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Provincetown

Jolley Allen Missed Evacuation Day in 1776 and It Cost Him Everything

Jolley Allen was a nervous man by March 16, 1776. A Boston merchant who arrived from England in 1755, Allen was a Loyalist through and through.

The British evacuate Boston, March 17, 1776.

He had sold, among other things, some of the tea that so infuriated his new countrymen and prompted the Boston Tea Party. And he had been threatened with tarring and feathering for it.

So while he hadn’t accumulated a lot of friends, his connections had allowed him to prosper in the colonies, and he amassed a tidy estate. If you think the idea of losing it all would infuriate him, you’d be right. That’s why he planned to leave Boston behind for a return to England.

Siege of Boston

By March 16, 1776, the standoff between the British and Rebel forces in Boston was as tense as it would get. The rebels under the direction of George Washington had the city under siege. The colonists had fortified Dorchester Heights with cannon, but they were outnumbered by the 10,000 British soldiers who held the city of Boston.

The British, led by Gen. William Howe, faced their own dilemma. They had won the Battle of Bunker Hill, but with enormous casualties. One more such pyrrhic victory and the British might well lose the whole war.

Knox’s noble train of artillery

With fresh cannon brought by Henry Knox now looking down on the British from Dorchester, Howe had no sane alternative but to retreat by sea. The British, however, needed to provide cover to the Loyalist families that had supported them through their 11-month siege in Boston. They needed an orderly escape.

The colonists, meanwhile, wanted the British to leave without burning Boston. With an informal agreement in place that the British would not burn the town in exchange for the colonials not attacking the British ships as they departed, the standoff dragged on for nearly two weeks. During that time, Loyalists tried to load their ships for departure and the colonists waited.

Evacuation

By March 16, several minor skirmishes had occurred and Howe was convinced Washington was losing patience. And so he ordered the evacuation of Boston the following day, March 17. Jolley Allen was ready to go. His plan was to be on board a ship and simply fall in line and follow the British wherever they went.

British defenses in Boston, 1776, Courtesy Library of Congress

On March 11, Jolley Allen had procured the services of a private sloop, Sally, to transport him to England. The ship would be piloted by a 20-year veteran sea captain, Robert Campbell. He spent the next several days procuring introductions and letters of recommendation to assist him in his transition. He also loaded the contents of his two warehouses on to the ship, along with his personal belongings. His furniture alone he valued at more than 1,000 pounds.

Unpleasant Surprise

By March 14, Jolley, his wife and their seven children had boarded the ship. As more than 100 British ships began leaving on March 17, however, Robert Campbell’s ineptitude became clear. Over the next 24 hours, Campbell managed to collide with two other fleeing British ships, nearly capsize Sally and finally run it aground while the British ships sailed away for Nova Scotia.

It was then that Allen learned Campbell had never been to sea, and knew nothing about sailing. Before long, 20 other passengers from the lower decks joined him in his cabin. Could they join the Allens in their stateroom, the others asked, so that they might all die together?

Provincetown, undated, Courtesy New York Public Library

Allen was flabbergasted to learn that a plank had given way and the ship was filling with water. The captain seemed unable to offer any suggestions. The passengers and crew managed to anchor the ship near Provincetown. When he got to shore in Provincetown it became obvious that Jolley was part of the evacuation, and he was arrested.

Initially some townsfolk offered to secure his belongings, for a sizeable fee. But a friendly stranger clued Allen in that they had already started ransacking his things. By the time he returned to retrieve them, they disappeared.

Back Home

Allen had to go before the General Court to plead his case. On his way from Provincetown, he passed through Boston and stopped at his old house. His barber had taken it over, but he let him rent a room for two nights.

What little remained of Allen’s belongings disappeared for good when he placed them in the safekeeping of two Boston town fathers.

Finally, in February of 1777, Allen made good his escape and fled to London, where he pleaded his case for compensation, published in Account of the Sufferings and Losses of Jolley Allen, a Native of London. Whether he exaggerates or not is unclear, as we only have his side of things recorded.

This story was updated in 2023.

Image: Provincetown By Scan by NYPL – https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-25c5-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48668409. British defenses By Thomas Hyde Page – Library of Congress G3764.B6S3 1777 .P3 Faden 32, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4392826.

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Black Sam Bellamy, The Pirate Who Fought Smart, Harmed Few, Scored Big

Black Sam Bellamy became the wealthiest pirate in history not because of greed but because of anger – anger at the English system that exploited poor country boys and sailors like him.

British press gang

After his early death in 1717 he left a legacy of folklore on Cape Cod and a ship loaded with treasure off its coast. In 1984, treasure hunters found his ship and in 2018 archaeologists believed they found his remains.

