U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Bedinger, Henry (1753-1843) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Aler's History of Martinsburg and Berkeley County, West Virginia by F. Vernon Aler, 1888 Printed for the Author by The Mail Publishing Company, Hagerstown, MD. CHAPTER VIII. Historical Pen Sketches of the Early Residents of Berkeley County by the late Hon. Chas. James Faulkner. Pages 176-177, MAJOR HENRY BEDINGER Was born at Little York, Pennsylvania, October l6th, 1753. His father emigrated to Berkeley County in 1758. In June, 1775, he volunteered in a company raised in the County of Berkeley, under the command of Capt. Hugh Stephenson, which marched in July of that year to the siege of Boston. At the expiration of one year, their term of service having expired, this company was disbanded. Immediately thereafter a rifle regiment was organized, of which Hugh Stephenson was appointed Colonel and Abraham Shepherd commissioned as senior Captain of one of the companies. Young Bedinger was commissioned as Third Lieutenant in this company, and his original commission as such signed by John Hancock, President of Congress, may be seen, framed and hanging in the house of his grandson, H. B. Davenport, Esq., near Charlestown. After three days' severe fighting at King's Bridge, this regiment, then commanded by Colonel Rawlings, was forced to capitulate, and surrendered themselves as prisoners of war in the capture of Fort Washington. This occurred on the 16th of November, 1777, and Lieut. Bedinger was confined as a prisoner on Long Island until the summer of 1781. After having thus endured the rigor of imprisonment for four years, he was exchanged, and, returning to the army, he was commissioned a Captain in the 4th Virginia Regiment and ordered to Yorktown, but before he reached that point the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and his army had taken place. At the close of the revolutionary war he returned to Shepherdstown, then in the County of Berkeley, and there entered into the mercantile business. Upon the death of Moses Hunter he was, in August, 1798, elected Clerk of the County Court of Berkeley, when he removed to Martinsburg, its county seat. Prior to this time he had been elected and served one year as a member of the House Delegates of Virginia. The validity of his election as Clerk of the County Court was vigorously contested by Col. David Hunter, his competitor for that office. This led to protracted litigation, in which the ablest counsel in the United States were employed — John Marshall, Luther Martin and Walter Jones being of the number, and party spirit then running very high, Bedinger being a Jeffersonian Republican, and Hunter an ardent and prominent Federalist, the contest excited deep interest throughout the country. The venue of the trial of the case was changed by the General Court of Virginia at its November term, 1799, from the Winchester District Court to Staunton, but subsequently sent back to Winchester. The suit resulted in a judgment, rendered December, 1803, setting aside the election of Major Bedinger and the transfer of the office to his opponent, Col. Hunter. Some of the remains of that litigation are to be seen upon the records of our courts as late as 1830. He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnatti, and his diploma as such, handsomely framed, still adorns the parlor of one of his decendants. After his amotion from the office of Clerk, he removed to his line estate "Protumna," live miles south of Martinsburg. He was a careful farmer and an enthusiastic cultivator of line fruits. He possessed an extraordinary memory and delighted in his hospitable mansion to dwell upon the incidents of our revolutionary war. He could remember, with great distinctness, even in very advanced life, the company, regiment, rank and service of almost any officer in the Virginia line, and it was through his retentive' memory that many received that justice from their country which otherwise, from lost and mutilated records, they could never have obtained. He bore the reputation of a patriot and good citizen up to the period of his death, which occurred on the 14th of May, 1843, then nearly ninety years of age. ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Berkeley County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/berkeley/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------