Major Nathaniel Pettit1
M, #1108, d. 1778
- Death*: 17781
Last Edited: 22 Jun 2007
Parents:
Notes
- Note*: "Nathaniel Pettit, Major of 2d Regiment, Hunterdon County Militia, was put in charge (From the Clifford affidavits relating to pension of Mary Wolverton, widow of Daniel Bray and daughter Elizabeth Pettit.) by General Washington of the four companies who were commissioned to gather the boats for Washington's Army to cross the Delaware on Christmas night 1776. They were to proceed from Baptistown and to collect all the boats along the Delaware between Easton and Sherrerd's Ferry, now Frenchtown.
The four companies under Major Pettit were commanded by (2d Lieutenant, acting Captain, later General) Daniel Bray; Adjutant Thomas Johnes, Captain Hunt and Captain Jacob Gearhart. They were assigned to seize and guard all the river boats. They worked for ten nights disguised as hunters; and it was no easy task to find the boats hidden away by their owners, to cut them out of the ice and to keep them from being swamped in the rapids while taking them down the icy current in the darkness. They succeeded in collecting about twenty-five craft, including fourteen Durham boats, four scows and several rafts for the transportation of cannon; all these they hid behind Malta Island opposite Lambertville.
Cornwallis was informed of this and sent a detachment, but so well hidden were the boats that they were not discovered. Their faithfull work made possible Washington's famous crossing and the consequent descent upon the Hessians at Trenton...
A tradition is that Major Nathaniel Pettit died in 1778, from wounds received at the Battle of Trenton 26 December 1776. Administration on his estate is dated 1779."1
Citations
- [S553] Wurts, John S. Magna Charta, VII (Philadelphia: Brookfield Publishing Co., 1954).