N. Currier, Murder of Miss Jane McCrea A.D. 1777.
N. Currier, Murder of Miss Jane McCrea A.D. 1777, c. 1846. Library of Congress.
Jane McCrea was born in the colony of New Jersey. Her date of birth is not known; some accounts say she was born as early as 1744, but it is likely that she was not born until around 1752. Her father James McCrea was a Presbyterian minister. Her friends called her Jenny, and her childhood was a pleasant and privileged one. Her father ensured that she learned to read and write. She enjoyed riding horses and was complimented for her skills as a rider.
There is no known record of Jane’s mother’s name; she passed away when Jane was quite young. James was left a widower with seven children, so he did what most widowers did in the Colonial Era. James remarried so his children would have someone to look after them. Jane lived with her father and stepmother until her father died in 1769. Then she moved in with her older brother John.
Jane and John moved to the Saratoga County village of Fort Edward. Their new home was located about fifty-five miles north of Albany, in the colony of New York. Fort Edward was a small English settlement in an area with several French and English outposts. John chose to settle there because there was quality land that had not yet been claimed by other white settlers.
Jane settled into her new life without issue. The change was likely made easier when her friends, the Jones family, also moved to Fort Edward. Just before the outbreak of the American Revolution, Jane got engaged to David Jones, one of the younger sons of the Jones family. Jane also developed a close friendship with Sarah McNeil, a woman her own age who had recently married a Scottish immigrant. She likely looked forward to a long life of friendship, family, and building a prosperous life with her fiancé.
But Jane’s joy was cut short by the outbreak of war in 1775. Like many families in the English colonies, the McCrea family was divided by the war. John and four of his brothers joined the Continental Army to fight for independence from British rule. But another brother and the entire Jones family sided with the English. Jane left no personal accounts of how she felt about the conflict, but others described her as neutral. This may have been because her guardian and her fiancé chose different sides, and she needed to keep both happy. David fled to British-occupied Quebec, leaving Jane with her brother in Fort Edward.
By the summer of 1777 John was a colonel in the 13th Albany County Militia Regiment. At this time, Jane received a letter from David that announced he was serving under General Burgoyne in the British Army. General Burgoyne’s troops were moving south from Lake Champlain to capture the Hudson region. This caused a panic among the Patriot settlers of Fort Edward, most of whom fled down the Hudson River toward Albany. Hoping to finally meet up with her fiancé after a nearly two-year separation, Jane chose to stay at Fort Edward when the rest of her family and friends left.
Jane decided to reunite with David and finally get married. She made a plan to travel alone to the British camp so she did not attract suspicion from either the Patriots at Fort Edward or the British soldiers traveling with Burgoyne. On the morning of July 27, 1777 Jane made one last visit to her friend Sarah, who was preparing to depart Fort Edward for safer territory. Some historians believe that General Burgoyne knew about Jane’s intention to marry David and sent the Wyandotte leader Le Loup and his scouting party to retrieve her, but there is no clear evidence for this. What is certain is that the two women were captured by Le Loup around noon, and then something went terribly wrong. Sarah McNeil was later safely delivered into British custody, but Jane was not.
Patriot soldiers mounted a search for Jane. When they found her body, they discovered that she had been scalped and shot several times. The Patriots reported that she was killed by one of the Wyandotte warriors acting on British orders. This story quickly spread throughout the area and was widely accepted as fact. But some historians suspect that Patriot soldiers spotted Jane and Sarah in the company of Wyandotte warriors and may have killed Jane when they decided to shoot before fully understanding the situation. The truth of the incident will likely never be known.
Regardless of how it happened, Jane’s death right before her wedding was a tragic story. It was also a powerful motivator for the Patriot cause. The story soon became the heart of an extensive anti-British propaganda campaign. As the story spread through the colonies, Jane evolved from a young woman planning to marry a British soldier to a virtuous innocent senselessly killed by the Wyandotte under British orders. This version of the story played on many of the stereotypes Patriots held about both Indigenous people and the British Army. It inspired many men to join the Continental Army. The wave of enlistments that followed Jane’s death is credited with contributing to the Patriot victory at the Battle of Saratoga, an important turning point in the American Revolution.
Jane’s death right before her wedding was a tragic story. It was also a powerful motivator for the Patriot cause.
Jane McCrea was originally buried in 1777, but her body has been moved at least twice because her grave became a popular tourist attraction. She was initially moved to the State Street Cemetery in Fort Edward, where she was placed atop the brick vault containing her friend Sarah McNeil’s body. In 1852 she was moved to the Union Street Cemetery in Fort Edward.
In 2003 there was renewed interest in uncovering the truth of Jane’s story. A team led by an archeologist dug up her body to examine her remains for any new clues that might make sense of what happened to her. They discovered that Jane’s remains were incomplete, likely due to grave robbery in the 1850s. But they were startled to find that her remains were combined with those of a second woman. DNA testing revealed that the second body was her dear friend Sarah McNeil. It is possible that descendants of the McCrea family wanted her to be buried with someone she loved, so they combined the two women’s remains when moving them.
The mystery of Jane’s death may never be solved. But the stories told about her played a key role in an important American victory in the Revolutionary War.
Vocabulary
- Battle of Saratoga: Two separate battles eighteen days apart in September and October of 1777 that were considered a turning point in the Revolutionary War, as they gave a decisive victory to the Patriots and encouraged French, Dutch, and Spanish support for the Patriot army.
- enlistment: Joining up or enrolling in the military.
- Loyalist: A person who supported the British during the American Revolution.
- massacre: The deliberate and indiscriminate murder of people.
- minister: A person who can lead Christian religious services.
- Patriot: A person who supported the American rebellion during the American Revolution.
- propaganda: Information used, especially in a biased or confusing way, to promote a particular point of view.
- virtuous: Considered to be pure, good, or moral.
- Wyandotte: Name for an Indigenous community that inhabited the upper Great Lakes region at the time of the American Revolution. Today the Wyandotte Nation is headquartered in Oklahoma.
Discussion Questions
- What do Jane McCrea’s connections with both Loyalists and Patriots tell us about life during the American Revolution? How did these political divisions impact women?
- Why is Jane McCrea an important figure of the American Revolution? What role did her life and death play in the outcome of the war?
- How did Patriots use Jane McCrea’s story to boost support for their cause? What does this tell us about the importance of stories?
Suggested Activities
- Teach this story together with Life Story: Nancy Morgan Hart, and consider the following questions: what are the known facts of these women’s lives? What stories are told about them? When did their stories emerge? Why do you think these stories became so popular? What do these two examples reveal about the role of myths and legends in American culture?
- Pair this life story with Fear and Danger in New York, Anne Hulton’s account of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, A Loyalist Wife, and Army Wife for a lesson about how non-combatants were affected by the outbreak of the war.
- Pair this life story with the following resources to consider the impact of the written word, individual stories, as well as propaganda during the American Revolution:
Themes
DOMESTICITY AND FAMILY; AMERICAN CULTURE
