Daniel Shays was probably born in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, sometime around 1747. During the Revolutionary War, he fought at the battles of Bunker Hill, Ticonderoga, and Saratoga and was promoted to captain in 1777. Shays resigned from the Continental Army in 1780 and settled in Pelham, Massachusetts. In 1786, after the U.S. government imposed heavy taxes and mortgages that greatly affected farmers, Shays was one of the leaders of an armed uprising against the government. This uprising became known as Shays’s Rebellion. After being defeated by the state militia in 1787, Shays fled to Vermont. He was sentenced to death but then pardoned in 1788. He later received a federal pension for his services in the Revolutionary War.
