Category: Passions (Page 3 of 4)

Deborah Sampson was born on December 27, 1760 in Winnetuxet, later called Plympton, Massachusetts to Jonathan and Deborah Sampson. She was related to Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Plantation. The oldest of three sisters and three brothers, her contributions to the American Revolution would make her our nation’s first female soldier.

Deborah was five when she first went to live her mother’s cousin, Ruth Fuller of Middle borough, Massachusetts. Ruth died when Deborah was eight. She then went to live Mrs. Thatcher, the 80 year old widow of a First Congregational Church minister. A local minister noticed how hard Deborah worked and made arrangements for her to serve the household of Benjamin Thomas.

Deborah took care of Benjamin Thomas, his wife and their eight sons until she was 18 years old. During her time with the Thomas family, she worked in their home and fields. During the winter when there wasn’t much work to be done, she was allowed to attend school. When she was not in school, she would stay up after everyone had gone to bed and study the school books the Thomas boys brought home. At the Thomas’ home, she learned to cook, spin, weave, how to run farm equipment and how to shoot a musket. She would go along with the Thomas sons when they went hunting and learned to shoot just as good as they could. Deborah stood about 5 foot eight inches tall, was heavy boned, very strong and of light complexion.

Deacon Thomas taught his children how to use money wisely. He gave every child some lambs to raise and sell and he included Deborah. She was very wise with her lambs, selling them for the highest price she could get. She kept her money hidden in a handkerchief.

Deborah was ten years old when the Boston Massacre happened in 1770 and thirteen years old in 1773 at the time of the Boston Tea Party. The citizens of Boston refused to pay for the tea dumped in the ocean and in 1774 King George III issued the Intolerable Acts. When the people of Boston started talking about how they would starve under King George’s laws, Deborah planted a garden for herself and the Thomas family.

On December 16, 1775, the official start of the Revolutionary War, Deborah made a decision to fight in the War. She was sixteen years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. The men and boys from all around were joining the militia or the Continental Army led by General George Washington. By the time Deborah was eighteen, the United States was losing many battles and France had just decided to join with the Continental Army.

She left the Thomas’ home in 1779 and became a teacher in a Middleborough public school. She still thought about joining the Continental Army, but didn’t really know how she could do it. Then in the winter of 1780, Mr. Thomas came for a visit and told her about two of his sons being killed in Virginia when they were fighting with Marquis de Lafayette. She had grown close to all the Thomas boys and this is when she committed to serving with the Continentals.

Deborah had taken a room from Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Leonard and towards the end of 1781, she decided she would try to enlist in the Continental Army. Taking some clothes from Samuel, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard, she tested her disguise by going to visit her mother. When her mother didn’t recognize her, Deborah Sampson knew she could sneak into the Continental Army.

Finally, on May 20, 1782 at the age of twenty-one Deborah Sampson enlisted in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army at Bellingham, Massachusetts, as Robert Shurtleff, which was the name of her oldest brother who had died at the age of eight. Deborah was almost immediately detected when noticed she held the quill with her finger in that funny position, like a female. No one else seemed to notice and Deborah Sampson, otherwise known as Robert Shurtleff, was now a soldier with the Continental Army for the next three years of her enlistment. Three days later she was officially part of Captain George Webb’s company. She was soon excommunicated from the Baptist Church, because the people of Middleborough had heard she was dressing as a man and serving in the Army.

Her first narrow escape from discovery was when she was altering her poorly fitting uniform, and was observed to be very good with a needle. She explained it away by stating there were no girls in her family, so as a youngest she had to learn how to sew.

Her regiment was sent to West Point, New York. During a scouting party to try to find food for her regiment, she was shot in the leg by Loyalists who caught her stealing from a cave near Tarrytown. In order to maintain her disguise, Deborah refused to see a doctor and took care of her own wound.

She was at West Point for eighteen months and fought in several battles. Deborah was injured two more times. Once near Tarrytown, her head was cut with a sword and then again near Eastchester. This time she was hit in the thigh by a musket ball was carried to the hospital. But, once there, she showed the surgeon the lesser wound to her head, and he released her. She tried to dig the musket ball out of her thigh with her pen knife! Failing that, she nursed the wound as best she could. But, having left the ball in the leg was to cause her trouble for the rest of her life. She again refused to be treated by a doctor and causing her injuries not to heal completely.

It wasn’t until she came down with a “malignant fever,” which was being passed around the soldiers, that she was forced to see a doctor at a hospital in Philadelphia. Dr. Binney examined her and discovered she was not a man. He didn’t tell anyone, but took her to his own home where she could get better care. Once she was well again, Dr. Binney met with her commanding officer.

Deborah Sampson knew right away that Dr. Binney had told her commanding officers, but on October 25, 1783, almost two months after the Peace Treaty of Paris was signed, she went to deliver the letter to General Washington. He was very nice and didn’t make it harder on her than it was already was. He handed her papers that honorably discharged her from the Army with some money so she could get home. He also gave her a note which gave her some of his good advice.

In 1784 she married Benjamin Gannett, a farmer, and they had three children, Earl, Mary and Patience. On January 20, 1792, the Massachusetts General Court ordered that she be paid 34 pounds for her service in the United States Army. In the order, the Court said: she “did actually perform the duty of a soldier. The said Deborah exhibit an extraordinary instance of female heroism, by discharging the duties of a faithful, gallant soldier, and at the same time preserving the virtue and chastity of her sex unsuspected and unblemished, and was discharged from the service with a fair and honorable character….” Later, in 1804, Paul Revere sent a letter to Congress telling them she should receive more money for her duties in the War. She then received a U.S. pension of four dollars per month. She also received a land grant for her military services as a Revolutionary Soldier.

In 1802, Sampson started traveling around the New England states telling about her experiences in the United State Military, always wearing her military uniform. She received a letter from George Washington inviting Robert Shurtliffe to visit Washington. In her travels, she lectured in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York and was perhaps America’s first women lecturer. Deborah Sampson Gannett typically delivered a set of speeches about her wartime experiences, and at the conclusion of her speeches, would leave the stage, put on her “regimentals” and return to demonstrate the manual of arms, unheard of from a woman, and usually to the cheers of her appreciative audience.

Deborah Sampson Gannett died at the age of sixty-six on April 29, 1827 in Sharon, Massachusetts. After her death, her husband, Benjamin Gannett asked Congress to increase the pension. On July 7, 1838, (one year after Mr. Gannett died), Congress passed the “Act for the relief of the heirs of Deborah Gannett, a soldier of the Revolution.” Her children received $466.66 for the medical expenses she incurred from taking care of her own wounds so she would not be found out. On her tombstone is inscribed “Deborah wife of Benjamin Gannett, died April 29, 1827, aged 68 years”. On the reverse side of the stone it reads “Deborah Sampson Gannett, Robert Shurtleff, The Female Soldier Service 1781-1783.”

In May of 1983, then Governor Michael J. Dukakis, signed a proclamation which named Deborah Sampson, alias Robert Shurtleff, soldier of the American Revolution, the “Official Heroine of the State of Massachusetts.”

Contents taken from the following resources:
http://www.hobart.k12.in.us/cside/American%20Revolution/revbio/dsampson.htm
http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/womansoldier.html

Benjamin Rush is considered a Founding Father of the United States. Rush lived in the state of Pennsylvania and was a physician, writer, educator, humanitarian, as well as the founder of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Rush signed the Declaration of Independence and attended the Continental Congress. He served as Surgeon General in the Continental army. Later in life, Rush became a professor of chemistry, medical theory, and clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania. Despite having a wide influence on the development of American government, he is not as widely known as many of his American contemporaries. Rush was also an early opponent of slavery and capital punishment.

He was born in December of 1745 in Byberry, Pennsylvania, some twelve miles from Philadelphia. His father died when Benjamin was six, and his mother placed him in the care of his maternal uncle Dr. Finley who became his teacher and advisor for many years. In 1759 he attended the College of Philadelphia, where he ultimately attained a Bachelor of Arts degree. He continued his education with a Dr. Redman of Philadelphia for four years and then crossed the Atlantic to attend to an M.D. at Edinburgh. He spent several years in Europe studying and practicing Medicine, French, Italian, Spanish, and science. He returned in 1769, opened a private practice in Philadelphia, and was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the College of Philadelphia.

