It’s a beautiful time of year for hike!

By JUDI TATEM
Special to the Eagle Times
UNITY — The Unity Historical Society is organizing a hike on Sunday, Oct. 14 at 1 p.m. Adam and Tina Boardman will lead the way to the Unknown Soldier’s grave on Potato Hill for all interested in seeing the monument in the woods. The hike will begin on the Gilman Pond Road side of the hill and if necessary, cars may be parked at the school for pooling rides. This will be a challenging one mile-plus hike uphill with several very steep areas. Please be prepared with good shoes or boots and water.

The background of this grave is interesting. In 1777 General John Stark was gathering troops on the way to Charlestown and the Fort at No. 4 and on to the battle at Bennington, Vermont. The men marched from Candia up through Newbury and camped at Sunapee.

They then crossed the Sugar River near the old Grist Mill in Mill Village, crossing the bridge, the troops climbed the steep hill leading to Unity where they camped all night. A few clearings were seen on the way and a few houses occupied by settlers. The camp extended to the top of the hill, where there was a tavern owned by Charles Huntoon.

Here is an excerpt from the diary of Lieutenant Abraham Fitts of Stark’s Army in 1777:

“Young men see visions’ and they usually are sad ones. They are going to be conquerors, theirs to be a laurel wreath. We do not know what happy thoughts may have been in the mind of the poor man, who, worn out and sick, was left at Huntoon’s Tavern on Weed’s Hill in Unity: There to die, and was laid away near his place of death.” (Taken from “Highlights in History of Unity, N.H.”)

For many years the school children from Unity’s elementary school hiked from the school to the grave to place a flag for Memorial Day. Then back in the early 1970s Albert Reed decided the grave needed a more permanent marker. He built a form and poured concrete wisely incorporating an axel and wheels in the bottom and placing a Revolutionary War plaque on the front that Bob Gibson got from a veterans’ group in Claremont. When it was ready to be moved, Albert and his son, Ralph, Steve Jannell and Joe Cloutier took the monument up to the grave. “It was very heavy,” Ralph said, “and it was mud and black fly season.” After getting the monument off the tractor, the wheels were there to roll the monument into place. Every year new flags are still placed and this young man is remembered.

So join the hike, enjoy the leaves and the stillness and peace of the place where a bustling tavern and men with guns and packs paused on the way to war.

If there are questions, feel free to call the Boardmans at 603-504-5866.