bejamin mahorney - Putnam

The meeting of the Putnam County Historical Society held in the GAR Hall Tuesday evening was opened with a prayer by Dr. Jenkins. A chorus conducted by Miss Kate Hammond rendered, My Country ‘tis of thee.”  The first paper was read by Mr. WH Ragan who took as his subject, Some Revolutionary Soldiers. He said that he should confine his theme to relating what he knew or what he had learned from authentic sources, concerning five pioneers of Putnam County who had served through the Revolutionary War: Abraham Stobough, Silas Hopkins, Samuel Denny, John Bartee and Benj. Mahorney.  These were the only ones whom he remembered or of whom he had any authentic information.  They had lived within a few miles of each other along the borders of Marion and Floyd townships. The speaker said that perhaps in no other part of our state had there lived in such a small area so many distinguished sons of the revolution.

Abraham Stobough – came from Montgomery County, Virginia and died in Floyd Township in September, 1826.  He is buried on the old Goram farm now owned by Albert O. Lockridge in Marion Township.  Stobough was a veteran of the War of 1812 as well as the Revolution.  

Silas Hopkins came to Putnam County from Baltimore. In what command he served is not known. That he was a Revolutionary Soldier is not questioned. He is buried in the same graveyard as Mr. Stobough. That graveyard is unkept and almost unknown in face of the fact that it contains two bodies of America’s most honored dead.

Samuel Denny, a great uncle of Squire Denny of this city, came here at a very early date. He died some time in the 30s and was buried in Warren Township. The location of his grave is unknown.

John Bartee lived in extreme poverty in a one-room log cabin in Marion Township. The county assisted him. He died in February 1848 and is buried on the Yates farm.

Benj. Mahorney who came from Virginia, lived one mile east of Darwin. He enlisted in the Army in 1779.  He died in the summer of 1854.

Only Messrs. Hopkins and Stobough have descendants yet living of whom any thing is known.

Source: (Jesse William) Weik’s History of Putnam County Indiana: 1910 p 221-222

Benjamin Mahorney, the fifth and last survivor, and perhaps among the very last of his race, died in the summer of 1854, more than seventy years after the close of the great struggle in which he was an active participant. His residence was in the northern portion of Marion township, and immediately on the line of the Big Four railway, one mile east of the little station of Darwin. He lived with his son, Owen Mahorney, who made him comfortable in his last days. He was a most venerable personage, known to the people of the neighborhood as one worthy of veneration and respect. His hair was as white as the driven snow. He was a Virginian and enlisted from Fauquier county, in that state, in the spring of 1779, for a term of eighteen months. He served under Captain \Valls, in Colonel Buford's regiment of Virginia militia. His regiment met the British cavalry under the celebrated Colonel Tarleton, at Waxhaw, North Carolina, and were repulsed with great loss in killed, wounded and prisoners. Patriot Mahorney was one of the few who escaped injury or capture. His term of enlistment closed on October 25, 1780, nearly seventy-four years prior to his death in this county. - From records of our county clerk's office, I learn that he made application for a pension at the April term of court in 1833, and that he was at that time seventy- three years of age. From this record I also learn the above facts concerning his enlistment and service in the patriot cause. At the time of his death there was in the neighborhood a military company with headquarters at the village of Fillmore and commanded by James H. Summers, a Mexican war veteran and afterwards colonel of an Iowa regiment in the war of the Rebellion. Captain Summers called together his company, and fired a salute over the open grave of the last survivor of Revolutionary memory in the neighborhood. The interment was at what is known as the Smythe graveyard, just south of the Vandalia railway, and one mile east of Fillmore. It is probable that the grave of Mr. Mahorney might still be identified. An incident occurred after the burial of Patriot Mahorney, when Captain Summers, with his company, returned to Fillmore to store their guns in the company's armory, A member of the company, Noah Alley, also a Mexican veteran, and afterwards killed at Cedar Mountain, Virginia, as a member of the Twenty-seventh Indiana Regiment, through an awkward mishap thrust the fixed bayonet of his musket through his leg just above the ankle, making a serious and painful wound. The village boys, out of juvenile curiosity, had gathered about the military company, and were many of them witnesses to this painful accident. The writer well remembers the impression it made on his youthful mind, and this incident will go down in his memory associated with the death and burial of the last survivor of the Revolutionary struggle in that part of Putnam county, if not in the state. Of these five Revolutionary patriots, two only, Hopkins and Stobaugh, have living descendants in our midst. Denny, it will be remembered, had no children of his own. Bartee's wife and daughter are long since dead, and the younger Mahorney, after his father's death, together with his family removed to Fountain county, where they have been lost sight of in the busy throng that now throbs and pulsates through. our land