Lt. Thomas Hibbard, Bedel’s New Hampshire Rangers
Thomas Hibbard was most likely born in England. He first immigrated to Haverhill, New Hampshire and eventually settled in Newbury (at that time part of the “New Hampshire Grants,” but located in present-day Vermont). He married Lucy Sylvester who was the daughter of Levi and Ruth (Merritt) Sylvester on February 22, 1772.
Thomas Hibbard was commissioned as a Lieutenant with duties as Adjutant in Colonel Bedel’s New Hampshire Regiment on June 15, 1775. He was able to return to his family in January 1776. In that same month he was appointed adjutant in another regiment commanded by Colonel Timothy Bedel. At the Battle of the Cedars on May 19, 1776, most of the regiment was captured, including Adjutant Hibbard. He was held as a Prisoner of War until exchanged in December 1776. He was also Adjutant in Colonel Bedel’s Regiment during its third period of existence from December 1777 to April of 1779.
After the war, Thomas Hibbard then became a school master. As a school master Thomas taught in Newbury, Haverhill and Bath. In 1800 he went to Cambridge, New York, to open an academy, where he died suddenly on July 1, 1800. After his death, Lucy married Mark Sanborn of Bath on January 10, 1801. They stayed married until his death on July 26, 1821. She did not marry again.
Sources: Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army, (Baltimore, 1914), 221; The State of New Hampshire, Rolls of the Soldiers in the Revolutionary War, Volume XV, (Concord, 1885), 726; Pension of Adjutant Thomas Hibbard W. 15,311; Selected Wartime Service Records of Lieutenant/Adjutant Thomas Hibbard.
