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The Cold Friday of 1810

The legendary Cold Friday of 1810 brought such terrible winds and frigid temperature that people talked and wrote about it for generations.

Tales of the killer weather event made their way into town histories, journals and court records long after it happened on January 19. They told of the many people who froze to death while traveling along the highways. The wind blew down houses, barns and vast numbers of timber trees. Ships wrecked, cattle froze in their barns and old people died of hypothermia inside their homes. It was so cold pens wouldn’t write though they were right next to the fireplace.

Winter in the country: a cold morning. by Currier and Ives, courtesy Library of Congress.

What made the Cold Friday so lethal was the sudden, steep drop in temperature that caught people unaware.

Sudden Plunge

Several jourrnals claimed the mercury dropped 100 degrees in Boston in less than 24 hours, from 67 to 33 below zero, Michael R. Doyle reported in 2005. Though the ice in the harbor did freeze to Spectacle Island, that may have been an exaggeration.

The more scientific minds at the American Register reported the mercury dropped from 48 degrees on Thursday to nine below zero on the cold Friday. In Portsmouth, N.H., it went from 54 on Thursday to minus 12 on Friday — and minus 13 on Saturday.

Joseph Dow, in his History of Hampton, N.H., described how the plunge in temperature surprised some local farmers:

“…[I]n Hampton, the morning was so mild, several farmers set out for Newburyport, with ox-loads of potatoes, beguiling with neighborly chat the tedium of the slow progress.

“On the return, the cold became so intense and the wind so violent, all suffered extremely, and one man who had rashly left his overcoat at home was only saved from perishing, by wrapping himself in the blankets that had covered the potatoes.”

Cold Friday Redux

So memorable was the Cold Friday that a mention of it 20 years later meant the listener understood it to mean January 19. Asked to recount a date in a New Hampshire court case, the witness simply said it happened on the “Cold Friday, 1810.”

Henry David Thoreau, one o the two loves of Louisa May Alcott

Henry David Thoreau thought of the Cold Friday during the winter of 1857, the coldest ever in New England. On Jan. 11, 1857, he wrote in his journal:

“Mother remembers the Cold Friday–very well–She lived in the house where I was born–The people in the kitchen Jack Garrison–Ester–& a Hardy girl drew up close to the fire–but the dishes which the Hardy girl was washing froze as fast as she washed them close to the fire. They managed to keep warm in the parlor by their great fires.”

Few people ventured outside. The New England Farmer reported, “very little going from place to place. Farmers piled on the wood and attended to their cattle, and that was about all for the day.” Anyone who had to go outside for an errand that could not be deferred, ‘sped over the ground like squirrels and were fortunate if they returned with no flesh from the intensity of the frost.’

One intrepid little girl named Rebecca Ramsdell braved the cold to walk a mile to school in Henniker, N.H. Her teacher, who awarded medals to his most punctual students, gave her the prize. She kept it during the term. In fact, she kept it her whole life. The Henniker Historical Society has a picture of her at age 100 with the medal. (See it here.)

Casualties

In Woburn, Mass., Joseph Brooks, a 50-year-old Revolutionary War veteran, and his cousin Benjamin, 45, had no such luck. They went into the forest to cut wood during the mild afternoon of January 18. They were found frozen to death on January 20.

The Rev. William Bentley

People even died without going outside. Salem diarist William Bentley reported in his diary.

“Several Old Persons perished within doors…Susanna Beadle, aet. 82, attempting to arise from bed was so chilled as to expire immediately.” Bentley wrote. “A woman, also a Widow, chilled, fell into the fire, on the western part of the Town, & escaped with life enough to put out the fire in her clothes but did not call assistance & perished with the cold & found dead in the morning.

“The young man from the Ship going to Beverly Shore not half a mile could not be recovered. A Soldier coming from Salem Fort only to the Farm houses on the Neck, not half a mile, was much frozen……the use of the pen was impracticable unless near to the fire, & even before the fire the water froze on the tables.”

The fierce winds blew ashore several other vessels in the harbor. Capt. James Sears and the crew of the sloop Margaret, carrying a load of plaster from Thomaston, lost their lives at sea.

In Antrim, N.H., the wind blew the roof off the home of Samuel Marshall and his family, and in Farmington, Maine, the home of James Johnson burned.

Saddest Story

The saddest tale of suffering was repeated many times. It happened in Sanbornton, N.H. According to the New Hampshire Historical Society, the wind blew down part of the home of Jeremiah Ellsworth, jeopardizing the lives of his wife and three children.

