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Appendix #22: Firemen in Patriot Military, Loyalists, Others

(To be read with reference to Spreadsheet Appendix #22)

Introduction

To get a broad picture of the FDNY during the Revolution, we focus on three sources of data - the 1776 List of Firemen, the lists of those who were recognized as Loyalists, and the archives of those who served in the military in the Revolutionary War. Since the people remaining in the city under the British in 1776 were predominantly Loyalist, we would expect that the core of the fire department during the Revolution would come from the same group. Moreover, since the Patriot militias were no longer in the city and those in Washington's army were rarely near New York, none in the Patriot military did any firefighting in the city during the war. So to begin to understand where the FDNY came from and how it worked during the war, we will start by analyzing and quantifying each Category of firemen: 1) "Patriot Military", 2) "Loyalists", and 3) "Others Unlisted", that is, those not in either of the categories 1) or 2).

There are inevitable ambiguities associated with this analysis. Names of some firemen appear on both military and Loyalist lists. Other names match those in military archives but represent those who mustered in remote counties such as Albany and Tryon and were unlikely to be from New York. Other names like 'John Young' appear in so many lists, so many times, that no definitive attribution is possible. Moreover, the military archives are in no sense exhaustive. Records were lost or destroyed both during and after the Revolution. However, with some reasonable assumptions (assumptions being the last refuge of the scoundrel according to some historians) general categorization is possible.

Method Used Below: 1) Calculate a "Base" number for each Category. The Base number is a number that is as certain as possible based on the lists and other references. It is the lower limit of the "Range." 2) Calculate an upper limit of the "Range" for each category. The upper limit includes names in each Category that are more probable than others but not as certain as those in the Base. 3) Calculate an "Estimate", one number that is the best guess given the upper and lower limits of the Range. What we are looking for is not absolute certainty, but a general idea of the number in each Category (Patriots, Loyalists, Others) to further the discussion in Chapter 11.

The "Patriot Military" Category

Perhaps the most difficult and controversial assumptions involve the number of New York firemen who joined the military, our Patriot Military category. Some 19th and even 20th century historians, often quoting each other to advance the art of history, claim that all of the firemen in 1776 New York joined Washington's army to fight the bloody British. These erroneous notions have caused the bodies of John Dash, George Stanton, and a couple of dozen more Loyalist New York firemen to roll over in their graves, contributing to the city's latent seismic activity. The analysis below, although making some assumptions, will provide a more accurate picture of where the firemen were during the war.

The 1776 List of Firemen lists one hundred seventy firemen. The top thirty-five names on the 1776 List have military designations. At the top, in command, is Jacobus Stoutenburgh. He is not listed in any military archive. His nephew Isaac is, his cousins from upstate Duchess County are, one of whom is named Jacobus, but he himself is not listed. He may have contributed to the Patriot cause as many claim. But, he was almost certainly, at sixty-six years old, not recruited by Washington to take an active command in the Continental army. He most likely gave good service to the Continental army as a civilian by repairing and maintaining firearms, a task for which he was exceptionally qualified.

Among the other thirty-four names in the 'military' list, eleven have no corroboration in the either the electronic or paper archives, much like Jacobus. Their enlistment paperwork might have been misplaced during the British invasion. They may have mustered outside the city, maybe even outside the state. But for our purposes, they do not contribute to the foundation, the Base number of firemen in the military. They will not be forgotten, however, as we may see some of these eleven names again after the war…and ask them where they were for the last seven years. So the contribution to the Base number of the "Patriot Military" category from those listed in 'military' companies on the 1776 List is twenty-three (23).

Below the top thirty-five (35) 'military' names on the 1776 List are the remaining one hundred thirty-five (135), many of whom joined the State militia or Continental Army after the 1776 List was made. The first pass here will determine how many of these (135) can be added to those in the 'military' to form the total Base. The 'possible' musters for this include 1) those listed in the New York city and county militias 2) those listed in the contiguous county of Westchester 3) those listed in New York Continental regiments. Referring to Spreadsheet Appendix #22B, Columns 3 and 4A-E, the number of 'possible' New York musters are forty-seven (47).

