Henry Hyden, My Paternal 4th Great Grandfather
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 25
Prompt: An Ancestor Who Stays With Me
For many years, Henry Hyden was simply my DAR patriot.
DAR recognizes Henry for Patriotic Service during the Revolutionary War, and it is through him that I became a member of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. Beyond that, I knew very little about the man himself.
That changed earlier this year while I was researching Revolutionary War patriots at Midwest Genealogy Center.
As I worked through a notebook filled with names and source citations, I came across an entry for Henry that immediately caught my attention: 175 pounds of beef.
That was not the sort of Revolutionary War service I expected to find.
According to Virginia Revolutionary Publick Claims, Henry Hyden of Stafford County, Virginia, furnished 175 pounds of beef in 1782. The following year, he paid the Virginia Supply Tax, another act recognized by DAR as patriotic service.
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| Image Created by ChatGPT |
Most of us think of the Revolutionary War ending with the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781. In reality, the new nation still faced enormous challenges. Troops remained in the field, prisoners had to be fed and guarded, and state governments struggled to finance the costs of war.
The beef Henry supplied and the taxes he paid may not sound dramatic, but they were part of the practical support that kept the Revolutionary effort functioning during its final years.
As interesting as Henry's story was, my research soon led me to another member of the family.
Henry's son William Hyden served as a soldier in the Revolution.
Born in Stafford County in 1761, William enlisted during the war and later applied for a pension based on his service. His pension file contains details of his military experience as well as documents created years later when his widow, Martha Baldwin Hyden, attempted to obtain a widow's pension after his death.
While reviewing those records, I discovered something I had never seen before: William's bounty land certificate.
Issued on 12 August 1856 under the provisions of the Bounty Land Act of 1855, the certificate entitled William to 160 acres of federal land in recognition of his Revolutionary War service. The ornate document survives today, a tangible reminder of a nation's attempt to reward veterans more than seventy years after the war had ended.
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| William Hyden's Bounty Land Certifcate from Fold2.com. |
What became of those 160 acres remains a mystery. Although I found the certificate, I have not yet found evidence showing whether William ever located land under the warrant or what ultimately happened to it.
Perhaps that is a research project for another day.
What struck me most about this family was how differently father and son contributed to the Revolutionary cause.
Henry's patriotic service was measured in pounds of beef and the payment of a wartime tax. William's was measured in months of military service and later recognized through a pension and bounty land certificate.
One supported the war from home. The other served in uniform.
Together, they remind me that the American Revolution was sustained not only by soldiers on the battlefield, but also by ordinary families who contributed what they could when their new nation needed them.
Today, when I look at my DAR membership certificate, I see more than a name on a lineage chart. I see a Stafford County farmer who supplied provisions during a difficult time and a son who served in the struggle for independence.
And thanks to a few records discovered more than two centuries later, Henry Hyden has become much more than simply my DAR patriot.
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