To George Washington from John C. Ogden, 26 November 1796
From John Cosens Ogden
Lansingburgh [N.Y.] Novr 26th 1796
Sir
I know not what apology to make for writing this, nor where to begin. So many disagreeable events crowd upon the mind, when I recollect the causes, which have conspired to produce misery to a venerable Lady, that I should be forever silent, on the subject, did not humanity for suffering virtue direct me to proceed.
Madam Wooster at a time of life, when the infirmities of age are taking fast and deep root, is without any other support, than such as the good will of her friends may afford.1 A long series of unavoidable occurrences, have done this. Industrious economical and frugal during her whole life, the events of war, such as taxes, deprivation of public securities, delayed public justice, as to her half pay, and the falling of the value of her real estate, joined to eighteen years destitution of any considerable annual income, and the plundering by the british army, have swept away her patrimony.2
The last property she held, was a farm, whose income was scarcely a competency for her sustenance from year to year; this has been taken from her and sold to satisfy a demand of Colo[ne]l Talmage, the President of the order of the Cincinnati in Connecticut. By art and persuasion he led her to become security for her son in his absence, and without his knowledge or consent, for a property which was totally useless to her son. Colol Talmage after this insisted upon a mortgage, and, then by the regular process of courts, disposed of her farm by execution. This property she always held so dear and sacred, that when she once before embarked for her son, upon the expectation of his half pay, she suffered Genl Parsons, to cast her into the common prison rather than give it up to him She informed Colol Talmage, that it was her all. But the address and severity of this officer, who was young in years, when Genl Wooster was old in public services, have taken it from her. A man of great wealth obtained by speculations consequent upon that loss of life and fortune, which General Wooster experienced by his valor & patriotism, has done this, and there is no redress.3
The daughter of President Clap,4 one of the first ornaments and greatest ⟨bene⟩factors to literature, is thus cast upon the good will of a too hard hearted world. The Widow of a General Officer is now m⟨mutilated⟩ the Subject of that bounty and charity, which I trust all who embarked with him in the war and revolution will gladly bestow.
Genl Wooster had not returned from his expedition into Canada, before he was ruined in his fortune—His British half pay was then forfeited.5 Governor Trumbull had given the naval office to another6—and Vermont had deprived him of his military lands for not withstanding this,7 he continued in the service, and bravely lost his life, leaving sorrow and misery to his family for eighteen years. We have enjoyed no public places—I never sought for one. My incomes for several years have been too small to enable me to provide fully for my family. By their united industry, economy, retirement from company and society, they have hither to preserved themselves from distress. By these means their venerable parent Madam Wooster shares with them in their comforts, and is preserved from wretchedness. If in the distribution of your alms, Your Excellency should extend your care, and bounty in a small degree to that aged Lady whom I now mention with diffidence and reluctance, Your Excellency will bestow a favor upon one who wants but little, and will not want that little long.
Her sons errors or misfortunes have been blameably exaggerated to the great injury of his mother, his family and himself. Too sanguine, too unsuspecting of the honor & integrity of others. Depending upon handsome patrimoni⟨al⟩ expectations, and the gratitude ⟨and justice⟩ of the public to his fathers memory and ⟨mutilated⟩ family, he has been plunged in to trouble wantonly, and needlessly by others—A Mother’s prudence was not proof against the calls of young dependants, and the idol of her father and husband hearts. Such was her son ⟨with⟩ these two illustrious characters. I have the honor to be Your Excellencys devoted servt
John C. Ogden
ALS, DLC:GW. No reply to Ogden from GW has been found.
1. Ogden’s mother-in-law, Mary Clap Wooster, was the widow of Revolutionary War Brig. Gen. David Wooster, who had died in 1777.
2. During Maj. Gen. William Tryon’s Connecticut raids of July 1779, British soldiers pillaged the Wooster residence located on Wooster Street, near Chestnut Street, in New Haven, Connecticut. They stole and destroyed personal papers as well as vouchers for the money that Brigadier General Wooster had advanced to officers and soldiers during the war. As a result, Mary sustained considerable expense and difficulty in settling her affairs, a situation she claimed “subjected me to very heavy losses” (, 113; see also , 2:191–92). Her husband’s death placed Mary among the intended beneficiaries of a resolution, passed by the Continental Congress on 24 Aug. 1780, that granted half-pay to officers’ widows for a seven-year period. In May 1785, Congress recommended that Connecticut officials award Mary the half-pay owed her, and in October 1785, the state legislature ordered the settlement of her accounts and the required payment to her (see , 17:773, 28:334; and , 6:126, 141). These measures failed to resolve Mary’s financial problems. Her petition to the Connecticut legislature in 1790 revealed her “Losses which she sustained by the Enemy in the late War,” and her inability to pay her creditors (, 7:137, 190). Mary continued to petition Congress for assistance, and she finally received payment, though reportedly in the form of notes “at a depreciated value” (Aurora General Advertiser [Philadelphia], 27 May 1799).
