Posted on 08/13/2013 3:43:07 PM PDT by NYer
For the Journal of the American Revolution, Todd Andrlik compiled a list of the ages of the key participants in the Revolutionary War as of July 4, 1776. Many of them were surprisingly young:
Marquis de Lafayette, 18
James Monroe, 18
Gilbert Stuart, 20
Aaron Burr, 20
Alexander Hamilton, 21
Betsy Ross, 24
James Madison, 25
This is kind of blowing my mind...because of the compression of history, I'd always assumed all these people were around the same age. But in thinking about it, all startups need young people...Hamilton, Lafayette, and Burr were perhaps the Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg of the War. Some more ages, just for reference:
Thomas Jefferson, 33
John Adams, 40
Paul Revere, 41
George Washington, 44
Samuel Adams, 53
The oldest prominent participant in the Revolution, by a wide margin, was Benjamin Franklin, who was 70 years old on July 4, 1776. Franklin was a full two generations removed from the likes of Madison and Hamilton. But the oldest participant in the war was Samuel Whittemore, who fought in an early skirmish at the age of 80. I'll let Wikipedia take it from here:
Whittemore was in his fields when he spotted an approaching British relief brigade under Earl Percy, sent to assist the retreat. Whittemore loaded his musket and ambushed the British from behind a nearby stone wall, killing one soldier. He then drew his dueling pistols and killed a grenadier and mortally wounded a second. By the time Whittemore had fired his third shot, a British detachment reached his position; Whittemore drew his sword and attacked. He was shot in the face, bayoneted thirteen times, and left for dead in a pool of blood. He was found alive, trying to load his musket to fight again. He was taken to Dr. Cotton Tufts of Medford, who perceived no hope for his survival. However, Whittemore lived another 18 years until dying of natural causes at the age of 98.
!!!
/johnny
wow...never gave this a thought before!
My great-great-great grandfather was born in 1760 and joined Gen Washington when he was still 15 in 1776. He was captured by the British while trying to rescue one of the American soldiers, was put on a prison ship and contracted small-pox. But he lived and raised a family and died in 1841 at the age of 81.
I really had no idea how young they were.
bkmk
One of my ancestors was Ethan Allen. My great grandmother’s maiden name was Allen.
Patriots of all ages. It’s a wonderful thing.
'Starter' homes did not start at $450,000 as they do now in places like Washington DC either....
Most of the 18th century settlers lived on land that either they or their parents had simply patented.
Do you know where on LI the battle occurred? Was it Huntington?
UUUMMM,
Your point just flew straight over my dumb farmer head.
What does land acquisition have to do with lifespans?
18th C life spans were SHORT. And had NOTHING to do with land acquisition.
The Battle of Long Island was fought in Brooklyn around what is now Prospect Park and Green Wood Cemetery (it’s informally referred to now as the Battle of Brooklyn as Brooklyn and Queens while physically a part of Long Island are looked on politically as part of New York City). Afterward the British occupied most of the Island including the Town of Huntington.
This guy had badassitude. Don't mess with old guys!
I visited his tomb in Paris. There was an American flag there. ‘Lafayette, we are here’.
Were any of these guys constitutional lawyers?
How in the world could that be? I read that Constitutional lawyers must have a bachelor degree and a law degree. Wild guessing that's like 8 years of college. So just a passing thought, might it be that these guys weren't actually qualified to write the Constitution in the first place?
And maybe that's why nobody in Washington DC, where possibly fashion dictates education snobbery thinks what they wrote actually matters anymore.
Nah!
They're so confident the American people don't know and don't care, they defy us to enforce the Constitution.
I think the average lifespan from that period is a little misleading since it’s dragged down high childhood mortality rates. If you survived to be an adult your odds of surviving to old age weren’t that different from us moderns. In other words, the founders would have been considered relatively young men even in their time.
I don't know anything about DC housing prices .. or care. But housing prices are generally reasonable and interest rates at historic low interest rates if you have a job and credit. Of course Obama is doing every he can to screw this up. Not making light of the high unemployment and problems caused by liberalism. However IF one can qualify for a 15 year loan they're set. Much easier situation than in the late 70s and early 80s when I was trying to get my first house. My first home loan was 13% and I thought that was bargain as it had been reduced from 17%. Then even if they cant get a home loan they can rent an apartment. No reason for any self-respecting grown kid to live at home.
When I first moved to Huntington, I was intrigued by the town seal.
I later learned that the letter E was assigned by the British making Huntington the 5th colony in NY. Even more interesting was Fort Golgotha. The fort, which takes its named from Golgotha, was built by British troops on orders of Colonel Thompson, commander of the King's American Dragoons, in 1782, on the site of the town burial ground. The nearby Presbyterian Church was dismantled, and its timbers used in the forts construction. The British used the tombstones to construct an oven. Bread baked in the oven would be sold to local townsfolk. The bottom of the bread bore the name of the deceased individual from the tombstone.
Yeah, I think this is fairly well established but I can’t cite sources. If you had an immune system that got you through childhood you had a good shot at living to an old age.
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