A post from our colleagues at the Daughters of the American Revolution in Morristown NJ. With thanks to member Bobbi Bailey for her research and writing of this post.
SOLDIERS STORY: THE SOLDIER BOYS (PART 1)
Officially, a young man during the Revolution could be drafted or volunteer for service at the age of 16, and indeed many young men did so. A few jumped the gun and started their military service at a younger age. We found a few boy soldiers in our Morris County soldiers database, the youngest being only 9 years old when he enlisted in the army. All of these veterans (and/or their widows) applied for and received a pension for their service, which is a significant reason why their stories are preserved. There were surely more young Morris County soldiers whose stories have been lost to time.
Here are some of the stories of Morris County’s Revolutionary boy soldiers. The rest of the stories will be covered in the next Soldiers Story, The Soldier Boys (Part 2).
John D. Piatt
The youngest Revolutionary soldier found from
Morris County is Private John D. Piatt, who reported that he was born 17 Mar
1766 in Raritan, Somerset County NJ.
While he grew up and served from Somerset County, we consider him a
Morris County soldier because after the war he lived his adult life in
Pequannock, Morris County.
Very early in the war in late 1775, at nine years
old he began serving as a fifer under his father, Captain (later Major) Daniel
Piatt, in the 1st NJ Regiment of the Continental Army. He was marched to Brunswick upper landing,
then Elizabeth, then New York, Long Island, and then to Canada. Imagine any nine-year-old marching that
far! He testified:
“The
regiment…proceeded toward Quebeck as far as the Three Rivers, there had an
engagement with the British and retreated to Ticonderoga. And lay there till
late in the fall or beginning of winter, and then returned to the State of New
Jersey.” His father and other officers
were in Pennsylvania on a recruiting trip at the time “Genl Washington attacked
the Hessians at Trenton. The deponent
attending the rendezvous as a musician, the company was marched to the Delaware
to aid Genl Washington in the battled – was prevented crossing the river till
next day after the capture of the Hessians.
From thence was marched on to Princetown – saw the dead and wounded in
the college.”
Later in his testimony, he mentioned that his
Regiment was marched “westward under Genl Sullivan,” which is most certainly
the Sullivan Expedition into Pennsylvania and western New York, taking place
the summer and fall of 1779. But he was injured
when he was kicked by an officer’s horse, preventing him from continuing on the
march with the Regiment.
When the troops returned, they set up winter
quarters at Jockey Hollow for the winter of 1779-1780. When his father died of disease at Jockey
Hollow in April of 1780, John continued to serve under his uncle, Colonel Jacob
Piatt of Somerset County.
Only a few weeks later, he fought in the
Battle of Springfield in June 1780, where he reported that “Young Ogden was
killed, a considerable number more killed and wounded. [He] was in the house of Parson Caldwell, saw
his wife a corps[e].
At one point he was taken prisoner by the
British at Pluckemin, but was “released afterwards being a youth.”
Altogether he served four years in the
army. Even at such a young age, these
years must have been a traumatic series of experiences: multiple battles, losing his own father,
seeing many dead and wounded, and himself being wounded and taken
prisoner.
After the war he
settled in Pequannock, Morris County, where applied for a pension in 1832. He was granted a pension for his service.
John D. Piatt died on 27 Mar 1837. He
is buried at the First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains (aka the Pompton
Reformed Church), in Pompton Lakes.
David Hamilton
Morris (DAR Ancestor A080847)
David Hamilton Morris was born in
Hanover Township, Morris County, NJ on 11 Jul 1769. His father, Captain David Morris, died in
December 1779 on the infamous prison ship HMS Jersey. Soon after, at eleven years old young David
enlisted at Morristown as a “waiter” for Captain James Christie of Pennsylvania. His mother gave permission at Captain
Christie’s promise that he would “take charge…and act the part of a father.” Right away, Morris was stationed at Jockey
Hollow during the infamous Hard Winter of 1779-1780. He served a 3-year enlistment in 3rd Pennsylvania
Regiment, part of General Anthony Wayne’s Flying Camp.
When he was discharged in early
1783, Captain Christie wrote to Morris that he could travel to Philadelphia to
pick up his discharge papers. On his way
through the Wyoming Valley, he accidentally stumbled into a skirmish between
people of New England and Pennsylvania on Locust Ridge, and was wounded by a musket
ball that “entered below the right breast and came out at the back.”
In 1786 he traveled to the
“Western Country” and served more than four more years in the Northwest Indian
Wars in Colonel Josiah Harmer’s regiment, part of the time as a First Sergeant.
For his military service he
received bounty land in Ohio, where he settled.
He died at Honey
Creek, Miami Co OH on 3 Apr 1843, and is buried at Saylor Cemetery, Troy,
OH. His tombstone, which is no longer
legible, once read:
In Memory of David H. Morris Sen. A native of New Jersey
and pioneer of the Western Country.
---
He was one of the very first white men that traversed the Miami Valley, which
he did as a soldier under General Harmer and as a hunter.