Mrs. Ellsworth dressed the youngest child and went into the cellar, leaving the other two in bed. Jeremiah Ellsworth went to the home of David Brown, a quarter mile away, seeking help. His feet had frozen, though, and the two men agreed he shouldn’t risk the danger of going back home.

Brown hitched his horse to a sleigh to rescue Mrs. Ellsworth and the children. He found her and the baby in the cellar, the other two naked in bed as the wind blew their clothes off. He covered them with a blanket and put them in the sleigh, but the wind turned the sleigh over and scattered everything.

Mrs. Ellsworth decided to walk to Brown’s house but sank into the snow, benumbed by cold. She crawled to Brown’s house, where she had changed so much her husband didn’t recognize her.

Brown put the children back in the sleigh but the wind blew it over again and tore it to pieces. He could only carry two of the children, so he left the baby, who was dressed, behind on the road. When he reached his home the children were still alive, but died a few minutes later. Brown was too exhausted and frostbitten to find the baby, but later that day a search party found him dead by the side of the road.

The parents lived, but had no more children after that Cold Friday.

This story 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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The Great Snow Hurricane of 1804

On Oct. 9, 1804, a snow hurricane struck Eastern New England, the first time in recorded history a tropical storm produced snowfall.

The storm devastated shipping, froze potatoes, destroyed orchards, crushed houses, killed dozens of people, leveled timber lots, smashed wharves and took the steeple off the Old North Church in Boston.

Not until 1841 would another tropical storm produce snow, and then not again until Hurricane Ginny struck in 1963. And then in 2012, Hurricane Sandy struck, another rare snow hurricane.

Ships and wharves suffered the worst damage from the Great Snow Hurricane of 1804.

The Great Snow Hurricane

At 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 9, the temperature fell suddenly, and a thunderstorm of rain mixed with snow began. It rained in southern New England and snowed in the north.

“We had thunder & lightning all day,” wrote William Bentley, a Salem, Mass., minister and diarist.

At 1 p.m. the wind changed and gained power, reaching a crescendo in the evening. Wind speeds reached 110 mph for a minute at a time.

“People sat up all that night, fearing to retire lest their houses would blow down,” wrote Sidney Perley in his 1894 book, Historic Storms of New England.

Chimneys, fences, roofs and windows took a beating.

The wind began to die down before midnight and abated before dawn on Wednesday, but the rain and snow continued until Thursday morning. Heavy rain pummeled the coast, while snow fell in Vermont, the mountains of western Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut.

Salem got seven inches of rain, and Windsor, Vt., got 48 inches of snow.

Mary Vial Holyoke, a doctor’s wife in Salem, Mass., described the snow hurricane in her diary on October 9:

A violent N. E. storm with thunder & lightning. Philo’s chamber window blew in. There was much damage done in this and neighbouring towns. Chimneys thrown down, houses unroofed & several Steeples & meeting houses injured. Mr. Grays three Chimneys blown down.

Shipwrecks and Drownings

Old North Church

The snow hurricane cut a swath of destruction along the coast. It drove vessels onto lee shores and wrecked them from Rye, N.H., to Newport, R.I. Some dragged anchor and collided with each other, killing the men aboard. Entire crews died at sea, their bodies never found and presumed lost.

A tidal surge destroyed docks and wharves. The snow hurricane sunk nearly every small boat at the wharves in Boston Harbor, Bentley wrote. Two men drowned, four vessels sank and 35 damaged.

A boy named Smith tried to bail a sloop near Fort Point Channel, but the boat sank and took him with it. He clung to a plank only to be washed off and drowned despite frantic efforts to save him.

“The reports are endless,” wrote Bentley on October 12, the day after the snow hurricane ended. He rode around the North Shore of Boston to inspect the damage, and everywhere he found barns unroofed, chimneys blown down, roofs and windows smashed and trees uprooted.

The amount of seaweed driven on shore astounded him. “It would not have been imagined that the beaches over which we passed had ever been used for pleasure had they been seen only after the late storm,” wrote Bentley.

Fury and Destruction

All up and down the coast, the story was the same. A Kennebunk sloop loaded with rum was lost, along with a lady passenger.

The storm smashed to bits a Connecticut schooner loaded with corn, though her crew survived.

Six vessels ashore cut away their masts, reported the Newburyport Herald. Four or five others were driven out of the harbor and believed lost, along with their crews.

Rescuers found a dead woman on Rye Beach, in New Hampshire, an infant clasped in her arms.

