Jehu Eyre

Jehu Eyre or Ayer (January 10, 1738 – July 23, 1781) was an American businessman, veteran of the French and Indian War and American Revolutionary War, and member of the influential Eyre family, which played a major role in the American Revolution and the early Republic. Jehu's father George had emigrated to the New World in 1727; the family was descended from one of the oldest noble lines in England.

Eyre was born in Burlington, New Jersey. He married Lydia Wright Eyre on December 28, 1761, when Jehu was twenty-three years old. Jehu's brother Manuel, also an officer in the Continental Army, had married Lydia's sister Martha on January 8 of the same year. In total, Jehu and Lydia Eyre would have five children: George (named after his grandfather), Jehu Jr., Franklin, Sarah, and Lydia (named after her mother).

Eyre fought alongside George Washington in the French and Indian War, serving as the Chief Engineer and Director of Artillery for the Province of Pennsylvania. Eyre and Washington were both participants in the July 9, 1755 Battle of Monongahela, when forces under British General Edward Braddock were defeated by combined French and Native American units.

Of the carnage there, Eyre later wrote:

Eyre served under Washington at Valley Forge during the winter of 1776–1777. He and his brothers were commissioned by Washington to build vessels for the independence effort at the Eyre family's shipping yards in Kensington (now part of Philadelphia), and provided some of the first ships in the Continental Navy. The earliest gunboat of the American Navy was built under the supervision of the Eyre family; christened "Bull Dog", it was launched at Kensington on July 26, 1775. In that year Eyre also mustered his workers into a force for the defense of Philadelphia known as the "Kensington Artillery".

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