John Seaward, Master’s Mate

John Seaward, or Seward, was Master’s Mate on the ship Ranger under Captain John Paul Jones. He appears to have been associated with Captain Jones since at least 10 September 1777 when Jones wrote to John Bradford, “Mr Seaward and Mr [Louis Daniel] Charrier comes to Boston to procure a few articles for the Ranger of which they bring memorandums – if they meet with the necessary Assistance so as to enable them to return here immediatly they will find the Ship in readiness to depart.” He is probably the same John Seaward that Continental agent Col. John Langdon reimbursed in March 1776 for “for going round to return Schooner at Newbury Port p[er] receipt”, referring to the New Hampshire schooner Success after her fruitful delivery of sorely needed gunpowder conveyed from St. Lucia to Washington’s troops at Cambridge.

The Continental Navy sloop-of-war Ranger was launched on 10 May 1777. She departed Portsmouth under the command of John Paul Jones on 1 November 1777 carrying dispatches to France bearing news of General Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga. Two British prizes were taken on the crossing before Ranger arrived at Nantes on 2 December 1777. Jones next sailed the Ranger to Brest where the vessel received a salute to the new “Stars and Stripes” from the French fleet at Quiberon Bay. On 10 April 1778, Ranger sailed from Brest for the Irish Sea. Four days out, Ranger captured the brig Dolphin conveying flaxseed from Ostend to Wexford, which after taking her crew prisoner was scuttled. On 16 April 1778, off Wicklow on the east coast of Ireland, the 250-ton Lord Chatham carrying a hundred hogsheads of English wine was taken without a fight. Master’s Mate John Seaward was made prize master and directed to sail to Brest with orders from Captain Jones, “Mr. John Seaward you are hereby appointed Commander of our Prize the Ship Lord Chatham you are to navigate hur to Brest in Fraince as Sune as Possible on your Arival thir you are to Recive and Obay the Directions of Monsr. De La Porte Respeting, the Ship and you ar to remain with the People, under your Command at Brest untill you have Orders to Go Elswhear from the Commissioners or from Me, your faithful Discharge of the Trust hearby Repared in, you will Recomend you to My further Notes and attenticon Giveng on Bor the American Continental Ship of War Ranger the 16th of Aprel 1778. John Pol Jones”.

Arriving at Brest on 22 April, Seaward wrote to Benjamin Frankin in Paris on 4 May 1778, “Honorable Sir. Acording to Orders Which ar in the other Side, I arived in this Porte with the Ship Lord Chatham tacking [taken] the 16th of aprel and applied to Monsr. De La Porte who Sent for Mr. Riou Kings Intprter in this Porte and had the Ship orderd in the Porte and all the hatches Lockd in Saftey. As for My Sealf and Men have Ben obliged to Keep a Shour Close By the Ship Whear Wee May Tacke Ceare of hur Regging and Pumping hur out. Mr. Riou Who has Suplyed the Ranger when in this Porte Suplyes the Ship Crue with all Nesrey, and So we will all Stay Till the Captn. of the Ranger awrrivil [arrival] which I Be Leve, Will Be in a fortnite or Orders from your Honer. Sir I Should Be Glad you Would Drict our orders To Mr. Riou. Sir, the offersers and Ships Crew was Contented Mr. Riou would Tack Ceare of thir Parte If the Vesel is Sold. I Should Be Glad of your Orders for So Dueing. From Sir Most humble Survent To Surve John Seaward”. In completing his orders as prize master of the Lord Chatham, Master’s Mate John Seaward was absent from Jones’ raid on the Scottish port of Whitehaven 23 April and Ranger’s bloody hour-long engagement with the 14-gun HMS Drake off Ireland. Ranger returned to Brest on 8 May 1778, four days after Seawards letter to Franklin was penned. It was during his time at Brest that John Seaward joined many of the other warrant and petty officers of the Continental Ship of War Ranger on 15 June 1778 to petition the American Commissioners in favor of Portsmouth’s First Lieutenant Thomas Simpson who was the target of Captain Jones’ hostility and under arrest on his orders. Due to their unwavering support and Simpson’s demonstrated competence, he was ultimately exonerated of wrongdoing and placed in command of Ranger for her homeward bound crossing which departed on 21 August 1778. Ranger arrived home to Portsmouth on 15 October 1778 in company with Continental Navy frigates Providence and Boston and three prizes taken during the transatlantic voyage.

