Thomas Posey Thomas Posey ( July 9 , 1750March 19 , 1818 ) was an officer in the American Revolution , a general during peacetime , the third Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky , Governor of the Indiana Territory , and a Louisiana Senator . Early life . Family and background . Thomas Posey was born on the banks of the Potomac River on a farm adjacent to Mt Vernon in Fairfax County , Virginia on July 9 , 1750 . According to his own account , he was " born of respectable parentage . " Throughout his life Posey was dogged by rumors that he was the illegitimate son of George Washington . The rumor persisted even after his death and was the subject of several newspaper articles . Most historians are unsure of who his parents truly were as there is little recorded of them . Posey grew up on land adjacent to Washington ' s Mt . Vernon home , in the home of John Posey . John was a close friend of George Washington , and Thomas benefited from Washington ' s patronage early in his life . The rumors were dismissed by Posey ' s biographer , John Thornton Posey . Posey received a plain English education from the neighborhood school and at 19 he moved to the Virginia frontier near Staunton , Virginia where he intended to engage in a trade or farm . He opened a business producing saddles and married Martha Mathews , daughter of Sampson Mathews of the Mathews family . The couple had three sons , although only one survived to adulthood . Martha died in 1778 while giving birth to the third son . Life on the frontier was tumultuous , and the Indians continual raiding led to a reprisal by the Virginia ' s Royal Governor , Lord Dunmore . In 1774 Posey was in the quartermaster ' s department of an armed expedition against the Indians who were threatening the frontier settlements . He was present at the Battle of Point Pleasant , and the expedition succeeded in suppressing the Indians for the short term . Revolutionary War . Posey was elected a member of the Virginia committee of correspondence in 1775 . He served in the army during the War of Independence , first as a captain in the Continental Army , mostly with the 7th Virginia Regiment , then later rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1782 . Some claimed his quick rise was due to the patronage of George Washington . During the war Posey led campaigns against Lord Dunmore who was fortified on Gwyn ' s Island and drove him and his naval support out of the area . Lord Dunmore had been the officer he served under during the Indian war . In the winter of 1775 the 7th Virginia Regiment marched to join with General George Washington in New Jersey . It was at this time that Washington promoted Posey to the rank of Captain . During the winter of 1776 , Posey commanded the pickets guarding the Valley Forge encampment and led skirmishes almost daily . The following campaigning season , his corps was involved in the battle to drive Gen . Howe back to New York City , and played a critical role in the Battle of Monmouth . In 1778 Capt . Posey replaced Daniel Morgan as commander of the Provisional Rifle Corps when it was reduced to two companies . His small unit was sent to upstate New York to help secure that frontier flank of the Continental Army ' s Highland Department . He was promoted to major and given command of the 7th Virginia Regiment on December 20 , 1778 . In July 1779 Posey was assigned to command a battalion of light infantry in Corps of Light Infantry commanded by Brig - Gen . Anthony Wayne . As part of the provisional 1st Regiment under Col . Christian Febiger , he led his battalion in a bayonet night assault to storm Stony Point , a key British position on the Hudson River near West Point . Posey was one of the first to enter the British works and seized the colors of the 17th Regiment of Foot . In his absence , the 7th Virginia regiment was ordered on December 8 , 1779 , to join the rest of the Virginia Line to march to Charleston , South Carolina , to join the Southern Army . When the Corps of Light Infantry disbanded in December , Posey was sent to join his regiment , but the army surrendered on May 12 , 1780 , before he could rejoin it . As one of the few uncaptured Virginia officers , Posey had few duties until exchange of captured soldiers occurred in early 1781 , at which time Col . Febiger recruited him to help reconstitute the Virginia Line in a new " 18 - month " battalion . He became de facto commander of the battalion and served in the siege of Yorktown . During 1781 – 1782 he would serve with General Wayne again , this time in Georgia against the forces in Savannah . He was promoted to Lt . Col . in 1782 When the war ended , Posey returned to Virginia having resigned from the army on March 10 , 1783 . He took guardianship of his surviving son who had been living with friends since the death of his mother . Posey married Mary Alexander Thornton , the wealthy widow of George Thornton , in 1784 . Posey had nine children by her . He remained married to her until his death . The family lived on her Fredericksburg , Virginia plantation , where Posey farmed for nearly eighteen years . He ran an unsuccessful campaign for the United States House of Representatives in 1797 , and held several appointed position in the Virginia state government . Posey briefly returned to the military following several setbacks to the army which was campaigning against the Wabash Confederacy in the Old Northwest . He reentered the army as a brigadier general in 1793 and served with " Mad " Anthony Wayne campaigning against the Indians beyond the frontier in the Northwest Indian War . Posey was disturbed by the actions of second in command , General James Wilkinson . Wilkinson had been secretly undermining Wayne ' s authority in reports to Washington , and Posey discovered that Wilkinson had been involved in similar plots against other ranking officers , including the former frontier commander George Rogers Clark . Years after Wilkinson ' s death , it was discovered that he had been