John Chowen

Quick Facts

Significance:

Patriot of Color at the Battle of Bunker Hill

Place of Birth:

Lancaster, Massachusetts(?)

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

Nothing is known of the early life of John Chowen.^I

He was a minute man from Lancaster who marched on the Alarm of 19 April 1775, in the company of Capt. Benjamin Houghton in Col. John Whetcomb’s regiment. He joined the eight month’s service from Lancaster on 26 April 1775, in the company of Capt. Benjamin Hastings in Col. Asa Whitcomb’s regiment. He is also listed on the 1 August roll, on an August receipt for wages, and on a 6 October 1775 roll ‘dated Camp at Prospect Hill.’^II Shortly after he deserted. A newspaper printed a wanted description:^III

Deserted from Prospect Hill, late of Bolton, in the county of Worcester, … John Chewen, of Capt. Hill’s company, in Col. Phinney’s regiment, in the new establishment, but of Capt. Hasting’s company, in Col. Whitcomb’s regiment, in the old … John Chewen is a molatto, but calls himself Indian, about 5 feet 5 inches high, had on a dark coloured-coat, and a pair of breeches something lighter; has a wife at Holden, a proper Indian squaw; he loves a good deal of rum...

In 1776 he served at Hull (MA), probably as a coastal observer, in the company of Capt. William Warner in Col. Josiah Whitney’s regiment.^IV

In 1777 he was a member of the militia from Bolton, in Capt. Jonathan Houghton’s company in Col. Josiah Whitney’s regiment. From this unit he transferred into the Continental Army for three years, in the company of Capt. Moses Brewer in Col. Samuel Brewer’s regiment.^V

He was married, as is stated above, to an Indian woman whose name is unknown.

Footnotes:

1. Status assumed to be ‘free’ since soldier was a Minute Man.
2. Secretary of the Commonwealth. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War (1896-1908) 3:433, listed as ‘Chowen.’ Also 2-CD Family Tree Maker^TM set “Military Records: Revolutionary War.”
3. Essex Gazette. Salem, MA, 4 January 1776, page 4; see also Nourse, Henry S., A.M. The Military Annals of Lancaster Massachusetts … 1740-1865 … (1889), 107 and Whitcomb, Esther K. and Mayo, Dorothy O. Bolton [MA] Soldiers and Sailors in the American Revolution (1985), 17.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Learn more about Quintal's study.