Richard Humpton (1733 – 1804) was born in Yorkshire, England of parents Richard Humpton and Dorothy Grindall. He purchased a captain's commission in the Royal Army and fought in the Raid on St Malo during the Seven Years' War. While posted in the West Indes, he resigned his commission and moved to the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. At the beginning of the American Revolutionary War he offered his services to the patriot cause and was named a lieutenant colonel in 1776.