Hays, Mary Ludwig

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Hays, Mary Ludwig

HAYS, MARY LUDWIG. (1754–1832). Heroine of the Molly Pitcher legend. Pennsylvania. Born on 13 October 1754, near Trenton, New Jersey, Hays worked on her father's dairy farm before becoming a servant in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. At sixteen she married a barber named John Caspar Hays. Five years later she accompanied her husband's regiment, the First Pennsylvania Artillery, when it joined General George Washington's army. During the Monmouth campaign her husband served initially in the infantry, and in the record-breaking heat of 28 June 1778 "Molly" brought water to the troops. In the final phase of the action, John Hays was ordered back to the guns. When he fell wounded Mary Hays stepped up with a rammer staff to take his place in the crew and keep the gun in action.

After her first husband died at the war's end, Hays married George McCauley, a comrade in arms of her former husband, but a man whom she subsequently left because of his shiftlessness. She supported herself as a laundress and nursemaid, never being able to collect a military pension. She died on 22 January 1832, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where a statue of "Molly Pitcher" commemorates her heroism.

SEE ALSO Molly Pitcher Legend.

                              revised by Michael Bellesiles