History of the NSDAR, the TSDAR, and Mary Shirley McGuire

The Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) was founded on October 11, 1890, and incorporated by an Act of the United States Congress in 1896.

Follow this link for more information on the Texas Society Daughters of the American Revolution - TSDAR.

The History of Mary Shirley McGuire:

The Chapter was named for a Revolutionary War patriot, Mary Shirley McGuire, who suffered much for the American cause. She was born February 17, 1762, the eldest daughter of Michael Shirley and his wife, Katie Franz. The names of her parents are on the monument at Fort Boonesborough in present-day Kentucky.

On February 23, 1778, she married William McGuire in Rockingham County, Virginia. Two years later in 1780 the British planned an invasion to exterminate the pioneer forts and force the western frontier back to the Alleghany Mountains thus to prevent the westward growth of the American Colonies. On June 26, 1780, the McGuires with young son Michael were taken from their farm at Martin’s Fort in Kentucky County, Virginia, by an army of a thousand British regulars, Canadian volunteers, Tories and Indians. They captured 470 men, women and children at both Martin’s Fort and Ruddle’s Fort five miles away. They drove them on foot 600 miles to Detroit where the group was divided among their captors. The McGuires were in the group taken by the British 800 miles farther to Montreal in Quebec, Canada.

British records in the Canadian Archives show the McGuires were released in October 1782 with sons Michael and Thomas. They had been allowed to stay with a Canadian family while prisoners. After their release they endured many hardships as they wandered through the deep snow on their way back home. One of the bitterest sorrows was the loss of their elder son Michael who froze to death. They had stopped for the night at a Canadian graveyard where the parents tried to prevent the children from freezing by lying between the graves and covering themselves with their scanty blankets. Mary saved the baby Thomas by placing him inside her clothing and buttoning her coat over him. Michael, however, died that night and was buried in a shallow grave that the parents were able to scratch out in this unknown, foreign soil. With broken hearts they left his little body there.

The McGuire family was in Kentucky when it became a State in 1792, and in 1813 they migrated to Bedford County, Tennessee. Their children were: Michael, Thomas, Polly, Katie, William Jr., Cornelius, John and Elizabeth (Bettie).

Mary Shirley McGuire and her husband William are buried in Old Horse Mountain Cemetery near Shelbyville, Tennessee. To honor her memory a DAR Historical Marker was dedicated by the Mary Shirley McGuire DAR Chapter at her grave site on April 21, 2002.

The Marker | Ceremony Attendees | The Gravestone
Group Photo | Group Photo 2

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