Continental Navy

Endnotes

I The Revolutionary War began with the “shot heard round the world” at Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775 and began to close with the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown on 19 October 1781. The peace officially began with the Treaty of Paris signed in 1783. The eight year war involved approximately 250,000 American participants. The names of the approximately 110,000 individuals who sought or were granted pension benefits are recorded in the following publications: The Pension Lists of 1792-1795, Index to U.S. Invalid Pension Records, 1801-1815, Revolutionary Pensioners: A Transcript of the Pension List of the United States for 1813, Revolutionary Pensioners of 1818, The Pension List of 1820, The Pension Roll of 1835 (4 vols.), A Census of Pensioners for Revolutionary or Military Services, 1840, Pensioners of the Revolutionary War Struck off the Roll, and Rejected or Suspended Applications for Revolutionary War Pensions. Provisions for benefits to certain veterans were federally established beginning in 1789. Partial records exist for these early pensioners; however, many records were destroyed in fires in 1800 and 1814. The earliest state and federal laws provided for invalid pensioners who were disabled due to war service and for officers and their widows. The Law of 1818 provided a pension for every indigent veteran who had either served nine months or longer during the war or for any who were serving at the end of the war. It is estimated just over 20,000 soldiers and sailors were granted federal pensions in 1818. The law was rewritten in 1820 and many who could not demonstrate indigence were removed from the benefit rolls. In 1832, most pension benefits were stripped. It is estimated just over 33,000 veterans or their survivors were collecting pension benefits at that time. [Revolutionary War Pensions by Jeannette Holland Austin @www.americanrevolution.org]. Pension records often include enlistment date and place, rank or posting, company and regiment or ship of service, commanding officers, engagements participated in, wounds or disabilities incurred as a result of duty, place of residence before and after service, date of death, pension date and allowance and references to family, particularly spouses and children. Since pensions were granted on the basis of proof of service as determined by prescribed applications, supporting documents and affidavits substantiating that service provide interesting, informative and authoritative sources concerning the pensioner. By the time of his indigent widow Annis’ pension application in 1837, Frederick Calkins had already been dead for almost twenty-two years. The highlighted quotations that inspired the research and form the outline of this monograph are taken from affidavits included in Calkins’ pension application #W-5056.

II Frederick Calkins was born 14 January 1749 [New London Vital Records (NLVR), Vol 3, Page 22]. According to the English use of the Julian Calendar prior to 1752, the new year began on 25 March, also known as Lady Day or the Feast of the Annunciation. Previously, September through December were the seventh through tenth months of the year as their Latin names suggest. In accordance with the British Calendar Act of 1751, the first of January was designated the beginning of the new year and eleven days were added to the calendar in 1752 in order to bring the Protestant English in conformity to the Roman Catholic Gregorian Calendar introduced on the European continent almost two centuries before. Adjusting for the change, Frederick Calkins’ date of birth is 25 January 1749, which explains why his apprenticeship indenture requires young Frederick “to serve from the date hereof until the 25 of January 1770 when he shall arrive to the age of twenty one years.” The “old style” reference is to the old calendar noted above.

III Frederick’s mother Mary Prentice was born on 24 May 1726 and was baptized on 10 July 1726 in the 1st Church of Christ in New London [NLVR,Vol 3, Page 140 & 143]. She was the daughter of Stephen Prentiss, Jr. (3/23/1698-12/7/1728) and Phebe Harris, both of New London, married on 1 May 1723. Frederick’s grandmother Phebe, born 24 January 1701 and baptized 1 April 1701 at 1st Church of Christ, Norwich. Frederick’s father William was born 18 April 1724 in New London. He was baptized in the First Church of New London on 28 June 1724 with four other infants by Eliphalet Adams. Two weeks later on 12 July his mother Mary’s sister Elizabeth was baptized. Adams and Byers lists of baptisms do not include Frederick and his siblings.

