Continental Navy

Edward Brooks. The Rev. Edward Brooks is one of five Continental Navy Chaplains listed in Mess Night Traditions by Charles J. Gibowicz (2007). Son of Samuel Brooks (1700-1768) and Mary Boutwell (1698-1772), Edward was born on the ancestral homestead at Medford, MA on 31 October 1733. Some sources note 4 November 1733 as his birthdate, however, it is suspected that this later date is his baptism. Brooks graduated from Harvard College in 1757, serving after his studies as Harvard’s librarian from 1758 to 1760. Brooks was ordained on 4 July 1764 at North Yarmouth, ME succeeding Rev. Nicholas Loring who died the preceding year, as the third settled minister of that congregation at the “Church Under the Ledge”. Details and participants of Brooks’ ordination service appear in the 12 July 1764 edition of the Boston News Letter. The sermon preached that day by Dedham minister Rev. Jason Haven is still extant. Just a couple of months after his ordination, the Reverend Edward Brooks was married at North Yarmouth to Abigail Brown on 23 September 1764. Abigail, daughter of Haverhill minister Rev. John Brown and Joanna Cotton, was born in 1732. Abigail Brown Brooks bore four children; Cotton Brown born 1765 and died 1834; Mary born 1766 and died 1839; Peter Chardon born 1767 and died 1849; and Joanna Cotton born 1772 and died 1841. The older three children were born in North Yarmouth while the youngest was born in Medford. The Brooks’ third child was named in honor of Edward’s intimate friend and Harvard classmate, lawyer Peter Chardon who died young at Charlotte Town, Dominica in the West Indies just months before the boy’s birth on 6 January 1767. By the time of Peter Chardon Brooks’ birth, serious theological differences were already evident between the reverend and his congregation at North Yarmouth. His disaffected parishioners’ petition for change is recorded in Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks by Alexander Viets Griswold Allen (1900) ; “we humbly conceive that your preaching among us has not been agreeably to Calvinistic usage and therefore disagreeable to the foundation that we understood you settled with us upon and also disagreeable to our sentiments, and therefore matter of grievance to us.” After unsuccessful attempts were made to resolve the disagreement, the Rev. Edward Brooks was advised by an ecclesiastical council in November 1768 “to accept fifty pounds legal money and be dismissed”. Heeding the sound advice, the em-battered parson resigned his charge in March 1769. Also recorded in Allen’s Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks is the reverend’s request to be dismissed from his call at North Yarmouth, clothed in Christian grace and charity, “I now request you would grant me a dismission from my relation to you as your pastor, so that I may be relieved from my ordination vows to serve you in that capacity. May God sanctify it to you and to me and all other dispensations of his Providence. May you under his divine direction and blessing succeed in getting another pastor to be set over you who shall feed you with spiritual knowledge and understanding, who shall preach the Gospel to you in that plainness and simplicity in which it was left by Christ your teacher and Lord. May peace be restored and established among you, and may you be built up in faith and in holiness and in comfort with eternal life.” William D. Williamson in an article published in Collections of the Maine Historical Society (1895) sums up the sad situation with the comment, “Rev. Mr. Brooks was a very worthy man, perhaps better fitted for labor in the world than in the church.” Eschewing any idea of accepting the charge of another congregation and returning to his hometown of Medford later that year, Edward Brooks purchased land on the west side of Grove Street from John Francis, Jr. and turned his attention to farming. He was succeeded in the pastorate at the First Congregational Church of North Yarmouth by the Rev. Tristram Gilman on 8 December 1769. While residing in Medford, Brooks occasionally preached as pulpit supply for the Rev. Ebenezer Turell at the newly constructed First Parish Church on High Street. The Rev. Brooks’ opposition to orthodox Calvinist theology did not disappear with his retreat to a life of laity in Medford. When the Rev. David Osgood was called to succeed Turell as pastor there in 1774, Brooks and others in his family tenaciously opposed the strict Calvinist preacher. However according to