A supersized soldier named Pedro Francisco (also called Peter) is a legend in his own time, on the battlefield for his displays of superior strength and fighting ability at various key battles during the American Revolution.
His extraordinary feats were told around the campfires of the Revolutionary War, but his story starts quite differently than most. He was a foundling (infant abandoned by its parents and found by others), of aristocratic origins.
On June 23, 1765, in a colonial port of Virginia, a boat was seen through the thick murky fog. The eyewitness account of James Durell of Petersburg, Virginia states: “… a foreign ship sailed up the James River, dropped anchor opposite the dock, and lowered a longboat to the water with two sailors in it.
Then a boy of about five years was handed down and rowed to the wharf, where he was deposited and abandoned.
. The boat returned, quickly, to its ship.
The ship weighed anchor at once, sailed back down the James River, and was never heard from again.”
A dock worker had unloaded a small child, but the ship disappeared as quickly as it came.
By daybreak, the pier came to life, in City Point, Virginia,
Waterfront residents and dock workers gathered curiously around a young boy about the age of 5, asking questions.
His dress was that of a nobleman’s child – big for his age, with black hair and striking eyes.
His little coat was expensive linen trimmed in fine lace.
His shoe buckles were silver, each forming letters “P“ and “F“.
He did not speak English, but what sounded like a mixture of Portuguese, French, and Spanish
Once calm, he knows he is unable to speak their language, but able to keep repeating his name as Pedro Francisco. Thus, the local citizens called him Peter Francisco.
At first, the authorities gave Peter a bed in which to sleep in a warehouse on the wharf, and the local housewives saw to it that he was well-fed.
Eventually, a woman came along, taking the child by the hand, and led him away, saying “I’ll take him to the poorhouse.
They’ll know what to do with him.”
Soon after young Pedro was taken to Prince George County poorhouse.
His strange story was the talk of Tidewater, Virginia.
Many became curious and he soon came to the attention of Anthony Winston, a local judge and close relative of Virginia firebrand Patrick Henry.
Winston purchased the boy to work for him on his large plantation near New Stone in Buckingham County, where he would grow up.
Judge Winston was a prominent planter and a dedicated patriot who vigorously opposed the tyranny of the King of England.
In fact, many conferences were held at Hunting Tower where resentment brewed toward England.
While living in this atmosphere, Francisco understood at an early age the real importance of the growing struggle for independence of the colonies.
After he mastered English, the boy could communicate with his new guardian, several vague recollections.
It wasn’t much- but included his name, of which he was absolutely sure.
He described a comfortable home near the ocean, a beautiful garden, and some minor memories that made his noble origins seem quite probable.
He thought his mother spoke French; and his father spoke another language, though which one – he couldn’t say.
On a day when Pedro and his younger sister were playing in the garden, rough men seized them.
The girl fought and got away, but Pedro was bound, blindfolded, gagged, and carried to a ship.
After a seemingly endless voyage, he was put ashore on City Point dock.
Owing to his youth, he could not recall enough family information for the Judge to track down his parents.
In Lieu, Francisco was given shelter and minimal education.
The theory of his arrival in North America as a boy is thought the result of his parents being involved in some political intrigue possibly spirited away to protect him.
Winston never learned anything more about the boy’s past, but about 200 yrs later a historian’s investigation led to the solution of Pedro Francisco’s early life mystery.
John E. Manahan, argued convincingly that Francisco’s original home had been at Porto Judeu, on Terceira Island in the Portuguese-held Azores.
Why Francisco was abducted remains a mystery, but there are some theories.
Piracy was a phenomenon that was not limited to the Caribbean region. Golden Age pirates roamed off the coast of North America, Africa and the Caribbean.
So the first theory is that he was kidnapped for ransom, as he was from a wealthy family for ransom.
A second stems from an Azorean legend, the Francisco family, fearful of political enemies, engineered Pedro’s abduction as a means of protecting him from some grisly form of reprisal planned against his parents or the sailors intended to sell the boy into indentured servitude, which more or less became his fate.
