Maldon has some surprising connections to key figures in American history.

George Washington's great-great-grandfather Lawrence Washington is the most famous. He moved to Essex in 1632 to be rector at All Saints in Purleigh.

Persecuted as a Royalist in the Civil War, Lawrence moved to the poorer parish of Little Braxted and died in poverty in 1655. His son John sought his fortune as office on a ship trading with America. Shipwrecked in the Potomac River, he decided to stay.

John's grandson George Washington first served the British as an officer of American troops serving alongside (coincidentally) the 44th Foot – also known as the Essex Regiment!

In 1755 hostilities were mounting, and an expedition was launched to capture the French Fort Duquesne, by the Ohio River. It was led by General Edward Braddock – very experienced, but at 60 perhaps not best fitted to campaigning in a wilderness.

Some 2,000 men formed the army, consisting of the 44th and 48th Regiments and some 500 American volunteers. George Washington served as a volunteer aide-de-camp to Braddock. The cumbersome force, complete with artillery and waggons, struggled through the Allegheny Mountains and the woodlands of western Pennsylvania.

With the troops strung out on narrow paths, panic set in as they were shot down from cover by marksmen, particularly as officers were singled out as targets. Braddock attempted conventional European tactics of rigid formations conducting volley fire into the woods, but this had predictably limited impact.

Braddock was shot down, later to die of his wounds, but just as the army was dissolving into flight Washington stepped up to form a rearguard to cover the retreat. Washington was hailed as 'the hero of the Monongahela' (the river where the battle was fought).

456 men were killed in the disaster, and 422 wounded. 63 out of 86 officers were casualties, and almost all the female camp followers died or were captured.

Ironically, it was British military incompetence that inspired him to develop the tactics that led American armies to defeat the British in the American war of Independence from 1775 to 1783.

He used his military experience to lead the struggle against the British, becoming Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.

It's likely that without his leadership the War of Independence would have taken a very different turn. Washington's reward was to serve as his country's first president, from 1789 to 1797. Washington died in 1799.

A similar journey was undertaken by Horatio Gates, born in Maldon in 1727.

He joined the British army and served on the continent in the 1740s before taking up a command in Canada at the same time as Washington.

He became frustrated by his lack of advancement in the British army and left to set up a plantation in Virginia.

In the War of Independence his military experience led to him being made Adjutant General of the American Continental Army. He took the surrender of General John Burgoyne at the decisive British defeat at Saratoga in 1777, but this was the limit of his successes – in 1780 he was defeated at the Battle of Camden.

Gates retired to his estate, eventually moving to New York – freeing his slaves first. He died in 1806.

Looking further afield in Essex, there are more links with American presidents.

John Adams, second president of the United States, was descended from Henry Adams who came to Massachusetts from Braintree in 1638.

Adams left a son, John Quincy Adams, who also became President, serving from 1825-1829.

Another presidential family duo also claim ancestry in Essex – George Bush Senior and George Bush Junior. Their family history goes back to the village of Messing, from where Reynold Bush emigrated in 1631, also to Massachusetts.