Willet, Marinus

Willet, Marinus

(mərē`nəs wĭl`ĭt), 1740–1830, American Revolutionary soldier, b. Jamaica, N.Y. In the French and Indian War he was (1758) a member of the expeditions against Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Frontenac. He was a leader of the Sons of Liberty in New York and, after the outbreak of the American RevolutionAmerican Revolution,
1775–83, struggle by which the Thirteen Colonies on the Atlantic seaboard of North America won independence from Great Britain and became the United States. It is also called the American War of Independence.
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, served under Richard Montgomery in the invasion of Canada. He won (1777) a victory over the British under Barry St. Leger while second in command at Fort Stanwix (Fort Schuyler), joined George Washington's army in New Jersey in 1778, and participated (1779) in the Clinton-Sullivan expedition against the Iroquois. From 1780 until the end of the war he commanded New York troops in the Mohawk valley, and there his scouts managed to kill (Oct., 1781) Walter ButlerButler, Walter,
1752?–1781, Loyalist officer in the American Revolution, b. New York State; son of John Butler. He was an officer in his father's Loyalist troop, Butler's Rangers. He was captured (1777) by the patriots and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted.
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 after a skirmish with Loyalists. After the war he negotiated (1790) a treaty with the Creek of Georgia. Later Willett, a partisan of Aaron Burr and a Republican, held several local offices in New York City, where he served (1807–8) as mayor.

Bibliography

See his Narrative of the Military Actions of Colonel Marinus Willett (1831, repr. 1969), biography by H. Thomas (1954).