"In the Spring of 1775, the western settlements were the last to hear the news of Lexington and Concord. We think of the West as the frontier, the forward edge of change in American history. But in the eighteenth century it was called the backcountry, and it was thought to be the most remote and isolated region to the colonies. The news of Lexington took nearly a month to get there. When it arrived, the backsettlers instantly perceived the fighting to be a struggle for their own liberty and freedom. Men in hunting shirts and buckskin leggings were soon on the march to Boston, with long rifles in their hands and tomahawks tucked under their belts.
"One of these backcountry units was Captain John Proctor's Independent Battalion in Westmoreland County, Pennyslvania. It was raised in 1775 at Hannas Town, an area settled by North British and Scots-Irish emigrants on the far western fringe of the colony. Men in the battalion served through the war and fought at Trenton, Princeton, and Ash Swamp in 1777. For its colors, Captain Proctor's Battalion chose a new symbol of liberty and freedom. They carried a big crimson flag, made of heavy watered silk, six feet four inches broad by five feet ten inches high. It still survives at the Pennsylvania Museum in Harrisburg.
"The design and the dimensions of the Westmoreland Flag exactly followed British regulations for regimental colors, even to a Union Jack in the upper corner, in every way but one. In the center of the flag, where a dignified regimental crest and Latin motto would normally appear, the backsettlers of Westmoreland County substituted a huge rattlesnake, thirty-six by forty-two inches, painted yellow-brown with a dark crossbands. The image was drawn with such accuracy that its subspecies can be identified as a timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus), which, like the men who carried the flag, inhabited the wooded mountains and rocky hills of the Appalachian highlands. The timber rattlesnake is often found in that region today, tightly coiled and completely motionless, but with its rattles erect and ready to strike, just as it appears on the flag.
"The Westmoreland men gave their rattlesnake a set of thirteen rattles, with a fourteenth beginning to form in the hope that Canada would join the cause. Beneath the rattlesnake was a blunt motto: 'Don't Tread On Me.' Above it was the cipher JP, for John Proctor, and the letters I.B.W.C.P., for the Independent Battalion of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
"The design of the flag, its British Union Jack, and its hopeful allusion to Canada all date it in the first months of the Revolution, probably in mid-1775. This would make it one of the earliest rattlesnake symbols, but others may have been earlier. Another rattlesnake flag was adopted by the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment, which had been raised in 1775. It was recruited throughout the colony, but the leading authority writes that 'frontier areas had a disproportionately heavy representation.' Its second batallion came mostly from Lancaster, Cumberland, Nothumberland, York, and Westmoreland counties and drew largely from North British and Ulster families. The colonel of the regiment was Walter Stewart, also of North British descent. The regimental colors appear in his portrait, painted by Charles Wilson Peale during the Revolution.
"Yet a third backcountry rattlesnake flag may (or may not) have been adopted in Culpeper County, Virginia, on the east slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains, by a unit that called itself the Culpeper Minutemen. They mustered three hundred men with bucktails in their hats and tomahawks or scalping knives in their belts. One of its members wrote that they wore 'strong brown linen hunting-shirts, dyed with leaves and the words ‘Liberty or Death,’ worked in large white letters on the breast.' They mustered in 1775, armed themselves with 'fowling pieces and squirrel guns,' and marched to Williamsburg, where tidewater Virginians were not thrilled to see them. One Culpeper man remembered, 'The people hearing that we came from the backwoods, and seeing our savage-looking equipments, seemed as much afraid of us as if we had been Indians' [Captain Philip Slaughter, in Rev. Philip Slaughter, A History of St. Mark's Parish, Culpeper County, Virginia. Baltimore, 1887.]
"Part of the 'savage-looking equipments' may have been their flag. A sketch of it by an historian in the mid-nineteenth century shows a design similar to the Westmoreland Independent Battalion's: the dark image of a timber rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike, and the words 'Don't Tread On Me.' Also on the flag was another motto, which also appeared in large white letters on their hunting shirts: 'Liberty or Death." Their leader was Patrick Henry, who became colonel of the First Virginia Regiment, to which the Culpeper Minutemen were attached.
"This symbol of a singular rattlesnake which said 'Don't Tread On Me' became very popular in the colonies. It spread so rapidly that its point of origin remains in doubt. The state of Georgia engraved the rattlesnakes on its paper money. South Carolina briefly adopted the rattlesnake flag for its naval ensign in 1776. Purdie and Dixon's Virginia Gazette added a rattlesnake to its masthead from 1776 and 1777, along with many other symbols. Rattlesnakes appeared on Massachusetts treasury notes in 1777 and on a New Hampshire flag. In early 1776, it was proposed in Congress as a Continental flag.