Rather than provide Pedro with formal schooling, Winston put him to work doing chores around his plantation, a 3,600-acre estate known as Hunting Tower.
Pedro reached his adult height and weight at 14 yrs old. He stood at least 6’6 and weighed in at 260lb, at a time when most American men averaged around 5’6.
Major Caleb Gibbs of General George Washington’s personal guard, wanted all the guards to be tall and the same height.
He decided on 5’10 as that was the tallest that could be a requirement and yet find 150 men to fill the ranks!
Pedro was a foot taller and 100lbs heavier than the average American- a giant in his time.
Already of surpassing stature by his early teens, Pedro was instructed in the brawny trade of a blacksmith –an obvious calling for a person of his size and amazing strength.
Judge Winston was the delegate from Buckingham County.
In March 1775, when he was not yet fifteen, Francisco went along with Judge Winston to Richmond for a meeting of the Virginia Convention.
Tempers flared as delegates hotly debated the colony’s relationship with Great Britain.
Pedro contributed to the excitement when he broke up one tavern dispute by lifting the combatants into the air and banging them together until they ceased their argument.
It was during this convention, the lad stood outside St. John’s Church and heard through the window the renowned speech by Patrick Henry that ended:
I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Like most who heard it , Pedro adopted the cause of American Independence and was filled with the spirit of patriotism, though he was only 14 years old!
Pedro, as the story goes, was ready right there to take up arms against the British oppressors, but Judge Winston prevailed upon him to wait: though large enough to go to war, he was not quite old enough.
The prudent Judge insisted, he was still too young and to wait at least a year.
He complied with the Judges request, and continued to apprentice in blackmith work which suited his build and frame, and gave him skills he could put to use in the Continental Army.
In 1776 Winston relented, at the age 16 Pedro enlisted with the 10th Virginia regiment as a private – duly noted for his size and strength.
His military career closely followed the course of the War of Independence.
Francisco saw action at Brandywine, Germantown, and Fort Mifflin near the Delaware River.
During these actions of the Philadelphia Campaign, he endured wounds that laid him low for two weeks while Washington’s Army was encamped at Valley Forge.
Congress selected General Horatio Gates, the unpleasant intriguer whose victory at Saratoga in 1777 had puffed up his reputation, as the man to check the Redcoats’ advance in the South.
British strategy called for the capture of Savannah and the securing of Georgia, to be followed by a move north into South Carolina.
General Washington attempted to prevent British General Sir William Howe from capturing the fledgling nation’s capital, Philadelphia.
When Francisco learned of the enemy’s intentions, he joined the Virginia militia and is best known for wielding a six-foot broadsword, Francisco was a member of the Virginia Continental Line
After a stay of several months in New Jersey following his enlistment, Francisco received his first taste of action on September 11th, 1777 at Brandywine Creek in neighboring Pennsylvania, where General Washington, the commander of the Continental Army, attempted to halt the advance of some 12,500 British troops under the command of General William Howe.
The 10th Virginia and a few other regiments were detailed to serve as the rear guard.
To accomplish this very dangerous assignment the 10th took up a position in Sandy Hollow.
Howe’s British Regulars had been pursuing the beaten Americans without encountering a great deal of resistance until they came up against the 10th.
The ensuing battle raged for 45 minutes with casualties being exceptionally high.
Outflanked by Howe, the Americans suffered a defeat in the ensuing battle, and Washington’s Army was forced into a disorderly retreat.
Though Francisco was a member held the line at a narrow defile for a crucial 45 minutes, allowing the rest of the force to withdraw and preventing an all-out rout.
Although the British eventually forced the Americans to retreat, this fight nevertheless restored the Continentals’ morale, for they had almost held the day and thus now knew that the British were vulnerable.
Two of those Americans who were wounded were the young Marquis de LaFayette who distinguished himself during that engagement and Private Pedro Francisco.
Both men were treated by some Quakers.
While convalescing in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Pedro encountered the Marquis de Lafayette, who as a twenty-year-old major general in Washington’s Army also had been wounded in the fray.