Rush was active in the Sons of Liberty and was elected to attend the provincial conference to send delegates to the Continental Congress. Thomas Paine consulted Rush when writing the profoundly influential pro-independence pamphlet Common Sense. Rush represented Pennsylvania and signed the Declaration of Independence. He also represented Philadelphia at Pennsylvania’s own Constitutional Convention, and got into trouble when he criticized the new Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776.

Benjamin Rush was soon beloved in the city, where he practiced extensively among the poor. His practice was successful, his classes were popular, and he further began to engage in writing that would prove to be of considerable importance to the emerging nation. Rush published the first American textbook on Chemistry. In 1773 he contributed editorial assays to the papers about the Patriot cause and also joined the American Philosophical Society.

The highlight of his involvement in abolishing slavery might be the pamphlet he wrote that appeared in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York in 1773 entitled “An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America, upon Slave-Keeping.” In this first of his many attacks on the social evils of his day, he not only assailed the slave trade, but the entire institution of slavery. Dr. Rush argued scientifically that Negroes were not by nature intellectually or morally inferior. Any apparent evidence to the contrary was only the perverted expression of slavery, which “is so foreign to the human mind, that the moral faculties, as well as those of the understanding are debased, and rendered torpid by it.”

While Rush was representing Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress (and serving on its Medical Committee), he also used his medical skills in the field. Rush accompanied the Philadelphia militia during the battles after which the British occupied Philadelphia and most of New Jersey and the Continental Congress fled to York, Pennsylvania. The Army Medical Service was in disarray, between the military casualties, extremely high losses due to typhoid, yellow fever and other camp illnesses, political conflicts between Dr.John Morgan and Dr. William Shippen, Jr., and inadequate supplies and guidance from the Medical Committee. Nonetheless, Rush accepted an appointment as surgeon-general of the middle department of the Continental Army. Dr. Rush’s order “Directions for preserving the health of soldiers” became one of the foundations of preventative military medicine and was repeatedly republished, including as late as 1908.

As the war continued and Army forces under General Washington suffered a series of defeats, Rush secretly campaigned for removal of Washington as commander in chief. Rush criticized General George Washington in two handwritten but unsigned letters while still serving under the Surgeon General. One, to Virginia Governor Patrick Henry dated January 12, 1778, quoted General Thomas Conway saying that if not for God’s grace the ongoing war would have been lost by Washington and his weak counselors. Henry forwarded the letter to Washington, despite Rush’s request that the criticism be conveyed orally, and Washington recognized the handwriting. At the time, the Conway Cabal[1] was trying to replace Washington with Horatio Gates as commander-in-chief. The letter also relayed General Sullivan’s criticism that forces directly under Washington were undisciplined and mob-like, and contrasted Gates’ army as “a well-regulated family”. Ten days later, Rush wrote John Adams relaying complaints inside Washington’s army, including about “bad bread, no order, universal disgust” and praising Conway, who had been appointed Inspector General.

Shippen sought Rush’s resignation, and received it by the end of the month after Continental Congress delegate John Witherspoon, chairman of a committee to investigate Morgan’s and Rush’s charges of misappropriation and mismanagement against Shippen, told Rush his complaints would not produce reform. Rush later expressed regret for his gossip against Washington. In a letter to John Adams in 1812, Rush wrote, “He [Washington] was the highly favored instrument whose patriotism and name contributed greatly to the establishment of the independence of the United States.” Rush also successfully pleaded with Washington’s biographers Judge Bushrod Washington and Chief Justice John Marshall to delete his association with those stinging words.

Rush’s teaching career and medical practice continued till the end of his life. He became the Professor of medical theory and clinical practice at the consolidated University of Pennsylvania in 1791, where he was a popular figure at the height of his influence in medicine and in social circles. He also remained a social activist, a prominent advocate for the abolition of slavery, an advocate for scientific education for the masses, including women, and for public medical clinics to treat the poor. Rush was a founding member of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (known today as the Pennsylvania Prison Society), which greatly influenced the construction of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.

In 1789 he wrote in Philadelphia newspapers in favor of adopting the Federal constitution. He was then elected to the Pennsylvania convention which adopted that constitution. He was appointed treasurer of the US Mint where he served from 1797 to 1813. Despite his great contributions to early American society, Rush may be more famous today as the man who, in 1812, helped reconcile the friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams by encouraging the two former Presidents to resume writing to each other.

In 1803, Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis to Philadelphia to prepare for the Lewis and Clark Expedition under the tutelage of Rush, who taught Lewis about frontier illnesses and the performance of bloodletting. Rush provided the corps with a medical kit that included Turkish opium for nervousness, emetics to induce vomiting, medicinal wine, fifty dozen of Dr. Rush’s Bilious Pills, laxatives containing more than 50% mercury, which the corps called “thunderclappers”. Their meat-rich diet and lack of clean water during the expedition gave the men cause to use them frequently. Though their efficacy is questionable, their high mercury content provided an excellent tracer by which archaeologists have been able to track the corps’ actual route to the Pacific.

Rush advocated Christianity in public life and in education, and sometimes compared himself to the prophet Jeremiah. Dr. Rush regularly attended Christ Church, Philadelphia in Philadelphia and counted William White among his closest friends (and neighbors). Ever the controversialist, Rush became involved in internal disputes over the revised Book of Common Prayer and the splitting of the Episcopal Church from the Church of England, as well as dabbled with Presbyterianism, Methodism, and Unitarianism.

Rush fought for temperance, and public schools, as well as founded the Bible Society at Philadelphia (now known as the Pennsylvania Bible Society), and promoted the American Sunday School Union. When many public schools stopped using the Bible as a textbook, Rush proposed that the U.S. government require such use, as well as furnish an American bible to every family at public expense. In 1806 Rush also proposed inscribing “The Son of Man Came into the World, Not To Destroy Men’s Lives, But To Save Them.” above the doors of courthouses and other public buildings, apparently disregarding current views that such conflicts with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Earlier, on July 16, 1776, Rush had complained to Virginia’s Patrick Henry about a provision in that state’s constitution of 1776 which forbad clergymen from serving in the legislature.

Rush felt that the United States was the work of God: “I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as perfectly satisfied that the Union of the United States in its form and adoption is as much the work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament”. In 1798, after the Constitution’s adoption, Rush declared:” The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.” Rush also helped Richard Allen found the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Benjamin Rush’s writings contained many notes about the less well known signers of the Declaration that came from his observations on the floor of congress. Other members of congress, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams foremost, had some harsh observations to make about Rush. He was handsome, well-spoken, a gentleman and a very attractive figure-he was also a gossip and was quick to rush to judgment about others. He was supremely confident of his own opinion and decisions, yet shallow and very unscientific in practice. His chief accomplishment as a physician was in the practice of bleeding the patient. It was said that he considered bleeding to be a cure for nearly any ailment. Even when the practice began to decline, he refused to reconsider the dangers of it. He died at the age of 68 at his home in Philadelphia, the most celebrated physician in America. He is buried along with his wife Julia in the Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia, not far from where Benjamin Franklin is buried.

Old North Church (officially, Christ Church in the City of Boston), at 193 Salem Street, in the North End of Boston, is the location from which the famous “One if by land, and two if by sea” signal is said to have been sent. This phrase is related to Paul Revere’s midnight ride, of April 18, 1775, which preceded the Battles of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution. Like many of the stories related to our history, they often are embellished to serve personal interests. Within this story is an unknown patriot, Captain John Pulling.

The church is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. It is the oldest active church building in Boston and is a National Historic Landmark. Inside the church is a bust of George Washington, which the Marquis de Lafayette reportedly remarked was the best likeness of him he had ever seen.

Old North Church was built in 1723, and was inspired by the works of Christopher Wren, the British architect who was responsible for rebuilding London after the Great Fire. In 1775, on the eve of America’s Revolution, the majority of the congregation were loyal to the British King and many held official positions in the royal government, including the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, making the fact that some members were loyalty to the Patriot cause even more extraordinary. The King had given the Old North’s its silver that was used at services and a Bible.

Into history comes Paul Revere , a talented silversmith, engraver but more importantly an active member of Boston’s Sons of Liberty. For months he has served as the group’s messenger, carrying information as far away as Philadelphia. When group leader Dr. Joseph Warren learns that General Gage’s army will march on Lexington and Concord, he calls once again on Revere (and young William Dawes) to ride into the countryside to warn area militia members. Dawes’s mission was to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that they were in danger of arrest. Dawes was to take the land route out of Boston through the Boston Neck, leaving just before the military sealed off the town.

