Author: Laurence T. Herman
Matthew Kelloch was born March 29, 1737, the son of Scotch-Irish immigrant parents Finley and Mary (Young) Kelloch. The Finley Kellochs were 1735 pioneer settlers of St. George’s, Maine. The Kelloch homestead was in what is now the town of Warren. Maine was then part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Finley Kelloch served with colonial New England forces during King George’s War and took part in the 1745 capture and garrisoning of the great French fortress at Louisbourg, Cape Breton Island. He and other settler-soldiers who could not leave their families behind, unprotected and unprovided for, took them along. Thus eight-year-old Matthew, encamped with his family outside the fortress walls, was present at the siege, fall and occupation of Louisbourg.

It was another three years before a peace treaty was signed between England and France. During this time, French-incited Indian depredations laid waste the settlement at St. George’s, driving the settlers in to live at fort and blockhouse. Their log homes, grist and saw mills and crops in the field were plundered and destroyed and their livestock killed or driven off. Not until 1749 could the Kellochs and their neighbors safely leave their garrisoned refuges to rebuild and replant. The peace did not endure. The Indian threat was never entirely absent until well after the French defeat at Quebec in l759. Between 1744 and 1758, at least 26 settlers, soldiers and others were killed by Indians at St. George’s. Still others were captured and carried off to Canada.

Even with a military troop presence, it was necessary for the colonists to assist in their own defense. Colony records from 1755 tell us that in that year”. . . a company of rangers scouting to the eastward [of St. George’s] was this year kept in pay from June 19th to Nov. 20th. . . “ Entered on the muster roll was the name of 18-year-old Matthew Kelloch, “Centinnel”. It was a duty to which he was probably accustomed; until at least 1760, males “able to bear arms” were regularly mustered to serve in the ranger units. Matthew Kelloch married Mary Robinson in 1758. Mary was the daughter of Moses and Mary (Fitzgerald) Robinson, early pioneer settlers of Cushing, Maine. Matthew and Mary had ten children: David, Margaret, Finley III, Moses, Mary, Jane, Catherine, Matthew Jr., Hanse, and Sarah. Matthew served during the American Revolution as both a foot soldier of the Massachusetts Line and a sailor, perhaps a marine, in the Continental Navy. In his pension declaration, he attested: “About the last of April 1775 I enlisted as a Private under Capt. Samuel Gregg in the Massachusetts Regiment commanded by Col. James Cargill; I served in said Gregg’s Company and in the Regiment aforesaid from last of April until the first day of January 1776; I was then discharged by said Col. Cargill but not in writing. I further declare that about the middle of November 1778, I enlisted under Samuel Gregg for the Boston frigate, commanded by Capt. Samuel Tucker, and entered on board said frigate till the month of December; that while on board said frigate we took 11 of the armed vessels belonging to the British, and that I finally left said frigate December 1779.” A respected local historian of the 1800s tells us it was recorded that in 1784, returned from the war, “Matthew Kelloch, during the season of cherries and blackberries,. . . shot 14 bears, young and old, without going out of his way.” Hunting prowess in early eastern Maine put food on the table but brought no more wealth than in frontier Kentucky. When in April 1818 Matthew applied for a pension for his war service, his listed assets were two cows, an ox, one plow and chain, six chairs, one chest and one pine table, "necessary clothing and bedding excepted.” In applying, he cited inability to pursue his farming occupation any longer by reason of old age. The pursuit had been long and well run, however; when he died six years later in 1824, preceded by wife Mary, he was almost 87.