Ohio History Journal

WINTHROP SARGENT*

 

 

BY CHARLES SPRAGUE SARGENT

 

Winthrop Sargent IV. (Harvard A. M. 1771) b.

Gloucester, May 1, 1753; d. on a steamer near New Or-

leans, La., January 3, 1820; m. Rebecca, daughter of

Colonel Benjamin Tupper1 by whom he had a child

who died in infancy; m. second, Natchez, Missis-

sippi, October 24, 1798, Mary, widow of Daniel Wil-

liams and daughter of James McIntosh² and Eunice

Hawley; b. Stratford, Connecticut, January 20, 1764;

d.  Philadelphia, January 9, 1844. After leaving

Cambridge, Mr. Sargent traveled in Europe until 1775

when he returned to Massachusetts, and on the 7th of

July joined the Revolutionary Army which under

Washington was engaged in preventing the escape from

Boston of the British Army under Sir William Howe.

On his joining the army, Sargent was offered the com-

mand of a company in one of the foot regiments, but

at first distrustful of his military ability, he preferred

* From Epes Sargent of Gloucester and His Descendants, pp. 55-60.

1 Colonel Benjamin Tupper, who had been an officer in the Conti-

nental Army, was one of the chief promoters in the settlement of Marietta,

Ohio, where he died. It is possible therefore that Winthrop Sargent's first

marriage took place in what is now the state of Ohio.

2 William McIntosh was born at Shone, near Inverness, Scotland, in

1740, saw much and important service under Wolfe upon the Plains of

Abraham, and was present at the siege of the Havana. He married at

Stratford, Connecticut, April 14, 1763, Eunice Hawley, the daughter of a

farmer, and at Stratford his three children were born. McIntosh died in

1783 on his plantation near Natchez, Mississippi. Mary McIntosh married

in 1786 David Williams, who was born at Bangor, Carnarvonshire, Wales,

and died at Pine Grove, his plantation near Natchez, in 1792, leaving four

children.

(229)

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230     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

to remain an unattached volunteer taking advantage of

every opportunity of seeing actual service and finding

active employment on the fortifications erected against

the enemy. Early in 1776, feeling more familiar with

a soldier's duties, he accepted a commission as Captain-

Lieutenant in the artillery, and in this service he re-

mained until the end of the war. After the evacuation

of Boston by the British, Captain Sargent was ordered

to New York where, without neglecting the duties of

his command in the light artillery, he was tireless in

erecting fortifications, mounting guns and in directing

them against hostile vessels attempting to pass up or

down the Hudson River.   After the defeat of the

American army on Long Island, in the retreat from

Brooklyn, Captain Sargent retired in perfect silence

and order with his artillery from within four hundred

yards of the first parallel of the enemy, bringing his

guns safely away.  On the 29th of August he was

given another opportunity to display his courage and

skill when he was ordered to save the camp equipage

abandoned on Governor's Island in New York Harbor

by a panic stricken regiment of militia in an unneces-

sary and headlong retreat. This he succeeded in doing

under heavy fire from a six gun battery thrown up by

the enemy on Long Island and from a seventy-four gun

ship lying in the harbor. Late in November 1776, the

Division commanded by General Charles Lee, to which

Captain Sargent's battery was now attached, crossed

the Hudson to Fort Washington on the Delaware. He

took part in the New Jersey campaign of 1777 and in

December went into winter quarters at Valley Forge.

When in June, 1778, General Washington left Valley

Forge in pursuit of the British Army marching from

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Winthrop Sargent               231

Philadelphia toward New York, Captain Sargent, not

having recovered from the effects of the fatigue and

exposure of the previous winter, remained behind in-

valided, but the prospect of an engagement with the

enemy cured his illness, and he hastened after the army,

rejoining it in time to take part in the victory at Mon-

mouth Court House. During the remainder of 1778

Captain Sargent remained with the artillery; and in

1779 was transferred as its artillery officer to the Di-

vision commanded by Major General Robert House, re-

maining until the end of the war as his aide-de-camp

and a member of his military family. This Division

saw little active service during the rest of the war and

was chiefly employed in garrison duty at West Point.

