ROCHESTER — In 1776 soldiers from Rochester marched off to battle against the British Empire. In 2023, those soldiers were finally honored with the dedication of a new monument outside Rochester Town Hall.

The dedication, which “honors the men of Old Rochester who fought in the Revolutionary War,” was etched onto a large rock outside Town Hall with the help of the Rochester Highway Department, said Rochester Historical Commission member Connie Esbach.

Before the monument was dedicated, the Wareham militia, joined by the Rochester Boy Scouts and the Colonial Navy Fife and Drum Corps, marched toward Town Hall from the Muster Field by Dexter Lane.

They played patriotic tunes along their march, and fired their muskets in a salute.

“When it came [time] to pick up arms against England there were many a ‘Rochestarian’ who answered the call,” said Tri-Town Veterans Service Officer Christopher Gerrior. “We are here today to honor their courage and sacrifice.”

At the time of the revolution, said Esbach, Rochester included what is now Marion and Mattapoisett.

“Marion likes to ignore this fact but until the 1850s it was all Rochester,” she said. “[Like how] Onset is a section of Wareham.”

She added that in the early days of the war, Rochester was more enthusiastic than other parts of the Plymouth Colony.

“When Boston was sending out letters to the surrounding towns, Rochester was much more responsive,” she said. “A lot of the Plymouth Colony towns were apathetic in the beginning but I think they caught on after a while.”

And according to Esbach, that shows in the sheer number of men who joined the war effort, so many in fact that it would have been impossible to list them all on the monument.

Family names included Barlow, Briggs, Clapp, Dexter, Hammond, Hathaway, Hiller, Morse, Nye Randall and many more.

Esbach was also sure to highlight the sacrifices of the women who stayed behind during the war.

“This memorial is to the men of old rochester but we [also] want to remember the sacrifices of the women who stayed behind and kept the families, the farms and the businesses together and who are unfortunately usually a footnote to history,” she said.

At the end of his dedication, Gerrior issued a challenge to the people of the Tri-Town to better remember the sacrifices of Rochester’s veterans.

“Each time you drive by this memorial, think to yourself what it must have taken for these men to leave their bucolic though difficult lives here in Rochester to fight against the most powerful empire in the history of the world at that time.”