IV This practice predated the Hardwick Marriage Act of 1754 which required that every marriage be preceded by publicly read announcements or banns , read or “published” for three consecutive Sundays within the churches of both parties. The marriage act also required both participants to be 21 years old or obtain parental consent, the ceremony to be performed in front of witnesses by a clergyman and to be recorded in an official register with their signatures. The act’s intent was to curb the proliferation of unrecognized and unrecorded verbal marriage contracts and allow for any member of the public to raise a legal objection to the union while supporting the influence of the church in marriage and child-rearing.

V Roger Huntington was the ninth of eleven children of James and Elizabeth Huntington and the younger brother of Frederick Calkins’ wife Annis. Two and a half years younger than his sister, Roger was born on 1 April 1758 in Norwich, although he is not listed in the Norwich Vital Records on page 498. According to his Revolutionary War pension application #S-4449, Roger was enlisted in Norwich by Ensign Waters Clark on 1 May 1776 serving until March 1777 as private in Jedediah Waterman’s Company of Colonel John Durkee’s Connecticut Regiment. He was discharged near Philadelphia after being “confined for some time in the hospital by sickness”. He again enlisted in July of 1779 serving as private for eight months in Captain Webb’s Company of Durkee’s Regiment before his discharge at the Highlands in New Jersey. He enlisted once again in June of 1780 as private in the same company and again was discharged at South Highlands, NJ. His Revolutionary War action included the Battle of Long Island and several skirmishes. An unmarried Roger Huntington is listed as living with Frederick and Annis Calkins in the Lebanon, NH 1790 Census. His older siblings William, James and Abigail Hough and their families are living in Lebanon at this time. Sometime between 1790 and 1801, Roger married Mary (Polly) Dyer who was born about 1767. They had sons Joseph born in 1801 at Hartford, VT and John D. Huntington born about 1803. Roger Huntington was initially granted a pension while living in Hartford in April 1818. By 1845, a “very infirm” Roger was again living in Lebanon, NH where he recently moved with a son whom he had lived with a number of years, probably Jared Huntington about thirty years old. Roger Huntington died 4 December 1850 in Hartford, Windsor County, CT.

VI Stephen Prentiss was born 28 October 1728 in New London, two years after his sister Mary Prentiss, mother of Frederick Calkins. They had a third sibling named Elizabeth Prentiss. He was married to Anna Starr on 31 May 1750 by Benjamin Lord, Clerk. Anna was born 25 April 1731 to Samuel Starr and Ann Bushnell, the oldest of three daughters. Younger daughter Elizabeth was married to Captain Simeon Carew and middle sister Lucy was married to Williard Hubbard. Stephen Prentiss and Anna Starr had the following children: Lucy, Hannah, Elizabeth, Anna, Phebe, Stephen, David, Samuel, Mary and Sarah [A History of the Starr Family by Burgis Pratt Starr, Page 45].

VII Kathy A. Ritter on page 29 of Apprentices of Connecticut 1637-1900 incorrectly transcribes Simeon Carew’s name as Simpson Carow of New London. Captain Simeon Carew was born 7 December 1731 to Joseph Carew (b.1705) and Mary Huntington (b.1709), the oldest of eight children: Mary (b.9/2/1734), Joseph (b.4/13/1738), Benjamin (b.1/28/1740), Anne (b.12/7/1741), Ebenezer (2/19/1744-3/22/1744), Ebenezer (9/12/1745-1801) and Daniel (b.6/22/1747). Captain Simeon Carew married Elizabeth Starr, both of Norwich, on 15 January 1756. Elizabeth was born on Christmas Eve 24 December 1738 to Samuel Starr and Ann Bushnell. She died 4 February 1821. Elizabeth’s older sister Anna was married to Frederick Calkins’ uncle Stephen Prentiss. Younger sister Lucy (1747-1815) was married to Williard Hubbard. Lucy was mother to Simeon Carew Hubbard (1769-1771) and Simeon Carew. This second Simeon, born on 30 January 1771 and died on 19 May 1850, was the adopted son and heir to Captain Simeon Carew of Norwich. Captain Simeon Carew died 5 February 1806. [A History of the Starr Family by Burgis Pratt Starr, Page 45 and Hubbard Family History by Edward Warren Day 1895, Page 76]. It is interesting to note that in 1766, Simeon Carew shared pew 14 at the Sixth or Chelsea Society with William Coit, grantor of the homestead deed in Chelsea, VT to Frederick Calkins [History of Norwich by Frances Manwaring Caulkins 1866, Page 463].

