USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Wiscasset > Wiscasset in Pownalborough; a history of the shire town and the salient historical features of the territory between the Sheepscot and Kennebec rivers > Part 31
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L'Ésperance took leave of the Industry with three cheers, which were heartily returned. This French privateer had already taken two valuable prizes, viz: a British brig also named the Industry, John Gent, master, from London to Philadelphia, taken in latitude 47º North, and one of the Quebec fleet from England, which, being a heavy sailer, had lost her convoy. Captain Gent was seen aboard L'Ésperance by Captain Trask, who offered him passage to Amer- ica, but the French would not release him.18
The brig Neptune, Capt. Lemuel White, master, owned by Abiel Wood of Wiscasset, was detained in 1794 under the embargo at Bordeaux.
Capt. Robert Askins, late master of American schooner Sally of Bristol, en- rolled at Wiscasset, protested before Peter Solira, Esq. at Philadelphia that on April fifteenth, last, near Barbados, he was boarded and captured by a French frigate the Partridge, commanded by Jacques Bouteiller. His vessel was burned, his crew put in irons for six weeks, then taken into St. Martin where he was put on a prison ship and his crew in jail for ten days. Through the inter- vention of other American masters of vessels they liberated him and sent the crew into St. Bartholomew on a Swedish vessel. The date of protest was June 30, 1795.
The claims of James Swan, alias Henry Jackson, for the James Young, Capt.
12. A snowy was a vessel equipped with two masts resembling the main and foremasts of a ship, and a third small mast just abaft the mainmast, carrying a trysail.
13. Columbian Centinel, July 3, 1793.
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Benjamin Pinkham in 1795 were rejected by commissioners to conventions with France in 1803 on the plea of his partnership with foreigners, and as agent of the French Republic during the Revolution.
The ship Alnomac, a vessel of 195 tons built at Pownalborough and owned by Abiel Wood, Jr., was taken by the French the year she was built, 1795, and returned December 31, 1800.
In 1796 the ship Accepted Mason, 260 tons, was built at Bristol and enrolled at Wiscasset. She was owned by Joshua Hilton of Wiscasset and Ebenezer and Ephraim Delano of Woolwich. The nature of the claim is not known but a French spoliation claim was paid on her account in 1893.
On Sunday, December 4, 1796, there arrived at Wiscasset the ship Betsey, Captain Kennedy, thirty-three days from Liverpool. He had sailed in com- pany with seventy Americans. On October twentieth, in latitude 49° 42' North, longitude 18° West, he was boarded by a French privateer of sixteen guns, which was out of St. Malo eight days on a cruise. The captain of the privateer demanded the Betsey's papers, which were delivered. Her cargo was overhauled but nothing taken.
The commander of the privateer informed Captain Kennedy that he had received strict orders to take and carry into port all neutrals not fully supplied with requisite papers, particularly passports and sea-letters. Captain Kennedy was not in possession of a sea-letter, but he had a certificate signed by Francis Cook, the collector of the port of Wiscasset, with the seal of office which was examined and disputed. The commander of the privateer told Captain Ken- nedy that, had he not known him to be an American, he would not have re- leased him. The difficulty was that the Betsey did not answer to the description in her register, having had a figure-head set on her at Liverpool and having been otherwise altered. Captain Kennedy attributed his escape wholly to the complaisance of the Frenchman, and to his personal acquaintance with him.
In the year 1796 the schooner Two Brothers, owned by William Foster and commanded by Jeremiah Pattee, had a claim.
1796. The brig Speedwell, Captain Crawford of Sheepscot, Maine, bound from St. Bartholomew to Georgia, was captured by a French privateer and taken into St. Martin, West Indies.
1796. September tenth, La Raison which lately engaged the French frigate off Georges, was the same which lately took two men from the brig Union, Cap- tain Lowell, of Newburyport. One of them, John Andrews, of Wiscasset, was killed in the engagement, and left a wife and six children.
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1796. The schooner Apollo, White of Wiscasset, from Martinique to Sa- vannah, was captured and plundered and ordered to Puerto Rico, but on the passage was recaptured by the British.
1796. The brigantine William, 146 tons, Capt. Thomas McCray, from Demerara to Wiscasset, was captured by French privateer and sent into St. Martin.
