Ebenezer Avery (1750–1837)

Militia Soldier, Fort Griswold Survivor, Wounded Veteran

Born in 1750 into one of Groton, Connecticut's oldest and most established families, Ebenezer Avery grew up in a community whose identity was shaped by the Thames River, by farming, and by generations of settlement stretching back to the seventeenth century. The Averys had been among Groton's founding families, and by the time of the Revolution, their name was woven into the fabric of the town's social and economic life. Like many men of his generation along the Connecticut coast, Avery served in the local militia — the citizen-soldier force that formed the backbone of community defense in an era when regular Continental troops were often deployed far from home. When word came on the morning of September 6, 1781, that British and Loyalist forces under the command of the traitor Benedict Arnold were landing on the shores of Groton and New London, Avery was among the roughly 140 to 160 men who rushed to Fort Griswold on Groton Heights. These were not professional soldiers. They were farmers, mariners, tradesmen, and neighbors, drawn together by alarm guns and the urgent knowledge that their homes and families stood directly in the path of invasion.

The defenders of Fort Griswold mounted a fierce resistance that morning, holding the walls for more than forty minutes against a vastly superior British force and inflicting devastating casualties, including the death of Major William Montgomery, one of the assault's commanding officers. But the walls were eventually breached, and what followed the garrison's surrender became one of the war's most infamous atrocities. British soldiers, reportedly enraged by the heavy losses they had sustained, turned on men who had laid down their arms, bayoneting, stabbing, and shooting defenders who were no longer fighting. Avery was severely wounded in this massacre but somehow survived the initial slaughter. His ordeal, however, was far from over. In an act of extraordinary cruelty, British soldiers loaded Avery and other bleeding, incapacitated prisoners onto a cart and sent it rolling down the steep hill from the fort toward the river below — reportedly without adequate braking to control its descent. The violent, jolting ride down the slope compounded the injuries of men already grievously wounded, and it became one of the most frequently cited episodes of brutality from the entire day. Avery endured it all and lived.

The human cost of Fort Griswold was staggering for a small Connecticut town. Of the men who defended the fort, the majority were killed or wounded — neighbors, relatives, and friends cut down together in a single afternoon. Avery's survival came at a terrible physical price, and his wounds marked him for the rest of his long life. What he had risked was not abstract: the men inside the fort were fighting to protect their own homes, their own families, and their own community from an invading force that had already begun burning New London across the river. The massacre that followed the surrender violated the accepted laws of war even by eighteenth-century standards, making the defenders' fate not merely tragic but deeply unjust. Avery fought alongside brothers, cousins, and lifelong neighbors — the Avery family alone had multiple members in the garrison that day. His willingness to stand inside those walls, knowing the overwhelming size of the approaching force, speaks to the kind of local, personal courage that defined the militia experience during the Revolution. These were not men serving distant campaigns; they were defending the ground beneath their feet, and they paid for it with their bodies.

Ebenezer Avery's significance rests not only on his bravery but on his voice. His survival and his subsequent account of the massacre provided later generations with one of the most vivid and detailed perspectives on what happened inside Fort Griswold on September 6, 1781 — and crucially, what happened after the fighting stopped. His testimony helped establish the historical record that defined the battle's aftermath as a war crime, documenting the killing of surrendered men and the brutal cart episode with a specificity that no secondhand account could match. Avery lived long enough to see his community begin the formal work of memorialization: the Groton Monument, a granite obelisk erected in 1830 on the site of the fort, honored the defenders by name, and Avery was among those commemorated. He died in 1837 at the age of eighty-seven, one of the last living witnesses to the massacre. His story endures as a reminder that the Revolution's costs were not evenly distributed — that some communities bore wounds, both literal and collective, that shaped them for generations. In Groton, the memory of Fort Griswold remains alive, and Avery's account remains one of its essential documents.

WHY EBENEZER AVERY MATTERS TO GROTON

Ebenezer Avery's story is essential for anyone seeking to understand what the American Revolution meant at the local level — not as a grand narrative of armies and generals, but as a devastating experience endured by ordinary people defending their own community. His survival account of the Fort Griswold massacre offers students and visitors a firsthand window into one of the war's most shocking episodes: the killing of men who had already surrendered and the brutal mistreatment of the wounded. Groton Heights, where the fort still stands and where the monument rises above the Thames River, is the physical landscape of Avery's story. Walking that steep hill, visitors can begin to grasp what it meant to be loaded, bleeding, onto a cart and sent hurtling downward. Avery's testimony teaches us that memory itself is a form of resistance — that bearing witness matters.

TIMELINE

• 1750: Born in Groton, Connecticut, into one of the town's founding settler families
• 1775–1781: Served in the Groton militia during the American Revolutionary War
• September 6, 1781: Fought in the defense of Fort Griswold against British and Loyalist forces under Benedict Arnold's command
• September 6, 1781: Severely wounded during the massacre that followed the garrison's surrender
• September 6, 1781: Placed on a cart with other wounded men and sent down the steep hill from the fort, worsening his injuries
• 1781–1790s: Recovered from his wounds and remained in Groton, becoming one of the battle's key surviving witnesses
• 1830: Commemorated alongside fellow defenders on the Groton Monument, erected on the site of the battle
• 1837: Died in Groton, Connecticut, at approximately eighty-seven years of age

SOURCES

• Hurd, D. Hamilton. History of New London County, Connecticut. J.W. Lewis & Co., 1882.
• Caulkins, Frances Manwaring. History of New London, Connecticut. Published by the Author, 1852.
• Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. The Battle of Groton Heights: A Collection of Narratives. Revised edition, 1882.
• Avery, Rufus. "Narrative of the Battle of Fort Griswold." In Records and Papers of the New London County Historical Society, Vol. 1. New London County Historical Society.
• Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park. Interpretive materials and monument inscriptions. Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.