Hopley Yeaton, Lieutenant

Third Lieutenant Hopley Yeaton, born 1739 at New Castle, NH was a leader of the Sons of Liberty at Portsmouth in 1775-76. Yeaton joined the Raleigh on 28 September 1776 and remained on her until her capture exactly two years later. Afterwards, he served on the Continental frigate La Hague or Dean in 1779 and 1780. Yeaton first appears in Portsmouth where he witnessed the will of Nathaniel Sargent on 24 October 1760. Hopley Yeaton married Comfort Marshall (died 29 June 1788), the daughter of George and Thankful (Weeks) Marshall at South Church in Portsmouth on 15 November 1766. Yeaton purchased land in Portsmouth in 1769. The church records show the following baptisms of their children: John on 13 October 1769, Mary on 29 August 1772, Hopley on 20 August 1775, Hopley 16 October 1777, George 4 April 1779, Samuel 5 October 1782, Samuel 24 August 1784. On 26 September 1789, Captain Hopley Yeaton married Elizabeth Gerrish. He was commissioned by President Washington on 21 March 1791 as Captain in the United States revenue cutter service, in command of the cutter Scammel, the first one built. She was stationed at Portsmouth and patrolled the New Hampshire and Maine coasts. It is said Yeaton probably brought along his slave Senegal during patrols as this practice was permitted by the Treasury Department at that time. He helped establish a Masonic Lodge in Eastport and urged the government to build a lighthouse at West Quoddy Head. He resigned from the service on 30 September 1809 at age 70 and settled on a farm in North Lubec, ME where he died on 14 May 1812. In 1975 his burial site was threatened by development and the Coast Guard Corps of Cadets sailed the Barque Eagle to Lubec where his remains were exhumed and removed to Groton. His tombstone reads, “Here lies the first officer commissioned under the Constitution by George Washington into the Revenue Cutter Service which is the forerunner of the modern day Coast Guard.”