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32-829: The son of John Paulding , Paulding was born in Cortlandt, New York . He was appointed Midshipman on September 1, 1811. During the War of 1812 , he served on Lakes Ontario and Champlain , commanding the second division from Ticonderoga during the Battle of Lake Champlain . After the war he served in Constellation , off the Algerian coast, and in Independence , the brig Prometheus , and Macedonian . On his return from service in Macedonian with

64-466: A landing of Home Squadron Marines . Stateside controversy over the questionable legality of seizing American nationals in foreign, neutral lands prompted President James Buchanan to relieve Paulding of his command, forcing him into retirement. In 1861, Paulding was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to assist in building up a wartime fleet. He then took over the New York Navy Yard. Paulding

96-528: A true republican." He was buried in the cemetery of Old Saint Peter's Church in Van Cortlandtville, Cortlandt Manor . Paulding's descendants are numerous but perhaps the best-known of them is his son Hiram Paulding (b.1797 - d.1878), who served in the War of 1812 and fought in the Battle of Lake Champlain ; he rose to become a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy and retired only after

128-441: A year. New York State granted them each lands for farms. The celebrated trio were commemorated far and wide as popular heroes after the patriots won the war. By an act of Congress , the new state of Ohio (1803) included the counties named Paulding , Van Wert (anglicized spelling), and Williams . Paulding was held in particularly high regard by early American historians, as the standard 19th-century accounts credited him with

160-524: Is marked by a large marble monument with the epitaph: FIDELITY - On the morning of the 23rd of September 1780, accompanied by two young farmers of the county of West Chester, he intercepted the British spy, André. Poor himself, he disdained to acquire wealth by the sacrifice of his country. Rejecting the temptation of great rewards, he conveyed his prisoner to the American camp and, by this noble act of self-denial,

192-582: The Naval Asylum at Philadelphia and as post-admiral at Boston . Paulding died at Huntington, Long Island, New York, 20 October 1878. He published a Journal of a Cruise Among the Islands of the Pacific (1831). The destroyer USS  Paulding  (DD-22) was named in honor of Rear Admiral Paulding. John Paulding John Paulding (October 16, 1758 – February 18, 1818) was an American militiaman from

224-691: The Pacific Squadron (1818–1821), he spent a year's leave at Capt. Alden Partridge ’s Military Academy (later Norwich University ), Norwich, Vermont . In the ensuing years of the decade he served in Sea Gull on the West Indies station, and in United States on the Pacific station. While serving on the United States Paulding was chosen to carry Commodore Hull's dispatches from Callao, Peru, to

256-515: The Pacific Squadron . She rounded Cape Horn and cruised the Pacific coast of South and Central America until heading for home 14 November 1859. Upon returning to Norfolk , she decommissioned 16 February 1860. Merrimack was still in ordinary during the crisis preceding Lincoln 's inauguration. Soon after becoming Secretary of the Navy , Gideon Welles took action to prepare the frigate for sea, planning to move her to Philadelphia . The day before

288-473: The state of New York during the American Revolution . In 1780, he was one of three men who captured Major John André , a British spy associated with the treason of Continental general and commandant of West Point Benedict Arnold . Andre was convicted and hanged. In 1780, while visiting his future wife, Sarah Tidd, Paulding was detained by a group of Loyalists led by his future brother-in-law. He

320-525: The American William Walker , who had dreamed of uniting the nations of Central America into a vast military empire led by himself. Through insurrection, Walker became president of Nicaragua in 1856 when Costa Rica declared war to him. After his surrender to an allied Central American army and his return to the United States, Walker attempted for a military comeback when he was captured in 1857 by

352-689: The John Paulding Engine Co., founded in 1901. USS Merrimack (1855) USS Merrimack , also improperly Merrimac , was a steam frigate , best known as the hull upon which the ironclad warship CSS Virginia was constructed during the American Civil War . The CSS Virginia then took part in the Battle of Hampton Roads (also known as "the Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack ") in