VIII Captain Simeon Carew’s young brother Joseph was born 13 April 1738 and died 18 January 1818. He is buried in the Old Norwich Town Cemetery. The third child and second son, he would have been between 24 and 31 years old during the time of Frederick Calkins’ apprenticeship. Joseph married Eunice Edgerton on 5 December 1765 in Norwich. Joseph and Eunice had two children, Joseph Jr. (born & died 1768) and Eunice Edgerton Carew (1769-1848). Captain Joseph Carew shared ownership of the “Carew & Huntington” store in Norwich between 1793 and 1800 with merchant Joseph Huntington (1768-1837) who married his daughter Eunice on 17 July 1791.

IX A comprehensive search of the fifteen reels of microfilm titled The Naval Office shipping lists for the West Indies 1678-1825 (excluding Jamaica) in the Public Record Office located in Columbia University’s Butler Library did not reveal any record of Simeon Carew as master of a ship touching at one of the ports included in these incomplete records between the years 1763 and 1770. “The origin of the shipping lists goes back to the Navigation Act of 1663, which required colonial officials to record all ships entering or leaving American ports. Provincial clerks, called Naval Officers, gathered this data and periodically dispatched it to London. Accumulating the information proved particularly difficult in the British West Indies where most of the islands had several ports but only one Naval Officer and one official port of entry. Exceptions to this were Bermuda, Grenada, and Martinique, all of which had two official ports of entry. Due to their increasing economic value, possession of the West Indies was hotly contested and the region’s political geography was in a state of flux during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This was a result of Britain’s wars with Spain, France, the Netherlands, the United States, and Denmark. This situation stabilized after 1815, but of the nineteen islands mentioned in the records only Antigua, Barbados, Bermuda, Crooked Island, Exuma and Tortola remained under British control throughout the period of 1678 to 1815. This factor has resulted in gaps in the records. The shipping lists contain the dates of entry and clearance, the name of the ship, home port, style of construction, tonnage, registration, the names of the master and owner, number of guns, cargo (including slaves and indentured servants), usually the last port of clearance, the port of immediate destination, and the location where bond may have been posted .”[Description of the Collection, 1980] Boston Post Boy newspaper records of 27 April and 4 May 1772 and the Connecticut Gazette shipping record dated 8 May 1772 suggest that on the eve of the American Revolution, Captain Carew continued to sail the Connecticut to Boston route he had previously cruised at least seven years prior.

X There is no baptismal record for Frederick Calkins’ brother John Prentiss Calkins born 22 August 1753. It appears the baptisms of his other youngest siblings appear to occur between the ages of six and ten. Temperance was born 22 April 1758 and baptized 26 August 1764. Elizabeth was born on 26 June 1761 and baptized Sunday 29 September 1771. William, Jr. was born 25 February 1763 and baptized 29 September 1771. William “son of Simon Gager’s wife” died 14 August 1785 at “about” 22 years old [Nehemiah Waterman of Bozrah “Private Church Records” Book I, Page 53]. He is buried in Johnson Cemetery in Bozrah.

