Thomas Procter was the master builder of City Tavern in Philadelphia, completed in 1772, which was the nation's premier hostelry. His military career spanned the Revolution and continued throughout his life. Commissioned captain in the militia of an artillery company in 1775, he advanced to major of a battalion (1776), colonel of a regiment of artillery (1777) and colonel in the Continental Army (1779). He resigned his commission in 1781, was appointed a brigadier general by Pennsylvania (1793), and commissioned in 1794 a major general of militia. Artillery under his command fought at Trenton, the first American victory, and at Brandywine and Germantown, defeats which enabled the British to occupy Philadelphia. In 1779, following the infamous Wyoming Valley Massacre by British and Indian forces, Washington - despite a perennial shortage of manpower - dispatched a force of 6,000 under General John Sullivan to secure the region by destroying Indian towns, crops and orchards and taking prisoners as hostages against future good behavior. Procter's arm of a classic pincer's movement advanced up the Susquehanna valley; the other swung west through the Mohawk valley. Little remained of the Six Nations, a confederation representing what had been one of the most advanced Indian civilizations east of the Mississippi.
Collection: The Henry Knox Papers.
Electronic reproduction. Marlborough, Wiltshire : AM, 2014. Digitized from a copy held by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History