Solomon Barrott - Revolutionary War Patriot

Solomon Barrott

Solomon Barrott (1763–1851) enlisted in the Revolutionary War at age sixteen and served as a drummer in the Maryland Line, fighting in major battles of the Southern Campaign through the surrender at Yorktown. Remembered as “The Little Drummer Boy” and the last surviving member of the Maryland Line, he later returned to Easton, where he lived as a respected citizen and is buried at Spring Hill Cemetery.

Solomon Barrott was born in 1763 in Easton, Talbot County, Maryland, to Robert Barrott. At sixteen, in the spring of 1779, he enlisted as a musician in the Maryland 5th Regiment militia, serving in Captain James Gray’s Company under Colonel John Eager Howard. After Gray was captured by the British on Long Island, Barrott was reassigned on November 1, 1780, to Captain Perry Benson’s Company. He then served in the Southern Campaign in South Carolina until his discharge.

Barrott fought in several notable battles, including Gates’s Defeat, Camden, Cowpens, Horse Shoe, Eutaw Springs, and Guilford Court House. He remained under Benson’s command until the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. After the war, he returned to Easton and married Susan Robinson (1770–1833) in 1800. He operated a tavern on Washington Street for many years. In 1818, nearly forty years after his service, he applied for a pension, reporting limited employment. His younger children were too young to work, though his sons Tristram and Solomon assisted with small household tasks. He found occasional work as an auctioneer for estate sales and as a laborer. His wife Elizabeth was in poor health and unable to work. She died in 1833, and the following year he married her sister, Susan Robinson Pritchett. They remained married until his death in 1851, after which she applied for and received his pension.

An 1853 obituary described Barrott as a highly respected citizen of Easton. Known affectionately as “The Little Drummer Boy,” he was remembered as the youngest to serve and the last surviving member of the Maryland Line. He is buried at historic Spring Hill Cemetery in Easton, where a stately gravestone, adorned with a DAR insignia from 1935, stands between two elm trees.

At Spring Hill Cemetery, under an old tree near the back of the property is the marker for the little drummer boy who was among the youngest soldiers to serve during the American Revolutionary War. Solomon Barrott was the last surviving Continental soldier of the famous Maryland Line.

Although the DAR recognized his patriotic service, none of his descendants joined the DAR or SAR under his name. A great-great-grandson later donated an oil portrait of Solomon Barrott to the Talbot Historical Society, noted in the August 1975 Daily Times of Salisbury, Maryland.