The Men Surrounding Washington

There is something almost haunting about these images. They are the stuff of dreams. The dreams of little boys and girls who have heard the story of George Washington and the American Revolution since childhood. Yet who among us ever imagined we could stare across time, into the very eyes of men who had witnessed the dawn of America? Such is the magic of life, and liberty, and the story of America.

Captain George Fishley:

Portsmouth NH Historical Society

Portsmouth, New Hampshire;
Born in 1760 and enlisting in the Continental Army in 1777, George Fishley entered this world during the reign of King George III, and stayed long enough to witness America’s first thirteen presidents. We are looking into the eyes of a man who fought the British in the American Revolution! By Fishley’s own account, he served at Valley Forge without shoes or stockings, fought at the battle of Monmouth, New Jersey in 1778, and witnessed the hanging of British spy Major John Andre in place of his co-conspirator Benedict Arnold.

Fishley later served aboard a privateer, was captured and imprisoned by the British at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and eventually commanded a coaster transporting goods between Portsmouth and Boston, Massachusetts. Captain George Fishley “went to sleep and died December 26th [1850] aged 90 years, 7 months, and 15 days” and slipped the bonds of this Earth forever.

William Hutchings:

Library of Congress

York, Maine (then part of Massachusetts);
Born on October 6, 1764, William Hutchings enlisted at the age of fifteen in a regiment of Massachusetts Militia commanded by Colonel Samuel McCobb. He served six months in the coastal defense of his own state. During this time, the British took possession of the neighboring town of Castine, Hutchings’ family fled to Newcastle, and William remained behind to fight the Crown Forces.

He spent his final years in a house built with his own hands, high on an elevation at the head of Penobscot Bay. He lived long enough to witness his beloved country reunited again, dying at 101 years old on May 2, 1866, and was buried on the farm where he had spent so much of his life. One of the speakers at his funeral was the reverend Mr. Ives of Castine who related; “’One of the last requests of Mr. Hutchings was, that the American flag should recover his remains, and be unfurled at his funeral.’”

Peter Stephen Duponceau:

American Philosophical Society

Saint Martin de Re;
Born on June 3, 1760, Peter Stephen Duponceau was educated in a Benedictine college, and by 1777 he was traveling across the Atlantic Ocean as secretary and aide-de-camp to Friedrich Wilhelm Baron von Steuben. At Valley Forge, Duponceau was made a captain in the Continental Army in 1778, and assisted Von Steuben as he drilled the American troops under the watchful eye of General George Washington. As Von Steuben spoke no English, and Duponceau spoke many languages, Duponceau provided valuable assistance in the Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States published in Philadelphia in 1779.

Ill-health forced Duponceau to resign from the army in 1781, and he settled in Philadelphia, studied law, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar. Duponceau is best remembered today for his comprehensive study of Native American languages. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society since 1791, was elected president in 1827, and served as such until his death on April 1, 1844. Speaking to the Law Academy of Philadelphia in 1831 about the U.S. Constitution, Duponceau said, “on cool and mature reflection, we cannot help considering [it] as the most perfect system of government that has ever existed among mankind.”

Daniel Waldo:

Library of Congress

Windham, Connecticut;
Daniel Waldo was born on the 10th day of September, 1762, the ninth of thirteen children. Waldo was also a third cousin to the second U.S. president John Adams. In 1778, at the age of sixteen, Waldo was drafted for a month’s service in the Connecticut militia at New London, and subsequently enlisted for eight months with the Connecticut State troops under the command of Colonel Levi Wells. Later in life to receive a pension from the federal government, Waldo testified that at Greenwich, Connecticut, “on the 25th day of December AD 1779 I was stationed as sentinel at the door of the house of Colonel Wells, I together with twenty or more including the said Colonel were taken prisoners by the refugees or cow boys.” Sent to New York and confined by the British until February 25, 1780, Waldo and his companions were finally exchanged.

After the war, Daniel Waldo entered Yale College to devote himself to the ministry where he was graduated with honors in 1788. He moved to the State of New York in 1835, and in 1856 Waldo accompanied his son’s family to Syracuse. He died there at 101 years, 10 months and 20 days, on July 30, 1864.

