A SOLDIER’S STORY: JOHN DOUGHTY

John Doughty was born in New York City on 25 Jul 1754. He graduated from King’s College, now Columbia University.
During the Revolution, Doughty served many senior roles in artillery units, and was an aide de camp to Gen. Philip Schuyler and later to Gen. George Washington. A served in a long list of Revolutionary battles including Brandywine, Germantown, Trenton, Assunpink Creek (2nd Trenton), Princeton, Monmouth, Springfield, and Yorktown.
Doughty remained in army service after the war, fighting in the Northwest Indian Wars mostly in western Pennsylvania and Ohio. During this time, he built Fort Harmer (in modern day Marietta, OH) and Fort Washington (in modern day Cincinnati, OH). For a time after the Continental Army disbanded, leaving only about 55 soldiers at West Point and 25 at Fort Pitt to guard supplies, Doughty was the senior ranking officer of the United States army. This makes him the lowest ranking person to ever hold the position of Commander in Chief of the US Army. After retiring from the army, he continued to serve as Brigadier General of the New Jersey Militia. He was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati.
Doughty owned a 450 acre farm on the “Road to Basking Ridge (Mt. Kemble Ave./Route 202) on the south side of Morristown. There’s a street there today called Doughty Place. In fact, the McCulloughs bought some of his land to build their beautiful house now known as McCullough Hall.
General Doughty died in September 1826 and is buried in the Presbyterian Church yard in downtown Morristown.
Doughty directed in his will that his enslaved persons should be freed, and also gave them money and a piece of his land. Over time, more land was added by the estate of Peter Kemble, and this area became a community of free blacks known as Pruddentown that lasted into the early 1900s.

Portrait of John Doughty by Janet Ruth Mary Fitzgerald, U.S. Army Center of Military History

John Doughty’s gravestone, Find-a-Grave Memorial #3636

Sources

Heitman, Francis B., Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army during the War of the Revolution, Washington DC: The Rare Book Shop Publishing Company, 1914, pg. 202

_____, Major John Doughty, by the Army Historical Foundation, online at https://armyhistory.org/major-john-doughty/

_____, Major John Doughty, by the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey, online at https://njcincinnati.org/john-doughty/

_____, John Doughty, by the U.S. Army Center for Military History, online at https://www.history.army.mil/books/cg&csa/doughty-j.html

_____, John Doughty on wikipedia.com, online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Doughty