Their vast differences in rank notwithstanding, the two young men recuperated together and reportedly became friends.
Francisco’s wound appears to have been slight, as he was in action again on October 4th, 1777 after he rejoined his regiment in time for the Battle of Germantown, 5 miles north of Philadelphia.
Francisco’s next action was the defense of Fort Mifflin which defended the approach by ship to Philadelphia.
A British army captured the city of Philadelphia in 1777, but supplying the city required unobstructed access to the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Delaware River.
Two American forts, Mercer and Mifflin, commanded the river below the city, and the British army and navy began a concerted effort to reduce them.
British warships worked their way close to Fort Mercer on the New Jersey shore.
The British attack on this Ft Mifflin, however, was one of the fiercest of the war.
The Fort had to fall in order for the British to capture the American capital.
General Howe attacked it from both land and sea.
The Royal Navy reduced the earthen and wood fort to ruins, but it took from October 15th to November 16th – a full month.
During that time the 450 man garrison inflicted horrible damage on their attackers.
Under heavy bombardment, a fire broke out near Augusta’s stern that soon spread throughout the ship.
HMS Augusta (64-guns) and HMS Merlin (16-guns) ran aground and were destroyed.
The British pressed the attack and by Mid-November had reduced the fort to rubble.
The Americans lost an estimated 250 men.
Those few that survived escaped in the middle of the night to Fort Mercer -under ferocious British shelling, forcing the defenders into the wintry hell of Valley Forge, where Francisco was hospitalized – two agonizing months.
It is safe to assume that Francisco suffered through the rest of that terrible winter with the rest of Washington¹s army.
In early 1778 the British decided to move their heaviest offensive activities into the South, partly because they expected to receive the backing of the many Loyalists they believed resided in the region.
With the coming of Spring 1778, greatly influenced by the Victory at Saratoga (October 1777) and the promise of France entering the war, General Howe decided that he could not successfully defend Philadelphia and New York City.
With New York being the better port, he chose to evacuate Philadelphia.
He further decided that the majority of his army would march across New Jersey to New York. He ordered General Charles, Lord Cornwallis to take charge of that retreat.
General George Washington was not about to let that opportunity pass him by.
He marched from Valley Forge and intercepted the rear guard of the retreating British Army at Monmouth Court House, New Jersey.
The ensuing battle was one of the most fiercely fought during the entire war.
This battle left the Americans in possession of the battlefield.
Cornwallis sized up his situation and decided to break off the action and escaped only by sneaking away in the middle of the night.
Private Pedro Francisco was severely wounded during the battle.
The wound was to cause him pain for the rest of his life.
Although already wounded twice, the sixteen-year-old re-enlisted!
For the next three years, Francisco followed his commanders through a succession of engagements.
In June 1778 during the Battle of Monmouth he was severely wounded in the right thigh when a musket ball found its mark.
The young soldier suffered a gunshot wound to his leg during this hard-fought rear-guard action.
His leg wound nagged him for the rest of his life.
While never fully recovering from this wound he would go on to distinguish himself in other battles.
The War in the north was pretty much a stalemate by the summer of 1779.
Washington ordered General “Mad” Anthony Wayne to make an attempt at capturing the strongly defended fortifications at Stony Point, New York.
16 yr old young Goliath, Pedro was selected to lead the attack with a twenty man ‘forlorn hope’.
Their assignment was to cut through the two rows of abatis with axes, as seen below.
During General “Mad” Anthony Wayne’s nighttime assault on the British fortification at Stony Point, New York along the Hudson River on July 16, 1779.
Francisco was in the vanguard that scaled the steep heights of the outer perimeter of the British defenders.
The American assault columns were spearheaded by two twenty-man commando units known as forlorn hopes; Francisco was in the northern one, commanded by a Lieutenant Gibbon.
A forlorn hope is a band of soldiers or other combatants chosen to take the vanguard in a military operation, such as a suicidal assault through the kill zone of a defended position, where the risk of casualties is high.
The ‘forlorn hope’ was led by Lt. Gibbon was the first over the British wall, Francisco was second.