For many months before Paul Revere would make his ride, tensions between the Colonists and British Troops had been on the rise, both in the city and in surrounding towns. The Royal Government (the British government in Massachusetts) wanted to ensure that troops would be able to secure the colony in case of rebellion. Orders went out to confiscate weapons that the Colonists had been storing throughout the countryside.

Several parties of British troops had been sent up the coast to confiscate ammunition in Salem and parts of what is now New Hampshire. In both of those cases, Paul Revere and other riders who were members of the Sons of Liberty, alerted the townspeople of the movement of British troops well before those troops could reach their destinations. The munitions were successfully hidden and the British troops were humiliated.

British soldiers guarded the exits to the city and anyone caught wandering the streets after dark could have be arrested. If both Revere and Dawes were detained, their warning would not reach the minutemen. A back-up plan was needed. Revere recalls the view of Charlestown from atop the Old North Church where he rang the bells as a teenager. He approached an intimate friend from boyhood and business associate, a man named Captain John Pulling to help. Both Paul Revere and John Pulling were members of Boston’s Committee of Correspondence. One of the principle roles of its members was to gather intelligence and track the movements of British troops within the Colonies. Pulling also had with ties to the church and Revere would ask a huge favor—to hang signal lanterns in the steeple.

John Pulling was the perfect choice. He was not only a member of the church but also a vestryman (part of the church’s governing body, like an elder). John Pulling was a passionate patriot. We know this because earlier that day, the vestry, Pulling and other vestrymen, made a decision to fire their Loyalist Rector, Rev. Mather Byles Jr., for preaching against their patriot cause. A bold move for liberty. If captured hanging the lanterns, Pulling hoped he could provide a believable reason for being in the church, he was part of the “management team” and needed to be there after firing their Rector. So on April 18th, Captain Pulling was ready to go to the church and hang two lanterns from the window on the north side facing Charleston. This would be the signal that the British Regulars were coming by sea.

Robert Newman, the sexton (janitor) of the Old North, also had patriot allegiances but, perhaps more importantly, he had the keys to the building. He also lived just across the street from the church. Newman was generally considered to be a trustworthy young man, but had not, as yet, been very active in the rebellion. He was not able to find work and had taken a job he did not like as the church caretaker. Eager to help out, he was known to be a man of few words and right for the job of helping in signaling a secret message.

Revere then went to his boat in Boston Harbor and was rowed across by two friends, Joshua Bentley and Thomas Richardson. The men used a petticoat to muffle decrease the noise made by the oars. Seven hundred British soldiers began their journey led by Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith of the 10th Regiment and Major John Pitcairn of the Marines. But by using the lantern method, they would have a fast way to inform the back-up riders in Charlestown about the movements of the British; these back-up riders planned to deliver the warning message to Lexington and Concord in case Revere and Dawes were arrested on the way. To be certain the message would get through.

About 10:00 PM, Newman opened the church door with his key before Captain Pulling joined him inside while Thomas Bernard stood guarding the door. Then John Pulling would hang the two lanterns for just under a minute to avoid catching the eyes of the British troops occupying Boston, but this was long enough for the message to be received in Charlestown. The militia waiting across the river had been told to look for the signal lanterns, and were prepared to act as soon as they saw them.

The warning was delivered miles away to dozens of towns, first by Revere and Dawes on horses, and then by other men on horses and men who rang church bells and town bells, beat drums, and shot off warning guns. Revere didn’t really say “The British are coming!” because most of the people in Massachusetts still thought of themselves as British. But he did say “The Regulars are coming out!” (or something similar) to almost every house along the way to Lexington after he felt safe from that British patrol. The lanterns were immediately seen by the British troops and Robert Newman, living across from the church, was placed under arrest. It would be Newman who would proclaim his innocence and give John Pulling’s name to the British officials. Newman was released and a search for Pulling began immediately.

At first Pulling hid in his house, inside an empty wind cask in the cellar. Then, disguised as a fisherman, he eluded the troops and embarked upon a small skiff to leave the city by sea. The skiff was challenged by a nearby English warship at anchor, but allowed to pass. Sometime later the small boat arrived at Nantasket Beach. At the same time, his wife Sarah Pulling, had also fled Boston. Now, John Pulling was a hunted man. They were to rendezvous at an old Cohasset cooper’s shop. While here, Mrs. Pulling would give birth to a daughter, born before the arrival of her husband. It is unclear for how long the Pulling’s remained hidden in the cooper’s shop (which must have been a primitive structure at best, lacking even the most rudimentary comforts of a home), but they did remain in hiding for an extended period. It is likely that John Pulling was a hunted man for the duration of the British occupation of Boston.

The identity and precise location of the Cohasset cooper’s shop where the Pulling’s would hide is not known, although historians conjecture it might have been among the numerous fishing and mercantile buildings located near our harbor. Here the Pulling’s remained, safe from British eyes. In their hasty flight from Boston, they had left all their property at home and arrived in Cohasset with scarcely any belongings. Thus the couple was destined to suffer from lack of resources during their time in exile. They remained in exile until the last British troops evacuated the city on March 17, 1776. Among the few belongings they were able to bring with them to Cohasset was Sarah’s Bible, which remained in the possession of her descendants for the next century and a half. In 1909 Sarah’s great, great grandson Harvey H. Pratt, of Scituate, a prominent Boston attorney, owned the old family Bible and was able to confirm the story of her exile at the Cohasset shore. Captain Pulling’s health had declined as a result of the privations suffered during his exile, for, although he resumed revolutionary activities following his return to Boston, he died at the age of fifty, in 1787. Sarah Thaxter Pulling, who had been Pulling’s second wife, later resided in Abington until her death at age ninety-nine, in 1846. A great grandson, Rev. Henry F. Lane, noted, “When I was a lad I distinctly remember hearing from my mother’s grandmother . . . that her husband hung the lights from the steeple of the Old North Church.”

So how did the Pulling’s sacrifice fare in history? Not too well. It is not the predominant story surrounding what we now celebrate as “Patriot’s Day.” Upon their return, they found that everything, their possessions and their home were gone. John and Sarah Pulling lost everything because of the light of two lanterns. Were John and Sarah’s risks of no value? Well, history tells us that Revere was actually detained by the British and did not reach Lexington until the battle had already begun. William Dawes did not make it either. He fell off his horse and the horse ran away. Upon procuring another horse, Dawes showed up late too. The message reached Lexington because of the many riders who could see the lanterns that night in the steeple. Those lights high on the church steeple, would start 13 colonies on a path that would create the greatest nation on the earth and the freedoms we enjoy today. Who does history give the credit for the lanterns to? A plaque on the side of the Old North Church gives all of the credit to Robert Newman.

One of the original lanterns is on display at the Concord Museum. The other lantern, is lost, rumored to have been broken during a tour.

Material taken from the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 15 By Massachusetts Historical Society (1876-1877)

A First Person Sermon called “Setting the Record Straight” telling the story of John Pulling [Vimeo Video]

Caesar Rodney may very well be one of those unknown patriots of the American Revolution that people see every day. If you were asked who is the man in the tricorn hat riding a horse on Delaware’s State Commemorative Quarter, most say Paul Revere but they are wrong. The State quarter, one of only a few dedicated to a person is dedicated to Caesar Rodney. So why such an honor? Rodney was an officer of the Delaware militia during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, a Continental Congressman from Delaware, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and President of Delaware during most of the American Revolution.

The family, from which Caesar Rodney was descended, was of ancient date, and is honorably spoken of in the history of early times. We read of Sir Walter De Rodeney, of Sir George De Rodeney, and Sir Henry De Rodeney, with several others of the same name, even earlier than the year 1234. Sir Richard De Rodeney accompanied the gallant Richard Coeur de Lion in his crusade to the Holy Land, where he fell, while fighting at the siege of Acre. Caesar Rodney, himself, was born on his father’s farm near Dover, Delaware, in October of 1728. He was tutored by his parents and may have attended a local Parson’s school, but received no formal education.

