Second Revolutionary War soldier found buried in county
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| Patricia Polson (left) and Sue May, members of the Princeton-Illinois Chapter NSDAR, examine the headstone of Lydia Sturges, daughter of Revolutionary War soldier Aaron Sturges, prior to its safe relocation from a wooded hilltop north of Tiskilwa. A permanent location for Lydia Sturges’ stone and a memorial marker for Aaron Sturges, who also lived in Bureau County, are being arranged. (Photo contributed) |
TISKILWA — Aaron Sturges, formerly of the Tiskilwa area, was long dead before the first Memorial Day observances were held after the Civil War.
But, thanks to the efforts of the Princeton-Illinois Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution and members of the Tiskilwa Historical Society, he won’t be forgotten this year.
Sturges is now the second known Revolutionary War soldier known to be buried in Bureau County.
Research by the groups has revealed Sturges began his Revolutionary War service with the Connecticut Men of the Revolution as a private, enlisting in May 1775, a month after Concord and Lexington. He had not yet turned 15.
Sturges then enlisted in the Connecticut militia and helped rout the British laying siege to Ft. Independence near New York. Not yet 16, he enlisted as a fifer for an eventual three-year tour of duty. On his service record is the Valley Forge winter of 1777-78 and participation in the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse. This battle is famous because General Washington rallied the Continental troops from disaster and for Molly Pitcher, who assumed the cannon duties of her fallen husband.
Following the war Sturges married, and years later, after the death of his wife, Sturges joined his daughter, Lydia Sturges, who had earlier moved to Bureau County. By September 1841, he was receiving his Revolutionary War pension of $80 a year in Bureau County. He died in October 1842.
DAR member Sharon Bittner has been involved with the research for many years, and has a thick folder of material on Sturges. There’s a copy of court documents in which Sturges testified regarding his pension. There’s a bill of sale, found just this year at the Bureau County Courthouse for $174.95, for the bedding, bedspread, calico dresses and other things sold when Lydia Sturges died. There’s even more paperwork from the courthouse in which Lydia Sturges’ nephew claimed the money from the sale for her only relatives.
Now that the research is completed, the DAR is working on a memorial marker for Sturges and his daughter, who died June 2, 1865. Although no burial marker has been found for Sturges, Lydia’s marker was recently moved to a safer location.
“The stone was at the top of Delmar Beams’ gravel hill,” Bittner said. “People have known that it’s been up there for decades, but there was concern that gravel keeps chipping away at it.”
With Beams’ approval, the fragile limestone marker was relocated by Ed Waca, Tiskilwa Historical Society volunteer. It had already been moved from the original gravesite prior to Beams’ ownership of the land, and had spent the last several decades leaning against a tree. According to one account from the 1940s, the stones near Lydia Sturges’ marker may have outlined a family burial plot.
Bittner said the cooperation of local, state, and national groups will result in the eventual placement of Lydia Sturges’ headstone and a memorial marker for her father. Recognition for Aaron Sturges as a Revolutionary War patriot and his daughter as a DAR Daughter of a Patriot will be given with cast bronze markers.
Aaron Sturges will be the second Revolutionary War soldier noted in Bureau County. Edward Hall served with forces from North Carolina. Hall, his wife and daughter are buried in Miller Cemetery in Spring Valley. Their graves were honored with ceremonies and DAR bronze markers in May 2005.
“I think it’s really important historically to take note of all the soldiers, the sailors, and, in this case, the fifer who led the way in the Revolutionary War marches,” Bittner said.
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