User:Abigailrwade/Deborah Sampson

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Peer Reviewer: Garrett Hall

Notes: I would work on the title and keep it from the original article. Overall, it is actually really good and I enjoyed reading it. In the second paragraph, I would fix the wording and make it flow better than just saying "someone named". Any of the words where it says, "it seems" or is not specific should probably not be included. In the sentence that says "it is uncertain" I would keep the crossed out line because it provides detail as to why it is uncertain that he is the father. Great job!

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Deborah Sampson Gannett(December 17, 1760 – April 29, 1827), better known as Deborah Sampson, was a Massachusetts woman who disguised herself as a man in order to serve in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. She is one of a number of women with a documented record of military combat experience in that war. She served 17 months in the army under the name "Robert Shirtliff" (also spelled in various sources as Shirtliffe and Shurtleff) of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, was wounded in 1782, and was honorably discharged at West Point, New York in 1783.

4 children (Earl, Mary, Patience Sampson and Susanna Baker Shepherd)

Early life ^^^^^and family history=====

Deborah Sampson ancestral home

Deborah Sampson was born on December 17, 1760, in Plympton, Massachusetts, into a family of modest means ^^^^^at the ancestral home of her grandparents that is still standing today=====. Her father's name was Jonathan Sampson (or Samson) and her mother's name was Deborah Bradford. Her siblings were Jonathan (b. 1753), Elisha (b. 1755), Hannah (b. 1756), Ephraim (b. 1759), Nehemiah (b. 1764), and Sylvia (b. 1766).Sampson's mother was the great-granddaughter of William Bradford, ^^^^^ the first ===== Governor of Plymouth Colony. Sampson's ancestry also included additionalMayflower passengers ^^^^^ on both sides of her family including William Bradford (mother) and Henry Samson (father)=====.

Sampson was told that her father had most likely disappeared at sea ^^^^^ would tell anyone who asked that her father died in a shipwreck=====, but evidence suggests that he actually abandoned the family and migrated to Lincoln County, Maine. He took a common-law wife named Martha, had two or more children with her. In 1770, someone in Maine named Jonathan Sampson was indicted for murder, but it is uncertain whether this individual was Sampson's father because there are no existing records containing biographical details about the defendant in the case, ^^^^^the case never went to trial=====. ^^^^Other evidence of her father's existence is record of Johnathan Sampson's military service and that he===== returned to Plympton in 1794 to attend to a property transaction.

When Sampson's father abandoned the family, her mother was unable to provide for her children, so she placed them in the households of friends and relatives, a common practice in 18th-century New England. Sampson was placed in the home of a maternal relative. When her mother died shortly afterwards, she was sent to live with Reverend Peter Thatcher's widow Mary Prince Thatcher (1688–1771), who was then in her eighties. Historians believe she learned to read while living with the widow Thatcher, who might have wanted Sampson to read Bible verses to her.

Upon the widow's death, Sampson was sent to live with the Jeremiah Thomas family in Middleborough, where she worked as an indentured servant from 1770 to 1778. Although treated well, she was not sent to school like the Thomas children because Thomas was not a believer in the education of women. Sampson was able to overcome Thomas's opposition by learning from Thomas's sons, who shared their school work with her. This method was apparently successful; when her time as an indentured servant was over at age 18, Sampson made a living by teaching school during the summer sessions in 1779 and 1780. She worked as a weaver in the winter; Sampson was highly skilled and worked for the Sproat Tavern as well as the Bourne, Morton, and Leonard families. During her time teaching and weaving, she boarded with the families that employed her.

Sampson was also reported to have woodworking and mechanical aptitude. Her skills included basket weaving, and light carpentry such as producing milking stools and winter sleds. She was also experienced with fashioning wooden tools and implements including weather vanes, spools for thread, and quills for weaving. She also produced pie crimpers, which she sold door to door.

Army service

In early 1782, Sampson wore men's clothes and joined an Army unit in Middleborough, Massachusetts under the name Timothy Thayer. She collected a bonus and then failed to meet up with her company as scheduled. Inquiries by the company commander revealed that Sampson had been recognized by a local resident at the time she signed her enlistment papers. Her deception uncovered, she repaid the portion of the bonus that she had not spent, but she was not subjected to further punishment by the Army. The Baptist church to which she belonged learned of her actions and withdrew its fellowship, meaning that its members refused to associate with her unless she apologized and asked forgiveness.

In May 1782, Sampson enlisted again, this time in Uxbridge, Massachusetts under the name "Robert Shirtliff" (also spelled in some sources as "Shirtliffe" or "Shurtleff"). She joined the Light Infantry Company of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment, under the command of Captain George Webb (1740–1825). This unit, consisting of 50 to 60 men, was first quartered in Bellingham, Massachusetts, and later mustered at Worcester with the rest of the regiment commanded by Colonel William Shepard. Light Infantry Companies were elite troops, specially picked because they were taller and stronger than average. Their job was to provide rapid flank coverage for advancing regiments, as well as rearguard and forward reconnaissance duties for units on the move. Because she joined an elite unit, Sampson's disguise was more likely to succeed, since no one was likely to look for a woman among soldiers who were specially chosen for their above average size and superior physical ability.