Allen in Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks, when Osgood was finally settled, “it is to their credit… when their resistance failed, a letter was sent to the new pastor, signed by them, declaring that their opposition was over, they acquiesced in the situation, and stood ready to attend his ministry and aid him in his work”. Commenting on the contrast between the Rev. Edward Brooks’ perceived failure in Christian ministry and his exemplary military service during the Revolution; Allen further theorizes “in his devotion to his country he may have found consolation for the humiliation of his dismissal from the service of the church”. Although his vocation might suggest a more peaceable role, Edward Brooks like others in his family- Captain John Brooks, Lieutenant Caleb Brooks and Thomas Brooks- was quick to respond to the hot action around Concord Bridge on 19 April 1775. According to the testimony of Peter Chardon Brooks in History of the Town of Medford, the Rev. Edward Brook was a “Son of Liberty”. His father wrote Peter, went to Lexington “on horseback, with his gun on his shoulder and in his full-bottomed wig”. The youngster remembered well, “I was eight years old, and frightened enough at hearing the guns at Menotomy, and seeing them glisten, from our garret-window. Those were times that tried men’s souls, but not their purses: for they had none. They were as poor as rats.” In his writings almost fifty years later in 1824, the Rev. Joseph Thaxter also recollects details of the day; “the Rev. Edward Brooks, who lived at Medford, got intelligence of a small party going with relief to meet the British; they had a wagon-load; Mr Brooks mustered a few men, waylaid them near West Cambridge meetinghouse, and shot the horses, and wounded the lieutenant who commanded them, took several prisoners before the British came up, and retired”. The reverend’s participation in the capture of the convoy of provisions at Menotomy destined to provide relief for British regulars marching up the Concord Road occurred just a mile from his own house. After the Redcoats retreated through Menotomy toward Boston, Brooks is credited with saving the life of an enemy lieutenant left behind. The preacher is said to have conveyed the injured officer by horseback to his home where he recuperated until his wounds healed. Lieutenant Edward Thorton Gould of His Majesty’s Own Regiment of Foot remained in the care of the Brooks family until he was exchanged for an American officer in February 1776. It is reported that even Mrs. Brooks participated in the historic events of the day, serving “food and chocolate, but no tea” from her Grove Street home to the weary but victorious returning Minutemen. It is often claimed that congregational minister Edward Brooks was the first chaplain to serve in the Continental Navy, although some evidence suggests Rev. John Reed was serving on the frigate Warren as early as February 1777. A photograph of the Marine Committee warrant appointing Brooks to serve as Chaplain for the ship Hancock dated Boston 12 April 1777 and signed by John Hancock as President of the Continental Congress appears in The History of Medford written by relative Charles Brooks and others (1885). The Hancock was one of the first thirteen frigates of the Continental Navy authorized by the Continental Congress on 13 December 1775 and was built at Newburyport, MA. The 32-gun frigate was placed under the command of Captain John Manley on 17 April 1776 and reportedly launched on 4 July 1776, the birthday of the nation. Interestingly, the day was also the twelfth anniversary of the ordination of Rev. Edward Brooks. The Hancock spent the entire winter of 1776-1777 in Boston waiting for cannon while fitting out and manning her crew. It is written that Rev. Edward Brooks joined the ship due to his poor health, a motivation which appears highly unlikely. It seems much more plausible that Brooks finally sensed a call to minister to a congregation that might accept his contemporary theology, a parish of marines and sailors going to war at sea. Five weeks after entering on board, Brooks sailed with the fleet on the Hancock’s first cruise from Boston on Wednesday 21 May 1777 on a voyage to St. George’s Bank in search of British fishing vessels. Also with the ship was fellow Harvard alum Dr. Samuel Curtis of Marlborough sailing as Surgeon. In concert with the Continental frigate Boston under the command of Hector McNeill, the Hancock captured the 28 gun British privateer