David Wooster

David Wooster ( – May 2, 1777) was an American general who served in the French and Indian War and in the American Revolutionary War. He died of wounds sustained during the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut. Several cities, schools, and public places were named after him thereafter. He has been called "a largely forgotten hero of the Revolution".

Early years

David Wooster was born in Stratford, in the British colony of Connecticut. He entered Yale College in 1735, and graduated in 1738.

In 1739, following the outbreak of war between Britain and Spain, he joined the colonial militia as a lieutenant, but apparently saw no action. In 1741 he was named lieutenant of a ship of the guarda-costa, which the colony had established to protect against potential Spanish attack. He was later promoted to captain.

On March 6, 1745, Wooster married Marie Clapp, the daughter of Yale's president, Thomas Clapp. They went on to have four children; their son Thomas also served in the American Revolutionary War. He was sent to France as part of the prisoner escort following that action, and then to England, where he was given an audience with King George and a position as captain in the regiment of William Pepperrell in the British Army.

Memorials

On June 17, 1777, Congress voted that a suitable monument should be erected in his memory, but measures were never inaugurated to execute the resolution. His grave was not identified until 1854, when Connecticut legislature laid the cornerstone of a monument. A sign and a monument on Connecticut Route 116 (North Salem Road) just a few yards away from the intersection with Tackora Trail, marks the spot where General David Wooster fell, during the Battle of Ridgefield in 1777.

His death is subject of a poem ("On the Death of General Wooster") by Phillis Wheatley, included in a letter Wheatley wrote to the General's widow, Mary, on July 15, 1778.

In the 1820s, the city of New Haven converted a small pasture into a public square and named it Wooster Square after Wooster. Today, the entire neighborhood, as well as several streets, all carry Wooster's name. The neighborhood was the center of large-scale Italian immigration to the city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and still retains a large Italian presence today.

Wooster School, a private day school, Wooster Mountain State Park and numerous streets are named after Wooster in Danbury, Bethel, and Ridgefield. Also named for him are David Wooster Middle School, a public school in Stratford, Connecticut, a street in SoHo, New York City, and the city of Wooster, Ohio (which houses the College of Wooster and the appropriately named Wooster High School Generals).

Ben Douglass, in his 1878 history of Wayne County, Ohio, characterized Wooster as "a man of prepossessing appearance, of rare intellectual culture and accomplished education."