John Duff

John Duff, born John McElduff, or John Michael McElduff, because early court records referred to him as John Michael Duff (September 1759 or August 1760 – June 4, 1799 or 1805), was a counterfeiter, criminal gang leader, horse thief, cattle thief, hog thief, salt maker, longhunter, scout, and soldier who assisted in George Rogers Clark's campaign to capture the Illinois country for the American rebel side during the Revolutionary War. Early life and family history John Michael McElduff was born sometime between September 1759 and August 1760 in the British Province of South Carolina, according to his court testimony in August 1781, where he claimed to be 21 years old. John's father may have been the Thomas McElduff murdered by Philip McElduff, a brother, of Thomas, some time prior to November 1761. His mother later remarried, and his stepfather moved the family to the Natchez District, Mississippi region of the colony of British West Florida, on the Mississippi River, prior to the start of the American Revolutionary War. McElduff is believed to be a grandson of a Thomas McElduff, Sr., who received two land grants for military service in the French and Indian War on the south side of the Tyger River, in Union County, South Carolina on February 7, 1754. American Revolutionary War service and life in the Illinois Country Around 1778, Duff was living in the Illinois Country, later referred to as the "American Bottom." While leading a group of longhunters returning to Kaskaskia, John Duff, John Saunders, and the rest of the hunting party were intercepted by Colonel George Rogers Clark's soldiers and his Virginia frontiersmen soldiers, near the ruins of Fort Massac. Suspected of being British spies, they immediately took an American oath of allegiance, where Duff and his men joined Clark's Illinois Regiment, Virginia State Forces. Duff enlisted into Captain John Williams' Company in Cahokia and rose to the rank of sergeant in the Illinois Regiment.