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The Wreck of the Magnifique and the Missing Treasure

In 1820, when harbor pilot-turned-church-sexton David Darling was buried, the story of the French ship Magnifique might well have been buried with him. But it wasn’t.

The French government had sent the Magnifique to Boston in 1782 to join the celebration of the U.S.-French victory over the British in the American Revolution. The Magnifique was a 74-gun, 170-foot warship arriving in Boston from the Caribbean. Darling, a harbor pilot from Boston, travelled out to meet Captain Macteigne and the Magnifique and guide her safely to shore.

Le Guerrier, a French warship similar to Magnifique

As she sailed past Lovell’s Island in Boston Harbor, an unexpected wind shift pushed the ship on to a shoal. Over the years, historians have suggested that a small fortune in gold, recovered by the crew in the Caribbean, went down with her.

For his part in the wreck, Darling lost harbor piloting privileges, and was given the job of a church sexton in the North Church. There he occasionally got teased about wrecking the French vessel.

On at least one occasion, pranksters scrawled in chalk in front of the church.

Don’t you run this ship ashore,
As you did the seventy-four.

Though it seems likely the French would have removed any gold from the ship during the hours that seamen spent trying to refloat her, the story of the treasure persisted.

The Magnifique

In his 1944 book, The Romance of Boston Bay, Edward Rowe Snow offers one possible solution to the mystery of the treasure. The Magnifique was remembered by old salts, who spread the tale of her demise. In 1840, 1859, 1868 and 1869, treasure hunters tried to locate the shipwreck and her treasure.

Lovells Island, viewed from Fort Warren on Georges Island

They searched the wreck site, visible at low tide on Lovell’s Island (and still is, according to the National Park Service). They found timbers, cannon balls and other artifacts, but no gold. Until the 1920s. Then, Charles H. Jennings, lighthouse keeper, discovered some coins in the sand, according to Snow. He washed them off and set them aside. His temporary replacement soon arrived on the island to cover for the lighthouse keeper’s scheduled leave. Jennings told the man about his find and headed off to his vacation.

Upon his return, Snow notes, the temporary keeper hurriedly departed. Jennings soon discovered a large hole in the sand where he had found the coins.

“A few months later the assistant retired from the Lighthouse service and lived in comfort for the rest of his life,” Snow wrote. “The reader may draw his own conclusions.”

John Paul Jones

The wreck of the Magnifique changed someone else’s fortunes, though not for the better. John Paul Jones, the naval hero of the American Revolution, had been supervising the construction of a new ship in Portsmouth, N.H. He hoped to command the vessel, called America, as a privateer. He needed prizes to repay his debts.

John Paul Jones by Charles Wilson Peale

But Congress decided that it wanted to give America to the French to replace the lost Magnifique. It ordered Jones to deliver it to the French captain. Neither party was happy with the decision, but both participated in the show of handing off the ship.

Losing America ended Jones’ American career. He ended up joining the Russian Navy, then dying alone in a Paris apartment. Buried in a cemetery that turned into a garbage dump, his body returned to America years later. Read how Teddy Roosevelt brough him back here.

This story last updated in 2022.

Images: Lovells Island By Chris Wood, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=997036.

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The Candlemas Massacre and the Salem Witch Trials

One week after two girls in Salem, Mass., begun having strange fits, the Candlemas Massacre wiped out the village of York in the District of Maine.

On a snowy night, a French and Indian war party traveled on snowshoes to the village outskirts and waited until just before dawn. Then they killed or captured about 150 people and burned almost all of their houses.

The Candlemas Massacre took place in the midst of King William’s War, one of the French and Indian wars fought intermittently in North America from 1689 to 1763.

The massacre would have an impact on subsequent events, including the Salem witch trials. It would also influence the next French and Indian War, known as Dummer’s War or Father Rales’ War.

Sorrowfull Tideings

The Rev. George Burroughs in nearby Wells described the Candlemas Massacre: ‘Pillours of Smoke, the rageing of the mercyless flames, the insultations of the heathen enemy, shooting, hacking… & dragging away others.’

He concluded with an accusation that foreshadowed the Salem witch trials:

The ‘Sorrowfull tideings’ from York, wrote Burroughs, showed ‘God is still manifesting his displeasure against this Land.’

Salem witch trial

York, Maine

English colonists had settled Maine under a charter granted to Fernando Gorges. York was successively known as Bristol, Agamenticus and, in 1642, as Gorgeana. Gorges died 10 years later. Massachusetts Bay Colony then absorbed Maine and renamed the settlement York.