XI “Owning the Covenant” was a practice within the Congregational Church established over a hundred and fifty years earlier to grant membership in and to self-govern the church by defining the individual’s relationship with God. Early Puritans founded New England on the belief that they could create a commonwealth model for governance based on “Christian principles of faith in God and obedience to His will.” Full communion in the church and the right to vote in civil matters depended on an explicit public profession of faith. The Cambridge Declaration of 1649 stated: The doors of Christ’s churches do not stand so wide open that all sorts of people, good or bad, may freely enter as they desire. Those who are admitted to church membership must first be examined and tested… These things are required of all church members: repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ.” Within a generation, the Halfway Covenant of 1662 was adopted to allow those in the church limited membership and to present their children for baptism, even though they “had never been able to confirm their own baptism with a testimony of personal regeneration.” While attempting to address problems in the Congregational Church, the Halfway Covenant created two classes of membership which affected both church and state. Limited membership allowed the tax-paying ratepayer the decision-making power over the tax-supported clergy and church while denying him full communion rights. Issues of church doctrine were feuded over in the marketplace of public opinion. The practice of accepting unregenerate parishioners into church membership encouraged by the Halfway Covenant spurred religious revolt against the practice of encouraging intellectual belief in doctrines of the church absent personal Christian experience. This religious revolution or revival became known as the Great Awaking. The uniquely American movement beginning in the 1730’s peaked a decade later with the evangelistic tours and impassioned sermons of George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. The movement resulted in a “moral motivation for social activism that helped fuel the Revolution to come” as illustrated by the “Thanksgiving sermon by Benjamin Throop of New London, Connecticut, delivered at Norwich on June 26, 1766, Upon the Occasion, of the glorious News of the repeal of the Stamp Act.”

XII Recorded in the First Congregational Church of Norwich Congregational Church Records, Volume 2, Page 267. In colonial times, Thanksgiving was not celebrated regularly on a specific date, however, the Weston, MA Register of Births by Mary Frances Peirce, 1901 includes the notation “Died the aged Sam1 Corey. Thanksgiving Nov 25, 1773.”

XIII The parable of the merchant-man seeking goodly pearls, &c. explain’d & improv’d: (in substance) as delivered at Norwich, September 27th, 1772…Revised, and now published for public benefit. By Benjamin Ld, A.M. Pastor of a church in Norwich published by Green & Spooner in 1773 is reposited in the Rare Books Division at the main branch of the New York Public Library under call number KD 1773. It is available for viewing only, is not digitized and is not permitted to be photocopied.

XIV Captain Eliphalet Carew was Frederick Calkins’ brother-in-law having been married to Annis Huntington Calkins’ older sister by sixteen years Mary Huntington (1739-1814) on 18 August 1762. Eliphalet and Mary had eight children. Also cousin of Captain Simeon Carew, Eliphalet Carew was born 30 July 1740, son of Captain Thomas Carew (died 1761) and Abigail Huntington Carew (1708-1777). Thomas Carew was brother to Simeon’s father Joseph and his wife Abigail was sister to Simeon’s mother Mary. Eliphalet Carew’s siblings were Daniel born 7 May 1726 and Abigail born 28 February 1728. Eliphalet Carew appears to have served at the Lexington Alarm.

XV A comprehensive search of the fifteen reels of microfilm titled The Naval Office shipping lists for the West Indies 1678-1825 (excluding Jamaica) in the Public Record Office located in Columbia University’s Butler Library did not reveal any record of Frederick Calkins as master of a ship touching at one of the ports included in these incomplete records between the years 1770 and 1775. Reel 15 is of particular interest listing records from 1772 through 1775 and including many of Calkins’ contemporaries operating out of New England who would serve in the Navy during the American Revolution.

