Wisharts fought on both sides during the American War of Independence, with four of the eleven men who served with the Continental Army being first-generation Americans. Thankfully, they are well documented, unlike those Wisharts fighting for the British Army, who have been a little trickier to identify.

Of the aforementioned, in alphabetical order, we have:

Edward Wishard (WIS0052) was born on 19 June 1746 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, to John Wishart and his wife, Agnes, nee Hilton. John was likely born in either Scotland or Ireland, while Agnes was Irish. During the war, Edward served under Captains William Findlay and Clapsaddle between 1777 and 1782. Findlay captained the 7th Company in the 8th Battalion of the Cumberland Militia from 1777, and Clapsaddle, who appears to have been of German descent, captained the 1st Company in the 1st Battalion from 1780. Both companies drew men from Washington Township. Edward was married to Julianna Grubb and had eight children between about 1780 and 1798. He died in Franklin County, Pennsylvania (previously part of Cumberland County) about 1804.

Edward’s brother James, born about 1747, also served in the Cumberland Militia under Captain Samuel Royer in the 1st Company, 8th and then 1st Battalion between 1779 and 1781. He was married twice and known to have had one son from the second marriage. He died in Smith Township, Washington County, PA, in 1810.

James’ younger brother John, born in 1749, also served under Captain Samuel Royer in the militia and was married with three known children. Of all the brothers, John appears to have lasted the longest, dying at age 94 around 1844.

The youngest of the Wishard brothers, Joseph, born in 1760, served with his brother Edward in Captain Clapsaddle’s company. He is known to have had a daughter and died sometime before 1792.

Another James Wishart (WIS0139) served in William Cherry’s company of the 4th Virginia Regiment of Foot between 1775 and 1783 and was the son of George Wisheart, sheriff of Princess Anne County and his wife, Mary (nee Moseley). The regiment was present at the battles of Trenton (1776), Princeton (1777), Brandywine (1777), Germantown (1777), Monmouth (1778) and at the Siege of Charleston in 1780, when most of the 4th was captured by the British. He is also recorded as being connected to the 8th and 12th Regiments, though these likely date to the latter part of his military career.

John Wishart enlisted on 2 January 1776, probably in Trenton, Cumberland County, Virginia and joined Captain David Laird’s Company of the 10th Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line. During the latter half of 1777, he spent time in a hospital. Consequently, John was unlikely to have been present at the Battle of Brandywine in September; however, in April 1778, he joined Captain Nathan Lamme’s company and was probably in action at the Battle of Monmouth. Later in the year, the 10th was redesignated the 6th. Unfortunately, no further details about John’s life are currently known.

Lieutenant Thomas Wishart of the 15th Virginia Regiment was likely born in Virginia, possibly in Norfolk County. He is recorded in an 1831 Bounty Land Warrant as a cousin of Wilhelmina, Sidney, and William Wishart, whose father, the Rev. John Wishart, arrived in Virginia from Scotland in 1764. In 1810, he is documented as the late husband of an Elizabeth Wishart. Thomas is known to have served from 17 March 1777 in Captain John Gregory’s Company and likely saw action at Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. In April 1781, Thomas was captured at Osborne’s Wharf on the James River and held until the surrender of Yorktown later that year, when he became supernumerary. At a Court of Claims, he was considered to have retired on 15 October 1781 and was given 2,666 acres of land. The remainder of Thomas’ story is unknown, and he doesn’t appear in the first US Census of 1790, so he had likely died by then.

Another Thomas Wishart (WIS0139) was born in Princess Anne County, Virginia and was the son of Thomas Wishart and his wife Ann, nee Workman. His brother, William, was the colonel commanding officer of the Princess Anne Militia, of which Thomas served as lieutenant between 1779 and 1780. Thomas probably married Juliet White in 1778 and was a beneficiary of his brother’s estate, who died about 1783. Along with 260 acres of land, Thomas inherited William’s silver-hilted sword, silver buttons and surveying instruments. Little else is known about Thomas, and he does not appear in the 1790 US Federal Census.

As mentioned, Thomas had a brother, William (WIS0139), who was a colonel and commanding officer of the Princess Anne County Militia (present-day Virginia Beach). William married Mary Haynes in 1766, and they had at least one child. William’s unit is known for its participation in the Battle of Kemp’s Landing in 1775; it is unknown whether he was present at the skirmish.

