John Paulding

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For the sculptor, see John Paulding (sculptor).

John Paulding
Born(1758-10-16)October 16, 1758
Peekskill, Province of New York, British America
DiedFebruary 18, 1818(1818-02-18) (aged 59)
Staatsburg, New York, U.S.
Spouses
Sarah Tidd
​
​
(m. 1781; died 1789)​
Esther Ward
​
​
(m. 1790; died 1804)​
Hester Denike
​
(m. 1806)​
Children19, including Hiram
ParentJoseph Paulding
RelativesJames Kirke Paulding (cousin)
William Paulding Jr. (cousin)
Signature

John Paulding (October 16, 1758 – February 18, 1818) was an American militiaman from the state of New York during the American Revolution. In 1780, he was one of three men who captured Major John André, a British spy associated with the treason of Continental general and commandant of West Point Benedict Arnold. Andre was convicted and hanged.[1][2]

American Revolution[edit]

While visiting his future wife, Sarah Tidd, Paulding was captured by Tories, or Loyalists, led by his future brother-in-law. He was held in the notorious "Sugar House" prison in New York City in 1780, then occupied by British forces. He escaped by jumping from a window. He went to the livery stable of a friend and acquired a German military Jäger or Hessian coat, green with red trim, associated with the British mercenaries, which he wore to evade notice.[3]

As part of an armed patrol in Westchester County, with fellow militiamen David Williams and Isaac Van Wart,[1][2] Paulding seized British Major John André, who had left Benedict Arnold after discussing the latter's defection to the British and betrayal of the patriots. This site is now commemorated as Patriot's Park on the border of Tarrytown, New York and Sleepy Hollow, New York. André, seeing Paulding's Hessian coat, may have assumed him to be a member of the "cowboys," or pro-British marauders who raided the Neutral Ground for cattle and supplies.[4] Searching André for valuables, they discovered documents of his secret communication with Benedict Arnold.[5] The militiamen, all local yeomen farmers, refused André's attempt to bribe them, and delivered the officer to the Continental Army. Arnold's plans to surrender West Point to the British were revealed and foiled, and André was convicted and hanged as a spy. With George Washington's personal recommendation, the United States Congress awarded Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart the first military decoration of the United States, the silver medal known as the Fidelity Medallion. Each of the three also received federal pensions of $200 a year. New York State granted them each lands for farms.[6]

The celebrated trio were commemorated far and wide as popular heroes after the patriots won the war. By an act of Congress, the new state of Ohio (1803) included the counties named Paulding, Van Wert (anglicized spelling), and Williams. Paulding was held in particularly high regard by early American historians, as the standard 19th-century accounts credited him with the decision-making and initiative at the scene.[7]

Though hailed as national heroes, Paulding and the others also received criticism. The divisions in society continued after the war. At his trial André insisted the men were mere brigands; sympathy for Andre remained among some more elite American quarters, which included some Loyalists. (André's reputation was high in England, where his body was returned and he was buried in Westminster Abbey). Representative Benjamin Tallmadge of Connecticut, who had been present as an American officer in Westchester County in 1780 and had a low opinion of the three common militiamen, had accepted André's account of his capture and search. Tallmadge argued in Congress for the rejection of a requested pension increase in 1817 for Paulding. He assailed the credibility and motivations of the three captors.[8]

Despite this slight, the men's popular acclaim generally increased throughout the 19th century, although opinion on their motives and actions remained divided.[9] Some modern scholars have interpreted the episode as a major event in early American cultural development, representing the apotheosis of the "common man" in the new democratic society.[1][10]

Personal life[edit]

Paulding was born on October 16, 1758, at the Paulding homestead near Tarrytown in Peekskill in the Province of New York in what was then British America. He was the son of Joseph Paulding.[11][12]

Paulding was a self-sufficient yeoman farmer and was described as a strong, sturdy man, standing more than six feet tall, unusual for the era. Paulding married three times in his life, and lost two wives to death. In total he had nineteen children by them.[13] On April 21, 1781, he was married to Sarah Tidd (1767–1789) of Salem, New York.[11]

After Sarah's death on October 23, 1789, he remarried to Esther Ward (1768–1804) on November 18, 1790. Esther was the daughter of Caleb Ward and Mary (née Drake) Ward. Together, they were the parents of:[11]

Hiram Paulding

Esther died in 1804 and in 1806, he married for the third time to Hester Denike (d. 1855), the daughter of Isaac Denike of Peekskill.[11]

He died in 1818 at Staatsburg, Dutchess County, New York of natural causes. His last words were reported to be: "I die a true republican."[14] He was buried in the cemetery of Old Saint Peter's Church in Van Cortlandtville, Cortlandt Manor.[12][15]

Descendants[edit]

Paulding's descendants are numerous but perhaps the best-known of them is his son Hiram Paulding (b.1797 - d.1878), who served in the War of 1812 and fought in the Battle of Lake Champlain; he rose to become a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy and retired only after the end of the American Civil War.[11]

Relations[edit]

