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Captain Cook’s Endeavour, World-Famous Ship, Scuttled in Newport Harbor and Forgotten

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On Feb. 3, 2022, Americans probably wondered why an argument broke out between Australian and American maritime experts over the possible discovery of the British bark Endeavour. The vessel, once commanded by Capt. James Cook on his first voyage of discovery, had sunk to the bottom of Newport Harbor in 1778.

People may have asked: Why was Captain Cook’s vessel in Narragansett Bay during the American Revolution?

And why should Australia care?

The short answer: Endeavour had played a pivotal role in the founding of Australia as part of the British commonwealth.

Replica of the Endeavour in Sydney, Australia

The vessel had also played a not-so-pivotal role in the British effort to win the war of American independence.

Her travels mapped the Crown’s attempts to stitch new continents onto its kingdom and prevent another from tearing off. And they led to the dispossession of indigenous people in a large part of the world.

Endeavour

She was a workhorse of the British empire, and by the time she sank she had tens of thousands of hard miles on her. Endeavour had sailed through tropical heat and arctic cold, survived a grounding on the Great Barrier Reef and made it through the dangerous Torres Strait. She carried scientists to the South Seas, British troops to the Falklands and Hessians to Rhode Island.

And then she met an ignominious end, deliberately scuttled to prevent the French fleet from entering Newport Harbor.

She was built in 1764 in Whitby, and known as a Whitby cat. Named Earl of Pembroke, she went to work as a cargo ship carrying coal.

Endeavour as the Earl of Pembroke

Aboard just such a vessel James Cook had begun his seafaring career as an 18-year-old apprentice. For several years he hauled coal along the English coast. He eventually joined the Navy, where his talent in math and mapmaking earned him notice. During the French and Indian War, Cook had mapped the entrance to the St. Lawrence River. That allowed the British to sail to Quebec, surprise the French and win the Battle of Quebec.

Transit of Venus

Then in 1768, the British Royal Society asked King George III to sponsor a scientific expedition to the South Pacific to view the transit of Venus. The King agreed, and the Royal Society suggested a Scottish geographer command the voyage. The First Lord of the Admiralty said he’d rather cut off his right arm than put a non-seaman in charge of a Royal Navy vessel.

James Cook

So James Cook, then a 39-year-old naval officer, got the job. The Navy had the foresight to buy the sturdy, three-masted Earl of Pembroke because of her flat bottom.  She could sail in shallow waters and get repaired while beached on shore.

Shipwrights refitted her for the voyage and the Navy renamed her Endeavour. She was 109 feet long and 29 feet wide – about as long as three school buses and as wide as one is long. Crammed into that space were 94 men and boys, including 38 able-bodied seamen, 12 Royal Marines, two botanists, two artists and servants as young as 11. Nearly half wouldn’t survive the voyage.

Endeavour also carried 10 cannon, 12 tons of iron ballast, drinking water, pigs, chickens, a goat and two greyhounds.

She set sail on Aug. 26, 1768.

Secret Mission

The Endeavour reached Tahiti just in time for the transit of Venus, an extraordinary feat of navigation by Cook.

“Simply getting to Tahiti exactly when he said he would was unprecedented at the time,” wrote the late scientist James MacDonald. “Tahiti is a tiny, isolated dot in the middle of the South Pacific, and Cook steered right to it using lunar navigation.”

But that wasn’t the Endeavour’s real mission. Cook had secret sealed orders to find terra australis incognita – the great unknown southern continent. Greek astronomers, who knew the earth was spherical, had figured the southern land mass had to exist to balance the planet.

Cook then sailed to the Society Islands, mapped them and claimed them for Britain. He mapped the coast of New Zealand after a 12-year-old ship’s boy, Nicholas Young, spotted it. Cook named a headland after young Nick and gave him a gallon of rum.

His men also killed nine Maori in New Zealand. The British “expressed regret” 250 years later.

The Endeavour Sails to Australia

Cook then sailed along the east coast of New South Wales and mapped the coast. Sailors used those maps until the 1950s.

The Dutch had already found Australia, at least the north, south and west coasts, and named it New Holland. But they hadn’t discovered what Cook discovered, and so he claimed it for Britain.

Joseph Banks

The Dutch hadn’t shown much interest in colonizing Australia. An expedition member, the rich young botanist Sir Joseph Banks, later persuaded the King to send settlers to the continent. By then Britain had lost its colonies in North America.

Great Barrier Reef

While sailing Down Under, the Endeavour nearly met its end on the Great Barrier Reef 24 miles from shore. Cook tried to kedge her off at high tide, but failed. He ordered the crew to throw everything they could overboard. That lightened the Endeavour by as much as 50 tons. Ballast, cannon, spoiled food and drinking water all went over, but a second attempt failed. Then on the third try, a long boat carried two anchors ahead of the ship and they floated her off on the tide.

But Endeavour then took on an alarming amount of water. Everyone, including the gentlemanly Banks, manned the pumps. Finally a midshipman suggested fothering the vessel. That meant sewing tarred rope and wool into an old sail, and then drawing it under the ship’s bottom. Water pressure forced the wool and the rope into the hole in the hull. Cook then sailed Endeavour up a river he named after his ship and beached her. After three weeks of repair work, the leaky ship set sail again.

Endeavour, grounded on the Great Barrier Reef. Watercolor by Samuel Atkins, a member of the expedition.

When they arrived in Batavia (now Jakarta) and examined Endeavour’s hull, they were surprised she’d stayed afloat during the three-month voyage. Her hull was full of holes, and some planks had been cut through to one-eighth of an inch thick.

