Jesse Prentice (Jan. 24, 1743 - 1811) was Samuel and Abigail’s 10th child. He was a Lieutenant in the Revolutionary army and fought at the siege of Yorktown, one of the final, decisive battles of the war, as well as other battles. (According to the Internet site www.ancestry.com, he had been a Sergeant in the 6th Connecticut Regiment from May 5, 1775 until Dec. 10, 1775. He then became a 2nd Lieutenant in the 10th Regiment of Continental Troops from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 1776.)

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     According to Margaret C. Thompson's 1931 book Genealogy of the Prentice Family, all of Jesse’s female descendants are eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution. Any interested in doing so should give the following references: Connecticut Men of the Revolution, p. 99; History of Stonington, Conn., p. 543, and C.J.F. Binney's standard 1883 reference book History and Genealogy of the Prentice Family, pp. 180, 187, and 218. For those who wish to pursue this matter further, Mrs. Thompson obtained these references through the Beulah Patterson Brown Chapter of the D.A.R. in Newark Valley, New York.

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     Jesse must have married Elizabeth relatively late in life, because the first of their four children was not born until he was fifty years old. Other than his time in military service, there is no record that he lived anywhere other than in Stonington, Conn. He died there in 1811.
     About a year later, Elizabeth moved away from Connecticut with their four children (ranging in age from 10 to 18) to a little village called Berkshire (later renamed Newark Valley), near the Pennsylvania border in midstate New York. The War of 1812 was under way, so she may have moved to get away from the danger of British attack on the Connecticut coast. She may have also have had relatives in the area. She and her three sons and one daughter spent the rest of their lives in Berkshire/Newark Valley.

     An interesting historical note: Jesse’s brother Amos also served in the Revolutionary army, as a medical doctor. One of Amos’s claims to fame is that his house was burned down by the traitor Benedict Arnold in 1781.