1796. The Adrastus, a Wiscasset ship, Captain Jameson master, made the voyage from Liverpool to Philadelphia in fifty-six days. The captain reported that on June thirtieth she was boarded by the Assistance, a fifty-gun British ship, Captain Mowatt commander, in company with La Raison, a sloop-of-war, twenty guns, and that they were treated politely. They pressed five of the crew belonging to the Adrastus and afterwards returned three of them. The two detained were natives of Cape Cod, one of whom was an Indian. They were held because they were unable to produce protections. Sixteen passengers came over in the Adrastus.14
1797. The ship America, John Stinson, master, was detained at Malaga.
1797. The schooner Hazard, Barnabas Young, master, on a voyage from Boston to Aux Cayes, Haiti, was seized by a French privateer and taken into Port de Paix. The vessel and cargo were condemned. The Hazard was an American vessel, built in 1784 and owned by Eben Parsons, an American citizen. The loss to Parsons was $7,218.59. The seizure and condemnation were illegal.
1797. The brig Henry, Captain Hodge, was captured and carried into Morlaix.
1797, April 22. The schooner Hannah, Captain Baker, of Wiscasset arrived here the twentieth from Guadeloupe. He informs us that the schooner Mary, Captain Askins, and schooner Nabby of Bristol, Rhode Island, Captain Mon- roe, from the coast of Africa bound to St. Thomas, were boarded by a French privateer, on the ninth of March, about twenty leagues to the eastward of Antigua. Captain Askins was released, being bound to St. Bartholomew, but Captain Monroe, a passenger and three of his people were taken out of his vessel and himself and passenger put on board the privateer, and his three people put on board Captain Askins's vessel and sent to St. Bartholomew, and a prize master and six men put on board the Nabby and set for Guadeloupe. The privateer meeting with some accident was obliged to put into Guadeloupe where Captain Monroe and his passengers were landed without either money
14. Columbian Centinel, July 13, 1796.
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or clothes. His vessel had not been heard of by the fifteenth at Guadeloupe.
1797, October 4. The log book states that the Jefferson, Captain Hooper, from Bordeaux was boarded by the Concorde, a French frigate in command of Citizen Papin who informed Captain Hooper that he had taken several prizes, one of which was an American ship belonging to Wiscasset, from Hare, Scot- land, bound to Bath and New York with English property on board.
1797, November 17. The cargo of the brigantine William and Thomas of Wiscasset, owners John Anderson, Joseph Weeks and Henry Hodge, was condemned at Guadeloupe December 13, 1797.
1797, November 25. A ship belonging to Wiscasset from Dublin bound to Charleston put into Hampton Roads in great distress, having lost all her sails and been twice taken by the French and retaken by the English.
On December 23, 1797, Captain Ring, who arrived at Wiscasset from Antigua, stated that he was boarded by a French privateer, who took from him a barrel of rum and a barrel of sugar, and then permitted him to proceed after informing him that, were they not in pursuit of another vessel, they would have carried him into port.
On January 7, 1798, the sloop Sally, 94 tons, built at Woolwich, enrolled at Wiscasset, owned by Capt. James Moffitt, Daniel Fegan and Samuel Cargill of Pownalborough, the last named owner being also her master, was taken by the French on a voyage from Demerara to New York. The Sally with a cargo of rum, sugar and cotton was taken to Curaçao, condemned and sold.
1798, March 7. A ship from Guadeloupe says that among the vessels brought in as prizes and condemned was the sloop Ruby of Wiscasset, 44 tons. Ezra King, master and owner. The Ruby was built in 1791.
I798, March 17. The sloop Apollo, King, master, Wiscasset, was con- demned at Guadeloupe.
1798, April 14. The brig Friendship, Otis of Wiscasset, was wholly con- demned at Port Royal.
1798. The Mark and Mary of Wiscasset, McCobb, to sail from St. Martin in three days, was condemned at Guadeloupe February seventeenth, and ar- rived at Boston April third, with Captain Hilton formerly of the ship Two Sisters.
1798, May 9. The Betsey, a schooner of 1 36 tons, David Murray, was taken by the French. The Betsey was built at Newcastle where she was launched Oc- tober 6, 1796. According to Murray's old account book he "paid £ 3 : Os : Od: for
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the stick or mast." The vessel was owned by David Payson, Jr., David Murray and William Patterson, each of whom held one-third part. The whole loss was not less than nine thousand dollars when the Betsey was captured by the French and recaptured by the British the next day, then seized again by the same French vessel and carried into Guadeloupe and condemned. Samuel Young of Wiscasset, who was one of the crew, used to tell the story of the capture. The. captain of the Betsey being loath to heave-to the second time, delayed until they were fired upon, and one bullet grazed Young's whiskers and buried itself in the mast. When the French captain put a prize crew on board of the Betsey, Young with another sailor was sent to fetch them, and the master seeing Young with his bleeding cheek exclaimed: "Bon soir, Yankees! Le diable! my gunner he take you all two times!"> 15
They were sent from Guadeloupe to Barbados and finally got safely home again.
