Martin Kephart
MSA SC 3520-17820
Biography:
Martin Kephart (or Gephart) was about twenty of twenty-five years old when he enlisted as a private in the Ninth Company of the First Maryland Regiment in January 1776. The regiment was the state’s first contingent of soldiers for the Continental Army, and Kephart served in the army for four long years. He was part of a unit with an illustrious record, earning the legendary title of “Maryland 400” at its first taste of combat, the Battle of Brooklyn. [1]
Kephart enlisted in Frederick Town (now the city of Frederick), in Frederick County, Maryland, located in the western part of the state. He and most of the men in the Ninth Company hailed from Western Maryland, a region which was in many ways distinct from the rest of the state. In the late eighteenth century, Frederick Town had already started to develop manufacturing and domestic and foreign trade. Many citizens of Frederick County (which comprised all of the state’s western panhandle until Washington County’s creation in 1776) were of German heritage, and Kephart was himself an immigrant from Germany. [2]
While nothing is definitely known about Kephart’s family, it is possible to speculate about them and their lives. Martin may have descended from the same Kephart (or Gephart) family that originally came from Germany and German Pennsylvania settlements in the 1730s and 1740s. Most people in the German community were farmers, growing wheat, oats, or corn, and keeping livestock. They had been drawn to the area because land was more easily acquired there than elsewhere in the state. There were already English settlers in southern and southeastern Frederick County, so many Germans moved to the frontier areas, living in the more undeveloped northern or central portion, near Pennsylvania. The families that settled in Western Maryland earlier tended to own more land than more recent arrivals, although the community’s land owning practices also impacted this. Most settlers of German descent divided their properties among all their sons, which resulted into plots being reduced again and again over succeeding generations. This could create farms too small to be worked productively. [3]
Continental Army recruiters found fertile territory in Western Maryland. Many residents of German descent thought of themselves as citizens of their specific colony rather than the British Empire, and felt no loyalty toward the King. Kephart’s company of seventy-eight soldiers was filled quickly, and close to half of the men, like Kephart, carried ethnic German surnames. It was commanded by Captain George Stricker, the son of German-speaking Swiss immigrants, and an active member of the Frederick County leadership. [4]
Stricker was, in fact, only with the Ninth Company for a few months, and in July 1776 he was made a commander in the German Battalion, a unit raised in the mountains of Western Maryland and Pennsylvania, intended to draw the large ethnic German population into the American war effort, and to act as a counter to Britain's Hessian mercenaries. Stricker was replaced by Benjamin Ford, who came from St. Mary’s County, in the far southern tip of the state. Kephart, like most former members of the Ninth Company, seem to have always thought of Stricker as the unit’s founder. In the statements they gave in their applications for Federal veteran’s pensions, the men of the Ninth Company seldom mentioned Ford—only Stricker. Perhaps they remembered him better, since he came from their own community. [5]
The Ninth Company was raised to serve a special role within the First Maryland Regiment, likely to take advantage of the strengths of its soldiers. Stricker declared that he would be “very particular in the men he takes & much wishes his [company], the Light Infantry Company to be armed with Rifles.” [6] As light infantry, Kephart and his comrades were deployed in small groups ahead of the main body of the army, acting as scouts or skirmishers. It was a role which was well-suited for rifle-carrying soldiers, and the backcountry residents of Western Maryland were accustomed to using such weapons. Well after the war, Kephart spoke of participating in “skirmishing parties,” and rifles were particularly valuable to these parties, because they were able to shoot targets from longer distances. Muskets, meanwhile, were more effective at a closer range. The two could not be used together, because the smoke from a musket would hinder the capabilities of rifleman who needed to see a more distant target. [7]
Frederick County and the surrounding mountainous areas were known for producing skilled riflemen. In 1775, two companies of riflemen from Frederick were raised by Maryland to reinforce Boston. Their appearance “excited so much remark among their New England comrades,” where the arrival of “a formidable Company of upwards of 130 men, from the mountains and backwoods, painted like Indians, armed with tomahawks and rifles and dressed in hunting shirts and moccasins” caused quite a stir. Then, as now, they were the embodiment of the idealized, mythic backwoods soldier. [8]
The notion of the rugged American soldier using his own hunting rifle to pick off British soldiers is a common image, even during the Revolution, as the reaction to the 1775 riflemen demonstrates. However, this picture is not entirely accurate. In October 1776, Richard Peters of the Board of War wrote to the Maryland Council of Safety to suggest that riflemen were not as vital to the success of the colonists as many legends suggest. Replying to the state’s proposal to raise an additional rifle company, Peters wrote that Congress would be glad for the troops. However,