- - -
In his youth he was a Soldier of the Revolution.
- - -
Previous to 1800, he settled amid the Forests in this vicinity and married Eve
Ann Sailor, with whom he lived happily for more than forty years.
- - -
On the third of April 1843 he departed this life in the 74th year of his age,
In full Assurance of a Blissful Immortality, Leaving a large family to inherit
his name and remember his many virtues.
Benjamin Ogden (DAR
Ancestor A085707)
Benjamin Ogden
became known as the “Boy Soldier of the Revolution.” He was born on 16 Apr 1764. According to his pension testimony, he was
born and lived near the spot where General Lee was taken, adjoining the land of
Lord Stirling in Basking Ridge.
At twelve years
old he ran away and went to Elizabethtown to join the army. He served there until, as he reported in his
pension testimony “a certain Maj. Wm Davidson (to whom my Guardian had bound me
an apprentice) heard where I was and came down with his witnesses and demanded
my release.” He waited until he was 16
years old, then rejoined the army and was stationed at Woodbridge until the
army was dissolved after the war.
He served in several battles, which he described as follows:
“The first battle that I was in, I think
was in May 1780. The enemy landed at
night and was detected by our patroles the militia called by three signal guns;
the gun and whale boat company under the command of two of the bravest officers
I ever knew…All joined in battle between break of day and sun rise, near the
road from Woodbridge to the old Blazing Star ferry – the enemy retreated to
their gun boats at Smokum Point (by which the battle was named) where we
received their heavy metal for near two hours.”
“The 2nd Battle I think was
in September following – commenced also early in the morning in Amboy
commons. We drove the enemy into the
Town and from our Shore – under a heavy fire from three gallys, their
guardships in the bay, and their gun boats.”
“The 3rd Battle commenced
near where the first did. Sometime I
believe in July 1781 (or about two weeks before Rye harvest). They retreated to their vessels near Hog
Island, above the mouth of Woodbridge Creek, where we again received their
heavy metal for more (I think) than one hour – near a Rye field on the shore of
the sound.”
“The 4th Battle was, as well
as I recollect, late in September following and about the first night after
Genl Washington left New York with some of the French troops to meet Cornwallis. The Capt of our gun boat company Lieut.
Randolph + some of the militia went on the Island in the night to take Cuckhold
[farm?] fort in the absence of the British troops which had been drawn off to
graves and to assist New York. But to
our supprise they had returned the evening before. We were discovered and the contest began just
before and we had to fight hard to gain and keep a bridge just under the fort
and across the Kills, to our boats which waited for us at the new Blazing
Star. The contest continued I think for
more than three hours before we left their shore with the prisoners, [illegible],
+ other spoils of the enemy.” [This last
battle probably took place at Fort Cockhill, which was an outpost of Fort
Washington in New York.]
Starting in
1784, he devoted his time to the Methodist ministry as an itinerant preacher,
traveling “from the North
River [Hudson] to the west of the Mississippi, and from Charleston S.C. to the
shore of Lake Erie”. In
1785 was sent out as an itinerant preacher in New Jersey, in 1786 to Kentucky
and then to Tennessee. He applied for a pension in 1832 from Kentucky.
Benjamin Ogden
died in Caldwell County KY on 20 Nov 1834, and is buried at Ogden Cemetery in
Princeton, KY.
James Rodgers (DAR
Ancestor A098051)
James Rogers was
born on 1 Feb 1764 in Morris County NJ. As
a young boy he joined the First NJ Regiment at Morristown as a Fifer and
Foragemaster. At fourteen years old, he
fought at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778.
As an adult after the war, he made a career as a carpenter and carriage
maker in Morris Township.
He applied for pension from Morris Co in 1819 with the
assistance of Dr. Lewis Condict. The only people who were eligible for a pension at that time were
those disabled due to war injuries, widows, and those who could prove that they
were destitute. Dr. Condict must have
been very effective in arguing the case, because Rodgers successfully received
a pension even though his inventory of assets suggested he was reasonably
comfortable with a plot of land, a house, furniture, and many other items.
James Rogers died
at Morristown on 12 Sep 1845. He is buried
at the First Presbyterian Church Morristown (now the Presbyterian Church in
Morristown). There is no tombstone.
Part 2 of our
story of Soldier Boys will tell the stories of the rest of our young Revolutionary
soldiers.
Sources
Find-a-Grave memorials
#57232290 and #19278867
U.S. Revolutionary
War Pension S9039, Bounty Land Warrant 9982-100, David Hamilton Morris,
National Archives and Records Administration, M804, Records of the Department
of Veterans Affairs, RG15
U.S.
Revolutionary War Pension S31281, Benjamin Ogden, National Archives and Records
Administration, M804, Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, RG15
U.S.
Revolutionary War Pension W1473, John D. Piatt (widow Jane), National Archives
and Records Administration, M804, Records of the Department of Veterans
Affairs, RG15
U.S.
Revolutionary War Pension S5733, James Rogers, National Archives and Records
Administration, M804, Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, RG15
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