Molly Stark House NH Historical Highway Marker

The woman behind the marker

Elizabeth "Molly" Page (1737–1814) was far more than the wife of a famous general. Around 1752 the Page family moved from Haverhill, Massachusetts to land the Starks held in Dunbarton, and Molly was no stranger to firearms: tradition holds that she brought down a bear shortly after arriving at the new homestead. She married John Stark on 20 August 1758, and the couple had a large family—reports cite as many as eleven living children, all of whom she taught to read and write while keeping the farm running through years of her husband's military service.↗↗

When the Revolution began, Molly rode out with supplies, carrying clothes and food by horseback to her husband's troops, and some accounts even place her at the Battle of Bunker Hill helping to reload muskets. During a smallpox epidemic in August 1777 she served as nurse and doctor to Hessian soldiers captured by Stark's men, who were sent to the family's New Hampshire home when it was pressed into service as a makeshift hospital.↗↗

The house at Page's Corner

The marker commemorates the homestead built by Molly's father, Captain Caleb Page, around 1759. According to the inscription, this was Molly's home both as a girl and as the wife of General Stark. Two notable figures were born within its walls: the couple's first son, Caleb Stark, who served alongside his father during the Revolution and was reportedly the youngest survivor of the Battle of Bunker Hill; and Molly's brother, Jeremiah Page, who later became a Superior Court justice and a delegate to New Hampshire's first constitutional convention in 1778. The structure also housed Dunbarton's first post office, established in 1834.↗↗

The crossroads where the marker stands is locally known as Page's Corner, a fitting name for land the Page family once settled. A statue of the Starks' eldest son Caleb stands in the town today, and the related Jeremiah Page House of circa 1754 sits about half a mile south of the marker along Route 13—making this a compact cluster of family and colonial history for anyone with a few spare minutes.↗↗

"Or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow"

Molly's name entered the national memory on 16 August 1777, at the Battle of Bennington in Vermont. As British and Hessian forces under Colonel Friedrich Baum moved to seize American supply depots, General Stark rallied his raw New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont militia with a cry that has echoed ever since: "There are the redcoats and they are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!" That day, in heavy rain along the Walloomsac River, Stark's men defeated Baum and then turned on the German reinforcements under Breymann who arrived too late to help.↗↗↗

The victory at Bennington was a turning point of the war and a precursor to the great American triumph at Saratoga a few months later—the win that persuaded France to recognize and support the new nation. It is the kind of battlefield legacy that makes a roadside marker in a small farm town feel unexpectedly consequential.↗↗

A state motto born from this family's story

General John Stark is also the voice behind New Hampshire's famous motto, "Live Free or Die." Too frail in 1809, at age 81, to attend a Bennington anniversary reunion, he sent his regards by letter, closing with the volunteer toast: "Live free or die—death is not the worst of evils." The phrase, written more than a century before it became official, ties the Dunbarton homestead directly to the words now stamped on the state's license plates.↗↗↗

John Stark died in 1822, said to be the last surviving Continental general of the Revolution, and is buried with Molly at Stark Park on the banks of the Merrimack River in Manchester (then Derryfield)—a separate site worth knowing if you are tracing the family's full story through southern New Hampshire.↗↗

Making the stop

This is a quick, reflective roadside visit rather than a hands-on attraction: the marker itself is what stands publicly at the crossroads, while the homestead it commemorates is a private historic structure, so treat the grounds with respect and read the inscription from the road. A few minutes here gives you Molly's biography, the Page family's role in early Dunbarton, and the link to Bennington and the state motto. Pair it with the Jeremiah Page House nearby or fold it into a longer drive along the General John Stark Scenic Byway for a fuller picture of New Hampshire's Revolutionary-era families.↗↗