Military officer; born in
Roxbury, Mass., March 2, 1737; was bred a farmer; joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of
Boston, and was made its commander in 1770.
He was also colonel of a Suffolk regiment; was a representative in the General Assembly; member of the committees of correspondence and safety; delegate to the Provincial Congress (1774-75), and was made a brigadiergeneral early in 1776 in the
Continental army.
He rose to major-general in August following.
He was very serviceable in organizing the undisciplined troops at
Cambridge before the
battle of Bunker Hill, and went to New York with
Washington in the spring of 1776.
After the
battle of White Plains he took post in the
Hudson Highlands, and was stationed there in 1779.
He had supervision of
Burgoyne's captured troops, in 1777, at
Cambridge.
He went to
Rhode Island on the arrival of the
French forces in 1780.
General Heath was State
Senator in 1791-92; probate judge of
Norfolk county in 1793, and declined the office of lieutenant-governor in 1806, to which he had been chosen.
He died in
Roxbury, Jan. 24, 1814.