Hometown Heroes
George Dunworth – Revolutionary War sailor, soldier
By Michael Rocchetti
George Dunworth (1758-1842) was born October 26, 1758 in Jacksonboro, S.C. At the age of three he was orphaned and placed in the care of friends, who then moved to Charleston, S.C. At a suitable age he was apprenticed to a carpenter with whom he lived three years. He then worked as a journeyman on the public barracks under the well-known Captain Daniel Cannon who superintended the defensive works.
At the age of 18, he decided to serve his country, and since there were a number of vessels fitted out in Charleston, he enlisted on September 1, 1777, to serve as a seaman aboard a Privateer vessel – a schooner with 12 guns called the “Volunteer,” commanded by Captain Eliphalet Smith, with a crew of 63 men and boys. On the 19th of September, their ship was engaged in a naval battle with a British ship, a 32-gun frigate called the HMS Brune, part of a detached squadron under the command of Captain James Ferguson. During the battle, Captain Smith was killed by a musket shot, and the Volunteer was sunk. George Dunworth survived, and was taken prisoner and transported to British-occupied New York City, where he was held on the infamous prison ship “Prince of Wales” until about December of 1777.
Emaciated and ill, he was transferred to British-occupied Newport, R.I., where as part of a prisoner exchange, he was transferred to a smaller cartel ship, which then sailed to Providence on January 1, 1778. He was then hospitalized with smallpox, and was quarantined at a “pestilence house” about two miles from Providence. Later, when he was no longer contagious, he was carried back to the hospital. In a weakened and emaciated state, he was released on his own, hungry and destitute.
He then set out for Plainfield, Conn. With the kindness and charity of strangers who fed and sheltered him along the way, he arrived in Plainfield after walking for three days from Providence. In Plainfield he convalesced at the home of Mr. Isaac Morgan (1739-1796), who was a regional commissary, providing supplies to the Army. He stayed there until he fully regained his strength. Later in the year 1778, he joined a local militia company from Plainfield, and served two months along the Connecticut shoreline, three miles from Fort Griswold in Groton, as a substitute for a man named Morgan, in a Company commanded by Captain Joshua Dunlap, of Colonel Obadiah Johnson’s Regiment. 
In 1779 he served three months as a substitute in place of a man who had been drafted – his name was David Allerton.  This was in a Troop of Horse, (a company of Dragoons) commanded by Captain Sam Hall (of Plainfield) of Colonel Elisha Sheldon’s Regiment of Light Horse in the Continental Army. At that time the Regiment lay at New Canaan near Long Island Sound. 
In 1781, in the fall, he served 2 months at Fort Griswold, shortly after the storming of that fort and the burning of New London by the British, under the command of the infamous traitor Benedict Arnold. He then served as a substitute for Isaac Morgan in Captain Robben’s Company. (Note: Isaac Morgan was captured by the British and carried off as a prisoner at the Battle of Fort Griswold, on September 6, 1781.) 
In 1782 he was drafted for two months service in New London – but he hired a substitute.
In 1785, he married Lucretia Tracy (1750-1820) of Plainfield and they moved to Hampton. After her death, he married Abigail Whiton (1789-1855) of Ashford; they had one daughter, Matilda (1822-1830). He died in Ashford March 13, 1842 at the age of 84.
His certificate of pension was issued to his widow on June 22, 1853, at $23.33 per year ($981 in 2025 dollars). She died two years later in 1855.
Hometown Heroes is a series published in the Putnam Town Crier & Northeast Ledger with this mission: We owe it to our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines to make sure that they are never forgotten, and that the memory of their service and sacrifice will forever live on in the hearts and minds of the grateful people of Putnam.

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