As crews repaired and refitted Endeavour, the men began to catch the malaria and dysentery raging in the city. Seven died before she set sail for England, then nearly 30 more on the way home.  She anchored in England on July 13, 1771. Cook traveled overland to report on his expedition and the crew was paid off.

Just a few days later, the Navy sent Endeavour to the Woolwich Dockyard for refitting as a transport ship, an inglorious task for the now-historic vessel.

South America

In November 1771, Endeavour set sail for the Falkland Islands, loaded with provisions for a tiny garrison called Fort Egmont. Another explorer had claimed the island for King George III in 1765 – but so had the Spanish. Fort Egmont made a poor stronghold – “a ramshackle assortment of hastily constructed buildings,” according to Nigel Erskine in The Great Circle.

Endeavour returned to England in August 1772, then left for the Falklands again in December. She carried the new commander and a 36-ton sloop to the garrison and returned without incident. Then she stayed in England for a year.

By 1774, trouble was brewing in the American colonies. The British government decided to evacuate Fort Egmont, and back went Endeavour to pick up the men and arms.

Woolwich Dockyard, 1790

She returned in the fall of 1774 to the Woolwich Dockyard, where a shipwright found rotten timbers, decayed sheathing and much-worn decks on the 10-year-old vessel. He gave the Navy an estimate of the cost to repair her. The Navy promptly sold her to a shipping magnate named John Mather.

Mather sent her on a voyage to Archangel, Russia. But then the American Revolution broke out, and the British needed to send reinforcements to Boston and New York. Mather renamed Endeavour Lord Sandwich and tried to resell her to the British Navy. The Navy wasn’t fooled by the name change, and only until Mather repaired the vessel did the Navy buy it back.

In early 1776, Lord Sandwich sailed out of the Thames River to the River Weser in Germany to pick up Hessian troops. She was part of a convoy of 74 ships carrying 10,000 mercenary soldiers. The massive fleet then sailed for North America, arriving off Staten Island on Aug. 12, 1776.

William Howe

Gen. William Howe, British commander in chief, decided to peel off 7,000 British and Hessian forces to capture Newport, R.I. Under Gen. Henry Clinton, they established a garrison in the town in December 1776.

The End of Endeavour

The French joined the American cause after the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777. In July of 1778, Howe watched a French squadron sail past New York Harbor on its way to Rhode Island.

The French ships soon arrived off Narragansett Bay, and the British realized they were no match for the superior French force. But they couldn’t allow the enemy to increase its strength by capturing British ships.

Entry of the French squadron into Narragansett Bay

Down came the orders: Burn all the Royal Navy vessels. And sink the transport ships at the mouth of the harbor to blockade the French.

Lord Sandwich was sent to her grave off Goat Island on Aug. 4, 1778. Twelve other transport ships were sunk as well.

The Rest of the Story

The French began firing on the British battery, to little effect. Then the British fleet arrived from New York, and the French ceased fire. The French then tried to draw the British into the open ocean to do battle. But a powerful storm upset those plans, damaging both fleets and ending the battle before it began. .

James Cook, meanwhile, had embarked on his third voyage of discovery. He was then exploring the Bering Strait in HMS Resolute. He didn’t live long past the sinking of his old ship. On Feb. 14, 1779, natives of the Sandwich Islands killed him.

Goat Island

In 1991, the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project began looking into the identity of the ships sunk at the bottom of Newport Harbor. Then a joint effort of RIMAP and the Australian National Marine Museum (ANMM) began examining the wrecks. They discovered a handful of vessels that matched descriptions of Endeavour.

On Feb. 3, 2022, ANMM announced they’d found the wreck of the Endeavour. A RIMAP archaeologist countered, saying no indisputable evidence that it was the historic ship.

Check out ANMM’s video of what could be Endeavour here. And stay tuned for more developments.


Newport Harbor By Swampyank at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Kurpfalzbilder.de using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5871957.

Endeavour grounded: By Samuel Atkins (c.1760-1810) – National Library of Australia, nla.pic-an5921609, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7458795.

Replicaa of HMB Endeavour: By Hpeterswald – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28736850

Endeavour replica beached By en:User:John Hill – Photograph by Wikipedia User en:User:John Hill. Originally uploaded to the English Wikipedia by him. Since transferred to Wikimedia Commons and deleted at the English Wikipedia., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=232351.

With thanks to Nigel Erskine (2017). THE “ENDEAVOUR” AFTER JAMES COOK: THE FORGOTTEN YEARS 1771-1778. The Great Circle, 39(1), 55–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26381237.

 

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How George Washington Recruited a Whole New Army Under British Noses

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George Washington had a problem he believed no one had ever encountered before. On January 1, 1776, the Continental Army would disappear unless Washington recruited enough men to replace it.

Somehow, he managed.

It wasn’t quite like that.

His ragtag fighting force, strung out along the hills surrounding Boston, had bottled up British troops despite having little gunpowder, inferior weapons and no heavy artillery. Nearly all enlistments expired on December 31. But somehow Washington recruited a whole new army within firing range of the world’s most powerful fighting force.

On Jan. 4, 1776, he wrote a letter to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, to explain.

“It is not in the pages of History perhaps, to furnish a case like ours, to maintain a post within Musket Shot of the Enemy for Six months together without — and at the same time to disband one Army and recruit another, within that distance, of Twenty off British regiments, is probably more than ever was attempted.”

