John Gano Baptizes George Washington

I know of no indisputable evidence of such a baptism; the only evidence is from the family, which compiled the information a century later.

The location of the baptism also is in dispute. One story says it was at Valley Forge; another says it was in the Potomac; yet another has it in the Hudson.

Gano makes no mention of it in his memoirs; he has a good many recollections from the war years, almost all of them from his service with (Col. and then Gen.) James Clinton in New York and Pennsylvania, not with Washington's army.

Rupert Hughes, a Washington relative, wrote the following letter to Time magazine after it mentioned the baptism in a 1932 blurb:

You can find Gano's own memoirs at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=PFYwAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s

A biographical sketch by Baptist historian David Benedict is at:

http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/gano.by.benedict.1813.html

 

That version is even more garbled than most. Washington almost certainly wasn't baptized in First Baptist Church of New York (Gano's church) because it fell into disuse before the war; many of its members fled British occupation, and when Gano returned he was able to find only 37 of 200 prewar members (according to his memoirs).

Gano was not one of Washington's "captains." Though his regiment left New York for the New Jersey campaign, it quickly returned home and he served the rest of the war in New York/Pennsylvania. Thus he was not at Valley Forge in 1777-78. Clinton's army (and Gano) went to join in the siege of Yorktown in 1781, well after Valley Forge.

 

It seems that the story of Washington's baptism has overshadowed the rest of Gano's career as a stalwart chaplain and pioneer evangelist. You could easily omit the baptismal episode and still have plenty of good material.