In celebration of the 250th Anniversary of our country, local members of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution will highlight the patriots buried in Southeast Missouri.
Jacob Wheat was born on November 15, 1760, in Frederick County, Maryland and is the son of Conrad Wheat. The family moved to Ohio County, Virginia, in about 1770. Jacob entered service at Wheeling, Ohio County, Virginia, in September 1776 and was discharged in October 1781 when the company was disbanded.
Jacob’s application for pension lists services as follows: George Rogers Clark’s Illinois Regiment; 12 Virginia Regiment under George Washington, Little Hills in the Jerseys; under Harrison in the 13th Regiment at Pittsburgh; to New Orleans under Capt. James Willing, serving as a matross (gunner); back to Pittsburgh under Capt. Robert George and Lt. Harrison; rejoined Clark’s forces at Kaskaskia; engaged in battle with Indians at Pickaway Towns; continued under General Clark until the company was disbanded in 1781.
His service mirrors many others with the exception that his pension states that Wheat and twenty-five men from the 13th Regiment were put under command of Capt. James Willing. This is the excerpt from the pension application: “to go on some business to New Orleans and be one of the numbers who went with him to that place, arrive in New Orleans sometime in March 1778 and in September next after, left New Orleans. "Capt. Willing’s instructions were to deliver some dispatches for New Orleans; to bring up the Mississippi and Ohio part of the stores Spain had agreed to deliver at New Orleans for the use of the United States, and to “capture whatever British property he might meet with.”
After the war Wheat moved to Jefferson County, Kentucky where he married Catherine about 1784. About 1798 the Wheat family moved on to New Madrid, Missouri, where he was married to Adelaide LeForge, December 4,1823. Jacob applied for and was granted a pension in 1838.He died on September 30, 1843, at the age of 82.
Jacob has a record of nine children: Elias Wheat (who married Nancy James); Conrad Wheat (who married Elizabeth Newkirk); David Wheat (who married Elizabeth Sharpe); Abraham Wheat (who married 1st Susanna Hougland); Nathaniel Wheat (who married Matha “Patsy” McCloud), Catherine Wheat (Abraham McCloud); Jacob Wheat Jr (who married Permelia “Amelia”), James Wheat (who married Catherine “Fanny” McCloud) and Nancy Wheat (who married John McGuire).
Compiled by Pamela Johnson, John Guiild Chapter NSDAR
Sources:
Find a Grave for Jacob Wheat
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/152342410/jacob-wheat
Our Country’s First Marines: Captain James Willing and the U.S.S. Rattletrap
https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~haefner/history/Rattletrap/
https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Jacob_Wheat_(2)
Willing’s Raid: A Campaign of the American Revolution in the Gulf South
https://thehistoriansmanifesto.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/willings-raid-a-campaign-of-the-american-revolution-in-the-gulf-south/
Missouri, U.S, Wills and Probate Records 1766-1988 for Jacob Wheat https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/9071
Pension Application Jacob WheatGraves, William T. Southern Campaign Revolutionary War Pension Statements & Rosters.
