For every general issuing orders during the American Revolution, there were countless forgotten laborers hauling supplies, guiding teams, and keeping the army alive one wagonload at a time. John McConnell was one of them. Pieced together, oral tradition reveals a young man thrust into the brutal logistics of war at an age when most of us are still figuring out who we are.

Not every Revolutionary War Patriot shouldered a musket. In fact, many never did! Thousands of supporters of the cause never enlisted, never appeared on a muster roll, and left behind no record of military service at all. Today, their names surface only in county claims, supply accounts, or long-forgotten paperwork. Joshua Howell was one of those Patriots. He served the Revolution not on the battlefield, but in quieter ways that kept the war effort alive.

Many Hoosier Patriots served far from the spotlight, and Andrew Ice was one of them. His war was fought in blockhouses and forts in the wilderness, and his service was recorded years later only through sworn recollections. Nearly two centuries after his death, though, his name resurfaced! Carried forward by descendants and preserved by the Daughters of the American Revolution, it was ultimately etched into public memory here near home.

William Williams didn’t leave behind a diary, letters, or a tidy biography. What we know comes from his pension declaration and a few memories preserved by neighbors and early county historians. Even so, those fragments reveal a man who fought through the final years of the Revolution, roamed the early Midwest, and helped shape Delaware County before it officially existed on paper.

James Andrews’ name isn’t carved into a stone. No marker points to where he rests, and we can’t even say with confidence that he ever set foot in Delaware County. Fortunately, we can say he served. Thanks to the memories preserved by his sons -both of whom stepped forward in 1850 to testify to their father’s Revolutionary War service- we have just enough information to keep his story from slipping through the cracks. If we don’t speak Andrews’ name, claim him as Delaware County’s own, and share what little we know, then his chapter might fade into silence. 

Some Revolutionary War stories burst with battlefield heroics, but others unfold quietly, carried by Patriots whose names history nearly forgot. Robert Watkins belongs to the latter group. His life was a long, winding journey through service in militias, frontier marches, and westward settlement. It’s one that would eventually stretch from the Carolina foothills to the early communities of Indiana.

Most Revolutionary War Patriots weren’t allowed to seek pensions until nearly fifty years after the battles ended. By the time Congress opened the door wide enough for soldiers to step through, many were elderly men with fading memories carrying old stories that had lived in their minds for decades. One was Thomas Thompson. At seventy-seven years old, he made his way into the Court of Common Pleas in Hamilton County, Ohio, in 1834 to record the service he’d given as a young man.