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The Brahmin Rough Riders of New England

Some people believe that the Rough Riders were almost all cowboys from out West. After all, it had earned the nickname “The Cowboy Regiment.”

But that wasn’t entirely the case, as you shall see. Brahmins from New England with refined backgrounds also joined the Rough Riders.

Men from every New England state volunteered for Teddy Roosevelt’s U.S. 1^st Volunteer Cavalry, better known as the Rough Riders. Massachusetts had as many as 25. As a matter of fact, the actual commander of the unit, Leonard Wood, hailed from New Hampshire. Frederic Remington featured Woodbury Kane from Rhode Island in his famous painting of the immortal charge up San Juan Hill.

Col. Roosevelt and the Rough Riders on top of San Juan Hill.

Roosevelt had four recruiting stations out West, in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and the Oklahoma/Indian Territories. He had vast experience in the West and knew the cowboys already knew how to ride and shoot. But Roosevelt knew another target-rich area full of ready-for-action men: His wealthy, pedigreed friends throughout New York and New England.

Roosevelt put out the word. They responded in droves from polo clubs, boxing clubs, duck blinds, steeplechase courses, yacht clubs, Ivy League athletic fields and glee clubs. Many had graduated from Harvard.

One Rough Rider, James McClintock, who hailed from California, said they were in it for the adventure.

The Rough Riders are the stuff of legend, having generated a movie, a television show and, of course, a President. They were, however, one of the shortest lived units in American military history. They only existed for four months and 13 days before they disbanded.

Rhode Island Rough Riders

Woodbury Kane, Newport;Joseph S. Stevens, Newport; Norman Maxwell, Newport; Charles Hatch, Newport; Joseph F. Flynn, Cranston.

Rough Rider Woodbury Kane

Woodbury Kane, a classmate of Teddy Roosevelt’s at Harvard, was born in Newport, a cousin of John Jacob Astor IV. A noted yachtsman, he belonged to the New York Yacht Club and served on the crew of the Columbia in the 1899 America’s Cup Race. He was also a noted big game hunter.

After graduation, he lived the life of a bon vivant in Newport and New York. In April 1898 he and other East Coast friends joined the U.S. 1^st Volunteer Cavalry.

After enlistment, he, William Tiffany and other East Coast friends donated two $7,500 Colt machine guns to the unit. When the unit expanded to a thousand men he received a lieutenant’s commission.

While serving in the Rough Riders he was always noted for being dressed to a T, no matter the conditions. While leading K Troop in the charge on San Juan Hill, he was wounded in the forearm. Kane was awarded a citation for gallantry and promoted to captain.

He spent the rest of his life living the life of a dandy until a heart attack cut him down at the age of 46. His obituary noted he left no children, but he did leave his beloved polo pony.

Vermont

Ira A. Hill, Grand Isle; Wallace Batchelder, Chester.

Wallace Batchelder graduated from Chester Academy in Chester, Vt., before enlisting in the Rough Riders. He later fought in the Philippines under General Wood. After his service he returned to Vermont, where he became a lawyer and chaired the state’s committee to elect Roosevelt President of the United States in 1904. He later broke with Roosevelt, who in 1912 sent him a telegram telling him not to support any candidate who didn’t support Roosevelt. Batchelder replied he wouldn’t support Roosevelt.

New Hampshire Rough Riders

Dudley S. Dean, Laconia; Walter F. Hickey, Nashua; Leonard Wood, Winchester.

Leonard Wood was the actual commander of the Rough Riders; Teddy Roosevelt was his second in command.

A descendant of four Mayflower passengers, he trained as a physician at Harvard Medical School. He served as a major general in the Army. When he came to command the U.S. 1^st Volunteer Cavalry in Cuba, he was a seasoned Indian fighter in the West and had already been awarded the Medal of Honor. After the Spanish-American War, he served as Governor-General of the Philippines and contended for the Republican nomination for President in 1920.

Dean was an All American football quarterback for Harvard from 1888 to 1890. He participated in the charge on San Juan Hill. That was not to be his last military adventure. During World War II, he served as a lieutenant colonel In the U.S. Army Air Force. He was the executive producer of the play Winged Victory, which ran from November 1943 to May 1944. He lived until the age of 79, passing away in 1950.

Dudley Dean, football star

Dudley’s son John H. Dean played football for Harvard too. At Harvard, he befriended Joseph P. Kennedy and they spent summers together at Cohassett, Mass.

Maine

Guy Muncie, Calais; Harrison J. Holt, Portland; Frederick C. Wesley, Bangor.

Harrison Holt graduated from Phillips Andover and Harvard. Upon his Harvard graduation in 1898 he enlisted with Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. After the war and some business ventures in Mexico he joined the New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser as a reporter. Later in life he wrote novels and detective stories, including The Calendared Isles, a Romance of Casco Bay (read it here) and Midnight at Mears House.