It is highly likely this same John Seaward is recorded in the “Memoirs of Andrew Sherburne”, who wrote forty-seven years later that as a sixteen year old, he entered Old Mill Prison in Plymouth, England on the last day of November 1781. Sherburne hailed from Portsmouth and was a veteran of Ranger’s first cruise out of Portsmouth under Captain Thomas Simpson on 24 February 1779. He noted Captain John Seaward among those other Portsmouth prisoners confined there on his arrival. Seaward appears to have been imprisoned there already for almost two and a half years since his committal on 3 July 1779, some while after being taken in the General Sullivan’s prize in early January 1779. The 18-gun New Hampshire privateer General Sullivan and her hundred man compliment were placed under the command of Captain Thomas Manning on 16 November 1778. The vessel sailed from Portsmouth near the end of December and soon took her first prize, the 8-gun 130-ton armed ship Mary, loaded with a cargo of flour and bread bound from Quebec to New York. About 6 January 1779, General Sullivan engaged HMS packet boat Weymouth in a bloody action which resulted in the mortal wounding of Weymouth’s Captain Buckingham, four other of her crew killed, several wounded and four feet of water in her hold. Weymouth had sailed on 19 November 1778 from Jamaica for England carrying the West Indies mail without a convoy. According to the testimony of Portsmouth Custom House official John McClintock in the rejected pension application of John H. Seaward, General Sullivan fell in with the 20-gun British ship Weymouth on 9 January 1779. After an hour and half of action in which the captain and every officer save the chief mate, one midshipman and the ship’s doctor were killed, Weymouth was a “complete wreck.’ In addition to twenty-seven of the enemy killed or wounded according to McClintock, General Sullivan’s toll included fifteen casualties. McClintock mistakenly believed John H. Seaward was the John Seaward who served as Master’s Mate on the General Sullivan. On 12 January 1779, General Sullivan also captured the British privateer Endeavour followed by the brig Union, before all the vessels sailed towards Britain while “suffering incredible hardships by the rigor of the seasons and boisterous winds & Seas”. The packet boat Weymouth under prize master John Seaward, was retaken by the Liverpool privateers Rawlinson and Clarendon off Lands End at the most southwesterly extremity of Great Britain.

Despite his long incarceration, the citizens of Portsmouth never abandoned Captain John Seaward to Old Mill Prison. A 24 June 1781 petition of recently captured Joseph Drew to the New Hampshire legislature reveals a plan to exchange himself for Seaward by sending the British mariner to Bermuda in the brig Olive Branch from whence he “can easily take shipping for England”. The petition indicates Joseph Drew, from Dartmouth, England, was a passenger on board the brig Jupiter bound for Quebec when captured on 21 May 1781 by the ship Royal Louis under the command of Nathan Nichols. Drew’s petition is designed “to procure the release of any one American-prisoner that may be particularly chosen and pointed out by your honors He is informed in particular, of one John Seaward of Portsmouth in this State who has been confined above 2 years in the Mill-Prison in Plymouth, which is very near to where your Petitioner lives, and he is willing to enter into Bonds to procure his release, or return himself immediately to this State, tho’ he entertains not the least doubt that he shall obtain his discharge. He has also an Apprentice Boy a prisoner with him whom he would also be glad might go with him for which he would engage to use his utmost endeavours that one other American-prisoner should be released One Mark Fernald in particular, an inhabitant of Portsmouth is mentioned, whom he doubts not he could procure in exchange for his said Boy”. Drew continues, “Your petitioner would also add that he personally is a well wisher to this Country, having formerly traded much to it, and having married a lady from it”. It was in the early summer of 1782 that young Andrew Sherburne writes about their return home from Old Mill in the 400-ton Lady’s Adventure commanded by Captain Mitchel Humble bound to Boston which made land in Marblehead instead, “With difficulty I made out to get to the water side, about twenty rods, but was unable to get on board the boat without help, and when we got alongside of the ship, my friends put me on board. My Portsmouth and Kittery friends, released my good friend Lawrence, from his charge. Capt. John Seward, Capt. Mark Firnald, Ephraim Clark, Aaron Goodwin, Mr. Bodge, and Nehemiah Weymouth, having some money procured sea stores, viz: coffee, tea, sugar, &c. which together with the ship’s allowance admitted of their living very well. They very kindly took me into their mess, and promised to take care of me upon the condition that if I got able I should wait on the mess: that was to boil the tea-kettle, &c. I believe the ship did not lie in port many hours after we got on board, before we were under way for the land of liberty.”