Massachusetts officials wanted to push Maine’s boundaries beyond Casco Bay. However, New France – now Canada – claimed Maine too.

Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie de Saint-Castin

Gov. Edmund Andros in 1686 ordered a raid on the home of Baron Saint-Castin, a Frenchman who founded Castine, Maine. Saint-Castin retaliated by destroying the English fort at Pemaquid in 1689.

In 1692, Madocawando, sachem in the Penobscot band of Wabanakis, led the Candlemas Massacre. He had a reputation for his courage, his hatred of the English and his son-in-law – Baron Saint-Castin.

Early Warnings

The Candlemas Massacre didn’t take York by complete surprise.

Shubael Dummer, founder of York’s First Parish Congregational Church, resisted warnings to leave the village because of the dangerous unrest.

Wrote Cotton Mather,

Though solicited with many temptations to leave his place, when the clouds grew thick and dark in the Indian hostilities, and was like to break upon it, he chose, rather, with a paternal affection to stay amongst those who had been so many of them converted and edified by his ministry.

The residents of York may also have seen paper money, the first in North America, issued by Massachusetts to pay for the war with the French and Indians.

The Candlemas Massacre

Plaque marking the spot where the attackers left their snowshoes

On Jan. 24, 1692, Madocawando and French missionary Louis Pierre Thury led as many as 300 French and Wabanaki on snowshoes from Canada to York. Before dawn, they piled their snowshoes next to a large rock and crept into town. (A plaque marks the spot today.)

“The Inhabitants were in their unguarded Houses, here and there scattered, Quiet and Secure,” according to a contemporary account. Taking the houses one by one, the warriors killed the inhabitants and livestock, captured others and burned most of the buildings.

Indians shot Shubael Dummer at his own front door while he tried to escape on his horse. They stripped him of his clothes and mutilated his body. Then they captured his wife, Lydia, and their small son and forced them to march through the snow to Quebec.

“On the next Lord’s Day a full welted savage, purposely to deride the ministerial character of Mr. Dummer, put on his garments, and then stalked about in the presence of the distressed captives some of whom belonged to his church, to aggravate their feelings,” according to historian William Williamson.

Aftermath

When Indians burst into the Moulton house, four-year-old Jeremiah had hidden under the bed. Amid screaming and scuffling the Indians buried a hatchet in his mother’s head, then tomahawked his father. Jeremiah watched as the Indians scalped his parents. After they left he stayed under the bed until the house caught fire. He then ran from the house toward a group of men who turned out to be Indians. They tied him up along with the others.

Capt. John Floyd with a small group of militiamen rushed to the scene of the Candlemas Massacre from Portsmouth, N.H. They discovered about 18 houses burned, the remainder rifled and the dead lying about. The attackers left standing the gaol, the meeting house and the garrison.

Floyd and his men buried 48 people in a mass grave along with an unrecorded number of small children.

The Old Gaol in York

The captives were taken to Canada, where some were ransomed by Capt. John Alden Jr., son of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins of the Plymouth Colony. The Indians set Lydia Dummer free, but separated her from her son. She traveled to Quebec three times to find him, but never saw or heard from him again.

Jeremiah Moulton

Jeremiah Moulton reappeared during Dummer’s War, named after Shubael Dummer’s nephew William, acting governor of Massachusetts. Some called it Father Rale’s War, after Father Sébastien Rale who led an alliance of Wabanaki Indians on the side of New France.

In 1724, Moulton led 200 men to the Wabanaki settlement of Norridgewock to kill Father Sebastian Rale and slaughter the Indians. The Englishmen succeeded in killing Rale and 80 Abenakis, including two dozen women and children.

Moulton returned to York and became sheriff. In 1719 he rebuilt the gaol with timbers left from the one that was left standing. Today it still stands, the last known public building of the colonial era.

Later in 1692, John Alden and John Floyd were accused of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials because of their involvement with the Candlemas Massacre. Both managed to escape execution.

This story was updated in 2022.

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John Adams Outlaws Fake News in 1798 – and Dooms His Presidency

Government criticism of ‘Fake news’ is nothing new. And trying to silence it was as unpopular in the early days of the United States as it is today.

By 1799, U.S. and French relations had reached new lows. The possibility of war against France weighed heavily on John Adams’ mind as his presidency neared its end.