Sampson fought in several skirmishes. During her first battle, on July 3, 1782 outside Tarrytown, New York, she took two musket balls in her thigh and sustained a cut on her forehead. She begged her fellow soldiers not to take her to a doctor out of fear her sex would be discovered, but a soldier put her on his horse and took her to a hospital. A doctor treated her head wound, but she left the hospital before he could attend to her leg. She removed one of the balls herself with a penknifeand sewing needle, but the other was too deep for her to reach. She carried it in her leg for the rest of her life and her leg never fully healed. On April 1, 1783, she was reassigned to new duties, and spent seven months serving as a waiter to General John Paterson.

The war was thought to be over following the Battle of Yorktown, but since there was no official peace treaty, the Continental Army remained in uniform. On June 24, the President of Congress ordered George Washington to send a contingent of soldiers under Paterson to Philadelphia to help quell a rebellion of American soldiers who were protesting delays in receiving their pay and discharges. During the summer of 1783, Sampson became ill in Philadelphia and was cared for by Doctor Barnabas Binney (1751–1787). He removed her clothes to treat her and discovered the cloth she used to bind her breasts. Without revealing his discovery to army authorities, he took her to his house, where his wife, daughters, and a nurse took care of her.

In September 1783, following the signing of the Treaty of Paris, November 3 was set as the date for soldiers to muster out. When Dr. Binney asked Sampson to deliver a note to General Paterson, she correctly assumed that it would reveal her sex. In other cases, women who pretended to be men to serve in the army were reprimanded, but Paterson gave her a discharge, a note with some words of advice, and enough money to travel home. She was honorably discharged ^^^^^ by General Henry Knox ===== at West Point, New York, on October 25, 1783, after a ^^^^^ over ===== year and a half of service.

An official record of Deborah Sampson Gannet's service as "Robert Shirtliff" from May 20, 1782 to Oct 25, 1783 appears in the "Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War" Volume 14 p.164 series.

Marriage

Deborah Sampson was married in Stoughton, Massachusetts, to Benjamin Gannett (1757–1827), a farmer from Sharon, Massachusetts, on April 7, 1785. ^^^^^ Sampson and Gannett had what was considered an "usually long engagement, "and there was some speculation over the marriage of Sampson and Gannett because their firstborn Earl was born seven months after they were wed.==== They had three children ^^^^^In total they had four children=====: Earl (b. 1786^^^^^1785=====), Mary (b. 1788), and Patience (b. 1790), and they had and adopted daughter, Susanna Baker Shepherd, who had been orphaned. ^^^^^^They lived with Gannett's father on their ancestral farm.===== They attempted to live off of the overworked land, but it was smaller than average and unproductive.

Life after the military

^^^^^After her time in service Deborah Sampson faced some difficulties adjusting back to civilian life. Sampson's previous community, Middleborough, was out of question because her community disowned her after she was caught attempting to enlist the first time. Plympton was not an option for Sampson as well because her mother thought that she was an embarrassment to the family. In the end Sampson ended up in Sharon, Massachusetts, where she lived with her mother's sister. It is in Sharon that Sampson meets her husband Benjamin Gannett.=====

In January 1792, Sampson petitioned the Massachusetts State Legislature for pay which the army had withheld from her because she was a woman. The legislature granted her petition and Governor John Hancock signed it. The legislature awarded her 34 pounds plus interest back to her 1783 discharge. A biography followed in 1797, The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of Revolution by Herman Mann. ^^^^^Though there are facts about Sampson's life included in the biography it does not incorporate her true experience and includes several embellished chronicles.=====

In 1802, Sampson began giving lectures about her wartime service. After extolling the virtues of traditional gender roles for women, she left the stage to return dressed in her army uniform, then proceeded to perform a complicated and physically taxing military drill and ceremony routine. She performed both to earn money and to justify her enlistment, but even with these speaking engagements, she was unable to pay all her expenses. She frequently had to borrow money from her family and from her friend Paul Revere. Revere also wrote letters to government officials on her behalf, requesting that she be awarded a pension for her military service and her wounds.

In 1804, Revere wrote to U.S. Representative William Eustis of Massachusetts on Sampson's behalf. A military pension had never been requested for a woman. Revere wrote: "I have been induced to enquire her situation, and character, since she quit the male habit, and soldiers uniform; for the more decent apparel of her own gender... humanity and justice obliges me to say, that every person with whom I have conversed about her, and it is not a few, speak of her as a woman with handsome talents, good morals, a dutiful wife, and an affectionate parent." On March 11, 1805, Congress approved the request and placed Sampson on the Massachusetts Invalid Pension Roll at the rate of four dollars a month.

On February 22, 1806, Sampson wrote once more to Revere requesting a loan of ten dollars: "My own indisposition and that of my sons causes me again to solicit your goodness in our favor though I, with Gratitude, confess it rouses every tender feeling and I blush at the thought of receiving ninety and nine good turns as it were—my circumstances require that I should ask the hundredth." He sent the ten dollars.

In 1809, she sent another petition to Congress, asking that her pension as an invalid soldier be modified to start from her discharge in 1783. Had her petition been approved, she would have been awarded back pay of $960 ($48 a year for 20 years — approximately $13,800 in 2016). Her petition was initially denied, but when it came before Congress again in 1816 an award of $76.80 a year (about $1,100 in 2016) was approved. With this amount, she was able to repay all her loans and make improvements to the family farm.

Final years and Death

Deborah Sampson's resting place, Sharon, MA

Sampson died of yellow fever at the age of 66 on April 29, 1827, and was buried at Rock Ridge Cemetery in Sharon, Massachusetts.