Porter Cuddy

Quick Facts

Significance:

Patriot of Color at the Battle of Bunker Hill

Place of Birth:

Sudbury, Massachusetts(?)

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

There is no known record of Porter Cuddy’s birth.

He enlisted from Sudbury, Massachusetts on 31 May 1775 into the company commanded by Capt. Aaron Haynes, in Col. Jonathan Brewer’s regiment. On the roll he is listed as a ‘negro.’ He had 62 days continuous service to 1 August 1775 when a new roll was taken. He is also listed on a company return dated Prospect Hill (in what is now Somerville, Massachusetts and where a fort had been built by the Patriots) on 6 October 1775. An order for a bounty coat was dated ‘Cambridge’ on 25 October 1775. The key document is a 10 June 1776 order issued ‘for money allowed for loss of a coat at battle of Bunker Hill.’^I

On 18 June 1776, three months and a day after the British evacuation of Boston, he enlisted for a short second term in Col. Thomas Marshall’s Plymouth County regiment, in Capt. Andrew Haskell’s company. He served on month and thirteen days until 1 August 1776. This tour took him to Hull, Massachusetts, probably as a coastal observer.^II  

Footnotes:

1. Secretary of the Commonwealth. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War (1896-1908) 4:199, listed as ‘Cuddy.’ Also 2-CD Family Tree Maker^TM set “Military Records: Revolutionary War.”
2. Ibid, listed as ‘Cuddey.’

Learn more about Quintal's study.