By Edward Spannaus
Another German Auxiliary soldier who settled in Lovettsville has been discovered. (We have previously reported on about a dozen “Hessians” who settled here after the Revolutionary War, see article here.) What is particularly notable about this Hessian, is that he served in the Continental Army after deserting from the British forces.
Heinrich Horne – later known as Henry Horn – was born in 1758 in the principality of Hesse-Kassel. During the American Revolutionary War, the Landgraff of Hesse-Kassel was Frederick II, a cousin of King George III of Britain. Frederick II carried the practice of leasing out subsidized troops to the British to an extreme: about 26,000 of the 38,000 German auxiliary troops who fought for the British in the American Revolution were from Hesse-Kassel.
As a private in the Knyphausen Regiment, Horne was among the more than one thousand Hessian soldiers captured at Trenton, New Jersey on December 26, 1776, after General Washington famously crossed the Delaware and forced the surrender of the British/Hessian garrison. The prisoners-of-war were marched to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and at some point soon after his capture, Private Horne escaped, as did others.
But what made Horne unusual, is that he quickly signed up with the Pennsylvania Continentals – who of course included many German-American soldiers. His regiment spent the winter at Valley Forge, and in the Spring he joined Pulaski’s Legion, and he was with Pulaski at the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey. As his descendant tells the story:
“Following this battle the Legion proceeded south through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. During this time Henry Horn was promoted to Captain and began serving as a spy for Pulaski. Pulaski was killed at the Battle of Savannah and the Legion was disbanded.”
Pulaski’s troops were consolidated into Armand’s Legion (also known as the 1st Partisan Corps), but for unknown reasons, Horne declined to do so. Instead, he made his way north, to Loudoun County. At the end of December 1778, he enlisted in the 4th Virginia Regiment, in Captain John Stith’s Troop of Horse. Again, as his descendant reports:
“He served as a spy and an aide for the duration of the Revolutionary War. He was adept at locating the enemy and able to quickly return to his unit to report the whereabouts of enemy forces and describe their activities. At the war’s end he returned to Loudoun County where he exercised his right to bounty land in Loudoun County, Virginia.”
After the war, Horne married Elizabeth Pretzman in Baltimore in 1782. According to the descendant’s report, Horne and his wife attended the Methodist Church in Leesburg, and at some point he converted to Methodism, and was ordained as a Methodist minister by Bishop Asbury. He was assigned to ride circuit in Pennsylvania. Horne and his family moved to Bedford County Pennsylvania in 1798 – an area to which numerous settlers from Loudoun’s German Settlement had moved after the War.
Henry Horn – as he was then known –died on May 8, 1845 in West St. Clair Township, Bedford County, Pennsylvania. His wife Elizabeth had died earlier, on October 6, 1840. They are buried in the Horn United Methodist Church cemetery. (The church was built by Horn and his sons in 1802.)
Henry Horne in the German Settlement
From church and property records in Loudoun County, we can confirm that Henry Horne was here after the war, and that he was one of many settlers in northern Loudoun who lived on land owned by the Earl of Tankerville; eventually he obtained a lease, and finally was able to own the land he was farming.
These are some Loudoun references that have been found:
On January 28, 1792, Heinrick and Elisabeth Horn served as witness for a baptism of a neighbor’s son at the Lutheran church, now known as New Jerusalem Lutheran Church.
Heinrich and Elisbeth’s son Andrew, born on September 13, 1794, was later baptized in the German Reformed Church, as is reflected in the records of the Reformed Church in Frederick; this could have been either in Frederick or Lovettsville.
When it comes to land, the records are sparse, because most of Tankerville’s tenants did not have formal leases. The first record located which mentions Horne, is in April 1791, which shows him as an “assignee,” that is, a lease had been assigned to him.
In 1792, a deed of “Bargain & Sale” from Tankerville to Henry Horn was executed, in which Tankerville sold land to Horne, who in turn gave a mortgage back to Tankerville to cover part of the sale price. The tract of land, was 132 ½ acres, and is described as located on the west side of Beaver Dam. Again, in 1795, another deed is recorded, of Horne selling land to John A. Binns.
Horne was appointed a Constable on January 13, 1794, and two years later, on February 9, 1796, he was discharged from that office on his own motion.
This is the last appearance that has been found in any Loudoun County records. By 1798, as noted above, he was reported to be in Bedford County, where he lived for the remainder of his life. It was a remarkable journey.
(This article will be updated as new information comes to light.)