“If musketts were given them instead of rifles the service would be more benefited, as there is a superabundance of riflemen in the Army. Were it in the power of the Congress to supply musketts they would speedily reduce the number of rifles and replace them with the former, as they are more easily kept in order, can be fired oftener and have the advantage of Bayonetts.” [9]
While the mystique of the rifle remained during and after 1776, the weapon’s use declined, a fact which Martin Kephart noticed. As he later recalled, when the Maryland Line was reorganized in late 1776, “the company was made a musket company,” like the rest of the army. [10]
Martin Kephart began his military career with a few months of training in Annapolis during the spring and summer of 1776. That July, he and the rest of the First Maryland Regiment were ordered to march north to defend New York from an impending British attack. That August, a few weeks after arriving there, the Marylanders were part of the American army that crossed the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn, to face nearly 15,000 British soldiers. The Battle of Brooklyn, fought August 27, 1776, was the first large battle of the war, and was a disaster for the Americans. They were out-flanked and surrounded by the British, and forced to flee in disarray. As the battle progressed, however, a small contingent of Maryland soldiers, including men from the Ninth Company, made a heroic last stand against the British. Although the Marylanders took heavy losses, they held the British back long enough to buy time for the rest of the Continental Army to escape. While Kephart survived the Battle of Brooklyn, many of his comrades did not: only thirty-six officers and men came back from the field that day, fewer than half of the men who were present at the beginning of the battle. [11]
Over the next months, Kephart and the rest of the Marylanders fought to hold New York. They stood against the British at the Battle of White Plains at the end of October. At the that battle, the Marylanders had to retreat yet again in the face of heavy fire and a British bayonet charge and sustained a number of casualties. By the middle of November, the Americans had been pushed out of New York altogether, and put on the run into New Jersey. [12]
A few weeks after this dismal juncture in the war, Kephart signed up to reenlist. [13] While there is no way of knowing his exact motivations, his respect for the leadership of George Washington may have influenced his decision. Years later, Kephart remembered the Battle of Trenton, fought on December 26, 1776, amid the army’s retreat, as “where Washington conquered the Hessians.” [14] This commentary reveals the admiration for Washington among his men that persisted long after the war. Rather than the army or the soldiers as individuals conquering the Hessians, the victory is attributed to Washington’s leadership in crossing the Delaware into New Jersey. The hint of antagonism aimed directly at the Hessians is also interesting, considering Kephart’s own German ancestry. However, Kephart may have best remembered this attack because the Marylanders were in a position to directly fire on the Hessians with cannons during the battle. He probably saw these enemy troops fall with his own eyes. [15]
A week later, the Americans fought the British again at the town of Princeton, New Jersey, with the Marylanders again in the vanguard of the army. [16] That confronted the British at a snow-covered orchard, which stood on high ground. There, the Marylanders fired several volleys at the British, aiming for the officers. The colonists lost many officers in the attack as well, which put the army into a state of confusion. The Marylanders, however, were able to organize themselves enough to return to the battle for the remainder of the fighting. While the battle was not an American victory, it showed that they could be the British's equal. [17]
There were many casualties in Martin Kephart’s company at the Battle of Princeton, and Kephart himself was among them. As he described it, “he was wounded in the thigh with a musketball at Princetown & that the shell is yet in his body” more than forty years later. [18] In many ways, Kephart’s single wound is remarkable, considering that he served in the army for four full years, and saw combat at many major battles: Brooklyn (1776), White Plains (1776), Trenton (1776), Princeton (1777), Brandywine (1777), Germantown (1777), and Monmouth (1778). Many of the men that Kephart had enlisted with at the beginning of 1776 had reenlisted with him at the end of that year, but when they were discharged on December 27, 1779, only 69 of them remained. The rest had rest had died, deserted, been wounded, or take prisoner. [19]
So it was that Kephart found himself at the American camp at Morristown, New Jersey, newly discharged, in late December of 1779. He traveled from there straight to Philadelphia, “with the intention to draw his pay.” Where Kephart went from there is not quite certain. He may have returned to Maryland for a time, but probably only remained there for a few years, and was likely gone by the early 1780s. In 1789, he petitioned the Maryland General Assembly for his back pay, which he should have received under a series of laws passed between 1780 and 1783. Kephart had never received the money he was owed, however, “as he was not in the state” when the legislation was enacted. By 1800, he may have been living in the town of Greencastle, Pennsylvania, a short distance from the Maryland border. [20]
