Stuck a feather in his hat

Friedrich Wilhelm Steuben (AKA Baron von Steuben) was born into a Prussian military family in 1730. He enlisted in the Prussian Army as a teenager and put in 17 years of military service, rising to the rank of captain. He was abruptly discharged in 1763, then spent 11 years as a private citizen.

But Steuben yearned for military life and when Benjamin Franklin made overtures to have him join the Revolutionary War and help lead an inexperienced army of farmers on its heels battling far superior British troops, he jumped at the chance.

Working without compensation, Steuben arrived in the colonies to find a ragged and undisciplined Continental Army. He established military drills, paid attention to housekeeping details like placing latrines and mess halls on opposite ends of encampments, and taught battle tactics unknown to the colonials, like how to use a bayonet in close-quarter combat. 

Now prepared and battle-ready, the war shifted in the favor of the colonials. Steuben won over George Washington, becoming a trusted advisor.

Baron von Steuben was also apparently openly gay at a time when the term “homosexual” had yet to be invented and “gay” meant something else entirely.

Steuben remained unmarried his entire life and there is no mention of female companions in any of his correspondence. He took on several long-time companions, younger men who served as aides-de-camp and translators (Steuben spoke no English, only profanities). At Valley Forge he met two officers in their twenties, William North and Benjamin Walker, and legally adopted them as his “sons,” able to inherit his estate, a common practice before gay marriage was legal.

There is also a story that at Valley Forge Steuben organized, at his own cost, a dinner party for the troops, demanding everyone who attend be nude or in their underwear. Maybe it was his way of saying that rank didn’t matter, we’re all the same underneath. Maybe not.

Steuben may have been openly gay, but the specter of sodomy laws were always present, with a maximum penalty of death in Virginia. (Thomas Jefferson tried to reduce it to "simply" castration).

With the war over, Steuben was discharged with honor, became a U.S. citizen and a thankful New Jersey presented him with the use of an estate, known as Steuben House, located in New Bridge Landing (today River Edge). The home had been confiscated from a Brit loyalist and it served briefly as George Washington’s military headquarters. Steuben and William North lived together there for several years before Steuben moved to New York State, where he died in 1794.

You can become blasé growing up so close to history – Google Maps says it’s a 23-minute walk from where I grew up to Steuben House – but thanks to many school trips, Baron von Steuben was as familiar a name to us as George Washington or Alexander Hamilton. The place always had a ghostly presence, sitting as it did among busy roadways and faceless garden apartments (named The Steuben Arms).

Ironically, it’s also just a half mile away from another New Jersey landmark. Club Feathers opened in 1978, making it the state’s oldest gay nightclub and currently the only one in North Jersey. Its a place where, according to one online review, people can feel safe, welcome and accepted. 

Sounds like the kind of place Baron von Steuben might have liked hanging out in.

Much of the historical information about Steuben is taken from “Washington’s Gay General,” a graphic novel written by Josh Trujillo and illustrated by Levi Hastings.