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In 1818, Samuel Gerock entered the courthouse in New Bern, North Carolina, to apply for financial assistance from the federal government in recognition of his Revolutionary War service. Gerock, then an elderly veteran, brought with him wartime papers that he held on to for decades. He kept them in the folds of a wallet made from a drumhead played by one of his comrades in the crucial days of 1776 and 1777. Gerock’s papers and wallet are now part of the Museum’s collection after a generous donation by his descendants in 2023.  

Born in Pennsylvania, but living in Maryland in 1776, Gerock received a lieutenant’s commission in the German Regiment, a Continental Army unit mostly composed of ethnically German men from Pennsylvania and Maryland. In the fall of 1776, Gerock marched north to join his regiment and the rest of General George Washington’s struggling army following a series of defeats in New York. Gerock took part in the Second Battle of Trenton and the Battle of Princeton in early January 1777, two victories that helped the American Revolution survive its darkest hour.

Gerock’s wartime papers, presented as proof of his military service for his 1818 pension application, serve as a window into the politics of the Continental Army in its early days as it grew into a professional fighting force. His papers also provide valuable information about little-known battles that took place in New Jersey in 1777 as part of a “Forage War” between the British and the Revolutionaries.

Held for generations by his descendants, Gerock’s papers are now preserved for future generations to learn from and explore.