To filter these forty-seven names further to provide a "very probable" list of firemen in the military for the Base, we will eliminate as being too indeterminate the fifteen right-justified entries that have a modified name (such as Captain "Pearce" or "Michael" Warner) and/or multiple entries (the three to five Thomas Warners/John Youngs). The result is thirty-two (32) names, which include some already listed in the core list. Eliminating the eleven names already on the core list (see Spreadsheet Appendix #22A) from the thirty-two names (New York Musters) gives twenty-one (21) names. Adding these "very probable" twenty-one (21) names to the twenty-three (23) 'military' names from the 1776 List gives a total "Base" Number of FDNY in the Patriot Military as forty-four (44).

The number of FDNY namesakes mustering in Upstate New York beyond Westchester is thirty-two (32). Ten (10) of these are in remote counties (Tryon, Albany, Ulster); twenty-two (22) are in closer but non-contiguous counties (Dutchess, Orange). Assumption: let remote musters not count towards the upper range of Patriot Military, but let the closer non-contiguous counties contribute to the possible upper range. The upper range would then be 44 + 22 = (sixty-six) 66. The mid-point Estimate of FDNY in the Patriot Military would then be fifty-five (55). Its range is designated as (44 to 66) or fifty-five plus or minus 11. This Estimate is similar to assuming half of the musters with the same names in the non-contiguous counties were from New York.

The "Loyalists" Category

The task for making the estimate of the upper limit of the range Loyalists would seem to be easier. If a fireman's name appears on the comprehensive list of Loyalists of Spreadsheet Appendix #20C, they are in the list of Loyalist names. That list has thirty-six (36) firemen names. Once again, there might have been a closet Loyalist or two in the FDNY, but if their name is not on the list, they are not counted in these estimates.

A solid contribution to the Base number for the Loyalist comes from the leadership of the department referenced in the war-time New York newspapers, which included five (5) names, and Loyalists with unique names who are on multiple Loyalist lists including other references such as Philip Brasher who shows up in a list of Loyalist prisoners, which add thirteen (13) names to the Base. The Loyalist Base is thus eighteen (18).

However, the ambiguity for the upper part of the range of Loyalists creeps in not in remote musters but in the names of a fireman being listed in both in the Patriots and in the Loyalists lists. There are seventeen (17) matching names. Of these seventeen, eight (8) are probably Loyalists, five (5) are in its Base and three (3) more are likely due to place of muster. Adding those more likely three to the Base extends the range to twenty-one (21).

Even if the other nine matches were all Loyalist this would place an upper-range possibility of thirty (30), however unlikely. Assuming that those nine were split proportionally using the Base (44 and 18 of the Patriots and Loyalist respectively), about three more Loyalists would be added to the extended range of 21. This upper-range of twenty-four (24). Thus the range of Loyalists is 18-24 with the mid-point Estimate of 21.

The "Others Unlisted" Category

The Others list has seventy (70) names, which is the number of 170 firemen names on the 1776 List not listed with the Patriots or Loyalists. Its Estimate is derivative from the other two estimates. With the Estimate of the firemen in the military being 55 and the Estimate of the Loyalists being 21, the Estimate for Others is ninety-four (94) [170 – (55 + 21) = 94]. The "Others" Range similarly derived. Its Base is eighty (80), which is the number of Others when the other two categories are at the top of their range (66, 24). The upper limit to the Range is one hundred eight (108) corresponding to when the others are at the Bases of their range (44, 18).

The 1776 List shows thirty-one (31) firemen as being "Out of Town". If they remained away from the city, they obviously could not be relied upon to form part of the firemen's militia being envisioned by the 1776 Congressional listmaker. For our purposes if they stayed away, they could not contribute to firefighting in the city during the Revolution. Spreadsheet Appendix 22F analyzes the thirty-one (31) names on the Out of Town list to determine which ones were in other lists, which turns out to be fourteen (14). The Base here is thus 31-14 = 17. Of the 14 deleted: 2 were Loyalists; 7 were Patriot Military (later musters) from NY; 3 mustered later in remote counties; 2 mustered later in non-contiguous counties]. The upper part of the range only includes the 2 later musters from the non-contiguous counties so the upper range is 17 + 2 = 19. The analysis yields a Range of the Out of Town Unlisted Others (17 - 19). The mid-point Estimate is 18.

Incorporating the Out-of-Town Unlisted range with the Patriot and Loyalists categories results in the derived range (that is, calculated from the other three categories not independently confirmed) of the In-Town Unlisted as (91, 61), which again is highest when the other ranges are their lowest (always adding up to 170!) and lowest when the other ranges are highest. The ranges are easier to comprehend in their graphical representation below: