16-year-old girl rides through Putnam, Dutchess to warn of British

story + photos by niki@hvny.info

On April 26 of 1777, a local 16-year-old girl got on her horse and rode 40-miles through northern Putnam County and southern Dutchess County to warn the troops that the British were coming.

Her name was Sybil Ludington.

… Or it may have been spelled Sibbell as her headstone in Patterson reads, or Sebal, as she signed on her Revolutionary War pension application.

Regardless, on that fated rainy night, Danbury was being burned to the ground by British troops when an exhausted messenger arrived to alert Colonel Henry Ludington to start gathering his troops. The messenger could not muster the energy to continue on, so the eldest of Ludington’s 12 children – his daughter Sybil – volunteered to sound the alarm to his militia.

On April 26, 1777, around 9pm, the recently-turned 16-year-old Sybil Ludington mounted her horse Star at the family’s mill in Fredericksburgh (in the area of the Town of Kent now called Ludingtonville) to begin the arduous trek through Carmel, Mahopac, Cold Spring, Kent Cliffs, Farmers’ Mills and Stormville before returning home, soaked from the rain and exhausted.

Over varied terrain traveling from farm to farm, Sybil alerted over 400 soldiers to the cause by daybreak. But it was no easy task. In addition to the tough conditions full of “lonely stretches” in the pitch of night, Sybil brandished a stick to not only right her horse but to fight off the brutal Highwaymen, British loyalists known for robbing and attacking travelers on horseback. The statue by Anna Hyatt Huntington on Lake Gleneida in Carmel depicts the young Sybil fiercely making her way through the night, stick in hand.

“The child performed her task, clinging to a man's saddle, and guiding her steed with only a hempen halter, as she rode through the night, bearing the news of the sack of Danbury," a memoir on Colonel Henry Ludington noted, one of the few documents of her ride.

Sybil’s ride was twice as long as fellow American Revolution patriot Paul Revere – who was 41 at the time of his infamous, ahem, 20-minute ride.

And while the British got away with burning Danbury, where the American militia’s supplies were stored, the efforts of Sybil helped stave off any advancement of the troops and they retreated back to their boats off the Long Island Sound. General George Washington, with his headquarters nearby, personally visited the 16-year-old to commend her for her efforts.

After the war, Sybil married Edmond Ogden, and moved to the Catskills in 1792 where they operated a tavern, which Sybil ran by herself after Edmond’s death. It is believed Sybil lived with her son Henry and his wife in Unadilla until her death in 1839. She was buried in the Maple Avenue Cemetery in Patterson, NY next to her father.

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