Posts

Edward Uptegrove: A Virginia Patriot Story

/in /by

Among the earliest German settlers in Pennsylvania were a Mennonite group known as the “Original 13” families. This included three brothers—Derick (Dirk), Herman, and Abraham Op den Graeff—who arrived aboard the ship Concord on October 6, 1683. They helped found Germantown (now part of Philadelphia) and, in 1688, signed the Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery—the first organized religious protest against slavery in the colonies.

It was Isaac Vanbibber Op Den Graeff’s son, Edward Uptegrove (also spelled Updegrove or similar), who was born around 1739 in Pennsylvania. He married Sarah Lewis, and together they had at least six to eleven children, including Isaac Uptegrove (1761–1817); Susanna/Susannah Uptegrove (1760–1840), who married Benjamin Melton in Albemarle County in 1787; Hannah Uptegrove (1770–1854), who married Elisha Collins in Albemarle in 1794; Solomon Updegrove; and others who later simplified the surname to “Groves” after moving to North Carolina.

In the mid-to-late 1760s, the young family migrated to Albemarle County, Virginia—a rapidly developing Piedmont frontier region of rolling hills and fertile river valleys. Still largely rural and agricultural, the county was transitioning from wilderness clearings to established plantations and small settlements, with Charlottesville emerging as its new courthouse village.

As murmurings of revolution grew, local leaders—including a young Thomas Jefferson—organized resistance. In 1774, Albemarle County held meetings opposing British policies. In spring 1775, following the Gunpowder Incident (when Virginia’s royal governor Lord Dunmore seized colonial gunpowder in Williamsburg), the county formed an Independent Company of militia. Roughly 155 volunteers (later growing to nearly 300) marched toward Williamsburg to demand the powder’s return or compensation, though they turned back before any major confrontation.

Local men also enlisted in Virginia Continental regiments, such as the 14th Virginia, which fought in major northern campaigns like Brandywine and Germantown. The county supplied recruits, provisions, and militia musters. Edward likely first felt the Revolution through committee activities and musters in the mid-1770s, with demands increasing by the late 1770s.The war arrived physically in 1778–1779 with the transfer of thousands of British and German (Hessian) prisoners captured at Saratoga. Starting in early 1779, the Albemarle Barracks (near Charlottesville along what is now Barracks Road) housed up to about 4,000 prisoners. This placed a tremendous logistical burden on the rural county, bringing economic activity, security concerns, escapes, and constant interactions with the community as locals supplied food and guards.

Benedict Arnold’s British invasion of Virginia in late 1780 prompted the Virginia legislature to relocate temporarily to Charlottesville for safety. The county remained relatively quiet on the battlefield until June 1781, when Banastre Tarleton’s raiders struck Charlottesville itself, aiming to capture the legislature and Governor Jefferson. The raid brought direct combat, property damage, and chaos—partially thwarted by Jack Jouett’s famous nighttime ride.

At the height of Virginia’s crisis, Edward stepped away from raising his young family to answer the call. As a private in the Albemarle County militia in 1781, he joined thousands of everyday Virginians who shouldered muskets to defend their homes. That pivotal year, traitor Benedict Arnold’s forces torched Richmond, while “Bloody Ban” Tarleton’s cavalry threatened the heart of Albemarle. Local militia scrambled to protect families, supplies, and the prisoner barracks while supporting the broader campaign that funneled British troops toward Yorktown.

Though no single battle bears Uptegrove’s name, his service embodied the quiet resolve of local defenders whose vigilance helped secure victory at Yorktown in October 1781. He returned to civilian life but died by 1785, leaving a patriot legacy recognized by the Daughters of the American Revolution (Ancestor #A117995).Uptegrove’s story reminds us that the Revolution was won not only on famous battlefields but also in county militias across the land. His descendants spread across the frontier, carrying pride in Edward’s service and instilling that commitment to country in generations to come.

Edward Uptegrove is Randall’s maternal 6th Great Grandfather.

Read more of Randall’s writing in his books from his Store.

A Narrow Escape from the Battle of Wyoming

/in /by

Retreating on foot through the smoke and chaos, young Sergeant Giles Parman pulled his musket close and slipped into an overgrown thicket, using a fallen oak log as cover. Three Iroquois warriors passed within yards of him, their war cries echoing as they hunted stragglers. That desperate moment of survival would haunt him for the rest of his life.

One of the greatest motivating forces in wartime is the stories of fellow countrymen who suffer at the hands of the enemy. My 6th great-grandparents, Giles and Elizabeth Parman, lived such a story—one deeply interwoven with one of the Revolutionary War’s most devastating frontier defeats.

The Battle of Wyoming, also known as the Wyoming Massacre, occurred on July 3, 1778. What began as a military engagement soon became a sensationalized horror that spread across the colonies, fueling outrage and patriotic resolve.

Giles Franklin Parman Sr. (SAR Patriot # P-265930), born in 1758 in the Wyoming Valley, and his wife Elizabeth Penn were raising two young children on their roughly 100-acre homestead in the Plymouth District. At the time, this area was part of Northampton County, Pennsylvania (later Luzerne County). The Wyoming Valley itself formed a fertile, canoe-shaped corridor stretching 20 to 25 miles along the North Branch of the Susquehanna River and measuring about 3 to 6 miles wide between the flanking Appalachian mountain ridges.