17 of the 20 were either killed or wounded.
In the close-quarter hand-to-hand fighting that ensued, Francisco suffered a nine-inch laceration across his stomach but is credited with killing his adversary and two others.
Bleeding profusely he continued to fight, capturing the British flag in the process.
Mad Wayne mentions Francisco’s heroics in his after-action report to George Washington.
Captain William Evans, who was there, wrote:
“Francisco was the second man who entered the fort and distinguished himself in numerous acts of bravery and intrepidly – – in a charge which was ordered to be made around the flagstaff, he killed three British grenadiers and was the first man who laid hold of the flagstaff and being badly wounded laid on it that night and in the morning delivered it to Colonel Fleury.
These circumstances brought Mr. Francisco into great notice and his name was reiterated throughout the whole army.”
As soon as he was well enough to again take to the field he reenlisted in Colonel William Mayo’s Virginia Militia Regiment.
Gibbon’s unit sustained so many casualties that only he, Francisco, and one other man reached their objective, but the advance party was right behind them, and the Americans captured the fort.
After recuperating in Fishkill, New York, the wounded warrior bided his time with the troops in various locations until December 1779, when his three-year tour of duty expired and he returned to Virginia.
The first major clash in the South between the Continentals and the British Army came at the Battle of Camden on August 16, 1780.
The ensuing operations, known as the Camden Campaign, were an American fiasco, and Francisco was there to experience the unfortunate episode.
The South, which until this time had been spared the harsh realities of the war, suddenly found itself under severe attack by the British.
The British invaded with a fury they never could imagine.
In quick succession, Savannah and Charleston fell, with great loss of men and equipment.
What elements of the Continental Army were stationed in the South were lost when Charleston was captured.
Congress reacted by appointing Major General Horatio Gates, who was considered the victor of Saratoga, to command a newly raised army to drive the British out of the Carolinas.
The army that Gates commanded was comprised mostly of untried militia, poorly equipped and in need of everything, including food.
Gates insisted his command numbered 7,000 effective.
However, his Adjutant-General, Otho Williams, a competent officer, said the command actually numbered 3,052.
For reasons that have been lost to history, Gates chose to ignore the revised numbers and attacked General Cornwallis’ much superior force.
Never was a better opportunity presented to the British for a complete victory.
An event that foretold the coming disaster occurred on the night of August 15th, 1780.
The British Cavalry leader, Banastre Tarleton, known for his cruelty, surprised the American advance force consisting of Armand’s Legion.
The surprise was complete and the Legion was almost annihilated.
The survivors fell back to a position held by the American First Brigade.
This night’s action completely disrupted the American preparations for the forthcoming battle at Camden.
At dawn, the full force of Cornwallis’ army fell on the left flank of the American position.
Francisco, with the Virginia militia, was stationed there.
Few of the Virginia Militia had ever seen action, with the majority being untried recruits.
The results were predictable.
The militia broke under the first crushing blow of British regulars and fled from the battlefield.
In their headlong flight, they burst through the line of the Continentals throwing it into disorder.
General Gates, seeing this, and that the battle was all but lost, turned his horse and raced to the rear.
He did not stop until he was 60 miles away and was harshly criticized for this action, which bordered on cowardice.
Francisco and a handful of veterans tried to stem the tide but to no avail.
The situation was hopeless.
Francisco observed that a small field piece that had been placed between the Virginia and North Carolina militia line had been abandoned.
The outcome, an utter rout, was labeled by 19th c historian John Fiske, as the most disastrous defeat ever inflicted on an American army, but nonetheless, here Francisco achieved one of his most shining moments.
Overtaken and surrounded by the enemy during the panicked American retreat, the lad speared a British cavalryman with a bayonet, hoisted him from his horse, and then, climbing onto the steed himself, escaped through the enemy line by pretending to be a Tory sympathizer.
Catching up with his fleeing comrades, he gave the mount to his colonel, thereby saving the exhausted officer’s life.
Next, seeing that one of two American cannon was being left behind, Francisco –as the story has it–crouched beneath the 1,100-pound gun, lifted it from its carriage and onto his shoulder, and carried it off the field to prevent its falling into enemy hands.