With at least three seasoned mariners of the same name serving during the American Revolution, the identity of the Master’s Mate of ship Ranger remains as much a mystery today as it was sixty years after the cessation of hostilities when the Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics on 13 June 1840 published this article titled the “Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill” initiating a public controversy over the true identity of John Seaward, Continental Navy veteran and ‘Patriot of the Revolution’. “The preparations which are making in all the principal towns in New-Hampshire to attend the Convention of the People at Concord, on Wednesday next, promises, should the weather be favorable, to make it the most extensive and general assemblage ever held in New-Hampshire. From Portsmouth about TWO HUNDRED are expected to attend. The procession will be headed by a full rigged SHIP, the Constitution, 23 feet long, accompanied by a barge of 14 feet, both well manned, and drawn by six horses. The Commodore of the Constitution is to be JOHN H. SEAWARD, Esq., a Patriot of the Revolution, who took an active part with the Whigs of ’76 in achieving the Independence of our Country. He was on board the Ranger with John Paul Jones- was six times taken by the enemy during the Revolution, suffered imprisonment one year at New-York and two years at Mill Prison in England, committed as a Rebel- was three times regularly exchanged by cartel, twice effected his escape, and last by the peace in ’82. When the new Constitution was adopted in 1783 accompanied Thomas Manning in the Ship which was drawn through the streets of Portsmouth in honor of the occasion. Although now in his eighty-second year, he retains the vivacity and agility of former years and patriotism unimpaired- offering on the present occasion to accompany the young men on a pedestrian tour to Concord, if they would attempt it. Such is the Commodore of the Constitution: and his officers and crew, some of them co-patriots of ’76, are every way worthy the commander. From Dover, Great-Falls, Newmarket, Exeter, and other towns in this vicinity, there will be large Delegations in attendance. The People will literally be there.

In an all out political broadside delivered three days later headlined “THE BRITISH WHIG FEDERAL SHIP AND HER COMMANDER” the New Hampshire Gazette hurled stinging accusations concerning honorary Commodore John H. Seaward. “The British Whigs are making great preparations for their Convention at Concord. They calculate, so says the Journal, on a delegation of about two hundred, to go from this town, and among the rest of the pageantry, have prepared a full rigged ship to be drawn by six horses. It appears that no American bottom would answer their purpose, and so if what we hear be true, they have taken for this purpose a barge which is said to have belonged to a British man of war, and which from some injury was sold or abandoned at Calcutta and purchased or picked up by the Capt. of one of our Portsmouth merchantmen and brought to this country. So much for the British bottom, and a very appropriate one it is for the pompous show and pageantry of a British Whig convention. Recently, when the same party undertook to celebrate at New York the victory over the British at Fort Meigs, the British vessels in the harbor of N. York, to give a sort of eclat to this celebration of a victory over their own troops, and out of complaisance and fellow feeling towards the British Whigs of our country, were dressed, out and decorated with the flags of all nations in honor of the occasion. Wonder if they will not do the same in honor of our New Hampshire Whigs who have selected the 17th of June, the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, for their grand jubilee at Concord? But to return to the ship, which our Portsmouth whigs are preparing for a high and dry excursion above Salt River. We find in the last Journal the following notice of the old gentleman who is to be the “Commodore”: “The Commodore of the Constitution is to be JOHN H. SEAWARD, Esq., a Patriot of the Revolution, who took an active part with the Whigs of ’76 in achieving the Independence of our Country. He was on board the Ranger with John Paul Jones- was six times taken by the enemy during the Revolution” &c. “When the new Constitution was adopted in 1783 accompanied Thomas Manning in the Ship which was drawn through the streets of Portsmouth in honor of the occasion.”

Portsmouth’s Gazette resumes with their attack on John H. Seaward, “The Constitution was not adopted in 1783 but in 1789; but let this go for a typographical error. In 1789, as parties had not taken their ground and organized in opposition to each other to any great extent, the great majority rejoiced at the adoption of the Constitution with all its faults, for it was pretty generally conceded that there were faults in that instrument which should be and which in fact were in due time remedied. In ’89, therefore. it is possible that John H. Seaward may have followed the multitude in the train on that celebration: But even this is a matter of much doubt. There was a young man at that time of the name of John D. Seaward, who was brought up by Capt. Manning as a seaman, & afterwards became a ship-master, who is known to have been with Capt. Manning on that celebration, and it is more than probable that he was the only John Seaward with him on that occasion. We have no confidence in Seaward’s own statement in these matters & for this lack of confidence we shall before we have done offer some good reasons. But one thing is notorious among all our inhabitants who know any thing of olden time, that from the time the people began to divide into parties and began to call other by the names of Federalists and Republicans. the latter of which were nicknamed “Jacobins,” from that moment Thomas Manning and John H. Seaward were on opposite sides of the hedge and we suspect they always were. MANNING was with the democrats to the day of his death with LANGDON, GARDNER, and WHIPPLE and other worthies of that class, while John H. Seaward was with the federal party, that party whose leaders were made up of tories of the Revolution- and there he is now, without change or shadow of turning.”

