There’s something cruel and ironic about the way history leaves breadcrumbs. In the case of Revolutionary War Patriot Alexander McCallister, we can point to a yellowed receipt noting the exact cost of his coffin, but we can’t say with confidence where in Salem Township’s Saunders Cemetery his body rests! Still, half-details like receipts invite us to look closer to imagine the missing piece and honor a Patriot’s life, even when his final resting place remains mostly a mystery.
To mark the United States’ 250th birthday, the Daughters of the American Revolution has joined forces with America250, the nationwide commemoration of our country’s semiquincentennial, to pay tribute to Revolutionary War Patriots. As part of the celebration, I’ll be sharing the stories of those laid to rest in Delaware County, with help from Kathi Hirons Kesterson -the regent of the Paul Revere Chapter of Muncie’s DAR– over the next several Fridays.
Alexander McCallister was born on April 22, 1761, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia. During the Revolution, he served as a Private, 8th Class, with Captain Andrew Swearingen’s 4th Company in the Washington County Militia. By the following September, he was attached to Captain Bilderbeck’s 4th Company in the same rank. For his service from July 13 to August 13, 1782, McCallister later received a Certificate of Public Debt -issued April 1, 1784 as #2,722- under the militia loan program1.
After the war, McCallister married Elizabeth Ruanna in 1790. The family lived in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, before moving to Fayette County, Kentucky, and Warren County, Ohio2. McCallister entered Delaware County, Indiana, in 18343. The following year, at seventy-four, he applied for a Revolutionary War pension. McCallister claimed he’d served seven months, but could prove no more than six4. Nonetheless, his word lives on. Memorialized in the sometimes incomprehensible English grammar of the time, McCallister told his story to Delaware County Judge John Tomlinson:
“[ I was a] resident of Westmoreland county Pennsylvania the Conemaugh River and was ordered at the time drafted which was near the middle of July in the year 1777 to Wallis’ Fort in in Westmoreland county Pennsylvania where I remained under the command of Col. John Pomroy and Capt. Robert Leech of the Pennsylvania Militia more than five and one half months as certainly recollected during which period the Fort was attacked by 300 Indians who were repulsed and fled leaving among their slain a white commander from whose person was taken letters of instruction and commission from Governor Hamilton of Canada which papers shewed him to be an officer under the British authority.”
“After this term of service as above described,” he continued, “I resided as before until in the month of June 1778 when I was drafted to serve under command of Captain William Perry of Colonel Pomeroy’s Regiment who drew provisions and arms at Wallis’ Fort and whose company consisted of 100 soldiers the object of the raising of which was was to oppose some Indians and Tories who under the authority and sanction of the British had committed some depridations in my neighborhood and we pursued them 40 or 50 miles and continued in this service two weeks untill all means of overtaking or chastising them seemed hopeless, when…”
“…I was discharged and returned to my residence as before then in the latter part of July I was drafted and ordered to Barrs Fort where I remained one month under command of Lieutenant Archibald Leech of Colonel Pomroy’s Regiment and was again discharged and remained at my residence as above until August when I was again drafted on an alarm of an attack upon Walthowers Fort and joined a company of 100 soldiers under command of a Captain in Col. Pomroy’s Regiment whose name is not recollected. The Indians and Tories who made the attack were in this expedition pursued ineffectually for 8 days to the distance of 30 miles. I cannot now recollect of ever having received a written discharge5.”
Fifty-two years after the Revolutionary War, Alexander McCallister’s sworn word remained strikingly accurate. Today, the details he offered can be confirmed through records and research tools he could never have imagined! Still, McCallister’s pension application was rejected. Ultimately, he only received the Militia Loan for his service; paid by the state of Pennsylvania as interest-bearing certificates in lieu of cash.
Alexander McCallister died at the age of eighty-six or eight-seven in 1848, thirteen years after applying for his pension. We know that he was buried in a six dollar coffin paid for by his estate6, but the location of his interment remains a mystery7.
More than a century after McCallister’s death, though, members of the Continental Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution sought to honor the old soldier despite the uncertainty surrounding his grave: a government-issued marker was placed in Saunders Cemetery, just east of Daleville, near the headstone of a McCallister grandson who fought in the Civil War8. Today that simple tablet stands as the one of the only tangible links to Alexander’s life.
Aside from his cenotaph, another powerful link to McCallister’s life and service lies in the words he left behind in his pension application. They weren’t written as a sweeping history. Rather, they were a plainspoken testimony offered late in life, meant only to prove service so a modest pension could be granted. Records like McCallister’s give us a rare chance to hear Revolutionary War Patriots speak for themselves. Today, McCallister’s own words and the marker at Saunders Cemetery -a voice from the past and a stone in the present- that honor a patriot whose service endures in memory, even if his pension was never granted and his exact resting place remains unknown.
Sources Cited
1 Beeson, C. (1964). Revolutionary War Soldiers Buried in Delaware County. Daughters of the American Revolution. Paul Revere Chapter [Boston]. Book.
2 (See footnote 1).
3 Alexander McCallister, Land Patent (1834, August 5). Document 12533. United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management [Washington DC.]. Web. Retrieved September 15, 2025.
4 (See footnote 1).
5 Alexander McCallister, Pension Application Penn. #R6601, Original data:Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files (NARA microfilm publication M804, 2,670 rolls). Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15. National Archives, Washington, D.C. Web. Retrieved September 15, 2025.
6 Receipt, Estate of Alexander McCallister. Carnegie Library. Muncie Public Library.
7 Barnet, B. (1976, July 3). Pvt. Polen Watched Redcoats Quit on Grandest Day in World History. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 35.
8 SAR to Dedicate Grave Marker (1964, October 18). The Muncie Star. p. 33.
