hannah arnold sister of benedict
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Hannah Arnold (née Waterman)
Hannah Arnold (née Waterman; born ~ 1705/6? – died August 15, 1758) was the mother of British Brigadier General Benedict Arnold (1741–1801).
Early life and marriages
Hannah Arnold was born in Norwich, Connecticut, to John and Elizabeth Waterman. Her first husband, Absalom King, was a wealthy merchant who had settled in the area. The couple had a daughter, also named Hannah. Not long after, however, King died at sea from the smallpox. Hannah married again, this time to Captain Benedict Arnold, the descendant of Rhode Island governor Benedict Arnold. The Arnolds had six children. As was not unusual at the time, most of the couple’s children died young, many within months of one another due to a yellow fever outbreak, including an older son, Benedict. A younger son, also named Benedict, was born in 1741. Shortly thereafter, market downturns caused hardships in the family finances.
Later life and death
Hannah Arnold died on August 15, 1758, and was buried in the Old Uptown Burying Ground, Norwich, Connecticut. Hannah’s death fell hard on her widowed husband, Captain Benedict Arnold, who lingered some time and suffered with alcoholism and depression. He died in 1761.
Historical reputation and legacy
Hannah Arnold is remembered in Norwich as a worthy woman and a model of “piety, patience, and virtue.” Her gravestone is still visible in Norwichtown Burying Grounds, yet no one knows who paid for it.
References
- ^ Caulkins, Frances Manwaring (1845). History of Norwich, Connecticut: from its settlement in 1660, to January 1845. T. Robinson. pp. 254.
- ^ “Admirer adorns grave of Benedict Arnold’s mother”. www.norwichbulletin.com. March 29, 2011. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
Further reading
- Genealogical and family history of the state of Maine By George Thomas Little, Henry Sweetser Burrage, Albert Roscoe Stubbs
The Traitor’s Sister
They say that behind every great man is a woman who supports him in some way. The infamous traitor Benedict Arnold had at least two women behind him at any given time during his adulthood. One of those women was his wife—at one time ill-fated Margaret Mansfield, and later on the notorious Peggy Shippen. The other was his sister Hannah.
I have mentioned Benedict Arnold before. To be short, I’ve had a weird obsession with him since eighth grade. He will be getting his own blog post eventually. But for Women’s History Month, I am writing a post about Arnold’s sister Hannah, a sister who saw him through thick and thin through his insane and epic career. While Peggy Shippen usually hogs the limelight as the female lead in Arnold’s story, Hannah deserves as much respect as Peggy if not more for her quiet role behind the scenes.
Willard Sterne Randall
Most of my sources for this article come from Willard Sterne Randall’s book Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor. To be upfront, I have read two other Arnold biographies but Randall’s actually gives the most detail about Hannah’s life (which is just one of many reasons it is A Really Great Book ™). I tried to find other sources online but they were not forthcoming. There is lots of internet content about Arnold and his second wife but not really anything about his sister. So if no one else is going to speak up for Hannah, then I guess it’s up to me.
Was Hannah on Liberty’s Kids? you ask. Actually, she was. We see her in the Sybil Ludington episode. Hannah is in the scene where General Arnold announces his intention to resign from the Continental army. She also appears briefly in the background when he rides out to fight the British. She does not have a speaking part.
Her Mother’s Namesake
Before the twentieth century, women were very dependent on close male relatives for support: if not their husbands, then their brothers. Hannah never married, and her life and fortunes were closely tied to those of her brother. She was, in so many ways, her brother’s keeper.
Hannah Arnold was born in 1742, a year after her big brother, in Norwich, Connecticut. Their parents were also Benedict and Hannah, and the family observed a custom of naming the oldest children after their parents.
The younger Benedict, the future traitor, spent his childhood playing with the other neighborhood kids, attending boarding school, and even serving in the local militia during the French and Indian War. Meanwhile, Hannah stayed at home, learning domestic skills from her mother and helping to take care of three younger siblings.
Norwich Arnolds
The Norwich Arnolds were not super rich but they lived comfortably, and they were respected members of the community. Randall writes that Hannah had blonde hair and blue eyes, a contrast to her brother’s darker features. She was very pretty and popular with the young male neighbors into her teenage years.
