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 35
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action those seven American seamen knew that they were called to fight against their flag. Then it was that Card went aft to the captain requesting that officer, in behalf of himself and his shipmates to relieve the Americans from the hour's duty of fighting against their own countrymen. Captain Carden sav- agely ordered him back to his station, declaring with an oath, that he would shoot Card if such a request were repeated. The petition had failed. Those men must stand at their posts of duty; there was no chance of evasion, no escape, no concealment, no release. Midshipmen were stationed at all of the gangways with orders to shoot any man who attempted to slip away from his quarters.
The combat came on with its carnage and within the first hour of battle, John Card lay dead upon the bloody deck. The fight lasted but two hours when the Macedonian surrendered with a loss of one hundred and five men, one of whom was John Wallis, another American seaman. Wallis, believed to have been a native of Phippsburg, was impressed on board of the Triton. Trans- ferred to the Macedonian he shared the tragic fate of Card, and like him re- ceived an ocean burial. Five were left to tell the deplorable story at Newport in December, whither Decatur conducted the Macedonian, skilfully eluding the British fleet then operating off the coast.
List of Americans and Vessels Prisoners' Memorial at Dartmoor, England
William Fenton of Wiscasset entered His Majesty's Service out of Dartmoor prison. Man-of-War.
Richard Porter, Wiscasset Impressed. Entered H. M.'s service out of the prison ships at Chatham.
Ephraim Pinkham, died at Dartmoor prison ship Mammoth.
Francis Saul (or Soul) died at Dartmoor prison ship Mercury.
Joseph Rasom, - prison ship Ned of Baltimore.
Joseph Robinson, died at Dartmoor.
James Barker, wounded at the massacre in Dartmoor prison, from the ship Elbridge Gerry. Wounded by bayonet.
John Cole, Wiscasset, impressed. Died at Dartmoor prison, England.
Joseph Young, Wiscasset, Mass. Impressed 1805 in channel. Now on Princess Royal.
Daniel Landerkin had a custom house protection from Wiscasset, but was impressed in 1805 by the British. He was probably from Boothbay.
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The War of 1812
W TAR was declared against England on June 18, 1812, and while it is recorded that in some places bells were tolled and flags displayed at half mast, upon receipt of the news here on the twenty-third of the month, colors were hoisted aloft and the guns of Fort Edgecomb fired.
Far removed as we now are from that time, it is difficult to see clearly the motives actuating Congress to enter upon such a war, for it would seem as though all of the questions involved might have been satisfactorily settled by arbitration; but strong party feeling existed, and among the Federalists the war was known as "Mr. Madison's War."
Nothing of importance happened in this section until the spring of 1813, when two British cruisers, the Rattler carrying sixteen guns, and the Bream, carrying eight guns and a crew of one hundred men, harassed the coast of Maine from St. Georges to Seguin, burning fishing vessels and coasters, mak- ing forays on shore carrying off cattle and supplies, and by their depredations keeping the inhabitants in a state of perpetual alarm. On the last day of March they captured off Pemaquid Point, five lumber-laden schooners on their way to Boston. Prize crews were put aboard, but two days later, while becalmed off Boothbay, three boats with twenty men put off from shore and recaptured one of the schooners. Directly after its recapture the schooner was hidden away in Campbell's Cove, West Harbor, then surrounded by a forest growth of lofty virgin timber. The Rattler approached and anchored off Squirrel Island.
Capt. William Maxwell Reed, the commander of the coast defence, ordered an "all-out alarm" fired, in response to which came Capt. Daniel Rose,1 the commandant of the Damariscotta fort, with a company of soldiers. During the night the Rattler landed a boatload of marines at Spruce Point, but when fired upon by the local militia, they hastily retreated.2
On April fourth the Liverpool Packet captured three sloops and a schooner in sight of Boothbay. Aroused and naturally resenting these belligerent acts, the inhabitants of the coast settlements, both young and old, met together and resolved to take drastic measures for protection. The sloop Increase, 100 tons, Captain Osier, was then lying at a Bristol wharf, and taking the advice of Com-
