COBB, David, soldier, born in Attleborough, Massachusetts, 14 September, 1748; died in Taunton, Massachusetts, 17 April, 1839. He was graduated at Harvard in 1766, studied medicine in Boston, and practiced at Taunton. Massachusetts, for many years. He was secretary of the Bristol county convention of 1774, and in 1775 was a delegate to the provincial congress. He served in New Jersey and Rhode Island in 1777-'8 as lieutenant colonel of Henry Jackson's regiment, was for several years an aide-de-camp of Washington, and at the close of the war was colonel and brevet brigadier-general. Washington intrusted to him the duty of entertaining the

French officers, and of negotiating with Sir Guy Carleton for the evacuation of New York. He was also an intimate friend of General Greene and General Knox. Afterward he became major general of militia, and judge of the Bristol county court of common pleas. During Shays's rebellion he declared that he "would sit as a judge, or die as a general," and by his energy several+ times protected his court when it was menaced by armed insurgents, and prevented bloodshed. He was elected to congress as a federalist, serving from 2 December, 1793, till 3 March, 1795, and in 1796 became a land agent and farmer in Oldsborough, Maine He was elected to the Massachusetts senate from the eastern district of Maine, in 1802 was president of that body, was elected to the council in 1808, i and became lieutenant governor in 1809. He was a member of the board of military defense in 1812, and chief justice of the Hancock county court of common pleas, and returned to Taunton in 1817.