10/16/2022
The Hunt for Benjamin Markham’s Revolutionary War Powder Horn
By Kem Marcum
Benjamin Markham is my 4th great grandfather. He was born on July 14, 1752, in Stafford, Connecticut. About 1766 the family moved to Tyringham, Massachusetts. He married Mercy Bentley on November 18, 1779, in Tyringham. In addition to being a farmer, he had a saw mill and a grist mill. He had a couple hundred acres of land. His death date and location are unknown. But I believe it to be after 1816 and possibly in the Granville, New York area.
Benjamin should have been in the Revolutionary War, but I have found no primary source documentation that he was. Of course, many records have been lost or destroyed. He is a DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) patriot due to the fact that he signed an Oath of Allegiance and that he was Constable of Tyringham from 1782-1785. Both of these things qualified him to be recognized by DAR, which he is with DAR #A073776. I wanted to find out more.
In about 2010 I came upon a web site with Markham family information. For Benjamin, it said that he had a powder horn from the Revolutionary War, and that it had been passed down through generations in the family. It said that it indicated that he was in the Battle of White Plains. And that it contained the following verbiage: BENJAMIN MARKHAM HIS HORN MADE AT THE NORTH CASTEL IN THE YEAR OF 1776 LIBRTY & PROPRTY STEL NOT THIS HORN FOR FEAR OF SHAME FOR ON IT IS THE OWNERS NAME.
I thought this was interesting and I looked for more information. As we had a lot of other genealogy work to do, this was a background research item.
A few years later I found an article in a book that mentioned this powder horn. It was in a list of items brought to an old settler’s festival in 1873 in Chautauqua County, New York.
This is from the “History of Chautauqua County, New York”, by Andrew W. Young, published in 1875, page 205. Upon doing some research, I found out that Mark Markham was Benjamin’s grandson. And he did live in Chautauqua County. So now I knew that the horn was real.
A few years later I finally found something very conclusive. It’s an old Antique Roadshow episode where Albert Markham brought a powder horn to be appraised.
This was Benjamin’s horn and Albert is his Great Great Great Grandson. The original appraisal was for $25,000 in the year 2000. It was appraised again in 2015 at $15,000. The appraiser was William Guthman, a powder horn expert and collector.
At this point I wanted to try to find Albert and see the horn in person. Unfortunately, we found out that Albert passed away in 2008. We could not find an obituary for him. We knew where he lived, so we started looking for other Markham’s in that area. If Albert had children, the horn was probably passed down to one of them. We did identify several Markham using public County property records. We had other reasons to make a trip, so in 2020 we made a vacation out of going to try to contact these Markhams. No one was home at several houses that we tried.
We decided to make a second attempt at what I thought was a likely candidate. Becky went up to the door and rang the doorbell. A young girl answered. We told her what we were doing and she said nobody else was home at that time. She would let her parents know we had come by and ask them to call us. We ended up getting in contact with her grandfather. I had a phone call with him and told him who I was and what I was looking for. He told me he had the horn. I asked him if I could see it. He said yes, and we arranged a time for us to meet at his house.
I’m not mentioning the specific location or the name of my distant cousin that has the horn. This is out of respect for his desire to keep it quiet. Seeing and holding the horn was great. I took a lot of pictures and we had a long conversation about the horn and our Markham family line.
So, Benjamin did have a powder horn from the Revolutionary War. It has been passed down from son to son for 6 generations. It is quite beautiful. The carving work is amazing, it’s very artistic.
I tried to buy the horn from my distant cousin. But he was not interested in selling it. He wants to pass it down to his oldest son. I’ve stayed in contact with him to remind him of my interest, but I doubt if he will change his mind.
I think the horn proves that Benjamin was indeed a soldier in the Revolutionary War. It has his name on it and it has been passed down his family line from generation to generation. It states the year and location of where he was at that time, at North Castle. This is a site of the battle of White Plains.
The horn has a number of scenes or sections, here are what I consider to be the main ones:
- Mermaid – a symbol of good luck.
- Hunter with dogs – Benjamin would have hunted a lot, so this probably recognizes this.
- Warship and sloop – The two ships are British warships, the Phoenix and the Rose. These two ships went from New York city up the Hudson River in July of 1776 (Revolution on the Hudson by George C. Daughan; published in 2016; Page 44). I think Benjamin saw these ships and carved an image of them on his horn.
