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 32
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and the Fox. Of these the brig Grand Turk was by far the most famous. She was 102 feet in length; 28 feet beam; 12 feet 4 inches in depth and of 309 tons burthen. She carried 18 guns and about a hundred men. She was a full- rigged brig, had a square stern, one deck, no galleries and a billet-head. The name of her builder was Stephen C. Dutton.
There appeared in the Salem Gazette, September 8, 1812, the following advertisement:
PRIVATEER
To be sold at Wiscasset, if application is made immediately, a Vessel of about 300 tons, pierced for 18 guns exclusive of bridle and stern ports, every way calculated and propor- tioned for the present times, and such an one as can be safely recommended to those who may feel disposed to purchase. Said vessel is built after the model of the fast sailing ship Volante, and by the same master workman.
If not sold within 14 days, she will be sent to a southern port. For further particulars and terms apply to Brooks' 18 Hotel, Wiscasset, Sept. 5, 1812.
Less than three weeks after the appearance of the above advertisement the Marine News reported the arrival at Boston of a "beautiful new brig pierced with 18 guns, from Wiscasset." Immediately after her arrival at Boston, she was purchased by a group of thirty men, most of whom hailed from Salem, although the records show that one of the owners was Thomas Williams of Marblehead and another was Peter Paul F. de Grand of Boston.
The Grand Turk was sent to Salem to be fitted out for her first privateering cruise. After her guns had been mounted, stores loaded and a crew signed on, she set sail under command of Capt. Holton J. Breed, bearing a commission signed by President Madison. This first cruise lasted one hundred days and resulted in several captures. She was forced to terminate her voyage at Port- land, as she was intercepted outside of Salem Harbor by two British frigates while making for her home port. After remaining in Portland for two days the Grand Turk was able to leave for Salem, where she arrived June 6, 1813.
When off Cape Ann that morning, according to Felt's Annals of Salem, she was boarded by a person from Cape Ann, who, supposing her to be an English cruiser gave full information of American vessels about to arrive, at the same time offering supplies and provisions. Captain Breed thereupon gave him a heavy dose of tartar emetic and jalap in a glass of grog to cure his disposition for treason. 19
18. The Washington Hotel, which was formerly in the possession of Abiel Wood, was sold to John Brooks, who took it down. Before its demolition it was called "Brooks' Hotel."
19. Robert E. Peabody, The Log of the Grand Turks, p. 165.
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Four months later the Grand Turk sailed under the same command for enemy waters off the Irish coast. This second voyage lasted for ninety-four days and resulted in the capture of seven prizes, four of which were manned, two burned, and one used as a cartel for prisoners.
Her third cruise began on February seventeenth of the following year. After taking several prizes, one of which was recaptured by the British, and then taken a second time by the Grand Turk, this privateer became involved in the most serious battle of her career.
A strange sail was discovered on May second and the Grand Turk immedi- ately gave chase. When within two miles of her quarry, the American vessel, using a trick of the time, hoisted English colors, which were hauled down when within musket shot of the enemy and American colors raised in their place. The stranger thereupon flew an English ensign and began to fire at the Grand Turk, and for an hour and a half the two vessels kept up a steady fire until the Salem ship became unmanageable. While attempting to repair the damage, the enemy which proved to be the Hinchinbroke, a British mail packet, succeeded in escaping, though badly cut up. The Grand Turk lost two men in this action.
In spite of the fact that she was seriously damaged, she finished her last voyage under Captain Breed with property on board valued at $65,000, which she had taken from prizes during a cruise of one hundred and eight days.
At that time the Grand Turk had a thorough overhauling before she set sail on August sixth, under her new commander, Capt. Nathan Green. After cap- turing a few small prizes, she encountered a Tartar in the form of a predeces- sor of the famous "Q" ships of the World War. While off the coast of Corn- wall, she engaged a ship flying English colors. After firing a few broadsides and getting closer, it was discovered that the stranger was a heavy sloop-of- war, though well disguised by having her gun-deck ports shut and showing a tier of ports on painted canvas above her channels. When this discovery was made, no time was lost in wetting her sails and speeding away and, thanks to her greater speed, the Grand Turk was once more free to pursue her course to safer and more profitable waters.
Captain Green took several prizes off the coast of Spain, and then started for home. His supplies were running short and his crew had become so de- pleted by the number of prizes he had manned, that he could spare no more for this purpose.
