All in the Family: Mason County 1812 Warriors

This article chronicles the service of five related Mason County Kentuckians who fought at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813, near Chatham, Canada, during the War of 1812. Note re Photo: “Remember the River Raisin” by Ken Riley This undated painting depicts Kentucky mounted militia riflemen attacking British troops at the Battle of the Thames as revenge for the Battle of Frenchtown and the River Raisin massacre. It is in the collection of the U.S. Army Center of Military History and is in the public domain.

Remember the River Raisin” by Ken Riley
This undated painting depicts Kentucky mounted militia riflemen attacking British troops at the Battle of the Thames as revenge for the Battle of Frenchtown and the River Raisin massacre. It is in the collection of the U.S. Army Center of Military History and is in the public domain.

Kentuckians played a significant role in the War of 1812.  Approximately 24,000 Kentuckians served during the war, and sixty-four percent of the Americans killed were Kentuckians.[1]  Mason County, Kentucky, supplied many fighters in this conflict.  Not surprisingly, given the size of the county’s population in the early 1800s,[2] some were related by blood or marriage.  That is true for five men who fought in the critical Battle of the Thames which took place on October 5, 1813, near Chatham, Canada, where American forces defeated the British and their native allies, resulting in the British loss of control of Southwestern Ontario and the death of native leader Tecumseh whose confederacy subsequently fell apart.[3]

Five men with Mason County and family connections who fought in the Battle of the Thames were:  Benjamin Norris, Baldwin Harl, William Gates, Jr., Christian Christopher Hiles, and Randolph Sullivan. 

Here is how they were related:[4]

• BENJAMIN NORRIS (1783-1864) was born on May 23, 1783, in Hartford County, Maryland, and moved with his parents to Mason County when he was 12 years old.
• Benjamin Norris married his cousin Priscilla Norris (1782-1874) in Plainville, Hamilton County, Ohio, in 1814.
• Priscilla Norris had a brother, James Norris (1787-1825), who married Nancy Gates (1780-1817) in Mason County on April 2, 1804.
• Nancy Gates had a sister, Mary Ann (Polly) Gates (1796-1847), who married BALDWIN HARL (1790-1893) in Mason County on September 14, 1814.
• Nancy and Polly Gates had a brother, WILLIAM HENRY GATES, JR. (1794-1872), who married Theodosia Collins (1799- aft 1880) in Minerva, Mason County, on April 10, 1819.
• William Gates, Jr.’s daughter, Elizabeth Gates[5] married Randolph Hiles (1819-1849) in Mason County on June 13, 1840.
• Randolph Hiles’s father was CHRISTIAN CHRISTOPHER HILES (1794-1876), who married Judith Sullivan (1795-1856) in Dover, Mason County, in March 1815.
• Judith Sullivan had a brother, RANDOLPH SULLIVAN (1791-1883), who married Christian Christopher Hiles’s sister, Abigail Hiles (1796-1869), in Mason County on August 6, 1815.

The service of these five men with ties to Mason County, Kentucky, is well documented, including their involvement in the Battle of the Thames in 1813:

• Benjamin Norris served two enlistments during the War of 1812, first as a Lieutenant and Adjutant in the 4^th Kentucky Volunteers, Pogue’s Regiment, and then as a Captain under John Dowden in the Kentucky Militia.[6]
• Baldwin Harl served as a Corporal in Captain Norris’s company in Colonel Pogue’s regiment.[7] When the war started, according to a newspaper story published at the time he turned 100, Baldwin was living in Missouri but “returned to Kentucky and joined the American army in Captain Norris’ company of Colonel Pogue’s regiment.  They served under General Harrison and assisted in the defeat of Proctor and his Indians in the battle of the Thames.  Harl was acquainted with Richard M. Johnson, the slayer of the great Tecumseh, and he saw the dead chieftain after Johnson had killed him.” [8]
• William Henry Gates, Jr. enlisted in the military on August 27, 1813, and mustered in Newport, Kentucky four days later. [9] At this time, William Gates was on the Roll of Captain Jeremiah Martin’s Company, Kentucky Mounted Volunteer Militia, Commanded by Col. John Poage.[10]  The Battle of the Thames In Which Kentuckians Defeated the British, French, and Indians (The Battle of the Thames) lists him as a Private in the Company of Captain Jeremiah Martin, whose officers included Lieutenant Benjamin Norris in the Third Regiment commanded by Col. John Poage.[11]
• Christian Christopher Hiles mustered on March 4, 1813 in Captain John Baker’s Company of Infantry of the Kentucky Militia, Detached, Commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel William E. Boswell.[12] By August 1813, Christian Hiles was enrolled in Captain James Armstrong’s Company, Kentucky Mounted Volunteer Militia, commanded by Col. William Mountjoy and mustered at Newport, Kentucky, on August 29, 1813.[13] The Battle of the Thames lists Christopher Hiles as a Private in Armstrong’s Company of Col. William Mountjoy’s Regiment.[14]