Fox on 7 June 1777 in a bloody engagement. No doubt Curtis and Brooks had ample opportunity to exercise their healing gifts in the action. One month later on 8 July 1777, after being abandoned by McNeill and the Boston, the frigate Hancock along with the prize ship Fox were captured by the British 44-gun Rainbow and 32-gun Flora after a thirty-nine hour chase. Chaplain Brooks was carried to Halifax as a prisoner of war with 228 other officers and men of the frigate Hancock. While confined there on parole, Brooks contracted smallpox- perhaps from his inoculation by friend and fellow shipmate Dr. Samuel Curtis. Reverend Brook’s name appears first on a list of Hancock’s men inoculated by Curtis at Halifax Prison in July 1777 which was among several of the doctor’s documents sold at auction in July 2013. According to Helen Tilden Wild in Medford in the Revolution, desperate to assist her husband, Brooks’ wife Abigail conveyed funds to him at Halifax by Captain Salter, a Tory prisoner-of-war to be exchanged there. When the cartel returned to Massachusetts, it carried a letter from the Chaplain to the Hon. James Bowdoin dated 8 November 1777 pleading for his release; as well as, for the exchange of thirteen of his room-mates. Counted among the cleric’s mates at the Halifax Barracks were Hancock’s 1st Lieutenant Stephen Hill, 2nd Lieutenant Joseph Adams, Captain of Marines Seth Baxter, Sailing Master John Diamond and Surgeon Samuel Curtis; Tarter’s 1st Lieutenant John Guliker [or Galeker]  and 3rd Lieutenant Oliver Reed; Freedom’s 2nd Lieutenant John Hooper; and frigate Boston’s 2nd Lieutenant Simon Gross, 1st Lieutenant of Marines Robert McNeill and 2nd Lieutenant of Marines John Harris. Rev. Edward Brooks left Halifax on 29 January 1778 on the cartel Favorite having been exchanged for Parson Lewis, a British chaplain. Letters from HMS Rainbow’s Captain Sir George Collier to Massachusetts Commissary of Prisoners Robert Pierpoint dated 9 November 1777 and 17 January 1778 reveal that it was the desire of Brook’s captor to instead exchange him for a Reverend Mr. Eagleston taken at Cumberland. Chaplain Brooks arrived at Boston on the cartel brig Favorite on 29 January 1778 in the company of a number of those on whose behalf he had written. Arriving home at Medford in February 1778, Brooks’ reunion with his family was tempered by the reality his “health (was) hopelessly shattered”. An image of Brooks’ Oath of Fidelity & Allegiance dated 19 June 1778 after his release from captivity is also included in The History of Medford (1903). According to its author Helen Tilden Wild, while in poor health and not able to do active service, the Rev. Edward Brooks continued the cause of the Revolution financially by contributing bounty money for new recruits. Rev. Edward Brooks died 6 May 1781 at Medford, MA at the age of forty-eight. An inventory of his estate made shortly after Brooks’ death valued his real estate, which included the farm inherited from his father along with the house and several acres of land on Grove Street purchased upon his return to Medford in 1769, at just over 1,036 pounds. His personal estate and belongings were valued at just over 421 pounds. While not a paltry sum, Freeman Hunt in Lives of American Merchants (1856) reminds us, “the state of the country at the close of the Revolutionary War was one of extreme depression, and the family of Mr. Brooks was left at his decease in narrow circumstances. Neither of the sons enjoyed the advantage of a collegiate education”. After his father’s death, second son Peter Chardon Brooks was apprenticed in the city of Boston, walking seven miles to and fro daily. In tribute to Brooks’ widow, Richard B. Coolidge in a 1927 paper delivered to the Medford Historical Society concludes, “at the death of her husband, Abigail Brooks, with the same fine spirit with which she had served the tired soldiers, brought up her four fatherless children”. Abigail Brown Brooks followed her husband in death on 29 November 1800. The couple is buried at Grave 5, 212 Oak Avenue in the Oak Grove Cemetery at Medford. Their grave marker can be viewed at: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=69330224 The couple’s oldest son Cotton Brown Brooks was to become grandfather of Bishop of Massachusetts Phillip Brooks and his three brothers, all episcopal clergymen. Second son Peter Chardon Brooks, a merchant in the marine insurance business, was to become reputedly one of the hundred wealthiest persons in American history.