The Signing of the Treaty of Mortefontaine, 30th September 1800 by Victor-Jean Adam

In all but name only, the two nations were already waging war. In fact, it had a name — the Quasi-War.

France didn’t appreciate America declaring neutrality in European conflicts, especially after all it had done to help win the War for Independence. Nor did France appreciate George Washington cozying up to England. So U.S. foreign policy led to the French seizing U.S. ships in the Caribbean.

The French had captured close to 400 American ships, and an American military buildup pushed back against French ships.

Fake News

The Adams administration had tried for several years to bring the fighting to a halt, but it had failed. The release of papers detailing the negotiations, sent Americans into an uproar. They revealed that French negotiators asked the United States to pay $250,000 to start peace talks. The papers had expunged the names of the three French negotiators, replacing them with the letters X, Y and Z.

Though such payments weren’t uncommon in Europe, the request smacked of extortion in the United States. French ships had seized some $20 million worth of American goods aboard ships in Caribbean waters. U.S. ship owners expected their government to demand French repayment – not to make payment to France.

Some in America urged war.

John Adams

In 1798, the Congress gave Adams expanded powers to limit the entry of foreigners to the country and expel foreign agitators. It further criminalized fake news, or making false criticisms of the federal government.

Under the law, known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, some of Adams’ political enemies received fines and jail sentences. Though Adams never deported anyone using his expanded powers he did fine and jail two political enemies from Vermont: U.S. Rep. Mathew Lyon and publisher Anthony Haswell.

The government even imprisoned one of Adams’ critics who heard a gun salute to the president and said, “I hope it hit Adams in the arse.” The crackdown on freedom of expression did not endear Adams to much of the public.

Peace

Adams finally threw away all hope for a second term as president to win peace with France. Adams first ordered William Vans Murray, U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and an unquestioning Adams loyalist to negotiate peace with France. When Congress and members of his own cabinet erupted in outrage, Adams added Connecticut’s Oliver Ellsworth and North Carolinian William Richardson Davie to the negotiating team.

Oliver and Abigail Ellsworth by Ralph Earl

Ellsworth was a consummate political insider. An ally of George Washington’s in the Senate and chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he confounded his opponents by operating in secrecy.

With political turmoil in France having turned power over to Napoleon, the three-member team reached a quick agreement with the French. However, they had to concede that the United States, not France, would repay damages to U.S. ship owners.

The terms of the treaty were not positively received in the United States. But they did reflect the reality of America’s position vis-à-vis Europe. If the U.S. entered the fighting between England and France, its puny Navy would have negligible effect. But if it stayed neutral, it could perhaps be valuable as a supplier of food.

President Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale

The U.S. Congress ultimately ratified the Treaty of Mortefontaine, though well after Thomas Jefferson took control of the presidency. Jefferson’s government would repeal most of the Alien and Sedition Acts that gave government power to imprison and silence its critics.

Adams would later say that his all-in pursuit of peace with France was worth putting the final nail in his presidential coffin. He proclaimed he would be completely satisfied if his epitaph read: “Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of the peace with France in the year 1800.”

Of course, his critics might have argued the country would never have come so close to war if not for his leadership. But they could have been imprisoned for saying it.

This story last updated in 2022.

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Henriette Desportes Leaves the Scandals of Paris for a Stockbridge Minister

By the time she died in 1875, people knew Henriette Desportes as a minister’s wife in Stockbridge, Mass. But behind that staid image was the story of a scandal that helped topple the King of France.

Henriette Desportes was a French girl, born illegitimately in 1813. By 1840 she had been educated at French boarding schools, developed a talent for art and traveled to Britain where she worked as a governess before returning to France.

L to r, clockwise: Henry Field, Charles Theobold, Fanny Theobold, Henriette Desportes.

Henriette Desportes, Nanny

At age 27, in 1841, she found work with the family of a French duke, Charles Laure Hugues Théobald. Her job was to be nanny to the duke’s children. But the duke’s wife, Françoise Altarice Rosalba Sebastiani, thought more was going on.

Fanny and Theo had nine children. They ran through a string of nannies until Henriette Desportes arrived. She would last six years at the job. But Fanny accused her of alienating the children from their mother. What’s worse, she believed Theo and Henriette were having an affair.

Descriptions of their marriage tend to flatter one at the expense of the other depending on the teller of the tale. Supporters of Theo paint him as a harassed figure, putting up with a wife with an explosive temper. He endured her pepperings of long letters that alternated between complaining and apologizing.