With a cruise of one hundred and three days behind her, the Grand Turk
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anchored at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with fifty prisoners on board, but only forty-four of her original crew of one hundred and twenty men.
More vessels were captured on this cruise than on any other. She made an interesting custom of the time (War of 1812) which was the insertion in the newspapers of cards of thanks by officers and men who had been captured and who in this way expressed their appreciation of the kind treatment accorded them as prisoners.
One of the Grand Turk's prizes was retaken by the British and ordered to Halifax, but before she could reach that port she was again taken by another Salem privateer, the Surprise, and brought to that port. It was certainly a sur- prise to Captain Green to find on his return that his prize belonged to another!
Captain Green had a much pleasanter surprise on his next cruise, which started on the first day of the new year. When off Pernambuco, the British ship Active Jane of Liverpool was taken, but apparently had nothing of value on board. However, in the process of transferring a few kegs marked "Nails 1 1/2" one of them broke open and to the astonishment of the privateersmen a shower of coins rolled out on the deck. It turned out that each of the fourteen kegs contained a thousand milreis, the total being the equivalent of about $ 17,000 at the current rate of exchange.
On March tenth, the Grand Turk came perilously near capture herself when a British frigate decoyed her too close for her well-being. It was only by dint of strenuous work at the sweeps that she escaped.
A week or so later Captain Green discovered among the papers taken from a captured prize a letter stating that peace between England and the United States had been signed at Ghent on Christmas Eve and had later been ratified by the Prince Regent, but that hostilities would not cease until the treaty was also ratified by the American Government. The Grand Turk had sailed from Salem a week after the treaty had been signed at Ghent, so Captain Green thought it wise to abandon the cruise.
She was unquestionably one of the most successful private armed ships of the war, having captured no less than thirty enemy vessels. The war ended, her owners decided to dissolve their partnership, which had been formed for the sole purpose of operating a privateer, and the Grand Turk was then sold to Hon. William Gray of Boston, one of the leading American ship-owners of the day, who later disposed of her "to a Spaniard in Havana, 27 January, 1816," to quote from the records at the Boston custom house.
Another privateer enrolled at Wiscasset was the letter of marque Hercules,
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eighteen guns, Benjamin Hinds, master. Captain Hinds married Mary, the daughter of Commodore Samuel Tucker,20 and some years ago among the papers of the latter there came to light the original sea-letter of the Hercules issued at the port of Wiscasset in 1799. It is an ornamented parchment, show- ing a view of the open sea, a storm-beaten rock surmounted with a tower; the clustering spires, wharf-lines and mast forests of a commercial port in distant outline, while in the foreground are several full-rigged ships, some lying at anchor and others under full sail. It is doubtless an indentured sea-letter, a facsimile of which was given to the Cleopatra, a copy of which is reproduced in this work.
This document, bearing the signatures of John Adams, President of the United States, and Francis Cook, collector of the port of Wiscasset, is a gov- ernment pass conferring upon the ship Hercules the freedom of transit on the high seas, and her clearance that year is, in all likelihood, the last she ever received, for soon after January 20, 1799, she foundered in mid-ocean. Cap- tain Hinds and his crew took to an open boat, where their sufferings for twenty- seven days were so excruciating that on their arrival at Cork, Ireland, whither they made their way, all of them save one man and the captain succumbed to the exposure they had undergone. On his way home, the twelfth of April of that year, Benjamin Hinds himself died, a victim of exposure.21
The Intention was captured and her loss is recorded in the following letter:
Wiscasset, Nov. 17th 1812
Whereas Orchard Cook was one Eighth concerned in the Privateer Schooner Intention which was Captured - Daniel McKenny Master & whereas Manasseh Smith took one half of said Cooks part being a sixteenth - the whole Lot was estimated at $1717-14, - being to each sixteenth part one hundred & seven Dollars & 32 Cents. This may certify that said Smith has paid to said Cook the estimated Lot of one sixteenth & that said Cook has paid to me as agent for the concern the full amount of the estimated Lot of one whole eighth part being two Hundred & 14 Dollars & Sixty four Cents.
PHINEAS KELLAM, agent.
