Jesse Sip, Seaman

Jesse Sip. According to his pension application #S-36316, Jesse Sip of Middletown, CT was “a black man” born between 1768 and 1770 who entered on the frigate Confederacy at New London during the Winter of 1779. He is recorded on Confederacy’s roll as a “boy” in the crew’s power of attorney filed at Philadelphia on 3 November 1780. Sip served until July 1781 as a mariner and waiter “during which period the ship Confederacy adventured on many Cruises, took some valuable prizes, met with many accidents, sailed in Company with the United States’ ships Dean and Saratoga and sundry other armed vessels.” After returning to Philadelphia from Martinique, the Confederacy “under went repairs, recruited and sailed again for Cape Francois where we arrived with a very valuable prise.” On the return voyage, the Confederacy was captured by a British squadron on 14 April 1781 and Sip was put on board the HMS Roebuck and subsequently the Jersey prison ship on 20 April where he remained until regularly exchanged in July 1781. In 1818 he was described as a “day labourer” who was “aged and rheumatic.” An accounting of his assets included “one old house or hut” located on “half an acre of land.” In 1818, Sip’s family consisted of his wife Tamar born about 1775 and children; Sefrona born 1804, Abigail born 1809, Ezekiel born 1811, Frederick born 1813, Chester born 1815 and a 7 month old unnamed infant. Phineas Hyde and Nathaniel Richards were declarents for Jesse Sip’s pension application. According to the Ledgers of Payments 1818-1872 for Revolutionary War pensioners, Jesse Sip died on 30 December 1847, with his heirs continuing to collect his eight dollar per month allowance until April 1848.  Author Vicki S. Welch in “And They Were Related, Too: A Study of Eleven Generations of One American Family!” (2006) appears to associate Jesse Sip’s identity with Jesse Caples or Cables of Middletown, CT who was married to Tamar Carter and bore a son Ezekiel about the same time as Sip’s son of the same Christian name.  Jesse Cables and Tamar Carter were recorded as married in Chatham, now East Hampton, in 1797 by the Reverend Joel West of the Congregational Church of East Hampton. No other documentation to support this claim is included in Welch’s book and the mariner’s name in the pension records is consistently recorded as Jesse Sip.