In October 1832, John Clifford appeared before a Hunterdon County judge and explained the war as he remembered it. More than half a century had passed since the first time he marched toward New York. He had kept no continuous soldier’s diary. Instead, he named the officers he had served with, the places he had passed through, and the short periods when the militia called him away.
Five months in the army’s shadow
Clifford recalled service in 1776 as a lieutenant in Captain Houghton’s company, in Colonel Johnston’s regiment. He described the Long Island campaign, the withdrawal from New York, and the American army’s retreat across New Jersey. Another veteran, Jacob Anderson, later confirmed that he and Clifford had served together during that campaign. Anderson’s sworn statement supports their shared experience in 1776; it does not independently prove every later militia tour Clifford described.
The work behind Washington’s crossing
Clifford’s next memories concerned boats and wagons rather than a famous battlefield. He volunteered in service associated with Captain Jacob Gearhart and Major Nathaniel Pettit, helping to gather watercraft along the Delaware and move provisions toward Washington’s army. In a supplementary statement of October 1833, he returned to the story, corrected the order of two transport episodes, and included wagon work omitted from his earlier account.
The correction makes the testimony more human: a man trying to recall the order of winter events after fifty-seven years, rather than presenting a perfectly rehearsed military chronology. We should not confuse that logistical work with a claim that Clifford took part in the Christmas-night attack on Trenton.
When the militia called again
Clifford’s later recollections repeatedly named Captain Gearhart and Colonel Joseph Beavers. He described service around Short Hills in 1777 and during the campaign toward Monmouth in 1778, followed by further tours near New Brunswick, Elizabethtown, Newark and Springfield. These were intermittent call-outs, not a single uninterrupted enlistment.
In his October 1833 supplement, Clifford recalculated the aggregate service he claimed as ten months and six days. His original 1832 estimate had been shorter. Both belong in the source record so that future researchers can follow the revision.
A name left out of the family Bible
When asked about his birth, Clifford said that he had been born in Bethlehem Township on January 10, 1749, and that the date came from his father’s Bible. He did not give his parents’ names. That missing name matters: although later histories link John with the Clifford–Williamson house at Pattenburg, the pension cannot by itself tell us whether he was a son or grandson of the earlier George Clifford whose will was proved in 1757.
Read the evidence
The complete file contains 36 original images. These are particularly useful starting places:
- 1832 declaration begins · scan 0003 ↗
- Beavers and Gearhart militia tours · scan 0004 ↗
- Jacob Anderson’s affidavit · scan 0007 ↗
- Supplementary wagon-service statement · scan 0011 ↗
Browse John Clifford’s entire 36-image pension at the National Archives ↗
Sources
- National Archives, Revolutionary War pension S.970, John Clifford, NAID 54245023, especially images 0003–0007 and 0011.
- Hunterdon County Historical Society, Fall 1977 newsletter, Colonel Joseph Beavers’s 1777 officer list.
- Our Family pension collection, reading edition and source index.
The pension supports John’s military claims and reported birth date. It does not independently establish his parents or kinship with Ann Clifford or Colonel Beavers.