Camp Security

Dick Eastman had a post today about the preservation of Camp Security, a Revolutionary War POW camp in York County, PA, just east of the town of York. A recent aerial image of the camp is here. I had read that my 4xgreat-grandfather, Johann Peter Strayer of Dover, York Co., PA had been a POW guard during the Revolutionary War. This article prompted me to investigate if this was the prison camp at which he had served.

A Google search for "peter strayer guard" turned up a Google Newspaper archive article from the Gettysburg Times of 24 Sept 1987. It states "Peter Strayer was in the American Rev. on Capt. Samuel Fuller's payroll, and was a guard at Camp Security, in 1781. Pa. Archives Vol 2 page 810 Sixth Series."

I am so glad that the author of the article, Harold Ditzler, provided a source citation for his assertion. Another Google search led me to a Wikipedia article on the Pennsylvania Archives with a link to the Google Books location for every volume. A few clicks and I was on page 810 of Volume 2 of the Sixth Series, where I found the second page of a muster roll for Sept 1781 listing Peter Strayer, who began serving on 15 Aug 1781.  He is listed as being "on guard" in the "Causualities" [sic] column. The heading of the muster roll on page 809 states that they were guarding "the Convention Prisinon [sic] at Camp Security."

I wanted to cite this book and realized I didn't know how to cite an on-line book. I know how to cite a book and I know how to cite an web site, but this was my first try at citing a book I accessed on-line. Since I had recently downloaded the 2nd edition of "Evidence Explained" from evidenceexplained.com, I popped it open to see what the expert had to say.

Basically what Elizabeth Shown Mills says for Reprints: Image Editions is to cite first the book (without publisher or place of publication), then the location of the image. She gives examples for a book on CD/DVD or on microfilm, but not for a web site. So here is my attempt at a citation regarding my ancestor's service.

Montgomery, Thomas Lynch. 1906. [Muster rolls, etc., 1743-1787], 809-810. Google Books (//http://books.google.com/books?id=ED4OAAAAIAAJ : accessed 15 May 2012.)

 I took the book citation straight from WorldCat, so that has to be right, even if I think it needs to provide information about the series of which it is a volume. I tried to follow the format for citing a website given in EE as best I could. At the very least, it's provides a trail for someone else to verify and evaluate my assertion that Peter Strayer was a guard at Camp Security during the Revolutionary War.

So that's one maternal line fighting for independence and one (Ogden) fighting for the Crown and heading for Canada when they lost.