The “young man… who was brought up by Capt. Manning as a seaman, & afterwards became a ship-master, who is known to have been with Capt. Manning on that celebration” in 1789 is John D. Seaward who was baptized on 14 January 1770. He was the son of John Drew Seaward (1723-1770) who was married one year earlier to Sarah Beck on 1 January 1769. Prior to his son’s first birthday, John Drew Seaward died at the age of forty-nine in Grenada on 12 March 1770. Four years later on 3 February 1774, thirty-two year old widow Sarah Seaward was married to Portsmouth Innholder Thomas Manning, about twenty years her senior. Manning’s first wife Mary had died just three months earlier on 4 November 1773 at the age of fifty-three. Thomas and Mary Manning shared at least five children, the oldest being the Captain Thomas Manning (1747-1819) referred to in the Constitution Celebration of 1789. The universally well-respected Captain Thomas Manning was Sailing Master of the frigate Raleigh under Thomas Thompson and commander of the privateers 18-gun General Sullivan in 1778, 10-gun Diana in 1780, Hector in late 1780 and sloop Blossom in 1782. The “young” John D. Seaward spoken of was Captain Manning’s nineteen year old orphaned step-brother. According to his will dated 1803, this thirty-something Seaward was a mariner who would leave behind a “beloved wife” Hannah, mother Sarah Arney and nephew John Hickey, son of his sister Nancy. The bonders listed on John D. Seaward’s 1805 probate records include his wife Hannah Seaward, Joshua Brackett and Daniel Smith. Among his inventoried assets are a “Hadley’s Quadrant & Spyglass” and a dwelling house on Maudlin Lane, now known as Howard Street in Portsmouth. Captain John D. Seaward was married to Hannah, known as Polly Brackett, on 27 September 1801. Hannah’s death on 29 July 1806 is recorded at Greenland, NH in a newspaper published on 5 August following. She is noted as the daughter of George Brackett Esq, of Greenland (1737-1835) and is therefore the niece of Portsmouth physician Dr. Joshua Brackett (1733-1801), a judge of the New Hampshire Court of Admiralty during the Revolution. After the death of Captain Thomas Manning’s father in July 1777, Sarah Beck Seaward Manning was married yet again to John Arney sometime before May of 1779. Arney may have been the Boatswain’s Yeoman who served under John Paul Jones on the ship of war Ranger. Innholder Thomas Manning willed the westerly side of his “Mansion House” near Liberty Bridge “with the water privilege, wharf & warehouse” to his widow. John Arney appears still living in 1789 when his pew rent at the South Meeting House church is advertised as delinquent however is gone fourteen years later by the time of John D. Seaward’s will. The widow Sarah Arney is reported as having died in Portsmouth at the age of sixty-nine on Saturday 18 August 1810. Widow of James Hickey who “fell overboard and drowned” at about the age of thirty in 1796, Nancy Hickey was remarried on 15 June 1826 to Stacy Hall. Her reported death at the age of seventy-eight on 3 September 1844 suggests she was John D. Seaward’s older sister.

The Gazette’s indictment against John H. Seaward is prosecuted further, “Now for the Ranger story, with John Paul Jones. It was not our object to call up the political, or other sins of Seaward at this time, merely because he is appointed “commodore” of the British bottom that is to go to Concord, but since the Journal has made such a boast of his being what he is not, and never was, it seems to have become our duty so far as we are acquainted with the facts, to set history right. First, then, we are authorized to say from his contemporaries that John H. Seaward may have gone on board the Ranger when she lay in this harbor, as many other citizens did by way of paying her a visit, but this is the only way in which “he was ever on board the Ranger with John Paul Jones.” He had a brother on board who is well remembered as an honest and worthy Democrat, and an uncle, John Seawards the latter of whom was sailing master, but we have good authority for saying that John H. Seaward was never attached to a U.S. public vessel during the Revolution or at any other time. Seaward has heretofore represented himself to have been on board the Ranger, and in such a way, we should say, as redounds not much to his credit. We are informed by those who know, that he attempted, a few years since, to palm himself off as an officer, or one of the crew of the Ranger, with a view to obtaining a pension- that on application to a person for some advice and assistance in the matter, he was advised to call on Dr. Greene, of Dover, a very aged man, who was surgeon of the Ranger, to obtain his affidavit of the facts. Seaward first applied through his daughter, to whom it is said, Dr. Greene stated that he recollected one or two persons of that name who were on board. Seaward then applied in person, and from his representation, and knowing that there was one or more on board of that name, and supposing he must be one of them, gave a certificate to that effect. It now became necessary, as a next step for Seaward to give his own affidavit of the fact, before the District Court, and consulted with a person engaged in the pension business, as to the course to be pursued. An old gentleman of this town, one of his contemporaries, of the Revolution, hearing of his design, determined to watch his movements and expose him; he waited during the whole session of the Court, but Seaward did not appear. In the mean time Dr. Greene, as we understand, revoked his certificate, having, as he said, been deceived by J. H. Seaward, who, it appears, thus sought to identify himself as his uncle, who actually served on board the Ranger. So far, it appears, he did march towards without committing the overt act. The public may judge how far he is entitled to credit as a “Patriot of the Revolution”.

