The name Molly Pitcher can be found in a number of New Jersey locations, including one of the Garden State’s most esteemed signs of recognition—a named highway service area. We set out to learn more about this historical figure, and were met with not one but several possibilities about her true identity. Read on for more about this mysterious historical figure, Molly Pitcher.

^ The Molly Pitcher Inn in Red Bank

Who Was Molly Pitcher?

Unless you visit the Monmouth County Historical Association Museum in Freehold or stay at the sumptuous Molly Pitcher Inn on the Navesink River, or happen across the Molly Pitcher Village Apartments in Red Bank, or fill your gas tank at the Molly Pitcher service area in Middlesex, or live along Molly Pitcher Boulevard in Whiting; chances are you aren’t thinking much, if at all, about Molly Pitcher. Her name and the various stories that accompany it haven’t been part of the popular imagination since the mid-19th century.

^ Monmouth County Historical Association Museum in Freehold provides an exhibition centered on the Battle at Monmouth 

The period preceding the Civil War was a good time for American folk heroes. The question of “What will we be?” was met with myth-making about idealistic but scrappy founders who’d fought to establish the nation. Political nationalism mixed with Romantic era sentiment to result in artworks and monuments that celebrated real and fictional historical figures from what was still a very young nation.

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Molly Pitcher was both real and fictional. The name represents an historical icon made to exemplify womanly courage and patriotism. She was, in reality, more than one woman. Historical mythmaking is responsible for the creation of a singular persona to embody the amalgamation of women who fought in the American Revolutionary War despite punitive restrictions.

^ Commemorative plaque on view at the Molly Pitcher Inn

Some women went to war following their husbands, brothers, and sons. Some for reasons solely their own. The person most officially tied to the character of Molly Pitcher was named Mary with possible surnames of Hayes, Ludwig, or McCauly. She is said to have been born in 1754 near Trenton, New Jersey, and to have died in 1832 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In this telling, “Captain Molly” bravely took her husband’s place at the gun or, alternatively, the cannon when he was struck down at the Battle of Monmouth.

Why the Name Molly Pitcher?

Molly has been used as a nickname for Mary, Margaret, and for Martha. That is not likely the only reason it was the name used to represent women who fought in the Revolutionary War. A Moll is a term that once meant somebody’s gal. It was a casual sobriquet and could be used with affection to suggest “my babe is not an uppity snob. She stands by me through thick and thin” by an innkeeper about his wife or, in a later era, by a gangster about his girlfriend. “Molly” was used like a “Jane Doe.” A Molly was an everywoman.

Pitcher is more obvious as a signifier. The women who followed regiments onto the battlefields worked all kinds of essential tasks. They attended to gory medical needs as best they could. They washed laundry and made food. And, of course, they were constantly bringing well water to camp — a la Molly Pitcher.

The Many Faces of a Folk Hero

^ Detail of oil on copper plaque painted by unknown artist (after 1856), on view at the Monmouth County Historical Association Museum

The figures depicting Molly Pitcher are made shy and demure when the intent is to show her as a paragon of femininity who was pushed by her overwhelming love for her husband and her country into a brave act of violence that was clearly against her better nature. This ladylike Molly is shown looking down with timidity and respect as she is presented by Baron von Steuben to General George Washington in the dramatic scene painted by Dennis Malone Carter that hangs in the Monmouth County Historical Association Museum. Senior Curator, Joe Zemla, notes that the depictions of Molly Pitcher with Washington tend to pull together significant people and landmarks creating totally fictional representations. These memorializing artworks were often created three-quarters of a century after the events they depict. They were more storytelling devices than historical records.

^ Molly Pitcher Being Presented to George Washington by Dennis Malone Carter (1856), on view at the Monmouth County Historical Association Museum

When Molly Pitcher is not shown as a delicate and reserved heroine, she is given muscles and requisite grit for the gruesome job in which she has enlisted herself. A lithograph printed by Currier and Ives shows her shoving a ramrod into a cannon, and her wounded husband on the ground at her feet. This Molly is fully capable and hardened to the task at hand. She is the center of the composition with her red skirt mirroring the blood of her husband and the eyes of the soldier behind her focused upon her. Her face and figure are not made to be pretty and slight as is sometimes the case. She clenches her jaw and goes after the enemy. This is her war.

^ Detail of lithograph by Nathaniel Currier, printed by Currier and Ives (before 1872), on view at the Monmouth County Historical Association Museum

Women of War

The “strong woman of war” motif of this second Molly Pitcher might call to mind the strength of Rosie the Riveter who captured the hearts of World War II America. She is also reminiscent of the many Renaissance paintings of Judith with the head she removed from the body of General Holofernes. Judith, the wartime assassin, is a frightened slip of a girl when painted by Cristofano Allori, Caravaggio, and so many other men. Art history students’ perennial favorite painter, Artemisia Gentileschi, is one of a few artists to make her Judith strong and willful. These two varied characterizations of an iconic woman warrior tell us more about the artists’ intentions than about the historical figure they purport to celebrate.

^ Detail from back panel of 19th-century chair, on view at the Monmouth County Historical Association Museum

The decision to paint, sculpt, and etch women of war can be connected to an array of motivations. The demure Molly Pitcher is shown as entirely loyal and devoted but in no way headstrong or guided by individualistic goals. The burly Molly Pitcher is purported by some scholars to be a manifestation of women seeking rights and proclaiming their capability in both society and as independent people at the very time when Lucretia Mott, the Grimke sisters, and others called for voting rights for women and abolition of slavery. There are also scholarly interpretations of the strong Molly as a satirical response to the burgeoning 19th-century movement for women’s rights. Then again, as Rosie the Riveter was meant to inspire stoic bravery on the home front in the 20th century; Molly could be held up in the Civil War period as a paragon of strength.

Eeking Meaning from a Legend

Just as there are many differing artistic depictions of Molly Pitcher, her historic origin story breaks into competing narratives. The legend of New Jersey’s own woman warrior icon, Mary Ludwig Hays McCauly, has a historical contender in Pennsylvania’s Margaret Corbin. Additionally, a Deborah Sampson of Massachusetts emerges as yet another woman known to have fought in the Continental Army. Deborah Sampson’s story, in a parallel to that of the Hua Mulan of Disney fame, includes dressing as a man and fighting under the name Robert Shirtliff until she contracted a fever and was caught out by medics. Another of the handful of named camp followers, Sarah Osborn Benjamin, left a record of official documents telling her dramatic wartime story when she applied for a soldier’s pension. All in all, there may have been tens of thousands of Molly Pitchers. It is unsurprising that they mainly remained anonymous and uncelebrated as individuals. Records of their efforts reveal less than favorable attitudes from their contemporaries. They were described as loose for living amongst men and lice-ridden because they most certainly were.

^ Print from woodcut engraving by William Van Ingen (1859), on view at the Monmouth County Historical Association Museum

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In the end, Molly Pitcher is a catch-all for a role. The artworks, monuments, and landmarks that celebrate her come together to point toward real history through colorful legend. But her story is still relevant today. Perhaps we might gain insight into the insatiable desire in this era to share imaginative popular versions of major events that meld fact and fiction into something that we can use to understand ourselves and our time.