June 26, 2026
Introduction: America 250 Celebration – Melissa Davenport Berry continues her series about the lives and service of Revolutionary War patriots, focusing on the extraordinary tale of Deborah Sampson, who fought in the war disguised as a man. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
“I desire you would Remember the Ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”
–letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31-April 5, 1776
Illustration credit: https://depositphotos.com/home.html
Today’s story features Deborah (Sampson) Gannett (1760-1827), a Plympton-born patriot. As Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John from Braintree, Massachusetts, we must “Remember the Ladies.”
Deborah Sampson was among the few women who served in the Revolutionary War while disguised as a man, under the name Robert Shurtleff.
Deborah was born to Jonathan Sampson Jr. and Deborah (Bradford) Sampson and is a descendant of Pilgrims Gov. William Bradford, John Alden, William Mullins, Priscilla Mullins, and Myles Standish.
After the war, on 7 April 1785, Deborah married Benjamin Gannett Jr. (1757-1837), son of Benjamin Gannett Sr. and Mary (Copeland) Gannett, and a direct descendant of Pilgrims John Howland and Pricilla Mullins.
Here is a feature the Worcester Telegram published to highlight Deborah’s story. (Note: Debora’s death is actually 1827, not 1877.) I have paraphrased and added a few more details.
This feature informs us:
Deborah was placed in the home of Deacon Jeremiah Thomas in Middleborough where she received a good education and went on to teach.
In 1782 she signed up with the Continental Army and enlisted with the 4th Massachusetts Regiment to fight the Brits using the name Robert Shurtleff of Uxbridge. She served under Capt. George Webb.
In the Battle of Yorktown Deborah received a head and leg wound. Shortly after that, she fell sick to fever in Philadelphia – and while being treated the army discovered her secret.
She was discharged and received honors for her bravery. She married Benjamin Gannett Jr., and started a family.
In 1802 she became the first woman in America to undertake a professional lecture tour, lasting a full year. She shared her experience serving as a soldier. During her tour she kept a diary which was copied and published by Eugene Toppam in 1901.
Here is a page from her diary:
“…took stage, went on to Worster, tarried at Mr. Jacob Miller’s until Saturday Morning.
“…hired horse and chaise, went on to Holden to Capt. George Webb’s, tarried there until 29th. Exhibited in Holden before a very respectable circle.
“I left Capt. Webb’s, went on to Worchester, took stage, went as far as Capt. Draper’s [in] Brookfield.”
Monument to Honor Deborah Sampson Gannett in Sharon
Below is a photograph of a monument honoring Deborah in the Rock Ridge Cemetery, East and Mountain Streets, Sharon, Massachusetts. It was placed at the request of her grandson George Washington Gay (1817-1889), son of Seth Gay and Patience (Gannett) Gay.
The monument’s inscription reads:
Deborah Sampson Gannett. Woman soldier in the War of the Revolution. Enlisted under the name of Robert Shurtleff. Several years in active service. Wounded in the Battle of Tarrytown. Honorably discharged in 1783. Pensioned by Congress in 1803.
Deborah Sampson Gannett Honored by Ship
In 1944 the Liberty ship SS Deborah Sampson Gannett was launched, and the former war heroines’ descendants took part in the celebration.
Here is a photo of the World War II cargo ship being launched.
The Chicago Sun covered the event.
This article reports:
Frank Gannett, New York publisher and great-grandnephew of the early American patriot, said in an address at the launching ceremonies that the 10,000-ton transport was a soldier like Deborah Sampson Gannett – “doing her part bravely and uncomplainingly so that a war for world-wide freedom shall be won.” Gannett’s daughter, Sally, christened the ship.
Below is an illustration of Deborah (on the right) dressed as Private “Robert Shurtliff” in a light infantry soldier’s uniform with her French Charleville musket during a 1782 firefight with New York loyalists.
DAR Marker in Honor of Deborah Sampson Gannett
Below is another monument honoring Deborah Sampson, this one located on Main Street in Plympton, Massachusetts, erected by the Deborah Sampson chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution of Brockton and the town of Plympton.
The inscription reads:
In Honor of
Deborah Sampson
Who for Love of Country Served
Two Years as a Soldier in the
War of the Revolution.
She was Born in Plympton, Massachusetts
December 17 1760.
This Memorial erected by the
Deborah Sampson Chapter
Daughters of the American Revolution
of Brockton and the Town of Plympton
1906.
Here is Deborah’s obituary.
This article reports:
Another Revolutionary character gone – and one of a most extraordinary nature. Mrs. Deborah Gannett, wife of Mr. Benjamin Gannett, died at her family residence in Sharon, Mass., on the 29th ult. aged 67. The life of this woman must be considered extraordinary and interesting in a number of respects. But the most distinguished feature in her character is that of her having been a heroine in the American army of the Revolution. She enlisted a volunteer in the Massachusetts corps, in the habiliments and character of a soldier; where she continued [17 months] to the close of the war. Extraordinary as this may appear, she not only, on every occasion, performed the arduous duty of a soldier with more than ordinary alertness, gallantry and courage, having been in several engagements, and twice dangerously wounded, but sustained a character unsullied, and her sex undiscovered until peace was declared.
This Boston Herald article tells one version of the tale about how this lass managed to fool the Continental Army for nearly two years.
This article reports:
When she was wounded, she begged her companions to leave her on the field to die. But they carried her to a French hospital. She discovered she had a scalp wound and a bullet in her thigh. She told the French surgeon she had only the scalp wound. He was too hurried to examine her, and with a needle she probed that bullet out of her thigh! Then, still afraid her sex would be discovered, she hastened her “recovery.”
“Before the wound in my thigh was half healed,” she recounted years later, “I rejoined the army on the lines. But had the most hardy soldier been in my condition, he would have been excused from military duty.”
She escaped detection… that time, but at a terrible price. That wound was to handicap her all her life.
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Note on the header image: “The Spirit of ’76,” by Archibald Willard. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
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