The Paul Jones was a privateer schooner belonging to Samuel Hubbard of Wiscasset. John T. Hilton was in command when she brought into this port a fine prize brig of 170 tons, January 18, 1815. The captured vessel was the Danzic, laden with fish and lumber from Castine to Jamaica. The impost book of the Wiscasset custom house lists her cargo as 570 barrels of pickled
20. J. H. Sheppard, The Life of Samuel Tucker, p. 199.
21. J. H. Sheppard, The Life of Samuel Tucker, p. 199.
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fish; 79 quintals of dried fish; besides staves, shingles and pine boards. The total duty on this cargo was $395.56.
Another capture of the Paul Jones was the brig Arrow, an American vessel which had been captured by a British privateer and then retaken by the Paul Jones. The Arrow was sold at Wiscasset and yielded the men $74 a share.
The Cumberland of Portland, carrying one hundred and seventy-five men, and the Paul Jones sailed for Castine to blockade that port, but the British frigate did not come out.
The Paul Jones carried a crew of eighty-four men, among whom were George Harford of Parker's Head and John Burnham of Edgecomb. In the year 1881, Burnham, then eighty-six years old, was living in Edgecomb near the Boothbay line with Mr. Charles Dodge. He was wont to spin yarns for his friends about the thrilling experiences he had had while aboard the Paul Jones.
The only mention of the privateer Fox is found in the History of Bristol and Bremen,22 where he writes that "during the summer many vessels, coasters and fishermen were captured in this vicinity, and some of them again recaptured by American privateers that occasionally visited these waters." Among these were the Fox belonging to Wiscasset, and the Teazer and Young Teazer of New York. This may have been the Fox, a sloop of 95 tons, built at Edgecomb in 1787. She was owned by William Cunningham and her captains were first Ruglas Cunningham and later Andrew Reed, Jr.
That the Teazer23 was actively engaged in privateering off the mouth of the Sheepscot River, in 1812, is shown by her log, an extract of which is here given:
Privateer schooner Teazer - Wednesday 9 Sept. 1812
W. B. Dobson, commander.
6 P.M. Seguin light. Bore N E by N 31/2 leagues distance.
9 A.M. Saw a sail to the northward & eastward. Made her to be a brig.
IO Fired a gun and brought her to. Proved to be the Diana prize to the Dart of Portland cargo of rum bound in. Two ships fired at them shot off Thos. Flint's leg.
II Sept. Thomas Flint died. 8 A.M. committed the body of Thos. Flint deceased to the deep. Lat. 44-41.
12 Sept. Several sail in sight gave chase to the one to windward. 4 P.M. boarded a Cartel from Halifax.
Sept. 17 took to lat. 46-54 Isabella of St. Johns for Liverpool.
22. Johnston, p. 403.
23. Original log, Maine Historical Society, Portland.
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On July 3, 1812, the cargo of the schooner Polly, Jesse Dyer, master, from St. Andrew was seized.
On May 19, 1813, the ship Sally from Wiscasset arrived in Halifax, a prize to La Hogue.
One Sunday, May 23, 1813, during Dr. Packard's sermon in the old meet- ing-house, the congregation was startled by a gun supposedly from Fort Edge- comb, a second and then a third report, taken to mean an alarm. Mr. Alexander Troup, in his wall pew on the right of the front door, rose at the third gun, waved his hand and the apprehensive congregation rushed out to meet the foe. They were soon reassured, however, for it turned out to be the guns of the privateer Thomas firing a salute as she dropped anchor in the harbor with her two prizes, a merchant ship and a brig. The privateer was in command of Thomas M. Shaw. The captured ship, Diana, was in charge of Capt. George Forsythe, and the brig, John Peet,24 was commanded by Capt. Henry Blake. The armed schooner Thomas had twelve guns and eighty men. She captured three ships, one brig and one schooner, with a total valuation of $600,000. One of these ships, the Dromo, mounted twelve guns, and two of them carried fourteen each, but had for complements only twenty-five and thirty men, respectively. The Dromo was from Liverpool for Halifax, and had a cargo invoiced at £70,000 sterling. She was sent into Wiscasset.
Dr. James Spaulding of Portland narrates the following incident in connec- tion with the capture of the Dromo:
My grandfather, Enoch Greenleaf Parrott of Portsmouth, was agent for a privateer, which, in the summer of 1813, took the captured ship Dromo into Wiscasset. Grandfather as agent went down to appraise her cargo; taking one day to reach Saco, half a day to Portland, waiting there on business; then half a day to Freeport, where he stayed with a friend, Capt. Jameson, who was an old sea captain. The next day they crossed a wide ferry at Bath and reached Wiscasset the same day. The roads were in a terrible condition, and though dusty were also full of ruts from recent rains.
