American Revolution: Deborah Sampson Gannett
Her young life was a hard, dreary one. But, a bright spot in her life was her beautiful maternal grandmother Bathsheba Bradford. Mrs. Bradford maintained a close relationship with her daughter and grandchildren, and she made it a point to visit them often. During these visits, Grandmother Bradford, who had a French background, regaled Deborah with exhilarating stories about Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc, who was a heroine of France, had donned a pair of mens’ pants and then charged into war. She was instrumental in helping the French Army beat the British. But her bravery was not rewarded. Instead, she was burned at the stake for disobeying the rulers of the church.
Deborah also listened to, and absorbed, stories her mother and grandmother told about how the war had affected their family. Her aunt and uncle, Hannah and Joshua Bradford, for example, had been murdered in 1758 in the attack on Meduncook, Maine. Also, a cousin of her father, a man named Captain Simeon Sampson, had been kidnapped during the French and Indian Wars. He finally managed to escape his captors by dressing as a woman.
(These family stories and more undoubtedly influenced Deborah, because, as an adult, she would make her own mark on history…)
Deborah Sampson’s poverty-stricken life only became harder when her father ran out on his family and went to sea. Deborah’s mother couldn’t support her six children, so she sent them off one by one to live with other family members and neighbors.
Young Deborah, who was just shy of having her sixth birthday, was sent to Middleborough, Massachusetts to live with her mother’s cousin, a lady named Ruth Fuller. When Deborah left home, she took with her her meager belongings and the inspirational stories her Grandmother Bradford had delighted her with.
When Ruth died a couple years later, Deborah Sampson went to live with Mrs. Peter Thacher. Mrs. Thacher was the widow of the minister of the First Congregational Church of Middleborough.
When she was ten years old, Deborah was bound into servitude for a man named Deacon Benjamin Thomas and his family. Living with a household full of boys enabled Deborah to learn how to shoot a musket as good as any man could.
Freedom for her finally came when she reached her eighteenth birthday. She had enough formal education to then teach school in Middleboro in 1779 and 1780.
In 1780, with the Revolutionary War still lingering on, Deborah got word from Deacon Thomas that two of his sons who had been fighting with the Marquis de Lafayette in Virginia, had been killed by enemy fire. Heartbroken by the news, this was yet another event that would influence Deborah Sampson’s life.
Now that she was a full grown woman, Deborah hadn’t blossomed into a beautiful woman like her Grandmother Bradford was. Instead, she was a tall, hearty woman who had developed a sturdy build because of all the hard work she was accustomed to. It was undoubtedly her masculine features that enabled her to enlist in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army in May of 1782. Deborah dressed like a man and took the name, “Robert Shurtliff” in order to disguise her true gender. She was just twenty-one years old. (“Robert Shurtliff”had been the name of her mother’s first born. He died when he was just eight years old.)
Deborah enlisted for a three year stint. She began her service in the Revolutionary War with the other soldiers in Captain George Webb’s regiment. She blended in with the males well. Her regiment was sent to fight at West Point, New York. Deborah was wounded at least twice, and in order to hide her true identity, she nursed a leg wound herself. Her secret was safe until she later became ill and was sent to a hospital in Philadelphia. Dr. Binney, her attending physician, found out her true gender, but he kept the matter quiet until his patient recovered. Then, Deborah, or rather,”Private Robert Shurtliff”, as she was known, was sent to deliver a letter to General George Washington. Private Shurtliff was honorably discharged from the Army on October 23, 1783.
In 1785, Deborah married a farmer by the name of Benjamin Gannett. They had three children.
After Paul Revere sent a letter on her behalf, in January of 1792, the Massachusetts General Court voted to give Deborah Simpson Gannett a pension for her Army service in the Revolutionary War. The court had no option other than to agree that she had “exhibited an extraordinary instance of female heroism, by discharging the duties of a faithful, gallant soldier, and at the same time preserving the virtue and chastity of her sex unsuspected and unblemished, and was discharged from the service with a fair and honorable character….'”
Later, in 1802, Sampson donned her Army uniform and traveled and gave lectures throughout New England about her wartime experiences. She finally passed away many years later on April 29, 1827.