1. Daniel Rose was a physician at Wiscasset after the war. He was President of the Senate in 1822.
2. Greene, History of Boothbay, p. 256.
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modore Samuel Tucker, that intrepid old veteran then sixty-six years of age, forty-five men drew up an agreement, chartered the Increase, and set forth to capture the Bream.3 Commodore Tucker was placed in command of this expe- dition. The Increase, armed with the necessary papers, and with poles having bayonets fastened on the end as a substitute for boarding-pikes, sailed to Boothbay, from which place boats were sent up river to the fort at Wiscasset, then under command of John Binney, captain of the Fourth Regiment of United States Infantry. From him two small cannon, with a brass fieldpiece, ammunition and other supplies together with a detachment of thirty men, were obtained. Thus equipped the Increase started out in pursuit of the Bream, and cruised about for two days in a fruitless search, when shortage of provi- sions compelled them to turn back. They returned the cannon and the field- piece borrowed from Captain Binney at Fort Edgecomb, discharged the soldiers they had taken aboard, and started for home, but just as they rounded Pemaquid Point a sail hove in sight, though at some distance to the eastward. The Increase held her course as though heading for St. George's River, keeping meanwhile, a sharp watch on the stranger, which soon changed her course and tacked as if to intercept them.
Tucker ordered all of his men below, except a few hands as sailors and pretended to make an attempt at escape, realizing full well that his one chance lay in close range fighting. At precisely the right moment he tacked his ship, and hoisting the American flag, ordered the entire personnel on deck. The British fired the first shot, which was instantly returned by the men from the Increase. So great was the surprise of the enemy that they rushed below decks, and Commodore Tucker captured the Crown, as the vessel proved to be. She was a privateer from Halifax of 35 tons, carrying twenty-five men. They had been out for eight days and had captured one American brig and had their prisoners aboard.
This fight took place off Long Cove Point. After the capture both vessels were taken into Round Pond. The prize had on board a considerable quantity of ammunition and stores all of which was sold to benefit the captors. The Crown was bought by persons living in Gloucester, repaired and used as a packet between Boston and Gloucester. The prisoners, twenty-five in number, were sent to the jail in Wiscasset, to be exchanged in due time. Capt. Richard Jennings of the Crown managed to escape from the Lincoln County jail by disguising himself in a woman's dress.
3. Sheppard, Life of Samuel Tucker, p. 216.
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At the beginning of the War of 1812, England had declared the whole of our Atlantic coast in a state of blockade. The entire seaboard was alive with British cruisers. Many of the inhabitants took to privateering and others han- dled contraband goods. At that time there were few factories in this country for the manufacture of woolen goods. The young country was dependent on the old one for importations of blankets and "sheep's clothing." Smuggling was unscrupulously carried on at the border and Maine from Eastport to Kittery was filled with British goods. It was said that our government, cognizant of the exigency of the situation, gave directions to the custom house "not to scrutinize too carefully the importation of these goods."
The British brig Boxer, for several weeks during the summer of 1813, had been cruising along the coast of Lincoln County. She was built at the Isle of Wight in 1812 and her burthen was 182 tons. She carried sixteen eighteen- pounders, two long nines and one hundred and four men.
The Enterprise, 165 tons, carried fourteen eighteen-pounders, two long nines and one hundred and two men. She had a history before her engagement with the Boxer, having been commanded by Stephen Decatur, in Commodore Preble's fleet at Tripoli in 1803, capturing the Mastico, bound for Constanti- nople with female slaves for the Sultan.4 The Boxer was commanded by Capt. Samuel Blyth, then twenty-nine years of age.
A few days before the famous battle of the Boxer and Enterprise the British ship had boarded a schooner flying the Swedish flag which had entered and anchored in Pemaquid harbor. She was really a Yankee craft commanded by Capt. Thomas Child of Bristol, but had been put under the Swedish flag be- cause of the neutrality of that nation at the time. When on Saturday afternoon the Boxer came in she anchored near John's Island, and the next morning sent a flag of truce up to the harbor, requesting permission to board the foreign vessel.
The Harrington militia company under Captain Sproul had been called out for drill, and word being sent them of the advent of a British ship in Pemaquid harbor, Captain Sproul with his men went at once to the site of the old fort and was there in time to greet the landing party.5 About this time the American frigate Enterprise appeared in the offing, coming from the westward. Immediately signals were made from the Boxer recalling the men on shore, who hastily returned, and the Boxer, with all sails set, headed for the open sea. It soon became obvious that a battle was imminent, although the firing did not
4. Greene, History of Boothbay, p. 252. 5. Johnston, History of Bristol and Bremen, p. 406.
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The War of 1812
begin until three o'clock on that eventful Sunday afternoon, September 5, 1813, when the historic sea fight between the Boxer and the Enterprise took place, south of Pemaquid Point and between the islands of Seguin and Mon- hegan.
