BARON STEUBEN.
Frederick William, Baron de Steuben, was a Prussian officer, aid-de-camp to Frederick the Great, and lieutenant-general in the army of that distinguished commander. He arrived in America in 1777; soon after which, he was made inspector-general, with the rank of major-general. He established a uniform system of manœuvres; and, by his skill and persevering industry, effected, during the continuance of the troops at Valley Forge, a most decided improvement in all ranks of the army. He was a volunteer in the action at Monmouth, and commanded in the trenches at Yorktown on the day which concluded the struggle with Great Britain. He died at Steubenville, New York, November 28th, 1794, aged sixty-one years.
"When the army was disbanded, and the old soldiers shook hands in farewell, Lieutenant-colonel Cochran, a Green-mountain veteran, said: 'For myself, I could stand it; but my wife and daughters are in the garret of that wretched tavern, and I have no means of removing them,' 'Come,' said the baron, 'I will pay my respects to Mrs. C. and her daughters.' And when he left them, their countenances were brightened; for he gave them all he had to give. This was at Newburg. On the wharf, he saw a poor wounded black man, who wanted a dollar to pay for his passage home. Of whom the baron borrowed the dollar, it is not known; but he soon returned; when the negro hailed the sloop, and cried: 'God bless you, master baron!' The state of New Jersey gave him a small farm. New York gave him sixteen thousand acres in Oneida county; a pension of twenty-five hundred dollars was also given him. He built him a log house at Steubenville, gave a tenth-part of his land to his aids and servants, and parceled out the rest to twenty or thirty tenants. His library was his chief solace. Having but little exercise, he died of apoplexy. Agreeably to his request, he was wrapped in his cloak, and buried in a plain coffin, without a stone. He was a believer in Jesus Christ, and a member of the Reformed Dutch Church, New York."