Wherever his exact residence, Kephart eventually settled in Osnaburg Township, in Stark County, located in northeastern Ohio. Many natives of Maryland were drawn to the west because there were better chances of securing good land and because there was more opportunity for social mobility in the frontier states. In addition, many people of German heritage settled in Stark County. Osnaburg was founded in 1806, with aspirations of becoming the county seat. Another town was eventually chosen, and Osnaburg’s ambitions of being an up-and-coming metropolis quickly dwindled. When Kephart moved there, it was, like his previous places of residence, very sparsely populated. Its leading citizen in these years was Christian Kountz, an immigrant from Saxony. In addition to Kountz’s business endeavors, some of the township’s earliest institutions were the Updegraff & McGuggin hat shop, James Leeper’s tavern, and a small general store owned by a man so plagued by an unnamed scandal that he had to leave town in the middle of the night. Kephart may well have known these proprietors, visited their stores, and even gossiped about the shocking rumors going around Osnaburg in his day. [21]
Like many young men, Kephart got married at some point after the war. His wife’s name is not known, although she may have been the Margaret Kephart who was the administrator for Martin’s estate after his death. The Kepharts had two daughters, and the younger girl was born around 1806. As for the other child, Martin Kephart described her fate in his 1821 application for a Revolutionary War veteran’s pension: “my oldest child…is blind and has been from her infancy.” [22] While Kephart was trying to prove his family's poverty with this statement in order to qualify for the pension, his words demonstrate a genuine concern for his daughters, their well-being, and their future. He may have been especially concerned for his blind daughter, since impoverished blind people in the nineteenth century were often left with no alternative but to live in the poorhouse.
Kephart’s family was, indeed, poor. Poor enough to get a pension through the legislation passed by Congress in 1818, which “provided lifetime pensions to poverty-stricken Continental Line and U.S. Navy veterans who had served at least 9 months or until the end of the war.” Kephart’s poverty enabled him to reap the benefits of the act, which gave him a pension of eight dollars per month. He was, however, not unique in his poverty, as many other soldiers displayed their financial distress and even war wounds as evidence that they were worthy of the respect of the new nation. [23]
The money that Kephart did make once he moved to Stark County was derived from his occupation as a cooper. This trade was highly relevant in the times when Kephart was working. The stores in Osnaburg township might have used Kephart’s barrels to store wine, flour, or other commodities. An inventory of Kephart’s possessions names his tools of the trade, such as “1 lot of cooper tools,” and finished products such as “1 lot of old hogshead barrels and casks.” In addition to this trade, the Kephart family owned a small, thirty-acre plot of farming land. They grew grains there, and raised horses, cows, sheep, and hogs. [24]
The Kephart home was probably very basic and unadorned within. Their table was set with teacups, pewter plates, forks, and knives. They poured water from earthen pitchers, cooked food in a Dutch oven, and ground their own corn with a grindstone. There were just three chairs in the household for his family of four to sit in. In short, the Kepharts lived simply on their Osnaburg homestead. [25]
In his later years, Kephart was afflicted with “age and infirmity” and unable to work because he was severely “touched with the Palsy so that he is frequently confined to bed.” This illness, as well as the inability of his wife and daughters to bring in a salary, probably augmented the poverty of the Kephart family. In 1821, the total sum of every possession he owned was only $314.39. In this context, the pension that he eventually received no doubt made a huge economic difference for his family. Martin Kephart died on July 5, 1832. Over the course of his life, he received a total of $1,351, a transformative sum for him and his family, and a tangible way that his Revolutionary War service sustained them. [26]
More than that, however, Kephart's Revolutionary War service gave him a place in his local community. In 1826, he joined seven other veterans in the Fourth of July parade in Canton, the nearest city. The men marched near the front, "covered by the flag, and escorted by a military guard," a fitting way to honor those men on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. [27]
Lori Wysong, Washington College, 2018
Notes:
[1] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 19; Pension of Martin Kephart. National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land-Warrant Application Files, S 41727, from Fold3.com. In his 1818 pension application, gave his age as sixty years old, which would have made him about eighteen in 1776, but his 1832 obituary gave his age as 81, which would have made him twenty-five when he enlisted. See "Died," Canton Repository, 10 August 1832.
