Ellis Woods Cemetery ~ Revolutionary War in Pennsylvania

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:04]So, greetings from Pennsylvania. Once again, welcome back to our series on the Revolutionary War here in Pennsylvania.

[00:00:09]Just earlier earlier today, we got done with the Battle of Barren Hill down near a place called Plymouth Meeting or near Norristown.

[00:00:17]But on the way home, we're going to stop here at a place called Ellis Woods. There is a Revolutionary War cemetery down here that I did not know about until um one of my more recent videos on this series, like I think we did the Yellow Springs War Hospital. Several viewers mentioned this location, which I was not aware of.

[00:00:38]I'm glad that they mentioned it to me.

[00:00:39]This is called the Ellis Woods Cemetery.

[00:00:41]And appropriately, this is Ellis Woods Road.

[00:00:45]Yeah, Ellis Woods.

[00:00:47]1777 to '78.

[00:00:52]And it is just a cemetery for these soldiers.

[00:00:57]No one else buried here.

[00:00:59]Kind of a fenced off.

[00:01:03]Got the flag.

[00:01:05]Big beautiful trees and down here, there are 17 unknown soldiers buried from the war.

[00:01:18]And from my own research, a number of websites mentioned that this place is relatively unknown.

[00:01:26]It's kind of a shame.

[00:01:28]It's a beautiful little spot here.

[00:01:32]But yeah, there's some a little bit of controversy, not bad controversy about who these men were and why they're buried here.

[00:01:42]But we'll talk about that a little bit later.

[00:01:48]Yeah, so there are 17 flags here.

[00:01:51]They have the old style flag with the 13 colonies.

[00:02:04]>> Each one has the the plaque too for the Revolutionary War.

[00:02:11]I guess these are hold so they're for holding flowers or something.

[00:02:15]Nice little bench up there.

[00:02:17]Let's see if there's something written up here.

[00:02:23]Um looks like there used to be a plaque right here of some sort but it's gone. I thought there might be some kind of signage here talking about this location.

[00:02:33]But there's not.

[00:02:37]Just the 17 flags.

[00:02:41]So who were these men? History has long forgotten their names. Um they were part of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army under Washington's command, you know, during that uh the Philly campaign.

[00:02:58]It's two ideas. One is that there was a temporary war hospital nearby, like in an old barn, that they were buried here from that.

[00:03:09]Although there are those that disagree with that theory.

[00:03:12]Some think they are just men um that were unable There are different times where Washington's army retreated back and forth across the Schuylkill River during the Philly campaign.

[00:03:22]Some think these are just men you know, the sick, diseased men, wounded, who were not able to move on and cross the ford towards Philly again.

[00:03:34]They perished before that and they were buried here.

[00:03:39]Either way, they they were, you know, real men part of that army.

[00:03:45]They didn't die, you know, gloriously in battle, you know, as history likes to focus on sometimes, but just with war most casualties are the sick and the diseased.

[00:03:59]But regardless, here they lie and we don't even know their names.

[00:04:05]Kind of reminds me of similar similar locations. We did that recently did that one um site it was over in East Vincent Township where there was 22 unmarked graves.

[00:04:17]Over along the Delaware River right before Washington's crossing of the Delaware.

[00:04:23]In that battle, there's a number of graves, unmarked graves.

[00:04:27]This has a has a similar feel.

[00:04:32]Tell you what, it's a beautiful spot for them here.

[00:04:37]There are some of them do have a stone.

[00:04:40]I'm not sure if that's an original.

[00:04:41]Let's step over here.

[00:04:43]Not sure if these are original marker stones for them.

[00:04:48]There's my shadow. Hold on a second.

[00:04:50]You know, that's the original marker stones marking the graves or or not. But they are all buried in a row here.

[00:05:05]Over here are some stones.

[00:05:11]And I find these kind of interesting.

[00:05:16]I don't know.

[00:05:18]Some of them look squared off.

[00:05:21]Anyway.

[00:05:22]They also look like they were part of something.

[00:05:25]They were marker stones at one point or something. I don't know.

[00:05:31]Beautiful area. It's got like woods and pasture down there.

[00:05:40]Yeah.

[00:05:42]Kind of a a neat spot. Like I said, very little information about it online, too.

[00:05:49]I never knew about it. But so several viewers mentioned it like I said, I wouldn't never have known about it.

[00:05:55]A brief little sit on the bench.

[00:06:03]Yeah.

[00:06:05]You know, sometimes we forget about men like this.

[00:06:11]I'm quite sure the story is, you know, if this place was lost to time. You know, sometimes places like this only the locals remember it.

[00:06:21]And then it gets kind of re-recognized at a later date.

[00:06:29]You would imagine, you know, signing up for the Continental Army, you're hoping to survive the war or thinking if you do die, you might die like say gloriously in battle and be remembered that way, but but just to get, you know, dysentery or smallpox or something and to to die that way.

[00:06:46]I don't think any of the men thought that that would happen to them.

[00:06:53]But that is war like I said, most a lot of times in war we think most people die from wounds or, you know, directly in battle, but most deaths occur from disease and things like that.

[00:07:12]It's a little more different today in our modern wars cuz we do have better medicine than they had back then.

[00:07:17]We We talked about recently at the Yellow Springs War Hospital how that hospital had some new innovative ideas like, you know, giving them clean bedsheets and clean clean bandages and using vinegar to wash hands before working on the next person. Things that we kind of take for granted today, but back then it was being wounded or having a disease is pretty awful.

[00:07:38]You didn't have like your our modern treatments we have today.

[00:07:43]But yeah, this is a nice spot.

[00:07:47]Kind of a quaint but sobering spot.

[00:07:51]One of the nicer spots that we've seen uh some of these men buried at, to be honest.

[00:07:57]In this like shaded grove here.

[00:08:01]So, thumbs up to I forgot what township we're in here.

[00:08:06]Anyway.

[00:08:08]But good job of this maintaining this place. Nice beautiful spot.

[00:08:16]You'll be honest there, these men there you know, they their last days were not all that great. You know, being when you die of diseases like that, so it's kind of a nice spot to remain at rest.

[00:08:43]All right, but we're going to leave this peaceful spot and start We're going to turn the Jeep towards home.

[00:08:51]Yes, so thanks to the viewers who mentioned this spot to me. I think there were two of you who did that comment to that one video, so I didn't I guess I never knew this existed.

[00:08:59]I did research on different war hospitals and cemeteries, and this one never came up, so thank you. But anyway, I'm going to head home. As always, thanks for watching, folks. Thanks for coming along with me, and hopefully we'll see you on the next one.