SWORD AND PEN. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE GLAZIER FAMILY. Lineage of Willard Glazier.--A good stock.--Oliver Glazier at the Battle of Bunker Hill.--The home of honest industry.--The Coronet of Pembroke.--The "Homestead Farm."--Mehitable Bolton.--Her New England home.--Her marriage to Ward Glazier.--The wild "North Woods."--The mother of the soldier-author. Willard Glazier comes of the mixed blood of Saxon and of Celt. We first hear of his ancestors upon this side of the Atlantic at that period of our nation's history which intervened between the speck of war at Lexington and the cloud of war at Bunker Hill. Massachusetts and the town of Boston had become marked objects of the displeasure of the British Parliament. Later, in 1775, Ethan Allen had startled Captain Delaplace by presenting his lank figure at the captain's bedside and demanding the surrender of Ticonderoga in the name of the "Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." In the language of Daniel Webster, "A spirit pervaded all ranks, not transient, not boisterous, but deep, solemn, determined." War on their own soil and at their own doors was indeed a strange work to the yeomanry of New England; but their consciences were convinced of its necessity, and when their country called them to her defense they did not withhold themselves from the perilous responsibility. The statement of Quincy seemed to pervade all hearts. Said that distinguished son of genius and patriotism, "Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a halter intimidate; for, under God, we are determined that, wheresoever, whensoever, and howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men." At such a time, and among such men, we find enrolled in the ranks of the patriot army Oliver Glazier, the great-grandfather of the subject of the present biography. Oliver's father was John Glazier, a Massachusetts Lancastrian, born in 1739. John Glazier was the son of William Glazier, born about the year 1700, his ancestry being respectively of English and of Scotch extraction. Oliver himself, however, was born in the town of Lancaster, in the province or colony of Massachusetts, May twenty-third, 1763. Hence the blood of Norman, of Saxon and of Celt, that had forgotten the animosities of race and mingled quietly in the veins of his ancestors, had become purely American in Oliver, and though but little over fourteen years of age, we find him doing yeoman service upon the ramparts of Bunker Hill. That he performed well his part in the struggle for liberty, is evident from the fact that he appears upon the rolls as a pensioner, from the close of that memorable contest until the time of his death.