In August, 1783, the rank of Major was conferred upon

Winthrop Sargent by a resolution of Congress. He

remained with the artillery until the end of that year

when with a broken constitution, his sword, and six

months' pay in Morris notes in his pocket, he left the

army which he had entered seven years before, young

and full of hope.³

Captain Sargent had the reputation of being the best

dressed man in the Continental Army, and his army

kit was furnished with plate made for him by Paul Re-

vere. When the Continental Army was in winter quar-

ters at Valley Forge in 1778 without food and proper

clothing, General Knox and Captain Sargent were se-

lected by their commanders to represent the condition

of their army to a committee of the Continental Con-

3 This brief account of Winthrop Sargent's services in the Revolution-

ary War is condensed from the "Memorandum for a (possible) Memoir

of Colonel W. Sargent." (1755-1818), from the posthumous writings of

his grandson, Winthrop Sargent, author of the Life of Major Andre

(Privately printed 100 copies), and other works.

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232      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

gress then in session in Philadelphia. Their complaints

having been heard, one of the committee remarked that

much had been well said about the famine and naked-

ness of the soldiers, yet he had not for a long time seen

a fatter man than one of these who had spoken for

them, or a better dressed man than the other. The

corpulent Knox was mute, probably with indignation,

but Captain Sargent rejoined that this circumstance

was due to the respect his companions bore to them-

selves and to the Congress, and they had not hesitated

to select as their representatives the only man among

them with an ounce of superfluous flesh on his body

and the only other who owned a complete suit of

clothes.⁴

Of Major Sargent, Washington wrote, -- "Major

Winthrop Sargent, lately an officer in the line of ar-

tillery and aide-de-camp to Major General Howe, has

served with great reputation in the armies of the

United States of America; that he entered into the

service of his country at an early period of the war,

and during the continuance of it displayed a zeal, in-

tegrity and intelligence which did honor to him as an

officer and a gentleman." When in the spring of 1801

there was a question of Mr. Sargent's reappointment

as Governor of the Territory of Mississippi General

Knox writing to President Jefferson said in regard to

Governor Sargent, -- "This gentleman served under my

command, in the Revolutionary Army, with the highest

approbation of the Commander-in-chief and of every

officer in the army whose good opinion was of any im-

portance. It is more than one quarter of a century

 

4 See foot-note to p. 144 of the Life of Major Andre by Winthrop

Sargent.

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Winthrop Sargent                    233

since I have been intimate with him and I never heard

of any action of his but what would render him honor,

in the assembled presence of all human beings."

In 1786 Major Sargent was appointed by Congress

one of the National Surveyors of that part of the west-

ern wilderness which is now the state of Ohio, and dur-

ing the year he was actively employed in this duty.*

In the winter of 1787 Major Sargent was chosen by

the Congress of the Confederation, Secretary of the

Territory of the United States, northwest of the River

Ohio, and the following spring, with a number of its

early settlers, chiefly veterans of the Revolution, he

went to that country. He was three times appointed

to this office, first by Congress and twice by Washing-

ton, and in the frequent absences of Governor St. Clair

acted in his place. He served with distinction as Ad-

jutant General of the Army under St. Clair in his dis-

astrous campaign against the Indians in 1791; and was

seriously wounded at the battle of the Miami Villages

on November 4 of that year.

On May 10, 1792, Major Sargent was appointed

by Washington Adjutant General of the Army of the

United States with the rank of Colonel, and in 1798

Colonel Sargent was appointed by President Adams the

first Governor of the newly organized Mississippi Ter-

ritory with headquarters at Natchez on the Mississippi

 

* Winthrop Sargent was deeply interested in the Northwest Territory

and projects for its early settlement. He was present at the famous meet-

ing at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston, March 1, 1786, for the

organization of the Ohio Company and was one of a committee of five

appointed to prepare "a draft of a plan of association." This plan was

drawn up and submitted to a meeting of the company on March 3. He

was chosen one of a committee of three to transact the necessary business

of the company until directors were elected.  He was elected secretary

of the company and was active in representing its interests before the

Continental Congress. In this capacity he served until he was chosen by

Congress, Secretary of the Northwest Territory.--C. B. G.