Coasting vessels went to pieces on beaches in Scituate, Mass. Their crews all perished and masts, booms and vessel parts strewn along the shore. Vessels were grounded in Braintree Bay and the bodies of three men found on Patrick Island.

More Drama

Cohasset, Mass., experienced even more drama, according to Perley. The storm drove the sloops Hannah and Mary onto shore at the same time.

The Hannah struck on a ledge some distance from the shore, and the sea swept away the captain, who drowned. Two of the men lashed themselves to the boom, and remained on deck about two hours. Then the vessel broke up, and the boom with the men still lashed to it washed ashore. Several onlookers plunged into the surf and saved their lives.

Horror and Destruction

A broadside with the title ‘Violent Storm’ reported on the ‘unprecedented fury and destruction’ that hit Boston.

“It spread horror and devastation through the whole town,” the broadside reported. The force of the wind knocked over a western stage, seriously injuring several passengers.

The steeple of Old North Church fell on the house next door and crushed it. Fortunately, the family who rented the house had left on a visit.

A young servant named Lydia Bennet wasn’t so lucky. She worked for Ebenezer Eaton in his grand new brick house in West Boston. A neighbor noticed the battlements were giving away and alerted Eaton, who took his wife and children to a safer place.

A few minutes later the battlements fell in, killing Lydia Bennet and seriously injuring three other servants.

Rain and Snow

The Endicott Pear Tree in Danvers, Mass., survived the storm, but the snow hurricane wiped out many orchards and sugar maple groves.

The Rev. William Bentley

More than 100 cattle died in Topsfield, Mass., alone, as did dozens more cows, sheep and fowl. The snow hurricane froze crops and ruined haystacks throughout New England.

The storm downed so many oak trees that shipbuilding declined in Massachusetts. The landscape changed so much in Thomaston, Maine, that residents felt they were in a strange place, wrote Perley:

At Thomaston, Me., a sixty-acre timber lot was almost entirely blown down. Such great sections of the woods were leveled that new landscapes and prospects were brought into view to the surprise of many people.

As William Bentley traveled around assessing the snow hurricane damage, he talked to the old people about it.

He concluded the snow hurricane was the most severe storm ever felt in New England.

This story about the Great Snow Hurricane last updated in 2022.

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Henry Knox: Six Surprising Facts About the Father of American Artillery

Henry Knox, born July 25, 1750, was best known for his continuous military service under General Washington for the duration of the American Revolution. He commanded the American artillery and later served as secretary of war.

Henry Knox by Charles Wilson Peale

His great achievements include organizing the efforts to haul 58 artillery pieces to Boston from Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point to help push the British from the city. He then continued to direct the artillery throughout the war, including the successful siege at Yorktown.

On and off the battlefield, Henry Knox was a remarkable man, both for his actions and his role during the times in which he lived.

1. Henry Knox Married a Loyalist

Lucy Flucker didn’t come from just any loyalist family. Her father served as the British secretary of the province of Massachusetts. At 17, she fell in love with Henry Knox, though she well knew he leaned toward the colonial rebels. You might think that upon marrying quite a bit over his station, Henry would see that his in-laws offered better prospects than following his own instincts. But it turned out differently. After their marriage, Henry and Lucy evacuated Boston when the British tightened their control over the city. Lucy’s family returned to England and she never saw them again.

2. He died broke

Knox had a rags-to-riches-to-rags life. After his service in government ended, Knox did not return to his trade selling books in Boston. Rather, he moved to Maine where his wife had inherited considerable property. He built the Knox mansion, named Montpelier by Lucy, in Thomaston. He then set about trying to make a fortune from the Maine woods. Unfortunately, he spent his final years struggling to try to repay his loans, which by the time of his death far exceeded the value of his assets.

Henry Knox by Gilbert Stuart 1806

3. He fathered many things

Knox literally fathered 13 children, most of whom did not survive to adulthood. But he also is the figurative father to the American artillery, including the industries needed to support it. Early on, he advocated the creation of the West Point military academy. And the Society of the Cincinnati, the fraternal organization that formed for Revolutionary War veterans, credits him with first proposing its organization as far back as 1775.

4. He witnessed the Boston Massacre

One of the earliest records of Knox’s life was his testimony about the events of the evening of the Boston Massacre. Knox witnessed a scuffle between some rowdy patriots and British troops. He tried to calm the situation, but failed. Knox ultimately testified on behalf of the British soldiers, providing details about what happened that night.

