Frederick Stevenson: A Militia Officer at the Battle of White Plains

The sandstone grave marker of Frederick Stevenson, New York militia veteran, who died in 1820, at St. Paul's. NPS.

An estimated 200,000 men took up arms for American independence in 1775–1783. Some served years in the Continental Army across several states; thousands more served in local militia for shorter stints. Frederick Phillipse Stevenson, buried at St. Paul's Church National Historic Site, was one of the latter, serving close to home as needed.

Background

• Born in 1752, he grew up on his father Edward's land at Throg's Neck, Westchester County — now part of the Bronx — about five miles from St. Paul's. Edward died in 1775, leaving the land to his children.
• He married his second cousin Hannah — common enough in a small 18th-century community.

Officer

Like other young men of means who backed the resistance in 1774–1775, he rose quickly despite little military experience:

• 1775: ensign, the lowest commissioned rank, in a local militia company;
• 1776: for reasons not entirely clear, lieutenant in the 6th Regiment of Dutchess County Militia, Colonel Morris Graham's — "Graham's militia."

White Plains

After the Americans' crushing defeats in Brooklyn and Manhattan in 1776, the army retreated north into Westchester and moved its stores to White Plains.

• Guarding supplies: Graham's regiment protected them — a typical militia duty.
• Digging in: it helped build earthworks on the hills north and west of the village under Colonel Rufus Putnam, Washington's engineer — especially on Chatterton Hill, the far right of the American line above the Bronx River.
• October 28: in perhaps the best-known action of the Battle of White Plains, British and Hessian troops attacked Chatterton Hill. Graham's militia, behind stone walls, endured a fierce cannonade, then faced crack troops, overwhelming numbers and a pincer attack, and retreated hastily. Over the following days, scattered militiamen rejoined Washington's army.

Later life

His record thins after fall 1776, but he survived the war, stayed in the militia, and rose to colonel, joining his neighbors in building the new republic. He died on July 17, 1820, at 68, and lies a few rows behind the church under a sandstone marker. Hannah applied for a Revolutionary War widow's pension in April 1855, received some payments, and died in New York City in 1858, at 87. She is buried beside him.

Sources

Based on "New York Militia Soldier Who Fought at Battle of White Plains, buried at St. Paul's," St. Paul's Church National Historic Site, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.