REVOLUTIONARY WAR, 1775-83

Per the book, History of Perry County, Pennsylvania,
Silas Wright; 1873

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Section II.--The War Record
Chapter I
Revolutionary War, 1775-83.

ENGLEHART WORMLEY, of Tyrone township, died on the 28th of August, 1827.  He participated in the disastrous battle on Long Island, and the subsequent engagements which followed.  He was never injured during his term of service.

ANDREW BURD, of Greenwood township, entered the army as a fifer-boy when but fourteen years old and served the faithful seven, being discharged when he had just attained his majority.

BENJAMIN BONSALL, SEN., of Greenwood township, died in 1834, aged 89 years.  He served in the militia during the "freezing and starving" winter at Valley Forge.

THOMAS BROWN, of Tyrone township, was a Revolutionary soldier, and so thoroughly imbued with love of his country that he made provision in his will for the reading of the Declaration of Independence over his open grave, after which a minister was to pray for him and his beloved country.

EDWARD DONNELLY, of Buckwheat Valley, Tuscarora township, served in the militia.

ALEXANDER GAILY, of Penn township, died in Cove Valley on the 13th of November, 1842 , aged 102 years.  He served in the Revolutionary army.

FREDERICK WATT, a Revolutionist, was at the massacre of Wyoming, where he served under Colonel Zebulon Butler, who "boldly met and bravely fought the combined British, Tory and Indian force of thrice his number."  In this engagement he was wounded in the mouth.
He settled in Watt's Valley, Miller township, to which he gave his name, and there resided until his death.

ANDREW LYNCH, of Tuscarora township, served in the Revolutionary army, but of what date or length of term, whether volunteer or militia, we could not learn.

BENJAMIN ESSICK, of Liverpool township, died at the advanced age of 93. He served in the militia.

DAVID FOCHT, was a Revolutionary soldier and one of the first settlers of western Perry County.  He lived in Jackson township.

WILLIAM HEIM, the father of Rev. John William Heim, removed from Mahanoy township, Northumberland county, to Jackson township, Perry county, in 1815, where he died on the 2d of March, 1856.  He was the last surviving hero of the Revolution living in the county.  He died aged 95 and his funeral was attended by one hundred and fifty riders on horseback.  Mr. Heim is said to have been able to relate many incidents of the contests in which he was engaged, but they were never written and have now passed into that history which no living recollection can recall.  He asked the National Government to reward his services, but being unable to furnish other evidence than the existence of his name on the roll of his company, he never received the pension to which he was justly entitled.  The State recognized his services by a small yearly annuity.

There were from Watts township, then Greenwood, in the Revolutionary army, John Buchanan, whose descendants are now living in the townships of Greenwood and Liverpool; Robert Moody, Mr. Mountz, Mr. Philips, William Rodgers and William Philips.  These men were all distinguished for their patriotism, but of their achievements in the sanguinary struggle which gave us a nation, no detailed account can be gathered.

WILLIAM PATTERSON served in the patriot army one year.  He lived in that part of Duncannon known as Petersburg.  It was then scarcely a village of Rye township.  Mr. Patterson remembered the tories mustering on Young's Hill.

PETER KIPP served seven years as a soldier in the American army.  He returned home after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, and lived for many years afterward in Buffalo township.

GEORGE ALBRIGHT, one of the first settlers of Buck's Valley, shouldered his musket at the breaking out of the war, and went forth to serve his country as a soldier, while his wife, with a servant girl and several small boys, did the farming.  Mrs. Albright and her servant girl took her grain to the banks of the Susquehanna on horseback, where they hitched their horses and placing it in a canoe, pushed down the river to the nearest mill, at Dauphin.  Here they waited until the grain was ground into flour, which was then placed in the canoe and pushed back, up the stream, by the two women, landed and placed on the backs of their horses, and thus taken home.
Mr. Albright returned home at the close of the war and lived the remainder of his life as a citizen of the valley he had helped to defend.  He was a member of the Lutheran Church, which he lived to see prosper in the home of his adoption.  He died at an advanced age, and his remains lie buried in the soil of the valley, in a spot sacred to the memory of every lover of his country.  We would not less nobly consecrate the spot in which the no less self-sacrificing wife of his bosom was buried.

The following will show that Perry County was not free from tories during the Revolution:

 CUMBERLAND COUNTY, SS.:
Before me, George Robinson, one of His Majesty's Justices, for said county, personally appeared Clefton Bowen, who, being duly examined and sworn, doth depose and say:  that sometime in the month of January last, he, this deponent, was in the house of John Montgomery, in Tyrone township, in company with a certain Edward Erwin, of Rye township, and this deponent says he then and there heard said Erwin drink damnation and confusion to the Continental Congress, and damn their proceedings, saying they were all a parcel of damned rebels, and against spring would be cut off like a parcel of snowbirds, and more such stuff.
Sworn and subscribed before George Robinson, 19th February, 1776
CLEFTON BOWEN

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The above information was extracted from the book:

History of Perry County, in Pennsylvania, From the Earliest Settlement To The Present Time; Silas Wright; Lancaster, PA; 1873.

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