5. He was nearly replaced as commander of the artillery

American diplomat Silas Deane worked in Europe to recruit experienced military leaders to come assist the colonists in developing their military capabilities. He enticed French artillery specialist Philippe Charles Tronson du Coudray to join the American cause in 1777, with a promise that he would lead the artillery. General Washington had to intervene with Congress on Knox’s behalf to prevent the appointment. Washington succeeded in having du Coudray appointed to a lower position. The matter then ended in September of the year when du Coudray fell from his horse into the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania and drowned.

6. He turned down a British commission

Several biographers claim that Knox could, if he had chosen, gotten a commission as an officer in the British army. They report that his father-in-law, originally reluctant to have his daughter marry a bookseller at all, later tried to make the best of it by arranging a commission for Knox. Knox, however, declined the offer.

This story was updated in 2021.

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Abbie Burgess, Teenaged Heroine of Matinicus Rock Light

Abbie Burgess, at just 16, kept the light burning in Matinicus Rock Lighthouse for 21 days in 1856 during a violent storm. While the tempest stranded her father on the mainland, she protected her mother and sisters from the violence of the wind and waves.

Matinicus Light Twin Towers, where Abbie Burgess kept the lights burning.

The government built the twin towers of Matinicus Rock Light in 1827 on the treeless and windswept Matinicus Rock, six miles south of Maine’s Matinicus Island. In 1846, granite towers and a granite keeper’s house replaced the wooden towers. President Franklin Pierce named Samuel Burgess lighthouse keeper in 1856. Burgess moved to the rocky outpost with his invalid wife, his son and three daughters, including, of course, Abbie Burgess.

Abbie Burgess

Abbie Burgess, the oldest daughter, was born Aug. 1, 1839, in Rockland, Maine. She quickly learned to run the light, allowing her father to fish for lobsters and sell them in Rockland. Years later, she described the difficulty of tending the old lard lamps on Matinicus Rock.

…sometimes they would not burn so well when first lighted, especially in cold weather when the oil got cold. Then, some nights, I could not sleep a wink all night though I knew the keeper himself was watching. And many nights I have watched the light my part of the night, thinking nervously, what might happen should the light fail.

In all these years I always put the lamps in order and I lit them at sunset.

In January of 1856, while her brother had gone fishing, her father sailed to the mainland to buy food and oil for the lamps. Shortly after he sailed away the wind changed into a raging nor’easter. Abbie Burgess realized the danger and moved her family into the lighthouse.

The Terrible Storm

She wrote a letter to her friend Dorothy describing how they survived during the terrible storm:

…Early in the day, as the tide arose, the sea made a complete breach over the rock, washing every movable thing away, and of the old dwelling not one stone was left upon another.

Abbie Burgess

The new dwelling was flooded, and the windows had to be secured to prevent the violence of the spray from breaking them in. As the tide came, the sea rose higher and higher, till the only endurable places were the lighttowers. If they stood we were saved, otherwise our fate was only too certain.

But for some reason, I know not why, I had no misgivings, and went on with my work as usual. For four weeks, owing to rough weather, no landing could be effected on the rock. During this time we were without the assistance of any male members of our family. Though at times greatly exhausted with my labors, not once did the lights fail. Under God I was able to perform all my accustomed duties as well as my father’s.

You know the hens were our only companions. Becoming convinced, as the gale increased, that unless they were brought into the house they would be lost, I said to mother: “I must try to save them.” She advised me not to attempt it. The thought, however, of parting with them without an effort was not to be endured, so seizing a basket, I ran out a few yards after the rollers had passed and the sea fell off a little, with the water knee deep, to the coop, and rescued all but one. It was the work of a moment, and I was back in the house with the door fastened, but I was none too quick, for at that instant my little sister, standing at the window, exclaimed: “Oh, look! look there! the worst sea is coming.”

That wave destroyed the old dwelling and swept the rock.

Matinicus Rock Light today

Cornmeal and an Egg

To fend off starvation, Abbie Burgess gave her mother and sisters a daily ration of a cup of cornmeal and an egg. Then after three weeks her father finally returned.

Samuel Burgess did not support Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and lost his job as lighthouse keeper. Abbie Burgess, though, stayed at the lighthouse as assistant keeper to John Grant. He had four sons and she married one of them, Isaac.

Together Abbie and Isaac worked as assistant lighthouse keepers. In 1875 they moved with their four sons to keep Whitehead Light for 15 years off St. George, Maine.

A Lighthouse Gravestone

Abbie Burgess died June 16, 1892 in Portland. In her last letter she wrote that she often dreamed of the old lamps at Matinicus Rock. She wondered if the care of the lighthouse would follow her soul after it left her worn-out body.