Supporters of Fanny describe Theo as distant, uncaring and unfaithful to his wife. Fanny put up with much of his misbehavior, they say, until the affair between Theo and Henriette became public knowledge. This so scandalized her, she had no choice but to force Theo to fire Henriette the nanny.

The evidence of an affair between Theo and Henriette Desportes is circumstantial. She wrote long, emotional letters to him after being fired. And he did pay for her rent for a time after her separation. But the letters reveal no smoking gun, and he urged her to move on and meet people.

Murder

All this might have gone into the history books as just another tumultuous marriage among the aristocracy, but for the events of August 17, 1847.

Duke Theo and Duchess Fanny had traveled to their Paris home. On that morning, the servants awoke to sounds of a struggle, and they discovered Fanny dead. Someone had stabbed and bludgeoned her. The logical suspect: her husband. The duke was in the house, armed with a pistol.

He said that an intruder came into the home and attacked his wife. He tried to repel the prowler. Theo showed signs of a fight, but could not explain anything more about the assailant. A servant said she witnessed the duke washing blood from his hands.

The police arrested the duke, and he awaited trial in a special court that handled matters involving royalty. Henriette Desportes, meanwhile, got swept up in the affair. Police arrested her and charged her with some sort of involvement in the crime.

Theo faced limited choices. He could confess, he could stand by his story or he could blame Henriette. Instead, he chose option 4: Suicide. He went to the grave declaring his innocence. With no husband to prosecute and no evidence against Henriette Desportes, the police dropped the case.

Abdication

France, in 1847, was in the midst of a financial crisis. Wealth had accumulated at the top of society for decades, while poverty was rampant. This double standard, the critics said, extended beyond money and into the justice system. Some suggested the duke had been allowed to swallow poison to avoid disgrace to the royal families of France. Still others insisted that he hadn’t died at all. Authorities let him fake his death and slip away, they said.

In 1848, France’s King Louis Philippe I faced a full-on revolt. Aware of the precedent for the French citizenry dealing roughly with its royal class, Louis quickly abdicated his throne – handing it to his nine-year-old grandson. The boy, showing he had as many brains as his grandfather, fled the country as well, setting the stage for the rise of Napoleon III.

Louis Philippe

All This and Heaven

But what of the nanny Henriette Desportes? She moved to the United States and met a young minister from Stockbridge, Mass.

Henry Martyn Field was nine years younger than Henriette. He came from an accomplished family of four brothers, all of whom would distinguish themselves in law or business. Henry was also a writer and editor, as well as a respected minister.

He took a liking to Henriette Desportes. Henry had travelled in France in 1847 and 1848, and was delighted by the country. After Henriette migrated to New York, in the wake of the scandal, she went to work as a school teacher.

Henry and Henriette married in 1851. They divided their time between New York and East Springfield and Stockbridge, Mass. By all accounts they had a happy marriage and a respected place in society.

Henry remarried following Henriette’s death in 1875. And the story of Henriette’s harrowing Paris life might have faded into history, but for Henry’s great niece, Rachel Field.

Rachel Field and her Scottish terrier, Spriggen.

The Story Lives On

Rachel was a writer. She wrote successful children’s books and plays, as well as adult fiction. She loved New England, and her first novel, Time Out of Mind, told the story of a Maine village wrestling with decline as the age of sail gave way to modern shipping.

For the second novel, in 1938, she chose to update and retell Henriette’s tale under the title, All This and Heaven, Too. The novel was a best seller and established Rachel as a national author. Though airing the family’s dirty laundry raised some eyebrows, it paved the way for her continued writing success.

In 1940, All This and Heaven, Too was made into a film starring Bette Davis. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, but lost. Critics faulted it for being over-long at 141 minutes. Today the film has an 83 percent positive rating at movie rating site Rotten Tomatoes.

This story about Henriette Desportes was updated in 2023.

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Let Them Eat Lobster – Marie Antoinette Plans To Move to Maine

Marie Antoinette and Maine hardly trip off the tongue together, but an intrepid ship captain from the state nearly saved the life of the French queen.

She was awaiting trial in prison in 1792 when Stephen Clough of Wiscasset arrived at the French port in Havre with a load of lumber aboard the ship Sally.

Clough was working for James Swan, a former colonel in the American Revolution. Swan had emigrated from Scotland to Boston and succeeded at trading, particularly with France.