After appraising the cargo of very rich silks, gentlemens' ready made clothes, velvets, ostrich feathers, and so on, they continued in Wiscasset for some time, awaiting orders from Portsmouth as to the date of the auction.
Grandfather had a fellow boarder, a Mr. Parker, urbane and facetious. Commodore Hull had been for some time expected here and Parker was exerting every nerve to do him honor. Among other preparations he stationed a man a little out of town in order to give immediate information of his approach. Thereupon Mr. J. Ward, another very facetious gentleman, got ahead of Mr. Parker, and by impersonating the Commodore with
24. McClay, Historical American Privateers, pp. 239-240.
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epaulettes on each shoulder, walked in a very stately manner up the hill near the town. The post spread the news that Hull was coming, so Parker began to fire his cannon and set the church bell ringing before the trick was discovered. Peace was soon restored by asking pardon and paying half a dozen wine.
Sailing again September 23, 1813, the Thomas, six days out, was captured off Cape North by the thirty-two gun frigate Nymph, after a chase of thirty- four hours in which eight of the privateer's guns were thrown overboard.
The three-masted privateer Timothy Pickering, Captain Evans of Salem, while in charge of a vessel was run on a ledge of rocks off Wiscasset by her pilots, but got off again without much damage after remaining about four hours and went into Wiscasset for repair. In September, 1813, the Americans fitted out the Timothy Pickering at Gloucester to cruise after licensed vessels. The Timothy Pickering took the Eliza Ann and sent her into Eastport. The British sloop-of-war Martin appeared at that place soon afterward and threatened to lay the town in ashes if the Eliza Ann were not given up. The people of that place were not so easily intimidated and returning a defiant answer they awaited the promised attack. The Martin soon opened a feeble, ill- directed fire, which the Americans returned with spirit, and after a few shots induced the sloop-of-war to withdraw. The Timothy Pickering also captured the brig Dart and sent her to Salem.
The General Armstrong, named for John Armstrong, then Secretary of War, was commanded by Captain Guy R. Champlin. This famous privateer made several captures, among them, in October, 1813, the schooner George, Comery, master. The George was brought to Wiscasset where she was condemned and sold.
In April, 1814, the schooner Friends Adventure, laden with rum and mo- lasses, sugar, etc., was captured by the Fox of Portsmouth and sent into Wiscasset.
On June 25, 1814, the ship Upton, 270 tons, sixteen guns, one hundred and four men, many of them passengers, with valuable cargo, was captured after a warm action in which she had one killed and one wounded by the privateer Diomede of Salem, and brought into Wiscasset. The ship Upton was the Jacques prize, June 3, 18 14.
Capt. Thomas Cunningham of Edgecomb, on or about the first of Decem- ber, 1814, enlisted at Portland as a musician on board the brig Ino of Portland, John White, master. She sailed on a cruise and with some success, until the month of March, 1815. Between Cape Romain and the city of Charleston,
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South Carolina, she encountered an English frigate, which gave chase and drove the Ino into shoal water. The frigate anchored and sent in five barges to capture the stranded privateer. But the crew manned her guns and fought the barges all the afternoon, and next day until ten in the morning, destroying one of the barges and crippling another, killing three and wounding several others of the frigate's force, when the remaining boats drew off. The Ino had struck ground about a mile off shore, and having repelled the frigate's barges, lost her boats, the crew cut away her masts, made a raft, blew up their vessel and escaped safely to shore. She had before this encountered an English squad- ron, but outsailed the fleet and had been successful in the capture of an English ship, the Hero of London, and an English brig from Barbados before she was destroyed.
On July 11, 1815, the schooner Mary, a prize vessel, was sold by court order at Wiscasset.
The capture of American vessels by Denmark began in 1809. Denmark was an ally of Napoleon and that year sixty-one American vessels were captured. The following year the vessels so taken numbered one hundred and four. The United States Government sent George E. Ervine to Copenhagen to arrest these illegal seizures. He reduced them but did not stop them and as late as the year 1825 this spoliation had not been settled.
Castine, on Penobscot Bay, was regarded by the British as one of the most strategic points on the whole coast from a military standpoint and because of its commanding position as the key to the whole valley of the Penobscot, be- came an important base of operations for their privateers and cruisers in the eastern part of New England. It has elsewhere been stated that the British sent an expedition to Castine in June, 1779, which captured that port and held possession of it until the end of the war. The unsuccessful attempt to drive them from that region, known as the Penobscot Expedition, in which many men from this vicinity took part, was a discouraging blow for the privateers of Massachusetts.
