The full story of Warren's role in the American Revolution can never be written, so meagre are the records. A sparsely-populated region of marginal farmland and rocky hills, Warren would not be a separate political entity until l806, a quarter-century after the war ended. What scant evidence is available about Warren in those dramatic days tells of a few hundred patriotic Americans whose lives were touched indirectly by the conflict. We know that a hundred troops marched through Warren in March 1777, that 9,000 men camped at nearby Middlebrook l8 months later. Their foraging parties and outposts no doubt reached into what is now Warren: Indeed, if family tradition can be believed, General Washington himself rode along Mt. Horeb Road on one occasion at least. We know too that more than 20 men from Warren served in the Continental Army or county militia: Theirs were the lives intimately touched by the conflict! One of the richest sources of Revolutionary War history lies preserved on 2,670 rolls of microfilm at the National Archives. There, the pension and land bounty records of some 80,000 soldiers provide firsthand descriptions, on a very personal level, of the great events of the Revolution. John C. Dann, in his work, The Revolution Remembered: Eyewitness Accounts of the War for Independence (l980), calls these pension records "a remarkable body of historical data...." Pension files of most Warren soldiers who survived long enough after the war to apply under the Pension Act of l832 have been obtained and will, from time to time, appear on these pages, serving to fill in the details of Warren's role in the Revolution. John Penington (he spelled his name with one "n") received his pension on Feb. 19, l833, to begin March 4, l834, at the rate of $26.66 per month. Seventy-one when he applied, Penington was born on Sept. 3, l761 and died Sept. 21, l841, survived by his widow, sons James and William, and a daughter, Sarah Smith. Penington made his "declaration" in support of his application in open court: "On this fifteenth day of August in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and thirty two personally appeared in open court before the Judges of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas in and for said County of Somerset now sitting John Pennington, a resident of the County of Somerset afore-said and State of New Jersey, aged seventy one in September next who being first duly sworn according to law doth on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefits of the Act of Congress passed June 7, l832. That he entered the service of the United States under the following named officers and served as herein stated. That he entered the service at Basking ridge by volunteering under Cap[t]. Corey. Served one month. Marched to Elizabeth Town. Thinks Frelinghuysen was Col. He again volunteered and served one month under Cap[t]. Sebring. Marched to Elizabeth Town. He again volunteered and served one month under Cap[t]. McCoy. Marched to Elizabeth Town. He also served as a volunteer three other months. One month service under Cap[t]. McCoy at Elizabeth Town. He also volunteered and served one month under Cap[t]. McCoy. Marched to Springfield. Was at the battle. Many of the Continental troops was killed. He also volunteered and served one month under Lieut. Caterlin. Marched to Morristown. Employed in guarding prisoners. He was also employed for about one year as teamster attached to the Continental service, carrying provisions from Trenton, N.J. to Kingston and in providing provisions for the Maryland Regiment which was volunteering at Morristown. He was also employed for about 8 months as a teamster while the Army were at Winter Quarters on the Pluckamin Mountains. He was born in Mendham Township, County of Morris, N.J., on the 3d Sept. 1761. He has always lived in the County of Somerset. His brother Ephraim Pennington has the record of deponent's age made by his father. He has no documentary evidence of his said service that he knows of." Ephraim Penington, then 65, was also sworn, stating under oath that he "recollects of his said brothers having been called out into the service of the United States when his said brother was a little over sixteen years [of age]. That he was out in the service from that time...off ton till the end of the war." Penington's petition was endorsed by Congressman Isaac Southard, who certified that Ephraim Penington "is well known to me as a credible witness." [Pension S3670] [The officers mentioned in Pennington's account are: Benjamin Corey, captain, lst Battalion, Somerset County Militia; Frederick F. Frelinghuysen, colonel, ditto; John or Ruliff Sebring, captain, ditto; Ganen McCoy, captain, ditto; and Joseph Catterlin, lieutenant, lst Regiment, Somerset County Militia.] |