Brevet Brig. General Stephen Moylan

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Brevet Brig. General Stephen Moylan's Geni Profile

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Brevet Brig. General Stephen Moylan

Birthdate:
Birthplace: Cork, Ireland
Death: April 11, 1811 (73-74)
Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, USA
Place of Burial: Saint Mary's Catholic Churchyard, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, USA
Immediate Family:

Son of John Moylan and Countess Mary Ann Doran
Husband of Mary R Van Horne
Father of Elizabeth Catherine Lansdale and Maria Fox
Brother of Francis Moylan; Anne Moylan; James Moylan; John Moylan and Denis Moylan
Half brother of Mary Louise Moylan; Jasper Alexander Alexander Moylan, Esq; Anne Scully; Bridget Moylan and Julia Moylan

Occupation: Aide de Camp to General Washington
Managed by: Private User
Last Updated:
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Immediate Family

About Brevet Brig. General Stephen Moylan

Stephen Moylan

Irish American patriot leader during the American Revolutionary War.

He received his education in Ireland, but resided for some time in England, and seems to have travelled considerably on the Continent before emigrating to the American Colonies where he settled in the city of Philadelphia. He gave his hearty support to the patriot cause on the eve of the Revolution, and, when war was finally declared, hurried to join the Continental Army before Boston in 1775. The readiness of his patriotic zeal, coupled with a belief in his business acumen, won him the recognition of John Dickinson, upon whose recommendation he was placed in the commissariat department. Attracted by his unusual dignity of bearing and military manner, Washington, in March, 1776, appointed him one of his aides-de-camp. Restless to exploit his energies in a field of wider activity, he was chosen by Congress, upon Washington's recommendation, in June of the same year to be Commissary General of the Continental Army. Restless again, seemingly, for a more direct participation in the conflict, he resigned this position in the following October, raising at once a troop of light dragoons, the First Pennsylvania regiment of cavalry, of which he was colonel. With this troop he served at Valley Forge, through the dismal winter of 1777-8, at the battle of Germantown, on the Hudson River, and in Connecticut, with Wayne in Pennsylvania, and rounded out the full measure of his service with General Greene in his southern campaign at the close of the war. In acknowledgment of his indefatigable energy and bravery, before the war closed, in 1782, he was brevetted brigadier-general.

After the successful termination of the war he quietly resumed his mercantile pursuits in Philadelphia. In 1792 he was Register and Recorder of Chester County, Penn., and was Commissioner of Loans of Pennsylvania for a few years before his death. Duly allowing for the over excitability of the times, the eulogy of a fellow patriot quoted by Irving (Life of Washington, 111, ch. 30) remains a no uncertain estimate of esteem: "'There is not in the whole range of my friends, acquaintance, and I might add, in the universe', exclaims Wilkinson, 'a man of more sublimated sentiment, or who combined with sound discretion a more punctilious sense of honour, than Colonel Moylan'."

General Moylan was one of the organizers of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in Philadelphia in 1771, and was its first president.

His DAR Ancestor # is A082511.

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Brevet Brig. General Stephen Moylan's Timeline

1737
1737
Cork, Ireland
1786
1786
1789
1789
1811
April 11, 1811
Age 74
Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, USA
????
Saint Mary's Catholic Churchyard, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, USA