The spectacle maker's son
I finally did it: I just applied for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. Actually, I'm a great-great-great granddaughter of the American Revolution.
Elias Dagley, spectacle maker and schoolteacher, born in 1713 in Lytham St. Anne's, Lancaster County, England, and his wife, Catherine, maiden-name-unknown, are as far as we've been able to get in tracking my dad's side of the family. They were my great-great-great-great grandparents, and they were already living in "the colonies," in what is now Berks County, Pennsylvania, by the time the French and Indian War began in 1754. Elias served in that war, as did George Washington, though his age (46) at the time of enlistment in 1759, and his skill as a spectacle-maker probably kept him from the front lines. Elias and Catherine had six children in all, and when the Revolutionary War started, all but one of the family moved to North Carolina, where their neighbors included the Boone family: Boone as in Daniel. One of my distant relatives tells the story this way: "The Dagleys lived neighbors to the Boone families in NC and helped the Boones with their surveying and the Boones helped them with theirs. One son, Thomas, was said to have been one of 32 axemen who helped Daniel Boone cut the Wilderness Trail into Kentucky in the 1770s. Thomas was also a patriot during the American Revolutionary War and furnished supplies to the Continental Army. One report says that he was baggage masger(?) for General George Washington when Cornwallis was making a march through the area."
The one who stayed behind was James Dagley, my great-great-great grandfather, born in 1752. He enlisted in the First Pennsylvania Battalion, and went on to serve for more than five years. He fought in the Battle of Brandywine, serving under Colonel (later General) "Mad" Anthony Wayne, and is listed among those who endured desperate conditions during the hard winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge with Washington and much of the rest of the Continental Army, while the British occupied Philadelphia. The First Battalion became the Second, and the Third, and then some of those veterans, including James Dagley, moved south and fought in the hills of North and South Carolina, possibly at the Battle of Kings Mountain, the turning point of the war. James Dagley is listed as a "waggoner" in the muster rolls at Valley Forge.
George Washington himself wrote this report from Valley Forge, in a letter to Governor George Clinton:
"Head Quarters, Valley Forge, February 16, 1778
Dear Sir: It is with great reluctance, I trouble you on a subject, which does not fall within your province; but it is a subject that occasions me more distress, than I have felt, since the commencement of the war; and which loudly demands the most zealous exertions of every person of weight and authority, who is interested in the success of our affairs. I mean the present dreadful situation of the army for want of provisions, and the miserable prospects before us, with respect to futurity. It is more alarming than you will probably conceive, for, to form a just idea, it were necessary to be on the spot. For some days past, there has been little less, than a famine in camp. A part of the army has been a week, without any kind of flesh, and the rest for three or four days. Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery, that they have not been ere this excited by their sufferings, to a general mutiny or dispersion. Strong symptoms, however, discontent have appeared in particular instances; and nothing but the most acitive efforts every where can long avert so shocking a catastrophe.
Our present sufferings are not all. There is no foundation laid for any adequate relief hereafter. All the magazines provided in the States of New Jersey, Pensylvania, Delaware and Maryland, and all the immediate additional supplies they seem capable of affording, will not be sufficient to support the army more than a month longer, if so long. Very little has been done to the Eastward, and as little to the Southward; and whatever we have a right to expect from those quarters, must necessarily be very remote; and is indeed more precarious, than could be wished. When the forementioned supplies are exhausted, what a terrible crisis must ensue, unless all the energy of the Continent is exerted to provide a timely remedy?
Impressed with this idea, I am, on my part, putting every engine to work, that I can possibly think of, to prevent the fatal consequences, we have so great a reason to apprehend. I am calling upon all those, whose stations and influence enable them to contribute their aid upons so important an occasion; and from your well known zeal, I expect every thing within the compass of your power, and that the abilities and resources of the state over which you preside, will admit. I am sensible of the disadvantages it labours under, from having been so long the scene of war, and that it must be exceedingly drained by the great demands to which it has been subject. But, tho' you may not be able to contribute materially to our relief, you can perhaps do something towards it; and any assistance, however trifling in itself, will be of great moment at so critical a juncture, and will conduce to keeping the army together till the Commissary's department can be put upon a better footing, and effectual measures concerted to secure a permanent and competent supply. What methods you can take, you will be the best judge of; but, if you can devise any means to procure a quantity of cattle, or other kind of flesh, for the use of this army, to be at camp in the course of a month, you will render a most essential service to the common cause. I have the honor etc."
The Valley Forge FAQ paints a more vivid picture, particularly when you look at the numbers of those who died of smallpox, starvation, or exposure.
James rejoined the rest of the family in North Carolina after the war, then moved on to Sevier County, Tennessee, where he died in 1816. His sister Elizabeth became the third wife of Daniel Boone's older brother, Jonathan. James and his wife -- we don't even have her first name -- had three children, including Benjamin Franklin Dagley, my great-great grandfather.
They say it may take a couple of months before I hear anything back from the DAR. I'll let you know when I do.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:08 PM
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26.7.03  |
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