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384-563: The Mediterranean for two years, and in 1834 assumed command of the schooner Shark for another Mediterranean tour. Appointed to command the sloop-of-war Levant in 1838, he made a cruise in the West Indies and in 1841 became Executive Officer of the New York Navy Yard . In 1844, Paulding was promoted to captain, and in 1845 he assumed command of Vincennes for a three-year East Indian cruise and took command of that station with

416-590: The Navy Yard, the U.S. Navy burned Merrimack to the waterline and sank her to preclude capture. The Confederacy , in desperate need of ships, raised Merrimack and rebuilt her as an ironclad ram , according to a design prepared by Lt. John Mercer Brooke, CSN . Commissioned as CSS Virginia 17 February 1862, the ironclad was the hope of the Confederacy to destroy the wooden ships in Hampton Roads , and to end

448-416: The credibility and motivations of the three captors. Despite this slight, the men's popular acclaim generally increased throughout the 19th century, although opinion on their motives and actions remained divided. Some modern scholars have interpreted the episode as a major event in early American cultural development, representing the apotheosis of the "common man" in the new democratic society. Paulding

480-449: The decision-making and initiative at the scene. Though hailed as national heroes, Paulding and the others also received criticism. The divisions in society continued after the war. At his trial André insisted the men were mere brigands ; sympathy for Andre remained among some more elite American quarters, which included some Loyalists. (André's reputation was high in England, where his body

512-583: The departure of Commodore James Biddle for the United States. Between 1848 and 1852 he commanded St. Lawrence in the Baltic, North, and Mediterranean Seas, then assumed command of the Washington Navy Yard . Promoted to commodore , Paulding took command of the Home Squadron followed aboard the flagship Wabash . The squadron was instrumental in foiling the expedition against Nicaragua underway by

544-552: The end of the American Civil War . Among his extended family were cousins James Kirke Paulding , the U.S. Secretary of the Navy under President Martin Van Buren ; William Paulding Jr. , who served as mayor of New York City , a U.S. Representative and the Adjutant General of New York ; and Julia Paulding, who married U.S. Representative William Irving (brother of author and diplomat Washington Irving ). Paulding's grave

576-505: The firing on Fort Sumter , Welles directed that "great vigilance be exercised in guarding and protecting" Norfolk Navy Yard and her ships. On the afternoon of 17 April 1861, the day Virginia seceded, Engineer in Chief B. F. Isherwood managed to get the frigate's engines lit off; but the previous night secessionists had sunk light boats in the channel between Craney Island and Sewell's Point , blocking Merrimack . On 20 April, before evacuating

608-519: The first engagement between ironclad warships. Merrimack was the first of six screw frigates (steam frigates powered by screw propellers) begun in 1854. Like others of her class ( Wabash , Roanoke , Niagara , Minnesota and Colorado ), she was named after a river. The Merrimack originates in New Hampshire and flows through the town of Merrimac, Massachusetts , often considered an older spelling which has sometimes caused confusion of

640-614: The latter's defection to the British. This site is now commemorated as Patriot's Park on the border of Tarrytown , New York and Sleepy Hollow, New York . André, seeing Paulding's Hessian coat, may have assumed him to be a soldiers of De Lancey's Brigade , a Loyalist military unit which had been raiding the Neutral Ground for cattle and supplies. Searching André for valuables, they discovered documents of his secret communication with Benedict Arnold. The militiamen, all local yeomen farmers, refused André's attempt to bribe them, and delivered

672-590: The mountain headquarters of General Simon Bolivar in the Andes; Paulding's journey of 1,500 miles on horseback was later recorded in his book, Bolivar in His War Camp. The following year he volunteered to serve under John "Roaring Jack" Percival in the Dolphin as that vessel pursued mutineers of the whaler Globe , then returned to United States . In 1830 he rejoined Constellation to serve as 1st Lieutenant, as she cruised

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704-474: The mysterious Paulding Light ); Paulding, New Jersey ; and Paulding, Mississippi . Additionally, the villages of Tarrytown (where there is a John Paulding Elementary School), Cold Spring and Elmsford , along with the cities of Peekskill and White Plains , all in New York, each have a street named for Paulding (as well as ones for Williams and Van Wart). The Fire Department of Sparkill, New York , maintains