Using his herculean strength he moved the 1,100 lb cannon to a position being held by a group of Continentals.
No wonder that, by the time of this battle, Francisco had acquired the reputation as the strongest man in America.
Francisco again returned to Virginia after the Camden debacle, but not for long.
When he learned that Captain Thomas Watkins was raising a cavalry troop, he got himself a horse and returned to action.
Captain Watkins’ troop joined Major General Nathaneal Greene’s command in the Carolina.
Greene, Washington’s favorite general, was sent to relieve Gates as commander of the Southern Army.
Greene’s tactics were to harass Lord Cornwallis’ forces but avoid a major engagement.
Greene assigned Watkins’ troop to Colonel William Washington’s regiment of light dragoons.
Colonel Washington was George Washington’s cousin.
Cornwallis was encountering stiff resistance in the South.
He lost one of his best officers, Patrick Ferguson, and many of his loyalist troops at the Battle of Kings Mountain.
At Cowpens, he lost the majority of his cavalry, under Banastre Tarleton.
Colonel William Washington’s cavalry, including Francisco, played an important role in the outcome at Cowpens.
With Cornwallis thus weakened, and most of his cavalry destroyed, General Greene decided to stand and fight.
He picked good ground and waited.
Nathaniel Greene
Soon they were involved in the crucial confrontation
On the 15th of March 1781, their armies met at Guilford Courthouse.
Continentals were now under the command of Nathanael Greene, who,unlike Gates, proved worthy of the confidence placed in him.
Greene’s actions in the South were instrumental in bringing the war to a victorious conclusion.
It was at Guilford Courthouse, where Francisco once again, gave a most astonishing performance.
General Greene elected to use the successful tactics employed by General Daniel Morgan at Cowpens.
He deployed two North Carolina Brigades of Militia in his front rank.
Their orders were to deliver two well-aimed volleys then retreat.
The second rank, three hundred yards back, consisted of two Virginia Brigades.
Their orders were to inflict as much punishment as they could on the attacking British then retreat.
His third and final line was his Continentals.
To protect his flanks, Greene stationed the Delaware Regiment of the Continentals on the right flank with Colonel William Washington Light Dragoons, including Francisco.
The famed Virginia Rifles supported Light Horse Harry Lee’s Cavalry on the left flank.
Unfortunately, Greene’s deployment, although similar to Morgan’s, was spaced too far apart.
By early afternoon, Lord Cornwallis had deployed his entire army in the line of battle and started the attack.
The first and second American lines performed well, and did as ordered.
They inflicted great damage to the attacking British.
The British then reformed and drove straight for the American center.
At a critical moment, William Washington’s dragoons charged the British flank.
The effect on the British was terrible.
Washington’s dragoons were among them slashing with their sabers.
Francisco is credited with dispatching eleven Grenadiers single-handed.
Benson J. Lossing, an early historian, wrote one British infantryman “pinned Francisco’s leg to his horse with a bayonet.
Francisco assisted his assailant to draw the bayonet forth, then, with a terrible force brought down his sword and cleft the poor fellow’s head from his shoulders.
As Cornwallis reeled from the attack, William Washington saw another opportunity and launched another charge, this time in hopes of capturing Cornwallis himself.
The British infantry drove them off with great loss.
For a second time that day Francisco was wounded.
Another bayonet was thrust into his leg and ripped upward to the hip.
Bleeding profusely, he turned his horse and retreated to safety, where he passed out from the wound and fell from his horse.
Francisco lay on the field, bleeding to death, when a Quaker named Robinson, who was searching the field for the wounded found him, barely alive.
He took him back to his farm, where he eventually recovered.
His herculean efforts at Guilford Court House did not go unnoticed.
Colonel Washington urged him to accept a commission.
General Greene presented him with an engraved razor case, inscribed: “Peter Francisco, New Stone, Buckingham County, Va, a tribute to his moral worth and valor.
From his comrade in arms, Nathanael Greene”.
