Program “Major General Israel Putnam: Hero of the American Revolution”
May 28 @ 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Major General Israel Putnam: Hero of the American Revolution
Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 6:30 p.m.
East Hebron Presbyterian Church at 6559 State Route 22, East Hebron, NY
(7 miles north of Salem and 10 miles south of Granville).
Presented by Robert Hubbard
East Hebron Presbyterian Church at 6559 State Route 22, East Hebron, NY
(7 miles north of Salem and 10 miles south of Granville).
Presented by Robert Hubbard
The Hebron Preservation Society and the Washington County Historical Society will co-host “Major General Israel Putnam: Hero of the American Revolution” (and for whom the Town of Putnam in northern Washington County is named). A colorful figure of 18th century America, Israel Putnam (1718-1790) played key roles in both the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. During the former, he barely escaped from being burned alive by Mohawk warriors and was held by the French as a prisoner of war in Canada. He later commanded a force of 500 men that was shipwrecked off the coast of Cuba. During the Revolutionary War, it was Putnam who reportedly gave the command “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who was also a historian, once stated it “could be argued that we owe our national existence to the fortifications which General Israel Putnam threw up in April 1776 on the Buttermilk Channel side (of New York’s Governors Island), which is just a baseball’s throw from Brooklyn Heights.
Robert Ernest Hubbard is a retired professor from Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut, and an adjunct faculty member in the college’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program. His book, Major General Israel Putnam: Hero of the American Revolution (the first full-length biography of Putnam in more than a century, re-examines the life of a general whose seniority in the Continental Army was second only to that of George Washington. This talk will cover Putnam‘s personal life and military career, including his service in eastern New York State in the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. He is the author of eleven other books including The Last Survivors, A History of Connecticut’s Deadliest Tornadoes, and this year’s Major General Thomas Mifflin: The Army’s First Quartermaster General and the First Governor of Pennsylvania. Since 1996, he has been the exclusive owner of the website IsraelPutnam.com
There is no charge for the program. It is open to the public. Donations are gladly accepted.
We hope you can join us for this interesting and informative program.