Yet another accusation by the New Hampshire Gazette is fired against John H. Seaward’s character, “Since the “Commodore” is about to navigate a British bottom to Concord, an appropriate story occurs to us, of his having heretofore used American papers and the American flag, to cover British property- so that his present appointment seems quite appropos to the occasion. In 1823 or ’24 when the claims of our merchants, under the Spanish treaty, were settled by the commissioners, Seaward preferred a claim for the loss of a vessel and cargo, of which he was master, which was captured by the French, carried into a Spanish port and condemned. His claim, however, was not allowed by the commissioners, and he became extremely wrathy against them on account of the failure, and also against Mr. Webster, who was his counsel. After the award was published, he went to Boston to make enquiry of one of the commissioners, to know why it was not allowed; but the commissioner had then left Boston. He saw Mr. Webster; but as he stated when he returned, could get no information from him respecting it, except that it was rejected; but he could not inform him why or wherefore. Some person in this town, not believing this story to be fully correct, and supposing his ravings against the commissioners and his counsel, to be kept up with a view to conceal the real cause of the rejection of his claim, and to give false appearances to his creditors, wrote to one of the commissioners to ascertain the facts, which were very promptly given. We have a copy of this letter, from one of the commissioners, now before us giving a brief statement of the case of Seaward’s claim, with the conclusive and unanswerable reasons for its rejection. The substance of the facts are these: that John H Seaward was master of the ship Hope, which sailed from Portsmouth as the property of merchants of this place, and was sold at London to a firm of the name of Skinners, and by way of making it appear to be still American property, the bill of sale was made to the father of the Skinners then residing at Boston! After this purchase one of the Skinners at London conveyed to Seaward, the master, a part of the ship. Notwithstanding this sale and transfer of property, Seaward sailed in the ship as master, making use of the original papers, and representing the property to be that of the original owners; with these fraudulent documents the ship proceeded to Holland, from thence to Surrinam, was finally captured by the French, and when condemned the sale in London was proved, and it was also proved that the persons named in the register under which she was navigated, had not any interest in either vessel or cargo. The Commissioners did not, therefore, consider this vessel navigated as an American vessel should have been, to entitle her to receive the countenance and protection of the country, and hence the claim was disallowed.”

The Gazette’s 16 June 1840 vicious attack of Seaward closes with their editorial summary judgment, “So it appears that this old “Patriot of the Revolution” which the Journal has so white washed up for exhibition at Concord, with his “full rigged ship” the “Constitution”, was not only willing to receive a pension from the Treasury by false representations; but has denationalized himself and his vessel- sailed under false colors, use stars & stripes to cover British property in a contraband trade, represented himself as an Englishman or American as best suited for his purposes; and even put in a fraudulent claim for property alleged to be American, which he knew to be bona fide the property of British merchants, which in effect, if allowed, was to draw from the pockets of honest American merchants a portion of their rightful claim for the benefit of the fraudulent and contraband foreign adventurer. We have no disposition of a personal nature, to call up and publish these facts in relation to Seawards; we have no unkind feeling towards him personally, nor can we have; but when things are alleged as facts which are grossly incorrect, with the direct object of deceiving the public and affording political capital to swell out the flourish around the coming Whig Convention, it becomes our duty not only to state things as they are, but to hold up to public contempt the schemes of a party who are resorting to every possible means of deception and false glare to deceive an honest and cheated people. If Seawards be fool enough to lay himself thus exposed, let him take the truth without wincing. If the facts we have stated be denied we are ready to publish the correspondence on the subject of the claim, and give our authority with some further particulars on the subject of the Ranger. We are informed that Seawards went a privateering in the revolutionary war, and very probably may have been taken prisoner in that capacity. But Not “on board the Ranger with John Paul Jones”. There is not to be found within the limits of Portsmouth a more bitter reviler of administrations of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson and Van Buren, or a greater stickler for the cockade administration of John Adams, then has been John H. Seawards.”