Connecticut

Edward C. Hall, Wallingford.

Unlike most of the Ivy League Rough Riders, Edward Hall graduated from Yale, not Harvard. Upon graduation in 1894, he went to work for Westinghouse and did a brief stint at a North Dakota ranch before enlisting with the Rough Riders. After the war he joined General Electric in Lynn, Mass., then transferred to the Schenectady office, where he died in 1912.

Massachusetts

Harry A. Curtis, Boston; Prescott H. Belknap, Brookline; John D. Hubbell, Boston; Rufus K. Thomas, Boston; Wellman H. Saunders, Salem; John P. Gardner, Boston; Guy H. Scull, Boston; Harry A. Davis, Boston; Francis B. Crowninshield, Marblehead; William H. Mitchell, Salem; Winslow Clark, Milton; Edward F. Donnelly, Boston; Michael F. Hogan; William T. James, Fitchburg; Arthur M. Leroy, Boston; Raymond Morse, Springfield; Edward A. O’Brien, Charlestown; William J. Tudor, Boston; Harry C. White, Somerville.

Francis Boardman Crowninshield, another Harvard graduate, went on to become a noted international yachtsman. He fought with Troop K of the Rough Riders and took part in the charge up San Juan Hill. In 1900, he married Louise DuPont from the famous chemical family. In 1911, he won the King of Spain’s Cup in Spain, now among his many trophies at the Eastern Yacht Club in Marblehead, Mass.

Rough Riders. Image courtesy New York Public Library.

About the author of this story: Leo Caisse of East Providence, R.I., passed away in 2020. He published the book, The Civilian Conservation Corps: A Guide to Their Works in Rhode Island. He also published a number of historical articles, including Ears On the World in America in World War II Magazine, October, 2017. Leo earned a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Providence College and he lived in East Providence, R.I.

This story updated in 2022.

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The Mysterious 1852 Voyage of the Arabian, the Fastest Clipper Ship in Maine

In 1852 James Hinds, a ship builder in Calais, Maine, launched the fastest clipper ship ever built in the state.

He’d built the ship on spec for a New York investor who had passed through Calais and been impressed by Hinds’ skills. On launch, the ship measured 125 feet long and 29 feet across. Hinds designed it to be 12 feet tall, but expanded it to 16 feet at the owner’s request so it could carry more cargo.

That would become a point of pride for the shipbuilder, who insisted he never knew what the ship’s intended cargo would be.

The ship caused quite a stir in Calais. Thomas V. Briggs, a young man from a local shipbuilding family, watched the Arabian’s launch with awe .

The Arabian never returned to Calais, and Briggs would wonder for years what happened to her. It would take more than 50 years for him to find out and tell the world.

Fastest Clipper Ship

The clipper ship made New York in four days, and the pilot who took it up the Hudson River declared he had never seen a ship so fast. It was the heyday of the clipper ship, and as the Arabian speedily sailed into New York Harbor she attracted a lot of attention.

Clipper barque Spirit of the Age

Visitors came and examined the Arabian’s log book, and the owner declared he’d sell the vessel for the astronomical price of $20,000.

A Spanish investor then began a game of cat and mouse with the Arabian’s owners. He wanted the clipper ship, he insisted, but not at that price. But when the boat’s owners left New York for Boston, the would-be buyer panicked and sent word he would meet the price.

From New York, the Arabian got a new crew and captain, and then she sailed for Cardenas in Cuba. One of the original crewman stayed with the ship, however. When Thomas Briggs found him, he divulged what had become of the Arabian.

To Cuba and Beyond

In Cardenas, the ship was fitted with an additional deck, and now had two levels below deck to haul cargo. Each level had only about two feet of headroom. Such decks were designed for one kind of cargo: slaves.

Renamed the Caribee, the ship made quick work of the crossing to Africa, but almost didn’t carry out its mission. In the slave markets in Gobon, Ambriz and Guinea the captain found few slaves to be had.

Slave market in Zanzibar, 1860, by Edwin Stocqueler

Frustrated but undeterred, the captain pointed the empty Caribee back across the Atlantic toward Brazil, where he knew of a small island town off the coast of Para. There he anchored and went ashore.

The captain told the villagers he had a proposition. His ship was loaded with raw materials. If they would put themselves to work building cabinets, harvesting coffee, fruit and lumber, he would buy all they could produce and sell it abroad. He would become their exclusive trading gateway to the world.

After several days, the captain put his real plans into action. He invited the townspeople aboard the Caribee, drugged them with punch and chained them below decks. In all, he captured 800 to 1,200 people of the village and took them aboard the Caribee for Cuba.

The Clipper Ship vs. The British Navy

By 1852 the British Navy actively patrolled the waters of the Atlantic trying to stop the slave trade. But the captain of the Caribee gambled that even the speedy British Navy was no match for his ship.

