State Militia under quartermaster officer George Petrie. Weed's regiment performed duty in Sackets Harbor, and twice successfully paraded to dissuade British commanders on Lake Ontario from landing troops. In January 1815, Weed's regiment was mustered out of the service and he returned to Utica. Arrest and trial While residing in Cooperstown in July 1814, Weed was one of five men arrested the day after a Sunday evening Methodist religious service and accused of harassing several women who had departed the village by wagon after leaving the church. Newspaper publisher Israel W. Clark posted a bond to secure Weed's release, while attorney Ambrose L. Jordan volunteered to act as his counsel. Unbeknownst to Weed, Catherine Ostrander, the daughter of the owners of the Cooperstown rooming house where Weed had been staying, had arranged for his bail and legal representation. The trial was postponed several times because of events surrounding the war, and took place in early 1815. District attorney Charles P. Kirkland decided to try Weed first, separately from the other defendants. Three of the girls who had been in the wagon denied seeing Weed after the church service. The fourth was Catherine Ostrander, who testified that after leaving the church, she had walked through the village with Weed until they reached the road that led to her home, where she boarded the wagon, after which she had not seen Weed again that night. Jordan opted not to call any witnesses, while Kirkland apologized for not having investigated the story of the initial complainant more fully and offered to dismiss the case. The judge told Jordan he would dismiss the case unless Weed preferred that the jury decide. Wanting his innocence on the record, Weed opted for a jury verdict, and the jurors immediately acquitted him, not even rising from their seats to leave the courtroom for deliberations. The charges against the other defendants were soon dismissed. Weed included the details of his arrest and trial in his autobiography because his political opponents had previously attempted to use it against him. (Weed and Ostrander married in 1818.) Continued printing career After Weed's trial, he again enlisted in the militia, but when news of the passage of the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812 made its way to central New York, Weed's militia company was disbanded. He then traveled to Albany, where he obtained employment running the printing presses