Lemuel Cook:

Library of Congress

Northbury, Connecticut;
Born on September 10, 1764, it is somewhat unclear what year Lemuel Cook entered the service of his country. However, “he has retained in his possession a copy from the War Department of his discharge, signed by General George Washington, which states that he was a private in the Second Light Dragoons, Connecticut regiment. His field officers are stated as Col. Sheldon, Lieut. Col. Jennison, and Major [Benjamin] Tallmadge.”

Lemuel Cook said he saw action from White Plains, “across the Jerseys,” Brandywine, and Yorktown, and likely other battles he failed to mention. He lived to see the Civil War ended and the reunion of America, and died on May 20, 1866, at Clarendon, New York, at the age of 102 years old.

Alexander Milliner:

Library of Congress

Quebec/Lake George, New York;
Alexander Milliner was born on the 14th of March, most likely in the year 1770. he was enlisted by his  stepfather Florence Maroney as a drummer boy in Colonel Van Schaick’s First New York Regiment under the name Alexander Maroney where he served until June of 1783.

Although as an old man Milliner claimed to be in a few additional battles, it seems likely, based on his own words and the history of the regiment, that young Alexander beat his drum at the battles of Valcour Island, Saratoga, Monmouth, the Sullivan Expedition against the Iroquois and Loyalists in western New York, and at Yorktown as well. The regiment was furloughed on June 2, 1783, at Newburgh, New York, and formally disbanded November 15, 1783. It seems certain that Milliner served six and a half years in the army altogether, and his pension claim was signed in September of 1819 by John C. Calhoun under the seal of the War Department, as “late a drummer in the Army of the Revolution.

This photograph was made in 1864 while “his sympathies enlisted most strongly on the side of the Union; he declaring that it is ‘too bad that this country, so hardly got, should be destroyed by its own people.’” The exact place and date of his death remains uncertain.

Samuel Downing:

Library of Congress

Newburyport, Massachusetts;
Born on the 31st of November, 1764, Samuel Downing enlisted in 1780 in the Second New Hampshire Regiment, and likely spent the majority of his service in the Mohawk Valley and later at Yorktown, Virginia. Downing served until 1783, and seems to have been discharged in the summer of 1783, when the Second and Third New Hampshire were consolidated into the First New Hampshire Regiment.

At the writing of The Last Men of the Revolution by Reverend E. B. Hillard in 1864, Samuel Downing was living with his son James in Edinburgh, Saratoga County, New York, when his pension was increased to One Hundred and Eighty Dollars by a Special Act of Congress from April 1, 1864. Additionally, “Mr. Downing’s faith in the Invisible is firm and clear, and his anticipation of the rest and reward of Heaven strong and animating. He greatly enjoys religious conversation, invokes a blessing at the table; and when prayer was offered, at his request, responded intelligently and heartily, in true Methodist style. Doubtless, when the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved, he will find awaiting him ‘a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’” Sam Downing died February 19, 1867, near Antrim, New York.

Daniel Bakeman:

Used with permission of Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Freedom, New York;
Daniel Bakeman was born October 10, 1759, while his place of birth is uncertain. It seems likely that Bakeman served with the New York troops during the Revolution, but where, when, and with whom, is less certain. What is more certain, is that on February 14, 1867, Congress passed a Special Act, whereas Bakeman could not prove he was a soldier of the Revolution, which enabled Bakeman to surpass Lemuel Cook as the oldest living veteran of the American Revolution. Daniel bakeman died on April 5, 1867, at 107 years old

Adam Link:

Library of Congress

Washington County, Pennsylvania;
Adam Link was born on November 14, 1760, in the southwestern part of Pennsylvania near the border with Virginia. In the year 1760, this area of Pennsylvania, was still considered the frontier. The French, Indians, and British all contested the Ohio Valley, and it would remain a dangerous part of the colonies for the next twenty-five years. While Adam was away serving in the militia, his father was killed by Indians in 1780, his house and barn were burnt, and all their livestock were carried away by the warriors.