Ezekiel Cornell

Ezekiel Cornell (1732/33 – April 25, 1800) was a Revolutionary War general who represented Rhode Island in the U.S. Continental Congress from 1780 to 1782.

Ezekiel Cornell was born in on March 27, 1732/33 in either Dartmouth, Massachusetts or Scituate, Rhode Island to Richard Cornell and Content Brownell. He is a descendant of Thomas Cornell. Ezekiel Cornell married Rachel Wood of Little Compton on March 25, 1760 and they had two surviving children, Ezra and Rhoda. Cornell attended the public schools and was employed as a mechanic. Cornell served as Scituate's town meeting moderator in 1768, 1781 and 1785 and as a Deputy (Representative) from Scituate to the General Assembly in 1772, 1774 and 1775.

During the American Revolution Cornell, nicknamed "Old Snarl," was appointed lieutenant colonel in Hitchcock’s Rhode Island Regiment in 1775 and was present at the siege of Boston. The unit was taken into the Continental Army. and later fought at Bunker Hill and Long Island. On Long Island he occupied the former British controlled St. George's Episcopal Church (Hempstead, New York), which had been founded by relatives of Cornell including his cousin William Cornell, and was a hotbed of Tory sentiment, and Cornell sought to root out Loyalists. Cornell "converted the Episcopal Church into a store house, forbid the parson to pray for the King or any of the Royal Family and made use of the communion table as a convenience for his Yankees to eat upon."

Cornell was part of the Continental Army contingent, dispatched by General Nathaniel Greene that arrested Loyalist Mayor of New York David Mathews on June 22, 1776 on suspicion of Mathews' participation in the plot by Thomas Hickey to kill General George Washington.

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