A Biography of Revolutionary War Veteran Thomas Hunt, Lieutenant, 4th New York Regiment

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Pelham and its citizens played important roles during the Revolutionary War. While most in Pelham know of the Battle of Pelham fought on October 18, 1776, fewer know of the various veterans of the War who once lived in Pelham.

One such veteran was Thomas Hunt, a Lieutenant in the 4th New York Regiment during the War. Hunt was the son of Westchester's Sheriff, Jesse Hunt, and lived for a time on the island that later became known as Hunter's Island in the Manor of Pelham.

Today's Historic Pelham Blog transcribes a biography of Thomas Hunt published in 1886. The biography appears immediately below.

"THOMAS HUNT

Lieutenant 4th New York Regiment.

Died in December, 1796, in Charleston S. C. † [Footnote † reads as follows: "Removing to Charleston he met with the South Carolina Society, and at his wife's request the New York Society paid her fifty dollars on the 13th of December, 1796, to defray her expenses to get to him."]

He was the eldest son of Jesse Hunt, the Sheriff of Westchester County, N. Y., under the Crown, and a descendant of Thomas Hunt, of Shrewsbury, England, High Sheriff of Shropshire in 1656, who emigrated to America, and obtained a patent for the 'Grove Farm' from the first English Colonial Governor, Richard Nicolls, dated the 4th of December, 1667, and at his decease willed to his grandson one hundred acres on the 'Great Planting neck,' now known as Hunt's Point, N. Y. City. He resided on Hunter's Island, at Pelham, Westchester County, N. Y., and enlisted from New Rochelle.

Commissioned Lieutenant in the 4th New York Regiment -- Colonel Henry B. Livingston's -- he saw much service, including the Canada Campaign. His commission is dated the 9th of November, 1777, but his name appears, a year earlier, on a list of officers of the four New York Battalions, now in the office of the Secretary of State, as a Second Lieutenant of the Seventh Company of the same, on the 21st of November, 1776, and again, in 1777, he is referred to as holding that rank in 1775. This error is explained by a rank roll of his regiment, adjusted under an order from Headquarters, Morristown, dated 20th of May, 1777, noting as to him and two other Second Lieutenants, 'no former Continental commission, therefor left as arranged by Convention.' His name appears on the Half-Pay Roll."

Source: Schuyler, John, Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati, Formed by the Officers of the American Army of the Revolution, 1783, With Extracts, from the Proceedings of its General Meetings and from the Transactions of the New York State Society, pp. 234-35 (NY, NY: Douglas Taylor 1886).

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