Jonathan Gillett (prisoner of war)

Jonathan Gillett (1762-1855) was a prisoner of war during the American Revolutionary War and the great-grandson of Joseph Gillett, one of the early settlers of West Hartford. After enlisting in 1781 under Colonel Samuel Canfield for service on the Hudson River in New York, he was taken prisoner at Horseneck and confined, with other prisoners, in an old sugar house in New York City for a time until he was finally released. In 1852, he was one of the four surviving prisoners who received canes made of the door posts of the old prison. In accordance with his request upon his death in 1855, the cane was handed down to the oldest son in the successive generation.