George Washington Recruited by Congress

The Continental Congress authorized a standing army on June 14, 1775, and the next day named George Washington “captain general” of American fighting forces.

It took nine days for Washington to ride from Philadelphia to Cambridge, delayed by public demonstrations along the way. He arrived on July 2, 1775, 15 days after the Battle of Bunker Hill. He knew little about the battle, though he learned along the way that 1,000 British troops had perished during the conflict. They were still encamped on top of the hill, peppering the Americans with artillery fire.

Washington was dismayed at what he saw. Few soldiers had uniforms or tents, and they lived in shantytowns of lumber and cloth. Some lived in vacated Tory homes, in one case, 250 men to a house. They hadn’t dug latrines and the camps stank.

The officers were not only ignorant and quarrelsome but scandalously disobedient, wrote Washington’s aide Joseph Reed to Elias Boudinot on Aug. 13, 1775. “Many had proven themselves notorious cowards.”

It took him a week to find out how many men he commanded.

He thought he had 20,000. He had 16,500 and only 14,000 were fit for duty. The rest were sick or wounded. The british had 6,000, but he figured they could form a fighting force of 12,000 if they armed slaves and Loyalists left in Boston.

“We are in an exceeding dangerous situation,” he wrote to his friend Richard Henry Lee on July 10.

Gunpowder

In early August, Washington learned the shocking truth about his gunpowder supply. During a war council, he was told his men barely had enough gunpowder for eight, maybe nine rounds each.

For a half hour, Washington sat in silence before speaking again, reported one of his generals, John Sullivan.

From then on, Washington didn’t dare order a morning or evening gun fired. When the British bombarded his forces with cannonade he couldn’t order their fire returned.

General Gage by John Singleton Copley

General Gage by John Singleton Copley

Fortunately, the enemy couldn’t believe how bad things were, according to the journal of Elias Boudinot. A member of the Committee of Safety of Massachusetts knew the secret, wrote Boudinot. He deserted and went over to Gen. Thomas Gage, the British commander, and told him.

“The fact was so incredible that General Gage treated it as a stratagem of war and the informant as a spy, or coming with the express purpose of deceiving him and drawing his army into a snare, by which mean we were saved from having our quarters beaten up,” wrote Boudinot.

“Few people know the predicament we are in,” wrote Washington to his friend Joseph Reed.

Had they known, the American Revolution might have ended right then and there.

Countermoves

On November 16, Washington ordered a 25-year-old former bookseller named Henry Knox, a colonel, to ask Congress for cannon. If he couldn’t get any, he should go to Fort Ticonderoga, captured in May, to retrieve the heavy artillery.

Henry Knox by Gilbert Stuart 1806

He also sent two men – his muster-master general, Stephen Moylan, and Col. John Glover — to outfit privateers to capture unarmed enemy supply ships. On November 29, Capt. John Manley, commanding the privateer Lee, captured the British brigantine Nancy, along with thousands of musket, shot and a cannon.

Washington also knew about a lightly guarded cache of gunpowder in the British colony of Bermuda. So he asked Rhode Island Gov. Nicholas Cooke to send an armed vessel to the island to capture it. Cooke obliged, sending Abraham Whipple on the mission.

But the right hand didn’t know what the left was doing. Congress also sent an armed vessel to Bermuda to steal the British store of gunpowder there. Bermudans who shared the colonies’ displeasure with Britain stole enough gunpowder to quadruple Washington’s supply. When Whipple arrived, the powder was already on its way to Washington.

The Army Dwindles

On October 31, King George III delivered a speech to Parliament declaring the Americans in open rebellion and asking for more troops to put down the uprising.

israel-potter-king-george-iii

King George III

Winter was coming. Washington’s army had few blankets and no winter clothing. Enlistments started to expire on December 1 and every man could leave on January 1.

The patriotic fervor that inspired thousands to rush to Boston had worn off. Men started to flock back home. Whole regiments packed up and left.

By late November, Washington had only 3,500 men. “Could I have foreseen what I have, & am like to experience, no consideration upon Earth should have induced me to accept this Command,” he wrote in a Nov. 28, 1775 letter to Joseph Reed.

How Washington Recruited an Army

Enlistments came in slowly. News of the army’s harsh condition had spread. Washington, too, had introduced discipline: the lash, the pillory and the court martial.

And so the army offered a signing bonus: a dollar, big money in those days.

Joseph Plumb Martin described the allure of a dollar on a drum head.

A dollar deposited upon the drum head was taken by some one as soon as placed there, and the holder’s name taken, and he enrolled . . . My spirits began to revive at the sight of the money offered; the seeds of courage began to sprout . . . O, thought I, if I were but old enough to put myself forward, I would be the possessor of one dollar, the dangers of war notwithstanding.

Some enlistees tried to game the system, waiting until the last minute to enlist in the hopes the army in its desperation would raise the bounty.

On New Year’s Eve Washington had 9,650 men – about half of what Congress authorized.

Nathanael Greene

To minimize disruption, Washington asked the men who enlisted for 1776 to join their new regiment a few days before the new year. He asked dismissed soldiers to stay longer and called up militias to reinforce the army.

On Jan. 1, 1776, Washington ordered the soldiers who didn’t reenlist to their parade grounds. They were then sent home, leaving by the hundreds and thousands.

Gen. Nathanael Greene lost three-fourths of his brigade and had fewer than 700 men.

