Jacob Pettibone Sr (1710 - 1771)

Born 1710 in Simsbury, Hartford, Connecticut

Ancestors

Husband of Jemima (Cornish) Pettibone — married 28 Nov 1740 in Simsbury, Hartford, Connecticut

Descendants

Died 18 Nov 1771 at about age 61 in Simsbury, Hartford, Connecticut

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Biography

Jacob was born in 1710. He is the son of Stephen Pettibone and Deborah Bissell. He passed away in 1772.

Jacob Pettibone married Jemima (Cornish) Barber at some time between 1745, when Jemima’s first husband, Jonathan Barber, died in the siege of Louisburg, and the year 1750, when Jacob and Jemima’s first child was born. [See J42 Samuel Pettibone for an account of the siege of Louisburg]. Jacob was close to forty years old when he married. ^[1]

A long simmering enmity between French traders and soldiers and British outposts in the western wilderness exploded in the 1750s in a series of hard fought battles known in the American Colonies as the French and Indian War, because the French were accompanied by bands of fierce Indian warriors in their attacks on colonial settlements. In the late spring of 1759 the Connecticut General Assembly sent out a call for colonial troops to report for duty to mount a major three-prong British attack against the French in Northern New York and Canada. In the west, Brigadier John Prideaux was to take Fort Niagara from the French and then swing eastward to regain Fort Oswego and cut off any French retreat; in the center, General .let'1'rey Amherst was to take Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point from the French and advance from there to capture Montreal; in the east the third prong under General James Wolfe was to take the city of Quebec. On 24 May 1759 Jacob Pettibone enlisted in the 12th Company, John Sumner, Captain, General Phineas Lyman’s Regiment, under the command of General Jeffrey Amherst in His Majesty’s service. His regiment rendezvoused in Albany at the end of May to prepare for an assault on Montreal. By late June 1759 some 8,000 troops, about half of them colonial militia, were assembled at the south shore of Lake George. After loading a fleet of big flat-bottomed bateaux with heavy cannons mortars. and soldiers, the rest of the army boarded every available ship, boat, or canoe and advanced up Lake George to its northernmost tip, where they disembarked and pushed and pulled their artillery across rocky gullies and through thick forests to an abandoned French entrenchment from which they could send shells into Fort Ticonderoga. In fact, the British could actually see into the fort from their positions, and they could tell that the French were beginning to evacuate it.

A few days later scouts found that Crown Point, a second French fort just a few miles north of Ticonderoga, had also been deserted, and on 4 August it too was occupied by British and Colonial troops. Yet lack of communication from the other regiments in the campaign forced delay. In mid-August Amherst learned that the British had won Fort Niagara, but a month later found that General Thomas Gage, General Prideaux’s successor, had been stalled at Oswego and would spend the winter there. In October he learned that General Wolfe had been killed in action but that Quebec had fallen. By that time autumn storms were raging on Lake Champlain and General Amherst decided to postpone the final phase of the campaign until the next spring [Russell, "Oh Amherst, Brave Amherst," in American Heritage, December 1960 XlI:9-10, 89].

The Colonial militia had signed on for a term of seven months, and in December most of them were due to return to their homes. General Amherst tried to persuade them to stay with him through the winter but they were determined to leave, and he finally agreed to release them all. He wrote, "The Provincials have got home in their heads and nothing can stop them or make them do an Hour's work though the whole Country depended on it, so I must send them all away."

On 10 November 1759, the birthday of King George II, General Amherst staged a grand farewell celebration on the shores of Lake Champlain for the departing Colonial troops. Toasts were proposed to the King's health, then to the health of the Prince of Wales, then to prosperity of the King's colonies in America. After each toast twenty-one guns were fired. A volley from each corps and from the main fortress was followed by a running fire from left to right along the long line of light infantry, answered by another salute of twenty-one guns. Finally, on signal, there was a general vollcy from every firearm in the camp, with three huzzas and a final bumper of rum for every man.

Heavy Adirondack snows had begun to fall as the men started for home that year. Jacob Pettibone and the other men in the Twelfth Company marched through it to Simsbury, where they were discharged 16 December 1759 [Connecticut Historical Collections, French-Indian War Rolls, I:l05]. The next year General Amherst led his combined forces to victory and forced the surrender of Montreal and all of Canada. The French and Indian War was over as far as America was concerned, but in Europe the French and British remained at war until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763. In the interim, Spain stepped in to try to strengthen the power of France. In alarm, Great Britain declared war on Spain and searched for a way to diminish its power.

Once again, in March 1762, the Connecticut General Assembly issued a call for 2,300 men, including officers, "to march to such places as His Majesty's Commander-in-chief shall appoint." Again Jacob Pettibone enlisted, this time in the First Company, First Regiment, under General Lyman, captain, William Miner. Their destination, Cuba. Eleven companies of this regiment, including the First Company, landed near Havana in June 1762 in an expedition to take the town and its massive Spanish fortress, Morro Castle. A tragic siege ensued which lasted two months and eight days in the brutal heat of tropical summer. More than half the army was disabled by malaria and lack of water; of the 132 men of the First Company, 44 died. Yet the Colonial troops finally carried the fort by storm, and Havana fell on 12 August 1762 [see J2"5 Elihu Humphrey for a further account of the siege].

Jacob Pettibone survived the battle and the ocean voyage back to Connecticut and was discharged 12 December 1762 [Connecticut Archives, Colonial Wars 1675-1775, X:1b].

In the negotiations for the Treaty of Paris, Cuba was returned to Spain in return for East and West Florida on the mainland of America, which were ceded to Great Britain; and France ceded to the British all of Acadia, on Cape Breton, Canada, and all her islands in the St. Lawrence, as well as all her land east of the Mississippi except New Orleans.

Sources

U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970, Volume: 151 Ancestry.com : U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900, Source number: 494.000; Source type: Electronic Database; Number of Pages: 1; Submitter Code: JB5 Ancestry.com : Connecticut, Hale Cemetery Inscriptions, 1675-1934 Ancestry.com : Web: Connecticut, Find A Grave Index, 1636-2011 Ancestry.com : U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current Ancestry.com : Abstract of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots, Abstract of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots; Volume: 3; Serial: 11912; Volume: 4 Ancestry.com : Connecticut, Deaths and Burials Index, 1650-1934 Ancestry.com :

"Pedigree Resource File," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:3DJR-J4V : accessed 15 February 2020), entry for Jacob /Pettibone/, cites sources; "Bosworth_Price" file (2:2:2:MM6M-T98), submitted 10 April 2017 by Shan10 [identity withheld for privacy].

"Pedigree Resource File," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:3333-R9S : accessed 15 February 2020), entry for Jacob /Pettibone/ Sr, cites sources; "SanfordL" file (2:2:2:MMD8-WM5), submitted 20 October 2013 by lauriej [identity withheld for privacy].

Millennium File Author Heritage Consulting publisher Name: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, Repository Ancestry.com

"Connecticut Deaths and Burials, 1772-1934", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F7FM-FJZ : 16 January 2020), Jacob Pettibone, .

"Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV2D-2GNS : 13 December 2015), Jacob Pettibone, 1771; Burial, Simsbury, Hartford, Connecticut, United States of America, Hop Meadow Cemetery; citing record ID 68567289, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.

1. ↑ Entered by Tom Bredehoft, Apr 28, 2012

• Tom Bredehoft, Pettibone Registry page 43-45 (see Sharp-661), L. B. Barbour ms., Genealogy of the Pettibone Family.
• Find A Grave: Memorial #68567289