Up the Kennebec River with Benedict Arnold and Oliver Hanchett

Posted on December 19, 2025

Up the Kennebec River with Benedict Arnold and Oliver Hanchett

In December 1775 outside the walls of Quebec City, General Richard Montgomery’s American army was staging a siege. Included in the siege forces was a company of Connecticut volunteers commanded by Captain Oliver Hanchett. Hanchett had led a company in the 2^nd Connecticut Regiment over the summer at the Siege of Boston, but in September he was put in command of volunteers in Benedict Arnold’s expedition to Canada, leaving the majority of his company behind at Boston. Arnold and his men planned to sail to Maine and follow an obscure route along the Kennebec and Chaudiere Rivers to Quebec.

The expedition soon turned into a nightmare. The route to Quebec City was almost twice as long as Arnold had believed, and the journey took more than twice as long as planned. Leaky boats spoiled many of the expedition’s rations, and men coped with hunger so severe that they were reduced to eating leather while sailing down rapids and trekking through swamps. Death and desertion reduced the strength of the party from 1100 to only 600 by the time it arrived at Quebec City in mid-November.

By the time Montgomery’s army, itself delayed by a long siege of Fort St. Jean, met up with Arnold at Quebec and began a siege of the city in early December, winter had set in. Hanchett’s volunteers’ enlistments were expiring, and for the Americans to succeed, Quebec had to fall quickly.

On December 19, 1775—250 years ago today—the Connecticut Committee of the Pay Table issued this pay order to Hanchett for 50 pounds, 2 shillings to pay his original company. Since Hanchett was in Canada, the money was given to his subordinate, Lt. Consider Williston. The men who served near Boston with Williston received their pay, but it is very unlikely that this money made it to Hanchett and the volunteers outside Quebec. On December 31, 1775, the army tried to force its way into Quebec City. In the ensuing battle, Montgomery was killed, Arnold was wounded, and Hanchett was captured. He would spend the next year in British custody.

Learn about the pay order (object ID MS.7533, property of Robert Nittolo) on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database: https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/31399