On April 26, 1777, Sybil Ludington rode her horse Star 40 miles (64 km) through the night in Putnam County, New York, to warn approximately 400 militiamen under her father’s command that British troops were planning to attack Danbury, Connecticut, where the Continental Army had a supply depot. On her way to gather her father’s troops, she warned people asleep in their homes by banging on their shutters with a stick and yelling “The British are burning Danbury!”

Ludington married Edmond Ogden in 1784 when she was 23, and they had a son named Henry. Edmond was a farmer and innkeeper, according to various reports. In 1792, the family settled in Catskill. Ogden died in 1799, and in 1811 Ludington moved to Unadilla, New York, where she lived until her death on February 26, 1839 at the age of 77. She was buried near her father in the Patterson Presbyterian Cemetery in Patterson, New York. Her tombstone shows a different spelling of her first name.

Ludington was first written about in an 1880 book about the New York City area by local historian Martha Lamb. She relied on numerous primary sources, including letters, sermons, genealogical compilations, wills, and court records to document Ludington’s life. She did not, however, provide documentation of the ride, and there are no known written references to it prior to her book.

Sybil’s father had fought in the French and Indian War, and he volunteered to head the local militia during the American Revolution. Sybil had to move from town to town following her father, and unknowingly played an important role in the success of the colonies. The afternoon after she warned residents of Danbury, the British troops burned down three buildings and destroyed multiple houses, but did not kill many people. Little was told of Ludington’s ride; the only record of this event was written by her great-grandson and her father’s memoirs which were published in 1907 but written 100 years earlier on page 90. Her ride started at 9 p.m. and ended around dawn mostly along present day route 6, route 52 and route 32

In 1935, New York State erected a number of historic markers along Ludington’s route. A commemorative statue sculpted by Anna Hyatt Huntington was erected near Carmel, New York, in 1961. Smaller versions of the statue were erected on the grounds of the Daughters of the American Revolution headquarters in Washington, D.C., on the grounds of the public library in Danbury, Connecticut, and in the Elliot and Rosemary Offner museum at Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. In 1975, Ludington was honored with a postage stamp in the “Contributors to the Cause” United States Bicentennial series.

The Sybil Ludington 50k Run has been held in Carmel, New York each April since 1979, a 50-kilometre (31 mi) foot race. The course of the race approximates her historic ride, and finishes near her statue on the shore of Lake Gleneida, Carmel. In 1993, composer Ludmila Ulehla wrote the chamber opera Sybil of the American Revolution based on the story of Ludington’s ride. In 2014, she was featured on the American Heroes Channel documentary American Revolution: Patriots Rising.

In 1996, the national Daughters of the American Revolution said that the evidence was not strong enough to support their criteria for a war heroine, and they removed a book about her from their headquarters bookstore. The DAR chapter near her historic home says that her exploit was documented, and it continues to honor her. Paula Hunt concludes, “The story of the lone, teenage girl riding for freedom, it seems, is simply too good not to be believed.”