Slowly, the Continental Army returned to its strength of 1775. The British stayed put, failing to take advantage of their enemy’s weakened position. By March, Henry Knox would arrived with his noble artillery train, and the British would soon evacuate.

This story last updated in 2022.

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History Lover’s Gift Guide: The 16 Best New History Books for the Holidays

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It’s always hard to buy books for book lovers because  you just don’t know if they’ve read them already. But you can’t go wrong if you buy a book just published. So here are 16 of the best new history books for the holidays — focusing on New England, of course.

Ben Franklin wouldn’t have missed any of these new history books

You can buy them with just a click — and help independent bookstores and The New England Historical Society.

The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware


Patrick O’Donnell turns five years of research into a fast paced story of the solder-mariners from Marblehead, Mass. Known best for ferrying George Washington over the Delaware, they were a diverse band of brothers who knew they needed to work together in life-or-death circumstances. Led by John Glover, a trusted confidante of George Washington, they served as a highly-skilled special operations unit.

They saved the Continental Army from total destruction after the Battle of Long Island, and they ferried Washington and his army across the Delaware — a near-impossible feat.

Bestselling author Patrick O’Donnell tells a riveting story, bringing new stories to light about the white, black and red men of the Marblehead regiment. (He has written xxx books)

Mighty Storms of New England: The Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Blizzards, and Floods That Shaped the Region


Weather junkies will love this new history book about snowstorms, droughts, heat waves, tornadoes, blizzards and floods. Meteorologist Eric Fisher goes beyond the damage and loss caused by weather events. He also discusses how severe storms changed the course of history. New warning systems, government agencies and technologies developed in their aftermath.

Many New Englanders know Eric Fisher as the chief meteorologist for WBZ-TV and as a contributor to CBS News. He says few places on earth produce such varied weather as New England does. And that, he explains, is why the region breeds one of the highest concentrations of meteorologists in the United States.

Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty


Anderson Cooper’s last name may not be Vanderbilt, but he’s a true scion of the dynasty founded by his great-great-great grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt.

The CNN anchor teams up with New York Times bestselling historian Katharine Howe to write a new history book about his fabled family. Though Cornelius Vanderbilt — the “Commodore” — made his fortune in New York, the Vanderbilts frittered away their money in Bar Harbor, Maine, Shelburne Farms, Vt., and Newport, R.I.

Cooper brings an insider’s perspective to the triumphs and failures of the Vanderbilts. He takes us from the rough-and-tumble wharves of old Manhattan to the ornate summer palaces of Newport. He tells us about the secret Vanderbilts who lived on a floor of the Breakers and reveals that he attended Truman Capote’s famous “Black and White” ball at the Plaza Hotel in utero.

One critic described Vanderbilt as a “smart, soulful, page turner.” Another called it “the most interesting and most human of the books that I have read about the super-rich American families of the 19th century.”

Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy


A new history book from Nathaniel Philbrick is always good news in New England, though this one is a bit different. Philbrick, his wife Melissa and their dog followed the path taken by Washington during his presidential visits to the new nation. So the book reads as part history, part memoir and part travelogue. One reader noted the author and his wife “make pleasant company.”

Why do Washington’s travels matter? Because in 1789 the United States was still a loose, quarrelsome confederation. The former colonists didn’t think of themselves as Americans. Washington, beloved by all, set out to change that. He went from Mount Vernon to the new capital in New York and then took a month-long tour of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.  He ventured onto Long Island and then headed south. Travels with George includes extensive maps, pictures and documents along the way.

The Boston Globe called it “a lively, courageous, and masterful achievement.”

Letters From Red Farm: The Untold Story of the Friendship Between Helen Keller and Journalist Joseph Edgar Chamberlin


When Helen Keller was eight years old, she and Annie Sullivan visited Boston. There she met a man who would change her life: Joseph Edgar Chamberlin,  popular Boston Transcript columnist. Chamberlin owned Red Farm in Wrentham, Mass., and Keller visited often. So did artists and intellectuals of the day, like Louise Guiney, Fred Holland Day and Edward Everett Hale.

The book tells the story of Keller’s friendship with Chamberlin, who became her literary mentor. It also reintroduces Chamberlin to the public and explores how Keller grew interested in social activism. Letters From Red Farm, written by Chamberlin’s great-great-granddaughter, uses previously unpublished letters and new research.

Disability lawyer Haben Girma called the revelations in the book “stunning.” “The letters from Keller and her friends make her feel even more relatable to contemporary readers,” she wrote.

Bette Davis Black and White


Film star Bette Davis was a Yankee gal committed to civil rights for African Americans. Bette Davis Black and White tells the story of Davis’ outspoken advocacy for civil rights.  It also describes her black co-stars’ efforts to disrupt America’s racial fantasies.

The book analyzes four of her best known films against Americans’ historic attitudes about race. It includes testimonies from Davis’ black contemporaries and letters from her African-American fans,

University of Chicago Press has scheduled the book’s release for Dec. 13, 2021.

Reading the Gravestones of Old New England


Author John G.S. Hanson has walked through many an old New England graveyard and learned a thing or two along the way. During his explorations of old cemeteries he found an incredible range of poetic messages. They express not only emotions, but the culture, religion and literature of their age.

Hanson  identifies the texts and authors that inspired the messages carved in stone. He also interprets the tastes and beliefs of the survivors who did the choosing.

McFarland & Company has scheduled the book’s release for Nov. 5, 2021.