John Reed. The Rev. John Reed is one of five Continental Navy Chaplains listed in Mess Night Traditions by Charles J. Gibowicz (2007). According to genealogical sources, Reed was born on 11 November 1751 in Framingham, MA, son of the “zealous new-light preacher” Rev. Solomon Reed (1719-1785) and Abigail Stoughton (1714-1763). He was the second of five children and oldest of four sons. In 1756, John Reed moved with his parents from Framingham where his father had been minister of the Second Congregational Church for ten years to Titicut, a parish in the northwestern part of Middleborough and the southwest part of Bridgewater. Reed’s mother Abigail died when he was just twelve years old. According to Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College by Franklin Bowditch Dexter (1903), John Reed’s father Solomon was a strict Calvinist who preferred the “soundness… of the theological doctrines” inherent in the Yale education he arranged for his son over his own alma mater Harvard. The elder Reed also maintained an “intimate friendship” with Yale President Naphtali Daggett. John Reed entered Yale College in 1768 and graduated in 1772. Also according to Dexter, “after graduation John Reed continued in New Haven and vicinity for two years as a student of theology, and was admitted to membership in the First Church of Milford, of which the Rev. Samuel Wales (1747-1794) was pastor, on November 6, 1774. Wales eventually left this church to become Professor of Divinity at Yale in 1782. During this time Reed’s doctrinal beliefs underwent a change, and he abandoned strict Calvinistic views for an Arminian perspective. Afterward, he returned home and continued his professional studies with his father. He was licensed to preach, and held for a year or two the appointment of Chaplain in the naval service of the United States, but was not called on to undertake any sea duty.” At the time of his service, John Reed was a resident of Middleborough. By virtue of his 1777 assignment as Chaplain on the frigate Warren under Commodore Esek Hopkins, Reed is only sometimes credited with the honor of being named the first chaplain of the Continental Navy, a claim also attributed to Edward Brooks whose April 1777 warrant is extant. The Warren was the flagship of the United States’ first naval squadron and Reed was among a number of her officers who in February 1777 subscribed to a petition to the Marine Committee of the Continental Congress against their captain which led to his dismissal; lending credence to his claim as first chaplain. Commodore Esek Hopkins “broke his pennant” in the frigate Warren in December 1776. Earlier that year in February, Hopkins sailed in command of the first U.S. Navy fleet operation to seize Nassau from the British. The successful raid which also included the first U.S. Marine amphibious landing occurred on 3 March 1776. By 8 April, the fleet had returned to New London where despite the benefits secured by the operation, Commodore Hopkins was censured by the Continental Congress on 12 August for not strictly following orders. For the balance of Hopkins tenure as senior Naval officer, his fleet including the Warren was blockaded in the Providence River by the superior Royal Navy commanding Narragansett Bay. It was during this period of inactivity that John Reed served as chaplain to the frigate Warren. He was among the number of disgruntled and disloyal officers belonging to the ship who made unsubstantiated allegations concerning their commander’s character and competence which raised additional suspicion of Hopkins in Congress. Eventually, the Continental Congress voted on 2 January 1778 to relieve the Commodore of all duties. Author Edward Field reveals something of Reed’s role in Esek Hopkins, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Navy (1898) ; “Rank, that great source of contention in all services in which it is not clearly defined and rigidly regulated, appears to have created endless heart burnings. The dissensions of the officers, naturally communicated themselves to the men; and, in time, this difficulty was added to the others which existed in obtaining crews. ‘They are jealous of him’ alleged Chaplain Reed, in his complaint against Hopkins to the Marine Committee, and he sounded the key note in the whole miserable plot when he subscribed his name to these words. Combined with the jealousy of the officers in the fleet, and the revengeful spirit that pervaded the minds of those men outside, together with the petty politics that pervaded the Continental Congress during the earlier period of the war, there was fuel enough to start a fire which no one could tell what it would consume before it was quenched. The moral status of the navy in its early days undoubtedly was not of the highest. The rules of the service provided for a chaplain, but it was not until long after the navy was organized that such an officer was enrolled. The first to be appointed was John Reed, and he seems to have been more willing to lend his influence