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.
!!!
I have a great-great-great-great grandfather patriot who was also put on a prison ship in Brooklyn, and died there. Fortunately for me--he already had fathered my ancestor.
The British prison ships in NY harbor had utterly horendous conditions as bad as any concentration camp in WWII. More men--like my ancestor--died in those ships, over 10,000, than were killed in all the battles of the Revolution. They carelessly threw their bodies overboard, and their fate wasn't even discovered until human bones washed up on the shore of Brooklyn after the war.
People should recall such serious British cruelty when they get too chummy with our relatives across the pond....
wow! young and old courageous people!
I happen to be reading a biography of Hamilton by Ron Chernow right now.
Hamilton was illegitimate, and left an orphan in St. Croix at an early age. He was largely self-taught, although he attended Kings College (now Columbia) in NY when he came to the mainland.
Even during the war, as a 21 year old aide to Washington during the Revolutionary War he took time off from his duties to read and study both contemporary and Classical writers and philosophers.
“I don’t know why this is so surprising.”
Because historical perspective is a vanishing virtue.
“How did we produce such a brilliant crop of men...just when we needed them?”
Some people might suspect Divine intervention.
As John Adams (and others who didn’t care for Alex) might refer to him on occasion: “...the bastard son of a Scottish peddler.”
Did you get to the part yet where he holds off an angry mob single-handedly at Columbia?
Indeed. Washington was convinced that his life was speared during some very close calls during the French&Indian War by just that mechanism.
Oh, not at all.
Right, old people don’t seem to have been particularly rare back then. In fact, doesn’t the Bible say a typical lifespan is three score and ten years or something? So even back then living to old age was the norm (if you can call 70 old age...my dad turned 70 recently and he can bench press more than I can!).
And hats off to your mother...people who’ve lived life for that long and seen what they’ve seen are a true treasure.
Yep, I read that part already, but the best recounting of his heroic stand against the angry mob bent on tar & feathring the President of King’s College was by the renowned American History Prof. Walter Metzger.
Prof. Metzger gave a lecture on Columbia’s history to all the incoming freshman classes back in the day. When he got to the part about Hamilton giving a mollifying speech to the mob to give President Cooper a chance to escape, Prof. Metzger would play several different parts, with the highlight being the hard of hearing Cooper yelling to the mob from an upper window, “Dont listen to him, he’s crazy.”
Yep...apart from being being brilliant, young Alex had brass balls and feared no one. At Yorktown, the General gave him the honor of leading a a most dangerous raid on a redoubt since he knew how much it meant to him.
Because folks don’t know their history.............
Wow, they were mature. Now, they are juveniles.
The average life span was about 30, but if you lived to age 5 then the average would be a lot higher. My late husband had family records from the middle 1800s in southern Illinois. One ancestor had 9 children. Five died around the age of 2 in August or September. They no doubt died of “summer diarrhea” which killed many children when they were weaned at that age. The ones who lived mostly survived into their 60s.
Actually, I think the average age of first menstruation was around 16 or 17, much later than today. I think it has something to do with diet. My parents had a big garden and we ate a lot of our own vegetables and fruits. I was about 2 years later than my school mates.
His point is that many young people are moving back home because housing has gotten so expensive and jobs are still fairly scarce. On the other hand, when my son was lying around the house at age 18, in 1991, I suggested that other young people no longer in school were paying their parents $200 a month to live at home. He said, OK, then I’ll move out. He and friends rented a broken down dump for $350 a month. He met his wife there and now has 2 children and a good job and supervises 8 people. Oh, and that house and surrounding neighborhood have been “gentrified” and it would probably sell for between $600,000 and $1 million now.
I think the constitution was about 14 years later.
Today you make colonel by being old enough, having the *correct* political views, and sucking up to the right people.
Thanks.
Outstanding!
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