The 20 June 1840 response of Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics to the Gazette’s several allegations concerning John H. Seaward is measured, “A whole column of abuse is bestowed on Capt. Seaward, because we stated that he was in the Ranger with John Paul Jones and that he rode in the Ship through the Streets of Portsmouth with Thomas Manning when the new constitution was adopted. We have enquired of Capt. Seaward whether we were correct in our statements and he says that he was with Jones as a common sailor in the first cruise of the Ranger, and that what he was put on board the first prize she captured, and sent into France. He is also ready to affirm that he was on board the ship with Manning when it passed through the streets in 1789. These are the only statements in our article contradicted by the Gazette.” Three days later, the Gazette fires her final salvo, “Our informant is still confident in the correctness of his statement, that J. H. Seawards did not serve on board the Ranger. We have also further evidence, which will be attested to if necessary, that a distinguished Whig, always an inhabitant of this town; and who is, we believe, about four-score, did say, about the time Seaward was talking of getting a pension “Capt. Seaward will never come forward and swear that he served on board the Ranger”. This gentleman probably, would not now voluntarily give his evidence, but we can produce evidence that he said so. If Capt. Seaward did serve on board the Ranger, why did he not get his pension? There was no difficulty in identifying himself, if you are an officer, or common sailor, on board. The Government, we understand, have complete roles of her officers and crew. Why did the venerable Dr. Greene revoke his certificate, into which it seems he was deceived by Seaward’s statements? If he was put on board the “first prize” and sent into France, he must have been still in the service of the government. The Ranger went directly across the Atlantic to France, when she sailed from here. Did Seaward ever arrive in France with the “first prize” of the Ranger, if so, did he join the Ranger there? Or was he taken a prisoner in this first prize? If so, he was in the eye of the law, still on the government service. Nothing could have prevented his obtaining a pension, if he was bona fide what he represents himself to have been. We have no confidence what ever in Seaward’s statement. The whole is a mere humbug to gull the public into the belief that Seaward was a “Patriot of the Revolution”; to give eclat to the exhibition of the British bottomed ship, with all the paraphernalia of the grand British whig procession. The Journal does not deny the story of the British bottom. Does not deny that Seaward attempted to get a pension under false representation, and does not deny that he sailed in the employ of British owners under American papers to cover British property, and afterwards put in a false claim for indemnity, which if allowed would have drawn precisely the same amount from the pockets of honest merchants. The whole of the above remarks of the Journal seem to convey a strong impression to the mind, that the editor himself does not believe in the correctness of the “Commodore’s” own statements.

Running in the undercurrent of this venomous discourse were the election politics leading up to the Presidential election of late 1840. Incumbent Democrat Martin Van Buren was swimming upstream during a period of economic turmoil following the Panic of 1837. The Whig party unified for the first time in the country’s history behind the candidacy of war hero William Henry Harrison, the last president born a British subject. Easily elected ninth President of the United States, Harrison died just thirty-one days into his term leading to longtime champion of states’ rights John Tyler’s succession to the highest office. President Tyler rewarded the loyalty of John H. Seaward to the Whig party with his appointment of the octogenarian, along with friend John McClintock, to the Portsmouth Custom House in 1841. The Gazette’s reporting however, raises interesting and pertinent questions regarding whether John H. Seaward is the Continental Navy veteran worthy of the title ‘Patriot of the Revolution’.

The rejected pension application #R-9355 of John H. Seaward (1759-1845) includes his 14 September 1841 statement taken at the age of eighty-two in which he testifies that [at the age of nineteen] he entered on board the 20-gun South Carolina state brig General Gadson under the command of Joshua Horne in the capacity of Master’s Mate at Boston on 17 June 1778. Seaward testifies that on 1 July 1778, the Gadson sailed on a cruise by way of Nantucket and in about five days fell in with the Cork fleet of “15 or 20 sail” bound to New York. In an engagement with a British transport of 20 guns lasting “2 Glasses” and upon seeing the British frigate HMS Daphne under Captain Jordan bearing down sought to flee. After a chase that lasted into the following day, the brig struck. According to John H. Seaward, all officers and crew of the Gadson were put on board the Old Jersey three days later and confined 8 or 9 months afterward. On or about 29 April 1779, Seaward and the others were placed on a cartel to Portsmouth. John H. Seaward’s testimony was partially supported by that of Gadson’s armorer Benjamin Bunker of Nantucket in his own pension application #S-19575. Bunker named Charles Rhodes as 1st Lieutenant, William Branscon as 2nd Lieutenant and Christopher North of Nantucket as Sailing Master, in addition to Master’s Mate John H. Seaward. Bunker’s testimony indicates however that the captured officers and crew of the General Gadsden were confined just two months on the Prison ship Prince of Wales and two months on the Old Jersey. This length of service did not qualify John H. Seaward for enough time to gain a pension. The name John Seawards appears on an undated list of prisoners sent from New York to Portsmouth to be exchanged for British prisoners. He is identified as Prize Master taken in General Gadsden by Daphne. It is notable that John H. Seaward does not claim any other wartime government service in his pension application, despite the additional testimony of friend and fellow Portsmouth Custom House official John McClintock, that John H. Seaward served on board the 20-gun ship General Sullivan under Thomas Manning as Master’s Mate in October 1778. According to McClintock, on 9 January 1779 after the 20-gun British ship Weymouth was taken by the General Sullivan, John H. Seaward was put on board Weymouth as Prize Master and ordered to Portsmouth. Apparently someone in the treasury department noticed the second obvious discrepancy in his pension application- that John H. Seaward could not have served as prizemaster of the Weymouth in January 1779 while at the same time, he was allegedly confined on the Jersey prison ship between July 1778 and April 1779. These facts support the allegation of false testimony in his pension application and call into doubt any claim of John H. Seaward for public service in the War for Independence. Clearly it is the naval record of his uncle John Seaward on which the Whig loyalist was trading for personal and political gain.

