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Our Patriot Ancestors

 

Please click on names below for a mini-biography.

  • Aaron Aorson (1740-?)
  • Aaron Aorson was appointed a 1st Lieutenant in June 1775 in the 5th company of the 1st New York Continental Line Regiment. He served as a 1st Lieutenant during the 1775 invasion of Canada and at the at the siege of Quebec City. He took command of the 5th company on December 31, 1775, after Captain Cheesman and Colonel Montgomery were killed inthe assault on Quebec City. In November 1776, he was appointed Captain of the 5th company, 3rdNew York Regiment, under Colonel Gansevoort in November, 1776 and served as a company commander at Fort Schuyler, New York, in 1777 during the siege by British and Native American forces. Aorson served as a company commander with the New York Continental Line during Colonel Sullivan’s 1779 expedition and campaign against the Six Nations in New York. He also served atMorristown, New Jersey in 1780. Aorson was reassigned to the 1stNew York Regiment in 1781 and served as the brigade major in General James Clinton’s brigade at Yorktown. Aaron Aorson’s final assignments were as a member of a detachment from headquarters at Newburgh, New York in March, 1783 and at New Windsor, New York in May, 1783.

  • Elias Barbee (1763-1843)
  • Elias Barbee, a great-grandson of early Virginia planter Andrew Barbee, was born in 1763 in Culpeper County, Virginia. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the Patriot cause in the Virginia militia following in the footsteps of his five elder brothers, three of whom, with Elias, fought together at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. Following the war, the family settled in Danville, Kentucky, and later Elias moved to nearby Green County where he farmed. In 1788, he married Elizabeth Slaughter of Culpeper County, Virginia. They had eight children. Elias was appointed to several local offices and was later elected to terms in both the Kentucky House of Representatives and the Senate. He served in the Kentucky militia as a major, colonel, and ultimately as a brigadier general during the Indian wars on the Ohio River frontier. A daughter of Elias and Elizabeth named Lucy was born deaf in 1799. Concerned for deaf children in the Commonwealth, General Barbee in 1822 (then in the Kentucky Senate) was instrumental in founding the Kentucky School for the Deaf located at Danville. It was the first state-sponsored school of its kind in the United States and is still in existence 187 years later. Elias Barbee died in 1843 at the age of 80.
  • John Cale (1726-1798)
  • The Cale family (also spelled Kale, Kahl, Kail and Cail) family was of German origin. John Cale was born on April 19, 1726, in Hampshire County, Virginia (now West Virginia). He married Elizabeth Pugh on July 25, 1751. During the Revolutionary War, Cale served under Colonel Abraham Bowmans in the 8th Virginia Regiment. Cale was one of the early settlers of western Virginia’s Capon Valley. He owned a good farm on the west bank of the Capon River adjacent to what was once called Kale’s Ford, not far upstream from Capon Bridge, West Virginia. Cale died on July 26, 1798, and is buried in the family burial ground on the land he once owned.
  • Abraham Covert (1738-1815)
  • Abraham Covert served as an Ensign in the 3rd Regiment, Hunterdon County, New Jersey Militia. He was born in Somerset County, New Jersey but lived in Hunterdon County during theRevolutionary War. He first married Sarah Clawson and they had four children before she died in New Jersey. He then married Ariann (Coshun) Wykoff, a widow with three children. They had four more children, all born in New Jersey. In 1790, Abraham Covert moved his family including the step children to the Finger Lakes Region where he purchased 600 acres in what became the Town of Ovid, Seneca County, New York. The first Town meeting was held in his home and he held many of offices in the Town of Ovid over the next 25 years. He died in the Town of Ovid, Seneca Co, New York in 1815 and is buried in the Abram Covert Farm Cemetery with his second wife. Abraham Covert was a second cousin of Tunis Covert (see below)and a daughter from Abraham’s first wife, Isabella Covert, married Rynear Covert, eldest son of Tunis Covert, another Revolutionary War patriot (see below).
