Private Michael Grosh (c.1750 - after 1835)
MSA SC 3520-14383
Soldier, Revolutionary War
Biography:
Michael Grosh enlisted for the duration of the war in Baltimore, probably on July 15, 1776. Private Grosh mustered into the Captain George P. Keeports' (formerly of the Baltimore Independent Cadets) company of the 1st German Battalion Continental Troops commanded by Colonel Nicholas Husacker. After Captain Keeports resigned on May 4, 1777, Private Grosh served under Captain Charles Baltzel and Lt. Colonel Ludwig Weltner for the duration of his enlistment.
As a soldier of Maryland's German Battalion, Private Grosh spent most of his enlistment in the northern theater of the war. In 1777, he fought in the battles of Trenton and Princeton, receiving a wound. On June 28, 1778, Private Grosh and his German Battalion saw action in one of the longest days of fighting of the Revolution, the Battle of Monmouth near Freehold, New Jersey. After Monmouth, Grosh's company marched against the Indians, probably against the British and the Iroquois Six Nations in New York.
Private Grosh enlisted for the duration of war, and received his discharge March 4, 1781. Upon his discharge he received a land patent from the state of Maryland, lot #1528 in Allegany County. The Continental Congress first recommended granting land to soldiers as part of a military pension, but left it to the states to enact individual laws establishing pension provisions. Maryland initially resisted, but eventually set 4,165 fifty acres lots west of Fort Cumberland in Allegany and present-day Garrett Counties. Chapter 20 of the Acts of 1781, appropriates all vacant lands west of Fort Cumberland for soldiers of the Maryland Line. Grosh drew his lot in the extreme western Maryland backcountry - present-day Garrett County. Perhaps the location proved too remote as Michael Grosh appears to have never capitalized on his land grant. Lot #1,528 had escheated to back to the state by 1825 when William White purchased it and several other Revolutionary era land patents. According to his land warrant, William White believed Michael Grosh was dead.
Michael Grosh was not dead, but he had left Maryland before 1818. He appears in the 1818/1820 pension rolls for the District of Columbia. In 1821, he transferred his pension to Virginia, at which point he states he has "neither wife nor children," and declares he can no longer practice his trade as a shoemaker. Grosh last appears in the 1835 pension rolls for Fairfax County, VA as an 84 year old veteran.
|
Tell Us What You Think About the Maryland State Archives Website!
|