Marie Antoinette (Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, 1783)

Swan held large tracts of land in Virginia. He also acquired a group of islands off the coast of Maine, including Swan’s Island. In the 1780s, he faced mounting debts, so he turned to his old friend the Marquis de Lafayette for help. Lafayette arranged for him a profitable post supplying goods, including timber, to the French military.

By 1792, however, France had fallen into disarray. Revolutionaries were toppling the monarchy and Lafayette fell from favor.

Stephen Clough’s ship, Sally, and cargo were waylaid. While Clough tried to sort out what was going on, the king’s supporters noticed his vessel. They then began to plot.

Fate of Marie Antoinette

Political factions argued over the fate of the king and the queen, imprisoned in August and stripped of their titles in September.

Moderates urged they be allowed to live, while radicals wanted them executed. The idea of exile in America came up, and it appealed to Swan.

James Swan portrait, Gilbert Stuart (1795)

Jean Pierre de Batz (or de Bance), Baron de Sainte-Croix, was searching for a way to rescue the royal family. He and Alexandre Gonsse de Rougeville, another counter-revolutionary, came up with a plan and approached Clough.

They would arrange for the release of his ship and payment for his cargo, and in return he would ferry the royal family to America. Clough accepted the offer and, as his ship lay in the harbor, he began surreptitiously loading it with items for the royal family – furnishings, rugs, tapestries, china, etc.

King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette remained popular in America, warmly remembered for their support of the colonies in the war with England. Though Catholic, they would still have friends in the new country.

Time was running out, however. The revolutionaries got the trial of the king they wanted in January of 1793. A group of 721 men controlled his fate, as they voted on whether he should be executed. When the voting ended, 361, the minimum needed, voted for execution. Louis XVI fell to the guillotine.

The sentiment against Marie Antoinette was now growing more hostile. Once imprisoned, the king, queen, and their two children had all been held separately. Marie Antoinette was increasingly despised. Her profligacy, gambling and expensive tastes were all resented by an impoverished nation struggling with massive debts.

Let Them Eat Cake — Not!

The propagandists worked overtime to blacken her name further. They created the story that when informed that peasants were starving for lack of bread, she replied, “Let them eat cake.” The queen never did say that. In fact, the story had been created and used against others before her, but the legend stuck to Marie Antoinette.

The radicals began looking for more ways to slander her. They came up with spurious charges, including that she abused her son. Her supporters realized they needed to act quickly. In July or August, they sent word to her in prison that they were planning her escape. They planned to have a guard take her to the door of her prison where a carriage would meet her and take her to Clough’s ship. The message was sent in a note wrapped around the stem of a carnation flower.

She managed to reply in writing by using a pin to prick holes in the paper. Now, sick with tuberculosis and, some researchers believe, cancer, she was ready to leave France.

The plot backfired badly, however, as one of the guards got cold feet and revealed the note to his superiors. The revolution was by now spinning out of control. The radical elements of the revolution began to turn on the moderates, and the Reign of Terror got underway. Tens of thousands would be slaughtered before it ended.

After the plot, dubbed the carnation conspiracy, was discovered Marie Antoinette’s captors had even less sympathy. They locked her in a stronger cell and guarded her even more closely.

Maine Waits For A Queen

Clough had managed to tell his wife to prepare for meeting the queen, and by some accounts many in Maine were working out a proper reception. He had warned that, far from being the glamorous queen they expected, they should prepare for a very weak and sickly woman.

It’s not altogether clear that the plan called for the royal family to remain in Maine or even New England. Some accounts suggest that Swan actually intended to create a colony on his Virginia lands for French exiles.

With the French conspirators now on the run, Clough began to realize that the chances of completing the escape were slim. In October, Marie Antoinette went to trial. Her famous head of hair was cut off to give the guillotine a clear shot at her neck, and she was executed. Her body was dumped into an unmarked grave. It remained there until the monarchy was reestablished more than 10 years later.

Some accounts say Clough was among the crowd of thousands who witnessed the execution of Marie Antoinette. After her death, he hastily put to sea, lest he be discovered as a collaborator.

The French furnishings that Clough assembled were distributed among the Americans who had supported the plan. Many wound up with the Swan household in Boston (now in the Museum of Fine Arts). Others went with Clough to Wiscasset, Edgecomb and Westport. Some wound up in Henry Knox’s Thomaston mansion, probably via his son-in-law who was one of Swan’s sons.

Stories of the attempted rescue of Marie Antoinette made the rounds for years. Clough, moved by the experience, named a daughter after her.

This story about Marie Antoinette was updated in 2022.

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