Hundred of persons on shore watched and waited for the outcome of the battle of the smoke-enveloped ships. The inhabitants of Wiscasset about the time of the afternoon church service, were alarmed by the noise of cannon, but owing to the weather conditions, the wind being north-northwest at the time, the deep reverberation of the guns was heard more distinctly from Edgecomb heights than in this village.
Charles Tappan of Cambridge, Massachusetts (who died in Washington, D. C., in 1875 at the age of ninety years), in a letter written to Captain Preble, gives the following explanation of the presence of the Boxer in this vicinity at that time.
In 1813 I went with others in the Swedish brig Margaretta to St. John, N.B., and filled her with British goods, intending to take them to Bath, Maine, and enter them regularly and pay the lawful duties thereon. All we had to fear was American privateers; and we hired Capt. Blyth of H. B. M. brig Boxer to convoy us to the mouth of the Kennebec River, for which service we gave him a bill of exchange on London for £100. We sailed in company, and in a thick fog off Quoddy Head the Boxer took us in tow. It was agreed that when we were about to enter the river, two or three guns should be fired over us, to have the appearance of trying to stop us should any idle folks be looking on. Captain Burroughs of the United States brig Enterprise lay in Portland harbor, and hearing the guns, got under way, and as is well known, captured the Boxer after a severe engagement in which both captains were killed. Our bill of exchange we thought might in some way cause us trouble so we employed Esquire K. to take 500 specie dollars on board the cap- tured ship, and exchange them for the paper,which was found in Captain Blyth's breeches pocket.6
The action was warmly kept up until four P.M. when a cry from the decks of the Boxer announced a surrender, her flags still flying. They were ordered to be lowered, when an English officer sprang on a gun, and shaking his fists, cried "No, no!" He was forced below, and it was found that the colors of the Boxer were nailed to the mast, which, with hatchets and handspikes, were brought down amid derisive laughter of the Yankee tars, who watched the awkward proceeding.
The Enterprise suffered much in spars and rigging, and the Boxer also in spars, rigging and hull, with many shots between wind and water.
6. Seaside Oracle, June 12, 1875, taken from the Waterville Gazette.
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There were between twenty and twenty-five killed on the Boxer, and four- teen wounded lay on her decks. The Enterprise had one killed and thirteen wounded, some mortally.
Lieut-Commander Burroughs lay on deck 'til the action ended, and when the sword of Commander Blyth of the Boxer was placed under his dying head, he murmured "I die contented."
Both vessels flying the Stars and Stripes reached Portland on Monday, September sixth at five o'clock in the afternoon. Their dead commanders were buried side by side in the Eastern Cemetery."
During the first two years of our second war with England, Maine, though often threatened by the enemy, was not actually invaded, excepting by forag- ing parties in quest of food, but from the spring of 1814 until the proclama- tion of peace, which was read here on February 18, 1815, the British squadrons infesting the shores of New England were a continual menace to its coast towns and its maritime pursuits.
The British governemnt, at the beginning of the year 1814, determined to prosecute a vigorous campaign both on land and sea, and the unequivocal order issued by Sir Alexander Cochrane (who succeeded Sir John Warren in com- mand of the North American station) "To destroy the coast towns and ship- ping and ravage the country" filled this region with alarm. Moreover the position of the British was strengthened by the fact that the power of Napoleon was broken and England was thus enabled to divert greater war forces to her troubles on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Commodore John Rodgers was in command of the coast from the New Jersey capes to Eastport. From the beginning of the war the people of Wis- casset lived in daily dread of a hostile invasion and during the summer of that year two attacks were threatened, one just after seed time and the other at harvest. The men were called out for duty in the summer months and so great was the dearth of labor in the country, that the field work devolved upon the women, who bravely attended to all of the weeding, hoeing, haying and har- vesting of the crops.
The Committee of Public Safety for the town of Wiscasset was composed of Capt. John Binney, Maj. Abiel Wood, Samuel Cony, Nathaniel Coffin, Capt. Samuel Miller, William M. Boyd and William Taylor.
