15 Facts About John Pitcairn

Major John Pitcairn was a British military officer.

John Pitcairn was born in 1722 in Dysart, a port town in Fife, Scotland.

John Pitcairn's parents were the Reverend David Pitcairn and Katherine Pitcairn.

John Pitcairn entered the Marines when he was twenty-three, was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1746, served in Canada during the French and Indian War as a captain, and was promoted to major in 1771.

John Pitcairn was respected by the citizens in Boston as one of the more reasonable officers in the occupying force.

John Pitcairn's horse was shot from under him, and he lost a pair of matched pistols when the column's baggage train was abandoned.

At the Battle of Bunker Hill two months later, Major John Pitcairn commanded a reserve force of about 300 Marines.

John Pitcairn was carried back to Boston, where he died of his wound within hours.

John Pitcairn is buried at the Old North Church in Boston.

The uniform John Pitcairn is dressed in was not actually adopted by the Marines until the 1780s.

John Pitcairn is shown falling at the crest during its capture from the American force, while he was actually shot starting to climb the hill.

Major John Pitcairn is depicted in Trumbull's painting of the Battle of Lexington in the US Capitol rotunda.

John Pitcairn married Elizabeth Dalrymple, a daughter of Robert Dalrymple, in 1745.

John Pitcairn was the first person to sight an unknown island in the south Pacific, and the captain named the island Pitcairn's Island in the boy's honour.

Later, in 1770, Robert John Pitcairn was aboard an East India Company ship that vanished without trace en route to the Comoro Islands.