Nearly all of us have ancestors who were veterans of various wars. A few of them covered themselves with glory, but, in most cases, we honor them because they did their duty in a time of need. Here is the modest military career of one of the ancestors of the Moore brothers.

Barzillai Delano, an 8 x great-grandfather, was baptized in Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1 February 1756. In 1779, he married his second cousin, Elizabeth Delano, and they had eleven children, maybe more. Eventually they migrated to Maine, where he died in 1835.

As the Revolution loomed, Barzillai joined a company of “Minutemen” in Duxbury. After hostilities began, Barzillai became a private in a Duxbury regiment of the Continental Army, on 23 September 1776. The regiment was dispatched to Rhode Island to assist in defending its coast. Less than 2 months later, Barzillai somehow blew his left thumb off—probably while priming the powder pan of his musket. (This sort of accident is the origin of the phrase “flash in the pan.”) He was discharged, thus ending his military service.

His service was not remarkable but there are some famous names associated with the story. Barzillai’s hometown, Duxbury, is the town next to Plymouth, of Pilgrim fame. Some of the officers of his minuteman unit were named Alden, descendants of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins. Both Barzillai and his wife were descendants of Philip Delano (originally spelled “de Lannoy”) who came to Plymouth in 1621 and was the 5 x great-grandfather of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (That means that FDR was my 6th cousin 3 times removed—too remote to give me guestroom privileges at Hyde Park.)