Jesse Thompson
MSA SC 3520-16834
Biography:
Jesse Thompson enlisted as a private in the Fifth Independent Company, led by Captain John Allen Thomas, in February 1776. The company was raised in St. Mary's County, Maryland and was one of seven independent companies that the Maryland Council of Safety formed across the state in early 1776, initially intended to guard the Chesapeake Bay's coastline from a feared British invasion. By that summer, however, the independent companies were dispatched to New York, to help reinforce the Continental Army as it prepared to defend the city from the British. In total, twelve companies of Maryland troops traveled to New York that July and August: nine companies that comprised the First Maryland Regiment, commanded by Colonel William Smallwood, and the Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Independent companies, the only three that were ready to travel then. [1]
On August 27, 1776, the Americans faced the British Army at the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes called the Battle of Long Island), the first full-scale engagement of the war. The battle was a rout: the British were able to sneak around the American lines, and the outflanked Americans fled in disarray. During the retreat, the Maryland troops fought their way towards the American fortifications, but were blocked by the swampy Gowanus Creek. While half the regiment was able to cross the creek, the rest were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, the Marylanders mounted a series of daring charges. These men, now known as the "Maryland 400," held the British at bay long enough for the rest of the Continental Army to escape, at the cost of many lives. In all, 256 Marylanders were killed or captured by the British; some companies lost as much as 80 percent of their men. Thompson and his company likely saw little combat. Instead, the Fifth Independent Company did not cross the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn until after fighting had begun, and did not venture into the field of battle. They did, however, perform valuable service assisting the Americans retreating through the Gowanus Marsh. [2]
During the fall of 1776, Thompson and the rest of the Marylanders fought a series of battles in New York: Harlem Heights in September, White Plains in October, and Fort Washington in November. While the Americans had some tactical successes at these engagements, by November they had been pushed out of New York entirely, though they secured key revitalizing victories at Trenton and Princeton late that winter. At the end of the year, when the enlistments of the soldiers expired, the independent companies were disbanded.
Thompson returned to Maryland when his enlistment ended, but a few months later, in May 1777, he volunteered to serve in a Maryland artillery company commanded by Captain William Campbell. Thompson was one of at least five members of the Fifth Independent who joined together. Thompson joined the artillery as a sergeant, and while he changed companies several times, he stayed in the army until the end of the war in 1783. He fought in the battles of Brandywine (September 1777) and Germantown (October 1777) during the campaign to protect Philadelphia from the British, and was part of the American army that fought in the Carolinas in 1780-1782. The battles of the Southern Campaign were some of the Revolutionary War's fiercest, and Thompson fought at Camden (August 1780), Guilford Court House (March 1781), Ninety-Six (May-June 1781), and Eutaw Springs (September 1781). After the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781, the Americans stayed in North Carolina during 1782, and in 1783 Thompson was discharged. [3]
Back home in St. Mary's County, Thompson married a woman named Jane (last name unknown), and they had five children between 1785 and 1798. He was a bricklayer, and the family also farmed tobacco. They were not wealthy; instead they were part of the county's middle-class. The Thompsons owned a few slaves, but probably had no land until the early 1800s. Jane Thompson died in the 1790s or 1800s, and Jesse remarried in July 1808. His second wife was named Mary How. Shortly after they wed, Thompson made several large purchases of land, suggesting that his wife brought some money into the marriage. In November 1808, the family bought 220 acres in St. Mary's, a significant investment which required a large sum of money to acquire--more than one thousand dollars. [4]
There are signs that the family's financial situation began to decline within a few years, however. In 1812, Thompson sold some of his land, and also petitioned the Maryland General Assembly for financial relief as a veteran of the Revolutionary War. The legislature awarded Thompson $60 per year to help support him and his family. Six years later, Thompson applied for Revolutionary War pension from the Federal government, and was granted $96 per year. However, as Thompson grew more elderly and infirm, the family's need for money grew greater. By 1820, they owned 150 acres of land and four slaves, but also owed $260 in outstanding debts. [5]
In 1823, Jesse and Mary sold their remaining land and bought a new, smaller farm on which to live. Two years later, however, they sold that as well, and either rented land or lived with relatives. Jesse Thompson died in the fall of 1829, when he was in his mid-seventies. His estate was valued at $620, more than half of which was represented by the family's single slave. Mary's fate after her husband's death is not known. [6]
Owen Lourie, 2018
Sources:
[1] Pension of Jesse Thompson, National Archives and Records Administration, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, NARA M804, S 35097, 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), 33-45.
[2] Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776, Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, folder 35, p. 85, from Fold3.com; Tacyn, 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.
[3] Thompson pension; Enrollment in artillery company, February-May 1777, Maryland State Papers, Series A, box 2, no. 141, MdHR 6636-2-141 [MSA S1004-2-1313, 1/7/3/25]; Pension of Anthony Davis, National Archives and Records Administration, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, NARA M804, S 34729, from Fold3.com; Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, pps. 579, 582, 583; Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, from Fold3.com; Muster roll, Dorsey's Company, Maryland Artillery, 28 January 1782, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 15, no. 32, MdHR 19970-15-32 [MSA S997-15-39, 1/16/1/36].
[4] Thompson pension; U.S. Federal Census, 1790, St. Mary's County, Maryland; U.S. Federal Census, 1800, St. Mary's County, Maryland; U.S. Federal Census, 1810, St. Mary's County, Maryland; Federal Direct Tax, 1798, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 729, St. Mary's County, General List of Slaves, p. 2968; Charles E. Fenwick, St. Mary's County Tax Assessment Records, 1793-1849 (St. Mary's County Historical Society, 2004), 422; Will of Priscilla Mattingly, 1790, St. Mary's County Register of Wills, Wills, Liber JJ 1, p. 507 [MSA C1720-4, 1/60/10/35]; Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh, Maryland Records: Colonial, Revolutionary, County and Church from Original Sources, vol. 1 (Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, 1915), 394; Deed, Joseph & Mary Boyle to Jesse Thompson, 1808, Court of Appeals, Land Record Abstracts, SM, Liber TH 26, p. 241 [MSA S1361-2, 1/27/1/11]. Priscilla Mattingly was Jane's grandmother.
[5] Jesse Thompson to Philip Herbert, 1812, Court of Appeals, Land Record Abstracts, SM, Liber TH 27, p. 48 [MSA S1361-3, 1/27/2/12]; Maryland General Assembly, Session Laws of 1812, Resolution 25, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 618, p. 245; Treasurer of the Western Shore, Pension Roll, Military, 1811-1843, p. 41, MdHR 4534-4 [MSA S613-1, 2/63/10/33]; Thompson pension; U.S. Federal Census, 1820, District 4, St. Mary's County, Maryland.
[6] Deed, James Walther to Jesse Thompson, 1823, Court of Appeals, Land Record Abstracts, SM, Liber TH 30, p. 132 [MSA S1361-6, 1/27/2/15]; Deed, Jesse & Mary Thompson to John B. Lyon, 1823, Court of Appeals, Land Record Abstracts, SM, Liber TH 30, p. 133; Deed, Jesse Thompson to Sarah Thompson, Court of Appeals, Land Record Abstracts, SM, Liber TH 30, p. 266; Inventory of Jesse Thompson, 1829, St. Mary's County Register of Wills, Inventories, Liber EIM 1, p. 545 [MSA C1611-9, 1/60/12/5].
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