Colonel Peregrine Fitzhugh’s grave stone in Sodus Rural Cemetery. Photo from Find A Grave.
May 10, 1759 – November 28, 1811
From the book “Great Sodus Bay History, Reminiscences, Anecdotes and Legends ” written by Walter Henry Green in 1947
“The most distinguished of the veterans of the Revolution to settle in the Sodus Bay region was Colonel Peregrine Fitzhugh and it is well worth while to give his military record.
He joined the Army of the Revolution as lieutenant of the Third Regiment of Dragoons of the Virginia Continental line and soon was promoted to captain. During the last two years of the war he was aid-de-camp to General George Washington.
His lineage was of a distinguished family; his father held a commission in the English army and resigned rather than fight against the colonists.
At the close of the war, Col. Fitzhugh located in Ann Arundel, Maryland, and resided there until he removed to Geneva, N.Y., in 1799, where he remained while he cleared the land which he had purchased at Sodus Bay.
In 1803 he came to Sodus and dwelt upon his property on the south shore, the residence being about one mile south of the bay, on the crest of the hill which commands a beautiful view of the bay and the lake beyond.
He died November 28, 1811, and was buried in the cemetery on the bluff above the lake. His widow Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Lloyd Chew of Ann Arundel, Maryland outlived him forty-four years, and died June 4, 1854. His son, Bennett C. Fitzhugh, would become the 2nd and 4th Lighthouse Keeper at Sodus Bay. He served from May 14, 1829 until December 5, 1844 and again from May 10, 1845 until February 27, 1846. (Information provided by Joe O’Toole Sodus Bay Historical Society)
Having been so intimately associated with General Washington, Colonel Fitzhugh had several signed letters from him and also important memoranda. Unfortunately these, with his uniform and sword, were destroyed in the fire which burned Mrs. Fitzhugh’s dwelling at Sodus Point in 1846.
When Peregrine Fitzhugh came from Geneva, it was with quite an imposing caravan, consisting of Pennsylvania wagons, twenty-seven horses and more than thirty slaves; the entire number of the party being forty persons. In a few years he bought a tract of land about a mile and a quarter west of the Bay and ater his death, his wife liberated all of his slaves and parceled it out among them. One writer said that nearly all of the Negroes in Western New York were descendants of the slaves of Peregrine Fitzhugh and his brother, William, who settled further west in the Genesee region.”
According to the 1974 Historic Sodus Bay Walking Tour, Colonel Fitzhugh also owned a brickyard located at the south end of Ontario Street.
In honor of Colonel Peregrine Fitzhugh, North and South Fitzhugh streets in Sodus Point were named after him.
Colonel Peregrine Fitzhugh and his wife Elizabeth tell their stories:
Played by Bruce and Edith Farrington
