06/13/2026
10. And what of William? So far, we’ve by-passed young William Wallace in tracing the stories of the Wallace House and Old Dutch Parsonage sons during the opening years of the Revolution. William, the youngest child of John and Mary Maddox Wallace was not yet 14 years-old when the Declaration of Independence was signed. So, his path was not yet his own, but his father’s.
What we know of William was researched by former Wallace House historic specialist, Jim Kurzenberger, who wrote a short biography of him published in the Washington Place Dispatch Newsletter, published by the Association in the 1990s. William, he noted, although born in Philadelphia, reached adulthood in Somerset County during interesting and tumultuous times. William would surely have known about current political events of April 1775 as he entered adolescence, even before coming to Hope Farm. Perhaps his father’s expectation of the coming threat to family fortunes in Philadelphia as well as a desire to provide a safer future for young William as hostilities broke out, triggered the family move to the New Jersey countryside. Assuming the Walaces were in residence by early 1777, William would have had just two years of “new normal” in his new home before the Revolution arrived at the Wallace front door in late 1778.
Jim speculated that Wiliam may have stayed away from the military goings on at this now-turned military headquarters during the winter of 1778-79. He suggested that William perhaps bunked with his married siter, Anne Wallace Hardenbergh, nearby. He also suspected that William completed his education at this time, being tutored by future NJ governor William Paterson, who was a well-regarded lawyer living nearby. Apparently, the a a close enough friendship developed between young William and Paterson that he was a guest at William and Sarah Dunham’s marriage in New Brunswick, in 1782. Another thought is that John Taylor, a former faculty at Queens College, who continued to tutor seminary students at the North Branch Church, may have had this role. William, if he was ever active in the coming struggle, would have entered later in the War. Until he was 16, he wasn’t obligated to serve in the local militia. There are a number of William Wallaces in New Jersey enlisted in militia units from 1778 on (his first year of eligibility). At least one recruit from Somerset County might be him. But it’s difficult to be sure. So, unless evidence turns-up to the contrary, young William was, like so many ordinary New Jerseyans, an observer rather than an active participant in the fray—but one with a ring-side seat, at least in the winter of 1778-79.
