Elnathan Cory and the Ox Bell
By David A. Cory, M.D.

The quest for my patriot ancestor's grave led me from an Indiana classroom in 1965 to the Storm of the Century in Pittsburgh in 1993. When I was in the sixth grade in Milford, Indiana, the class was assigned the project of making family trees. With the help of my parents, grandparents, family Bibles, and trips to local cemeteries, I was able to fill in a few generations of my genealogy. When I reached adulthood, personal computers and the internet allowed me to expand my research, and I found that I was descended from John Cory, a weaver, probably from England, who settled on the eastern end of Long Island around 1640. His descendants spread westward, and by the time of the Revolution, many of them, including Elnathan Cory (1759-1838), were living in New Jersey. Elnathan enlisted, as he indicated in his pension application many years after the war, when the British occupied Staten Island. In his application, he recalled the year as 1775, although the historical record indicates the occupation occurred in the summer of 1776. He served intermittently during the war, for periods of one to four months. In his pension application, Elnathan recalled being in a detachment of Colonel Spencer's Regiment under the command of Captain Jacob Grain. The front guard, of which Elnathan was a part, ambushed a party of the enemy and "took sixty Hessians and sixteen horsemen" prisoner. The British subsequently retreated from Elizabethtown, and Elnathan was stationed there for four months. He recalled the four months as ending in the spring of 1776, but the ambush he describes matches events that occurred in January 1777, when "Captain George von Haacke was ordered to take a force of 60 Hessian Infantry and a squadron of British Dragoons and clear the area around the town. They were attacked, and only some of the Dragoons managed to make it back to Elizabethtown. General Howe, safe (and warm) at his New York City headquarters immediately ordered Elizabethtown abandoned," according to Donald Moran, in an article published at the web site of the Sons of Liberty Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution.

Elnathan was a common patriot, never rising above the rank of private. However, he is remembered for a simple act on the way home from battle. A narrative written by his granddaughter, reproduced here verbatim, tells the story:

The History of the Cory Bell

Written by Mrs. Mary St. John, Aug. 7, 1911

The Cory Bell was bought by Elnathan Cory my grandfather, my mother's father in the second year of the Revolutionary War in which he served for seven years. His neighbor and he were going home from a battle when they heard this bell and they talked about it and decided to follow the sound until they would find it. They thought of turning back several times but pressed on and at last were rewarded by finding a large ox lying down chewing his cud. They then went to the cabin near by and asked the man if he owned it and if he would sell the bell? He said he would and that he would take a dollar for each mile they had traveled. My grandfather said he did not know now many miles they came. The man said, "You are soldiers from the field and it is just 4 miles to the battle field so you may have the bell for 4 dollars," so each man gave 2 dollars. When the man that sold it said, "Now when you get home who will the bell belong to?" He suggested that they draw cuts for it and the man that gets it can pay the other when convenient. My grandfather and his neighbor agreed to this. The man then took 2 splints from a broom. When they had drawn found the bell had fallen to my grandfather and when he died left it to my brother Cory. He left it to my son Cory. Now it has been in three generations. It can only go to those named Corey or to Corey Elnathan. My mother Matilda McCown looked after it while she lived. I now have the care and appreciate it as so much gold and I hope and pray that the hand it falls in when I am gone will take care of it and pass it on to the next Corey as that was my grandfather's request.

Mrs. Mary St. John
East Palestine, Ohio

Elnathan married Sarah Walker in 1777 or 1778. By Sarah's account, they were the parents of four children in New Jersey, four more when they moved to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania after the war, and three more after they settled in Beaver County. The bell Elnathan bought on the way home from battle is now in the possession of the Western Pennsylvania Cory Reunion Society. Through my online research in the early 1990s, I began to correspond with a member of that society, my distant cousin Marge, who was well-versed in family history. In 1993, a continuing medical education meeting in Pittsburgh offered a rare opportunity. In addition to learning more about my specialty of diagnostic radiology, I could meet Marge and other cousins and visit the ancestral lands of western Pennsylvania. I flew into Pittsburgh a couple days before the meeting, rented a car, and drove just over the state line to East Palestine, Ohio, where Marge welcomed me into her home and shared a wealth of genealogical information with me. Then she guided me as we drove to the Wilson Cemetery in New Galilee, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, where Elnathan and Sarah Cory are buried. There, at last, on a chilly late winter day, I could pay my respects to the ancestors who had lived through the trials and tribulations of the Revolution.

I returned to Pittsburgh for the meeting. During the meeting, on March 12 and 13, 1993, Pittsburgh was hit by the blizzard that engulfed the eastern U.S. and came to be known as the Storm of the Century. Snow fell at the rate of two to three inches an hour, dumping a total of two feet on the city and shutting it down. Highways were closed. The airport was closed. Luckily, I was stranded in the hotel rather than the airport.

I was grateful that my departure was delayed for only one day. I returned home with new insights into my family's history and memories of a storm of historic proportions.

Sources

1. Pennsylvania. Beaver County Court of Common Pleas, Revolutionary War Pension Claim #2760 (Elnathan Cory), filed Sept. 12, 1833.
2. Pennsylvania. Beaver County Court of Common Pleas, Revolutionary War Widow's Pension Claim#6991 (Sarah Cory), filed April 20, 1842.
3. Donald N. Moran. New Jersey and the 1777 Forage War. http://www.sons-of-liberty-sar.org/newjerseyforage.html.
4. Mary St. John. The History of the Cory Bell. Unpublished manuscript, 1911. A notarized manuscript was sworn to be an exact copy of the original by Elmer M. Cory, then president of the Western Pennsylvania Cory Reunion Association, May 5, 1967.