"A Revolutionary Hero
"Here stood the home of John Champ, Continental soldier. Champ deserted and enlisted in Benedict Arnold's British Command for the purpose of capturing the traitor, 1780. Failing in this attempt Champ rejoined the American Army."
Nearby there is a pool of water still known locally as "Champe's Spring."
According to local tradition, he later lived in a log cabin on the old Military Road near the old Ketoctin Baptist Church and on lands afterward owned by Robert Braden. Thence he in turn moved to Kentucky where, it is believed he died in or about the year 1797.
And now we may return to General Lee's narrative for the note he appended thereto:
"When General Washington was called by President Adams to the command of the Army prepared to defend the country from French hostility, he sent to Lieutenant-Colonel Lee to inquire for Champe, being determined to bring him into the field at the head of a company of infantry. Lee sent to Loudoun County, where Champe settled after his discharge from the Army, and learned that the gallant soldier had removed to Kentucky, and had soon after died."
Of the sergeant's children, one son, Nathaniel, was born in Virginia on the 22nd December, 1792, and in 1812 enlisted in Colonel Duncan McArthur's regiment at Dayton, Ohio, that command comprising a part of Hull's Army sent for the relief of Detroit. He was in the battle of Monguagon, was among those captured at Detroit and subsequently, in the regular army, saw further fighting and was with General Arthur's advance-guard when Detroit was reoccupied. After the war he engaged in business in Detroit, was a buyer and seller of real estate and built Detroit's first "Temperance Hotel" of which he acted as landlord and in which he was succeeded by his son William. Later he moved to Onondago, Ohio, where he died on the 13th February, 1870.[121]