[2] "Died," Canton Repository, 10 August 1832.
[3] Edward T. Schultz, First Settlements of Germans in Maryland (Miami: Ruth T. Gross, 1976), 7-9; Elizabeth Augusta Kessel, "Germans on the Maryland Frontier: A Social History of Frederick County, Maryland, 1730-1800" (Ph.D. diss., Rice University, 1981), 110-113, 119, 124, 154-158.
[4] Kephart pension; Kessel, 285; Edward C. Papenfuse, et al, eds, A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789. Vol II. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 791.
[5] Samuel Chase, 30 July 1776, Maryland State Papers, Red Books, vol. 4, no. 38 [MSA S989-5, 1/6/3/38]; Robert K. Wright, The Continental Army (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center for Military History, 1983), 81, 320-321; Kephart pension.
[7] John W. Wright, "The Rifle in the American Revolution," The American Historical Review 29, no. 2 (1924): 296; Kephart pension.
[8] John Hanson Jr. to Frederick County Committee of Observation, 21 June 1775, in Thomas Balch, ed, Papers Relating Chiefly to the Maryland Line in the American Revolution (Philadelphia: T. K. and P. G. Collins Printers, 1857), 5-6.
[10] Kephart pension.
[11] Mark Andrew Tacyn, "'To the End:' The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution" (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 48-73; Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776, Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, folder 35, p. 85, from Fold3.com.
[12] Tacyn, 99-104.
[13] Tacyn, 120; Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 129; Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, from Fold3.com.
[14] Kephart pension.
[15] Tacyn, 123.
[16] Tacyn, 125-126.
[17] David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 330-334.
[18] Kephart pension.
[19] Kephart pension; Tacyn, 210; List of receipts of soldiers who were paid upon discharge, 27 December 1779, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 3, no. 7-21, MdHR 19970-3-7/21 [MSA S997-3-94, 1/7/3/9]; Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 129.
[20] Kephart pension; Votes and Proceedings of the House of Delegates of the State of Maryland, November 1789, p. 38, 45; U.S. Federal Census, 1800, Greencastle, Franklin County, Pennsylvania; The Gombach Group, "Living Places: Greencastle Historic District" (2018).
[21] Edward C. Papenfuse and Gregory A. Stiverson, "General Smallwood's Recruits: The Peacetime Career of the Revolutionary War Private," The William and Mary Quarterly 30, no. 1 (1973): 130; Jeffrey Paul Brown and Andrew Robert Lee Cayton, eds., The Pursuit of Public Power: Political Culture in Ohio, 1787-1861 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1994), 110; “Stark County Tax Index 1810, 1812-1813, 1816-1825”; "Stark County Tax Index 1826-1830"; Estate of Martin Kephart, 6 August 1832, Stark County Administration Docket, Vol. A, 1810-1837, p. 239, from FamilySearch.org; William Henry Perrin, History of Stark County: With an Outline Sketch of Ohio (Chicago: Baskin & Battey Historical Publishers, 1881), 489-491.
[22] Kephart pension.
[23] Kephart pension.Will Graves, "Pension Acts: An Overview of Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Legislation"; John P. Resch, Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 9.
[24] Kephart pension.
[25] Kephart pension.
[26] Kephart pension; "Died," Canton Repository, 10 August 1832.
[27] "4th of July 1826," Canton Repository, 6 July 1826.
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