Revolutionary War veteran James Sharlay was born in 1753 in Rockingham County, N.H. In April 1775, he enlisted in the Revolutionary War, and on May 1, 1775, he joined Captain Samuel Sprague’s 9th Company of Colonel Samuel Gerrish’s Regiment. Sharlay fought in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill and Chelsea Creek (also known as Noddle’s Island). According to his widow’s pension application, he was also present at the siege of New York, as well as the Battles of White Plains and Bennington. He eventually enlisted with the Massachusetts troops and served until the end of the war. His powder horn was finished on October 3, 1776. The design and decorations feature a church with a steeple, birds, a fish and a sword, as well as scroll and leaf motifs. Other designs are indiscernible because of wear, which indicates that Sharlay likely used his horn frequently during the War of Independence. Decorations on the horn are accompanied by this poem: “Powder goodwilling I have/It is not free for every knave/my master only he sopply/let begging fellows/go & buy.” Sharlay participated in the war from the beginning to the end and traveled from New Hampshire to Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. After the war, he returned to New Hampshire, where he married Susan McDuffee in 1789 and had six children. He died in November 1810. His widow was allowed a pension in 1848 after using the family Bible to prove the date of her marriage to Sharlay.
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