Sullivan County has always had a number of direct connections to the American Revolution.

After all, the county was named for General John Sullivan, a major player in the conflict, and one of the more controversial officers on the American side. General Sullivan  eventually served two terms as Governor of New Hampshire, but is generally remembered today as the leader of the scorched earth campaign that burned 40 Iroquois towns in central New York, fulfilling George Washington’s orders to achieve the total destruction and devastation of the settlements.

And then there is the association with Joseph Brant, one of the conflict’s most colorful personalities, whose exploits while aiding the British cause included a bloody victory at the Battle of Minisink near what is today the hamlet of Barryville.

The fact that the men who died on the hilltop battleground that day in 1779, some of them local residents who lived—or had lived—along the Delaware River just a few miles away, were never afforded a proper burial but were left to molder where they fell, tends to set the Battle of Minisink apart from dozens of other Revolutionary War confrontations that were otherwise very similar.

Add in the death of an indeterminate number of colonial militia at Chestnut Woods in what is today the town of Neversink in September of 1778, and the link grows even stronger.

But it has become apparent in recent years that there is more. Quite a bit more, in fact.

For one thing, there is the recent discovery that one of the most well-known characters of the War for Independence, Benedict Arnold, a man who ignominiously served as both an American and a British General during the conflict, and whose very name has become synonymous with the word traitor or turncoat, was one of the original investors in the three land purchases that became the Cushetunk settlement, a portion or which was located in what would later become Sullivan County.

For another, there is Nathaniel Sackett, George Washington’s original head of intelligence, a man who put together the network of spies that would eventually prove invaluable in winning the war, and who personally trained Benjamin Tallmadge, the man who would not only succeed him, but far outstrip his accomplishments in the espionage game.

The oldest of Nathaniel’s five children, Ananias, who had served as a private in the Revolutionary War, was hired in 1792 to build a road to access some remote lands owned by the Livingston family. What became known as the Sackett Road was the result, and it was so well laid out that much of it served as sections of the Newburgh-Cochecton Turnpike when that road was constructed through what was to become Sullivan County several years later.

Ananias was paid for his work with 700 acres of land southwest of Monticello, and he built his residence near the pond that now bears his name. He conceived a prosperous community he called Sackettborough, and although it never grew beyond a few houses, Nathaniel Sackett is buried there.

Speaking of spies, there is local resident Robert Land, the Justice of the Peace in the Cushetunk Settlement, who was an avowed Loyalist, and became one of the most active of the spies employed by the British during the War.

Although there were more Loyalists than Patriots in Cushetunk at the outset of the war, some of the residents, like Abner Skinner— whose brothers were Loyalists— and Nathaniel Tyler, enlisted in the Continental Army. Tyler, for his part, was a teenager when he joined, and served six years as a drummer, mustering out as a drum major. Family tradition holds that he was selected to serve as George Washington’s personal drummer for a portion of the war.

As one can readily see, the connections are numerous, and now there is one more.

The Barryville-based non-profit history education group, The Delaware Company, which has operated the county-owned Fort Delaware Museum of Colonial History in Narrowsburg, NY since 2021, played host during the summer of 2024 to a small film crew from Florentine Films, Ken Burns’ company that has put together the upcoming documentary television series, “The American Revolution.”

The film crew worked from sunrise to well after dark, shooting various buildings at the Fort from a variety of angles and in different light. They also filmed some of the Fort’s docents at work. It was an amazing experience, and in October, The Delaware Company was informed that some of the footage obtained during those three days was included in the final product.

“The American Revolution” is a six-part, twelve-hour long documentary, which airs on PBS television for six consecutive nights beginning Sunday, November 16. There has not been any indication how much of the Fort Delaware footage has been used or when it will appear on the screen.

 For more information about the documentary, visit, pbs.org/kenburns/the-american-revolution/

For air times for the program, consult the schedule of your local PBS station.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian and a founder and president of The Delaware Company. Email him at jconway52@hotmail.com.