  • Tunis Covert (1745-1825)
  • Tunis Covert served as a Private in Capt. Conrad Ten Eyck's Company, Second Battalion, Somerset County, New Jersey, according to Stryker's Register of Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War. He was born in Somerset Co., New Jersey and married Magdalene Van Heuglean in New Jersey. They had three sons and four daughters all born in New Jersey. Tunis Covert was a farmer and in the 1791 he purchased 600 acres in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. Two years later he moved his entire family to this land which became part of the Town of Ovid, Seneca County. He was very active in the affairs of the Town of Ovid, holding scores of appointed and elected offices. When the Town of Ovid was divided into a number of towns, the Town of Covert was named in his honor. There is also a village of Covert. His oldest son, Rynear Covert was a Colonel in the Seneca County Militia during the War of 1812. His youngest son, Tunis Covert, Jr. was called to active service during the War of 1812 and participated in some skirmishes near Buffalo, New York. Tunis Covert, Sr. died in 1825 and is buried in the McNeil (Gospel Lot) Cemetery along wife his wife and other members of his family.
  • Benjamin Elston (1759-1845)
  • Benjamin Elston volunteered for the New Jersey Militia in October 1777 and served six months as a private in Captain Lane’s Company. He then re-enlisted as a “Minute Man” for an indefinite period in the same Company, serving approximately 18 months in that capacity. According to his pension affidavit, he participated in the Battle of Springfield (New Jersey) “in which the town was taken and burnt by the British” and several“smaller skirmishes.” During the course of his service in the militia, he saw “Generals Washington, Greene and Wayne” with the troops. His father, David Elston, served as a sergeant in the same Company of the New Jersey Militia. After the war, Benjamin Elston was a farmer who moved first to North Carolina and later to Kentucky in search of betterland. He died in Kentucky at age 85. He and his wife, Elizabeth Long, had five children between 1790 and 1799. His widow received an annual pension of $20 for his service in the Revolutionary War. His son, John Elston, served in the Mounted Kentucky Volunteers during the War of 1812 and fought at the battle of the Thames River in Ontario, Canada, under the command of General William Henry Harrison (later elected 9th President of the United States).
  • Colonel John Floyd (1750-1783)
  • Colonel John Floyd of Amherst Co., Virginia served on the Kentucky frontier and was a founding leader of Louisville. Before the War, he was the Deputy Surveyor of Kentucky. Floyd surveyed land for many people, including 2,000 acres for George Washington. In 1776 Col. William Preston of the Lynchburg area asked Floyd to search out a suitable vessel for privateering. Floyd joined Preston and several other people in ownership, including Carter Braxton, the Virginia merchant and politician; Col. William Preston; Col. John Radford, Edmund Pendleton, and Dr. Thomas Walker, all of Virginia; and Robert Morris, the Philadelphia merchant. Appointed to the Privateer Phoenix to captain any captured prize ship found in the West Indian waters, and serve as the agent of the owners, he sailed from Virginia in 1777. They soon had a prize, and Floyd set out to sail her to Virginia. Instead, he was captured by the Royal Navy and imprisoned in Forton Gaol in Portsmouth, England. Brought to trial, he was released by the court, traveled to Paris, met with Dr. Benjamin Franklin there, was loaned 20 Louis d’Orsand returned to Virginia. Understandably, he returned to the land and resumed surveying. He was involved with Daniel Boone in both exploration of the frontier and fighting Indians, as well as in the governance of the settlements in Kentucky. At 33, he was cut down by a Shawnee war party in April 1783. Buried in Kentucky near present-day Louisville, he left behind a beautiful young widow, Jenny Buchanan Floyd. She gave birth a week later to their son John Floyd, who would grow up to be a surgeon and major in the War of 1812, a U.S. congressman, and governor of Virginia. Floyd is remembered throughout Virginia and Kentucky with historic markers, and two counties are named for him, one in each of Virginia and Kentucky. His nephew, Sergeant Charles Floyd, participated in the Lewis and Clark expedition.