accepting bribery money from Spain to stir up trouble on the frontier . Because of the ill feelings caused by Wilkinson , Posey resigned from the army again on February 20 , 1794 , only a few months before the war was ended following American victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers . Public office . Kentucky and Louisiana . In 1802 , Posey received in reward for his military service , and he was given several options of land tracts in the western United States . He chose land near Henderson , Kentucky and moved his family to the new estate . His prestige made him immediately popular in the area and he was elected to the Kentucky State Senate , beginning a term on November 10 , 1804 and became the body ' s speaker . In 1805 he was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky , serving a brief term . He was a candidate for governor in 1808 , but withdrew to support Charles Scott . In preparation for possible hostilities with the French and British , in 1809 Congress authorized an army of 100 , 000 men to be mobilized . Kentucky was assigned the task of providing five thousand men . Posey returned to the army as a Major General in command of the Kentucky militia . He oversaw an organization of the militia to ready them for the war before he resigned from in 1810 . He then moved to the Attakapas region of Louisiana , and was appointed by the governor to serve as a U . S . Senator from that state in 1812 – 1813 to fill the vacant seat of Jean Noel Destréhan after his resignation . In Washington D . C . he also assisted the Acting Secretary of War in preparing war plans . Indiana Territory . After he was defeated for re - election to his senate seat , he was appointed by President James Madison to be Governor of Indiana Territory in February 1813 where he succeeded William Henry Harrison who had accepted a new position to lead the army against Indians in the Northwest Territory . When he arrived he relieved John Gibson of his duties as acting - governor . The Territorial General Assembly , who had been strongly opposed to the previous governor , took the absence of a strong governor to enact several pieces of legislation it had been trying to force Harrison to pass for several years , including the move of the capital . The assembly was unhappy with Posey ' s appointment , hoping to have instead received a northern governor who was opposed to slavery and more agreeable to the prevailing mood of the territory . He arrived in the new capital of Corydon in December 1813 where he delivered a conciliatory speech to the assembly . Posey was considered to be a charitable and personally likable man in the territory . He was an active member of the Presbyterian Church and became president of a Bible Society , who distributed free Bibles to the poor . Posey disliked the small capitol , and because of his poor health he wanted to be closer to a physician in Louisville , Kentucky . During the middle of the first General Assembly session , Posey moved to Jeffersonville where he remained for the duration of his tenure , and from there conducted the office of governor . He communicated with the legislature in Corydon by courier . The legislature was offended by his absence , which they portrayed as a continuation of the previous governor ' s alleged aristocratic tendencies and issued a resolution that rebuked him for leaving . Posey ' s most important act as governor was to reorganize the territorial courts . In 1815 Posey called a special session of the assembly to meet in Corydon to create a new territorial judiciary . The existing judiciary ' s authority was in question because the courts had been created at a time when no authority had been granted by Congress to create their offices . Posey presided over the assembly which ultimately divided the territory into three judicial districts and appointed several judges . The legislature was pleased to find that Posey ' s appointments to public office were not overly partisan , and were happy with his approval of road construction and the framework he created for basic educational facilities . He also approved the charter for the Bank of Vincennes , the first in the territory leading to considerable economic advancement . Despite his attempts to please the territory ' s population , he was widely disliked by the legislature for his " inaccessibility " , and his pro - slavery sentiments were at odds with that of the anti - slavery dominated territory . He was the frequent victim of speaker Dennis Pennington ' s huaranging speeches . Although statehood was approved during his term , he is considered to have had little impact on it , and instead attempted to delay it . In a speech he delivered , he claimed the territory ' s population was too sparse to bear the taxation that would be necessary to effectually grow the state , and instead recommended remaining a territory for a longer period to continue receiving federal financial assistance . The legislature pressed for statehood , and the territory ' s congressman Jonathan Jennings proposed federal legislation to approve statehood . When Indiana became a state in 1816 , he ran unsuccessfully for Governor and was defeated by Jennings , 5 , 211 to 3 , 934 votes . A key election issue causing the dislike of Posey was that he was in favor of slavery in Indiana , which much of the legislature , Dennis Pennington , and Jonathan Jennings opposed . Later life . In the last two years of his life , he served as an Indian agent in Illinois negotiating treaties with the Wea , Kickapoo , and Pottawatomie . He was appointed Indian Agent of Helios ' s in 1816 . He was a candidate for Congress again in 1817 , hoping to be elected to Jennings now vacant seat in Congress , but overwhelming defeated by William Hendricks . He died of Typhus fever on March 19 , 1818 in Shawneetown , Illinois , aged 67 , and was buried in the Westwood Cemetery . Posey County , Indiana was named in honor of Thomas Posey . References . Notes Bibliography Further reading