The oldest Revolutionary War grave in Bovina, at least a marked one, is that of Samuel Ludington. We don’t know a lot about him, partly because he never applied for a pension. He died before the pension process began in 1818.
He was born in Branford, Connecticut in 1744 and married Ruth Galpin in 1766. In 1775, he joined Captain William Douglas’ company, General Wooster’s 1st regiment of the Connecticut militia, serving as a private. Samuel and Ruth would spend the bulk of their lives in the New Haven area of Connecticut. They came to what later became Bovina around 1810, to live with their son, Henry. Samuel died in 1814. His widow survived him until 1831. Their son Henry died 11 years later, having drowned in the West Branch of the Delaware River just below Sherwoods. He is buried in Bovina too.
An interesting footnote to Samuel’s story is that of his niece, Sybil. Sybil is known as the female Paul Revere. In 1777, when she was 16, she is supposed to have ridden 40 miles from her home in New York (near Danbury) through Putnam County to alert militiamen under the command of her father Colonel Henry Ludington, that the British had landed and were marching to Danbury. It’s a wonderful story that probably is not true. There’s no evidence any such ride took place. Information from the time about the subsequent battle indicates that the people in Danbury were already aware that the British were coming. But Sybil was commemorated in a US Postage stamp in 1975 and still is remembered in Putnam County, where she is buried.
There is a wikipedia entry for Sybil Luddington at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_Ludington with further information about her and the debate about her famous ride.
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