Black Sam Bellamy ran his pirate operation democratically. His men were slaves and Indians and sailors pressed into service. Bellamy treated them equally and let them vote on important decisions.

In a famous speech attributed to Bellamy, he scorned the wealthy merchants he plundered: “They rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage.”

Pirate historians have traced Bellamy’s career, summarized by Colin Woodard as ‘Fight smart, harm few, score big.’

Robin Hood of the Sea

Bellamy and his crew captured 53 ships before he died in a shipwreck at 28. They called him Black Sam Bellamy because he eschewed the fashion for powdered wigs and wore his black hair tied with a black satin bow. He had good manners, dressed neatly in fancy clothes, and he always wore four ornate dueling pistols in his sash.

Black Sam Bellamy called himself ‘Robin Hood of the Sea,’ and his men called themselves ‘Robin Hood’s men.’ There is no record of him ever killing a captive, and he often returned captured ships and cargo if they didn’t suit his purpose.

We know little of Black Sam Bellamy’s early life, though he is presumed to have been born in Devon in the west of England. The woman who was probably his mother died in childbirth and was buried Feb. 23, 1689. His parents were likely tenant farmers, hovering on the edge of starvation like half of England.

Bellamy left home at a young age for a port – London, Bristol or Plymouth. He became a ship’s boy at 13 at the outset of the War of Spanish Succession. By the end of the war in 1712 he was a skilled sailor.

Turn to Piracy

Gold recovered from the Whydah

No one knows how Black Sam Bellamy ended up on board a British ship. A press gang may have grabbed him. In the early 18^th century, Britain didn’t have anywhere near enough sailors. The press gangs tricked country boys into signing up or simply kidnapped and forced them on board ships.

Once in service, ship captains routinely cheated sailors of their wages. They gave the sailors vague IOUs instead of wages, or paid them for their last voyage just before they left port for the next. Sometimes they simply didn’t pay them at all.

Black Sam Bellamy sailed to Cape Cod in 1714 or early 1715 to seek his fortune, arriving in Eastham where he may have had relatives. There he had an affair with the beautiful Maria Hallett, all of 15. After impregnating Maria he sailed to Florida to recover Spanish treasure with his friend from Rhode Island, Paulsgrave Williams. Others got to the treasure first.

The two men turned to piracy under Benjamin Hornigold, but the crew mutinied and elected Bellamy as their captain.

Hen-hearted Numbskulls

In 1717 Bellamy and his crew captured the Whydah Gally, a slave ship he refitted as a flagship with 28 guns. The Whydah had an advanced weapons system capable of attacking any man-of-war in the Americas.

In a year, Black Sam Bellamy and his crew raided 54 ships along the U.S. East Coast and the Caribbean. All in all they captured treasure worth $120 million today, according to Forbes magazine. That made him the top-earning pirate.

The Whydah Gally also captured a sloop under the command of a Capt. Beers. Black Sam Bellamy wanted to let him keep his ship, but his crew had voted to burn it. Bellamy asked the captain to join the pirates, and Beers declined. That allegedly inspired the speech attributed to the pirate:

I am sorry they won’t let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a mischief, when it is not to my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink her, and she might be of use to you.

Though you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security; for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by knavery; but damn ye altogether: damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls.

They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make then one of us, than sneak after these villains for employment?

Black Sam Bellamy Lost and Found

Map of the Whydah wreck

The Whydah and the Mary Anne, commanded by Williams, headed north to New England. Williams and the Mary Anne broke off to Rhode Island, where he wanted to visit his family. Bellamy continued on, perhaps to Eastham to see Maria, but a terrific Nor’easter on April 26, 1717 wrecked the Whydah off the coast of Wellfleet. Black Sam Bellamy and all but two of the 142 men on board perished.

Eventually, 102 of the bodies from the Whydah Gally were buried in a mass grave. The Mary Anne was shipwrecked a few days later, leaving seven survivors.

In 1984, underwater explorer Barry Clifford rediscovered the Whydah in 14 feet of water and five of sand. The Whydah’s artifacts can be seen at Expedition Whydah Sea-Lab & Learning Center in Yarmouth, Mass.

Since Clifford found the wreck of the Whydah, archaeologists continued to search the site. In 2018 they announced they may have found the remains of Black Sam Bellamy himself.

Legacies

The U.K. Telegraph reported scientists found a femur encased in a mass of iron, stone, silver, gold, tools and weapons. They also found pieces of a crushed helmet, indicating a violent death. And they discovered an ornate pistol wrapped in a ribbon that probably belonged to Black Sam Bellamy.

In 2016, an Englishman from Devon came to the Whydah Pirate Museum with documents that showed he was descended from Black Sam Bellamy. Scientists from the University of New Haven tested the bones for a DNA match with the presumed descendant. They found the man’s DNA didn’t match Sam Bellamy’s.

