Some one, long ago, wrote of this sign, which was affixed to one of the great trees that stood in front of the tavern on the Green, "It represents General Wolfe in full uniform, his eye fixed in an expression of fiery earnestness upon some distant object, and his right arm extended in emphatic gesture, as if charging on the foe or directing some important movement of his army. The sign seems to have fared hardly in one respect, being plentifully sprinkled with shot-holes!" A contemporary wrote of him, about this time: "Col. Putnam served with the Connecticut troops under Amherst in the last war. By his courage and conduct he secured to himself a good share of reputation. When peace commenced he returned to the civil line of life. Of late he has occupied a tavern with a farm annexed to it." As the landlord of a country tavern, the genial and loquacious colonel with a past peculiarly his own, possessing the rotund figure, the frame and habit of the traditional Boniface, seemed at last to have fallen into his proper groove, where he fitted exactly. Now nearly fifty years of age, with a record of ten years' fighting any one might well be proud of, a reputation not confined within the boundaries of his own country, and with some of his children already married and settled around him, he had good reason to consider himself a fixture at Brooklyn Green. He had joined the Congregational Church, soon after the death of his first wife, in 1765, and took a leading part in building the structure that stands to-day near the site of the first meeting-house, which was erected in 1734. It was in the year 1771 that the new church was erected, opposite the house that Putnam turned into a tavern, and the old tree that bore the sign of Wolfe. Church and trees remain to-day, separated only by the public road; but the tavern itself no longer exists, the building having been torn down some time ago. In 1772, it was voted by the parish that "Colonel Putnam take care of ye new meeting-house and ring ye bell," for which service he was to receive three pounds a year. Thus the duties of sexton and bell-ringer were assumed by this many-sided man; but he had not performed them long before he was called to go on a strange voyage in quest of lands in West Florida, which were reported to have been granted to the survivors of the French-and-Indian wars. The claims of the survivors were just enough; but their quest was fruitless, for they were not given the lands. However, a band of "military adventurers" set out, under the leadership of General Phineas Lyman, who had been in command of Connecticut's troops all through the wars, and Landlord Putnam was one of them.