• Col. John Gorham, the first child of the Hon. Shubael Gorham, was a distinguished officer in the colonial forces in the later French wars. He was present at the capture of Louisburg, and rendered efficient service to the country during the war. In the Louisburg expedition he was Lieut. Colonel of the 7th Mass. and Captain of the Second company. His commission was dated Feb. 20, 1744. Col. Gorham resided in Barnstable till the year 1742, when he removed to Falmouth, Me., now Portland. While his residence was in Falmouth, he spent much of his time in Gorhamtown attending to his lands, and promoting the interests of the settlers. He married, Mar. 9, 1731, Elizabeth, daughter of James Allyn, who is said to have been one of the most accomplished ladies of her time. They had fifteen children. No complete list of them is on record.
It does not appear that any of Col. John Gorham’s family settled in Gorham. After the close of the French war, Col. Gorham and his wife visited Europe, were presented at the court of St. James, and had an audience with the King, a distinction then attained to by but few of the subjects of royalty. In 1749 Col. Gorham was a resident of Boston. He died about the year 1750, of the small pox, in London, while engaged in prosecuting his claim for expenses in the Louisburg expedition. His widow Elizabeth married, in 1775, Col. John Stevens of Gloucester, and died Dec. 25, 1786, in her 73rd year.3370, p 520

• The most distinguished service of Colonel John Gorham was as captain of a company of Indian rangers at Annapolis, in 1744, and as a member of the governor’s council of Nova Scotia from 1749 to 1751. In 1749 he was sent to England to explain the state of military affairs in the colonies. Colonel Gorham and his wife, Elizabeth Allyn, were presented at court. His death is supposed to have been by smallpox in London.3216

• Gorham made his first official visit to Nova Scotia in September of 1744 when he arrived with Captain Edward Tyng at Annapolis Royal. Tyng had sailed from Boston to bring relief to the besieged garrison at Annapolis Royal. Gorham had with him “fifty picked Indians,” Mohawks of the Finger Lakes district (present day upstate New York). “Gorham Rangers” were to make an immediate impact and the siege was soon at an end. With the arrival of “Gorham Rangers,” matters were to be put on an entirely different basis in Nova Scotia than what they had been. The first 34 years of British occupation in Nova Scotia had consisted of a holding or defensive operation: the Gorham Rangers were an offensive bunch and they knew exactly how to apply frontier techniques to their benefit. They were to make a lasting impression and were to become much hated by the French and the local Indians.3679, p 1

• Governor Shirley, in a letter written to the Duke of Bedford, Oct. 13, 1749, says: “Capt. Gorham’s activity and usefulness in his Majesty’s service I cannot too much commend to your grace.”3098, p 87,3408, p 87

• He died of smallpox in St. Martin’s in the Fields, Westminster, London, England, in December, 1751/2.3097, p 352

• At the age of only 43, Gorham died within months of his arrival in London: smallpox, the scourge of the age, an indiscriminate killer the world over, took another victim.3679, p 3

• Author of the “Wast Book” transcribed in Mayflower Descendant, Vol. 5, 1903.3097, p 353