he met Gen. Washington who employed him in 1779 on an important mission to West Point.
With another officer, he was able on this occasion to persuade Massachusetts soldiers whose terms were about to expire to continue longer in the public service. After the peace, he served for many years in the state militia, resigning in 1793 with the rank of brigadier-general.
From 1778 to 1780, he represented Sandwich in the legislature and in the latter year also reported on the state constitution to his fellow townsmen. The new Federal Constitution won his favor but he was an unsuccessful candidate for membership in the convention which ratified it.
With the war at an end, Freeman applied himself to law and to medicine. In the latter art, he read much, and, despite the fact that he was instructed only by books, performed many difficult operations with notable success.
He relinquished a flourishing practice in 1804. Meantime, he had a seat on the bench as judge of the court of common pleas and ultimately presided over the court as chief justice. From his legal duties, he took the time to prepare a Charge to the Grand Jury at Barnstable, a work which furnishes an excellent statement of his opinions on law, religion, morals, and politics.
Freeman was a deeply religious man whose initial orthodoxy was covered in middle life by a sympathy for the liberal teachings of Joseph Priestley, but by 1814, he returned to the Trinitarian doctrines in which he had been bred.
Although Freeman was a supporter of the strong government, the quality of his Federalism was tolerant enough to concede much merit to Thomas Jefferson.
In 1814, Freeman was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society.
On May 5, 1763, Freeman married Tryphosa Colton of Killingly, Connecticut. She died in 1796 and on April 7, 1799, he married Elizabeth Gifford who survived him. Twenty children were born to him and of these eighteen arrived at maturity.
His second son, Nathaniel, a member of Congress from 1795 till 1799, is sometimes confused with his father but predeceased his parent by twenty- seven years.
30 September 1711 - 11 February 1800
11 December 1717 - 22 January 1790
8 October 1755 - 9 June 1818
29 April 1737 - 10 February 1813
21 March 1745 - 20 August 1808
20 May 1743 - 12 February 1831
18 March 1743 - 11 July 1796
23 August 1768 - 13 April 1831
23 July 1807 - 24 January 1842
16 June 1778 - 14 November 1852
1775 - 24 February 1799
24 January 1802 - 8 December 1804
23 May 1805 - 14 October 1882
10 June 1770 - 23 May 1831
9 July 1809 - 17 October 1897
1 December 1799 - 12 September 1883
13 June 1789 - 29 April 1858
1 May 1766 - 22 August 1800
Died on 15 March 1807.
6 April 1772 - 2 November 1835
4 May 1764 - 1 July 1807