The Rodney’s were, by the standards of the day, wealthy members of society. Sufficient income was earned from the sale of wheat and barley to the Philadelphia and West Indies market to provide enough cash and leisure to allow members of the family to participate in the social and political life of Kent County. His mother was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Crawford, Anglican rector of Christ Church at Dover. Caesar Rodney was identified as an Episcopalian in the book, “A History of Delaware Through its Governors 1776-1984 by Roger A. Martin.” His maternal grandfather was an esteemed clergyman.

His father died when Caesar was 17 and was placed in the guardianship of Nicholas Ridgely who was a clerk of the peace in Kent county, and this seems to be the root of Rodney’s life in politics. In 1755, under the royal government, Rodney was commissioned High Sheriff of Kent County Delaware. This was quite a distinction for a man twenty-two years of age and he apparently honored the distinction, for in succeeding years his official capacities grew to include registrar of wills, recorder of deeds, clerk of the orphan’s court, and justice of the peace. At age thirty he attained his first elected office as a representative in the colonial legislature at Newcastle. He served in that position, reelected each year except 1771, until the legislature was dissolved in 1776-and then resumed the seat as a representative to the Upper House of the State of Delaware until 1784.

Because of Rodney’s later military experience, he was named Brigadier General of Delaware’s militia. As Delaware and the other colonies moved from protest to self-government and then to independence, the situation in strongly loyalist Kent and Sussex County rapidly deteriorated. Numerous local leaders spoke strongly in favor of maintaining the ties with Great Britain. Rodney and his militia were repeatedly required to suppress the resultant insurrections. Some of the Loyalists were arrested and jailed, some escaped to the swamps or British ships, and some just remained quietly resistant to the new government.

Caesar Rodney’s fame was generated by his famous nighttime ride. Rodney served in the Continental Congress along with Thomas McKean and George Read from 1774 through 1776. Rodney was in Dover attending to Loyalist activity in Sussex County when he received word from Thomas McKean that he and Read were deadlocked on the vote for independence. To break that deadlock, Rodney rode 70 miles on horseback through a thunderstorm on the night of July 1, 1776, arriving in Philadelphia “in his boots and spurs” on July 2, just as the voting was beginning. He voted with McKean and thereby allowed Delaware to join eleven other states in voting in favor of the resolution of independence. The wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved two days later; Rodney signed it on August 2. Backlash in Delaware led to Rodney’s electoral defeat in Kent County for a seat in the upcoming Delaware Constitutional Convention and the new Delaware General Assembly.

Rodney remained a leading patriot in his colony, a member of the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, a formative member of the Delaware Committee of Correspondence, a military leader in the colonial militia, and a delegate to the Continental Congress from formation until 1777. The following year he was elected President of the State of Delaware for a three year term, a duty that he assumed even as he served as Major-General of the Delaware Militia. In this office he played a crucial part not only in the defense of his own colony but in support of Washington’s Continental Army, for Delaware had a record of meeting or exceeding its quotas for troops and provisions throughout the revolutionary conflict. Rodney’s health and strength flagged for a time. He suffered from asthma and from a cancerous growth on his face, for which he never attained proper treatment. He saw his colony through the war at the cost of personal neglect.

In 1782 he was again elected to the national Congress, but was forced to decline the office due to failing health. He nonetheless continued to serve as Speaker to the Upper House of the Delaware Assembly. He died in that office, in June of 1784 of cancer.

Information was taken from the following references:
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/rodney.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_Rodney
http://colonialhall.com/rodney/rodney.php
http://www.adherents.com/people/pr/Caesar_Rodney.html

It is hard to tell how much of Molly Pitcher’s life is a folktale and how much is fact. Most of her story is attributed to Mary Ludwig Hays who earned her nickname from carrying water to infantry troops on hot days. Legend has it she also baked delicious food, washed clothes and blankets, and cared for sick and injured soldiers. Her most famous story took place at the Battle of Monouth Court House in June of 1178 So who really is Molly Pitcher?

“Molly Pitcher” was a common nickname for women who carried water to the troops during the war since water was typically carried in a pitcher. History assigns the names of Mary Hays, Mary Ludwig Hayes, Mary Ludwig McCauley, Margaret Corbin and Molly Pitcher to the same person. However, there were more than one.

Mary Ludwig was born to a German family in Pennsylvania. There is some dispute over her actual birth dates. A marker in the cemetery where she is buried lists her birth date as October 13, 1744. Mary had a moderate sized family including Mary and her older brother Johann Martin, and their parents, Anna Margaretha (Wildt) and Hans Georg Ludwick, who was a butcher. It is likely that she never attended school or learned to read, as education was not considered necessary for young girls during this time. At the age of 13, she went to work as a domestic servant. During the same year (still13 years old) she married a man by the name of William Hays (a barber). On July 12, 1774, in a meeting in the Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, Dr. William Irvine organized a town boycott of British goods as a protest of the British Tea Act. William Hays’ name appears on a list of people who were charged with enforcing the boycott. When the Revolutionary War began, William enlisted and became a gunner in the Pennsylvania Artillery. Mary eventually joined her husband as a camp follower during the Philadelphia Campaign (1777-1778) in New Jersey eventually wintering with the Army at Valley Forge.

Her name, Molly Pitcher, came as a result of her actions at the Battle of Monmouth Court House. Departing Valley Forge in June 1778, General George Washington moved his army across the Delaware River with goal of attacking General Sir Henry Clinton as his troops marched from Philadelphia to New York. On June 28, Washington dispatched Major General Charles Lee with 5,000 men to assault the British rear guard near Monmouth Court House, NJ. Lee mismanaged the fight and was forced to retreat with the British in pursuit. As Lee feel back, Washington advanced with the main army and rallied the troops. Repeated British attacks were beaten off before the fighting ended with both sides ultimately claiming victory. At the Battle, Mary Hays attended to the Revolutionary soldiers by giving them water. Just before the battle started, she found a spring to serve as her water supply. Two places on the battlefield are currently marked as the “Molly Pitcher Spring.” Mary Hays spent much of the early day carrying water to soldiers and artillerymen, often under heavy fire from British troops.

The weather was hot, over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometime during the battle, William Hays collapsed, either wounded or suffering from heat exhaustion. It has often been reported that Hays was killed in the battle, but it is known that he survived. A witness to the scene describes a husband and wife, Mary and William, working together: “A woman whose husband belonged to the artillery and who was then attached to a piece in the engagement, attended with her husband at the piece the whole time. While in the act of reaching a cartridge and having one of her feet as far before the other as she could step, a cannon shot from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat. Looking at it with apparent unconcern, she observed that it was lucky it did not pass a little higher, for in that case it might have carried away something else, and continued her occupation.”

Later in the evening, the fighting was stopped due to gathering darkness. Although George Washington and his commanders expected the battle to continue the following day, the British forces retreated during the night and continued on to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The battle was seen as a major victory for the Continental Army. After the battle, General Washington asked about the woman whom he had seen loading a cannon on the battlefield. In commemoration of her courage, he issued Mary Hays a warrant as a non-commissioned officer. Afterwards, she was known as “Sergeant Molly,” a nickname that she used for the rest of her life.

At the close of the War, William and Mary Hays returned to Pennsylvania. They settled in Carlisle where Mary went back to work as a domestic as well as a “charwoman” (a woman employed to clean) in the State House in Carlisle. After the death of William, Mary remarried another Revolutionary War veteran by the name of John McCauley. She was awarded a pension in 1822 by the Pennsylvania State Legislature and it wasn’t until the anniversary of the War in 1876 that a marker noting her exemplary service was placed on her grave. She died on January 22, 1832.

Another probable source for the legend of “Molly Pitcher” is the true story of Margaret Corbin, which bears many similarities to the story of Mary Hays. Margaret Corbin was the wife of John Corbin of Philadelphia, also an artilleryman in the Continental army. On November 12, 1776, John Corbin was one of 2,800 American soldiers who defended Fort Washington in northern Manhattan from 9,000 attacking Hessian troops under British command. When John Corbin was killed, Margaret took his place at the cannon, and continued to fire it until she was seriously wounded. Her arm was almost severed and her breast was lacerated by grapeshot. In 1779, Margaret Corbin was awarded an annual pension by the state of Pennsylvania for her heroism in battle. Margaret was the first woman in the United States to receive a military pension. She lived until about 1800 after receiving charity payments from the Invalid Regiment and later a small pension from Congress. She was known throughout her community as a bad-tempered, hard-drinking eccentric by the nickname of “Captain Molly!”

