Searching for the real Daniel Throop: Mystery surrounded a Revolutionary War soldier

An eye-popping marker now adorns the grave sight of Dan Throop at Judd Cemetery, in York Township, north of Milan.

The cemetery is attractive and well-kept and sits along Saline-Milan Road at Judd Road.

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When I first saw his grave, a simple grave marker showed Throop died Aug. 13, 1847, aged 73 years and 3 months. So, he was born in 1774.

I also noticed a DAR marker laying loose on the grave, issued by the Daughters of the American Revolution. I did the math. Throop was only about nine years old in 1783 when the Revolutionary War ended. It seemed odd; a Revolutionary War soldier? Who turned 9 when the war ended? Who knew?

A well-known book about the history of Washtenaw County in 1881, by Charles Chapman, makes a point of listing names of all military veterans from the Civil War back to the Revolutionary War. A similar book was written about Monroe County.

According to the Washtenaw County book, a veteran of the War of 1812 lived in York Township, called “Mr. French.” He was generous, historians say in the book; French was even willing to share his pension check with settlers in the area.

Apparently, the historians writing for Chapman couldn’t find out his first name or where he was laid to rest. No other Revolutionary War veterans were found in York Township.

Historians in Saline Township hit the jackpot. They found three Revolutionary War veterans who came to Michigan in their twilight years. Timothy Crittenden, Archibald Armstrong and Dr. Francis Smith, all Revolutionary War soldiers, came to Saline township to live. Each had a short synopsis of their war record, journey to Michigan, and burial published on pages 1371-1372 of the book, available in your library or online.

The Chapman historians were eager for stories of military veterans, but they didn’t mention anyone named Throop.

Keep in mind, each of the Revolutionary War soldiers who retired in Michigan had to travel here from out East. They were born in eastern states. Fighters in the Revolutionary War were born in places like Rhode Island or Vermont, but never Michigan.

Many veterans enjoyed telling interesting stories of what happened during their service. If there was someone named Throop in Milan who was a military veteran, who served in the Revolutionary War, he would have been a rock star in the neighborhood. His friends would have begged him for stories about the war.

But this Revolutionary War thing was uncovered for the first time many years after his death by someone trying to gain membership in The Daughters of the American Revolution.

I found out quite a few other women in the DAR were claiming to have found graves of Daniel Throop in various places, to claim membership, including one woman who told me on the phone that her Daniel Throop ancestor was in an unmarked grave. Another person had recorded membership in the DAR, descended from a Daniel Throop buried in Vermont.

In 2009, a member of Sons of the American Revolution was claiming he “discovered” Daniel Throop in York Township, and said he was descended from the nine-year-old veteran of the Revolutionary War from Michigan. The group held a ceremony in Judd Cemetery, after installing a colossal new gravestone replacing Throop’s modest old cemetery stone.

The new stone, still standing, features a cartoonish illustration of a battle scene.

The real Daniel Throop who fought in the Revolutionary War is buried in Riverview Cemetery in Oxford, New York, with his wife Mary. He died in 1824. I tracked him down to Oxford by searching his pension records. Patricia Evans, a historian in Oxford, photographed his headstone for me.

If we are patriotic, if we respect veterans, we will let the real veteran rest in peace in Oxford, New York. We will take down the circus monument in Judd Cemetery which is falsely claiming something that we all know is not true.

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Mystery surrounds Revolutionary War soldier Daniel Throop