An interesting side-light is cast upon one feature of this will, as well as upon the later years of Colonel Ludington’s life and the years following his death, by a letter written in April, 1881, to Mr. Patrick by Mrs. Julia L. Comfort, of Catskill, New York, a daughter of Colonel Ludington’s son, Tertullus Ludington. Speaking of the old homestead at Frederickstown, and the members of the family there, Mrs. Comfort said:
I was so young when last there, and consequently do not remember much about them. It was the winter before Grandma Luddington died. She gave my Mother Grandfather’s gun and sword, and I think the powder horn to my brother Henry because he was named after him. They were all mounted with silver. The first time we were there was in the fall when chestnuts were ripe. There was a very large tree in the rear of the house, and Uncle Fred’s children, my sister and myself wished to get the chestnuts but could not. Grandma wanted Uncle Derrick to cut the tree down for us, but he said it would take two weeks to do it, it was so large.
My Father was with us, and Grandfather said to him, (he always called him Tarty,) “I am going to make a will, and I owe you for five barrels of pork, but as I have not got the money just now I will remember it in my will.” (It was in war time (War of 1812) and pork was selling for thirty dollars a barrel.) Father told him he might give it to Archie, as he was very poor and Father was doing a good business and did not need it, but Archie said he never rec’d a cent of it.
The last time Aunt Ogden was here, she was telling us how she and Aunt Sophia (probably a slip of the pen for Rebecca) were alone in the house in war time (Revolutionary War). They had had a fence built around the house, and they each had a gun, and once in a while they would fire one off to make the soldiers think there were men in the house.
CHAPTER VIII
SOME LATER GENERATIONS
It has already been observed that the earlier generations of the Ludington family, in colonial days, were prolific; as, indeed, the Ludingtons of the Old Country are said to have been. In revolutionary days, Comfort, Elisha, Stephen, and other collateral relatives of his were the comrades of Henry Ludington in the war and his neighbors in Dutchess and the adjoining counties. Their descendants, and the descendants of those of Colonel Ludington’s twelve children who married and had issue, have been numerous, and many of them have made their mark in contemporary affairs in various parts of the land. It is not the purpose of this work, nor would its compass permit it, to give any detailed chronicle of all the ramifications of the family. Brief notices of a few of its members follow. Let us first deal with some of a collateral line.
Colonel Henry Ludington married, as already noted, his cousin Abigail Ludington. Her brother, Comfort Ludington, who has been mentioned as a soldier in the Revolution, had a son named Zalmon, who in turn had a son also named Zalmon. The last named was a soldier in the War of 1812; in 1818 he went to Virginia, and four years later married Lovina Hagan, of Preston County. Three of his children are still living, namely: Mrs. M. L. Patrick, of Louisville, Kentucky; Dr. Horace Ludington, of Omaha, Nebraska; and General Marshall I. Ludington, U. S. A. Another, Colonel Elisha H. Ludington, U. S. A., died in 1891. Zalmon Ludington himself lived to be more than ninety years of age, and at the age of eighty-eight was able to make an important public address in the city of Philadelphia.
One of the sons of Zalmon Ludington, Elisha H. Ludington, entered the United States Army as a captain in 1861, did important field service with the Army of the Potomac in 1863, being engaged in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and for “gallant and meritorious service” in the latter conflict was brevetted a major on July 2, 1863. On March 13, 1865, he was brevetted lieutenant-colonel “for meritorious services during the war,” and also colonel on the same date “for faithful and meritorious services in his department.” He served at Washington and elsewhere as assistant inspector-general until his retirement for disability on March 27, 1879, and died on January 21, 1891.