Shays, Daniel (1747?–29 September 1825), revolutionary officer and leader of the eponymous "Rebellion" of 1786-1787 in western Massachusetts, revolutionary officer and leader of the eponymous “Rebellion” of 1786–1787 in western Massachusetts, was born in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, the son of Patrick Shays (or Shay or Sheas) and Margaret Dempsey. While working as a hired laborer in Brookfield he married Abigail Gilbert in July 1772. He then moved to Shutesbury where he purchased a farm shortly before the war. In 1780 he moved to Pelham, Hampshire County, where he was a middling farmer until driven from Massachusetts in the wake of the rebellion in 1787....
