Enoch Poor

Enoch Poor (June 21, 1736 (Old Style) – September 8, 1780) was a brigadier general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He was a ship builder and merchant from Exeter, New Hampshire. Biography Poor was born and raised in Andover, Massachusetts. His father Thomas Poor had been part of the 1745 expedition that captured Louisburg, Nova Scotia, during King George's War. In 1755, Poor enlisted as a private in one of the Massachusetts units raised to accompany Jeffery Amherst's expedition to retake Louisburg during the French and Indian War. His unit enforced the expulsion of the Acadians. After the war, he came home to Andover, but only briefly. He eloped with Martha Osgood, and they settled in Exeter where he became a successful ship builder. Poor supported the separatists as early as the Stamp Act protests in 1765. He served on various committees for Exeter throughout the period of rising rebellion. In 1775, he was twice elected to the provincial Assembly. The Battle of Lexington caused the assembly to call for three regiments of militia, and Poor became the colonel of the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment. The other regiments under colonels John Stark and James Reed were sent to Boston, but the 2nd was stationed at Portsmouth and Exeter. They were sent to Boston after the Battle of Bunker Hill, arriving on June 25. In the summer of 1775, the unit was absorbed into the Continental Army; they were ordered into the Northern Department and went with General Richard Montgomery's invasion of Canada.