Henry Connelly was born 2 May 1751 at Chester County, Pennsylvania. According to family tradition, he was a son of Thomas Connelly and Mary von Harlingen.  Another family tradition holds that his mother was Dutch and that he was partially raised by his Dutch grandparents.  Connelly moved with his father to Guilford County, North Carolina.  

He married Ann MacGregor, also known as Ann Langley, about 1774, by whom he had the following children:  Edmund, born 2 June 1775; Thomas, born 25 January 1777; Peggy, born 8 August 1779; David, born 24 June 1781; Rachel, born 8 April 1783; John, born 8 August 1785; Henry, Jr., born 1 December 1787; Elizabeth, born 8 April 1789; William, born 8 July 1791; and Joseph, born 8 July 1795.

Connelly was commissioned by North Carolina Governor Richard Caswell as a captain of militia (or State Troops), 7 July 1777, to “keep down the Tories,” especially the notorious Colonel David Fanning.  He fought in several skirmishes during the war.  His most notable minor engagements were at Colson’s Mills and Charlotte in 1780.  He also fought in some of the most famous battles in the southern theater.  At the Battle of Cowpens, 17 January 1781, his company was placed under Colonel John Eager Howard on the right of the main line of battle.  When the enemy “…fell upon [them] with great fury…,” he recalled being rescued by Colonel William Washington’s cavalry.  Connelly went on to fight at Guilford Court House, 15 March 1781, where he suffered the “mortification” of seeing his company rout at the approach of the British.  Connelly himself insisted that he continued to fight after proving unable to rally his men.  Connelly spent most of the summer of 1781 reforming his scattered company.  At length, formed a new company with the intention of moving north to join General George Washington at Yorktown, however; his company did not arrive until the siege was over.

After the war, Connelly lived at Wilkes County, North Carolina, and Montgomery County, Virginia, before eventually moving to Floyd County, Kentucky.  No later than 1832, his first wife, Ann, passed away.  He married Temperance “Tempy” Hitchcock, a widow, 8 March 1832.  Late in life, when he applied for his Revolutionary War pension, his attorney noted that he spoke with a heavy, sometimes incomprehensible Dutch accent.

He applied for a pension in 1833, providing a detailed account of his Revolutionary service which serves as the basis for most of what is known about his life.  Connelly’s attorney noted he spoke with a heavy, sometimes incomprehensible Dutch accent. 

Henry Connelly died 7 May 1840 near Oil Springs, Kentucky.  His grave is marked in the Captain Henry Conley Cemetery, also known as the William Rice Cemetery at Oil Springs, Johnson County, Kentucky.

Sources:

Babits, Lawrence E. A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1998.

Babits, Lawrence E., and Joshua B. Howard. Long, Obstinate, and Bloody: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2009.

Connelley, William Elsey. The Founding of Harman’s Station and the Wiley Captivity. The Torch Press, New York, New York, 1910. Retrieved 25 May 2019 from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t23b65r4v&view=1up&seq=9.

Transcript of Revolutionary War Pension S*W8188: http://revwarapps.org/w8188.pdf