Abel Benjamin TOMPKINS

  General Notes:

MILITARY: The Bridge Family of NJ says "Abel died about 1 Mar 1777 of smallpox contracted while nursing prisoners of the Revolutionary Army in the house of Elizabeth's brother Ralph (brother-in-law) which had been converted into a smallpox hospital. Six years later, 16 Mar 1783 Elizabeth remarried and moved to Pennsylvania. She filed an application 10 Dec 1793 for compensation for her first husband's death, stating that he had been fatally affected "by the stink and malignity of the disorder then prevailing in the hospital." One of those who testified in the case was John Ward, Elizabeth's brother-in-law, who said that Tompkins had been on a "tour of duty in the militia-guarding the Continental Stores and Prisioners" and was taken from the guard to the hospital to take care of the soldiers sick with smallpox. The government settled with an amount equal to half his pay from the date of his death to the date of the widows marriage to Prudden.

Abel married Elizabeth BRIDGE on 6 Dec 1764 in Morristown, Morris, New Jersey. (Elizabeth BRIDGE was born about 1742 in Morristown, Morris, New Jersey and died after Dec 1793.)