Information was taken from the following references:
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/ca/books/bke1/biographies/bk_template.jsp?name=pitcherm&bk=bke1&authorname=pitcherm&state=ca
http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/youasked/070.htm
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars16011800/p/Monmouth.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Pitcher

James Otis Jr.James Otis was an American political activist during the period leading up to the American Revolution. He helped formulate the colonists’ grievances against the British government in the 1760s. Son of the elder James Otis, who was already prominent in Massachusetts politics, the younger Otis graduated from Harvard College in 1743 and was admitted to the bar in 1748. He moved his law practice from Plymouth to Boston in 1750. His reputation was built mainly upon his famous challenge in 1761 to the British-imposed Writs of Assistance. Arguing before the Superior Court in Boston, Otis raised the doctrine of natural law underlying the rights of citizens and argued that such writs, even if authorized by Parliament, were null and void. Going back to fundamental English constitutional law, Otis offered the colonists a basic doctrine upon which the Founding Fathers could draw for decades to come. At this time he also reportedly coined the oft-quoted phrase “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”

James Otis Jr. was born in West Barnstable, Massachusetts (Cape Cod) on February 5, 1725. He was the second of thirteen children and the first to survive infancy. His sister Mercy Otis Warren, his brother Joseph Otis, and his youngest brother Samuel Allyne Otis became leaders of the Revolution, as did his nephew Harrison Gray Otis. His father, Colonel James Otis, Sr., was a prominent lawyer and militia officer.

In 1755 James married Ruth Cunningham, a merchant’s daughter and heiress to a fortune worth 10,000 pounds. Their politics were quite different, yet they were attached to each other. Otis later “half-complained that she was a ‘High Tory,'” yet in the same breath “she was a good wife, and too good for him.” The marriage produced three children (James, Elizabeth and Mary). Their son James died at the age of eighteen, and their daughter Elizabeth, a Loyalist like her mother, married Captain Brown of the British Army and lived in England for the rest of her life. Their youngest daughter, Mary, married Benjamin Lincoln, son of the distinguished Continental Army General Benjamin Lincoln.

Otis graduated from Harvard in 1743 and rose meteorically to the top of the Boston legal profession. In 1760, he received a prestigious appointment as Advocate General of the Admiralty Court. He promptly resigned, however, when Governor Francis Bernard failed to appoint his father to the promised position of Chief Justice of the province’s highest court; the position instead went to longtime Otis opponent Thomas Hutchinson. In a dramatic turnabout following his resignation, Otis instead represented pro bono the colonial merchants who were challenging the legality of the “writs of assistance” before the Superior Court, the predecessor of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. These writs enabled British authorities to enter any colonist’s home with no advance notice, no probable cause and no reason given. James Otis considered himself a loyal British subject. Yet in February 1761, he argued against the Writs of Assistance in a nearly five-hour oration before a select audience in the State House. His argument failed to win his case, although it galvanized the revolutionary movement. In his oration against the writs, John Adams recollected years later, “Otis was a flame of fire; with a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities.” Otis is quoted to have said, “A man’s house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court may inquire.”

John Adams promoted Otis as a major player in the coming of the Revolution. Adams said, “I have been young and now I am old, and I solemnly say I have never known a man whose love of country was more ardent or sincere, never one who suffered so much, never one whose service for any 10 years of his life were so important and essential to the cause of his country as those of Mr. Otis from 1760 to 1770.” The challenge to the authority of Parliament by Otis made a strong impression on John Adams, who was present, and thereby eventually contributed to the American Revolution. In a pamphlet published three years later, in 1765, Otis expanded his argument that the general writs violated the British constitution referencing his argument back to the Magna Carta. Otis was elected in May 1761 to the General Court (provincial legislature) of Massachusetts and was reelected nearly every year thereafter during his active life. In 1766 he was chosen speaker of the house, though this choice was negated by the royal governor of the province.

In September 1762 Otis published A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in defense of that body’s rebuke of the governor for asking the assembly to pay for ships not authorized by them, though those ships were sent to protect New England fisheries against French privateers. Otis also wrote various state papers addressed to the colonies to enlist them in the common cause, and he also sent such papers to the government in England to uphold the rights or set forth the grievances of the colonists. His influence at home in controlling and directing the movement of events toward freedom was universally felt and acknowledged, and few Americans were so frequently quoted, denounced, or applauded in Parliament and the British press before 1769. In 1765 he was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City, and there he was a conspicuous figure, serving on the committee that prepared the address sent to the House of Commons.

Otis suffered from increasingly erratic behavior as the 1760s progressed.James Otis’s Death Otis received a gash on the head by British tax collector John Robinson’s cane at the British Coffee House in 1769. Some attribute Otis’s mental illness to this event, but this is in dispute as the cause of Otis’s illness. John Adams has several examples in his diary of Otis’s mental illness well before 1769. By the end of the decade, Otis’s public life largely came to an end. Some believe Otis was a manic depressive or schizophrenic and that his illness could be successfully treated today. Otis was able to do occasional legal practice during times of clarity.

Unique in his era, Otis favored extending the basic natural law freedoms of life, liberty and property to African Americans. He asserted that blacks had inalienable rights. The idea of racial equality also permeates Otis’s Rights of the British Colonies. Otis died suddenly in May 1783 at the age of 58 when, as he stood in the doorway of a friend’s house, he was struck by lightning. He is reported to have said to his sister, Mercy Otis Warren, “My dear sister, I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity that it will be by a flash of lightning”

Information was taken from the following references:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/434697/James-Otis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Otis,_Jr.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1204.html

Hercules Mulligan was born in Antrim, Ireland, in 1740. He moved to New York City with his family when he was six. After attending Kings College, the forerunner of Columbia University, Mulligan decided to become a tailor. This would be a very good career choice that would reward him handsomely and place him in a position to become an important player in our country’s struggle for freedom.

Mulligan opened his first shop on Water Street, near Lower Manhattan’s busy East River wharves. Mulligan later relocated to 23 Queen Street (today’s Pearl Street). His customers included wealthy British businessmen and high-ranking military officers. What those fine gentlemen weren’t aware of was that the genial Irish proprietor was one of the most ardent patriots in the colonies.

Mulligan took up the patriot cause at least a decade before the start of the Revolutionary War. In 1765, he joined the Sons of Liberty, an underground group that engaged in anti-British agitation. In January 1770, he fought in the Battle of Golden Hill, a skirmish with British soldiers that was one of the first violent incidents leading up to the Revolution. In the summer of 1775, he helped the Sons of Liberty steal a cache of muskets from the city armory. Mulligan was also a member of the New York Committee of Correspondence, a group that rallied opposition to the British through written communications.

On July 9, 1776, he led a group of patriots to New York’s Bowling Green, a park at the lower end of Broadway. In the center of the oval greensward stood a hated symbol, a huge gilded statue of King George III, perched regally astride a horse. Mulligan and his fellow Sons of Liberty broke through the iron fence surrounding the park and toppled the gleaming British monarch, hacking the statue apart. Beneath its gold gilt, the statue was made of lead, which colonists melted down and cast into bullets to be used against the British.

Mulligan’s career as a spy came about through sheer coincidence. In 1773, he and his wife took in a young boarder named Alexander Hamilton. Born on the island of Nevis in the West Indies, Hamilton had later moved to St. Croix. In his mid-teens, Hamilton left the islands to complete his education in the American colonies. He brought with him a letter of recommendation addressed to Mulligan’s older brother Hugh. Hugh introduced Hamilton to Hercules, and when Hamilton enrolled in Kings College, Hercules invited the slender, reddish-haired young man to board with his family.

Hamilton often shared his evenings with the Mulligans, taking part in serious political discussions with their friends. Up until this time, Hamilton had supported British rule over the colonies, but as he listened to his impassioned host make the case for liberty, he gradually came to share Mulligan’s views. Hamilton joined the Sons of Liberty, and in February 1775—at the age of 18—he wrote a lengthy essay that persuasively laid out the case for independence. Hamilton’s essay caused a sensation and helped hasten the Revolution.

In July 1776, Hamilton assumed command of an artillery company and fought in several early battles around New York. However, Hamilton was known more for his writing than his military prowess. In March 1777, General Washington made him his aide, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. For the next four years, Hamilton handled all of Washington’s correspondence, becoming intimately involved in every facet of the war effort, including intelligence operations.

