Cornelius Atherton

Cornelius Atherton (1737–1809), was an iron manufacturer, an inventor and an active gunmaker for patriot cause during the American Revolutionary War.

[4] He and his eldest son, John Daniel are recognized as the founders of borough of Taylor, Pennsylvania.

[7] A further discrepancy in relation to his birthplace by late 19th biographers, was carried over to a submission to the Daughters of the American Revolution during the 20th century.

As a resourceful blacksmith, he made the first pair of clothier sheers in America and was also a gun maker at a time when most pistols were imported from England.

It became a successful operation, and a decade later, during the American Revolutionary War it supplied muskets for the Continental Army.

During 1770, Atherton returned to Amenia, Province of New York, and announced in the local paper that he would now be serving the Great Nine Partners Patent area with the manufacture and repair of clothier sheers.

[16][8] Atherton settled in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, in 1773 with his family, where he made farm tools and bells.

In 1778 Atherton was drafted, however his place was filled by his eldest son, Jabez,[21][22][23] who volunteered to become his substitute, and was accepted and mustered in as a private.

His son Cornelius Jr recounted the incident:[27]“I was informed by my mother years ago, when I was a young man, that on his learning the British ship Vulture was anchored in the river below West Point, my father Cornelius Atherton, with another man (name forgotten) went to a Colonel Livingston, in command of a small battery , five or six miles below West Point, asking him to send a small detachment up on the Heights, and drive the Vulture away, but the Colonel dare not weaken his small force.

This I believe to be a true statement of the cause of Major Andre’s capture, and saving West Point from falling into the hands of the British.

Cornelius Atherton”Colonel James Livingston of the 1st Canadian Regiment was in command of Verplanck's Point on the Hudson River in September 1780, and played a crucial role in the unmasking of Benedict Arnold's treachery.

While on guard duty, his troops fired on the British sloop of war HMS Vulture, forcing it to retreat southwards.

This ship had brought Major John André to meet with General Benedict Arnold, who was then in command at West Point, New York.

Since the ship was driven off, André was forced to attempt travel by land onto the city of New York, when he was captured not far from the British lines near Tarrytown, NY.

André mistook patriots for loyalists, and was caught with incriminating papers upon his possession and was tried and hanged as a spy, and Arnold, his plot now discovered, fled to the British lines.

Such events occurred due to the efforts of Atherton, as an astute minuteman who proposed moving a suitable cannon to fire upon HMS Vulture.