3. The Aurora General Advertiser (Philadelphia) for 27 May 1799 related an account of Mary’s difficulties involving her farm and dealings with Benjamin Tallmadge, a cavalry officer during the Revolutionary War and president of the Connecticut chapter of the Society of the Cincinnati since July 1796: “In arranging her property she had secured to herself a small farm of about 200 acres. … Scarcely had she become mistress of it, before a military man of great wealth [Tallmadge] … led her to engage as a security. … Having thus betrayed her, he obtained a mortgage on her farm, prosecuted her in the courts, recovered judgement, and took out execution; without remorse turned out her tenant and sacrificed a considerable sum for her in the sales also.” Tallmadge, a banker, regularly advanced money to individuals who used real estate as security for the loans. The Aurora printed additional articles implicating Tallmadge in Mary’s misfortunes, though he denied wrongdoing (see , 115, 165, 170–71). Land that Mary had offered for sale in 1784, the same year that Tallmadge moved to Litchfield, Conn., included tracts in Barkhamsted, Litchfield County, and 500 acres on the Housatonic River near Kent, Conn. (see Connecticut Courant, and Weekly Intelligencer [Hartford], 14 Dec. 1784).
Mary’s son Thomas Wooster (b. 1751) graduated from Yale College in 1768, subsequently traveled to Europe, and then ran a store in New Haven. During the Revolutionary War, Thomas served as an aide-de-camp to his father, and in February 1777 he became a captain in Col. Samuel Blachley Webb’s Additional Continental Regiment. He retired in 1779 and apparently did not receive a portion of his pay. Thomas’s financial distress in the latter 1780s prompted Mary to appeal to GW on his behalf (see Mary Wooster to GW, 8 May 1789). In 1791 Thomas and his wife and children moved to New Orleans. He was lost at sea in 1792 or 1793. Mary apparently incurred additional debts “for which she is liable on account of her becomeing Bond for her Son” Thomas (, 7:190).
4. Mary’s father, Thomas Clap (1703–1767), was president of Yale College from 1739 to 1766. A Congregational clergyman, Clap had acquired extensive knowledge of algebra, optics, and astronomy. He also authored several works on philosophy, moral virtue, meteors, and other subjects.
5. David Wooster had received half-pay for his service during King George’s War (War of the Austrian Succession) as a captain in Sir William Pepperrell’s British regiment of foot at the Siege of Louisbourg in 1745. Also an officer during the French and Indian war, Wooster forfeited his half-pay upon taking up arms against the British during the Revolutionary War, during which he served in the expedition to Canada in 1775–76. In March 1800, Mary Wooster petitioned Congress with a request for “indemnification” because her husband had “relinquished his half-pay as a British officer” (, 4:243).
6. Following the French and Indian War, David Wooster served as the royal customs collector for the port of New Haven (see , 6:141). Prior to the Revolutionary War, he also had helped protect Connecticut’s coast as a captain of an armed sloop.
Jonathan Trumbull, Sr. (1710–1785) was governor of Connecticut from 1769 to 1784. He held other public offices during his life, including member of the Connecticut legislature.
7. As a reward for David Wooster’s service during the French and Indian War, the colony of New York had granted him 3,000 acres of land on the east bank of Lake Champlain in what is now Addison County, Vermont. During a period of tense land disputes among New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont, settlers under a New Hampshire charter occupied Wooster’s land and employed intimidation tactics in order to avoid being ejected (see , 8:376–78). The Bee (New London, Conn.) for 4 March 1799 printed a report that reads: “THE committee, in the state of New York, who have for a long time had the adjusting of the claims of those who held lands in Vermont … are about to report during the present session of the legislature in Albany.” The report announced that “By this court,” Mary Wooster “is cast out of an estate worth twenty thousand dollars, for less than two hundred.”