The American Instructor

There is an interesting inscription in The American Instructor. It reads, "Jacob Shew is my name. Johnstown is my station. Christ is my salvation and Heaven is my dealing place and when I am dead and gone and all my bones are rotten remember me when this you see so that I be not forgotten. Jacob Shew was born in the year of our Lord 1763 and the 15 of April.

 

 

The inscription sent me on a web search for Jacob Shew, Johnstown, April 15, 1763 and I found this at Find a Grave:

The Find a Grave website also furnished this information:

Service: Jacob Shew served as a private in Tryon County Militia 3rd Regiment, under Col. Fisher. ("Col. John Harper's Lives, pages 181, 276" and Robert's "New York in the Revolution"). He was a private in Harper's regiment, Putnam County; Fisher's regiment, Little County. (Page 470 in the roster of Feronon's "New York Troops in the Revolution"). Jacob Shew, with his father and two brothers, were taken prisoners by the Indians and Tories and taken to Canada, eventually to be sent to Boston and exchanged for British prisoners. He then enlisted in the Continental Army. (See "First Settlers in Fish House Roster", page 93 and 453.)

 

Jacob Shew is remembered as he asked simply because he troubled himself to write in a book. That's the power of the written word, friends. Writing preserves memory and can acquaint one with those who have gone before.