1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stark, John

STARK, JOHN (1728–1822), American soldier, was born at Nutfield, now Londonderry, New Hampshire, on the 28th of August 1728. In 1752 he was taken prisoner by the Indians but was ransomed by Massachusetts. During the Seven Years' War he served under Robert Rogers, first as a lieutenant and later as a captain, taking part in the battle of Lake George in 1755, the disastrous attack upon Ticonderoga in 1758, and the Ticonderoga-Crown Point campaign in 1759. At the beginning of the War of Independence he raised a regiment and as colonel did good service in the Battle of Bunker Hill, in the Canadian expedition, and in Washington’s New Jersey campaign in the winter of 1776–77. In March 1777 he resigned his commission because other officers had been promoted over him. Later in the year, however, he was placed in, command (by New Hampshire), with the rank of brigadier-general of militia, of a force of militiamen, with whom, on the 16th of August, near Bennington (q.v.), Vermont, he defeated two detachments of Burgoyne's army under Colonel Friedrich Baum and Colonel Breyman. For this victory, which did much to bring about the capitulation of General Burgoyne, Stark received the thanks of Congress and a commission as brigadier-general in the Continental Army (Oct. 4, 1777). He took part in the opera- tions about Saratoga, and for a short time in 1778 and again in 1 781 he was commander of the northern department. In September 1783 he was breveted major-general. He died at Manchester, New Hampshire, on the 8th of May 1822. John Stark's brother, William (1724–1776), served in the Seven Years' War and afterwards on the frontier; and at the outbreak of the War of Independence, piqued because he was not put in command of a regiment, he entered the British service.

See Memoir and Official Correspondence of General John Stark (Concord, N.H., 1860) by his grandson Caleb Stark (1804–1864), who wrote in 1831 Reminiscences of the French War containing Rogers's Expeditions with the New England Rangers and an Account . . . of John Stark.