Lewes Native Col. Thomas Stokley

COLONEL THOMAS STOKELY

1754 - 1824

A LEWES NATIVE

The obituary of Colonel Thomas Stokley was found in the Washington Pennsylvania,

Washington Reporter, volume IV, issue 12, Monday, August 9, 1824. This obituary is the basis

of the abstract below. It is I who took the liberty to call him a Lewes Native.

Thomas Stokley was born at Edenton, North Carlonia 1754. Other ancestry records list his birth at Lewes, Sussex county, Delaware, 1754 or 1756. His parents were John Stokley, born 1731, died 1770, at Lewes Delaware, and Mary Baynes, 1730 – 1777 also of Lewes. They are listed as being residents of Assawoman, Accomack, Virginia and Somerset county Maryland, who moved to

Sussex Delaware soon after Thomas was born. His first 20 years were recorded as a resident of Lewes, Sussex county, Delaware, after which he emigrated to the west in 1774, to the then frontier at

the Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania, south west of Pittsburgh, where he first settled and took an active part in repelling the invasions of the neighboring Indians.

By 1776 the frontier settlements had reached the Allegheny River, Thomas Stokley volunteered

in the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment, was sent to Kittaning where a fort was erected along the Allegheny River. That winter he, as the first sergeant, marched his company east, over the mountains, to New Jersey to join the Continental Army having trouble with the British and served in two campaigns on the Pennsylvania line under General Wayne at Brandywine and Germantown and the affair at Paoli. Upon the defeat of the Americans there, he procured a horse which was used by he and colonel Daniel Broadhead to escape.

In 1778 he was commissioned Ensign, returned to the Monongahela to enlist a company for

the protection of the frontiers, erected forts along the Allegheny, and spent the next two years with Broadhead's campaigns against the Indians. 1781 he raised a company of 'rangers' to serve under Colonel Clarke against the Indians on the Scioto and Hockhoching rivers .

It was during this period, while under command of Colonel Laughrey, his detachment was

surprised by the Indians, most killed and others taken prisoners, of which he was one. As a prisoner he was taken to Detroit, suffered the savage cruelty , then delivered to the British at Montreal , confined for seven months, then exchanged at Quebec, and made his way to Philadelphia by 1783 where he immediately resumed his command which served another year before being honorably discharged by the Executive Council with their warmest thanks.

Having served his country during the whole of the Revolutionary War he soon settled

permanently in the Washington County Pennsylvania area. He was twice elected to the Pennsylvania

Senate where he achieved standing and influence. His natural mind powers being much improved by his experience , his remarkable manners, benevolence and great disposition , the evidence of which is the assistance and support which he at all times afforded the poor.

He was married 9 June 1788 in Delaware to Elizabeth Mountford , born April 1766 , in Delaware, died 12 July, 1845. She was daughter of Samuel Mountford, a blacksmith, and his wife

Francis Pope. They had a daughter Francis Pope Stockley born 1789 and a son Samuel Mountford Stockley.

Colonel Thomas Stokley died in Washington Pennsylvania 25 July 1824.

Abstract July 2017, Harrison H., from Washington Reporter, Washington, Pennsylvania , Monday

August 9m 1824.