Service in the Revolution

The engagements of the Revolution in which the family served, from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, and the reformer who came after. The Liberty Tree, where the family stood on both sides, is told in its own chapter.

Two of the officers below, Lieutenant William Green and Captain Francis Green, are confirmed in Massachusetts military records. Their connection to the family is under research: the Green descent from James Green (1640) is being investigated and is not yet established (see The Green Connection). Solomon Swift's militia service is documented, and he is a direct ancestor on the Swift line.

Bunker Hill

June 17, 1775. Lt. William Green (Adjutant), Col. William Prescott's Regiment. Officer confirmed in Massachusetts records; connection under research.

On the night of June 16, 1775, Colonel William Prescott led approximately 1,200 men to fortify Breed's Hill on the Charlestown peninsula overlooking Boston Harbor. By dawn they had built a substantial redoubt. The British, under Major General William Howe, launched three frontal assaults up the hill.

The famous order, “Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes,” reflected a desperate shortage of ammunition. The Americans repulsed the first two assaults; the British took the hill on the third only after the defenders ran out of powder. The British suffered over 1,000 casualties, nearly half their attacking force.

Lieutenant William Green served as Adjutant in Colonel Prescott's Regiment and was wounded in action in the battle.

Saratoga

September–October 1777. Capt. Francis Green, Col. Joseph Vose's 1st Massachusetts Regiment, Continental Army. Officer confirmed in the muster rolls (Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War); connection under research.

The Saratoga Campaign was the turning point of the war. British General John Burgoyne marched south from Canada to split the colonies along the Hudson. The Americans under General Horatio Gates met him in two battles near Saratoga, New York. Colonel Joseph Vose's 1st Massachusetts Regiment was part of Glover's 2nd Massachusetts Brigade, which held the American right. Burgoyne surrendered on October 17, 1777, and France entered the war as an American ally.

Valley Forge

Winter 1777–1778. Capt. Francis Green, Vose's 1st Massachusetts. Confirmed in Heitman's Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army and the Valley Forge muster rolls.

After the British took Philadelphia, Washington marched the Continental Army to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for winter quarters. About 12,000 men endured cold, inadequate shelter, disease and hunger; an estimated 2,000 died during the six-month encampment. Vose's regiment is in the Valley Forge troop lists. Baron von Steuben arrived in February 1778 and retrained the army, which marched out in June 1778 able to meet the British on equal terms.

Monmouth

June 28, 1778. Capt. Francis Green, Vose's 1st Massachusetts. Confirmed in the regiment's muster rolls.

When the British evacuated Philadelphia and marched across New Jersey toward New York, Washington attacked their rear guard near Monmouth Court House. The battle was fought in heat above 100°F, and soldiers on both sides collapsed. After General Charles Lee's retreat, Washington rallied the troops and steadied the line; Vose's regiment fought with the main army. The British withdrew in the night and completed their march to New York.

The Battle of Rhode Island

August 29, 1778. Capt. Francis Green, Vose's 1st Massachusetts. Confirmed in the regiment's muster rolls.

After Monmouth, Vose's regiment marched east for operations under General John Sullivan at Newport, Rhode Island, the first joint Franco-American operation of the war. When a storm scattered the French fleet under Comte d'Estaing and it sailed to Boston for repairs, Sullivan's forces were left exposed and made an orderly fighting retreat from the north end of Aquidneck Island, on land now in Portsmouth and Middletown.

Barnstable County Militia

September 1778. Solomon Swift (1745–1807), Private, Capt. Samuel Fish's company, Col. Nathaniel Freeman's regiment. Confirmed in Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, vol. 15, on the Internet Archive.

In September 1778 the Barnstable County militia was called up in response to alarms at Dartmouth and Falmouth. Solomon Swift, a farmer in Falmouth, served as a private: local militia, the Cape Cod towns defending their own coast. He married Susannah Childs in Falmouth in 1769, and he is a direct ancestor through the Swift line.

Yorktown

September–October 1781. Capt. Francis Green, Vose's 1st Massachusetts (Lafayette's Division). Confirmed in the National Park Service's Yorktown biography of Colonel Joseph Vose and the regiment's muster rolls.

In February 1781 Vose's battalion was placed in Lafayette's Division for operations in Virginia. About 17,000 American and French troops besieged Cornwallis's army of 8,000 at Yorktown. After weeks of bombardment and the storming of key redoubts, Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781, and Vose's men helped guard about 7,000 British and German prisoners. On Evacuation Day, November 25, 1783, Vose led his regiment into New York City as the last British troops left.

Reform: Lucretia Coffin Mott

Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793–1880) was born on Nantucket to Captain Thomas Coffin, a whaleman of the Coffin line, and Anna Folger of the Folger line; she was a cousin of Benjamin Franklin, and of the brothers.

A Quaker minister and abolitionist, she co-organized the Seneca Falls Convention (1848), co-wrote the Declaration of Sentiments and was president of the American Equal Rights Association. Her home was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and she helped found Swarthmore College and the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania. In 2016 the Treasury named her among the suffragists for the back of a redesigned $10 bill, a plan later shelved and never issued.

Footnotes for this page are in preparation (Heitman; Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors).