Lyon, Rebecca

Rebecca Lyon, daughter of William Lyon, was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Province of Ulster, Ireland, May 2, 1719. She died at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, November 16, 1797. Her father was a large landed proprietor, who gave to his children all the advantages of a superior education and at his death left them a handsome competency. At about the age of twenty, Rebecca Lyon married John Armstrong, and, a few years after, with him and her little family, came to America. They settled in the Kittatinny Valley, west of the Susquehanna, then the frontier of the Province of Pennsylvania. During the period of the Provincial wars, and subsequently the war of the Revolution, Sirs. Armstrong, then residing at Carlisle, became one of the most prominent women of the Cumberland Valley. Apart from her husband's distinguished career, which made her more or less well known, it was chiefly owing to her services during the Indian wars in caring for the settlers, who fled to Carlisle from the distant frontiers, that she became noted for her sympathy and great benevolence.

When the war of the Revolution opened, she led the women of Carlisle into the active preparation for assistance to the patriots who had enlisted to battle for their country's independence. Organizing a society, the first in Pennsylvania, she superintended the furnishing of many of the comforts, as well as clothing, required by the soldiers of the Declaration; she was unstinted in her philanthropy, and was willing to sacrifice everything for the welfare of her fellow-countrymen. In the lapse of a century, her deeds and her [p.12] fame are contrasted favorably with those of the women who have followed her in benevolent actions—and her glory has not been dimmed. So to the latest moment of her life no other woman was more respected—nor one whose patriotism and patriotic services were more highly appreciated. At the time of her death the Carlisle Gazette, among other things, said this of her: "This excellent woman in her very advanced age continued to enjoy the free exercise of a well-cultivated understanding and of her every faculty with much liveliness and vigor. * * * If a disposition, benevolent in a very high degree and ever ready to sympathize with and relieve the suffering; if a heart framed to delight in all the characteristics of social life, all the various and important duties of the consort, the mother and the friend; if a constant attendant to the duties and the piety, and the ordinances of that Divine Redeemer in whom she trusted for salvation, in perfect concert with the pious partner of her cares for the long period of half a century, can give ground for the most pleasant hopes, her surviving friends may solace themselves with this most important of considerations, that death is to her invaluable and eternal gain."

Egle, William Henry. Some Pennsylvania Women during the War of the Revolution. Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Publishing Co., 1898.

The following gives the alternate ancestry of Rebecca:
The Brothers and Sisters of Colonel John Armstrong 1717 - 1795 and of his Wife Rebecca 1717 - 1797
of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
By Raymond Martin Bell, Washington, Pennsylvania 1990

Another discovery made many years ago by the writer was the record in the
HISTORY OF THE SUSQUEHANNA AND JUNIATA VALLEYS (HSJV) (1886) of a deed showing that Lt Edward Armstrong, killed at Fort Granville in 1756, was brother-in-law, not brother, of Col John. Rebecca, the wife of Col John, was a daughter of Archibald Armstrong of New Castle County, Delaware – not of William Lyon of Enniskillen, Ireland, as her gravestone says.

This was confirmed by William A. Hunter, who found the will of Archibald, probated in 1775 (K 228) in New Castle County. Archibald had migrated from Aghalurgher Parish, near Brookeborough County, Fermanagh, Ireland in 1740.Col John was born at Brookeborough in 1717. Archibald’s will names places in Ireland. Colonel John’s father died in 1745. The next year John came to America, probably landing at New Castle. In 1747 he married Rebecca, daughter of Archibald, likely Widow of ?William Lyon.
Son James was born in 1748. Her tombstone was probably erected sometime after her death by her son or grandson.