The sloop Townsend, built at Newcastle in 1796, enrolled at Wiscasset, 97.75 tons, owners William McCobb, Joseph Campbell, Ephraim McFarland and John Holton; Daniel Campbell, master, sailed from Boothbay, Maine, on a commercial voyage, August 28, 1798, for the English island of Antigua. While peacefully pursuing said voyage, she was seized on the high seas about October 1, 1798, by the French privateer Le Pelletier, and carried to the island of Guadeloupe, where her master was thrown into prison, with the loss of all of his sea clothes, books and papers and there he remained for about three months. While in prison he was examined in the preparatory court on October 10, 1798, in which it was shown that the cargo carried by the Townsend was boards, staves, fish and shingles. She was there condemned by the Tribunal of Commerce and Prizes, sitting at Basse Terre on said island and condemned on the ground of want of rôle d'équipage and an invoice of the cargo, whereby the same became a total loss to the owners.
1798, October 27. The brig Jane, owned by William Foster, Samuel Pat- terson, master, of Wiscasset, was bound to Norfolk, Virginia, from Liverpool, England, with a cargo of dry goods and salt. She was taken October 27, 1798, by the privateer Frepnone to Santander, condemned and sold.
1798. The Six Sisters, a duly registered American vessel, Daniel Baker, master, was on a peaceful commercial voyage from Wiscasset to Liverpool, England. On December seventh, she was seized on the high seas by a French privateer, who put a French prize crew aboard the Six Sisters and steered for
15. Diary of Alexander Johnston, Friday, April 17, 1885.
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Bordeaux. The reason assigned was that she had no rôle d'équipage. A part of the cargo was thrown overboard and much damage was done. She was soon taken by a British frigate and carried into Plymouth, England, where she was condemned by Court of Admiralty to pay salvage of one-eighth value or the equivalent of $2,128.
The Six Sisters was built at Pownalborough in 1797, registered at Wiscasset and owned by Henry Hodge and Daniel Baker. Her cargo was of oak, pine, beech, staves, poles and laths. She carried insurance of twenty-five per cent of her full value. The claims of Daniel Baker, Henry Hodge and John Hues were not filed until January 20, 1901, and were not properly before the court. Seizure and condemnation were illegal (United States Court of Claims).
1798, December 12. The Astrea, Tinkham, master, of Wiscasset was taken, re-taken and sent for Liverpool.
1798. The ship Three Sisters, Timothy Wood, master, belonging to Wis- casset bound to Boston from Whitehaven, England, was taken by the privateer Julie of Nantes. This ship was of 210 tons burden, owned by Abiel Wood. Cargo was salt, etc.
In all probability the adventure of the schooner Hester, 140 tons, built at Bristol in 1796 and enrolled at Wiscasset, John McKown, owner and John Dickey, master, was the most exciting encounter with a French privateer ex- perienced by any local vessel in our quasi-war with France.
In the late summer of 1798, a French privateer schooner, La Fleur de la Mer, Gustave de Lannes, master, overtook and captured the Hester, but the adroit Yankee sailors turned the tables on their captors and brought the Frenchmen in irons to Damariscotta, in the district of Waterman Thomas, and shortly afterwards lodged them in the old wooden gaol at Wiscasset.
The following notice of the clash between the little Bristol schooner and the French privateer appeared in the Green Mountain Patriot, October 12, 1798:
By a gentleman from the Eastward, we learn that a few days since a vessel arrived at Damariscotta River, from the West Indies, with four French prisoners on board. Cap- tain Dickey, who was master of this vessel, on his homeward bound passage discovered a French privateer steering down upon him. He ordered all his men, four in number, into the fore peak, there to fain themselves sick with the West India fever, and only kept a boy on deck with himself. The commander of the privateer put a prize-master and three men on board the prize, supposing that number enough to keep in awe the captain, boy and four sick men, and directed the prize to follow him into a French port. While the privateer was in pursuit of another prize, Capt. Dickey gave the signal to the men in perdu, who in-
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stantly rushed on deck, and after a short struggle, bound the Frenchmen, brought them into port and safely lodged them in Wiscasset jail.
The French prisoners had at first been landed within the district of Water- man Thomas, Esq., but as there was then no magistrate within the town they were delivered by Major John McKown into the custody of Joseph Tinkham, Esq., Deputy Marshal of the District of Maine, and by him committed to the gaol at Pownalborough, September 17, 1798.
