Honoring local patriots: Revolutionary War veterans remembered through DAR project

For more than 130 years, the Daughters of the American Revolution has been volunteering to make sure all patriots — or as many as humanly possible — are recognized. Those duties are taking on special significance with the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890 to promote historic preservation, education and patriotism. More than 1 million women have joined the ranks since then. It was founded when women were not allowed to join the Sons of the American Revolution, formed one year earlier.

Preservation includes discovering, documenting and caring for grave sites of patriots buried in the area, said Robbin Christman, regent of the DAR Wooster-Wayne Chapter. “We want to preserve the history of our area.”

Education comes in the form of members visiting area schools. Included in that is the annual recognition of Constitution Week, the celebration of which as an annual event was signed into law in 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Patriotism is recognized in all sorts of ways including the Wreaths Across America sponsorship, which honors veterans with wreaths placed at the Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery or on the graves of Revolutionary War veterans buried in Wayne County.

Worth noting, the Wooster-Wayne Chapter is not named for the city and county, but for Gen. David Wooster and Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne. The city and county, however, are named for those two men. It is the only chapter in Wayne and Holmes counties. There are close to 100 chapters in Ohio and over 3,000 nationwide and throughout the world.

Tracking down all the patriots is nearly impossible, given that thousands perished on battlefields or were buried on family farms or in cemeteries that no longer exist, don’t have records or both, Christman said.

This past summer the DAR Wooster-Wayne Chapter held a Patriot Grave Marker Dedication at Grace Church in Dalton. The dedication honored eight Revolutionary War patriots buried in Wayne County. Men such as Simon Chaffin (1764-1837) of the Minutemen Massachusetts Militia, buried in East Union Cemetery; Ebenezer Coe (1736-1827), a lieutenant in Barr’s Ranger Detachment, buried in Dalton Union Cemetery; and John Davis II (1762-1856), a private in the Artillery Regiment PA Continental Militia, buried in Pleasant View Cemetery, were commemorated.

“This was the first dedication for patriots' markers in quite a few years,” Christman said. “When a patriot is discovered and the research has been completed, we must go through the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution for their approval on documentation that the individual is a proven patriot.”

Jolene Dyer joined the DAR Wooster-Wayne Chapter after looking at what was then the chapter website and learning many Revolutionary War veterans were indeed buried in the area.

“I was totally caught off guard,” Dyer said. “I had never considered we had patriots here, and my curiosity was piqued.”

Enough that Dyer, now the DAR Wooster-Wayne Chapter’s historic preservation chair, and her husband started visiting area cemeteries to find them. Soon, the couple embarked on a five-part, six-year project to identify patriots or confirm graves belonged to patriots.

Through DAR research efforts, the confirmed number of patriots buried in the county who are known to have served in the Revolutionary War is 44, with 40 others believed to possibly be buried here.

“Research mentions there may have been as many as 7,000-8,000 patriots buried in Ohio, but many are believed to have been buried on family farms, initially marked with a field stone or a wooden marker, now long lost to time and weather,” Dyer said. “The same is probably true of burial sites in other states too. We will never know how many are really buried in Ohio and other states because of this.”

Estimates place the number of American soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War at close to 400,000. In a perfect world, they’d all be accounted for sooner or later. The world is not perfect, though, and the DAR is doing its best to fill in the blanks.

“You need to be aware of those with the same name living in the same general area and be able to distinguish between them,” said Cheryl Abernathy, DAR Wooster-Wayne Chapter registrar. “One of the patriots in Wayne County could not be distinguished from another man of the same name, so we were not sure if it was the same one that ended up here.”

It’s not only about soldiers. As Abernathy explained, that’s only one criterion for being called a patriot.

“They could have been a spy, a public servant or paid a supply tax,” she said. “Any of these qualify. You just need to prove, with documentation, that they did these things.”

Much other work is done beyond the documentation. DAR cleans up headstones, weeds grave sites if needed and provides bronze Revolutionary War markers where they may be missing.

In Wayne County the 44 headstones are in 30 different cemeteries spread over 15 townships. Township trustees are contacted before any work is done.

Dyer was happy to report most headstones clean up well and just need to be sprayed off each spring. Patriots whose headstones are broken or missing get new ones, or repairs are made with grant money and DAR Wooster-Wayne Chapter funds.

Those interested in joining the DAR Wooster-Wayne Chapter or one of the other 100 chapters around the state can do so, provided they are 18 and have provable lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution. Visit www.Dar.org and click Join.