However, in 2021, investigators from the Pirate Museum announced they’d found six pirate skeletons in hard masses of minerals from the shipwreck site. Clifford said he hoped to identify the pirates and connect them with any descendants.

Black Sam Bellamy did leave another legacy. Maria Hallett gave birth to Bellamy’s baby, who died. She spent a short time in jail. According to local lore, she lost her mind or withdrew from society and moved to a shack in Wellfleet. People called her ‘Goody Hallett’ or ‘The Witch of Wellfleet.’ Today a meadow in Wellfleet is known as Goody Hallett Meadow.

With thanks to The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard. This story about Black Sam Bellamy was updated in 2023.

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The Valentine’s Day Storm of 1940

The Valentine’s Day Storm of 1940 barreled into New England just 15 months after The Great New England Hurricane of 1938. Heavy snows and high winds made it one of the most memorable storms in Boston’s history.

Pedestrians struggle to stay upright during the Valentine’s Day Storm.

The blizzard caught Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts by complete surprise, as the National Weather Service had predicted ‘rain and light snow.’

The storm killed 31 people, paralyzed travel and stranded thousands for days. It closed every department store in Boston, something the Great New England Hurricane hadn’t done.

Valentine’s Day Storm

It started benignly with flurries in the morning of Valentine’s Day and developed explosively. As the afternoon wore on, the snow began to fall at a rate of three inches per hour — for seven hours. Winds as high as 60 mph drove drifts as high as 10 feet, making the roads impassable.

The National Weather Service forecast rain mixed with snow in the afternoon. Office workers left home in the morning wearing heels and had to struggle through the snow on the way home.

Workers struggling through the snow on one of Boston’s wharves.

The storm created blizzard conditions throughout New England and into New York and Pennsylvania. It halted all train travel throughout New England. Two thousand people who had come to see Sonja Henie perform at the Boston Garden were stranded. They thronged North Station’s Hotel Manger lobby and restaurant all night long. The trains didn’t run until 10 a.m.

Notice of train delays during the storm.

Notice of train delays during the Valentine’s Day Storm.

Some managed to find hotel rooms at pricey rates. When the hotel rooms filled up, hotels put cots in their lobbies and ballrooms. Many Henie fans hung out in hotel bars for several days, still in their dinner jackets and evening gowns.

So many cars were stranded that Boston police enforced a ban on automobiles entering the city.

An auto stuck in the snow during the Valentine’s Day Storm.

Poetic License

In Provincetown, the Advocate reported the Valentine’s Day Storm began with ‘an angry, darkening sky that shone dull green’ in the surf. The northeast wind ripped shingles off the town hall with such force that a shingle cut through a parked car. About 25 men and women slept in chairs in town hall overnight. Winds up to 80 mph were recorded along Beach Point.

Charles Olson

The Valentine’s Day Storm launched the poetry career of Modernist Charles Olson. Olson, then 29, was about to leave Gloucester, Mass., to work in New York City. On the night of the awful storm he left his mother in the house near the Annisquam River, jumped off the porch and wandered down to the bay to be bombarded by sheets of ice blown in from the sea.

Years later he wrote an epic series of verse called The Maximus Poems, which alluded to the storm as marking the time he started writing poetry.

there was a Dance Hall there
like literally ye Olde
West on the spot what he
looked out and saw the sun gleaming
on the snow after
the St Valentine Day’s
Storm spring
1940

The Clean-Up

The next day crowds of men wanting work waited at the City Yards on Albany Street, reported the Boston Globe. It took 17,000 of them to dig Boston out of the snow, as 9,000 Works Progress Administration workers joined the 7,500 regular public workers and extras. Any man with a shovel could go to the local work yard and get a job. The city ran out of shovels and they had to supply their own.

A firefighter tries to shovel out his truck during the storm.

A firefighter tries to shovel out his truck during the Valentine’s Day Storm.

Emergency workers cleared train tracks with bonfires, oil lamps and flame throwers. Boston hired 17,000 men to shovel the city out. That included 9,000 WPA employees and 7,500 regular workers. Any man who showed up with a shovel could get work. The shovel was crucial, for the city ran out of them.

In Medfield, Mass., the snow was higher than the tops of cars.

For days afterward in New Bedford, the family and friends of the crew of the Palmer Island awaited news of the 49-foot dragger, feared lost at sea during the storm. The Coast Guard scoured the seas for it and after three days found the Palmer Island 120 miles south of Block Island. On Sunday, Feb. 18, the Coast Guard towed the vessel back to New Bedford with all 10 crewmen aboard.

With thanks to The Boston Globe. Photos, except for Charles Olson, courtesy the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection. This story about the Valentine’s Day storm was updated in 2022.

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