Richard Montgomery's Birth Year

Potter's American Monthly, (Dec 1875 pg. 887) notices confusion as to the year of Richard Montgomery's birth. After writing that “General Richard Montgomery was of Irish nativity, and was but thirty-nine years old at the time of his death, having been born at the ‘Convoy House,’ near Raphoe, Ireland, on the 2d of December, 1736.¹”; he adds this footnote:

¹ Drake, in his “Dictionary of American Biography,” gives this date; Lossing, in his “Field Book”, says 1737, and he is followed by Dr. Thomas, in “Lippincott's Dictionary.” The inscription upon his monument has “aged 37 years.”