Valiant Female Patriots of Revolutionary War

Submitted by Bob Foley, Program Director, Van Cortlandtville Historical Society

In commemoration of Women’s History Month, the Yorktown Historical Society and the Van Cortlandtville Historical Society are co-sponsoring a talk---Valiant Female Patriots--- by local author and historian Monica Doherty.  It will be held at the John C. Hart Memorial Library, 1130 East Main Street, in Shrub Oak at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 17th. Open free to the public, the program will feature the stories of five unrelated women and their seldom known but significant patriotic service during the American Revolutionary War.

The five heroines, some with ties to the Hudson Valley region, who actually fought on the front lines of the war, are: Deborah Sampson, Margaret Cochran Corbin, Mary Ludwig Hayes, Sybil Ludington and Anna Strong.  In her PowerPoint program with pictures, Mrs. Doherty will point out where there is a unique monument to Margaret Corbin at West Point. She will also show where there is another, better-known monument in Putnam County to another heroin---Sybil Ludington. She will relate the famous account of how this teenage “night rider” rode her way into American history in a harrowing horseback mission more dangerous than Paul Revere’s ride. And, Mrs. Doherty will also talk of another “woman warrior”---Anna Strong-- who was not as dramatic, but still daring as an inconspicuous patriot whose story as an American spy is currently portrayed in the TV series---Turn.

A past president of the Yorktown Historical Society and a current member of its program committee, Mrs. Doherty’s interest in history has led her to document George Washington’s Revolutionary War trenches and the Yorktown campsites used by Rochambeau’s Regiments in 1781-82. She is currently working with the Pines Bridge Monument Committee to acquire funds for the monument which will honor the soldiers of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment who died on May 14, 1781 while defending Pines Bridge, a strategic crossing of the Croton River in Yorktown. In 2004, at the suggestion of famous author and historian Lincoln Diamant of the Hamlet of Teatown, she helped prepare and edit the book, The Nasty Affair at Pines Bridge.

For more than 20 years Mrs. Doherty was active as a volunteer with the Association for the Performing Arts in Yorktown, the Yorktown Beautification Committee and the Yorktown Garden Club.  And, for 10 years as a docent at Caramoor in Katonah.  A native of Washington Heights, she and her late husband, Walter G. Doherty, Jr., settled in Yorktown in 1955, where they raised their four children. They have 9 grandchildren.

For more information visit: www.vancort.net; or, www.yorktownhistory.org;                                                                      or, the library at: www.yorktownlibrary.org.

Photos: #1... Anna Strong (American Spy); #2...Sybil Ludington (Night Rider); #3...Margaret Corbin (Cannoneer).