Dear Sgt. Hosbrook, though you are my ancestor, I thought it only fitting and proper to address you by your rank and title in that great war for independence that we are celebrating some 242 years later. As an officer in the First New Jersey Regiment of General Washington’s Continental Line, you were well aware of the blood and treasure being sacrificed to break free from a pompous and tyrannical British king.Given that your unit survived a brutally cold winter at Valley Forge, it is both sad and ironic that you later froze to death bringing salt back from the fort for your family in the frontier wilderness. Fighting fatigue and a fierce wind, your knees finally buckled beneath you as you collapsed and were soon blanketed by blizzard snow.You would not recognize that thickly-forested section of the Northwest Territory even a few years later as hardy pioneers, including you descendants, began carving farms, commerce, and communities out of the wilderness.