“If I ever have a gravestone I would like it to be in the form of a lighthouse or a beacon,” she concluded.

Fifty years later, maritime historian Edward Rowe Snow located Abbie Burgess’ grave in Forest Hills Cemetery in Thomaston, Maine. But it had no lighthouse or beacon as a gravestone. Snow placed a small lighthouse at her grave.

The Coast Guard named a buoy tender based in Rockland after Abbie Burgess. Authors Peter and Connie Roop wrote a much-loved children’s book about her, Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie. And today, Matinicus Island attracts visitors to view its puffins.

With thanks to Women of the Sea by Edward Rowe Snow. This story was updated in 2022. You may also want to read about Ida Lewis, the bravest woman in America, here.

Images: Puffin By Charles J. Sharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography.co.uk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=106949397. Matinicus Rock Light courtesy NOAA.

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Peleg Wadsworth on the Discouragements of Revolutionary War

On April 28, 1780, Gen. Peleg Wadsworth wrote a letter from Falmouth (now Portland), describing the sad state of the conflict in the Province of Maine. Since March, he had command of all the troops raised to defend the Province of Maine. He didn’t have many.

Wadsworth’s troops were not only sparse, they were underpaid and unmotivated. Hhe had incompetent officers and the inhabitants helped the enemy.

Wadsworth wrote in the aftermath of the disastrous Penobscot Expedition nearly two years earlier. An attempt to dislodge the British from the fort at Castine (also known as Majabigwaduce) resulted in the loss of 43 American warships – the worst American naval disaster until Pearl Harbor.

British ships defending against the Penobscot Expedition

Both sides conducted the war haplessly in Maine. As James Phinney Baxter wrote in his History of the State of Maine,

Not only did the authorities on the American side proceed in a careless, unsystematic and blundering manner, leaving the soldiers engaged in it to starve and freeze until they heard a frantic appeal for help, but the British displayed no enterprise in prosecuting offensive operations. Had they possessed a single able military commander, they could have occupied and held the eastern part of Maine at almost any time.

On that April day, Peleg Wadsworth addressed his letter to the Massachusetts Council, the upper chamber of the Provincial Congress. He would prove prescient: In less than a year, the British would overrun his headquarters at Thomaston. They would also capture Wadsworth.

Peleg Wadsworth Writes

The letter:

I would inform Your Honor that I returnd to this Town on the 22nd Inst: from Thomaston: in which quarter there were on the 20th Inst:; only fifty men arrived of both Detachments, four of which only were from the County of York,

The Consequence of this Delay is very Dangerous, & is the cause of frequent desertions from the Inhabitants to the Enemy. It begets a Diffidence in the wavering, & even in our most zealous Friends: It inspires the Enemy with Perserverance in endeavouring to catch the deluded Inhabitants, that live in their Vicinity, & invites a profitable Correspondence to be kept up with them; by which they procure Supplies & Conveniencies. To prevent this I was induced on the 18 Inst:, nothwithstanding the want of men & Boats, to issue the inclosed Proclamation: In support of which my little party will be much exposed, till the expected arrival. I was further induced to issue this Proclamation to prevent the Inhabitants of the Islands & parts adjacent to Majabigwaduce from joining fully with the Enemy, or becoming obliged to quit their Habitations by the first of May; which they are required to do by a late Proclamation from the Enemy. Their Habitations however they must still quit unless the Neutrality I have required be admitted by the enemy: For it is better that those parts should be uninhabited, than that they should join heart & hand against us.

On my Return to this Town there were not any of the Troops arrived. Yesterday was the first beginning to fortify, & that with only twenty men. I have repeatedly urged the Commanding Officers in each County to forward their Quotas; a part only of which are raised, & just begun to be in motion. There seems to be the least prospect from the County of York. As I found it necessary to order the Parties of Matrosses, stationed in this Town & Cape Elizabeth, on constant duty, in order to get the Ordnances & Stores in good Readiness; to take notice of the discouragements, which they seem to labour under on account of small Allowance and light pay, which they looked upon as Reasons for attending but little to their duty, I have presumed to order them the same allowance with the rest of the Troops, (till the plasure of the State is known) which I request may be continued, & if not inexpedient, that some addition be made to their Wages, as it would render them alert in their duty. These two Parties of Matrosses, Your Honor is possible aware are small; they are commanded by two Sergeants, & those are not very capable. This induces me to renew my Request that there may be an addition to the Train here in some way or other.

(Read the whole letter here.)

This story last updated in 2022.

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