Sybil Ludington Monument - Carmel
The Ride[edit]
Ludington's ride started at 9 P.M. and ended around dawn.[6] She rode 40 miles, more than twice the distance of Paul Revere, into the damp hours of darkness. She rode through Carmel on to Mahopac, thence to Kent Cliffs, from there to Farmers Mills and back home. She used a stick to prod her horse and knock on doors. She managed to defend herself against a highwayman with a long stick. When, soaked with rain and exhausted, she returned home, most of the 400 soldiers were ready to march.[7][8]
The men arrived too late to save Danbury, Connecticut. At the start of the Battle of Ridgefield, however, they were able to drive General William Tryon, then governor of the colony of New York, and his men, to Long Island Sound.[7][8]
Sybil was congratulated for her heroism by friends and neighbors and also by General George Washington.[7][9][10][11][12] [13][14][15][16]
After the war, in 1784, "when she was twenty-three years old, Sybil Ludington married Edmond Ogden, with whom she had one child and named him Henry. Edmond was a farmer and innkeeper, according to various reports. In 1792 Sybil settled with her husband and Henry (their son) in Catskill, where they lived until her death on February 26, 1839, at the age of 77. She was buried near her father in the Patterson Presbyterian Cemetery in Patterson, New York.[6] Her tombstone, at right, shows a different spelling of her first name.
In 1935 New York State erected a number of markers along her route. A statue of Sybil, sculpted by Anna Hyatt Huntington, was erected near Carmel, New York, in 1961 to commemorate her ride. Smaller versions[17] of the statue exist on the grounds of the Daughters of the American Revolution Headquarters in Washington, DC; on the grounds of the public library, Danbury, Connecticut; and in the Elliot and Rosemary Offner museum at Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.
