Shadrack Hiatt (1749-1835)
MSA SC 3520-18316
Biography:
Born on August 15, 1749, in St. Mary's County, Maryland, Shadrack Hiatt was among the first people to volunteer for military service in Maryland during the Revolutionary War. In June 1775, he enlisted in a company of riflemen commanded by Captain Michael Cresap in Frederick County, Maryland. The unit was one of two companies that Maryland raised that summer to help bolster the American forces besieging the British army in Boston. The riflemen departed Frederick, Maryland in July 1775 and arrived in Boston just twenty-two days later, on August 9, an astounding pace of twenty-five miles per day. The soldiers were renowned for their accurate shooting and for their "backwoods" appearance. One observer described them as being "painted like Indians, armed with tomahawks and rifles, and dressed in hunting shirts and moccasins." [1]
During their time around Boston, the Marylanders largely performed guard duty, although they took part in several small skirmishes. After the British withdrew from the city in early 1776, the Maryland troops made their way to New York, arriving there in late March. About two months later, the soldiers' enlistments expired and they received their discharges. Most returned to Maryland, but evidentially Hiatt opted to remain in New York, perhaps hoping to continue to fight against the British. He took part in the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes called the Battle of Long Island) that August as a member of another unit from his home state, the First Maryland Regiment. [2]
There are no records of Hiatt ever formally enlisting in the First Maryland, which was raised in early 1776, and arrived in New York around the beginning of August. At least one other soldier from the rifle companies, Nathan Peak, also went on to serve in the First Maryland. However, while there are records that document Peak's enlistment in the First Maryland, no such records exist for Hiatt. Only Hiatt's application for a federal veteran's pension, filed in 1832, contains any information about his service in the Revolutionary War. In his application, made more than fifty years after the battle, Hiatt recalled serving under "Col. [William] Smallwood," the commander of the First Maryland Regiment in 1776. [3] Hiatt gave a largely accurate account of the Battle of Brooklyn, recalling that
The Americans were attacked early in the morning, by the Hessians who came down the Flat Bush Road. The British...came round in the rear, and the Americans were forced to retreat, but not until after a pretty severe conflict. A mill pond and Marsh lay in the way. [Hiatt] retreated through that water, and saw some of the men stick in the mud and were killed. He made his way to [the American] camp, although, in the action, he had received a would in the leg from a Musket ball. A large portion of the company was killed or taken prisoner. [4]
Hiatt stayed with the Marylanders until that winter, when he was discharged and returned to his home in "the Turkey Foot Settlement," an area in Allegany County, Maryland, not far from where he had first enlisted in 1775. He stayed there until the following spring, when he joined an expedition to bring supplies to settlements and soldiers in Pittsburgh and the Ohio River Valley. Hiatt described himself as being part of "a pack-horse company" attached to the Continental Army. As a blacksmith, Hiatt was charged with shoeing the horses on the long journey. It was almost certainly not a Continental Army unit, more likely composed of militia soldiers from either Pennsylvania or Virginia; both states clamed the territory at the time. [5]
In the early part of 1779, Hiatt was afflicted with "a gathering in the head, and an almost entire loss of hearing," which he attributed to "extreme exposure and fatigue." His condition necessitated his departure from the service. At the time, he was in Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia), not far from where he had lived in Maryland. [6]
What became of Hiatt in the decades following his Revolutionary War service is not known in detail. Sometime around 1800 he settled in Kentucky. He lived in Nicholas County in 1810, and by the 1830s he was in Montgomery County. He was granted his federal pension as a Revolutionary veteran in 1832, which he received until his death on March 9, 1835, at the age of 85. [7]
Owen Lourie, 2021. Special thanks to Nancy Jones.
Notes:
1. Pension of Shadrack Hiatt. National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land-Warrant Application Files, S 13361, from Fold3.com; Tucker F. Hentz, "Unit History of the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment (1776-1781): Insights from the Service Record of Capt. Adamson Tannehill" (Virginia Historical Society, 2007), 2-3; J. Thomas Scharf, History of Western Maryland (Philadelphia: Everts, 1882), 130-131; Brigadier General Horatio Gates to George Washington, 22 June 1775, fn4, Founders Online, National Archives.
3. Hiatt pension. Peak's enlistment in the Third Company of the First Maryland Regiment on 13 February 1776 is documented in Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution. Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 10.
4. Hiatt pension.
5. Hiatt pension.
6. Hiatt pension.
7. Hiatt pension; U.S. Federal Census, 1810, Kentucky, Nicholas County.
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