In Honor of My Ancestor

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Many years ago I read the following article when doing family research.  I am always reminded of this on Independence Day.  It was written 7/15/1880 and published in the Record Herald newspaper in Algoma, Wisconsin. 

"It was a bloody, a terrible war of seven years duration.  The struggle of a handfull of poor, scattered colonists against the richest and most powerful nation on the face of the globe.  A war not only of bloodshed, but of privation and starvation and of suffering.  Where the blood shed in the battle indicated only a small fraction of the misery caused; where the soldiers in the field went barefoot, lived on parched corn, suffered through the bleak and dreary winter, and the almost unbearable heat of summer, for the want of proper clothing; destitute alike of food and raiment, and with knowledge that their families were in like destitute circumstances.   Imagine the state of things.  No railroads, telegraphs, steamboats, with common roads that were mere trails through a wilderness; a handfull of men, driven hither and thither, half famished and half naked, their families barely existing at home, the women at work in their little fields and the children gathering nuts in the woods for their winter's bread, and this to last for seven long dreary years.  And all for what?  That you and I, my friends, might live in a free country, where life and liberty were acknowledged rights; where every man was born equal to every other man, with right to aspire and right to hope and become independent by industry and by economy."

My ancestor, Jesse Benjamin, served six years of faithful service in the Revolutionary War.  He was honored with the Badge of Merit by His Excellency, George Washington, Esq, General and Commander in Chief of the Forces of the United State of America.  (George Washington's signature appears below and to the right of the words "GIVEN AT HEADQUARTERS")

 Jesse Benjamin was born October 28, 1758 and he died September 6, 1851.  His grave is at Clayton, New York.

Thank you Grandfather.