General Washington depended on good military intelligence, and he employed a wide network of “confidential correspondents (spies)” to supply it. When Washington spoke of his need for reliable information from within New York City—which the British had held since the Continental Army was driven out in September 1776—Hamilton recommended his friend Hercules Mulligan.

Washington already had a handful of spies in New York, but as a tailor to British officers, Mulligan was ideally placed. Mulligan agreed to the arrangement and soon proved his worth. In the winter of 1779, he picked up a piece of information that literally saved the commander in chief’s life. Late one evening, a British officer called at Mulligan’s shop to purchase a watch coat. Curious about the late hour, Mulligan asked why the officer needed the coat so quickly. The man explained that he was leaving immediately on a mission, boasting that “before another day, we’ll have the rebel general in our hands.”

As soon as the officer left, Mulligan dispatched his servant to advise General Washington. Washington had been planning to rendezvous with some of his officers, and apparently the British had learned the location of the meeting and intended to set a trap. Thanks to Mulligan’s alert, Washington changed his plans and avoided capture.

Two years later, Mulligan warned Washington about a second attempt to waylay him. This time, Mulligan’s brother Hugh played a crucial role. Hugh’s import-export firm did considerable trade with the British military.

In February 1781, the British placed a rush order for provisions to be loaded onto a transport ship. Hugh casually asked the British commissary officer in charge what the supplies were for. The officer revealed that 300 cavalrymen were being dispatched to New London, Connecticut, to intercept General Washington as he traveled to Newport to confer with French General Rochambeau. Hugh Mulligan passed the information to his brother, who relayed it to Washington’s camp. Washington altered his route to Rhode Island and arranged a surprise welcome for the British forces.

When the war finally ended in 1783, anyone who’d supported the British was in potential danger. Many Loyalist homes and businesses were destroyed. A few New Yorkers may have felt that Hercules Mulligan had been a bit too friendly with the British. No one but Washington and his staff knew of the valiant efforts of his spies. Worried about his confidential correspondents, Washington made a point of personally visiting each of them and very publicly thanking them for their contributions. The morning he arrived back in New York, General Washington called on Hercules Mulligan. The men shared breakfast, and afterward General Washington ordered a complete civilian wardrobe from the Irish tailor. Mulligan promptly installed a new sign outside his shop: “Clothier to Genl. Washington.”

Mulligan prospered after the Revolution. His business grew and so did his family. He and his wife had three sons and five daughters altogether. Mulligan retired from business at the age of 80 and died five years later. He is buried in the churchyard of the same house of worship in which he was married, New York’s venerable Trinity Church (he’d become an Episcopalian as a young man). The grave of his friend Alexander Hamilton lies just a few yards away.

Material taken from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/04/this-july-4-let-thank-forgotten-revolutionary-war-hero/
http://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk/index.php/home/viewPerson/1913

John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg was a Minister of the Gospel, a Military Officer under General George Washington, and a politician of the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Post-Revolutionary eras in Pennsylvania. His father, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg was a German Lutheran pastor sent to North America as a missionary. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg was integral to the founding of the first Lutheran church body or denomination, in North America and is considered to be the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in the United States. His family had a significant impact on colonial life in North America. In addition to Henry Muhlenberg’s role in the Lutheran church, his children became pastors, military officers, and politicians.

Peter Muhlenberg was born October 1, 1746 in Trappe, Pennsylvania. He was sent, together with his brothers, Frederick Augustus and Gotthilf Henry Ernst 1763 to the University of Halle in Germany. They were educated in Latin at the Francke Foundations. Peter and his brothers went by ship to Germany where their father had once worked at Halle. Peter’s brothers settled into their new life. Peter did not. The teachers could see that he was not a scholar and helped him learn a trade. Peter was sent to work for a man named Herr Leonhard Niemeyer. Herr Niemeyer had a shop in the town of Lubeck. He promised to teach Peter about running a business and to teach him about medicine.

Herr Niemeyer did not keep his promises. Peter worked hard every day, long hours but not learning anything. He had only two shirts, and no warm coat. The people at Halle blamed Peter. Knowing that he must find a way out, Peter contacted a man named Captain Fiser. Captain Fiser was recruiting soldiers for the British army to go to America. Peter left the Niemeyer house early one morning and was sworn into the British army. Muhlenberg, having spent time in Germany from 1763 to 1766, now sailed to America with Captain Fiser’s regiment. When he reached America, he was let out of the army and Peter’s father gladly paid for his trip home.

Peter Muhlenberg served briefly in the German dragoons, earning the nickname “Teufel Piet” (Devil Pete) before returning to Philadelphia. Peter’s father sent him back to school to learn bookkeeping. Provost Wrangle was a Lutheran minister. He offered to teach Peter. Peter learned from him about being a minister. Muhlenberg learned to preach sermons. Soon he was preaching sermons in churches in the area. Peter’s brothers came home from Germany in 1770. They both became ministers. There he received a classical education from the Academy of Philadelphia, which is today the University of Pennsylvania. He was ordained in 1768.

Before moving to Woodstock, Virginia. In 1770 he married Anna Barbara “Hannah” Meyer, the daughter of a successful potter. Together they had six children. Muhlenberg visited England in 1772 and was ordained into the priesthood of the Anglican Church although he served a Lutheran congregation. Since the Anglican Church was the state church of Virginia, he was required to be ordained in an Anglican church in order to serve a congregation in Virginia. Besides his new congregation, he led the Committee of Safety and Correspondence for Dunmore County, Virginia. He was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1774, and was a delegate to the First Virginia Convention.

According to a biography written by his great nephew in the mid 1800’s, on January 21, 1776 in the Anglican church in Woodstock, Virginia, Reverend Muhlenberg took his sermon text from the third chapter Ecclesiastes, which starts with “To everything there is a season…”; after reading the eighth verse, “a time of war, and a time of peace,” he then declared, “And this is the time of war,” removing his clerical robe to reveal his Colonel’s uniform. The next day he led out 300 men from the county to form the nucleus of the Eighth Virginia. Muhlenberg’s unit was first posted to the South, to defend the coast of South Carolina and Georgia.

During the early years of the Revolution, while Muhlenberg was still in Virginia, he became a follower of patriot Patrick Henry. His contributions to the revolutionary cause included service as the chair of the Committee of Safety in Virginia’s House of Burgesses (1775) and as a member of Virginia’s provincial convention in 1776.

In early 1777, the Eighth was sent north to join Washington’s main army. Muhlenberg was made a Brigadier General of the Virginia Line and commanded that Brigade in Nathanael Greene’s division at Valley Forge. Muhlenberg saw service in the Battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. After Monmouth, most of the Virginia Line was sent to the far south, while General Muhlenberg was assigned to head up the defense of Virginia using mainly militia units. At the Battle of Yorktown, he commanded the first brigade in Lafayette’s Light Division. His brigade was made up of the Corps of Light Infantry, consisting of the light infantry companies of the line regiments of Massachusetts (ten companies), Connecticut (five companies), New Hampshire (five companies), and Rhode Island and New Jersey (one each).

At the battle of Yorktown, Muhlenberg’s brigade held the right flank and manned the two trenches built to move American cannons closer to Cornwallis defenses. The battalion commanded by French Lt-Col Jean-Joseph Sourbader, Chevalier de Gimat, led the night bayonet attack that stormed Redoubt No. 10 on October 14, 1781. At the end of the war (1783), he was promoted to major general and settled in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

After the war, Virginia had rewarded Peter for his good work by granting him some land in Ohio. Peter Muhlenberg traveled to Ohio by horse and flat-bottomed boat. He reached Louisville but found that the land was not free. It belonged to the Native Americans who lived there. Peter came back home to Pennsylvania, telling Congress to make a treaty with the Native Americans before any more people attempted to settle there. After his return, Muhlenberg decided to permanently live in Pennsylvania.

Peter Muhlenberg was elected to the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1784. He was elected Vice-President of the Council, a position comparable to that of Lieutenant Governor, on October 31, 1787. His term as Vice-President ended on a mysterious note. On October 14, 1788 the minutes of the Executive Council report that Muhlenberg had left Philadelphia without tendering his resignation—why his resignation was needed or expected is not noted—so a messenger was sent after him. That night, after the messenger returned with the resignation, the Council met at President Benjamin Franklin’s home to choose Muhlenberg’s successor, electing David Redick to the position.