Although there were many prejudiced persons who failed to discriminate between pirates and privateers and who looked askance at the latter, no small amount of credit was due to the enterprising citizens of the little seaports whose individual undertakings kept the trade routes open and supplied the colonies and the army with requirements to meet the long struggle and to hold out through the protracted period of hostility which ended in victory.
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French Spoliation Claims
In order to provide for the settlement of certain unadjusted groups of French spoliation claims which arose prior to July 31, 1801, the Congress passed the Act of January 20, 1885 (23 Stat. L. 283), pursuant to which such claims could be presented by a petition to the Court of Claims, which was au- thorized to examine and determine the validity of the claims and report its findings to the Congress. A large number of petitions were filed with the Court of Claims and the court made its report to the Congress as provided by law. Four appropriations were made by the Congress to pay claims based upon the findings of the Court of Claims pursuant to the Act of 1885.
It was at this time that the claimants of Wiscasset expected to receive redress for the losses of their progenitors. Attics and chests, impost books and records of enrollment were thumbed and scanned for a record of the names of the vessels, the dates of capture, the names of the masters, the names of the under- writers and the names of the original claimants, which would establish their claim. They investigated not only cases of the loss of vessels and cargoes, but also losses of wages by ancestors who were deprived of positions as captains or mates of ships which met with confiscation or detention by the French.
The value of the vessel in most cases was not determined by these musty yellow books, worn and torn and ripped as they were, but by expert testimony. Rufus K. Sewall, Esq., who had been entrusted to bring forward a large number of these claims, stated that "We have to make up the loss not only of the vessel herself, but her equipment, provisions etc. .. . and a safe standard of the average value is 60 dollars per ton." More conservative ship owners con- sidered this a generous appraisal and calculated that $40 per ton was a just estimate.
In a few cases some of the descendants of those who had claims received a meagre compensation, but all of the original claimants were dead ere the money was paid over. One old lady, Betsey Decker, lived to her one hundred and second year hoping always for the settlement of the French spoliation claim on the ship Six Sisters of which a part belonged to her father, Daniel Baker, and was captured by the French soon after 1797; but she died with naught save hope.
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XIV Prosperity and Adversity
T HE years immediately following the Revolution were, until the wither- ing blight of the embargo, the years of Wiscasset's prosperity. As a busi- ness center it had not its equal in any place in Maine east of Portland. The neighboring towns were then in an incipient stage of development. Bath was a small community called "Twenty Cow Parish." Richmond was unknown save as a plantation; Gardiner was called Cobosseecontee Mills; Hallowell under that name was just beginning life, and Augusta, then known only by its ancient name of Cushnoc, was a little village far up the Kennebec.
Everybody flocked to Wiscasset; business men, employers and employees, sailors, tradesmen, speculators, working men and women all came hither to improve their condition, in the hope of making a sudden fortune. The begin- ning of the nineteenth century brought a remarkably prosperous expansion to the shores of the Sheepscot River. Shipbuilding flourished and that industry, with its by-products, enriched the inhabitants of this section. Starting with the year 1801, our foreign commerce, in common with that of other ports of the country, prospered in a remarkable degree, by reason particularly of the neutral position of our government in relation to the mighty contest then being carried on in Europe. It was facetiously said that "Wiscasset milked the British cow." The Napoleonic Wars, permitting cargoes to be carried into European ports, under the United States flag, brought wealth to ship-owners and mer- chants. Settlers' cabins were replaced by those mansions which are now the memorials to the short-lived fortunes of that period.
A change soon came. By the famous decrees of Berlin and Milan, promul- gated by Napoleon in 1806 and 1807, and afterwards declared by him to be the "fundamental laws of the Empire," the British Isles were declared to be in a state of blockade and English goods and products and the vessels carrying the same, made liable to seizure. By the retaliatory Orders in Council, adopted by Great Britain in 1807, all neutral vessels were prohibited from entering the ports of France and her allies under pain of confiscation. Thus, ground as it were between the upper and the nether millstones, our commerce was driven from the seas and our merchants and ship-owners thereby subjected to great losses. One instance of this is noticed in the loss of the ship Cleopatra, a vessel of 378 tons, built and owned by John Johnston, senior, and his son, Alexander
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