Aaron Spalding (1752-1824)
MSA SC 3520-16831
Biography:
Aaron Spalding enlisted into the Continental Army in St. Mary's County, Maryland, in January of 1776. Spalding was 24 when he enlisted, the average age for a soldier in the Continental Army. He joined colonel William Smallwood's regiment as a private in the Fifth Independent Company under captain John Allen Thomas. One of seven independent companies formed to guard the Chesapeake Bay coast from potential excursions from the Royal Navy, Spalding and the rest of the Maryland Regiment soon found themselves marching up to New York in the summer of 1776 to aid George Washington and the Continental Army in defending the city from the British. [1]
On August 27, 1776, the first full-scale engagement between American and British forces began at the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes referred to as the Battle of Long Island). The experience of the British regular troops and the inexperience of the Continental Army showed in this engagement, as the British outflanked the American line and forced a general rout. At the request of Colonel William Smallwood, George Washington sent the as-yet untested Fifth Independent Company to cover the retreat. Here Spalding and his compatriots aided the rest of the American forces swim or wade across Gowanus Creek, as the bridge had been destroyed the day before. [2]
Spalding continued to serve through the end of 1776, participating in the battles of Harlem Heights; White Plains; Fort Washington; Trenton; and Princeton. In early 1777 he reenlisted, and would remain in the army for the rest of the war, fighting in the battles of Staten Island, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Camden, Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse, and Eutaw Springs. By the summer of 1780 he was promted to sergeant and was discharged at the end of the war on July 6, 1783, six years to the day the Maryland Regiment received its initial marching orders to New York. He was discharged at James Island, South Carolina as a sergeant. [3]
In the 1790's Spalding moved to Washington County, Kentucky, where he settled down as a farmer. He lived near and remained friends with another Revolutionary War veteran of the Maryland Line, Mark McPherson, who served in the First Company in 1776. McPherson testified on Spalding’s behalf when Spalding successfully petitioned for a Federal veterans pension in 1818. Spalding married a woman named Mary Moore in 1803, and had two daughters, Mary and Eleanor. Aaron Spalding died on June 29, 1824, at the age of 72. He was buried in the Holy Name of Mary Cemetery, also known as the Old Calvary Cemetery, in neighboring Marion County, Kentucky. [4]
Nick Couto, 2016
Notes:
[1] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 25; Return of the Maryland troops, 27 September 1776, from Fold3.com; Mark Andrew Tacyn, “’To the End:’ The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 48-73; Reiman Steuart, The Maryland Line (The Society of the Cincinnati, 1971), 154-155. For more on the experience of the Marylanders at the Battle of Brooklyn, see "In Their Own Words," on the Maryland State Archives research blog, Finding the Maryland 400.
[2] Steuart, 154-155.
[3]
Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 161.
[4] Pension of Aaron Spalding, from Fold 3; Revolutionary War Compiled Service Records of Aaron Spalding, f rom Fold3.com; John Aaron "Aaron" Spalding on FindAGrave.com
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