Jason Joseph Jenkins
MSA SC 3520-17887
Biography:
Jason Joseph Jenkins enlisted as a private in the First Company of the First Maryland Regiment in January 1776. Led by Captain John Hoskins Stone, the company was raised in Charles County. It was part of Maryland's first contingent of full-time, professional troops. Its men distinguished themselves that summer, gaining fame as the "Maryland 400." [1]
In July, the regiment received orders to march to New York, in order to defend the city from an impending British attack. The Marylanders arrived in New York in early August, where they joined with the rest of the Continental Army, commanded by General George Washington. 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. Half the regiment, including the First Company, was able to cross the creek, and escape the battle. However, the rest were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, this group of soldiers, today called the "Maryland 400," mounted a series of daring charges, which held the British at bay for some time, at the cost of many lives, before being overrun. They took enormous causalities, with some companies losing losing nearly 80 percent of their men, but their actions delayed the British long enough for the rest of the Continental Army to escape. In all, the First Maryland lost 256 men, killed or taken prisoner. [2]
Jenkins survived the battle, as did most of the men in his company. During the fall of 1776, the Marylanders fought a series of battles in New York: Harlem Heights (September), White Plains (October), and Fort Washington (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. [3]
In December 1776, Jenkins’s enlistment came to an end, and he signed on for a three-year term, this time as a corporal. A number of the soldiers who had fought in the 1776 campaign received similar promotions, a reflection of the veteran leadership that they could contribute to the army. During his second stint in the army, Jenkins probably took part in the disastrous raid on Staten Island (August 1777), and the major battles of the Philadelphia Campaign, Brandywine (September 1777) and Germantown (October 1777). The Marylanders also fought at the Battle of Monmouth (June 1778). In March 1779, he was promoted to sergeant. Jenkins was discharged in late December 1779, and he returned to Maryland. [4]
Jenkins settled in the Piscataway region of Prince George's County, Maryland in the years after the war. He was relatively well-off, although he never acquired any land. He did own a number of slaves, however: six in the early 1790s, to as many as fifteen in 1817. Jenkins was unusual in that regard. Economic conditions in Prince George's made acquiring land difficult, even for middling farmers wealthy enough to own slaves, but landless slave-holders typically owned only a few. Jenkins, by contrast, was in the top 25 percent of wealth in the county--but owned no land. [5]
It is likely that Jenkins was married and had a number of children. Nothing definite is known about them, however. He lived in Prince George's County as late as 1817, but nothing is known about him after that time. [6]
Owen Lourie, 2018
Notes:
[2] Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776, Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, folder 35, p. 85, 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. 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] Account of money paid sundry soldiers by Gen. Smallwood, paid to Jason Jenkins, late 1776/early 1777, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 6, no. 7-4, MdHR 19970-6-7/4 [MSA S997-6-26, 1/7/3/11].
[4] Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 125; Compiled Service Record of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, National Archives, NARA M881, from Fold3.com; 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].
[5] U.S. Federal Census, 1790, Prince George's County, Maryland; U.S. Federal Census, 1800, Prince George's County, Maryland; U.S. Federal Census, 1810, Piscataway Hundred, Prince George's County, Maryland. Wealth data drawn from Prince George's County Commissioners of the Tax, Assessment Records, personal property, Piscataway Hundred, 1793-1806 [MSA C1162] and Federal Direct Tax, 1798, Prince George's County, Piscataway Hundred, General List of Slaves, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 729, p. 2184. Maryland Gazette, 28 September 1786; Steven Sarson, "Yeoman Farmers in a Planters' Republic," Journal of the Early Republic 29, no. 1 (Spr. 2009), 74, 77.
[6] Jenkins may have married a woman named Mary Edelen in 1784. Unfortunately, the handwriting in the marriage record is unclear, and the groom's name is ambiguous. Prince George County Court, Marriage Licenses, 1777-1797, p. 29 [MSA CM783-1, CR 50230]; 1790 Census; 1800 Census; 1810 Census.
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