Technically, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse was a British victory.
Greene’s soldiers retreated after a hard-fought contest, but it was a Pyrrhic one –the losses suffered by the British were so grave that his army was effectively wrecked.
Cornwallis later wrote, “The Americans fought like demons ” in what was one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
A monument at Guilford Court House National Military Park commemorates Francisco’s attests to his efforts:
”To Peter Francisco, a giant in stature, might, and courage who slew in this engagement eleven of the enemy with his own broad sword rendering himself thereby perhaps the most famous Private soldier of the Revolutionary War.”
Having suffered five wounds for his country’s cause, Francisco could easily have been excused from further service at this late date in the war, but his military career was not quite over, though he thought it to be.
If storming the seemingly impregnable Stony Point in the front of the forlorn hope, toting 1,100-pound cannon on his broad shoulder from the midst of a battlefield, and slaying eleven redcoats with a 5 ft broadsword in one battle wasn’t enough, there was more adventure waiting for Francisco.
The weapon of which Lossing spoke was a specially-made six-foot broadsword with a five-foot blade that had been delivered to Francisco shortly before the battle on order from General Washington.
Perhaps he is best known to history for “Francisco’s Fight” an event that took place after Guilford Court House and has mythic proportions.
Francisco agreed that on his homebound journey he would keep tabs on the troop movements of the infamous Banastre Tarleton who was wreaking havoc on American forces in Virginia with his special cavalry unit.
He volunteered as a scout to monitor the Virginia operations of Banastre Tarleton and his horsemen.
While out on a mission, Pedro stopped off at the inn of one Ben Ward.
Peter retired to a nearby stand of trees to recover from his excursion.
After a few minutes, two of Tarleton’s cavalrymen approached him.
He held his empty musket up, sidewise, a gesture of surrender.
As one of the cavalrymen reached for it, he swung it around, with all his might, knocking the cavalryman from his saddle, and in a split second thrust his bayonet into the other cavalryman.
He then picked up one of the cavalryman’s swords, mounted his horse, and galloped away.
He covered a short distance and encountered his own Colonel William Mayo, then a prisoner being escorted by an officer and guard.
Where there was an attempt by Tarleton’s men to capture the “Virginia Giant” where they had him pinned down in a tavern he had killed or mortally wounded at least three of eleven of Tarleton’s men.
During the standoff, he came out of the tavern – to face nine captors announcing his arrest.
Adding insult to injury they ordered him to hand over the buckles of his shoes which were made of silver.
If they wanted them Francisco said they would have to take them themselves.
As the cavalryman bent to do just that, Pedro Francisco snatched his captor’s saber and struck him a blow on the head.
A fierce brawl broke out.
The wounded trooper fired a pistol, grazing Francisco in the side for his sixth wound of the war; Francisco at the same moment cut the soldier’s hand.
In the fracas, Francisco nearly severed off the hand of the soldier whose sword he had managed to secure.
Another Redcoat took aim at him with his musket only to have it misfire.
in that instant the Virginia Giant seized the musket from the soldier who shot at him, clutched his opponent throwing him off his horse, and made good his getaway.
Another cavalryman aimed a musket at the American, but when it misfired Francisco wrenched it from the soldier’s grasp, knocked him from the saddle, and escaped on his horse.
He charged cutting down both red coats, then presented his captured horse to the Colonel.
Both then escaped.
Colonel Mayo never forgot the incident, and it is from him we learned the details.
After the war, Colonel Mayo presented Francisco with a dress sword, which is now in storage at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond.
Perhaps Francisco learned from his efforts to save Colonel Mayo, that his height made him an excellent target as an infantryman, but his great reach gave him a definite advantage as a cavalryman.
With this feat of daring-do, Francisco’s career of terrorizing British troops ended.
In several instances, he performed exploits of such an extraordinary and courageous nature that by war’s end he became generally recognized as the most famous private soldier of the Revolutionary War on October 19, 1781.
Later that year after his recovery he was able to join Washington’s Army near Yorktown, Virginia, and was granted, the supreme satisfaction of being present and witnessed Cornwallis’ surrender in October 1781.