The troops of the eighth and eleventh divisions, comprising a small part of Cumberland and the counties of Lincoln, Kennebec, Franklin and Somerset,
7. Goold, Portland in the Past, p. 487.
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including what is now a part of Waldo and Knox counties, were stationed at the sea-coast towns extending from Bath to Wiscasset, Thomaston and Camden. Troops were stationed at Bath from June twentieth to June twenty-second and from September tenth to October 1, 18 14.
Col. Ezekiel Cutter was in charge of the local militia. The Fourth Regiment stationed at Fort Edgecomb, as previously stated, had been in charge of Capt. John Binney, a native of Hingham, Massachusetts, and a great favorite in Wiscasset, where he lived in the Francis Blyth house on Main Street during his assignment at this post. While here he formed many lasting friendships, one of which with Capt. William M. Boyd, continued throughout his life.
When Captain Binney was transferred to Greenbush, June 26, 1813, thence to Burlington, Vermont, he was succeeded by Capt. James Perry, For- tieth United States Infantry, and it was the latter who was in command of Fort Edgecomb when the British came up the river.
On May 23, 1814, a brigade order issued at Wiscasset read as follows:
The commanding officers of Regiment and Battalions within the second Brigade and eleventh Division will issue orders for filling all vacancies within the limits of their re- spective commands .. . The situation of Batteries erected for defence of Maritime fron- tier of the Brigade is such that very little reliance can be placed upon them. It is further ordered that every soldier be made acquainted with his duty in case of actual or threatened invasion.
By order of Brigadier General David Payson. SAMUEL PAGE Brigade Major 2nd Brigade Division.
At Wiscasset, on the twenty-fourth, the above preliminary and cautionary order was executed as follows, viz .:
Regimental order First Regiment, Second Brigade, Eleventh Division.
The Commanding officers of companies composing this Regiment will govern them- selves agreeably to within Brigade order.
By order of Ezekiel Cutter, Lieut. Col., Commanding.
JOSHUA HILTON, Adjutant NATHAN CLARK, JR., Clerk
When news of the British attack on Saco reached Wiscasset the town looked to her river defence and a small company under Capt. John Erskine was de- tailed June eighteenth for guard duty near Fowles' Point® on Jeremy Squam
8. A personal reminiscence of the arrival of the British in the Sheepscot River at this time, has been supplied by Miss Mary Amory. "My grandmother, then Hannah Chase, used to tell us of her own ex-
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Island; and forty men, probably from the company of Capt. David R. Adams of Boothbay, a few of whom were from that town, but made up largely of men from Wiscasset, Newcastle and Edgecomb, were stationed on the oppo- site shore somewhere near Quarry Point in Edgecomb.
The British war vessels soon anchored off Seguin threatening the Sheepscot and Kennebec Rivers. They were fitted out with large barges for river naviga- tion where the water was too shallow for the warships to venture. Each barge was equipped with a small swivel cannon and was capable of carrying a com- pany of armed men. These boats of light draft had already done much damage in rivers east of the Sheepscot.
On June twentieth, two enemy vessels, the Bulwark, a seventy-four-gun ship, Captain Milne,9 and the Tenedos, a British frigate, entered the Sheepscot River and the Bulwark anchored in the lower bay and sent six barges up as far as the Cross, opposite Fowles' Point.1º There she landed one hundred and sixty picked men, who drove off Captain Erskine's company, took two six-pounders and sank them in the river. After the departure of the enemy the soldiers sal- vaged their cannon and hid them in the woods.
The forty men stationed near the Boothbay line fired their cannon to ward off the invaders but were obliged to flee when six barges of marines landed on
perience when the Bulwark came here in 1814. She with her brothers and sisters, all of them young children, was out in a boat paddling about at Cross Point, Cross River, while their father Deacon Chase (the grandfather of Eben and my great-grandfather) was shingling a roof at Barter's Island. Suddenly he shouted to them to go ashore for the British were coming up the river. I imagine that there was some intensive paddling, and Grandma, in the bow of the boat, was so scared that she did not wait for it to ground, but climbed out and waded swiftly ashore. I can picture the race of those chil- dren for home and mother. At that time they lived in the house later occupied by Mrs. Caswell, and called Terrace Gables. Grandma said the British ship anchored and sent a boat up river. The enemy went ashore at Fowle's Point, Westport, where the household had fled to the woods, all gone excepting one man who was either too old or too lame to flee - or else just too stubborn. Mrs. Fowles had just made a fresh churning of butter and slipcoat-cheese, and the British took all of it, and also a pair of trousers belonging to the old man, who pleaded with them to "take the cheese if they must but spare him his pants." But they went off with cheese and pants. Grandma said the Americans had some cannon at Quarry Farm, on the Edgecomb side of the river opposite Fowles' Point, and when the boat got that far up the river the Americans fired and then took to the woods. The British came ashore and rolled the cannon into the river.
