Easton proclaims Oct 19 to 24 Col. Tench Tilghman Week

On Sept. 16, the Easton Town Council declared the week of Oct. 19 to 24 as Col. Tench Tilghman Week in perpetuity.

Conway Gregory, past president of the Col.l Tench Tilghman Chapter of the Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, declared Tilghman as a local hero.

Tilghman was born in Talbot County on Fausley Creek, a branch of the Miles River. He received his early education in Easton, then went to Philadelphia to receive his formal education at the College, Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin, which later became the University of Pennsylvania.

Tilghman was commissioned as a captain in the Flying Camp, founded by George Washington, to “serve and protect citizens in case of an Invasion” by the British Army and served in this capacity from 1775 to 1776. In August 1776, Tilghman joined George Washington’s family and became his longest serving aide-de-camp, or personal secretary, during the American Revolution until 1783.

Wesley Hagood, the current president of the Col.l Tench Tilghman Chapter MDSSAR said, “the dates Oct. 19 and Oct. 24 were selected for Col. Tench Tilghman Week because they are historically significant.” It was on Oct. 19, 1781 that Charles Lord Cornwallis surrendered his British army to George Washington’s Continental army in Yorktown, Virginia. Washington wanted to get the good news to the Continental Congress as quickly as possible and chose his trusted aide-de-camp, Colonel Tench Tilghman, to carry the news to Philadelphia where the Continental Congress was meeting.

Tilghman left early the next morning and arrived in Philadelphia five days later in the wee hours of the morning on Oct. 24, when he delivered the news of the surrender of Cornwallis to Thomas Kean, the president of the Continental Congress. The city began ringing its bells, lights went on throughout the city, and the people began celebrating this important victory.

Hagood added, “I believe it is only fitting that we should remember Col. Tench Tilghman and honor his memory because he sacrificed his time, energy, fortune, family, and health in support of the cause of freedom and American independence.”

Dana Newman, the director of the Talbot County Free Library, also spoke to the Easton Town Council in favor of the proclamation and said, “It is important to remember and celebrate our history from the past to the present.”

On Saturday, Oct. 26, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., the Colonel Tench Tilghman Chapter MDSSAR will sponsor an event in partnership with the Talbot County Free Library at the library’s Easton location. Owen Lourie, a historian with the Maryland State Archives, will make a presentation titled “Voices of the Maryland 400: Maryland’s Revolutionary War Soldiers at the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776.” To learn more about this event, visit tcfl.org.