Passing Through the Fire: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in the Civil War


Civil War buffs and fans of Joshua Chamberlain will welcome this new history book about the hero of Gettysburg. It tells the story of his miraculous survival from battlefield surgery after getting hit in the groin with a bullet. While convalescing he considered leaving the Army. His decision to return affected the outcome of the war.

Passing Through the Fire follows Chamberlain’s during his Civil War years, from Maryland to Pennsylvania to Virginia. Author Brian Swartz takes the reader beyond the battlefield as well, reveals the real person behind the legend. He includes photos and maps  not seen by the “average Civil war” student.

“If you have an interest in the Civil War and its leadership this is a book must,” writes one happy reader.

The Isolation Artist: Scandal, Deception and the Last Days of Robert Indiana


Pop artist Robert Indiana had fame and lots and lots of money, but he died alone and uncared for in horrendous living conditions. Born Robert Clark in Indiana, he changed his last name and eventually moved to Vinalhaven Island in Maine. He wanted fame, and he got it with his iconic Love sculpture in 1965.

Indiana had no interest in the business of art, and so he surrounded himself with people to manage his life and career. When he died in 2018, suspicions arose about fraudulent artwork, elder abuse, a coerced will and an inconclusive autopsy.

Author Bob Keyes tells a fast-paced story of an artist’s life that straddled Downeast Maine and the unscrupulous world of high-end art.

Deliberate Evil: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Daniel Webster, and the 1830 Murder of a Salem Slave Trader


When a Salem slave trader was murdered in cold blood in 1830, the national press took notice. Not only did  two of the conspirators come from the wealthy and influential Crowninshield family, but Daniel Webster led the prosecution. A young Nathaniel Hawthorne knew several of the people involved in the murder. As always, he observed and took notes.

Edward J. Renehan, Jr., uses previously unavailable source materials about the murder, the investigations, the scandal-ridden trials and the grisly execution at the end. The Chicago Review Press has scheduled its release for Dec. 7, 2021.

Justice Rising: Robert Kennedy’s America in Black and White

In this new history book, Robert F. Kennedy belongs with Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin and Cesar Chavez. Patricia Sullivan, a civil rights historian, presents Robert Kennedy at the center of the 1960s civil rights movement.

She tells how protests against Jim Crow started out as a political problem for the young attorney general, but then became a moral one. Under Kennedy, the Justice Department battled Southern resistance to voter registration and school desegregation.

Justice Rising is an eye-opening account of Kennedy’s vision and energy drove momentum for change. Until his death, he led what he called “the revolution within our gates, the struggle of the American Negro for full equality and full freedom.”

Historian Douglas Brinkley called Justice Rising “a profound and uplifting account of Robert F. Kennedy’s brave crusade for racial equality.”

The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III

George III, America’s last king, got a reputation for stupidity and evil that never went away. Until now. Historian Andrew Roberts shows how revolutionary propagandists like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine gave George a bad rap.

In reality, George was wise, humane, and even enlightened. Unfortunately, he had talented enemies and incompetent ministers, and he suffered from debilitating mental illness and horrible luck. Roberts paints a nuanced portrait of George and describes his forgotten accomplishments.

The Best Ever! Parades in New England 1788-1940

Every New England town has a parade tradition, according to historian Jane Nylander, who specializes in domestic life in New England from the 1850s to the 1950s. She observes that those traditions tell us much about the culture, both locally and nationally.

Nylander, former president of the  Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, includes nearly 300 photos, some of them quite rare, in The Best Ever! They include the Federal Ship carried in the 1788 Ratification parade at New Haven, Conn., to 1940 when the parade tradition largely ended when World War II began.

It’s Better To Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness


In this instant classic, Seth Wickersham tells the story of the most dominant — and secretive — NFL team ever. Wickersham, a Connecticut resident, is one of the country’s premier investigative sportswriters.

He has covered the Patriots since 2001, when Brady took over as starting quarterback. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and previously confidential documents, he presents the definitive account of the Patriots’ dynasty. The book is chock full of fresh and revealing information about the team’s two dominant personalities, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.

Wickersham explores Belichick’s tactical brilliance, strange work habits, affection for his players and determination to dominate the league. He shines  especially in his portrait of Brady, though, taking the reader from Brady’s childhood in northern California to his split from the Patriots.

Even  for Jets fans, this New York Times bestseller is as hard to put down as a bowl of salted peanuts.

Two Centuries of Maine Shipbuilding

This lavishly illustrated book  begins with the dugout and birchbark canoes made by the Wabanaki and their ancestors. When Europeans began to settle in the 17th century, they immediately began building vessels and never really stopped.

Author Nathan Lipfert takes the reader from the first merchant and fishing vessels, through the great schooners, decline of deepwater sail, the steel shipyards and World War II all the way to the present.  Lipfert, curator emeritus of the Maine Maritime Museum, relies on a trove of resources about Maine’s historic industry. The book includes a bibliography, two appendices, a glossary and hundreds of illustrations.

The Peyton Place Murder: The True Crime Story Behind The Novel That Shocked The Nation


The Peyton Place Murder is not a sequel to the novel Peyton Place, but a new history book about the murder that inspired Grace Metalious to write her sensational best seller back in the 1950s. The murder, though, known as “the Sheep Pen Murder,” took place in Gilmanton, N.H., in the late 1940s.

Author Renee Mallett weaves together the story of Grace Metalious, who grew up poor in Manchester, N.H., and Barbara Roberts, the young woman who confessed to the killing.

This book is for anyone who enjoys reading about true crime and small-town life in new England.

