Sybil Ludington
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Sybil Ludington (1761–1839) was the daughter of Colonel Henry Ludington, the commander of the local militia near Fredericksburgh Precinct, New York (later renamed Ludingtonville, and now part of the town of Kent) during the American Revolution.
She was born and raised in what was then part of Dutchess County, New York, near the Hudson river. The eldest of 12, she was often responsible for looking after her younger siblings (Rebecca, Mary, Abigail, Archibald, Henry, Derick, Tertullus, Anna, Fredrick, Sophia, and Lewis). On the night of April 26, 1777, she was putting them to bed when her family received word that British troops had begun burning Danbury, Connecticut, which was only 25 miles away. Her father's troops were scattered over a large area around the house, and Sybil convinced her father to let her ride to warn them.
At the time of the ride, she was 16 years old. For that day and age, this would be considered very odd.
Her ride started at 9:00 P.M. and ended around dawn. She rode 40 miles, more than twice the distance of Paul Revere, into the damp hours of darkness. She could see the sky aglow from the burning town. "Muster at Ludington's," she shouted at the farmhouses of the millitiamen. She rode through Carmel, on to Mahopac, thence to Kent Cliffs, from there to Farmers Mills and back home. She used a stick to prod her horse and knock on doors. She managed to defend herself against a highway man with her father's musket. When, soaked from the rain and exhausted, she returned home, most of the 400 soldiers were ready to march.
The men arrived too late to save Danbury. At the ensuing Battle of Ridgefield, however, they were able to drive General William Tryon, then governor of the colony of New York, and his men to Long Island Sound.
Sybil was congratulated for her heroism by friends and neighbors, and by General George Washington.
After the war, in 1784, Sybil married a lawyer from Catskill named Edgar Ogden. They had one child, Henry, whose son founded Fort Riley, Kansas. Sybil lived in Unadilla until her death on February 26,1839. She was 78 years old. She was buried near her father in the Maple Avenue Cemetery in Patterson, New York.
A statue of Sybil, sculpted by Anna Hyatt Huntington, was erected along her route near Carmel in 1961 to commemorate her ride. A smaller copy of the statue is located on the grounds of the DAR Headquarters in Washington, DC and another one is located in Danbury, Connecticut, on the grounds of the public library. In 1975 she was honored with a stamp in the "Contributors to the Cause" United States Bicentennial series.
Each April since 1979, the Sybil Ludington 50-kilometer footrace has been held in Carmel, NY. The course of this hilly road race approximates Sybil's historic ride, and finishes near her statue on the shore of Lake Gleneida.
