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In 1851, Andrew Ferguson returned to the courthouse in Monroe County, Indiana, to describe his service during the Revolutionary and request an increase in his pension payment from the United States Government. Because of his old age (he was about 86 years old at the time) and the pain from his two wartime injuries, Ferguson could not support himself and his family. It is unclear if the government granted his request. 

National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC/Fold3.com

Williamsburg, Virginia, resident St. George Tucker wrote this letter to his wife Fanny in 1781 and described that the British Army left "pestilence" and "poverty" behind them following their occupation of the city. He noted that many enslaved people ran away from Williamsburg with the army. One of Tucker’s neighbors was left with "but one little boy...to wait on them.” Eve and her son George were among the enslaved people who left Williamsburg to follow the British Army in search of their freedom. St. George Tucker lived on the same street as the Randolph family, the owners of Eve and George.

Tucker-Coleman Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary

By December of 1782, Washington had moved his army from Verplanck’s Point to a permanent winter encampment up the Hudson at New Windsor. Amid his usual complaints about how little food, money, and correspondence he had, James Davenport recorded how the army went into its winter quarters. As they had every previous winter of the war, the soldiers maintained a defensive front while building huts. James was a member of the light infantry, units of soldiers who were supposed to be especially active, intelligent, and prepared for the sort of common small engagements and dispersed fighting called skirmishing. His unit remained in their tents on guard in case of a British attack while other soldiers began building the small log cabins that would house them over the cold New York winter. These huts usually had plank roofs, bunk beds, and fireplaces, and by December 13, James and perhaps a dozen other soldiers had finished theirs enough that they could begin living in it.

Upper Penns Neck Township
Salem County, New Jersey
October 12 & 13, 1803
Ink on Paper

This poll list is from an October 1803 state election that was held at the houses of Andrew Alston and George Clark, innkeepers at Alston and the Cove in Upper Penns Neck Township, Salem County. The election determined annual officeholders for the New Jersey State Assembly and Legislative Council, and for Salem County Sheriff and Coroner. The town officers presiding over the election included Judge Andrew Vanneman, Assessor Charles Jones, Clerk Isaac Ward, and Collector Joseph Borden. 

The poll list includes the names of 252 total voters. At least 29 of these voters are women, accounting for nearly 12 percent of the voters on the list. 

Like the rest of Salem County, Upper Penns Neck Township voted Democratic Republican in October 1803. Most voters in the township supported Democratic-Republicans Edward Burroughs, Samuel Ray, and Merriman Smith for State Assembly and William Parrett for Legislative Council. We do not know who they supported for county sheriff or coroner.

Note: The names recorded on this poll list were written by an election official, not by the voters themselves. The spelling of each voter’s name on the poll list may be different compared to how that same person’s name is spelled in other historical records and by the Museum of the American Revolution.

Images: Salem County Historical Society

Han Yerry was born about 1724 to a Mohawk mother and a German father (he was also known by Han Yerry Doxtader, referring to his part-German ancestry), though he considered himself an Oneida and became chief warrior of the nation’s Wolf Clan. He was “ordinary sized” and “quite a gentleman in his demeanor.” At the outbreak of the war, he mustered Oneida warriors to support the Revolutionary cause. After Oriskany, Han Yerry was part of the Oneida party that travelled to Valley Forge, where he had a personal dinner with George Washington. In 1779, he was one of a number of Oneida and Tuscarora warriors who received officers’ commissions from Congress (he was made a captain). He remained a leader after the war and died around 1794. 

The winter of 1782 dragged on as James Davenport was encamped with the Continental Army at New Windsor, New York. This particular letter hints at the religious education that Davenport must have received as a child in Dorchester. Like many young Americans, he would have learned to read and write with the Bible as a primary learning and teaching tool. Two of his references – to a coming “jubilee” in which the soldiers would become free and to making bricks without straw under strict taskmasters – would have been familiar to most people as both common idioms and ideas rooted in Christian tradition. And both references helped Davenport convey the increasing resentment he felt at his situation, stuck in an army waiting for peace. “We hope to get free from our Slaveng soon,” he wrote.