A large, metal tombstone marking the grave of Alexander Millener in Mount Hope Cemetery puts the Revolutionary War veteran’s age at 103 when he died.
The historical marker placed at the site of Millener’s last residence in the hamlet of Adams Basin in western Monroe County states that he was a drummer boy for Gen. George Washington.
“He was not,” said Dennis Carr, senior tour guide at the historic cemetery. “He was probably about 94 years old when he died.”
And while he was, in fact, a drummer boy — enlisted at the age of 10 in the First New York Regiment by his stepfather — it was not in the service of Washington’s men.
The history of the Revolutionary War, and area ties to it, are getting renewed local attention as the nation marks 250 years since its birth with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Local historians, though, say it can be a challenge to confirm details of individual patriots, be it to fill in gaps or asses the validity of claims passed down for generations.
Rochester did not exist at the time. And Mount Hope would not open until 1838, so any soldiers buried there had either moved here decades after the war, or their graves were moved here from elsewhere.
"It doesn't detract from the story, you know,” continued Carr, a founding member, past president and current trustee of the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery. “(Millener) talked about being in places where Gen. Washington and Martha Washington would visit the troops, and he related that Gen. Washington patted him on the head as he went down the line of troops.”
Of the 80 or so Revolutionary War veterans buried in Mount Hope, none has likely had their story more misconstrued than Millener.
And yet, Carr said: “He's maybe one of the most interesting people from the Revolution buried here.”
A bungled biography
The errors in Millener’s biography can be traced to a book, "The Last Men of the Revolution," published in 1864 — a year before his death. The author was the Rev. Elias Brewster Hillard.
"Reverend Hillard is not a, he's not a journalist, he's not a historian,” Carr said. “He’s a member of the clergy, and I think his point was not to do a history, but to do a memorial and honor these men. And he didn't put too fine a point on finding out, you know, the facts.”
Hillard interviewed and wrote up profiles of six men, though it turned out there were more Revolutionary War veterans still living at the time. The six had been profiled in a series of small collector cards, each featuring the image of a different veteran. In the retelling, Hillard also erred on many of the battles in which Millener was involved.
“And we know this because Millener’s pension record is available,” Carr said.
Millener is not the only one. A veteran buried in Pittsford Cemetery has been fondly eulogized as being in Gen. Washington’s elite bodyguard at Valley Forge. A claim not reflected in his military record.
“Sometimes stories get inflated,” said Michael Oberg, a history professor at SUNY Geneseo. “No one really cares about, you know, Drummer Boy Joe from whatever unit. But if it's George Washington's drummer boy, suddenly this person has some certain importance that he didn't have before. And the place where he lived has a certain amount of importance.
"There is this effort to connect oneself to famous people and places,” he said, “in the same way that you used to be able to see, ‘George Washington slept here,’ kind of memorial-making to connect people to this Revolutionary past.”
A life bookended by war
The Revolutionary War was fought with army regiments and militias that relied on family members to handle other daily needs. His mother was what they called a washerwoman, meaning Alexander likely had been in the war — as a camp follower — since the age of 6 or 7.
“It wasn't unusual to see people that today we would consider children fighting in a revolutionary war,” Carr said.
Whether Millener did any fighting as a child is unclear — although he does claim to have been wounded at age 8 at the historic Battle of Monmouth. His first official task, though, would be that of drummer, an important duty for young boys.
“You know, they talk about the fog of war,” Carr said. “Well, if you blow off 100 muskets, you can't see anything .... In the revolution, they used primarily drummers to transmit the orders, and so you would always know where your command was and knew what they wanted you to do next.”
Millener’s drum currently is on display at the public library in downtown Rochester. It’s on loan from the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
“His daughter was one of our members, and she gave us that drum,” said Phyllis Breen, who leads the chapter. “So that's how we know it is authentic, it is real. It wasn't somebody that passed it down from, you know, six or eight generations back, it came from her.”
As for Millener, he went on to serve as a soldier in the Revolutionary War and, later, in the navy during the War of 1812. And he died during the waning days of the Civil War.
“In the years before he died, when he was very elderly, he used to march in parades in Rochester commemorating the Revolution, things like that,” Carr said. “For a lot of these guys, it was the defining events of their life.”
A life well lived — if not well remembered.