William Wishard (WIS0016) was reputedly born in Thornhill, Perthshire, in 1729 and moved to County Tyrone to become coachman to Lord Lytle. The story goes that while there, he fell in love with the Laird’s daughter Susannah and they were secretly married. A son, also named William, was born in Ireland about 1772, and the couple made haste across the Atlantic to America, where they settled near Philadelphia at Brandywine Creek. Eleven children were born in Pennsylvania before the family moved to Kentucky, where more children followed, and a spelling error in legal documents meant Wishart became Wishard. During the War of Independence, William served in the Continental Army (which is interesting, as he had not been in America for long, so presumably didn’t hold much love for his king) as a sergeant in Captain Wendell Ivey’s Company of Colonel John Proctor’s Battalion in the Westmoreland County Militia. He died in Bourbon County, Kentucky, in 1814.

Our final Wishart, known to have served in the Continental Army, is another William (WIS0068), who was born about 1748 in either Scotland or Virginia. He married an Elizabeth Ellis from North Carolina and settled in Robeson County, where their only child, a son named Jonathan, was born on 5 November 1774. William is known to have enlisted in Wilmington in 1776 and served as a private in Raiford’s Company of Colonel Armstrong’s 8th Carolina Regiment. The Regiment was present at the defence of Philadelphia and saw action at Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. William lost his life at Valley Forge on about 8 March 1778.

Fighting for the British, we have two brothers, William and Alexander Wishart (WIS0051), who arrived in the Mirimachi area of New Brunswick in the early 1770s to take advantage of the salmon fishing. They were pillaged by American privateers in 1778 and consequently joined the British at Lake Champlain before sailing to Quebec aboard HMS Viper, a privateer schooner captured by the Royal Navy in 1776, under Captain Harvey. Between 1779 and 1783, the brothers fought the Americans under the Command of General Haldimand, who was also the governor of Quebec Province and sent raiding parties against the American frontier in an effort to improve the province’s defences. It seems probable that Alexander and William took part in these raids. At the close of the war, the Wisharts formed a company named ‘Wishart & Co’ with William marrying Charlotte Blake (nee Taylor) about 1785, fathering two sons, and moving with his family to Tabusintac, where he died in 1787. Alexander became a justice of the peace, although no further information is known about him.

David Wishart (WIS0075), a cordwainer by profession, was born in Edinburgh in 1752. His parents, David and Katherine, were likely from Kirkcaldy, and he had one known elder sibling, Cybalie, who was born in Culross in 1744. David enlisted in the army in about 1772 and joined the 34th Regiment of Foot, with whom he was posted to Canada in 1776. On 19 September 1777, during the Battle of Freeman’s Farm, an opener of the Saratoga campaign, David was wounded in the thigh. Despite his injuries, he continued in service for another fifteen years until being invalided out of the army in September 1792, when he was described as being ‘worn out’. Eight years later, while an outpatient at the Royal Military College of Invalids in Hampshire, David married Ann Harvey in Portsmouth. He fathered at least four children, the youngest of whom was born when he was 65, while he was living with his family in London. He died in the workhouse in January 1829.

Peter Wishart, a gardener from Beauly, Invernesshire, joined the 22nd Regiment of Foot and was sent to America in 1775. He likely took part in the Battle of Bunker Hill and then the New York and New Jersey campaigns in 1776. During the Philadelphia campaign in 1777, Peter was wounded in the shoulder at the Head of Elk, a British staging point in their advance on the city. He was invalided out of the Army and became a Chelsea Outpatient in Portsmouth, where he was attached to Captain Cramp’s Company of the 41st Invalid Regiment. About 1780, Peter submitted a petition to the Secretary at War for transfer to an invalid unit in Scotland so that he could be nearer his ageing parents. This appears to have been granted, as in May of that year, he married Elizabeth Forbes, the daughter of another Chelsea Pensioner in Edinburgh. Regrettably, no further information is known about Peter.

On 26 August 1779, Captain James Wishart was captured off Sandy Hook and imprisoned in Philadelphia. Sandy Hook served as a crucial defensive stronghold and embarkation point for British forces departing New Jersey for New York, with privateers frequently boarding Loyalist vessels and taking prisoners. It seems possible that James was the captain of a ship and may have been the James Wishart (WIS0003) who settled at Port Roseway in Nova Scotia after the war.

© Scott Wishart, June 2026