GGWC William Pile

Biography:

Lieutenant William Pyle, III, of the Virginia Continental Line, was the 4th great grandson of William Clowes the Elder, Surgeon to Queen Elizabeth I and King James I of England. Despite his distinguished British family history, Pyle was among the first Virginians to fight for American Independence.
In 1775, General Washington called for reinforcements for the New England militias surrounding the British in Boston. Pyle volunteered and was commissioned an Ensign in the Rifle Company formed at Shepherdstown, Virginia, under Captain Hugh Stephenson.
Stevenson's hundred men left Morgan's Spring outside Shepherdstown in July 1775. They accomplished their "bee line march" of 600 miles to Cambridge in just 24 days, and were the first company from south of the Potomac River to join Washington. On 17 Sep 1988, Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh, Jr., would designate Morgan's Spring as a birthplace of the United States Army.
When the British fled Boston, Washington marched to New York. Pyle was promoted to 1st Lieutenant on 23 July 1776 and the Virginians reinforced Fort Washington. The riflemen inflicted heavy casualties on the Hessian troops that attacked, but the greatly outnumbered Americans surrendered on 16 Nov 1776.
Lt. Pyle was a prisoner of war for two years in New York, although officers generally were spared the murderous conditions aboard the British prison ships anchored in the harbor. Pyle was released in a prisoner swap and promptly "broke parole" to rejoin the American forces.
After the war, Lt. Pyle married Lucretia Gant Keyes and had 10 children. The family settled in Kentucky where Pyle was granted 2,666 acres of land for his three years service as a lieutenant Pyle is remembered today with a Patriot's gravestone in Breckinridge County, Kentucky, and is named on a monument at Morgan's Spring, West Virginia, starting point for the Bee Line March to Boston.

William Pile

Birth: 1754 / Prince Georges / MD

State of Service: VA

Spouse: (1) Lucretia Gant Keys; (2) Nancy Keys Jones

SAR Patriot #: P-270676 DAR #: A092851

Death: 28 Dec 1814 / Breckenridge / KY

Qualifying Service: Lieutenant

Children: Thomas, Henry Gant, Edward

Patriotic Service Description: FIRST LIEUTENANT; WOODFORD'S BRIGADE, 1776; STEPHENSON'S REGT, 1777; COL DANIEL MORGAN, 1778; RECEIVED BOUNTY LAND GRANT, 1797

Sources:

SAR Patriot Index Edition III (CD: PP2210, Progeny Publ., 2002) plus data to 2004; NARA, M881, COMP MIL SERV RECS, ROLLS #156, #1071;

BRUMBAUGH, REV WAR RECS, VA, P 110