Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register

‘ [402] many natural infirmities, and are slow in action; that which was their delight, when young, is their burden being old. For old men to attend common training, to stand forth with every young boy to answer to his name, and it may be stand three or four hours together, till his joints be stiff and numb, that he can scarce go upon his legs,— surely such practice cannot be pleasing to God; and then not to be suffered nor approved on by men; but we hope our wise and godly magistrates will take it into serious consideration, and relieve such as are thereby oppressed.’

This appeal was not immediately successful, as appears by the petition of a Cambridge man in 1673: ‘I would intreat that favor of this honored Court, that I may be freed wholly from training any more, as one not being able to perform that service by reason of a consumptive cough I have had about a year and a half, and other weakness of body that attend me, besides my age which is very near 63 years; so that I find that exercise, when standing so long upon the ground, very prejudicious and destructive to my health, as I found by experience the last training day, although it was a warm day. So committing myself to your worships favor I rest your humble servant. Tho. SWOeTMAN. The 8 (8) 73.’¹ In 1689, the term of service had been shortened. ‘All the inhabitants from sixteen to sixty years in each town are by the law and constant custom of the country to bear arms, if occasion shall require.’² But, although the private soldiers were released from further service, on attaining three score years, their officers sometimes voluntarily served until a much later period of life. A notable example of this long-continued devotion to official service was exhibited by Captain Samuel Green, the veteran printer, who was sergeant in the expedition against Gorton, as before stated, in 1643, ensign in 1660, and on the 27th of June, 1689, became a captain. Of him it was stated, in an obituary notice of his son Bartholomew, that ‘this Captain Green was a commission officer of the military company at Cambridge, who chose him for above sixty years together; and he died there, Jan. 1, 1701-2, ae. 87, highly esteemed and beloved both for piety and a martial genius. He took such great delight in the military exercise, that the arrival of their training days would always raise his joy and spirit; and when he was grown so aged that he could not walk, he would be carried out in his chair into the field, to view and order his company.’³