Owing to the wording of a recently passed law16 the civil officers were con- fronted with a problem of providing food for the prisoners, and the red tape to which they resorted to unravel it led them as far afield as the presidential chair. They held in custody four French citizens, seamen from a French ship duly authorized by papers from the Directory of France to halt and capture on the high seas any vessel found guilty of violating the decrees of Napoleon that American vessels might not trade with England, then the enemy of France. Waterman Thomas claimed that with their removal from the scope of his jurisdiction his authority ceased. Francis Cook, the collector of the port of Wiscasset, refused to assume the charge as the port of entry at which they debarked was without the limit of his legal power. John Sutton Foye, the gaoler, appealed to Joseph Tinkham, Esq., who in turn wrote the following letter to Daniel Davis, the District Attorney of Portland.
Wiscasset, September 17, 1798
Dear Sir: Major Mckown has just arrived with four French prisoners retaken in the Bristol schooner, Capt. Dickey; he took them upon An Act to protect the Commerce of the U. S., which is published in the Centinel of 8th of August, the 8th section of which says they shall be delivered to the custody of the Marshall who shall take charge for their safe-keeping and support them at the expense of the U. S. Collector of the Port, Cook, as they did not arrive in his District don't choose to have anything to do with them and there being no Magistrate in this place at this time. I think the law authorizes and makes it my duty to commit them to gaol which I shall do immediately. I must request you to write me by return post directing me how to proceed with them likewise to send me an order where I am to draw money for their subsistence. Jailer Foye's circumstances is such that he can't advance the money for them and I am sure mine is such that I can't. Mr. Cook is,
16. An Act further to protect the Commerce of the United States, July 9, 1798. ... Section 8 which reads as follows: "That all French persons and others who shall be found acting on board of any vessel of the United States, which shall be recaptured as aforesaid, shall be reported to the collector of the port in which they shall first arrive, and shall be delivered to the custody of the marshal, or of some civil or military officer of the United States, or of any state in or near such port; who shall take charge of their safekeeping and support, at the expense of the United States." Statutes at Large, Vol. I, pp. 578-580.
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I suppose, the proper person. Pray don't fail to answer this by return post. The names of the prisoners are : Étienne Richard, prize-master, François Manlin, Pierre Severre and Pierre Carmagnole, all prize seamen.
I remain with all esteem
Your most obedient Servant JOSEPH TINKHAM. D. Marshall.
In consequence of this the next day District Attorney Davis put the matter directly up to John Adams, President of the United States, as the following letter testifies:
Dear Sir :
Portland, Maine, September 18, 1798
The inclosed letter (from D. Marshall Tinkham) comes to hand by this eve mail. It contains all the information I possess on the subject excepting that I have been informed that the Bristol Schooner mentioned in the letter was captured by a French Privateer that the crew remained on board; and a few days after the capture rose upon the four French- men and retook her and arrived safe in the port of Damariscotta with the French prisoners. Mr. Tinkham, the writer of the letter, is a dep. marshall and lives at Wiscasset. I have taken the liberty to inform him that I can form no opinion on a case entirely new to me, that if money must be advanced for the immediate support of the prisoners, it should be done by the Collector of the Port of Waldoborough, Mr. Cook, within whose District the schooner first arrived and that I have no doubt the Collector would have it allowed on his accounts.
I have thought it my duty to transmit this information to you in order that your pleas- ure may be known concerning the prisoners, the law of Congress of 25th of June last hav- ing authorized the President to determine what should be done with them.
I have the honor to be with the highest respect
Your HBLe Serv't DAN'L DAVIS.
Authentic records which would enlighten us as to the ultimate fate of the Frenchman are lacking, but the tradition is that the prize master escaped from the old wooden gaol at Wiscasset disguised in woman's apparel, but whether his compatriots gained their freedom by some equally ingenious ruse, by de- portation or by exchange does not appear. Neither is it manifest whether the President of the United States, the District Attorney, the deputy marshal, or the keeper of the gaol, was host to the prisoners during their detention at Wiscasset, where the daily ration consisted of one pound of salt beef, one pound of coarse bread, one pound of potatoes or its equivalent in cabbage or turnip, but it is fairly safe to assume that Uncle Sam paid the bill.
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Arrived at Wiscasset on Saturday, June 14, 1800, the schooner Three Sisters, Joseph Decker, master, twenty-one days from St. Thomas, sailed with an American fleet homeward bound. Captain Nathaniel Jones came as passenger, his vessel having been captured by the French, and carried into St. Martin and condemned.