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Joseph Brant, Mohawk Leader, Goes to Dartmouth (Before It Was Dartmouth)

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On Aug. 1, 1761, three teenaged Mohawk boys arrived on horseback at Moor’s Charity School in Lebanon (now Columbia), Conn. Two, Nickus and Senter, wore practically no clothes. The third, Joseph Brant, wore full Indian dress – probably a white tunic shirt, leggings, breechcloth and moccasins. All three were dirty from their trip from New York and covered with lice.

Their headmaster, Eleazar Wheelock, found them remarkably backward. Only Joseph spoke English, and just a little at that. The boys sat on the ground like children, and they cared for cleanliness as much as children. They had no concept of English furniture and utensils, and thought a wineglass as durable as a hand iron. “They are as unpolished & uncultivated within as without,” wrote Wheelock.

brant-by-peale

Joseph Brant by Charles Willson Peale

Lebanon was just a wide place in the road in 1761, and Moor’s Charity School just a couple of houses. But two years at the school gave Joseph Brant the tools he needed to move comfortably in elite European circles. What he learned in Lebanon would serve him well as a Mohawk leader navigating a place for his people in the changing transatlantic world.

In 1769, Moor’s Charity School removed to Hanover, N.H., and became Dartmouth College. Generations of uncouth boys went to Dartmouth (and the other Ivies, for that matter) for the same reason Joseph did. They sought the education, polish and social connections that would help them succeed in life.

Young Joseph Brant

Brant was born somewhere along the Cuyahoga River in Ohio in March 1743. His name was Thayendanegea, which in the Mohawk language means, “He places two bets together.”

He belonged to the Six Nations confederacy, also known as the Haudenosaunee people.

He had Iroquois Christian parents named Peter and Margaret Tehonwaghkwangearahkwa. His father died when he was young, and his mother moved with him and his sister Mary, or Molly, to Canajoharie, a Mohawk village on the Mohawk River in New York. Margaret gathered and sold the ginseng that grew there, for export to Europe and China.

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Fort Johnson today

Canajoharie then was a frontier town, but a multicultural one where Mohawk families coexisted with German and British immigrants. As a boy, Joseph hunted and fished with English boys his own age. His family had ties to William Johnson, a wealthy Irishman and nephew of naval hero Peter Warren. Johnson built a mansion along the Mohawk River and served as Britain’s superintendent of Northern Indian Affairs.

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William Johnson

When his older sister Molly became William Johnson’s common-law wife, Joseph moved in with them.

In 1758, 15-year-old Joseph followed Johnson into action during the French and Indian War. He served as a scout during the assault on Fort Carillon (renamed Ticonderoga) and watched the French rout the British. He joined Johnson in the Battle of Fort Niagara in 1759 and Jeffery Amherst‘s expedition to Montreal. The British gave Joseph a silver medal for his military service.

And so 18-year-oldJoseph Brant rode up to Moor’s Charity School as a decorated military veteran.

Moor’s Charity School

Seven years earlier, the Puritan minister Eleazar Wheelock had started Moor’s Charity School, a free school for Indian boys. He aimed to turn out Indian missionaries who would Christianize the American Indians. The Boston board of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge paid for their schooling.

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Eleazar Wheelock

Only a few Indian students lived at the school when Joseph arrived: a Mohegan, a Montauk and some Delawares. Some white boys, intent on going into missionary work, also attended the school. The sight of the Indians shocked one white boy.

“I was struck with horror at the sight of these wild indians, a sight of one I had never seen before,” he wrote. Some, like Joseph, were nearly grown men, others were his own age, he noted. “These last could not speak a word of english and still had on their indian costume, from my first sight at these indians it gave me such a shock that I determined that I never should be willing to spend my life with such people as they were.”

Upon the arrival of the three Mohawks, Wheelock immediately gave them each a pair of English pants and a shirt. He thought Joseph came from noble birth, because William Johnson – now a baronet known as Sir William – had gotten him the place at the school. So Wheelock gave Joseph a better shirts and a pair of pants with checks on them. Joseph liked those pants and took good care of them. Wheelock also gave each of the boys a book – Joseph’s cost more – and combs. Joseph got his own, but the others had to share one.

Curriculum

Wheelock at first found Joseph a bit sulky—not surprising that an 18-year-old Mohawk fresh from the battlefield would chafe at the strict Puritan regimen. But plentiful food improved Joseph’s mood. Lunch, for example, consisted of boiled meat, Indian pudding, bread, milk and sweet cakes.

The students slept and studied on the second floor of Wheelock’s home. They had to have wakened and dressed by six when Wheelock prayed over them on the first floor. Then breakfast and free time until 9:00.

In the schoolhouse next door, they learned reading, writing, English, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, along with civility and good manners. Then lunch, and then more lessons from 2 pm to 5 pm. They said prayers at the end of the school day and at sundown, then they studied until sleep time.

Wheelock liked Joseph, calling him a “considerate, modest and manly spirited youth.” He let Joseph, Sander and Nickus go home for a visit in November. Joseph returned to the school the next month, but Sander died and Nickus stayed behind to get married.

Progress

At Moor’s Charity School, Brant learned to speak English, to read and to write with a decipherable hand. He could read the New Testament and discuss Homer’s Odyssey. He also developed a preference for English clothes, which he wore except when posing or portraits.

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Joseph Brant by Gilbert Stuart

“Brant’s ability to move between communities is key to his career,” wrote historian Elizabeth Hutchinson.

