Molly Pitcher, Heroine of the Battle of Monmouth, Born October 13, 1754

There have been many stories of “Molly Pitcher,” and they have not always agreed even on the main facts. But on the occasion of the ceremonies incident to unveiling the cannon erected over her grave in the “Old Graveyard,” in Carlisle, by the Patriotic Orders Sons of America, on June 28, 1905, an excellent short biography of the “Heroine of the Battle of Monmouth” was prepared by John B. Landis, Esq., from which the following story is taken.

The heroine’s name was not “Pitcher,” but Ludwig, and at the time she earned her well-known sobriquet she was the wife of an artilleryman. Her father, John George Ludwig, came to this country from the Palatinate, and settled near Trenton, in Mercer County, New Jersey, where he engaged in the occupation of dairyman. It was here his daughter Mary was born, on October 13, 1754, and here among the 713surroundings of her father’s home were spent the youthful days of the future “Molly Pitcher.”

The wife of Dr. William Irvine, of Carlisle, afterward General William Irvine, and one of the greatest patriots of the Revolution, was visiting friends in Trenton when she saw the youthful Mary Ludwig, and, being pleased with her and in need of a domestic, took the young girl with her on returning to Carlisle.

Mary had hardly become accustomed to her surroundings in the fine home of Dr. and Mrs. Irvine until she met John Casper Hays, a barber, whose shop was near the Irvine residence. Their courtship was of short duration, for a marriage was solemnized on July 24, 1769.

A few years of quiet wedded life, disturbed only by the warlike preparations centered about the patriotic town of Carlisle, and John Casper Hays became a soldier. He enlisted December 1, 1775, in Colonel Thomas Proctor’s First Pennsylvania Artillery, in which he served as a gunner. His term of enlistment expired December, 1776, but he re-enlisted January, 1777, in the Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, of the Continental Line, in the company commanded by Captain John Alexander, of Carlisle.

Dr. Irvine also was one of the first patriots to respond to the cause of the colonists, and January 9, 1776, was commissioned Colonel of the Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment. He became Brigadier General May 2, 1779. Previous to that time, however, on June 6, 1776, he was captured at Three Rivers, and remained a prisoner on parole until his exchange, April 21, 1778, when he assumed command of the Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, in which John Casper Hays was a private soldier.

After young Hays left Carlisle with his regiment, his wife remained employed at Colonel Irvine’s. Some time thereafter her parents, who still resided in New Jersey, sent a message with courier for her to visit them, and the same horseman carried a letter from her husband, begging her to go, as he might then get an opportunity to see her, as his regiment was then nearby. With Mrs. Irvine’s consent Mary set out on her long journey, traveling on horseback. At the time Molly Hays was a young woman of twenty-five years.

To prevent the movement of the British on New York, General Washington marched his troops again into New Jersey, and the Battle of Monmouth was fought June 28, 1778.

The battle continued from 11 o’clock in the morning until dark, and the day was one of the hottest of the year. Fifty soldiers are said to have died of thirst, and the tongues of many said to have been so greatly swollen as to protrude from the mouth.

While the battle was in progress Molly carried water for the thirsting soldiers from a neighboring spring, which is still pointed out on the historic battlefield. Back and forth she went under shelter or 714under fire, supplying the much-needed water. Possibly, as is stated by some, it was carried in the cannoneer’s bucket. In whatever way it was carried the sight of Molly with her “pitcher” was a welcome sight to the weary and thirsty Continentals.

Molly’s husband, having served a year in Proctor’s Artillery, and though now an infantryman, had been detailed as a gunner in a battery that was engaged. Doubtless Molly was never out of sight of that battery. As she approached with water she saw a soldier lying at the gun, whom she thought to be her husband, and hurrying on she found her husband wounded, but the dead man was one of his comrades. Her husband recovered, but lived only a few years after the close of the war.

It is stated that the cannon was ordered to the rear and would have been taken off the field had not Molly bravely sprung to her husband’s place, and so kept the gun in action.

For her wonderful patriotism and self-sacrificing devotion to the soldiers she was dubbed “Sergeant” and by some called “Major Molly.”

“Moll Pitcher she stood by her gun,

And rammed the charges home, sir.

And thus on Monmouth’s bloody field

A sergeant did become, sir.”

How long Molly stood by her gun, through the smoke and din of battle, on that hot and terrible day, is not a matter of record, but the water she carried to those soldiers and the service she rendered with the battery has been testified to by many whom she helped.

Molly was no imaginary heroine, but a real buxom lass, a strong, sturdy, courageous woman. Her name belongs on the roll of the world’s heroines, and some years ago the State of New Jersey honored “Molly Pitcher” by commemorating her heroic act on one of the five tablets surrounding the base of the beautiful monument erected at Freehold on the historic field.

Some years after the death of her first husband, Sergeant John Casper Hays, she married George McKolly, another soldier and a comrade of Hays, and she then became known as Molly McKolly. This name was also written “McAuley,” and “McCauley” while on her tombstone it was inscribed “McCauly.”

At the entrance to the grounds where until recently was the Carlisle Indian School, formerly for many years United States barracks, still stands the old stone guard house, which was built by the Hessian prisoners taken at the Battle of Trenton, and which escaped the fire when the barracks were burned by the Confederates in 1863.

At that post Molly lived for many years after the Revolutionary War, cooking and washing for the soldiers. Subsequently she kept a small store in the town proper, but the latter years of her life were 715lived in a stone house, where she died on Sunday, January 22, 1832. She attended the Lutheran Church and was respected by her neighbors.

On July 4, 1876, a marble headstone was unveiled over her grave, which had been erected by Peter Spohr, who knew her well and was present at her funeral. On this occasion an eloquent and interesting address was delivered by Captain Joseph G. Vale, a veteran officer of the Civil War.