♂John Clough

John Clough (died 7 May 1847) was a soldier of the Revolutionary War from Poplin, New Hampshire, who later settled at Phillips, Maine. In a pension declaration sworn on 14 April 1818 he said that he had enlisted in April 1777 in Capt. Michael McClary’s company of the New Hampshire regiment of Col. Alexander Scammell^W, and that he had spent one winter at Valley Forge^W and been present at Burgoyne’s surrender and the Battle of Monmouth^W. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son John Clough (1787–1855).

Service in the war

The declaration, made at Phillips, calls him “aged fifty Eight years, a citizen of the United States born in Poplin New Hampshire”. He enlisted in April 1777 and was discharged at West Point on 20 April 1780. Besides Burgoyne’s surrender (the Saratoga campaign^W) and Monmouth he named Sullivan’s expedition against the Iroquois^W among his campaigns. Abraham Page of Belgrade deposed to the same service on the day the declaration was sworn. A lineage application filed in 1942 by his descendant Kenneth Blanchard to the Sons of the American Revolution likewise states that he served as a private in the Third New Hampshire Regiment^W from 1777 to 1780. The pension was allowed on the 1818 application. A compiled 1991 Blanchard and Merryman genealogy gives the grant as 14 April 1818, the day the declaration was sworn. A letter of 1929 from the pension office, summarizing the file, adds that in 1820 he referred to his wife Elizabeth, aged 61, and his son David, aged 16.

Family

His wife was Elizabeth Savage; their intention of marriage, both of Hallowell, was filed on 5 April 1784, according to a State card copying an old town record, and a family chart compiled in 1994 also says they married in 1784. Their son John was born at Readfield, in the Kennebec country, in 1787, according to the town’s record of births. The same record names John Clough as the father of eight children born there between 1785 and 1804, the eldest a daughter, Relief, in January 1785 and the youngest, David, in 1804.

A genealogy of the Clough family published in 1952 adds that Relief married Nathan Smith of Freeman; that rests on that compilation. A family record copied from a very old book in Phillips, Maine, and typed in 1933 for the Daughters of the American Revolution, lists him and Elizabeth with six of the children, from Benjamin to David; Benjamin, it says, died on 29 May 1814, aged 22.

The first federal census, in 1790, lists a John Clough as head of a household at Wales Plantation, not far from Readfield, which was probably his, and the index of the 1800 census has a John Clough at Readfield.

His own statement that he was born at Poplin joins him to that town, and his parents are most likely Benjamin Clough and Meribah King, though the link is probable rather than proved. The New Hampshire state copies of Poplin’s births record a John, born on 23 November 1761, son of Benjamin Clough and Meribah King, which matches the 1994 chart; the chart names the same parents and the same birth date, and spells her surname “Ring”. Another John Clough was born at Poplin in February 1760, the son of John and Mary Clough, and his father’s will, made in 1782, left him the home place at Poplin. Which of the two he was, or whether he was either, is discussed below.

Later life

By 1810 he had moved up to the settlement the census called “Curvo (so called)”, in Somerset County, probably the plantation that became Phillips. The census taker wrote him at the head of a household of six males, himself over 45 and five boys and young men, with “John Clough Jun”, then 23, on the line directly below. In 1820 he was at Phillips, still over 45 and farming, with a woman of the same age group, and no man between 26 and 45 in the house. In 1830 a man in his sixties was counted in his son’s household at Freeman, very probably him. The index of the 1840 census lists John Clough at Phillips, aged 80, in the column kept for Revolutionary War pensioners. His wife Elizabeth died at Phillips on 7 February 1844, aged 83, and was buried in Riverside Cemetery there.

Notes

His birth date is not settled, and his death is recorded on 7 May 1847. The pension age of 58 in April 1818 points to a birth about 1760, which fits the John born at Poplin in February 1760, son of John and Mary Clough, who inherited the Poplin home place, better than the John born on 23 November 1761, son of Benjamin and Meribah. Against that, the age of 61 he gave for Elizabeth in 1820 is also two years more than her recorded birth in 1761, and the same allowance would suit the 1761 boy. The parentage stays probable rather than proved. The 1942 application gives his birth as 20 October 1760 and his death as 7 May 1847, and the 1994 chart gives 23 November 1761 and death at Phillips in 1850; the 1840 census index agrees with about 1760. The family record typed in 1933 also gives his birth as “Oct. 20, 1760”, the day the 1942 application gives, and says he “died about 1850”, as the 1994 chart does. That birth date matches neither of the two Poplin births, and a man born on 20 October 1760 would have been 57, not 58, in April 1818, so the Poplin link stays unproved. Either death date would have him outlive Elizabeth, who died in 1844. The family record gives her birth as 20 January 1760, a year before the town register of Hallowell. The Treasury pension payment ledger for the Maine agency marks Private John Clough as having died on 7 May 1847 and gives no place of death; no birth date is adopted here.