Who was John H. Seaward? Several Seaward families were present in the Kittery and Portsmouth locale in the decades leading up to the Revolution. In order to identify the master mariner who fought so bravely and consistently throughout the war, we must assume the veracity of the New Hampshire Gazette’s sources and first examine the genealogy of his impostor John H. Seaward. Because the genealogies of the Seaward clans has not been well developed, it can be best analyzed through newspaper accounts, published birth and marriage records, and will and probate records. Captain John H. Seaward (1759-1845) was born 9 April 1759 to Captain Giles Seaward (1717-1797), also known as Seward, and Mary Hodgdon (1710-1783) who were married at Portsmouth in 1738. John’s middle initial appears to stand for Hodgdon, his mother’s maiden name. Captain Giles Seaward was the son of English-born William Seaward (1690-1770) and Mary Shackford (1697-1722) who also were married at Portsmouth on 28 July 1715. The will of Giles Seaward penned on 22 August 1789 and proved on 21 February 1798 fleshes out most of John H. Seaward’s siblings. Receiving half of their father’s dwelling house were brother William, also named executor, and sister Deborah, who was born in 1739 and married to John Shackford in 1758. Brothers George, Giles, Joseph and sister Christian were also mentioned in addition to John, a mariner named as administer of the estate. By the time of the senior Giles death in 1798, both his son Giles Seaward (1745-1769) and daughter Christian Seaward Place had already passed. The will notes his grandson Giles, son of the junior Giles and Elizabeth Lord married in 1767, and grandsons James and John Place, sons of Christian and her husband John Place. Unmentioned in the records is daughter Mary Seaward (1750-1784) who had already passed by the time the will of Giles Seaward was written, presumably dying unmarried or with no issue. John H. Seaward and his wife Elizabeth Stavers (1764-1847) had a son John Seaward born 11 June 1793 who also became a shipmaster and who died at about forty years old in Haiti, as well as daughters Lucy (1795-1877), Elizabeth (1797-1825) and Mary Hodgdon born in 1799. A member of St. John’s Church at Portsmouth, Captain John H. Seaward in 1827 was appointed “occasional inspector & gauger” and in 1841 “coastwise inspector” at the Portsmouth Custom House. For some years Captain John H. Seaward lived at the corner of Raynes and Maplewood Avenues overlooking the North Mill Pond in what is known as the Boyd House. Near the time of his death he rented a home at 45 Vaughn Street, in 1834 lived on Daniel Street and ten years earlier in the long two-story house of his father-in-law, stagecoach mail proprietor John Stavers on State Street. Seaward was known for being one of the last in Portsmouth to sport a queue, a braided pigtail, and powdered hair.