Pedro Francisco then returned to Richmond in the company of Lafayette.
As the two were strolling in front of St. John’s Church, a young lady who was leaving the building tripped and was caught by the strapping young veteran.
That was how Francisco first encountered Susannah Anderson, the woman he would marry.
Susannah was the daughter of Captain James Anderson (who has a storied past of his own) and his wife Elizabeth Tyler Baker Anderson.
The Andersons were of social distinction and owned a plantation called “The Mansion.”
Before giving any thought to marriage, however, Pedro Francisco sought the education he had earlier been denied.
The story of his determination to rise above his humble status is as inspiring as the tales of his battlefield achievements.
He went to school, sat his hulking form down next to the children, and within three years was reading the classics.
At the same time that Pedro Francisco was pursuing learning, he worked as a blacksmith.
During this time a diarist named Samuel Shepard observed him at work and recorded that he never before saw muscles as great and developed in so young a man, or boy, he is still a boy . . . his great hands, long broad the fingers square, the thumbs heavy and larger in the nail than the usual great toe.
His feet are as exceptional for length and thickness as is his whole body.
His shoulders like some old statue, like a figure of Michelangelo’s imagination like his Moses but not like David.
His jaw is long, heavy, the nose powerful, the slant [of his] forehead partly concealed by uncombed black hair of a shaggy aspect. His voice was light, surprising me as if a bull should bellow in a whimper.
Other contemporary accounts emphasize Francisco’s gentle nature and note that his prominent traits of character for temperance, good temper, and charity were no less striking.
With his marriage to Susannah in December 1784, Pedro Francisco became a member of the landed gentry, a part he played well. 
He displayed a taste for bright-colored waistcoats, high hats, and silk stockings.
He acquired a reputation for his hunting and fishing outings and his house parties, at which he would display his fine voice, described by one visitor as having power, depth, and sweetness of tone, with wonderful potency.
His earnestness irresistible.
Peter gave up his blacksmith shop in Curdsville and moved to Charlotte County as early as March 1785.
He purchased 250 acres on Louse Creek where he built a log house.
Locals used to tell of a giant named Peter Francisco who built his log house and carried logs fourteen feet long by fourteen inches on his shoulders to make the sills.
Nearby, where the log house once stood, is a free-flowing spring that Peter constructed by walling up the sides with large rocks fitted carefully together.
Across the top, Francisco had mounted a huge flat rock weighing about 800 pounds. Tradition holds that Francisco carried this rock from a nearby mountain!
He sold his plantation on Dry Creek in Cumberland and, apparently, moved his family to this ordinary (located just west of the intersection of present-day Routes 40 and 15). They did not live there long, however, but moved to another ordinary at New Store where they resided for four years.
Several interesting stories have been recorded about Peter while he lived at New Store.
Samuel Shepard III wrote that in December 1805 a Veterans Reunion was held at Maysville (Buckingham Courthouse). ” … some two dozen veterans of the war gathered at the courthouse for a reunion … The hero of the occasion was Peter Francisco, who entertained us with exhibitions of his strength … We sang some songs, talked … ”
Many of the stories told about Pedro Francisco in this period of his life are awestruck recountings of his strength.
He amused guests by holding two 160-pound men at arm’s length above his head and rescued a cow and her calf from a bog by picking one up under each arm and simultaneously carrying them out of the mud.
Not surprisingly, Francisco folklore includes stories of arrogant tough guys foolish enough to test his strength.
One husky chap, a Mr. Pamphlet, reportedly traveled all the way from Kentucky for this purpose in 1806.
“When Francisco learned the object of his visit, he handed him a bunch of willow switches and told him to whip away to his heart’s content. The strong man was taken aback … and asked to feel his weight.
He lifted Francisco … and remarked that he was quite heavy.
‘Now, Mr. Pamphlet,’ said Francisco, ‘let me feel your weight,’ and lifting the sportive visitor twice in the air, the third time threw him over a fence four feet high into the public road.