Tragedy struck the family. While Benedict was at boarding school, the rest of the family was stricken with yellow fever, and all of his and Hannah’s younger siblings perished.
1759
Benedict and Hannah’s father was a merchant. As tensions between the French and English increased leading up to the French and Indian War, his business fell on hard times, and he turned to frequently the local tavern for consolation. Their mother died in 1759, and by that point their father was a full-fledged alcoholic. Hannah, then age fifteen, took their father under her care until he died a year later, leaving his children penniless.
However, Benedict had an apprenticeship with a generous local businessman. His master was able to settle the family’s debts and business affairs, and he gave Benedict enough money and means for he and Hannah to make a new start.
Plaque sponsored by Bill & Peg Stanley
Located in the Colonial Cemetery
Once upon a time in Norwich, an 18 year old Benedict Arnold stood on this spot and watched as they lowered his long-suffering mother into her grave. Benedict himself was an apprentice, bound by indentured servitude to his mother’s cousins, the Lathrop Brothers. His father was suffering from alcohol-induced dementia, believed caused by sadness over losing four children: Absalom, Elizabeth, Mary, and an earlier son named Benedict, who died an infant in 1739. The children are all buried here.
Hannah Arnold died on August 15, 1759; her husband some years later. Young Benedict moved to New Haven with his sister, Hannah, and became extremely successful. He married Margaret Mansfield who died June 19, 1775. In New Haven, Arnold founded and commanded the 2nd Connecticut Foot Guard. During the American Revolution, he was a hero and became George Washington’s finest field general, winning many victories. Benedict Arnold built and commanded America’s first naval fleet of 16 vessels. The crew included 30 Marines that engaged the British in America’s first naval battle at Valcour Island on Lake Champlain, October 11, 1776.
October 7, 1777
After the Battle of Saratoga, October 7, 1777, British General John Burgoyne said of Arnold, “it was his victory.” Then a major general, Arnold was severely wounded and crippled for life. Assigned to Philadelphia, he married Margaret Shippen from a neutralist-loyalist family. She was later awarded a lifetime pension by Kind George III for “Her service to the Crown in the Colonies.” General Arnold, after the marriage, betrayed his young country and returned his loyalty to the Crown and planned to surrender West Point, which he later commanded, and General Washington to the British. To this day, he is America’s most famous traitor.
As British brigadier, he was ordered by Commanding General Henry Clinton to rout the privateers from the Port of New London. On September 6, 1781, troops under the command of Benedict Arnold burned the City of New London. Other British troops, under the command of Lt. Colonel Edmund Eyre, attacked Fort Griswold in Groton where many lives were lost in what was described as a massacre.
Local citizens, outraged at the treasonous act, descended as a mob on this cemetery and removed the gravestones of the father, Benedict, and the infant son, Benedict.
The only epitaph that remains is to Hannah King Arnold:
IN MEMORY OF
Hannah ye well beloved Wife of Capt. Benedict Arnold & Daughter of Mr. John & Elizabeth Waterman, (She was a Pattern of Piety Patience And Virtue) who died August 15, 1759 AEtatis Suae 52”
Arnold and Allen really didn’t agree on much . . . except for the essential need of an invasion of Canada. Easton returned from his mission to Massachusetts while Arnold and Allen were planning the Canadian Invasion. Easton had done his best to diminish Arnold’s participation in the capture of Ticonderoga and the two were arguing once more. The hot-tempered Arnold soon had some more people to fight with: Connecticut governor Johnathan Trumbull appointed Colonel Benjamin Hinman to command the Fort. Ethan Allen relinquished his command.
Continental Congress
Arnold did not, instead threatening to sail two ships under his command directly to a nearby British outpost and surrender them. Hinman then enlisted the treasonous Arnold’s soldiers, took command of his ships, and dissolved his command. Completely affronted, Arnold went to Albany and there sent off a statement of the situation at Ticonderoga to the Continental Congress.
Arnold had been caught in the middle of the political machinations of Connecticut and Massachusetts, both vying for the glory that would accompany the capture of the British stores at Fort Ticonderoga. When Massachusetts acquiesced to Connecticut’s preeminence in the territory, Arnold most certainly felt abandoned.
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