Back in undergrad during either a Data Science or Stats class that I was stumbling through en route to a Data Science minor, a project required us to use a website that provided census information by county. I don’t remember what the information as or what lesson we were meant to learn, but I do remember the example county we looked at: Montgomery County, Maryland. I remember it because I grew up in a Montgomery County in Virginia and until then wasn’t especially aware that there were others. When it was initially referred to as simply “Montgomery County” I assumed it was mine and was delighted that my sub-100k-population-Southwest-Virginia county should be the featured sandbox for that day’s lesson.
Eventually it became clear that it was a different Montgomery county. Throughout the years since I have occasionally stumbled upon other so-named territories and have now taken it upon myself to figure out just what is going on.
Why are there so many Mo. Co’s? Are they all named after the same person? If so, who is Montgomery? Certainly not a founding father I remember learning about growing up. Given that one is in Virginia and there’s also the capitol of Alabama in the picture, we can’t rule out the possibility of Confederate General. It sounds pretty British so it could also be a colonial-era governor or a particularly favored royal hunting dog.
Thanks to the most successful product of human collaboration in mankind’s history (Wikipedia), I discovered that Montgomery is the 7th most common name for a county in the United States (tied with Clay and Union) at 18. It’s beaten only by some real classics: Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Jackson, Lincoln, and Madison.
It turns out that just about all of them are named after the same person: Major General Richard Montgomery. Thirteen out of the eighteen definitely are–the Montgomery Co. in Pennsylvania was likely named for Richard and the Mont. C. in Mississippi was either named for Richard or John Montgomery (a Tennessee settler). The M.C. in TN was named for John. Alabama’s county was also definitely not named after Richard, rather a Lemuel P. Montgomery, but the city of Montgomery was named for Richard. The M.C. in Texas was named after the city of Montgomery, Texas, which was named after the M.C. in AL, which goes back to Lemuel P. Montgomery.
But the counties in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia are definitely named after Richard.
So who was this man, to be a common county namesake up there with the giants of AP US History?
He was born in Ireland on this day, December 2, in 1738 (crazy). He then joined the British army and ended up in North America fighting during the French and Indian War. He eventually settled in New York after marrying a local woman named Janet and took up life as a farmer. When the Revolution kicked off, he followed his wife’s family and sided with the colonies. He was commissioned as a brigadier general in the Continental Army, second in command of the army from New York under Philip Schuyler (father of the Schuyler sisters from Hamilton, yes yes yes). Montgomery eventually led the invasion of Canada (a piece of Revolutionary history I always forget about). He led the capture of Montreal in November 1775, earning him a promotion to major general that he never learned about, and then advanced to Quebec City, where he joined another force under the command of Benedict Arnold (pre-traitor era). On December 31, he led an attack on the city, but was killed during the battle.
People throughout the colonies mourned his passing. Congress commissioned a monument to be built, Thomas Paine wrote about him, referenced him in his writing, and Ann Eliza Bleecker (née Schuyler, but not from Hamilton, no no no) published an “Elegy on the Death of General Montgomery.”
Montgomery was a well-known enough figure in Britain to receive some public mourning there as well, although Prime Minister Lord North failed to muster much sympathy for an enemy general:
I cannot join in lamenting the death of Montgomery as a public loss. Curse on his virtues! They’ve undone his country. He was brave, he was able, he was humane, he was generous, but still, he was only a brave, able, humane, and generous rebel.
On December 31, 1776, when it came time to make a decision, the good people of Southwest Virginia chose to name their shiny new county in honor of the then relevant and super well-known Richard Montgomery. The good people of Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, and Ohio must have felt him worth of the same.
(But on September 6, 1776, Maryland did it first.)
Christina Ribbens (’19) graduated with a major in history and minors in studio art and data science. After working in campus ministry for a few years, she’s getting her master’s in public humanities at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. She has a benevolent dependency on tea, is always down for a game of pick-up basketball, and would love to have you over for pancakes sometime.
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Incredible—love a historical rabbit hole!
Joseph Montgomery is my grandpa. Airman United States Air Force.
Nathaniel Montgomery PFC Army Officer
I’m Kimberly D Bell, Nathaniel Montgomery is my dad.
Looking for any information about the Montgomery