Among his extended family were cousins James Kirke Paulding, the U.S. Secretary of the Navy under President Martin Van Buren; William Paulding Jr., who served as mayor of New York City, a U.S. Representative and the Adjutant General of New York; and Julia Paulding, who married U.S. Representative William Irving (brother of author and diplomat Washington Irving).[11]

Legacy[edit]

Memorial at Patriots Park, Tarrytown, NY

Paulding's grave is marked by a large marble monument with the epitaph:[16]

FIDELITY - On the morning of the 23rd of September 1780, accompanied by two young farmers of the county of West Chester, he intercepted the British spy, André. Poor himself, he disdained to acquire wealth by the sacrifice of his country. Rejecting the temptation of great rewards, he conveyed his prisoner to the American camp and, by this noble act of self-denial, the treason of Arnold was detected; the designs of the enemy baffled; West Point and the American Army saved; and these United States, now by the grace of God Free and Independent, rescued from most imminent peril.

In 1853, a monument was erected at the site of André's capture in Tarrytown. On the event's centenary in 1880, it was topped with the statue of a minuteman. Carved by the sculptor William Rudolf O'Donovan (1844–1920), the statue is reputedly in the likeness of Paulding himself. It is located in Patriot's Park, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.[17][18] A street called Paulding Drive in Chappaqua, New York was named in his honor.[19]

According to Marcius D. Raymond, several villages and counties are named in his honor: Paulding County, Ohio; Paulding County, Georgia; Paulding, Michigan (site of the mysterious Paulding Light); Paulding, New Jersey; and Paulding, Mississippi. Additionally, the villages of Tarrytown (where there is a John Paulding Elementary School), Cold Spring and Elmsford, along with the cities of Peekskill and White Plains, all in New York, each have a street named for Paulding (as well as ones for Williams and Van Wart). The Fire Department of Sparkill, New York, maintains the John Paulding Engine Co., founded in 1901.[20]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Cray, pp. 371-397
  2. ^ a b Raymond, pp. 11-17
  3. ^ Reynolds, Cuyler (1914). Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Building of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. pp. 457, 1281–1282. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  4. ^ “The Crisis of the Revolution” By Abbatt, William; Hart, John; Campbell, Charles A., Sons of the American Revolution, New York State Society, 1899. page 29. Retrieved July 25, 2011
  5. ^ [1] Ward, Harry M., The War for Independence and the Transformation of American Society, Routledge, 1999, p. 67. ISBN 1-85728-656-1. Retrieved July 25, 2011
  6. ^ Lossing, Benson John (1852). The Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution: Or, Illustrations, by Pen and Pencil, of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for Independence. Harper & Bros. p. 173. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  7. ^ Builders, p. 49
  8. ^ Cray, Robert E. Jr., "Major John Andre and the Three Captors: Class Dynamics and Revolutionary Memory Wars in the Early Republic, 1780-1831", Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 17, No. 3. Autumn, 1997. University of Pennsylvania Press.
  9. ^ "The New American Cyclopedia", New York: Appleton, 1857. Vol. 1, "André," p. 549551. Quote: "In regard to the captors of Maj. André, suspicions that they were not governed altogether by honest motives, have to some extent gained ground in recent years."... "It is not the least interesting feature of the story of André, the fascination of which only seems to increase with time, that 40 years after his death, the suspicion which we have noticed should arrest public attention, and be likely henceforth always to divide it."
  10. ^ public domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1891). Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  11. ^ a b c d e f Treman, Ebenezer Mack (1901). The History of the Treman, Tremaine, Truman Family in America: With the Related Families of Mack, Dey, Board and Ayers; Being a History of Joseph Truman of New London, Conn. (1666); John Mack of Lyme, Conn. (1680); Richard Dey of New York City (1641); Cornelius Board of Boardville, N.J. (1730); John Ayer of Newbury, Mass. (1635); and Their Descendants. Press of the Ithaca Democrat. p. 1168. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  12. ^ a b The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. XIII. James T. White & Company. 1906. p. 318. Retrieved August 21, 2020 – via Google Books.
  13. ^ "JOHN PAULDING MEDAL FOUND; Was Presented to Him by Congress for Major Andre's Capture" (PDF). The New York Times. May 10, 1896. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  14. ^ Bolton, p. 75
  15. ^ Bolton, Robert (1848). A History of the County of Westchester, from Its First Settlement to the Present Time. Alexander S. Gould. Retrieved February 23, 2019. john paulding peekskill.
  16. ^ Cemeteries and Burial Sites in Westchester County. Half Moon Press. 2008. Archived from the original on July 20, 2008. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  17. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  18. ^ O'Brien, Austin N. (April 1982). "National Register of Historic Places Registration:Patriot's Park". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Archived from the original on October 18, 2012. Retrieved December 30, 2010.
  19. ^ The Builders of the Nation: A History of the United States, Including Portraits and Biographies of Presidents, Cabinet Officers, Statesmen, Legislators, Jurists, Educators, Authors, Editors, and Divines. Stanley-Bradley Publishing Company. 1892. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  20. ^ Raymond, Marcius Denison (1903). David Williams and the capture of Andre: A paper read before the Tarrytown Historical Society. Tarrytown: Tarrytown Argus. pp. 1–35. Retrieved February 23, 2019.

External links[edit]

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