Revolutionary War veteran buried in Whiteside County memorialized

ALBANY – The only Revolutionary War veteran buried in Whiteside County was honored Oct. 5 by the Kishwaukee Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, which installed a commemorative plaque at a cemetery southeast of Albany.

The SAR is a lineage society made up of male descendants of patriots who participated in or supported the fight for American independence from Great Britain between 1775 and 1783, similar to the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Children of the American Revolution. The national group was founded in 1889 as a civic organization that aims to promote patriotism, preserve American history and educate future generations.

Illinois has 17 SAR chapters with more than 1,000 members, according to the Sons of the American Revolution.

The Illinois SAR started the cemetery-marking program in 2014 as a way to recognize Revolutionary War soldiers buried in various cemeteries throughout the state. Since then, 15-year Kishwaukee SAR Chapter member Ray Beets said more than 30 cemeteries in Illinois have been marked, recognizing the lives and service of more than 50 patriots.

Kingsbury Cemetery, at the northeast corner of Elston and Gaulrapp roads, and Pvt. Alexander Thompson were added to that list Oct. 5.

Beets said it’s somewhat rare to hear about a Revolutionary War veteran, in Illinois especially, “because the war happened on the East Coast of the United States back in the 1770s and 1780s.”

After the war ended in 1783, the colonies were a new country that didn’t have any of the modern-day military benefits to offer its veterans. What the new country did have was a large amount of land west of the Appalachian Mountains that was given to the colonies from Great Britain as part of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war by recognizing the U.S. as an independent nation.

As a solution, the early leaders decided to offer that land to its veterans, who then packed up their belongings and traveled west in search of property to settle.

“(That is) how a lot of Revolutionary War veterans ended up being buried in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois,” Beets said.

It also took close to 100 years before the U.S. government began providing veterans with burial rights. In 1867, Congress passed the National Cemetery Act to develop national military cemeteries and required all cemeteries to mark gravesites with headstones, appoint a superintendent for each cemetery and enclose the cemetery with a fence.

However, a permanent stone marker design was not adopted until 1873. Then in 1879, Congress extended the right of government-issued headstones to veterans buried in private cemeteries such as Kingsbury Cemetery.

Today, Thompson’s gravesite displays two grave markers.

The original was placed by his family shortly after his death in 1840, a small rectangular slab of white sandstone sitting at an angle in a concrete base. The marker appears to have been much taller at some point, but broke and was reset, leaving only his first name and part of his last name visible, Beets said.

The second Thompson grave marker is a government-issued headstone displaying his name, service information and death date. Beets said that stone was placed in 1937.

The site was first commemorated by the Morrison DAR Chapter, which installed a bronze marker at a ceremony attended by several of Thompson’s great- and great-great-grandchildren on Sept. 16, 1967. That marker was rededicated by the Rock River DAR Chapter on May 22, 2022.

Members of the local DAR and CAR chapters attended the Oct. 5 ceremony, including the presidents of the Illinois SAR and CAR Chapter as guest speakers. The Northern Illinois SAR Color Guard also was present, attending with period-correct uniforms and muskets. Nine of Thompson’s descendants were in attendance and, as family, laid flowers at his gravesite.

Near the end of the ceremony, members of the Kishwaukee SAR Chapter unveiled the aluminum plaque, which was installed just inside the fence along Gaulrapp Road.

“We raised money and started working on this plaque before the pandemic started [in 2020],” Illinois SAR Chapter President Bill Wheeler said.

In total, the plaque cost about $3,000 and was funded through donations, fundraisers and SAR endowment funds, Wheeler said. In gold text, the plaque details a brief overview of Thompson’s life and service.

He was born in 1758 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. When the Revolutionary War began in 1775, Thompson was only about 17 years old.

His military service began about a year later when he enlisted for a two-month tour in August 1776 under Capt. Alexander Laughlin and Col. William Clark in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. In December of that year, he served another two months under Capt. Laughlin and Lt. Col. Francis Gurney in Middletown, New Jersey.

His last two-month tour began in December 1777 under Capt. John Jacob Astor and Col. Arthur Buchanan in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

He then continued his involvement by serving in the Commissary Department in General Muhlenberg’s Brigade, which was a group of soldiers who camped in Pennsylvania’s Valley Forge from 1777 to 1778. The commissary’s role was to buy, pack and distribute rations of food and supplies to the rebel patriots.

After the war ended on Sept. 3, 1783, Thompson was granted a pension as a Pennsylvania militiaman and continued his life on a farm in Cumberland County for many years.

He married Sarah Scroggs on March 11, 1800, and together they had 12 children between 1801 and 1825. Of those, 10 survived childhood: Alexander, Elizabeth, Hugh, John, Margaret, Moses, Rachel, Sarah, Susan and William.

During the 1800s, the U.S. continued its westward expansion. The Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803 doubled the size of the country and stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. By 1890, the U.S. had grown to 44 states.

In 1839, Thompson followed a prevailing trend among many Americans at the time to move into the unexplored lands the U.S. obtained. He sold his Pennsylvania farm and traveled west toward the Mississippi River along with his wife, six of their children and a son-in-law.

After five months of travel, the family made it to Whiteside County in October of that year. Thompson bought an 80-acre property to build their home on – which was just across the road from the present-day Kingsbury Cemetery.

However, Thompson died on Sept. 25, 1840, within a year of the family’s arrival. He was buried at the cemetery.

The Oct. 5 ceremony was the third conducted by the Kishwaukee SAR Chapter, which covers eight counties: Jo Daviess, Stephenson, Winnebago, Boone, Carroll, Ogle, Whiteside and Lee in northwestern Illinois.