Simon Hunt’s Company

The historical name for the Simon Hunt Company is the 5th Company of the 3rd Middlesex County regiment of Massachusetts Militia. In the custom of the period, many units were described by the officers in charge. It is common to read the company’s name as Captain Simon Hunt’s Company, Colonel Eleazer Brooks’s Regiment. Eleazer Brooks was the Colonel commanding the regiment from its creation in February, 1776 until his promotion to Brigadier General in October, 1778. Acton’s Francis Faulkner was then promoted to Colonel of the 3rd Middlesex County Regiment in February of 1779.

The Simon Hunt Company was created from a restructuring of the local militias after the first year of war. The 5th Company of the 3rd Middlesex was entirely made up of Acton men, some veterans of the fight on April 19th, 1775 at Concord. An interesting note about this company’s history and the history of the 3rd Middlesex County Regiment is its longevity through the war. Because of the longevity of this unit, the 3rd Middlesex County Regiment, and Simon Hunt’s Company, was present at several pivotal times in the American Revolution;
such as the evacuation of Boston, the Battle of White Plains, the Battle of Saratoga, and the guarding of the British and German prisoners from Saratoga at Cambridge.

Though the unit continued through the war, the men in the unit were rotated as enlistments expired and new enlistments joined. It appears from the records that the initial company was strictly made up of Acton men, but future enlistments came from the surrounding towns in Middlesex County for the unit to keep its enlistment numbers. Several of the original enlistments of the company later re-enlisted with Captain Simon Hunt’s Company. This trend continued as no less than 17 members of Captain Simon Hunt’s Company served multiple enlistments in the call for freedom.