My 5th great-grandfather served as a Lieutenant in the 2nd Regiment of the Dutchess County (NY) Militia in the Revolutionary War. The commander of that unit was Colonel Abraham Brinkerhoff. The County Militia was overseen by General Israel Putnam, who had his headquarters at Colonel Brinkerhoff’s home in Fishkill, NY. The Brinkerhoff home is now an Inn, and according to the site, in the fall of 1777, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Marquis de Lafayette were there. Makes me wonder if my great-grandfather ever met, or at least saw any of these great men. Info on the regiment is scarce, so I have no idea what duties they were assigned, or where they spent most of their time.
My 5th great-grandfather also signed his name to an affidavit pledging his loyalty to the colonies, and not the Monarchy. For that he’s listed in the DAR Patriot Index. Never knew any of it until after my mother died in ‘90, and I traveled to the town in Canada she had been born in. From documents I found there, it appears that one of the sons of my 5th great-grandfather moved to Canada after the war, and was written out of his father’s Will. That son married the daughter of Loyalists from Dutchess County who had moved to Canada when the war started. So I’ve got Patriots and Loyalists on that side of the family. I’m still hoping to track the family lineage back to England one of these days. Will have to cough up the money for Ancestry.com in the New Year to be able to access international records.
Giddy-Pard,
You got some Heritage goings on.