The October meeting of the Thomasville Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) featured an interesting program by Chapter Regent Charlotte Brown on Women Patriots of the American Revolution.  Brown said there were many brave and courageous women during this time in our country’s history including Mary Hayes, Nancy Hart, Margaret Corbin and Deborah Sampson Gannett.

Most Americans have heard of the Boston Tea Party when on December 16, 1773, the brave men of Boston threw chests of tea into the Boston Harbor to protest the British tax on tea. However, not many have heard of the Edenton Tea Party that took place on October 25, 1774.  Fifty-one brave women in Edenton, North Carolina had their own tea party in protest of the British tax on tea. The ladies wrote and signed a document in protest and then enjoyed cups of tea made from dried raspberry leaves. The document was published in the Morning Chronicle on January 16, 1775. The Edenton group was led by Penelope Barker, wife of Thomas Barker, a lawyer. She was also a courageous woman. During the war and while her husband was in London on business, she used his sword to stop British soldiers from taking her carriage horses.

Many know this famous line, “Listen my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere” who along with William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott warned residents around Lexington and Concord that British soldiers were marching there. Most haven’t heard of sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington who made a 40-mile night ride to alert the countryside around Fredericksburg, New York. She was the eldest of eight children and her father was Colonel Henry Ludington of the local volunteer militia. On April 26, 1777, her father received word that the British were burning Danbury, Connecticut, 25 miles away and the militia was desperately needed to support the 150 Continentals stationed there. The messenger was too exhausted to continue so Ludington volunteered to spread the alarm. She mounted her horse and traveled unmarked roads through Carmel, Mahopac Falls, Farmers Mills and back home through Stormville. The United States Postal Service issued an 8¢ commemorative stamp in 1975 honoring Ludington.

Mary Ludwig Hayes was born in Mercer County, New Jersey, on October 13, 1754. While working in Pennsylvania, she met and married William Hays, a local barber in 1777. Her husband enlisted as a gunner in the Pennsylvania artillery at the beginning of the American Revolution. Mary’s nickname was Molly and she followed her husband wherever he went. Many women were camp followers and received food in exchange for washing, nursing, and cooking for the troops. In June of 1778, Washington’s army marched from Valley Forge to Monmouth Courthouse, a distance of some eighty miles through rough terrain that had little water. As the battle raged, the heat became more intense. The cry of “water” came from everywhere. Molly was busy carrying pitchers of water from the spring near the battlefield to as many soldiers as she could. It is said this is how she received the nickname of Molly Pitcher. When her husband was shot, she took his place at the cannon discharging it like any other soldier present. Forty years after the Battle of Monmouth on February 21, 1822, Hays was awarded a pension of $40.00 a year for her service during the war. She died in 1832 and was buried with military honors in the Old Graveyard at Carlisle. 

Margaret Molly Corbin was born in Pennsylvania and her husband, John Corbin enlisted in the Pennsylvania artillery. He helped an artillery man in loading, firing and sponging the gun. On November 16, 1776, Corbin’s artillery company was at Fort Washington in New York City when it was attacked by British and Hessian troops. Molly was near her husband when he was killed and she took his place. She was also severely wounded by grapeshot in her left shoulder and captured when the garrison finally surrendered. In 1780, Molly became a member of the Invalid Regiment stationed at West Point, New York and was known as Captain Molly. She died around 1800 and was buried on an estate called Cragston near West Point. After the property was sold, the New York State, NSDAR arranged to have the remains re-interred in the Military Academy cemetery at West Point on March 16, 1926. 

In November 1782, several hundred British-led Indians besieged Fort Henry, which is now Wheeling, West Virginia. The fort was being successfully defended by forty men and their families. They had plenty of food and water but began to run out of gunpowder. Colonel Ebenezer Zane had a full keg of gunpowder in his cabin a short distance from the fort gate but knew a man would be shot trying to retrieve it. His seventeen-year-old daughter, Elizabeth walked to the cabin, picked up the keg, and started back to the fort. On the way, the Indians began firing and she ran to reach the gate. The Indians later grew tired from the siege and then withdrew.

Nancy Morgan Hart and her husband, Benjamin Hart lived on Wahatche or “Warwoman” Creek in Elbert County, Georgia. They had six sons and two daughters. Nancy Hart was a true patriot and also an expert marksman. In 1775, while doing housekeeping chores with her daughter, Sukie, several Tories looking for Whigs came by the Hart cabin. The Tories shot Hart’s pet turkey and ordered her to cook it. They stacked their guns along the cabin wall and then began to drink. Hart sent her daughter for a bucket of water and told her to blow the conch shell located nearby to alert neighbors there was trouble at the cabin. While serving the meal, Hart carefully passed the Tories’ guns out the window. One of them tried to stop Hart and she grabbed a gun and killed him and then wounded another one before her husband and others arrived to help. Hart’s bravery has been recognized by the state of Georgia with the Nancy Hart County and Nancy Hart Highway 77 and the Nancy Hart Chapter, NSDAR.

A group of women in Philadelphia under the guidance of Esther de Berdt Reed organized themselves to collect donations for Washington’s soldiers. They planned to give each soldier two dollars but General Washington suggested shirts instead. Before this could be done, Reed died on September 18, 1780. Sarah Franklin Bache, daughter of Benjamin Franklin was also a member of the group and took over its leadership with the assistance of Henrietta Hillegas, Anne Francis, Mary Clarkson, and Susan Blair. The ladies bought  material with $7,500 in gold they raised and did the sewing themselves. The ladies group made twenty-two hundred shirts and gave them to General Washington in 1781. He sent them a written note thanking them for this gift.

Deborah Sampson Gannett disguised herself as a man. She enlisted under the name Robert Shurtleff in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment and was wounded. It wasn’t discovered that she was a woman until two years later when she was in a hospital with a fever.  Lydia Barrington Darragn, a Quaker, risked her life to carry information to General Washington about a surprise attack on his army by General Howe. 

These are just a few of the brave women patriots of the American Revolution. Brown ended the program by recognizing the four women that founded the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, 132 years ago on October 11, 1890. They are Mary Desha, Mary S. Lockwood, Ellen Walworth and Eugenia Washington. They had the vision to establish an organization to perpetuate the memory of our Revolutionary ancestors through service.

The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890 to promote historic preservation, education, and patriotism. Its members are descended from the patriots who won American independence during the Revolutionary War. With more than 190,000 members in approximately 3,000 chapters worldwide, DAR is one of the world’s largest and most active service organizations. More than one million women have joined the DAR since it was founded. To learn more about the work of today’s DAR, visit www.DAR.org.

For more information about the Thomasville Chapter DAR, visit thomasville.georgiastatedar.org or the Chapter’s Facebook page at facebook.com/ThomasvilleChapterNSDAR.