When the Constitution was written, Peter worked to have it accepted by the people. In 1787 Pennsylvania accepted the Constitution. There was a big parade. Peter carried a large blue flag. It had silver letters on it. It read, “Seventeenth of September, 1787.” Benjamin Franklin was elected President of Pennsylvania in 1787. Peter Muhlenberg was elected Vice President. Benjamin Franklin was in poor health. Peter took over many of his duties. George Washington became President in 1789. Peter Muhlenberg joined the Congress. He went to the first, third, sixth, and seventh sessions of Congress. He never made a single speech.

Muhlenberg was elected to the 1st Congress (1789–1791) as one of the at-large representatives from Pennsylvania. His brother Frederick was the Speaker of the House for that same Congress. He was the first founder of the Democratic-Republican Societies in 1793. Muhlenberg served in Congress as a Republican during the 3rd Congress 1793-1795 and 5th Congress 1799-1801 for the 1st district.

Muhlenberg died in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania on October 1, 1807 and is buried at the Augustus Lutheran Church in Trappe, Pennsylvania.

This information was taken from the following references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Muhlenberg
http://www.heritageofthefoundingfathers.com/article11.html
http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1700s/muhlenberg_johnpg.html

Robert Morris, Jr. was an English-born American merchant, and signer ofRobert Morris Jr. the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution. He was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly, became the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, and was chosen as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, where he served as chairman of the “Secret Committee of Trade” and as a member of the Committee of Correspondence.

Morris was born to Robert Morris, Sr. and Elizabeth Murphet in Liverpool, England, on January 20, 1734. At the age of 13, Morris emigrated to Oxford, Maryland, to live with his father, who was a tobacco factor. The younger Morris was provided a tutor, but he quickly learned everything that his teacher could pass on.

His father sent him to Philadelphia for study, where he stayed with Charles Greenway, a family friend. Greenway arranged for young Robert to become an apprentice at the shipping and banking firm of the Philadelphia merchant (and then mayor) Charles Willing. A year later, Robert’s father died after being wounded in an accident when hit by the wadding of a ship’s gun that was fired in his honor.

In 1757, Morris became a business partner with Thomas Willing. Their partnership was a merchant firm with interests in shipping, real estate, and other lines of business. The partnership was forged just after the Seven Years’ War began (1756–1763), which hindered attracting the usual supply of new indentured servants to the colony. Potential immigrants were conscripted in England to fight in Europe, and the contracts for those already in the colonies in America were expiring. Indentured servants could legally break their contracts to join the British forces to fight against the French and their Indian allies.

At the same time, the British Crown wanted to encourage the slave trade to enrich the King’s friends. While Morris was a junior partner and Willing was pursuing a political career, the company Willing, Morris & Co. co-signed a petition calling for the repeal of Pennsylvania’s tariff on imported slaves. (About 500 slaves were imported into Philadelphia in 1762, the height of the trade)

Both partners supported the non-importation agreements that marked the end of all trade with Britain, including the importation of slaves. They became advocates for free trade, which would end the kind of trade restrictions that gave rise to the business. As a government official, Morris tried to tax the domestic slave trade, and to lay a head tax on the slaves payable by the owner. His efforts were resisted by the Southerners who fought all his measures. While Morris’s fortune did not come from the slave trade or from slave labor, he owned one or two slaves who worked as household servants.

The Stamp Act of 1765-1766 was a tax on all legal documents. The merchants banded together to end what they saw as an unconstitutional tax. Morris began his public career in 1765 by serving on a local committee of merchants organized to protest the Stamp Act. He mediated between a mass meeting of protesters and the Stamp Tax collector, whose house they threatened to pull down “brick by brick” unless the collector did not carry out his job. Morris remained loyal to Britain, but he believed that the new laws constituted taxation without representation and violated the colonists’ rights as British citizens. In the end, Britain lifted the stamp tax.

After Britain passed the Tea Tax, the tea ship Polly reached the lower Delaware Bay. Philadelphia ordered the bay pilots not to bring it to port. Morris was a warden of the port at that time. Captain Ayers brought the Polly, in by following another ship up the bay, and set off a protest. At least 20% of the population filled the street as Ayers was escorted to the State House. A meeting with Ayers and the port wardens, including Morris, was held. Ayers agreed to leave Philadelphia without delivering any taxed tea. Bostonians handled the matter quite differently.

On March 2, 1769, at age 35, Morris married 20-year-old Mary White. Together they had five sons and two daughters. White came from a prominent family in Maryland; her brother was the well-known Anglican Bishop William White.

Morris worshiped in Philadelphia at St Peter’s Church on Pine Street and Christ Church on 2nd Street, both of which were run by his brother-in-law, Bishop William White. Morris remained a constant worshipper and supporter at this Anglican Church for his entire life. Both Morris and his brother-in-law William White are buried at Christ Church, in the churchyard located at Second and Market. Because of the locations and reputations of Christ Church and St. Peter’s Church in Philadelphia, they served as places of worship for a number of the notable members of the Continental Congress, sometimes including George Washington.

Morris was elected to the Pennsylvania Council of Safety (1775–1776), the Committee of Correspondence, the Provincial Assembly (1775–1776), and the Pennsylvania legislature (1776–1778). He was also elected to represent Pennsylvania in the Second Continental Congress from 1775 to 1778.

In 1775 the Continental Congress contracted with Morris’ company to work with the Secret Committee of Trade after 14 March 1776. He devised a system to smuggle war supplies from France a year before independence was declared. He handled much of the financial transactions, contracting with merchants and business firms to obtain needed war materiel and purchasing commodities for export to pay for it.

He served with John Adams on the committee that wrote the Model Treaty. The Model Treaty incorporated his long held belief in Free Trade. It was an outgrowth of his trading system, and acted as the basis for the 1778 Treaty with France.

He served on the Marine and Maritime Committees and sold his best ship, The Black Prince, to the Continental Congress. It was renamed as the USS Alfred (1774), the first ship in the Continental Navy. John Barry, a captain who sailed for his company, became the captain of the Alfred.
Morris used his extensive international trading network as a spy network and gathered intelligence on British troop movements. One of his spies sent the information that allowed the Americans to defend Fort Moultrie near Charleston, South Carolina.
On July 1, 1776, Morris voted against the Congressional motion for independence. The Pennsylvania delegation, which was split 4-3, cast its vote in the negative. The following day, Morris and John Dickinson agreed to abstain, allowing the other Pennsylvania delegates to vote for independence. The final vote was 12 states in favor and no states opposed. (New York’s delegates voted later.) On August 2, Morris signed the Declaration of Independence saying, “I am not one of those politicians that run testy when my own plans are not adopted. I think it is the duty of a good citizen to follow when he cannot lead.”

Morris personally loaned £10,000 to pay the Continental troops under Washington. This helped to keep the Army together just before the battle of Princeton. He subsequently paid from his own funds the troops via “Morris notes” to continue Washington’s ability to wage war. In March 1778 Morris signed the Articles of Confederation as a representative of Pennsylvania.

During the war, privateers seized the cargo of English ships. As Morris owned an interest in many privateer ships, and his firm helped sell the English spoils as they came into port, he grew wealthy during the war. Seen to be profiting, he wrote a friend that his firm had lost over 150 ships during the war and so came out “about even.” He had lost one of the largest private navies in the world during the War, but he never asked for reimbursement from the new government. Morris acquired this large private navy in the course of privateering during the war. He used money gained to buy shares in a variety of ships that waged an economic war on Britain. During this period he acted as a commercial agent for John Holker, a French national who was one of many military contractors who dealt with the French and American forces.

During this time Thomas Paine, Henry Laurens, and others criticized him and his firm for alleged war profiteering. In 1779, a congressional committee acquitted Morris and his firm on charges of engaging in improper financial transactions, but his reputation was damaged after this incident.

Immediately after serving in the Congress, Morris served two more terms in the state legislature, from 1778 to 1781. While he was in the Pennsylvania Assembly, Morris worked on the constitution and legislation to restore checks and balances, and to overturn the religious test laws. These had excluded from voting 40% of the state’s citizens, including Quakers, Jews, and Mennonites.