  • Samuel Hale (1741-1808)
  • Samuel Hale was a soldier, patriot, statesman, peace officer, surveyor and community leader. He learned his military skills as a drummer in the 1st Company, 1st Regiment, Connecticutin 1758 and 1759 where he proved his mettle as a soldier while participating in the French and Indian War during the attack on Fort Carillon (Fort Ticonderoga). Following this service, he continued his association with his local militia unit in Suffield, Connecticut. At the age of 35 he again answered the call to duty when his unit responded to the Lexington alarm on 19 April 1776. Samuel marched with his unit for two days towards Lexington and Concord. Arriving too late for the action, he returned home and continued his endeavors in both the local militia and in public service throughout the remainder of his life. He served until the end of the Revolution as a member of several committees supporting soldier’s families and in a number of positions of public trust including service as a constable, collector of taxes, grand juror, surveyor of highways and selectman. By the completion of the American Revolution, Samuel Hale had been elected as a Captain in the Suffield Militia. In 1803, he visited the Ohio Western Reserve as a representative of the Connecticut Land Company. He later relocated his family to what is now Suffield, Ohio, in Portage County where many of his descendants remain today. His grandson was a major participant in the Underground Railroad during the American Civil War, and his great grandson and children had major impact on the development of the Ohio education system and the state agricultural industry. One even developed the “Hale Peach.” Samuel’s great-great grand-daughter was instrumental in raising funds for the Washington Memorial Chapel and Bell Tower at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, which has the Hale name inscribed at its base.
  • David Lynn (1764-1840)
  • David Lynn was born in Haddam in Middlesex County, Connecticut, on Mach 4, 1764. Still a youth at the beginning of the Revolutionary war, he volunteered for military service in 1780 at the age of sixteen in Colonel Herman Swift's Regiment of the Connecticut Line. His age was not an issue because he served under his elder brother, Lieutenant William Lynn, who was the commanding officer of their company. David served as a private. The company was assigned to secure the large supply depot at Fishkill, New York, and thus David never saw battle. After the war he married Melorah Thompson, and they had nine chlildren. As an old man he followed a son, who had received a grant of land in the Military Tract for his service in the War of 1812, to Illinois. He died August 20, 1840, and is buried in Old South Henderson Cemetery, Gladstone, Illinois.
  • Nathan Moore (1750-1825)
  • Nathan Moore (1750-1825) was born in Salisbury, Connecticut. He served in the Revolution as a private in Colonel Charles Webb’s 2nd regiment during levees for a short time. He enlisted on 4 August 1779 and was discharged on 3 December 1789 as part of the 2nd Regiment, Ulster Company, Militia. Following the war, he became a surveyor and civil engineer who settled in Canfield, Ohio, arriving about 15 May 1800 after traveling 45 days on the road. He relocated to the Springfield, Ohio area in 1806. His survey of Canfield (signed by him) remains on file in the Special Records Collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio. The clarity and precision of this document, made in primitive conditions, is amazing. Nathan was a giant of a man, being six foot, six inches in height. He cleared and improved what is known as the Christ Farm and was concerned with all of the original surveys in the region. He was a noted hunter and one of the best-known and influential pioneers of northern Ohio. Nathan Moore and his first wife, Juliana, are buried in Kent Corners Cemetery in Suffield, Ohio, near Patriot Samuel Hale.
  • Anthony Phelps (1763-1859)
  • Anthony Phelps was born in Buckingham County, Virginia, September 13, 1763. He was the son of Thomas Phelps Jr. and Susan Guy. Phelps was present with his father Thomas Phelps Jr. at Fort Boonesborough (in what would later become Kentucky), under the command of Col. Daniel Boone, during the 11 day siege of that Fort in 1777. From 1778 to February 1779, whil only 15 years old, Phelps served as a Ranger and Indian Spy. He joined the Virginia volunteer militia as a private serving in the army called the Illinois Regiment under Captain George Owens and General George Rogers Clark. He saw action twice at Fort Jefferson at the Iron Banks during 1780-1781. After the war, he married Nancy Brashear in Jefferson County, Kentucky, on December 26, 1793. Anthony died June 30, 1859, in Larue County, Kentucky, at age 95, and is buried in the Barren Run Church Cemetery.