Joshua Saffell
MSA SC 3520-18067
Biography:
Joshua Saffell enlisted as a fifer in the Third Company of the First Maryland Regiment in April 1776. The company was part of Maryland's first contingent of full-time, professional troops, raised to fulfill the state's quota of soldiers for the Continental Army. As a musician, Saffell had an important role in the company, for which he was paid the same wages as a corporal. Fifers and drummers played music to communicate orders in camp and during battle, and to help pass the time on long marches. [1]
Saffell was the son of Samuel and Mary Saffell, who lived in Frederick--later Montgomery--County, Maryland. He had eight brothers and sisters: John, Samuel, William, Ann, James, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Charles. They owned a 100-acre farm, which was not a large piece of property. Still, they were fortunate to own their land, as many in the state had to rent. [2]
The company that Saffell joined commanded by Captain Barton Lucas, a veteran of the French and Indian War. Most of the company's men enlisted in Bladensburg, Maryland, and many of them were natives of Prince George's County. The company spent the first part of 1776 stationed in Annapolis, along with most of the other companies of the regiment (the rest were in Baltimore), where it trained and helped guard the city. [3]
In July, the Maryland regiment received orders to march to New York 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 was able to cross the creek, and escape the battle. However, the rest of the men, including the Third Company, 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 casualties, with some companies 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. [4]
The Third Company suffered greatly. More than 60 percent of its men were killed or captured, and at least twenty two were taken prisoner by the British. Lucas was sick during the battle and unable to fight with his men, and was greatly affected by the high number of casualties they took. One of his soldiers recalled that "Captain Barton Lucas became deranged in consequence of losing his company...Lucas was sent home" later that fall. [5]
Saffell's fate at the battle is unclear, and it is not even certain that he was on the field that day. Strength reports show that he was in present in the company in late July, as the Marylanders left Philadelphia en route to New York, but by mid-September no fifer appears on the returns. Although Saffell was not taken prisoner at the battle, he may have been wounded or fallen ill and left the regiment at some point in August or September. He may also have switched from being a fifer to serving as a combatant role. Regardless, Saffell did not rejoin the army after the end of 1776, when his enlistment expired, and by 1777 he was back in Maryland. [6]
Saffell lived in Montgomery County, Maryland, and in July 1777 he married a woman named Verlinda Prather. They were married just a few months after Saffell's father Samuel died. Samuel's estate was valued at £200, a fairly middling amount. Neither Saffell nor any of his siblings received anything from the estate; Samuel's will left everything to his wife Mary. Mary died in early 1787, leaving the bulk of her estate, including the land, to Joshua's brother Charles. The family only owned 100 acres, and dividing it among the children would have reduced it to parcels too small to support productive farms. Joshua received only a large cooking pot. [7]
In the middle part of the 1780s, Saffell encountered a string of financial problems. In April 1786, he assumed guardianship of a girl named Susanna Garrett, giving him responsibility of using the money from her father's estate to pay for her support. Whether this caused Saffell's financial crisis, or merely exacerbated it, cannot be determined from surviving records. In August 1787, Saffell was in a position to lend someone £70, but by early the next year he was forced to sign a promissory note to Garrett, agreeing to pay her the sizable sum of £250 by 1790, or else give her his household furniture, livestock, and "every other article that I own." [8]
Just a few weeks later, in March 1788, Saffell filed for bankruptcy, claiming that he owed £425 to various creditors whom he could not pay back. In July 1789, he transferred ownership of all his household property in exchange for the settlement of those debts, leaving him penniless, and possibly without anywhere to live. Nevertheless, in January 1790, his debt to Garrett came due, and Saffell turned over such possessions as he owned, including his coming crop of wheat. How he would support himself or his family--which included at least six people--was now his problem to figure out. [9]
Little is known about Joshua Saffell or his family after that time. Maryland's economy collapsed in 1786, just before Saffell began to suffer financial hardships. The intricate networks of creditors and debtors which had developed in communities fell apart, and many people--rich and poor--found themselves unable to pay off their debts. This turmoil surely lay at the root of Saffell's problems. While Saffell was still living in Montgomery County when the 1790 federal census was taken, he does not appear in any Maryland records after that time. Many left the state in search of a new start or better prospects during the 1780s and 1790s. [10]
Owen Lourie, 2018
Notes:
2. Will of Samuel Saffell, 1777, Montgomery County Register of Wills, Estate Record, Liber A, p. 3 [MSA C1138-2, 1/17/8/2]; Inventory of Samuel Saffell, 1778, Estate Record, Liber A, p. 136; Land Office, Debt Books, Frederick County, 1773, vol. 26, 163 [MSA S12-115, 1/24/2/28].
3. Pension of John Hughes. National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land-Warrant Application Files, S 5954, from Fold3.com; Pension of George Reed. National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land-Warrant Application Files, S 30669, from Fold3.com.
4. 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.
5. Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776; Hughes pension.
6. Return of officers & soldiers, etc of Smallwood's Regiment, 20 July 1776, Maryland Historical Society, Smallwood Papers, MS 1875; Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776; Pay Abstract, First Maryland Regiment, September 1776, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 6, no. 5, MdHR 19970-06-05 [MSA S997-6-6, 1/7/3/11]; Pay Abstract, First Maryland Regiment, October-December 1776, Maryland State Papers, Series A, box 1, no. 108, MdHR 6636-1-108 [MSA S1004-1-87, 1/7/3/25].
7. Samuel Saffell will; Will of Mary Saffell, 1787, Montgomery County Register of Wills, Estate Record, Liber B, p. 244 [MSA 1138-2, 1/17/8/2]; Montgomery County Commissioners of the Tax, Assessment Record, 1793, Fourth District [MSA C1110-1, 1/18/14/17].
8. Estate Record, Liber B, 302; Mortgage, John Boyd to Joshua Saffell, 1787, Montgomery County Court, Land Records, Liber C, 608 [MSA CE148-3]; Joshua Saffell to Susanna Garrett, 1788, Montgomery County Court, Land Records, Liber D, 40 [MSA CE148-4].
9. Insolvency of Joshua Saffell, 1788, Chancery Court, Insolvency Record, vol. 2, 481 [MSA S522-2, 1/40/2/36]; Bill of Sale, Joshua Saffell to Forrester Davis, Trustee, 1789, Liber D, 230; Bill of Sale, Joshua Saffell to Susanna Garrett, 1790, Liber D, 355; General Assembly, House of Delegates, Assessment Record, 1783, Montgomery County, Lower Newfoundland, Rock Creek, and Northwest Hundred, 9 [MS S1161-8-2, 1/4/5/51]
10. Jean B. Lee, The Price of Nationhood: The American Revolution in Charles County (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994), 244, 247, 261; U.S. Federal Census, 1790, Montgomery County, Maryland.
Return to Joshua Saffell's Introductory Page
|
Tell Us What You Think About the Maryland State Archives Website!
|