GRANT, James Adjutant in the 87th Highlanders, then in the King's American Regiment

   Cause of his death was fatigue and hardships of military service.

   User ID: Q117

  General Notes:

"James Grant (1723-1782) went to school in Duthil and then to college in Aberdeen. In 1740, when he was 17 and about to join the recently embodied Black Watch, he had the misfortune to be 'forcibly taken' and put on shipboard and landed in Holland, where he was impressed into the army of Frederick the Great (King of Prussia). Subsequently, he was taken prisoner by the army of the Queen of Bohemia, and after many adventures he managed to get back to Scotland in about 1756."

"In 1775, the American Revolution broke out, and James Grant, having only recently retired from the 87th Highlanders, no doubt felt that his only course of action was to proceed to New York to join the king's forces, leaving his wife and family on the farm in the care of the Ten Broeks. James was first assigned to the Royal Navy (in place of a wounded officer), who were engaged in the forcing of the Hudson River passage. However, he was eventually appointed as adjutant of the King's American Regiment, a locally- raised formation under the command of a lawyer from the south, with good connections, named Edmund Fanning.

After taking part with the regiment in many of the campaigns in the north and nearly all of them in the south, James Grant, who had had, during a period of some 42 years, nearly 20 years, at the very least, on active military service, 'at length sank under the fatigue and hardships of the service and died upon his passage from Savannah after the evacuation of that place'. He died at Charleston, South Carolina, on 31 July 1782. "

from Family Tree by Rear-Admiral John Grant

James married Penuel GRANT, daughter of Alexander GRANT of Auchterblair and Mary GRANT, in 1763. (Penuel GRANT was born in 1743 and died on 21 February 1824 in London, England.)

  Marriage Notes:

"After re-joining the Black Watch for a period, James (Grant) was, on 26 April 1762, commissioned adjutant of the 87th Regiment, or 'Murray Keith's Highlanders'. He married Penuel Grant in 1763, who was the elder daughter of Alexander Grant of Auchterblair of the Clan Alan, and grand-daughter of William Grant of Lurg.

In 1774 James Grant and his wife decided to emigrate to America with their six children. They bought, or rented, a farm from a Colonel Abraham Ten Broek of Albany. James was then 51 and his wife 31, and, after his many years of war service, their intention was, no doubt, to lead a reasonably quiet and uneventful life. In 1775, the American Revolution broke out, and James Grant, having only recently retired from the 87th Highlanders, no doubt felt that his only course of action was to proceed to New York to join the king's forces, leaving his wife and family on the farm in the care of the Ten Broeks."

from Family Tree by Rear-Admiral John Grant

Note:

This source states, also, what is said elsewhere but difficult to substantiate, or accomodate, with the information established at present, that Margaret Grant, a younger sister of James Grant's wife, Penuel, married, as his second wife, Sir Alexander Grant, (1705-1772), Baronet of Dalvey.