I do not know whether the children lost their boat or not. Probably it was the kind you couldn't lose. All of which is "History as she is spoke" and not according to books.
9. English barges could frequently be seen leaving the British ships to make landings along the shore. One Mr. Gray, at that time a resident of Squirrel Island, was on amicable terms with Captain Milne, the commander of the Bulwark. The latter was a man of high standards, a gentleman in every sense of the word. He deprecated war, but being in the service of his country was obliged to do his duty. More than once he landed and paid a friendly visit to the Grays. He never allowed his men to destroy private property, nor to do any injury whatsoever to the Gray family.
10. The story goes that the men from the Bulwark and Tenedos sent word to the men at Fort Edgecomb that they would dine at Wiscasset on July fourth. The reply went back: "If you dine Wis- casset, you'll sup in hell." It is not recorded that either engagement was kept.
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the eastern shore of the river at Quarry Point. The enemy marched four or five miles when they were met by a much larger force, doubtless from Fort Edgecomb, and were obliged to retreat and re-embark, first in their barges thence to their vessel, which they reached in safety only making some demon- strations opposite the fort in Georgetown.
Colonel Reed ordered the alarm gun at Phippsburg Center to be fired. About the same time word was received that the barges were ascending the Sheepscot, General McCobb sent a boat through Arrowsic Gut to watch the Sasanoa. At evening a message announced that the barges had returned to the ship. On their return the enemy boats were fired upon from Pond Island where a militia detachment had been stationed.11
The only casualty recorded in this skirmish seems to have been that in which Stephen Comary, a native of Surry, on Patten Bay, Hancock County, Maine, was wounded in the hand by the accidental explosion of a musket while oppos- ing the landing of a party of British soldiers on the shores of Wiscasset."12
On June twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth, an attempt was made to land troops at Boothbay. A British war vessel entered the harbor and exchanged a few shots with the garrison on McFarland's Point. The soldiers on shore had but one fieldpiece which burst when they fired it, but fortunately at this very moment the British vessel ceased firing and rounding Spruce Point went into Linekin Bay. The garrison supposing that they intended landing at Spruce Point or Lobster Cove marched double quick around the head of the harbor to the place then owned by John Grover. As the vessel came in toward the shore, Joseph Grover, a son of the former, was standing in front of the house with his musket. He took a shot at the on-coming enemy, who returned his fire, instantly killing Grover, when their shot struck him in the head.13
It was during this unsuccessful attempt to destroy Wiscasset that Oliver Hazard Perry,14 who happened to be here at the time in an unofficial capacity,
II. Henry W. Owen, History of Bath, p. 152.
12. Coolidge and Mansfield, History and Description of New England, P. 321.
13. Green, History of Boothbay, p. 255.
14. Perry may have been visiting the owners of the ship Diana, of Wiscasset, Henry Whitney and others, who owed him a deep debt of gratitude for his daring rescue of their vessel with which the English captain had made off and taken outside the jurisdiction of the United States.
In the middle of July (1810), while in the neighborhood of Cumberland Island on the coast of Georgia, the deputy United States marshal arrived on board of the Revenge, with a warrant from the United States district judge for the seizure of a ship then lying in Spanish waters, off Amelia Island, under English colours, and bearing the fictitious name of Angel, though known to be the ship Diana, of Wiscasset. It seems that the master of this vessel, by name James Tibbets and by birth an English- man, had fraudulently retained possession of the ship during several years, refusing to return with
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rallied the townspeople and mounting several six-pounders helped to repulse the British landing party.15
At this time privateers were fitted out at Wiscasset and went to sea, bringing back to this port many prizes with prisoners of war who were delivered to Jonathan Cook, United States Deputy Marshal.
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