Author: Richard Thomas Dunn
Reuben Tarbell, Patriot #P-301854, was born about twenty-five miles north-northwest of Boston at Billerica, Middlesex, in the Colony of Massachusetts on January 7, 1755 to Johnathan and Mary Cooke Tarbell. Ancestors of his family had lived in that Colony for more than one hundred years. His paternal great-great-grandmother Rebecca Nurse, who in 1692 was in her seventies, had been one of the unfortunate victims of the witchcraft absurdity at Salem, Massachusetts. Much later Rebecca became a key character in The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
Shortly after Reuben’s birth, his mother died and nearly ten years later his father remarried and moved to a new home on a rural hill south of Rockingham, Vermont and situated just across the Connecticut River from the western boarder of New Hampshire. Reuben’s father was a Baptist and an active member of the Baptist church at Rockingham.
In 1774 Reuben’s father had found a new home about eight miles from Rockingham at Chester, Windsor County, Vermont. On October 10th that year Johnathan Tarbell's home was the site of a public meeting where the people of Chester joined their fellow Americans in publishing a declaration opposing every encroachment of the British government on their natural rights. This is sometimes called one of the first Declarations of Independence in America. Then in 1775, Reuben’s father became a Lt. Colonel in the Chester [Vermont] Militia.
On April 21, 1775, two days after the battles at Concord and Lexington, the Third Provincial Congress of New Hampshire appointed a commander of its colonial troops that might under his command go to assist their brethren at Massachusetts Bay. A few days later, on May 4, 1775, Reuben enlisted as a private in a New Hampshire company commanded by Captain Jacob Hinds. His was one of ten companies in a regiment commanded by Colonel James Reed.
Before June 8, 1775, Colonel Reed’s regiment had moved to Medford, Massachusetts and on June 13th it advanced to Charleston Neck – the narrow stretch of land providing the only land exit from Bunker Hill. On June 17, 1775, during the Battle of Bunker Hill, Colonel Reed’s regiment formed part of a defensive line along the Mystic River that held against British troops and thereby allowed Massachusetts’ forces who had exhausted their ammunition to withdraw over Bunker Hill and across Charleston Neck thereby avoiding entrapment. Not long after this engagement his regiment returned to New Hampshire and Reuben was discharged in early July 1775.
In 1778, Reuben married Elizabeth Blood at Westmorland County, New Hampshire. By 1810 Reuben and his new family had returned to Massachusetts and lived at Carlisle. He is buried at Brookside Cemetery, Chester, Vermont and his grave carries a medallion recognizing his Revolutionary War service.