Col. Jeduthan Baldwin

Jeduthan Baldwin (January 13, 1732 – June 4, 1788) was an American military engineer and officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. A veteran of the French and Indian War, he is best remembered for his engineering work on fortifications at the Siege of Boston, Fort Ticonderoga, Mount Independence, and West Point, as well as for his detailed wartime journal, published in 1906. In 1906 the U.S. War Department honored his service by naming Fort Baldwin in Maine after him.

Early life Baldwin was born in Woburn, Massachusetts. Some records list his birth year as 1730 or 1731. On April 28, 1757, he married Lucy Parkman, daughter of Ebenezer Parkman, a Congregational minister in Westborough, Massachusetts; the marriage notice was registered on February 12, 1757. They had five children, though two died young.

French and Indian War Baldwin commanded a company during the French and Indian War, gaining early experience as an engineer and surveyor.

American Revolution

Siege of Boston In 1775, Baldwin took part in the Siege of Boston as an engineer and was present at the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he helped construct American fortifications. On March 16, 1776, he was appointed assistant engineer with the rank of captain in the Continental Army. George Washington personally recommended him in a letter to John Hancock dated April 22, 1776. He was subsequently promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 26 and to colonel of engineers on September 3, 1776.

In 1777 he worked with Tadeusz Kościuszko under General Arthur St. Clair on the fortifications of Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, which together formed the main American stronghold on Lake Champlain.

West Point and later service In 1780, Baldwin was again associated with Kosciuszko and St. Clair in constructing the works at West Point. In addition to his engineering duties, he organized several companies of artificers that were later formed into Baldwin's Regiment of Artificers. He resigned his commission on April 26, 1782. it is regarded as one of the most important first-hand narratives of the Revolutionary War, particularly for details of the Siege of Boston.

In 1906, U.S. Secretary of War ordered that the military reservation at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Maine be named Fort Baldwin in his honor.

In popular culture Baldwin appears as a minor character in Diana Gabaldon's historical novel An Echo in the Bone, which depicts events of the American Revolutionary War.