Wheelock wanted to send him to Princeton to study with one of his proteges, but he couldn’t get permission from Joseph’s family quickly enough. Sir William wanted to send him to Columbia (King’s College), but Pontiac’s Rebellion broke out. Joseph had to leave school to fight another war.

The Rest of the Story

He worked as a translator and for British officials, including his brother-in-law, Sir William Johnson. He also translated a catechism and the Gospel of Mark into Mohawk.

In 1775, Joseph Brant joined Sir William’s nephew, Guy Johnson, on a trip to London to seal his appointment as his uncle’s successor as superintendent of Indian affairs. Brant pledged Haudenosaunee support for the British during the American Revolution. In exchange, the British agreed to compensate the Iroquois for property taken, both in the past and future. He made a splash in London society and with King George III, who invited him to join the Masonic brotherhood. Though he usually wore English clothes, he wore Indian garb to have his portrait painted by the English portrait painter George Romney.

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Joseph Brant by George Romney

He served as a captain in the British Army during the Revolution, and after the war emerged as an Indian leader. He negotiated for land for the Haudenosaunee along the Grand River in Ontario, and he helped form the Western Confederacy of Indian tribes.

For the rest of his life Joseph Brant worked to preserve and protect Six Nations control over Iroquois lands.

Conflicting Views

The Haudenosaunee people have conflicting views of his legacy. Some say he bargained away Indian land for his own purposes and helped destroy the traditional culture by espousing Christianity. His legacy is also tarnished by his ownership of black slaves.

But others say his negotiating ability gave his people sovereignty over their own land.

He died after a short illness in his home in Burlington, Ontario, on Nov. 24, 1807 at the age of 64. Legend has it that he said to his nephew while on his deathbed, “Have pity on the poor Indians; if you can get any influence with the great, endeavor to do them all the good you can.”

With thanks to Elizabeth Hutchinson in “The Dress of His Nation”: Romney’s Portrait of Joseph Brant in Winterthur Portfolio, Summer/Autumn 2011. And special thanks to Joseph Brant, 1743-1807: Man of Two Worlds By Isabel Thompson Kelsay. This story last updated in 2021.

Images: Fort Johnson By Webmasteratfort at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Matthiasb using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6840563.

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The Mysterious Moodus Noises of Connecticut

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The mysterious Moodus noises in south central Connecticut for many years frightened the Puritan settlers.

They weren’t alone. The Wangunk Indians had told the colonists of the fearful noises that they tried to appease. In fact, the Indians called the land around Mt. Tom “Machemoodus,” meaning place of bad noises. The settlers shortened the name to Moodus, now a village in East Haddam.

Today, people can still hear the strange Moodus noises, though they don’t pack the same terrifying punch they did in days of yore.

The Mysterious Moodus Noises of Connecticut

Origin of the Moodus noises: Mt. Tom at the intersection of the Connecticut and Salmon rivers.

Moodus Noises

The Moodus Noises seemed to come from underground. Sometimes they sounded like thunder, sometimes like pistol shots. Sometimes they disappeared for years, then they’d return furiously.

The Wangunk Indians believed the Moodus noises originated from the god Hobomoko, who sat on a sapphire throne underneath Mt. Tom. Hobomoko kept the Indian medicine men busy trying to interpret his voice, which sometimes raged and sometimes spoke gently. The medicine men tried to figure out the right combination of sacrifice and prayer to calm the angry god.

The Puritans, of course, thought their angry God caused the Moodus noises. They first recorded hearing the noises in 1702.

In 1729, the Rev. Stephen Hosmer of East Haddam, Conn., wrote a letter to a friend in Boston referring to ‘fearful and dreadful’ sounds that frightened local residents.

Stephen Hosmer

Hosmer believed “God almighty is to be seen and trembled at, in what has been often heard among us.”

The Indians had a somewhat different take on the noises, wrote Hosmer. An old Indian said the Indian’s god was very angry that the Englishman’s god had come here.

“I have myself heard eight or ten sounds successively, and imitating small arms, in the space of five minutes,” he wrote. “I have, I suppose, heard several hundreds of them within twenty years; some more, some less terrible. Sometimes we have heard them almost every day, and great numbers of them in the space of a year. Oftentimes I have observed them coming down from the north, imitating slow thunder, which shakes the houses and all that is in them.”

Others had more scientific explanations. One colonist thought a tunnel linked the mountain to the sea and it carried wind and tidal sounds. Some thought underground explosions of gases caused the terrifying noises..

Alchemy

The Moodus noises ceased for a while after the great earthquake of 1727.

But another legend about the Moodus noises sprang up in the mid-1700s.  King George supposedly sent an alchemist named Dr. Steele to stop them in 1760.

Steele said a great fossil called a carbuncle in the bowels of the earth caused the noises. He said his magic could remove the carbuncle and stop them. Steele then moved into a blacksmith’s shop, covered the windows and doors and at night worked in secrecy. One night the people of Moodus saw a cloud of smoke, flame and sparks coming from the blacksmith shop and concluded Steele was coming up with the carbuncle.

Eventually, Dr. Steele told the people of Moodus he had removed the great carbuncle, but he had discovered a smaller carbuncle that would cause more noises. They wouldn’t be as awful, however, as the noise caused by the large carbuncle. Then he disappeared.

Earthquakes

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Mt. Tom today

“Dr. Steele” was not exactly as good as his word.

On May 16, 1791 at about 8 p.m., an earthquake centered in Moodus shook all of Connecticut, the largest known tremor in the state. Measuring 4.5-5 on the Richter scale, it caused fish to jump out of water 20 miles away.