to underhand methods against his superiors than to pursue a course more in keeping with his profession.” Field follows up his scathing criticism by aiming innuendo at Chaplain Reed by quoting a letter Hopkins wrote to the Reverend Samuel Hopkins of Newport, “I received yours of the 20th September yesterday, and am very much obliged to you for your address and advice; and as to your complaints of the people belonging to the navy, I am now to let you know that I did not enter into the navy as a divine and that I am not qualified to act or give directions in that matter. The Congress whom I serve, made provision for a chaplain to perform that necessary duty, but to my mortification I have not been able to get a single man to act in that character, although I have applied to many. If you know of any one that has the good will of mankind at heart sufficiently to expose himself to necessary danger of that service, should be glad if you would send him, who you may depend will be treated with due respect; and if none can be procured, I cannot but condole with you the depravity of the times.” The frigate Warren, now under the command of John B. Hopkins, finally slipped the British blockade on 8 March 1778. The ship took two prizes before putting into Boston just two weeks later on 23 March 1778. The Warren also cruised in company with the Massachusetts ship Tyrannicide in September 1778. It is not known if Reed sailed with the ship for these two short cruises; however, the length of his tenure as chaplain suggests the reverend may have gone to sea briefly despite the claims of his chroniclers otherwise. The Warren spent the winter of 1778 in Boston and did not leave port again until 13 March 1779, still under the command of Captain John B. Hopkins. The frigate returned shortly thereafter in April. A crew list for the Warren, for the time period just after that brief cruise, dated May through June 1779 is among the collection of papers associated with Dudley Saltonstall sold at Bonham’s auction sale of 4 December 2007. It does not appear likely that Reed would be included on the list of officers and men at that time. Soon after fulfilling his duty as a chaplain in the Continental Navy, John Reed was ordained as a minister in the First Congregational Society at Bridgewater on 7 June 1780, “the sermon on that occasion being preached by his father.” The Rev. John Reed was ordained as an associate or colleague to the Rev. Daniel Perkins (1696-1782) who served the church from 1721 until his death two years after Reed’s arrival. Just four months after his ordination, on 14 October 1780 the Rev. John Reed was also married to Hannah Sampson, daughter of Uriah Simpson and Anna White. Hannah was born in Middleborough on 15 April 1755. The couple shared eight children: John, Jr born 2 September 1781 who married Olive Alger in 1809, became Lt. Gov. of Massachusetts and died in 1860; Daniel born 1783 who married Nancy Foster in 1812 and died 1866; Hannah born 1785 and died the following year; Solomon born 22 March 1788 who married Abigail Howard in 1811 and died 1820; Hannah born 7 July 1790 who married Jonathan Copeland in 1818; Sally born 1793 and died 1797; Caleb born 1797 who graduated from Harvard in 1817; and Sampson born 10 June 1800 who graduated from Harvard in 1818. Rev. John Reed was elected as a Federalist to represent the Sixth District of Massachusetts and also as a Representative at-large for the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Congresses (March 1795-March 1801), choosing not to run for re-election in 1801. Reed was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree during the graduation ceremony of his oldest son John, Jr. at Brown University in 1803. He also delivered the Dudleian Lecture at Harvard in 1812. After his first wife’s death on 13 November 1815, the Rev. John Reed was married a second time to Mrs. Phebe Sampson Paddock (1769-1855) in November 1822. Phebe was the widow of Josiah Paddock of Freetown, MA and the youngest sister of Reed’s first wife. According to Annals of the American Pulpit: Unitarian Congregational by William Buell Sprague (1865), the Rev. Dr. John Reed “spent the last ten years of his life in total darkness, having irrecoverably lost his sight by means of cataracts. The last time that he could avail himself of the aid of a manuscript in preaching, was in November 1820, at the Funeral of his friend and neighbor, the Rev. Dr. Sanger. He, however, continued to preach regularly until a short time before his death,” committing his texts to memory by his hearing them read. Sprague continues, “As an illustration of the remarkable accuracy and discrimination which he attained in his hearing, after he became blind, he stated that he was riding, at a certain time, in Middleborough, where he lived when a boy, and he met a man driving a team. He stopped and spoke to him, saying that he could not see him, and had never seen him, but he could tell whose son he was, by the sound of his voice; and he actually told correctly.” John