Dorsey Pentacost

A Patriot of the American Revolution for VIRGINIA - PENNSYLVANIA with the rank of COLONEL. DAR Ancestor # A088637 . Note: Information below may be contrary to the public DAR database. (FD)

Dorsey Pentecost was a land speculator, lawyer, and prominent man of affairs in western Pennsylvania. He held various local judicial appointments: in 1770 he served as a justice of Cumberland County; in 1771 he was a justice of Bedford County; in 1781 he was elected to the executive council for Washington County, where he owned a gristmill near his home on the east branch of Chartiers Creek. During the Revolution Pentecost served as a colonel in the Pennsylvania forces and after the war was deeply involved in land speculation in western Pennsylvania and in the settlement of western lands, in the course of which he had considerable experience in surveying. From 1783 to 1786 Pentecost served as judge of the court of common pleas for Washington County. By the mid–1780s his land speculations had brought him into considerable financial difficulties. (National Archives)

Pentecost has been described as a "political chameleon" and "political gadfly" whose "popular support he owed to his well-known defiance of Philadelphia's authority" over the Pennsylvania government. Notably, he -- in his role as a jurist -- chose to "ignore" the Gnadenhutten massacre of Native Americans rather than alienate anyone who supported or opposed it. (Harper)

Sources

• Harper, Rob. "Looking the Other Way: The Gnadenhutten Massacre and the Contextual Interpretation of Violence." The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, 64, no. 3 (2007): 621-44. Accessed 8 August 2021. doi:10.2307/25096733.
• "To George Washington from Dorsey Pentecost, 10 July 1789." National Archives. < link > Accessed 8 August 2021.