John Jacob Peeler
John Jacob Peeler, born a hessian in 1746, probably sold by a German prince to engalnd, to sever in America. He continually attepmted to desert in Boston. After one such escape, he suffered 999 lashes, normally fatal, as punishment. The only one of three to recover from this at that time, he later escaped again, probably by swimming across the water from Boston just before the battle of Bunker Hill, in time to serve with the American forces durring that battle. After the war he first setteled Walpole (New Hampshire), then briefly in Greenfield (Massachusetts) before comming to Vernon (Vermont). He is traditionally pictured as "a man with a very strong nature, clear, stern eyes, powerful body and quice stubborn mind, one of the men with whom no prudent many quarreled, yet of good reputation, kindly and just." He died in 1815 and he and several of his descendants are buried in Tyler Cemetery (in Vernon Vermont).
Quoted from:
Soldiers of the American Revolution and of the French & Indian Wars
Rededication of Fort Bridgman