According to the A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians, both Christian Christopher Hiles and William Gates, Jr. “served with distinction in the war of 1812 and were present at the time the great Indian chief, Tecumseh, was killed in the battle of the Thames.”[15] The same source related that William Gates, Jr. saw Tecumseh killed and always maintained that a man by the name of White killed the chief and not General Johnson.”[16] (Apparently, William and his brother-in-law Baldwin Harl did not always agree.)

• Randolph Sullivan served as a Private in Captain Jeremiah Martin’s Company, Kentucky Mounted Volunteer Militia, commanded by Col. John Poage (the same company in which William Gates served).[17] Specifically, The Battle of the Thames lists then-Lieutenant Benjamin Norris as one of the officers in that Company.[18] Eventually, Benjamin Norris was promoted, as reflected in Randolph’s widow’s pension application which indicated that Randolph Sullivan had served as a Private in Captain Benjamin Norris’s Company of the Kentucky Militia.[19]

In the early 1800’s, it was a small world in Mason County, Kentucky.

[1] See “The War of 1812,” Kentucky National Guard History, at https://kynghistory.ky.gov/Our-History/History-of-the-Guard/Pages/The-War-of-1812.aspx.

[2] There were approximately 12,500 people living in Mason County in 1810.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_County,_Kentucky.

[3] See Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812,  A Short History, University of Illinois Press, 2012, at pp. 44-46.

[4] The marriage information for these couples was found on Ancestry.com and FindAGrave.com.

[5] Elizabeth Gates’s 2^nd Cousin/Twice Removed Major David Thomson of Scott County, Kentucky, was also at the Battle of the Thames.  See infra note 11 at p. 256.  Major Thomson was the son of Elizabeth’s Great-Grandaunt Ann Rhodes Thomson, the sister of her Great-Grandmother Elizabeth Rhodes Pettus.

[6] See War of 1812 Pension Application Files, 1812-1815 at https://www.fold3.com/image/636361963/norris-benjamin-page-1-us-war-of-1812-pension-files-1812-1815.

[7] See War of 1812 Pension Application Files, 1812-1815 at https://www.fold3.com/image/313781513/harl-baldwin-page-1-us-war-of-1812-pension-files-1812-1815.

[8] See “A Centenarian: Baldwin Harl Celebrates the One Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth,”  The Evening Bulletin, Maysville, Kentucky, Saturday, January 10, 1891, p. 3.

[9] See Application of Theodosia Collins Gates for War of 1812 Pension, at Anecestry.com, Application Files Index, 1812-1815, War of 1812 Pension Applications. Washington D.C.: National Archives. NARA Microfilm Publication M313, 102 rolls. Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group Number 15.War of 1812 Pension Application Files.

[9] See Roster of the Volunteer Officers and Soldiers from Kentucky in the War of 1812-1815 (Printed by the Authority of the Legislature of Kentucky, 1891) (“Roster”) at p. 133.

[10] See Young, Col. Bennett Henderson, The Battle of the Thames in Which Kentuckians Defeated the British, French and Indians, October 5, 1813, printed by the John P. Morton & Co., 1903 (“Battle of the Thames”) at p. 221.

[11] See id.

[12] See Roster at p. 216.

[13] Id. at p. 137.

[14] See Battle of the Thames at p. 224.

[15] E. Polk Johnson, A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians, Volume III, Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago-New-York, 1912, at p. 1179.

[16] Id.

[17] See Roster at p. 133.

[18] See Battle of the Thames at p. 221.

[19] See Application of Elizabeth Sullivan for War of 1812 Pension at Ancestry.com, War of 1812 Pension Application Files Index, 1812-1815 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010.
Original data: War of 1812 Pension Applications. Washington D.C.: National Archives. NARA Microfilm Publication M313, 102 rolls. Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group Number 15.