736-821: The name. Merrimack was launched by the Boston Navy Yard 15 June 1855, sponsored by Mary E. Simmons, and commissioned 20 February 1856, Captain Garrett J. Pendergrast in command. She was the second ship of the Navy to be named for the Merrimack River . Shakedown cruises took the new screw frigate to the Caribbean and to Western Europe. Merrimack visited Southampton , Brest , Lisbon , and Toulon before returning to Boston and decommissioning 22 April 1857 for repairs. Recommissioning 1 September 1857, Merrimack got underway from Boston Harbor 17 October as flagship for

768-629: The officer to the Continental Army . Arnold's plans to surrender West Point to the British were revealed and foiled, and André was convicted and hanged as a spy. With George Washington 's personal recommendation, the United States Congress awarded Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart the first military decoration of the United States, the silver medal known as the Fidelity Medallion . Each of the three also received federal pensions of $ 200

800-581: The statue is reputedly in the likeness of Paulding himself. It is located in Patriot's Park, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. A street called Paulding Drive in Chappaqua, New York was named in his honor. According to Marcius D. Raymond , several villages and counties are named in his honor: Paulding County, Ohio ; Paulding County, Georgia ; Paulding, Michigan (site of

832-545: The treason of Arnold was detected; the designs of the enemy baffled; West Point and the American Army saved; and these United States, now by the grace of God Free and Independent, rescued from most imminent peril. In 1853, a monument was erected at the site of André's capture in Tarrytown. On the event's centenary in 1880, it was topped with the statue of a minuteman . Carved by the sculptor William Rudolf O'Donovan (1844–1920),

864-704: Was assigned to evacuate ships from the Norfolk Naval Shipyard , which the Confederates planned to seize, in April 1861. Paulding found that Charles Stewart McCauley , commander of the navy yard, had ordered destruction of the ships. Paulding had to complete the work of burning and scuttling the largest number of the ships. He was able to remove the USS Cumberland , towed by the USS Pawnee . The USS  Merrimack

896-629: Was born on October 16, 1758, at the Paulding homestead near Tarrytown in Peekskill in the Province of New York in what was then British America . He was the son of Joseph Paulding. Paulding was a self-sufficient yeoman farmer and was described as a strong, sturdy man, standing more than six feet tall, unusual for the era. Paulding married three times in his life, and lost two wives to death. In total he had nineteen children by them. On April 21, 1781, he

928-602: Was burned to the waterline, but it was refitted latter as the CSS Virginia . In August 1861, Paulding was named by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to the Ironclad Board, responsible for approving designs for and construction of ironclad warships. The result was the construction of USS  New Ironsides , USS  Galena and (most famously) USS  Monitor . After the war Paulding served as governor of

960-549: Was imprisoned in the sugar house prisons in New York City , but escaped by jumping from a window. Paulding went to the livery stable of a friend and acquired a coat of a Hessian soldier, which he wore to evade notice. As part of an armed patrol in Westchester County, with fellow militiamen David Williams and Isaac Van Wart , Paulding detained British Major John André , who had left Benedict Arnold after discussing

992-532: Was married to Sarah Tidd (1767–1789) of Salem, New York . After Sarah's death on October 23, 1789, he remarried to Esther Ward (1768–1804) on November 18, 1790. Esther was the daughter of Caleb Ward and Mary ( née Drake) Ward. Together, they were the parents of: Esther died in 1804 and in 1806, he married for the third time to Hester Denike (d. 1855), the daughter of Isaac Denike of Peekskill. He died in 1818 at Staatsburg , Dutchess County, New York of natural causes. His last words were reported to be: "I die

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1024-567: Was returned and he was buried in Westminster Abbey ). Representative Benjamin Tallmadge of Connecticut, who had been present as an American officer in Westchester County in 1780 and had a low opinion of the three common militiamen, had accepted André's account of his capture and search. Tallmadge argued in Congress for the rejection of a requested pension increase in 1817 for Paulding. He assailed

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