Capt. Lt. Samuel Doty

Capt. Lt. Samuel Doty
Courtesy of Robert Todd Giffin, Member, Pennsylvania Society of the Cincinnati

It is believed that Samuel Doty was originally from New York State. One Samuel Doty was a signer of a “Declaration…by Sundry inhabitants of Queen’s County, New-York” 19 January 1776, and it is possible that this was the same man. He first appears in the Continental service as a Second Lieutenant in the Second Continental Artillery Regiment, 1 January 1777. The regiment was authorized on that date as “Lamb’s Continental Artillery Regiment” and was raised chiefly in New York and New Jersey, although two companies were credited to Philadelphia City and County, and Linn and Egle state that Doty was from Philadelphia. It is possible that he did enter the service from that city.

On 19 June 1780 Doty and three other officers of Lamb’s regiment, William Power, James McClure and Robert Parker [all Original Members of the Society], petitioned Congress that their companies be annexed to the Fourth Continental Regiment, Colonel Thomas Proctor, of Pennsylvania. They complained that their unattached companies suffered from lack of pay and rations, a complaint possibly stemming from the nature of artillery strategy at that time. It was not however until the general reorganization of the army on 1 January 1781 that Doty and other officers of two of Lamb’s companies were attached to the Fourth Artillery.

This regiment rendezvoused at York in May 1781, marched to Virginia, and was in the Yorktown Campaign. There however the artillery concerned with the siege was chiefly the French heavy train. At least some elements of the Pennsylvania artillery accompanied Wayne in his Georgia expedition, but after Yorktown detachments were sent back to Philadelphia, Lancaster and Carlisle. It is therefore difficult to designate precise service assignments. Doty was promoted to Captain-Lieutenant on 7 October 1781. By June 1783 the regiment had apparently been dismissed the service.

Doty was in Philadelphia on 4 October 1783 when he signed the “Philadelphia Roll” on that date; he also signed the “Pay Order of 1784.” But then nothing further is known of this man. In the census of 1790 appear two men named “Saml Dowty” in Derry Township, Westmoreland County. On the other hand, letters of administration were issued in Philadelphia on the estate of a Samuel Doty in 1792. The Captain Lieutenant may have been either or none of these.