Jacob Allen

Quick Facts

Date of Birth:

1739

Place of Death:

Stillwater, NY

Date of Death:

September 19, 1777

Jacob Allen (born 1739) of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, was in the war since the beginning. In April 1775 he served as a sergeant in the Lexington Alarm and quickly rose to the rank of lieutenant. But Jacob couldn’t get enough of fighting against British tyranny: in 1776 he was commissioned a captain in the Continental Army’s 23^rd Regiment, and in 1777 he was a captain in Colonel John Bailey’s (2^nd) Massachusetts Regiment. Jacob’s long absences from home must have been difficult for his wife, Abigail, and their seven young children.

Jacob’s company was a tight-knit group since most of its personnel came from the Bridgewater area and many were related to each other, including many Allen family members. In fact, his 13-year-old son, Jacob Jr., enlisted as the company’s fifer in 1776.

In August 1777, father and son marched up the Mohawk River Valley to relieve Fort Stanwix from a British siege and returned to the Northern Army in time to fight in the September 19 Battle of Freeman’s Farm. It was in that battle that the 38-year-old captain was killed, "shot through the heart…when leading his company."

One cannot imagine the horror that his then 14-year-old son faced in that moment. His life shattered, the boy fifer was discharged a month later and escorted home by his private-soldier cousin, Japhet, who was given a temporary furlough. Decades later, Jacob Jr. soberly recalled that he was “discharged on account of [my] youth and the death of [my] Capt who was also [my] father who fell at Stillwater at the battle and taking of Burgoine.”

The British probably buried Jacob Sr. near where he fell.