Seven years after his family moved to Connecticut, Thomas Knowlton went on scouting missions with his brother during the French and Indian War.
Thomas W. Knowlton (November 22, 1740  September 16, 1776) was an American patriot who served in the French and Indian War and was a colonel during the American Revolution. Knowlton was born into a military family on November 22, 1740 in West Boxford, Massachusetts. When he was eight, his family relocated to a farm in Ashford, Connecticut (current property of the June Norcross Webster Scout Reservation). In 1755, at fifteen, Knowlton served in the French and Indian War with his older brother Daniel. He enlisted in Captain John Durkee's company, and is known to have joined Daniel on scouting missions into enemy territory. 
