Meet the Fox
Benjamin Fox Baxter — Private, New Hampshire line. Eighteen years old at the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, where he was wounded in the side with a bayonet.
A bayonet wound to the side in 1775 meant no antibiotics, no clean water, and a surgeon working by daylight. He lived. That is most of why I picked him.
Where the record comes from
My great-grandmother Lynn Baxter Jacques presented his service to the Button Gwinnett chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution in January 2023 (Button Gwinnett Dispatch, January 2023). Our family's lineage was traced by her father through cemeteries in northern New England and the Maritimes, and finished by her husband. That's three generations of people looking things up, which is a librarian's kind of family.
What I can't prove
He isn't listed on the best-known roll of New Hampshire men at Bunker Hill — the one Secretary of State George C. Gilmore compiled in 1889 that the National Park Service publishes (NPS roster). Those old rolls are known to be incomplete, and men often served in units from other places. Our record comes through our approved lineage, not that list. I'm telling you this instead of hiding it, because that's the job.
About the name
"Fox" really was his middle name. "The Fox of Bunker Hill" is what I call him. Nobody in 1775 did.
The record, at a glance
- Name: Benjamin Fox Baxter
- Rank & unit: Private, New Hampshire line
- Age at Bunker Hill: 18
- Wound: Bayonet wound to the side, June 17, 1775
- Source of record: Family lineage presented to Button Gwinnett SAR, January 2023
Button Gwinnett SAR sponsors the Elisha Winn Society and was the top state chapter for the 2022 C.A.R. Liaison Award (Button Gwinnett Dispatch, January 2023).