Word of the invading force spread rapidly through the valley’s tight-knit farming communities. A mixed army of British-allied Loyalist Rangers—about 110 men under Major John Butler—and roughly 460–600 Iroquois warriors, primarily Seneca led by chiefs Sayenqueraghta (Old Smoke) and Cornplanter, had entered the northern valley around June 30–July 1. They quickly overran smaller outposts, destroying farms, running off livestock, and killing or capturing some residents in the prelude to the main assault.

At about age 19–20, Giles was already serving in the Pennsylvania militia, which required all able-bodied men aged 18–53 to answer the call. As a sergeant in the Northampton County Militia, he likely led a small squad of 10–20 local farmers. With his own homestead threatened and his young family at risk, he probably loaded Elizabeth and the children into a wagon and hurried them to the safety of Forty Fort (near modern Kingston/Wilkes-Barre), the main Patriot stronghold, before mustering with his men.

Inside Forty Fort, a heated debate raged among the roughly 375 Patriot defenders (five companies of militia plus a small Continental detachment). Lieutenant Colonel Zebulon Butler, a Continental officer home on furlough, and Colonel Nathan Denison urged caution, advising the men to remain behind the stockade and await reinforcements. Hot-headed subordinates, including Captain Lazarus Stewart, demanded an immediate offensive to protect homes and families. The majority voted to march out.

On the hot afternoon of July 3, the Patriot force—accompanied by fife and drum playing “St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning”—advanced northward from Forty Fort to open ground near Kingston. Giles and his men joined the formation as the Patriots established a battle line and initially pushed back the Loyalist Rangers with disciplined volleys. The crack of musket fire filled the air, but the line’s terrifying collapse soon became apparent amid smoke and screams as the right flank gave way under the hidden assault by Iroquois warriors.

Giles and his squad were suddenly inundated by war cries and a galling fire that shattered the Patriot line. The battle turned into a chaotic rout within 30–45 minutes. Panic spread as men fled toward the river, woods, or forts. Historical estimates place Patriot deaths at 160–300 or more in the fighting and immediate pursuit, with many scalped or killed while trying to escape. Loyalist and Iroquois losses remained light.

Giles survived the battle and made a desperate way back toward his family, with pursuers close behind. The scene around him was one of horror—neighbors cut down, the valley’s defenders broken in what colonists quickly called a “massacre.”

The exact path Giles and his young family took in the immediate aftermath has been lost to time. Did they remain sheltered in Forty Fort? Or did they risk returning briefly to their Plymouth District homestead to salvage what they could?

On July 4, Colonel Denison surrendered the fort under terms negotiated with Major Butler: the defenders would not take up arms again, and private property would ostensibly be respected. Family accounts and lore suggest Giles continued fighting for a total of about seven years in militia service (a figure repeated alongside his friend Michael Girdner), so he may not have been present for the formal surrender—allowing him to keep defending the region without strictly honoring the agreement.

Despite the capitulation, discipline among some Iroquois warriors broke. In the hours and days that followed, scattered killings, plundering, and burnings occurred across the valley. Homes and farms were looted and torched; livestock was driven off. While Major Butler largely restrained his white troops and claimed no non-combatants were harmed, the frontier reality included real brutality and revenge—motivated in part by earlier Patriot raids on Iroquois villages. Exaggerated tales of atrocities (including stories of the debated “Bloody Rock”) spread rapidly through colonial newspapers, inflaming public fury and helping inspire the 1779 Sullivan Expedition against the Iroquois.

Giles and Elizabeth helped bury and mourn neighbors and friends. They endured the “Great Runaway”—the desperate flight of hundreds of women, children, and elderly into the mountains and swamps, where many perished from exposure. Giles continued militia duties protecting the frontier through much of the remaining war, a common pattern for Northampton County men focused on local defense rather than distant Continental campaigns.

After the war, the family remained in Pennsylvania for a time. Giles sold and migrated westward around 1792–1793 to Greene County, Tennessee, settling along the Nolichucky River. There he served as a justice of the peace, road overseer, election inspector, and helped found the Flat Branch/New Providence Baptist Church in 1803. Elizabeth died before January 10, 1799. Giles then remarried Phoebe (Gilbert) Woolsey. Across both marriages, he raised roughly 11–12 children. Later, the family moved to Knox County, Kentucky (near modern Corbin), where Giles received a land grant, built a plantation on the Cumberland River, and raised horses. He died there in 1832.

Giles represents the archetypal Revolutionary frontier Patriot: an ordinary young farmer and family man thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Unlike officers or Continental soldiers in major eastern battles, he and thousands like him in the Pennsylvania and New York back country fought a grinding, personal war of home defense against raids that blurred the lines between military action and civilian terror. His survival at Wyoming, continued service, and subsequent life as a community leader and westward migrant embody the Revolutionary promise—defending liberty on the edge of settlement, then helping build new communities in Tennessee and Kentucky as the nation expanded. Giles’s life mirrors the resilience of countless unsung Patriots who paid the price for the freedoms that followed.

Read more of Randall’s writings in his others books found at Randall Franks Store .