Reed remained in the pulpit of the First Parish at West Bridgewater until his death of lung fever after a brief illness in the fifty-first year of his ministry on 17 February 1831. According to Dexter, “In his last hours, he expressed a deep sense of his own unworthiness, and a grateful sense of the Divine goodness, and then took leave of his family with great composure and tenderness. The devotional services at his Funeral were, by his own request, conducted by the Rev. Pitt Clark, of Norton; and a Sermon, commemorative of him, was preached the Sabbath after his Funeral, by the Rev. R. M. Hodges, minister of the First Congregational Society in Bridgewater.” In his funeral sermon later published in 1831, Reed is described, “in his private character so sedate, and at the same time so childlike and free from guile and ostentation; in his intercourse with his fellow-men so sober, sincere, and kind, and so ready always to give a reason for his faith,―he exerted a healthful and moral power, and won attention and esteem.” He is interred in the Old Graveyard at West Bridgewater and his gravestone can be viewed at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7505993. Almost two decades after his death; colleague, neighbor and friend Rev. Dr. James Flint was asked to share recollections of the late Rev. Dr. John Reed. He responded with the following, “In person, Dr. Reed was of more than medium size, of a firm, well-built frame, limbs and muscles well covered with flesh, though not corpulent; formed rather for strength than agility; with a large, well-shaped head; five feet and eight or ten inches, I should judge, in height; slightly bending and slow in his gait. His features were regular, and his eye black and penetrating. His countenance was indicative of intelligence and benignity, wearing, in a state of repose, a grave and meditative aspect; but, when engaged in earnest conversation, it was lighted up with a pleasant and cheerful smile. Though naturally sociable in his disposition, yet, finding but little congenial society in his immediate neighbourhood, he passed much of his time in silent self-communion, in abstract thinking and metaphysical speculation. When, however, the opportunity offered, no man delighted more in conversation with his brethren or other intelligent friends. His domestic affections were strong, and in his domestic relations and in quiet home enjoyments, he was eminently favoured. He was but sparingly endowed with the imaginative, or else he kept his imagination in rigid subjection to his reason―certainly he was no dealer in tropes. He expressed his thoughts in plain, unaffected phraseology; in words from “the pure well of English undefiled.” He rarely, if ever availed himself of a striking image or metaphor, either for ornament or illustration, in conversation or writing. He was chiefly distinguished for his strong good sense, a clear and discriminating judgment, and close and cogent reasoning; indeed, I think be had few superiors in conducting an argument, especially on an abstract subject. Dr. Reed’s manner in the pulpit was marked by unaffected seriousness, a distinct and deliberate utterance, seldom very animated, with no great variety of emphasis or modulation, his voice being of a pitch too much above the grave key to be very commanding, or suited to fill a large space. The sound sense and vigorous reasoning which characterized his discourses never failed to secure the attention of the intelligent hearer… A man so accustomed to profound and abstract thinking, we should expect, would occasionally betray that unconsciousness of what was passing before him, which, in common parlance, we call absence of mind; and so it really was. His lady used to illustrate this by a pleasant anecdote. While his children were reading the chapter in connection with the morning worship of the family, some word or sentence awakened a train of thought, in which he remained absorbed some time after they had finished the chapter, when, recollecting himself, he called out to his young readers, much to their amusement,―” Come, get your Bibles, and read your chapter for prayers….Dr. Reed was ranked, by his contemporaries, at the close of the last century, amongst the ministers who were Anti-Calvinistic or Arminian, in their theological views. In regard to the character of Christ, I think he was a high Arian…His general bearing in society was quiet, affable, unassuming, indicative of a cheerful and serene spirit, of great candour and freedom from prejudice, and he regarded as his Christian brethren all good men, of whatever sect or creed. He enjoyed, in a high degree, the affectionate respect of his people, and of his brethren in the ministry, and exercised a wide influence in the community at large.” For those unaccustomed to the theological subtleties of doctrinal differences that Rev. Flint is describing, Chaplain John Reed would be today simply referred to as a Unitarian. The Rev. John Reed was followed in death by his second wife Phebe on 5 July 1855.

