Humpton, Richard

HUMPTON, RICHARD. (1733?–1804). Continental officer. England and Pennsylvania. Born in Yorkshire, perhaps in 1733; Richard Humpton was a captain in the British army, taking part in the siege of St. Malo (on the northern coast of Brittany) in 1758. He resigned his commission at the end of the Seven Years' War and settled on an upper branch of the Susquehanna River. Named lieutenant colonel of the Flying Camp on 16 July 1776, he became colonel of the Eleventh Pennsylvania Regiment on 25 October. As General George Washington retreated across New Jersey, Humpton was assigned the task of removing boats from the Delaware River. His success on this mission helped stop the British pursuit and made possible Washington's counterstroke at Trenton, New Jersey, on 26 December 1776. He fought at Brandywine, and sought a court-martial of General Anthony Wayne for failing to avoid the disastrous battle of Paoli (often called the Paoli Massacre.) He took command of the Tenth Pennsylvania Regiment on 1 July 1778, and of the Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment in the reorganization of 17 January 1781. He led the Second Pennsylvania Regiment from 1783 until the Continental army was disbanded on 3 November 1783. He was brevetted brigadier general on 30 September 1783. After the war he returned to his farm in Pennsylvania, and was adjutant general of the militia until his death on 21 December, 1804.

SEE ALSO Flying Camp; Paoli, Pennsylvania.

                         revised by Michael Bellesiles