Based on the Gazette’s reporting, one of John H. Seaward’s brothers served honorably on board the Continental Navy ship Ranger. We suspect this to be Joseph Seaward (1752-1822) about which is little known. A newspaper article appearing in the 12 July 1941 edition of the Portsmouth Herald reports that Miss M. Ella Seaward of Leominster, MA donated a small trunk belonging to her great grandfather Joseph to the collection of the John Paul Jones House claiming his service as an officer on the Ranger and Bon Homme Richard under Jones. Most pertinent in the article is the mortuary notice originally published in the Portsmouth Journal, “At Portsmouth, on the 19th inst. (Dec. 19, 1822). Joseph Seaward, aged 71 years. He maintained through life the character of an undeviating friend. In the Revolutionary War, he shared in the toils, the danger, and honors of the momentous struggle. He served with honor aboard the sloop of war, Ranger and also the brig McClary.” This short memorial brings to light yet another master mariner named John Seaward active in the Portsmouth area recorded in Volume 12 of “Naval Documents of the American Revolution” as a British prisoner at Newport, RI on 29 April 1778, having been taken by HMS Unicorn on 5 February 1778 as prizemaster of the schooner Susannah. Of course, this John Seaward could not possibly have been the same person who served with John Paul Jones on the ship Ranger as that vessel sailed from Portsmouth on 1 November 1777 and did not return to her American home port until under Thomas Simpson’s command on 15 October 1778. Nor was it likely to have been John H. Seaward who made no claim to service on the McClary in his rejected pension application. Seamen John Seaward and James Seward were among the fifty-man crew of the 8-gun New Hampshire privateer brigantine McClary owned by over a dozen of Portsmouth’s leading citizens. One of the witnesses to the vessel’s commissioning and $5,000 bond on 28 January 1778 was Henry Seaward. Joseph Seaward himself had been a witness to the previous commissioning of the McClary under Captain Joshua Stackpole in September 1777. After three other successful cruises, the McClary under commander John Gregory took the schooner Susannah which was owned by Boston merchants Elisha Doane, Isiah Doane and James Sheppard and sailing under a British flag to Halifax on 10 October 1777. The Portsmouth jury of Judge Joshua Brackett’s New Hampshire Maritime Court awarded the prize vessel to her McCary captors and according to the eyewitness testimony of Joseph Seaward, the Susanna and her cargo were sold at auction on or about 18 September 1778. Unconcerned about the disposition of her cargo, Elisha Doane was outbid at the libel auction for his vessel. Susannah’s owners argued in court that the ship was voluntarily returning to her American owners in disguise which instigated a lengthy contested court case finally decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1795 in favor of her original Boston owners. It is probably this John Seaward who submitted an invoice to Col. John Langdon for payment of L 9.0 for “Pilotage of the ship Ranger into the [Portsmouth] Harbor” on 3 May 1779 as the vessel’s former Master’s Mate was already confined in Old Mill Prison by that time.

The object of our attention then is the uncle of John H. Seaward, brother to his father Captain Giles Seaward (1717-1797) and son of William Seaward (1690-1770); Continental Navy veteran and ‘Patriot of the Revolution’, master’s mate of the Ship of War Ranger John Seaward. His generation of the Seaward family is largely a mystery, perhaps due to the early death of William’s first wife Mary Shackford and his second marriage of which no details are presently published. After the birth of Giles in 1717, genealogical records appear to suggest Mary Shackford Seaward died in 1722. However, it is known that Giles had at least one other half-brother Shackford Seaward (1727-1797) born after that date. It is suspected that the Continental Navy master’s mate is yet another half-brother of Captain Giles Seaward named John of whom nothing is known for certain. According to Perspectives ’76, being a Compendium of Useful Knowledge about Old-Time Vermont and New Hampshire, “In 1757, during the French and Indian Wars, the schooner Prince Edward, armed with ten guns and carrying a crew of picked men, sailed out of Portsmouth against the French privateers which were interfering with our ocean commerce. John Seaward was its commander.” Swann Auction Galleries 28 September 2023 Auction Sale # 2646 included Lot 153, a “Round robin” manuscript letter signed by 37 crew members addressed to Captain John Seaward of the New Hampshire-based privateer Prince Edward during the French and Indian War, after they realized that bringing their vessel through the French blockade of Halifax would result in catastrophe. The letter reads, “Capt. Seaward, sir: The whole ship’s company begs the favour of you that you w’d proceed home to Portsmouth, for to go into Halifax we are not willing, as knowing that if we do, that a man of war will be our portion & if you do intend to go in there, we will not take up arms against our enemies if in case we shoud have occasion. Neither will we lend a hand to work the vessell. Sir, if you do go into Halifax, the cruize will certainly be broke up, for there is not one of us all that will come out in her again. Sir, you know how the case is as well as we, that the vessell is not fiting for the business that she was intended for. We, only eating the owner’s provision, spend’g our time for nothing, we have entered(?) suit already & we coud not go after them by reason that we coud not carry suit.” It is speculated that it is this John Seaward who signed the Portsmouth Association Test in 1776 pledging to, ”immediately to cause all Persons to be disarmed, within their Respective Colonies, who are notoriously disaffected to the Cause of AMERICA, Or who have not associated, and refuse to associate, to defend by ARMS, the United Colonies, against the Hostile Attempts of the British Fleets and Armies” and “to shew our Determination in joining our American Brethren, in defending the Lives, Liberties, and Properties of the Inhabitants of the UNITED COLONIES.”