Peleg Wadsworth (May 6, 1748 – November 12, 1829) was an American Patriot officer during the American Revolutionary War and a Congressman from Massachusetts representing the District of Maine. He was also grandfather of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
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Early life
Wadsworth was born in Duxbury in the Province of Massachusetts Bay (now Duxbury, Massachusetts) to Peleg and Susanna (Sampson) Wadsworth. He graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. (1769) and an A.M. (1772), and taught school for several years in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with his former classmate Alexander Scammel. There he met Elizabeth Bartlett (1753 – 1825), whom he married in 1772.
American Revolutionary War
The Wadsworths lived in Kingston, until 1775, when Wadsworth recruited a company of minutemen, of which he was chosen captain. His company mustered in response to the alarms generated by the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. He was fifth in descendant to Christopher Wadsworth, who came from England to the Americas in 1632. The Plymouth County battalion, commanded by Col. Theophilus Cotton marched to Marshfield to attack a garrison of British troops there. The attack was delayed for two days, allowing the British time to escape Marshfield by sea. During that time, Capt. Wadsworth, frustrated with the delay, advanced his company to within firing range of the British encampment, nearly instigating combat.