Ebenezer Crummett

Ebenezer Crummett (1751 – April 15, 1818) was a distinguished soldier in the Continental Army of the American Revolution. He was born in 1751 to Jane and Matthias Crummett.

Service in the Revolutionary War
During the Philadelphia campaign Crummett was decorated for bravery after both the Battle of Brandywine and at Germantown. When Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette fell to a leg wound at the Battle of Brandywine, Crummett is credited with carrying him out of combat and assisting in the retreat. After assisting the Marquis, Crummett returned to the battlefield and continued to help lead the withdrawal. Crummet was appointed as a lieutenant after this action.

Soon after the battle of Brandywine, Crummett was again fighting, this time in the Battle of Germantown. He participated in several ill-fated charges against Cliveden, a fortified house the seizure of which proved costly for the American army. Crummett was again said to have fought ferociously, and continued to press attacks for great periods of time, although he was not in a position of command to initiate them.

Incident with Alexander Hamilton
After the war, Crummett briefly corresponded with Alexander Hamilton in several of the earliest issues of the Albany Register, an anti-Federalist newspaper in New York critical of Hamilton's financial policies. Hamilton had proposed, among other things, that the federal government assume state debts incurred during the Revolutionary War. Crummett, who as a veteran paid with state bonds stood to lose financially from the lower rates of interest and delayed payment which would result from Hamilton's plan, also argued that Hamilton's plans would result in a corrupt economic system based on patronage and influence. Crummett, who resided in Pennsylvania, stridently outlined his concerns in the Albany Register, a paper sympathetic to anti-Federalist views and one to which Crummett apparently believed Hamilton would pay more notice. After Hamilton responded to Crummett's increasingly scathing attacks in the Register, Crummett challenged Hamilton to a duel in the newspaper in 1790. No further correspondence between the two has been discovered and it is assumed that Hamilton simply ignored the challenge.