As little fish are great ones prey
Even if is true as we may say
That we poor men share the same fate
By being slain by those that's great
I Powder with my brother ball
A hero like do conquer all
 

W A R
 

Daniel Chittenden

His horn maid [sic] at Branford April the 11th 1757

These words are carved into the horn powder flask carried by Daniel Chittenden, when his Connecticut militia company was called into service to fortify troops garrisoned at Fort William Henry. Fort William Henry was a British fort at the southern end of Lake George in New York, during the French and Indian War. Four months after this horn was carved, in August 1757, Fort William Henry was the site of an epic battle that became the focus of James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans.

Carved powder horns are in many cases the only surviving records of otherwise anonymous soldiers. During the colonial wars, they were standard equipment. Obtained from cattle driven behind the troops to feed them, horns were engraved with soldiers’ names, dates, rhymes, maps, patterns, and motifs. As with many folk artists, few of these craftsmen signed their work. As a result, unfortunately, the names of the majority of these artisans are lost to time.
 
Following the French and Indian War, this horn was again used in the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, by Chittenden family members. In 1902, Denver dentist J. A. Dibble, himself a veteran of the First Connecticut Cavalry during the Civil War, and a descendant of Daniel Chittenden, donated it to the museum.

James Peterson
Department of Material Culture
February, 2012