Morris and his allies supplied the majority of war materials to the troops when the state failed to act. Pennsylvania went bankrupt in 1780 due to Constitutionalist policies which mandated state-controlled markets and self-imposed embargoes. Ultimately the state called on Morris to restore the economy. He did so by opening the ports to trade, and allowing the market to set the value of goods and the currency.

From 1781 to 1784, he served as the powerful Superintendent of Finance, managing the economy of the fledgling United States. As the central civilian in the government, Morris was, next to General George Washington, “the most powerful man in America.” His successful administration led to the nickname, “Financier of the Revolution.” At the same time he was Agent of Marine, a position he took without pay, and from which he controlled the Continental Navy.

Morris obtained supplies for the army of Nathanael Greene in 1779, and from 1781-1783. He took an active role in getting Washington from New York State to Yorktown, Virginia. He was in Washington’s camp the day the action was initiated. He acted as quartermaster for the trip and supplied his own credit to move the Army. As Agent of Marine, hecoordinated with the French Navy to get Washington’s Army to the Battle of Yorktown (1781). After Yorktown, Morris noted the war had changed from a war of bullets to a war of finances.

At times he took out loans from friends and risked his personal credit by issuing notes on his own signature to purchase items such as military supplies. In 1783 Morris issued $1,400,000 in his own notes to pay the soldiers. He did this during the same year that New Hampshire contributed only $3000 worth of beef toward the war effort, and all the states combined contributed less than $800,000. This extensive use of his personal credit strained his own fortune.

Morris founded several canal companies, a steam engine company, and launched a hot air balloon from his garden on Market Street. He had the first iron rolling mill in America. His icehouse was the model for one Washington installed at Mount Vernon. He backed the new Chestnut Street Theater, started the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and had a green house where his staff cultivated lemon trees. His son Thomas settled the peace with the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, four of whom had sided with the British during the Revolution.

In 1786 Washington wrote to Morris discussing his hopes for the democratic process bringing an end to slavery. His reference to how escaped slaves made their way to the North is taken as the first reference to the Underground Railroad. The 1790 census is the first in Philadelphia County that lists slaveholders by name. Morris had none at this time.

Robert Morris was one of Pennsylvania’s original pair of US senators, serving from 1789 to 1795. Unwise land speculation right before the Panic of 1796–1797 led to his bankruptcy in 1798 when he was placed in debtors’ prison. After his release in 1801 he lived a quiet, private life in a modest home in Philadelphia, until 1806 when he died.

Information was obtained from the following references:
http://www.history1700s.com/articles/article1141.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Morris_(financier)
http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/people/morris-robert-american-merchant.html#ixzz2E2FTdZMT

In the war for independence, the life of a common soldier was a rough one. Soldiers served relatively short periods in state militias or longer periods in the Continental Army, raised by Congress. About two hundred thousand men enlisted for one period or another. Militias supplied the greatest number of soldiers, comprised of farmers, artisans, and some professionals. All faced war’s hardships of severe food shortages, discomfort, low morale, and danger. As a result, the Continental Congress recruited both the young and old. Typically, those with fewer resources, such as apprentices or laborers were attracted to the American Revolution. Pay and a promise of land was the typical incentive. While Some enlisted voluntarily others were drafted; the more affluent hired paid substitutes. What makes Joseph Plumb Martin unique is that his education and writing skills allowed him to keep a journal throughout his wartime activities. Later, after the war ended (1830) , he wrote a colorful portrayal of the life of a common soldier, “A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier.” Because Martin was just an ordinary soldier with no political aspirations other than to survive, his narrative has become one of the most referenced documents on the life of a common soldier.

Joseph Plumb Martin, born in Becket, Massachusetts on November 21, 1760 to the Reverend Ebenezer Martin and Susannah Plumb. At the age of seven, he was sent to live with his grandparents in Milford, Connecticut. Because his family was well-to-do (His father studied at Yale), Martin was able to receive a well-rounded education, including reading and writing. When he was 15, in 1775, he was eager to join the war effort following the Battles of Lexington and Concord. His grandparents initially opposed the idea, but agreed after Martin vowed to run away and join a naval ship as a privateer if he was not allowed to join. He joined the 8th Connecticut Regiment in June 1776 and was assigned duty in the New York City area, arriving just before the opening of the British Long Island Campaign.

Joseph Plumb Martin’s propensity to re-enlist provided him with numerous firsthand accounts of many of the critical battles in the Revolution. It is notable that Martin, for most of the war, was a mere private in the army, and his account does not involve the usual heroes of the Revolution. Scholars believe that Martin kept some type of journal during the course of the war, and fleshed it out in detail later on in his life. It is interesting to also note that while some events may be dramatized, the narrative is remarkably accurate, since Plumb Martin’s regiment would have been present at every event he writes about, according to war records of the time.

Martin participated in such notable engagements as the Battle of Brooklyn, the Battle of White Plains, the siege on Fort Mifflin and the Battle of Monmouth. He encamped at Valley Forge, witnessed John Andre being escorted to his execution and was also present during the climactic Siege of Yorktown in 1781. He was assigned to Light Infantry in 1778, attaining the rank of Corporal. In the summer of 1780, under Washington’s order to form a Corps of Sappers and Miners, he was recommended by his superior officers to be a non-commissioned officer of this regiment, and in being selected, was promoted to Sergeant. Prior to Yorktown, the corps was responsible for digging the entrenchments for the Continental Army. During the battle, they were also a vanguard for a regiment commanded by Alexander Hamilton, clearing the field of sharpened logs called abatis so that Hamilton’s regiment could capture Redoubt #10.

Martin’s narrative was originally published anonymously in 1830, at Hallowell, Maine, as A narrative of some of the adventures, dangers, and sufferings of a Revolutionary soldier, interspersed with anecdotes of incidents that occurred within his own observation. It has been republished in many forms, but was thought lost to history. In the mid-1950s, a first edition copy of the narrative was found and donated to Morristown National Historical Park. The book was published again by Little, Brown in 1962, in an edition edited by George F. Scheer (ISBN 0-915992-10-8) under the title Private Yankee Doodle; as well as appearing as a volume in Series I of The New York Times’ Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution in 1968. The current edition, published since 2001, is entitled A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin. Other current versions include a version adapted for children, entitled Yankee Doodle Boy and The Memoirs of a Revolutionary and ended with Plumb describing the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781.

When Martin was discharged from duty when the Continental Army disbanded in October 1783, he taught in New York state for a year, and eventually settled on Maine’s frontier, becoming one of the founders of the town of Prospect, near modern day Stockton Springs. Over the years, he was known locally for being a farmer, selectman, Justice of the Peace and Town Clerk (the last position being held for over 25 years). He married Lucy Clewley (b. 1776) in 1794 and had five children, Joseph (b. 1799), Nathan and Thomas (twins, b. 1803), James Sullivan (b. 1810) and Susan (b. 1812). He also wrote many stories and poems over the years, most famously a narrative of his experiences during the war in 1830.

In 1794, he became involved in a bitter land dispute with Henry Knox, former Major-General in the Continental Army and Secretary of War under George Washington’s administration as President. Knox claimed that he owned Martin’s 100-acre (0.40 km2) farm, as well as the surrounding 600,000 acres (2,400 km2) in an area now known as Waldo County, Maine. Martin said that this was not true, and he had the right to farm the land. In 1797, Knox’s claim had been legally upheld, and Martin was ordered to pay $170 in rent. He could not raise the money and begged Knox to allow him to keep the land. Knox denied the request. By 1811, his farmland was cut by half, and by 1818, when he appeared in court with other Revolutionary War veterans to claim a war pension, he owned nothing.

In 1818, Martin’s war pension was approved and he received $96 a year for the rest of his life. Still, other war veterans were fighting for what they were properly owed, and in an effort to further the cause of the veterans, published his memoirs in 1830. It was not considered a success, and mainly fell to the wayside, apparently lost to history.

In 1836, a platoon of United States Light Infantry was marching though Prospect and discovered that Plumb Martin resided there. The platoon stopped outside of his house and fired a salute in honor of the Revolutionary War Hero. Joseph Plumb Martin lived to the age of 89, dying on May 2, 1850. He is buried with his wife at the Sandy Point Cemetery, outside of Prospect, Maine.

Information was taken from the following references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Plumb_Martin
http://www.history.com/topics/joseph-plumb-martin
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6597/