McCrea, Jane (c. 1752–1777)

Young Hudson Valley woman murdered during the American Revolution . Born around 1752, near Bedminster(later Lamington), Somerset County, New Jersey; died of bullet wounds and scalping on July 27, 1777, near Fort Edward, New York; daughter of James McCrea (a Presbyterian minister) and Mary (Graham) McCrea.

For decades after her death in 1777, the name of Jane McCrea symbolized romantic martyrdom and the loss of innocent life as British, American colonial, and indigenous forces battled for hegemony on the North American continent during the American Revolution. It has been said that McCrea's ignoble murder and the furor that resulted from it fueled the support needed for American colonial forces to emerge victorious at Saratoga later that year, a turning point in the American War for Independence.

Jane McCrea was born around 1752 in what is now Somerset County, New Jersey, into a family of Scots-Irish descent. Her father was a Presbyterian minister, and her mother died when Jane was around a year old. James McCrea later remarried, and in total Jane would have six brothers and sisters and five younger half-siblings. After her father died when she was a teenager, she moved to the home of her brother John near the Hudson Valley town of Northumberland. John was a Princeton graduate, a lawyer in Albany, and a colonel in the American colonial army. The McCrea family was a divided one during this era of revolution: some of Jane's brothers served in the militia of the colonial "patriot" forces, while others were loyal to the British side.

Described as an attractive young woman, tall and with long blonde hair, McCrea had been courted for several years by David Jones, whom she had known in New Jersey. When the war intensified in 1776, Jones enlisted in the British army and came under the command of General John Burgoyne. With a military objective to sever the lower colonies from the rest of New England, Burgoyne and his forces attacked settlements and forts along the important Hudson River route that led from Lake Champlain to New York City. By the summer of 1777, many families were fleeing the area, and McCrea's brother urged her to go with him to Albany. But David Jones, now a colonel, had written to her that he would be in the area, and hoped to see her at nearby Fort Edward. There was some later speculation that they had planned to be married by the British chaplain the next day.

On July 27, 1777, while Jane McCrea was visiting a friend, Sarah McNeil , who was preparing to leave the area imminently, they were surprised by a party of Indians working on behalf of Burgoyne and the British. It remains unclear whether the women were taken prisoner as part of a military objective, or whether the Indians had been sent to escort McCrea to meet Jones. (Understandably, McCrea's sympathies probably lay with the English cause.) The exact reason for her death is also unclear; the Indians may have quarreled over whose prisoner she was, although they claimed that colonial soldiers pursuing them had accidentally killed her. What is known is that she was shot while on horseback and then scalped. Sarah McNeil arrived in British hands safely, but the Indians carried McCrea's distinctive scalp (reportedly she possessed very long tresses) and demanded the reward that the British allegedly were paying for colonial scalps. McCrea's body, which David Jones retrieved, was riddled with bullet wounds.

McCrea's remains were initially interred near Fort Edward at Moses Kill, and later moved to the Union Cemetery near Hudson Falls, New York. Jones deserted the British army and lived out the rest of his life in the Canadian wilderness. McCrea's death became a great sensation of the time, a classic tale of fateful tragedy befalling star-crossed lovers that took on even greater dimensions in a time of war. More significantly, her murder provoked intense sentiment against the British. The American side used the incident to stir sympathy for their cause and to portray the British as a dishonorable, loathsome bunch, and indeed the death of an attractive civilian swung many previously neutral colonists to the patriot side. Even a member of England's House of Commons publicly condemned his army's use of Native American allies in the war against the colonists. Burgoyne and his forces were defeated just three months later.

The tale of Jane McCrea was standard in many contemporary accounts of the American Revolution and later histories, and was the subject of an 1839 play called The Bride of Fort Edward by Delia Salter Bacon . A Currier & Ives print even commemorated the horrific incident (and was quite popular). During the first half of the 19th century, devotees of her legend used to make pilgrimages to her grave on July 27, but over the decades this descended into a cult of sorts and her bones were stolen and the headstone chipped for souvenirs. By the time of the Civil War, Jane McCrea's death had faded from popular memory.

sources:

Edgerton, Samuel Y., Jr. "The Murder of Jane McCrea," in Early American Life. June 1977, pp. 28–30.

James, Edward T., ed. Notable American Women, 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971.

McHenry, Robert, ed. Famous American Women. NY: Dover, 1980.

related media:

A (factually inaccurate) painting by John Vanderlyn of The Murder of Jane McCrea is in the collection of the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut.

Carol Brennan , Grosse Pointe, Michigan