Plaque honoring Warwick’s ‘forgotten patriots’ to be dedicated

A plaque honoring 135 “forgotten patriots” of the town of Warwick who served in General John Hathorn’s regiment during the Revolutionary War will be dedicated at Warwick Town Hall (132 Kings Highway) on Wednesday, Nov. 29, at 6 p.m. All are invited.

In 2006, a plaque was installed as part of a project by the Heritage Committee of the Warwick Historical Society honoring those who fought in Hathorn’s troop. At that time, Revolutionary War pension application files were not available digitally. So the first committee could only go by the published list of Hathorn’s militia, compiled in the late 1800s from existing pay records, a representative of the Friends of Hathorn Historical Society explained. Additionally, due to a fire in 1911 at the New York State archives, many records were destroyed, leaving only published lists or microfilm reels from the National Archives available for reference. The introduction of digitized records searchable by keyword allowed for additional names of Hathorn’s militia to be found.

The project to discover and document these “forgotten patriots” who’d been missed when the original plaque was created was begun several years ago by Deborah Sweeton, a researcher with the Friends of Hathorn Historical Society. She realized some men had been missed, and painstakingly read through thousands of pages of handwritten pension and payrolls to find them, consulting other records to confirm they resided in the area that later became the Town of Warwick. The group then appealed to the community and funds were donated to create the new plaque and its donors list, and its installation in Town Hall was approved.

For further information about the dedication or to learn more about Warwick’s founding veterans, visit the Friends of Hathorn at hathornfriends.org or email hathornhouse@gmail.com. You can also visit the Patriot Memorial Walk at the Hathorn home historic site, The Old Stone House Inn, or read the book Pure Necessity: Revolution at Warwick, available in local libraries or at the local Book and Nook store.