Mary Fish Silliman (1736-1818) was the daughter of the Reverend Joseph Fish and his wife Rebecca (Pabodie). She was born May 30, 1736, and was educated in religious schools. Mary loved to write and kept a daily journal, which she hoped would prove “instructive and entertaining to my dear children when the hand that writes can move no more.”

Mary Fish married General Gold Selleck Silliman (1732-1790), who was born in Fairfield, Connecticut, graduated from Yale and practiced law. He served as a crown attorney before the American Revolution. At the beginning of Tryon’s raid on Danbury, General Silliman, at home in Fairfield, on receiving word of the British landing, alarmed nearby towns and gathered the militia. By noon the next day, he reached Redding with 500 men and was joined by Major General Daniel Wooster and Brigadier General Benedict Arnold in the Battle of Ridgefield. Several years later, Tories invaded the Silliman home and took General Silliman and his son prisoner. How could the Americans obtain their release? Having no prisoner of equal rank to exchange for General Silliman, they captured one—the Honorable Thomas Jones. David Hawley’s leadership led to Mary Silliman’s joyous reunion with both husband and son. She died in 1818.

The Sarah Riggs Humphreys-Mary Silliman chapter of the D.A.R., 70 members strong in early 2010, united two 116-year-old Connecticut chapters whose merger the NSDAR approved in October 2009.

Sources:

• http://www.sarahriggshumphreysdar.org/pb/wp_318a5fde/wp_318a5fde.html