XVI Pre-Revolutionary War shipping records for the Port of New London, the only authorized port of entry for colonial trade and the seat of the only British custom-house in Connecticut, do not appear to be extant. It is hypothesized that official records were either removed by the last Royal customs collector Duncan Stewart in 1776 or destroyed in the “Burning of New London” by turncoat British General Benedict Arnold on 6 September 1781 during the Battle of Groton Heights. In support of the former theory, the town board voted on 27 June 1777 to allow, “Duncan Stewart, Esqr, late collector of the customs at New London, be permitted to remove his family and servants to New York, for the purpose of proceeding from thence to London, taking with him a white woman with her two sons, young boys, his furniture and Doc’r Moffatts, also a milch cow for the benefit of his children on their passage” and that he also “be permitted to land from the sloop Union, a flag now lying near the light house at the town of New London, three or six packages containing necessaries for sundry persons, subject to the inspection of the gent selectmen of New London, and to dispose of them as he shall see fit under their inspection” [Public Records of the State of Connecticut, 1894, Page 333]. In support of the latter and more likely theory, is the extent of destruction caused by the burning of New London, including the courthouse on Beach Street and Duncan Stewart’s house and adjoining custom-house “near the Cove” on Main Street. Son of Charles Stewart and Isabel Haldane, Duncan Stewart was appointed collector of customs in 1764. He married Ann Erving, daughter of one of his majesty’s council for Connecticut in Boston on 6 January 1767. On the death of his brother Alexander in 1769, he became head of the clan of Appin and was restored to his estates in Ardsheal. In 1781 as reward for his services in America, Duncan Stewart was appointed collector of customs for Bermuda for two years. [Stewart Clan Magazine By George Thomas Edson 1922, Page 188] Of their ten children, three were bom in New London. A daughter Isabel died in infancy and two sons, Charles and John, moved to England with their parents in July 1777. [History of New London, Connecticut: From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1852 by Frances Manwaring Caulkins 1852, Page 511] It is not certain that an exhaustive search has been performed to determine if New London shipping records are extant in Bermuda or British archives or in Stewart family papers.

XVII Stephen Calkins is recorded as master of the sloop Ann lying at Norwich Landing on 22 August 1760. Ezra Calkins is noted as master of the brig Betsy cruising out of New London in May and December 1790 and February 1791 and as master of the brig Elizabeth in January 1794. The master of the schooner Allen out of New London in January 1795 is listed as S. Calkins.

XVIII “Deduced reckoning was often logged as “ded. reckoning,” hence the corrupted “dead reckoning.” Speed was estimated by use of a “log line,” a triangular piece of wood tightly knotted to a hand held reel. Knots tied in the line at intervals equating to nautical miles per hour, permitted a ship’s officer with the help of a seaman to calculate the ship’s speed in “knots.” At the precise moment of the log’s impact with water, the duty officer would turn a half-minute sand glass. As the glass emptied, the seaman would respond to the mate’s shout of “Mark” by stopping the line and counting the knots and fraction thereof as he reeled the line back in. The speed and course data was recorded on a slate near the ship’s wheel to be transferred to the ship’s journal at the end of each watch, usually by the First Mate. Longitude could also be estimated in Frederick Calkins’ day by taking lunar measurements with the octant, however, the mathematical calculations were so complex that few mastered the method.

XIX The crew list published on page 598 in Record of Service of Connecticut Men in the War of the Revolution, Hartford: Adjutant-General’s Office, 1889 denotes a question mark for the rank of master’s first mate. A notation on page 600 indicates the original manuscript, which has not been examined to date by this writer, is at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford. Other data indicates that when the Trumbull’s log was purchased by the Connecticut State Library in 1920, the library also acquired from the same collection an account book of supplies and issues of the Continental Frigate Trumbull 1776-1777. The identity of the log keeper has never been ascertained. A second crew list for the Trumbull dated 17 September 1777 is suspected to be extant in the Auditors Office of the Treasury Department. It has not been examined for Frederick Calkins name, him having likely served on the Trumbull between April and October of 1777.

XX Collection #VFM 1804 of manuscripts associated with the Dolphin are located in the G.W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport, CT. The collection predominantly includes receipts for repairs with mostly dated between 10 October and 10 November 1777 during which period Frederick Calkins commenced service on the sloop. The invoices are for services provided by Isaac Palmer, Mark Anthony Deaolph and Jonathan Lesten, all of whom are also named in the Frigate Confederacy Papers as providing boat building labor for construction of the frigate Confederacy. A second group of documents dated 6 March to 4 April 1778 are associated with costs incurred after the cruise to St. Eustatius including “Carting the Sloops Sails to Loft” and Robert Niles “Expence to Lebanon” to report on the voyage.