John Hunter. John Hunter served as Captain’s Clerk and Chaplain of the frigate Queen of France under the command of Captain John Peck Rathbun (1746-1782). It is not known if John Hunter served on the Queen of France prior to Rathbun’s command beginning May of 1779. The ship was previously under the command of Captain Joseph Olney and John Green who brought the vessel, originally named La Brune, from France after her purchase for the Continental Navy in September 1777. While cruising under Rathbun off the coast of Newfoundland in July 1779; the Queen of France, in company with the Providence and Ranger, fell in with a convoy of British merchantmen and captured eleven vessels. With John Hunter aboard in 1780, the Queen of France sailed with Commodore Abraham Whipple’s fleet to assist in the defense of Charleston. The Queen of France was stationed in the Ashley River to prevent British forces from attacking the city. Eventually her guns were removed and she was scuttled, her officers and men going ashore and serving as artillerymen until the city fell. According to the rejected pension application R-5402 of his widow, Hunter “was present when the vessel was destroyed to prevent her falling into the hands of the enemy …when the post in Charleston, South Carolina was surrendered to the British in 1780.” In addition to the loss of the Queen of France, the Continental Navy frigates Boston, Providence and Ranger were captured at the same time. The siege of Charleston ended with her fall to the British on 12 May 1780. John Hunter married Elizabeth Wells Darby, the widow of Joseph Darby, about 1787. In some DAR records, John Hunter is incorrectly identified as Andrew Hunter (1750-1823). According to her pension application W-15196 based on Darby’s Revolutionary War service, Elizabeth Wells was married to Joseph Darby of Boxford on 25 December 1781 by the Rev. Samuel Stillman, preacher at the First Baptist Church in Boston from 1764-1807. Joseph Darby had served three years beginning 18 March 1777 in Captain Thomas Wells’ Company of Colonel John Crane’s Massachusetts Regiment of Continental Artillery. Darby was an Orderly Sergeant on furlough at the time of their wedding. About a week after the marriage, Darby rejoined the Army and his newlywed wife “never afterwards saw her said husband” again. Elizabeth Wells Darby received word of her husband’s death at Egg Harbor, NJ when some sailors brought the news in January 1783. She was never informed of the cause of his death. It is possible that Hunter also was previously married as a Boston newspaper dated 30 November 1785 announces the death of 28 year old Mrs. Sally Hunter residing at Ball’s Alley, the wife of John Hunter. After her marriage to John Hunter; it appears that Elizabeth bore two children, only “one of whom is living” in 1848. According to census records, daughter Catharine was born about 1792. His daughter was approximately fourteen years old when John Hunter died about 1806, leaving his wife Elizabeth widowed a second time. Two years later, daughter Catharine Hunter was first married to Benjamin C. Brooks on 26 November 1808. At the time of the 1810 Census, the teenage bride is the only female in the Ward 4, Creek Square household of nine males including eight men between the ages of 16 and 44. Between 1809 and 1816, Benjamin C. Brooks’ addresses in the Boston directories include 16 Back Street, Creek Lane and 19 Merchant’s Row. Mrs. Catherine Hunter Rogers was married a second time on Sunday evening 14 November 1819 to Archibald Bean by the Rev. Mr. Asa Eaton, rector from 1805 to 1829 of Christ Church, also known as Old North Church. Shortly after the time of her daughter’s first marriage, Elizabeth Wells Darby Hunter was married a third time to John Perkins. Perkins died in 1823, leaving his wife Elizabeth a widow for the third time. It is under this married name, Elizabeth Perkins, that she sought a Revolutionary War widow’s pension for the service of her first two husbands. By the time of the 1830 Census, the aging woman was living in the household of her daughter Catharine and her husband Archibald Bean, a Boston sailmaker born in Scotland. The census records of subsequent years 1840 and 1850 indicate Elizabeth Perkins continued to live at East Boston in the Bean household, which also included grand-daughters Christianna, Susan and Mary Bean. John Sheppard in The Life of Samuel Tucker (1868) describes his observations at meeting with the ninety-five year old widow, “an intelligent old lady, who was born there May 1, 1755,—Mrs. Elizabeth Perkins, a niece of the late eminent Samuel Adams. She was christened by the Rev. Dr. Byles, of such eccentric wit; her first husband was the Rev. John Hunter, chaplain of the frigate Queen of France, and her sister was married to Benjamin Brown, M. D., surgeon in the frigate Boston, when commanded by Tucker… Her hearing and her sight were remarkably good, and for sixty or seventy years she had drank one cup of strong coffee, that “slow poison,” every morning. Mrs. Perkins was then taking care of a sick daughter, she spoke so humbly, so meekly, and with such fervent faith, resigning all her hopes in a Savior’s love, that it left a strong conviction that her cheerful frame of spirits, fondness for lively company, and that elegant and innocent accomplishment, dancing, had made her old age serene and happy, and her powers of conversation a delight to all who knew her.” Elizabeth Perkins died at the age of ninety-nine years and four months on Saturday 24 September 1853 at her residence on Maverick Street in East Boston with funeral services held at Christ Church. “She was probably at the time of her death, the oldest person in Boston” and “retained full possession of all of her faculties to the hour of dissolution.”