Author: Hillard, Isaac
Biography:
HILLARD, Isaac (1737-1823: Founders Online)
A proudly self-educated poet, he was born in Little Compton MA (which became part of RI after a boundary change in 1747), and was one of four sons who all enlisted during the French and Indian War of 1762. He served as a lieutenant in the Revolutionary War of 1776-7. He married and spent most of his life in Connecticut. He and his wife (possibly Sarah White) had 13 children. He was actively engaged in the prosecution of residents of the state who violated the ban on the slave trade; some of his prose pamphlets were published in that cause. It is not clear how he earned a living--he describes himself and his wife as living in poverty, in a letter of 1810 to Thomas Jefferson--but he clearly could not resist political controversy. In 1810 he was living as Captain Hillard in Sharon CT. ("Isaac Hillard to Thomas Jefferson, 10 September 1810," Founders Online, National Archives, 23 Mar. 2019; ancestry.com 23 Mar. 2019) HJ