Tremors continued for several days, and on May 18, “the concussion of the earth, and the roaring of the atmosphere, were most tremendous. Consternation and dread filled every house. Chimneys toppled, stone walls fell and rocks of several tons moved.”

In 1929, horror writer H.P. Lovecraft used the Moodus noises for the basis of his short story, The Dunwich Horror.

Seismometer and other instruments at the Weston Observatory

But by the 20th century, scientists from Boston College’s Weston Observatory concluded tiny, shallow earthquakes called earthquake swarms caused the Moodus noises.

During the 1980s, four separate earthquake swarms consisting of 100 separate earthquakes struck the village, causing the Moodus noises to start up again.

Then in March 2011, the Moodus noises returned with an earthquake measuring 1.3 on the Richter scale.

Today, if you want to hear the Moodus noises, they can be best heard from Cave Hill, which is owned by the Cave Hill Resort.

This story was updated in 2023.

Image: Seismomitor By Z22 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33745561.

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Boston’s John Allen: The Uncool Revolutionary

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John Allen was one of the first American churchmen to declare that King George III was so badly managing colonial affairs that he had abdicated his right to govern the American colonies. Not only that, he hinted that if George wasn’t careful, he might wind up like King Charles I – beheaded for treason.

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King George III

Allen’s ideas would eventually turn into conventional thought, and propagandists such as Thomas Paine would expound on them. But in 1772, Allen had crawled out on a limb with his ideas, and as it turned out the limb couldn’t hold him.

An obscure minister in a non-mainstream religion, he had financial trouble in England and few friends among Boston’s elite. He made John Adams uneasy. But for one shining moment — the aftermath of the Gaspee Affair — he found his audience.

A passionate and controversial Baptist, Allen delivered his fieriest speech at a Thanksgiving celebration in December of 1772. He turned the speech into a pamphlet: Oration Upon the Beauties of Liberty, or the Essential Rights of Americans. It became one of the best-selling political pamphlets in America before publication of the Declaration of Independence. It passed through seven printings in four cities.

John Allen, Baptist Minister

The Baptist pulpit was an odd place for such radical thinking to spring up. Baptist leaders of the day focused on obtaining parity and equal treatment with other religions in New England. They rarely ventured into the squabbles between the colonies and the mother country. But Allen’ had a much bigger vision. He railed against taxation, parliamentary shenanigans and even took shots directly at the king. He even criticized Britain for allowing slavery in its colonies, though his publisher couldn’t include that issue in the first editions of the Oration. It made it only into later printings.

Allen was born in England and had been driven from the pulpit there because of his radical thinking. Among other issues, he refused to condemn the Sandemanians, a religious sect that preached the Bible gave no basis for granting authority to a central church.

By the time he left England, Allen had also been tarred with allegations that he tried to pass a bogus check. He cleared his name, but the incident called into question his fitness as a minister.

John Davis, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Boston, learned that Allen had departed England and arrived in Boston. In 1772, Davis was dying. He requested that the congregation invite Allen to preach at the church and potentially take over the pulpit.

John Allen

An Oration, Upon the Beauties of Liberty, Or the Essential Rights of the Americans by John Allen

Bad Reports

The congregation disagreed about letting Allen should speak. Churchman Isaac Backus noted in his journal: “Met with Mr. John Allen a noted writer from England, who has been preaching in Boston lately, but we have some very bad reports about him; how they’ll turn out I know not.”

Meanwhile, Allen had friends among the Sons of Liberty and among American sympathizers in England. With a little back room pressure, he got his chance in the pulpit.

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Sons of Liberty pouring hot tea down the throat of the customs commissioner after tarring and feathering him.

Allen chose the 1772 Thanksgiving address – guaranteed to be widely attended and noted – to deliver his Oration. The colonies were in an uproar over the king’s appointment of a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the burning of the British ship Gaspee in Rhode Island. The commission planned to send the Rhode Islanders who burned the ship to England for trial, and Allen used that as the springboard for his rant against the English government.

Allen, like all speakers of the day, never declared his disloyalty to the monarchy. But he made his opinion clear. “An arbitrary despotic power in a prince, is the ruin of a nation, of the King, of the crown, and of the subjects; therefore it is to be feared, abhorred, detested and destroyed. . .  The King of England has no power to enact, or put in force any law that may oppress (the Americans); his very attempting to do it, at once destroys is right to reign over them.”

Too Radical?

He went on to call for a sort of American parliament to make rules to govern the colonies. He also declared that if the king persisted “in being influenced and dictated by his Ministry,” he might well risk the same fate of his predecessor Charles I, overthrown by revolutionaries.

James Otis by Henry Blackburn

Many people read Allen’s pamphlet, though not everyone found his hostility to their liking.  John Adams, in his diary, noted James Otis “reads to large Circles of the common People, Allen’s Oration on the Beauties of Liberty and recommends it as an excellent Production.”

Adams felt such radical ideas as giving voting rights to un-landed citizens took democracy too far. Still, he noted, Otis’ devotion to the rights of Americans was unquestioned.

Allen published his pamphlets under the nom de guerre British Bostonian. He proposed one last pamphlet in 1774, The Patriotic Whisper in the Ears of the King; or the Grand Request of the People of America Made Manifest. Intended as a Chariot of Liberty for the Sons of America. But if it was ever published, it was lost. Allen slipped into obscurity – his position as radical pamphleteer filled by thinkers such as Thomas Paine.


This story was updated in 2022.

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