Near Bermuda, in latitude 30° 10' North, longitude 68° West, Captain Jones was captured by a French privateer, which was out eighteen days on a cruise from Guadeloupe. The privateer mounted twelve guns and had a crew of more than ninety men after having manned eight prizes which the French- man had captured on the cruise. Captain Jones and his crew had been plun- dered of some articles but having no cargo worth sending in, they were liber- ated after receiving on board twenty-one prisoners belonging to different vessels which the privateer had captured in the above latitude, viz: the snow Mary, Capt. Edward Taylor, eighteen days from Newport, bound for Ha- vana; schooner Betsey of Portland, Capt. George Mead, fifteen days out bound to Jamaica; schooner God frey of Halifax, Henry Atkinson, master, from Philadelphia, bound to Martinico, out twelve days. The crews of the above vessels had been robbed of everything, put in irons and abused very much. They sent them on board of Captain Jones's vessel without half enough provisions to last them to any port of the United States, and had they not been so fortunate as to fall in afterwards with other vessels which came to their rescue and furnished them with provisions they would have suffered greatly from lack of food.
On Sunday, June eighth, in latitude 39º North, longitude 68° West, they spoke the Swedish brig Fretchon, Captain Byerloos of Stockholm, forty-six days from Liverpool, who supplied them with beef, bread and water. On June eleventh they spoke the United States brig Pickering, Captain Miller, off Georges Banks, two days from Boston, bound on a cruise. They gave him in- formation respecting the privateer and received further supplies. On June twelfth they spoke the ship Juno, Douglas, of St. John, bound to Boston. They put thirteen of the prisoners on board of her who belonged to Newport and Boston.
The first part of April, 1804, the brig Nancy, Captain Rider of Wiscasset, was boarded in latitude of the Barbados, by a French privateer, and robbed of many articles and treated infamously by the commander.
In the month of May, 1805, a French privateer took possession of the fishing smack William and Elizabeth within a few miles of Dungeness. The
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privateer fired into them four times and, after the capture, took out the master and one boy, leaving an old man and another boy on board until they could send the boat again with Frenchmen to take possession. In the interval the boy who had been on board put up the helm and made off with the vessel. The privateer fired several volleys at the smack, wounded the old man and filled the deck and sides with musket balls and pursued until they came within sight of Admiral Douglass's squadron when the privateer made off while the boy carried the smack safely among the squadron.
The brig, Felicity, William Boyd, master, was detained at Cadiz in 1805.
The brig Sally Ann, Nickels, master, which belonged to Abiel Wood and William Nickels, was captured by a French privateer on her passage from Boston and Beverly to Amsterdam and carried into the latter port. Captain Nickels and his crew were turned on shore and detained for eighteen months after capture. The French spoliation claim was subjected to adjudication at Paris but there was no decision. The vessel and cargo were sold and the claimants were induced to compromise with the captors, the captain asking for two-thirds and leaving one-third for the owners. This was a Wiscasset or a Newcastle vessel of 182 tons burden and the property of the claimants.
In 1810 the Cleopatra, Capt. J. E. Scott of Wiscasset, bound from London to St. Petersburg was captured by a Danish gunboat and taken into Copen- hagen. She was condemned by sentence of Admiralty. There was no appeal. In the port of Copenhagen there were thirty-three American vessels which had been seized under French influence.
In September, 181 1, the brig Done, Richard Doane, master, when off Long Island bound for New York, was detained by the frigate Guerrière, Captain Dacres, and ordered to Halifax, under the pretence of having more passengers on board than the Act allows; although they were all regularly cleared at the custom house in Belfast. The release of the Done was effected by a compromise of £200 sterling and the expenses, although there was no trial, amounted to nearly the same sum.
During the War of 1812 five privateers were either built, owned or en- rolled at Wiscasset. They were the Grand Turk,17 Hercules, Intention, Paul Jones
17. Five vessels bearing the name Grand Turk were known to have been built in New Eng- land between the years 1781 and 1816. The first two were built at Salem, Mass., about 1781; the third was built about 1795, on the Glidden farm near the upper falls of the Damariscotta River, for Mr. Brown, a merchant at Wiscasset. She went on her first voyage to the East Indies, and on her return was lost in the ice of Portland harbor, whither she was bound. The fourth was the famous privateer built at Wiscasset in 1812; and the fifth Grand Turk was built at Millbridge, Maine.
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