Henry Church: A British Regular in the American Revolution

I’ve been focusing on my Revolutionary War–era ancestors but didn’t want to ignore my husband’s. The only person we’re aware of serving was Henry Church, my husband’s fourth great grandfather. But he wasn’t a patriot—he was a Regular in the British Army.

Henry “Old Hundred” Church, born around 1750 in Suffolk, England, is remembered as one of Wetzel County’s most distinctive early settlers—a man whose remarkable age and colorful past left such an impression on his neighbors that the town of Hundred, West Virginia, carries his nickname.

Henry Church, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, June 1859

Many accounts describe Henry as having served in the British forces during the Revolutionary War, though the details vary widely. One account holds that he served under Lord Cornwallis in the 63rd Light Infantry and was captured on a scouting mission somewhere between Richmond and Petersburg by troops under the Marquis de Lafayette, after which he was imprisoned near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, until the end of the war. Another late‑nineteenth‑century newspaper article offers a different version, reporting that Henry began the war as a British soldier but deserted and joined the American cause, later seeking seclusion in the hills of Virginia out of fear of arrest. Still others claim he once served in the personal guard of King George III and that he and a companion named John Taylor were among several young men sent to the colonies to serve under Cornwallis.

More recent research, however, provides a clearer picture. Our Taylor Clan (Thomas F. Taylor, MD, 2003) includes work by the authors and other family researchers who examined British muster rolls WO 12/7241 and WO 12/7242 at the Public Record Office in Kew, London. Their study—based on transcriptions and analysis by Sharon Wodtke and Gerry Edwards between 2001 and 2003—documents the British military service of John Taylor, the same man long remembered as Henry’s wartime companion. Those same muster rolls show that Henry Church served as a private in the 63rd Regiment of Foot (West Suffolk) during the American Revolution. He first appears on October 24, 1780, transferred into Captain Bent Ball’s company from an “Additional Company H,” likely arriving from England late in the war. The regiment’s muster lists place him in New York through 1780–1781, after which he disappears from active rolls. Although the 63rd did not fight at Yorktown, later notes suggest Henry may have been captured during a scouting mission in 1781. In the final administrative roll filed on July 4, 1783, he is recorded as having “deserted” on July 1, 1783—a notation historians believe was commonly used at the end of the war to clear the names of missing or captured soldiers, not necessarily evidence of literal desertion.

Although these stories differ in their specifics, they share a common theme: Henry’s wartime experiences—whatever their exact nature—became part of the local lore that surrounded him. According to these accounts, after his release from imprisonment he chose to remain in America, where he met and married Hannah Keine, a Pennsylvania Quaker born around 1755. By the early 1800s, Henry and Hannah had settled along Fish Creek in what would become Wetzel County, West Virginia, where they raised eight children.

According to family historian Ethel Briggs, life for Henry and Hannah remained lively long after the Revolutionary era. She wrote that the couple was widely respected for their honesty and hard work, and that Henry in particular was admired for his patriotic spirit. During the War of 1812, Briggs said Henry was drafted into American service and proudly set out with his rifle, prepared to fight against Britain despite his lingering loyalty to the crown. She noted that Henry had refused to take the oath of allegiance required of Englishmen after the Revolution, explaining that he had already sworn loyalty to King George. Only decades later, when he wished to sell part of his land, did he finally sign the oath, because it was legally necessary.

On April 6, 1858, Henry appeared before the Wetzel County Court to file his Declaration of Intention—the first legal step toward becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen. In this sworn statement, he renounced allegiance to the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and affirmed his “bona fide intention” to become a citizen of the United States. By then he was well over 100 years old—born around 1750, he would have been about 107 or 108 in 1858. 

Wetzel County Court April 6, 1858.

I Henry Church do declare on oath that it is my bona fide intention to become a citizen of the United States and to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to all and any foreign Prince Potentate State and Sovereignty whatever and particularly to the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland of whom I was a subject.

Henry Church

I Francis Cox clerk of the County Court of Wetzel County in the State of Virginia do certify that the above is a true copy of the original declaration of intention of Henry Church to become a citizen of the United States remaining of record in my office. In testimony whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name and affixed the seal of said Court this 6th day of April 1858.

Friend Cox, Clerk

Under the naturalization laws of the time, he would have needed to wait two years before returning to court to complete the process. He never reached that second step. Henry died on September 13, 1860, only a few months after he became eligible to file his final petition. Hannah had died just weeks earlier, on July 27, 1860, at about 105 years old.

In their final years, Henry and Hannah’s home became a familiar landmark to travelers along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Passengers would crowd the windows hoping to glimpse the legendary old man who was said to have lived past a hundred years. His age became part of the local lore, and “Old Hundred” became both his nickname and, eventually, the name of the community that grew nearby.

Behind the legend is a simpler truth found in the muster rolls at Kew: Henry Church was one of thousands of British Regulars who crossed the Atlantic during the Revolutionary War, served far from home, and chose not to return when it ended. He lived nearly 110 years—long enough for stories to grow around him—but the records that survive still point back to those few lines in the books of the 63rd Regiment of Foot. That brief service shaped the course of his life, carrying him from Suffolk to the American frontier and, eventually, to the hills of northern West Virginia, where the town of Hundred still remembers the man they called “Old Hundred.”

References

• Briggs, Ethel L., Ohio Valley Richmonds: Their Kith and Kin, The Early Settling of Wetzel County, pp. 226–227, 1976.
• Comstock, Jim, Hardesty’s West Virginia Counties: Doddridge, Marion, Upshur, Wetzel, Richmond, West Virginia, 1973, West Virginia. Biographies, History Records, images 229–230, FamilySearch.
• Death of a Centennarian: Mrs. Hannah Church, Richmond Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia, July 31, 1860.
• Death of a Patriarch: Henry Church, Richmond Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia, October 1, 1860.
• Declaration of Intention of Henry Church (April 6, 1858), Wetzel County, West Virginia, Court Orders 1854–1861, 1846–1854, 1862–1872, image 346, FamilySearch; https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSVD-RN2?view=fullText&keywords=Church%2CDaniel%2CUnited%20States%2CWetzel&lang=en&groupId=.
• Here’s How the West Virginia Town of “Hundred” Got Its Unique Name, West Virginia Explorer Webzine; https://wvexplorer.com/2024/01/22/old-hundred-west-virginia-henry-church-wetzel-county/. 
• Remarkable Family: The Founder of Hundred, in Wetzel County and His History, The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, Wheeling, West Virginia, November 23, 1895.
• Taylor MD, Thomas F., Our Taylor Clan, War of the Revolution: British Emphasis on the 63rd Light Brigade/Regiment of Foot, 2003, United States, Genealogies, History Records, Periodicals, Indigenous People Records, Oklahoma. Indigenous People Records, images 24–25, FamilySearch.
• Wetzel County, West Virginia, Deeds 1845–1855, images 140, 180, and 432, FamilySearch.
• Wetzel County, West Virginia, Deeds 1855–1865, image 52, FamilySearch.