HMS Black Joke, a British slave patrol ship, fires on the Spanish slave ship El Almirante. Painting by Nicholas Matthews Condy.

After seven days sailing, just two days out from Cardenas, a British ship spotted the slave ship. At first the Caribee tried to avoid the British vessel, but the British gave chase. On the second day of the chase, as the British ship drew near, the Caribee’s crew fired her cannon at the British ship, damaging her sails and a mast.

Then, with the British vessel paused to make repairs, the Caribee made a desperate run for Cardenas. Arriving at 10 o’clock at night, the captain and the ship’s owner moved quickly to unload the slaves and bring them ashore.

A painting c.1830 by Johann Moritz Rugendas showing a scene below deck of a slave ship.

The Story of the Arabian

Fifty-six years later, Thomas Briggs published the story in Harper’s Magazine:

As fast as they were landed they were hurried off in gangs to various plantations in the interior. Those who were weak and feeble were placed in mule and donkey carts and followed. In a little more than three hours they were all out, and soon the last gang was sent off; and now the guns, ivory, arms, charts, men’s chests, and whatever could be got out easily and at once were put on board the lighters, a few sails cut from their lashings, cable shipped, the bark taken in tow by several boats, borne out to the bar, and set on fire in several places.

Very soon she was a solid mass of flame from jibboom to taffrail, from truck to keelson, and a dense black cloud of smoke rolled over the town. Soon after daybreak the brig appeared in the offing. Her commander at once took in the situation, and presently his departure. All that remained of the famous slaver Caribbee was a smoking, blackened hulk.

And so after that single voyage came the ignominious end of the grand Arabian, the fastest clipper ship ever built in Maine, or so they said.

The last owners of the vessel, Briggs estimated, made $1 million from the sale of the slaves.

This story about the clipper ship Arabian was updated in 2022.

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Maine Smuggling and the Raid on Calais

The northern tip of the Maine coast was a smugglers’ paradise for generations. In fact, Maine smuggling was an essential part of the economy there.

The famous turncoat Benedict Arnold chose to set himself up on Campobello Island to engage in illegal trade with America shortly after the American Revolution. Arnold recruited men from both the Canadian and U.S. sides of the border to load and unload merchandise.

Postcard view of the International Bridge dividing Saint Stephen and Calais

Then in the War of 1812, Maine’s northern coast served as a prime thoroughfare for smuggled goods.

And the booze smugglers were an industry unto themselves as Maine adopted prohibition in the late 1800s. They slipped in and out of the lightly patrolled coves and rivers. They also brought imbibers across to Canadian bars for a legal taste.

Maine Smuggling

It was no picnic for the customs agents, or ‘preventers,’ on either side of the border. A Canadian preventer’s son was kidnapped in one attempt to stop the illegal plaster trade. Pushing and shoving occasionally turned to gun play and threats as the customs agents were held at bay. Nationally, Maine got a reputation as a wild center for smuggling. But a raid on Calais in 1837, recorded in the Annals of Calais, Maine and St. Stephen, New Brunswick probably tops all the stories for sheer ingenuity and moxie.

Lumber was the matter at hand at the time. Lumber came down the Saint Croix River from both Canada and the United States. The river snakes its way through Calais, separating the two countries as it carves an exotic series of “S” curves on its way to the ocean. Crossing between Canada and the United States was as simple as walking across a bridge, or in winter as simple as walking across the ice when the river froze.

Map of Calais, Me. and Saint Stephen, N.B.

When the lumber reach the mouth of the river, it was taxed. Crafty lumbermen would declare the lumber’s country of origin based upon which country would cost them less. Customs officials were hard pressed to differentiate between a Canadian log and one from the U.S.

In 1837, however, the Customs House seemed to be getting smarter. One, two, three loads they declared illegal because they had the wrong country of origin. There was only one explanation: Someone who knew where the lumber was coming from upstream was providing that information to the Customs Office.

Odious Villain

The town was outraged. The Calais Advertiser labeled the informant an “odious villain.” One man accused of informing placed an advertisement in the paper. He declared he didn’t inform, and customs officers attested that he told the truth.

Finally, a group from town decided to put an end to the information flow. U.S. Customs had seized a cache of U.S. contraband across the border in Saint Stephen. On the bridge to America, the customs officer was greeted with an odd sight – a band of men dressed as Indians.

The men seized the officer, placed him in a wagon and drove him to into the woods on the Canadian side. Along the way, one of the disguised men dragged a sword along the rolling wagon wheel, sharpening it in a menacing manner.

The customs officer did not hold out long. While he may not have named the informant, he gave the crowd enough information to identify him. Faced with the charge, the informant fled town and the smuggling activity returned to normal.

This story last updated in 2022.

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