"The rattlesnake symbol had two associations of particular importance. One was with the new American navy. In Congress a member of the marine committee, Christopher Gadsen, a South Carolina merchant who was the son of a British naval officer, proposed a yellow flag with a rattlesnake and 'Don't Tread On Me' as the ensign of the Continental Navy. It was flown at sea in early 1776. Rattlesnakes were carved on the sterns of warships in the Continental Navy, which was sometimes called 'the rattlesnake squadron.' They were painted on the drums of the United States Marines. Gadsen also recommended a rattlesnake flag to the state of South Carolina, and its ships sometimes displayed an ensign with a rattlesnake stretched across a field of red and blue stripes. The flag was actively used, and in the mid-twentieth century the oldest ship in the United States Navy was authorized to fly a rattlesnake flag from its jackstaff.
"The strongest association was with the backcountry. This vast area of forested mountains and fertile valleys was dotted with new settlements in 1775. Most adults who lived there were not natives of the region. These backsettlers specially favored the rattlesnake emblem and were strongly drawn to the motto 'Don't Tread On Me.' How and why it was chosen is a story with more twists than a serpent's tail. To seek its origin is to find yet another vision of liberty and freedom in early America...."
--from "Rattlesnakes, Hornets, & Alligators: Backcountry Visions of Liberty as Individual Autonomy" by David Hackett Fischer in the book, LIBERTY AND FREEDOM (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Forwarded from Arizona...
The 11th Virginia Regiment was authorized by the Continental Congress on 16 September 1776 in the Continental Army.
It was organized on 3 February 1777 to consist of four companies from Loudoun, Frederick, Prince William, and Amelia Counties; Capt. Daniel Morgan's Independent Rifle Company; and five
companies from the state's portion of the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment.
On 15 April 1777 Capt. George Rice's company (organized on 18 January 1777 in the Virginia State Troops with volunteers from Frederick and Augusta Counties) was transferred to the regiment.
On 11 May 1777 the regiment was assigned to the 3rd Virginia Brigade of the Main Army and was
reorganized to eight companies on 1 November 1777.
The regiment saw action at the Battle of Brandywine, Battle of Germantown and the Battle of
Monmouth. The unit was reassigned to the 2nd Virginia Brigade on 22 July 1778, and it was reorganized to nine companies and redesignated as the 7th Virginia Regiment on 12 May 1779. It was relieved from the 2nd Virginia Brigade on 4 December 1779 and assigned to the Southern Department. The unit was captured on 12 May 1780 at the Siege of Charleston and subsequently
disbanded on 1 January 1781.
References
Wright, R. K., Jr., 1983, The Continental Army: Washington, D.C., U.S. Army Center of Military History Publication 60-4-1, U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 289-290
(url=http://www.army.mil/cmh/
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His birth and death dates are from his Revolutionary War pension papers.
Joseph and Jennie are buried in the Fox Cemetery on Fox Run, about 3 miles NW of Mt. Morris, PA.
His stone was read on 22 August 1965 by Dorothy and James Hennen.
Joseph Fox, Born in New Jersey, Died in Greene Co., Pa. 1847.
A soldier of the Revolution, Member 11th Va. Regt., Military: Rev War: Pennsylvania Pensioners, 1835: Greene Co, PA
Fox Cemetery, Perry Township
Located on Fox Run, branch of Shannon Run, ca 3mi NW of the Village of Mt. Morris, Pa.
22 August 1965
Dorothy and James Hennen
FOX, Joseph born in New Jersey 1753...Died in Greene Co, PA 1847
A Soldier of the Revolution, Member 11th Va. Regt.
FOX, John b 6-15-1800 d 3-22-1882
FOX, Clarissa b 1-12-1830 d 4-26-1887
There are numerous fieldstones in this cemetery and the cemetery has a fence
around it.. the grave of Joseph Fox bears a Revolutionary War marker and a rather new flag.
* from Hennen's Cemetery Records, Volume 12 , 1979
Lori ;- ) in AZ. formally from Washington, PA.
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So, Joseph Newton Fox was my GGGGGG grandfather! I see he has a memorial page at Find A Grave, but no photograph as yet. Click here to see his page, you can navigate through their site from there. Come back and see us sometime, we've got lot's more work to share.
OH WAIT...Before you go...check this out!
For us, figuring out more about the areas Wilsons is imperative because Grandma Pearl (Fox) married, first, Glenn Wilson. From reading work done about West Virginia which wasn't created until 1863 we know that the Wilsons on the border territory between WVA and PA, well, they were as oldly planted as the Blacks!
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