Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Sproat, Ebenezer

SPROAT, Ebenezer, soldier, b. in Middleborough, Plymouth co., Mass, in 1752; d. in Marietta, Ohio, in February, 1805. He entered the Provincial army as a captain early in 1775, was promoted major and lieutenant-colonel, and finally given command of the 2d Massachusetts regiment. He was in Gen. John Glover's brigade at the battles of Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth, and was appointed brigade-inspector by Baron Steuben. After the war he was a surveyor at Providence, R.I., where he married a daughter of Com. Abraham Whipple. Subsequently he went to the west, and in 1786 began a survey of the territory now within the borders of the state of Ohio. In 1788 he led a party of emigrants that settled Marietta, and he was fourteen years sheriff and colonel of militia. He was tall and commanding in person, and was known among Indians as “The Big Buckeye.”