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234      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications River. A Federalist, he was naturally removed from office when Jefferson and the Democratic Party came into power. Some of the measures proposed by Gov- ernor Sargent during his short administration were ex- tremely unpopular and gave rise to heated discussions.

The popular southern estimate of Winthrop Sargent was derived from the history of Mississippi by Clai- borne, in which he was made to appear as a cold, aris- tocratic, unsympathetic, avaricious man, out of touch

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Winthrop Sargent             235

with the true interests of the public.⁵ Rowland in his

description of Governor Sargent and his administra-

tion better describes the man as he had been known to

his friends and relatives, and who could hardly have

changed so radically during the few months he was in

power in Mississippi. "His government," Rowland

says, "impresses one that he had a deep love for his

country and its interests, that he was sincerely ambi-

tious to serve faithfully the people to whom he had been

sent, and that he surmounted unusual difficulties in the

establishment of law and order in a frontier settlement.

In his administration of the affairs of government he

was industrious, capable and just. He was possibly

wanting in political tact, and probably his military train-

ing caused him to expect too much obedience and rev-

erence for law in a frontier people."6

At Natchez Winthrop Sargent found his second

wife; and in its neighborhood he built the brick mansion

which he named Gloster Place. Here his two sons were

born and here the younger was murdered. Gloster

Place is still standing and until 1880 was the home of

a grandson of the Governor. After his removal from

office, Governor Sargent continued until his death to

live in Natchez where he became a successful cotton

planter. His long service in the Army and his many

wounds had impaired his health, and Winthrop Sargent

with two bullets in his body which he had received more

than twenty-five years before in one battle died from

an attack of gout on board a steamer near New Orleans

on his way north.

5 J. F. H, Claiborne, Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State,

p. 253.

6 Dunbar Rowland, Records, Vol. 1, p. 12.

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236        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Winthrop Sargent was one of the original members

of the Society of the Cincinnati; a member of the

American Philosophical Society (1789); of the Amer-

ican Academy of Arts and Sciences (1788), and a Cor-

responding Member of the Massachusetts Historical

Society (1794). He was studious by nature, found

time in the midst of his military and civil duties to do

what he could to advance the cause of science7 and

until his death found pleasure in pursuing his chemical

and meteorological studies. Mrs. Sargent, who sur-

vived her husband by nearly a quarter of a century,

after his death made her home in Philadelphia, where

she always was spoken of as "Madam Sargent," she

lived in much state and dignity in a house which oc-

cupied the south side of Chestnut Street between 12th

and 13th Streets.⁸

 

7 See Sargent Bibliography, p. 58.

8 In 1824, two years after his death, the widow of Governor Sargent

sold, for twenty thousand dollars, Gloster House and eighty-three acres of

land to James C. Wilkins of Natchez; the burial place of the Sargent

family on the opposite side of the road from the house being excepted

and reserved for all time for the heirs of the Sargent and Williams families

interested in it. In 1848, Wilkins was obliged to give up Gloster House

which was bought at auction by George Washington Sargent who lived in

it during the remainder of his life. After his death it was occupied by his

youngest son George, it having been bought for his use with its contents

in 1868 by his brother-in-law William Butler Duncan of New York. In

1877 Duncan sold Gloster House with 210 acres of land to James Surget

of Natchez. After Surget's death the house in 1920 became the property

of his widow Catherine Boyd Surget. Under her ownership Gloster House

has been repaired and restored to its original condition and the old time

splendor and hospitality been renewed in a ball given by the new owner

on May 30, 1923, for her friends in Natchez and its neighborhood.

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