Peter FRANCISCO, Patriot of Virginia
Peter Francisco was born June 9, 1760 in the Portuguese Azores Islands. He was kidnapped and abandoned on a dock at City Point, Virginia. He was taken to "Hunting Tower" Plantation in Buckingham County, Virginia and raised as in indentured servant, by Judge Anthony Winston, an uncle of Patrick Henry. Peter grew to be more than six feet tall, weighing about 260 pounds. When Peter Francisco was fifteen, he enlisted in 1776 as a Private in the Tenth Virginia Regiment. In September 1777, he fought in the Battle of Brandywine, where he was wounded by musket balls. In October, 1777 he fought at the Battle of Germantown. From here he was assigned to Fort Mifflin, where more than half of the 450 American garrison were killed or wounded. He wintered in 1777 at Valley Forge.
When his first enlistment expired, he reenlisted, and fought on the battlefield of Monmouth in June 1778, where he received his second wound from a British musket ball. That same year he also fought at Paoli and several skirmishes around New York. In the summer of 1779, he returned as a private in the Virginia line, and took part in the storming of the British outposts at Stony Point and Paulus Hook. After Paulus Hook, Francisco returned to Virginia having served out his second enlistment, three times wounded. Whereupon in 1780, he enlisted for a third time in a Virginia Militia regiment headed by Colonel William Mayo, and then fought at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina. Following this battle, Peter Francisco returned to Virginia and joined a cavalry troop which fought under General Nathaniel Greene at the Battle of Guilford Court House in North Carolina. It was during this battle in 1781 that Peter received several serious wounds, and was left among the dead on the battlefield. He was eventually found by a Quaker, and nursed back to health. In October of 1781, Peter was at Yorktown with Lafayette, for the surrender of Cornwallis.
Peter spent the next four years educating himself. He lived as a Virginia Gentleman in the counties of Cumberland, Buckingham, Charlotte, and Prince Edward. Peter Francisco married Susannah Anderson in December 1784. Children of this marriage included: James Anderson Francisco, and Polly Francisco. Susannah Anderson Francisco died in 1790. In 1794, Peter married Catherine Fauntleroy Brooke. From this union were born Susan Brooke Francisco, Benjamin M. Francisco, Peter Francisco, II, and Catherine Fauntleroy Francisco. Following the death of Catherine in 1821, Peter married for a third time, in 1823, Widow Mary Beverly Grymes West. Peter Francisco died in January 1831.
Patriot of Edith Francisco Buckley
Sources cited: "Peter Francisco, The Portuguese Patriot" by William Arthur Moon, 1980.