Blaney Grusha (Brinney Gerusha)

Quick Facts

Significance:

Patriot of Color at the Battle of Bunker Hill

Place of Birth:

Framingham, Massachusetts(?)

Place of Death:

Framingham, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

February 7, 1820

The following is from the 2004 National Park Service study Patriots of Color researched and prepared by George Quintal:

Blaney Grusha was at one time owned by Col. Micah Stone of Framingham (MA). He was ‘named in the tax list of 1757.’^I The records list him also as Blinney Gerusha, Brinney Gerusha, Brinney Grusha, and Brin.

He enlisted from Framingham, Massachusetts on 4 May 1775 into the company commanded by Capt. Thomas Drury, in Col. John Nixon’s 5^th Massachusetts Regiment. Twelve days before the Battle of Bunker Hill he, with others in his company, signed a petition to Gen. Artemus Ward ‘stating that they had enlisted to serve in Col. Nixon’s regiment, but had been shifted to Col. [Thomas] Gardner’s regiment, and requesting that they might be permitted to continue in Col. Nixon’s regiment.’ Their protest was evidently heard since we find him listed on the 1 August 1775 roll as still being in Drury’s company, in Nixon’s regiment.^II Temple in his respected history of Framingham stated that Blaney ‘was in the Battle of Bunker Hill.’ Since Temple was privy to personal records that seem to no longer exist, his authority for Blaney’s involvement in the battle is accepted.^III

He is listed on a company return dated Winter Hill (one of a series of Patriot fortifications surrounding Boston in the area now called Somerville) on 30 September 1775. The last service record is an ‘order for bounty coat or its equivalent in money,’ also dated Winter Hill on 23 December 1775.^IV

He died on 7 February 1820 in Framingham.^V

Footnotes:

1. Temple, J.H. History of Framingham, Massachusetts … (1887), 237.
2. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston MA, 6:370, listed as ‘Gerusha, Blinney.’
3. Temple, J.H. History of Framingham, Massachusetts … (1887), 238.
4. Secretary of the Commonwealth. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War (1896-1908) 6:370. Also 2-CD Family Tree Maker^TM set “Military Records: Revolutionary War.”
5. Vital Records to 1850. Births, Marriages and Deaths. Vols for most Massachusetts towns, Framingham, Deaths, 435, listed as ‘Negro.’

Learn more about Quintal's study.