Pamphlet was mightily surprised … and called out … that Francisco would do him a favor if he would pitch his horse after him … The story goes that Francisco led the horse to the fence, and with his left arm under the horse’s breast and the right one behind him, put him over as requested
… Mr. Pamphlet mounted and took his way back .”
The embarrassed Kentuckian headed for home, enjoined by his good-natured host to call again when you are passing.
When Henry Clay visited Francisco at the old Bell Tavern in Richmond in 1826, Peter related the above story to him. Clay laughed and said, “I am glad to know that one of the mischievous Pamphlet family has been conquered.”
Few records have survived from Francisco’s time at Locust Grove. The little information that remains suggests that the farm was typical of those found around Virginia at the turn of the nineteenth century.
A personal property tax inventory taken in 1815 indicates the presence in the household of seven slaves over twelve years old and one between nine and twelve, as well as six horses and twelve head of cattle.
No carriage, watch, clock, or mahogany furniture was found, but the house’s occupants were taxed for a mirror with a gilded frame, two goblets made of cut glass, three pictures, and an unknown number of small gilt frames.
This record indicates that, while Francisco was not among the Virginia gentry, he was most probably among the better-off residents of the county at the time.
As Francisco grew older and rich in renown, honors and rewards came his way, Congress granted him a monthly pension.
In December 1794, Peter married Catherine Fauntleroy Brooke, who was a relative of his first wife’s, and they moved to Francisco’s home in Cumberland.
It was evidently constructed sometime before 1794, as Francisco took up residence in the house in that year, living there until the mid-1820s.
Francisco himself had local ties, having grown up at Hunting Towers, the nearby estate of Patrick Henry‘s uncle Judge Anthony Winston.
It is unknown how he came to own the land upon which Locust Grove sits; family tradition holds that he received it from local planter James Anderson, who had been the father of his first wife, Susannah.
In any event, he lived there with his second wife, Catherine Brooke, with whom he raised four children.
Francisco’s second wife Catherine died on October 23, 1821 leaving Peter alone again.
Three years later, when the Marquis de Lafayette made a triumphal return to the United States, the celebrated visitor made a point of visiting his old hospital mate and, in 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette made his now-famous tour of America.
Francisco escorted him on the Virginia portion of the tour.
Francisco had also married again, this time to a widowed niece of Governor Edmund Randolph and the acquaintance of the widow of Major West, Mary Grymes West in Richmond while visiting friends.
Mary and Francisco were married in July 1823.
She persuaded him to leave the countryside for a more comfortable life in Richmond, where he worked as the Serjeant-at-Arms of the Senate of Virginia, and in which city he remained until his death.
He later served as a doorkeeper in the State Capitol, where his funeral was held after he passed away, from appendicitis, on January 16, 1831.
The House of Delegates adjourned and paid him the honor of a public funeral at which the Right Reverend R. C. Moore took note of Francisco’s degree of bodily strength superior to that of any man of modern times . . . exerted in defense of the country which gave him [a home].
The passage of this American Hercules from mysterious waif to war hero to the country squire, and from the Azores to the Virginia countryside, is surely one the most intriguing and unusual stories to be found in the early annals of the United States.
Peter/Pedro Francisco
With his three wives, he had six children.
He was buried with full military and Masonic honors at the Shockoe Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia.
In the 1890s the Daughters of the American Revolution planted thirteen ‘Liberty Trees’ in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
Each tree had soil from a Revolutionary War Soldier’s grave placed there to nourish it. For Virginia, the earth was from Peter Francisco’s grave.
Since 1953, March 15th has been officially recognized in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Virginia as Peter Francisco Day. He is the only enlisted man from the Revolutionary War to be so honored, and rightfully so.
The Society of the Descendants of Peter Francisco was founded a few years ago and is open to his descendants and “Friends” (individuals who are interested in the Society and approved by the Board of Directors).
Four states have proclaimed, March 15th, the date of the Battle of Guilford Court House, Peter Francisco Day, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Virginia.
In New Bedford, Massachusetts, home to a large community of Portuguese-Americans, his memory is particularly cherished.