How Did Mary Mccauley Hays Helpful

Mary McCauley Hays was a very helpful woman. She was a women who lived during the Revolutionary War. Not only did she help the soldiers when they felt sick or tired, but she even fought on the front line when her husband was overcome by the heat (McCauley). She proved to be a very brave and capable woman throughout her entire life.

McCauley was born on October 13th 1750 in Trenton, New Jersey to a family of farmers (McCauley). Her father, John George Ludwig Hass, was a German who emigrated from the Palatinate in 1730 (McCauley). She worked on her father’s dairy farm up until she turned fifteen and moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania to become a servant (Hays). She worked for the family of Dr. William Irvine. Apparently though, McCauley’s father arranged for her to have the job even though she was be very far from home. As a servant, she cared for children, cleaned the house and washed clothes (McCauley). In 1769, when Mary was sixteen, she was married to William Hays, an immigrant from Ireland who worked as a barber in Carlisle (Dodyk 146).

McCauley truly showed her helpfulness in when she was 24 years old. Her husband unlisted as a gunner in the Pennsylvania State Regiment of Artillery in May 1777. The war had been going

Many of those people had fallen on hard times. In 1822, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania passed a bill that granted McCauley forty dollars and forty dollars a month for the rest of her life. At first, the bill makes it seem like she is given the money because she is a widow, but what the bill says makes it clear that it was because of the way she fought in the war. It reads, "For the relief of Molly M’Kolly for her services during the revolutionary war." (Mary) or the rest of her life, McCauley lived in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, living with her son and his wife. Her seven grandchildren provided her with a way to still be a very helpful person before she died.