- Small fishing boat – I think Benjamin likely fished, in addition to hunting and farming. This image could recognize this.
- Continental Artillery with cannons – I find this one particularly interesting, it represents the Artillery division of the Army and has images of multiple cannons and guns. More information is below on this.
- Royal Congress – This was the Provincial Congress. This type of governing body was established in 10 of the 13 colonies. They were formed as a pro American alternative to British rule.
- The Old Sow – This was the largest cannon in the artillery taken by Henry Knox from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston. It was a 24 pounder (fired cannon balls weighing 24 pounds, about 21 inches in diameter) and weighed more that 5000 pounds.
- GW – GH and soldiers – This was General George Washington and General Howe (the British general).
- Benjamin Markham verbiage – These are the words Benjamin carved on his horn. It was common to carve one’s name, and write something to discourage someone from stealing it.
- Tavern – I have not been able to definitively state what tavern this image represents. It was probably a tavern of importance during the Revolutionary War and a place where Benjamin was. He would have carved an image of what he saw. The sign next to it identifies it as a tavern. My best guess is that it’s the Old Fort House, in Fort Edward, NY. This is an area that I believe Benjamin was in at one point.
I decided to do further research on powder horns. I discovered that the style of Benjamin’s horn is that of a well-known early professional carver named John Bush. Bush was a black man who was a carver in the upper Hudson Valley area, in the period of the French and Indian War (1754-1763). His carving style became known as the Lake George School. He is also considered a founder of American folk art. I believe Benjamin used this style to carve his own horn.
I also found another horn carved by Benjamin. It’s in a museum in Sturbridge, Massachusetts called Old Sturbridge Village. I contacted the curator there and he sent me several pictures of this horn.
I initially discovered it in “American Engraved Powder Horns, A study based on the J. H. Grenville Gilbert Collection”, by Stephen V. Grancsay; 1945. It contains this reference:
This second horn has a very similar look to his first horn. It’s smaller and the carving quality is not quite as good. But Benjamin would have been 64 years old at this time. He made it for his nephew, Eliud Smith. Eliud was the son of Benjamin’s wife’s sister. Eliud lived in Granville, New York. This is in the Hudson Valley/Lake George area where several Revolutionary War forts were, including Fort Edward. I think Benjamin was in this area in the War, and then went back there after his wife died to live with his nephew. But this is only my speculation. We have not found any records to prove this. My basis is from the two powder horns.
Eliud’s horn has five of the same sections or scenes as the original horn. It has a mermaid, a hunter, the two warships, mention of Continental Artillery and a tavern. The tavern is little different, having one chimney instead of two. But it has the same tavern sign beside it. The images and the overall design are very similar. And it has the inscription, being carved by Benjamin. The date of 1816 is also the latest evidence of him being alive. An interesting note, in Eliud Smith’s probate inventory his powder horn is listed with a value of 50 cents (Probate records (Fair Haven, Vermont), 1804-1813, 1842-1919; Volume 19, Page 292; accessed at Familysearch.org). It’s certainly worth a lot more now.
Why did Benjamin include Continental Artillery on both horns? I have a theory. In the winter of 1775-1776, Henry Knox led a group to move 59 cannons from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston (Henry Knox and the Revolutionary War Trail in Western Massachusetts, by Bernard A. Drew; Published in 2012). This was an amazing task involving a lot of logistics to move these large and heavy items across the rough country. They did it in the winter as they used sleds pulled by oxen to drag them across several bodies of water that were then frozen. This trail went right by Benjamin’s land in Tyringham. I think he saw this event. It was an event as people would come to see the large cannons being hauled. It may have inspired him to possibly join the group to help with the move. Or he may have joined the artillery group when the Battle of White Plains happened. Maybe he liked the “big guns”. There are not many records available from the Continental Artillery group, so many men that were involved are not documented. This is just a theory that I cannot prove. But given the attention he gave to this group, and to the images of cannons on his two powder horns, I think it was something quite important to him.
Despite primary source documentation to prove that Benjamin Markham was in the Revolution War, I believe the two powder horns do show that he was somehow involved. As I have described, he may have been in the Continental Artillery. This might be circumstantial evidence, but this is what I think. This is why he carved the images he did on the two horns, and why he wanted his horn to be passed down to his son and beyond. If his horn could talk, it would have an amazing story to tell.