Israel Putnam

Israel Putnam (January 7, 1718 – May 29, 1790), popularly known as "Old Put", was an American military officer and landowner who fought with distinction at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). He also served as an officer with Rogers' Rangers during the French and Indian War (1754–1763), when he was captured by Mohawk warriors. He was saved from the ritual burning given to enemies by the intervention of a French officer, Molang, with whom the Mohawk were allied. Putnam's courage and fighting spirit became known far beyond his home of Connecticut's borders through the circulation of folk legends in the American colonies and states celebrating his exploits. Early life Israel Putnam was born in 1718 in Salem Village (now Danvers), Massachusetts, to Joseph and Elizabeth (Porter) Putnam, a prosperous farming Puritan family. His parents had opposed the Salem witch trials in the 1690s. With his father-in-law Israel Porter, Joseph Putnam signed a petition on the behalf of the elderly Rebecca Nurse, who was accused of witchcraft, but the jury overturned its first verdict of innocent, convicting her and sentencing her to death. One of her sisters was also executed in the hysteria of the time. In 1740, at the age of 22, the young Putnam moved west to Mortlake (in a part of the town that later became part of Pomfret and Brooklyn in northeastern Connecticut), where land was cheaper and easier for young men to buy. Putnam killed a wolf in Connecticut in 1743 with the help of a group of farmers from Mortlake seeking to safeguard their sheep. After tracking the wolf to her den, they tried sending in their dogs, but all the dogs returned frightened, or in several cases, injured by the wolf. They tried smoking the wolf out, and after that failed, they tried burning sulfur at the mouth of the rocky cave, all to no avail. After Putnam arrived, he tried getting his dog to enter the den, with no luck. He also tried to get his servant to enter with a torch and gun to shoot the wolf. His servant refused, as did all the other farmers. Putnam then reportedly crawled into the den with a torch, a musket loaded with buckshot, and his feet secured with rope to be quickly pulled out. While in the den, he killed the wolf.