XXI According to Reel 15 of The Naval Office shipping lists for the West Indies 1678-1825 (excluding Jamaica) in the Public Record Office, Robert Niles was master of the 45 ton brig Minerva built in 1773 when she touched port at St. Christopher’s in 1774. Prior Niles was master of the Norwich Packet in 1767 and later received his commission as commander of the Spy on 7 August 1775 [Captain Robert Niles, Connecticut State Navy by Sheldon S. Cohen, The American Neptune, July 1979, Pages 192-194].

XXII Son of Joseph Kelley (1694-1764) and Lydia Calkins (1696-1758), John Kelley was born 28 February 1731/32 at Norwich, CT. His father was a sea captain involved in the Barbadoes trade and established a shipyard at the landing in Norwich. John Kelley of Norwich was married on 27 September 1764 to his first cousin Elizabeth Calkins at the First Congregational Church of New London by the Rev. Mather Byles. Daughter of Joseph Calkins (1694-1764) and Lucretia Turner (1700-1789), Elizabeth was the younger sister of Frederick Calkins’ deceased father William. Elizabeth is named, along with her brother William, in her father’s will dated 28 February 1764 and probated 8 May 1764. Kelley died about 1810 and his widow about 1812.

XXIII Like his merchant father Richard Curson, Sr. who removed to Baltimore, Samuel Curson (1763-1786) avoided the British occupation of New York by taking up residence in St. Eustatius in March of 1776. Before that time he was associated with his father’s firm Curson and Seton. By 1777, he established the Curson and Gouveneur Company with Isaac Gouveneur, Jr. which operated out of St. Eustatius and New York. In 1780, Samuel Corson returned to New York while Gouveneur remained in the Dutch West Indies, eventually settling in Curacao. The two men dissolved the company on 31 May 1785. In July of 1785, Samuel Curson established his own business in New York but died a year later from wounds received in a duel. The J. Hall Pleasants Papers, 1773-1957 in the Maryland Historical Society include miscellaneous accounts for Samuel Curson for the years 1774-86 and some bills of exchange, promissory notes, and accounts from 1779-85 for the Curson and Gouveneur Company.

XXIV Sulfur, along with charcoal and potassium nitrate, commonly called saltpetre, are the ingredients of black powder or gunpowder. The explosive mixture is approximately 75% saltpetre, refined from raw material mined in caves , 15% charcoal, readily available for distilling, and 10% sulfur.

XXV Charles Claghorn incorrectly identifies Frederick Calkins as mate on the vessel Dolphin for Robert Niles’ voyage to France on page 47 in Naval Officers of the American Revolution: A Concise Biographical Dictionary, 1988.

XXVI Although 30 May 1778 is commonly quoted as the date of Barry’s commission, a letter located in the Barry Papers dated 21 May 1778 from York and signed by Marine Committee Secretary John Brown reads, “Dear Barry, The Marine Committee haveing appointed you to the Command of the Frigate Raleigh now in the Port of Boston.”

XXVII David Phipps, son of shipwright Danforth Phipps and Elizabeth Skillings Deering, was born 2 August 1741 at Falmouth, Casco Bay, ME and settled in New Haven, CT sometime prior to 1770. Newspaper accounts report that Phipps, still noted as from Falmouth, New England, sailed out of New York in May 1764 as Master of the sloop Industry. Capt. David Phipps was married to Mary English in the First Congregational Church at New Haven on 13 June 1771. The twenty-six year old daughter of Benjamin English and Mary Dayton, Mary English was born on 29 September 1744. According to British shipping records for the West Indies, Phipps was master of the 30 ton sloop Dearing built in New Haven in 1770 and probably named for his brother who had recently died on 11 September 1770. The Dearing cleared out of New Haven in March 1773 bound for Barbadoes. The sloop carried horses, livestock , staves and hoops to St. Christopher’s for owner Edward Maloy, returning with a cargo of water casks for ballast. After his return from this voyage, in 1774, David administered the estate of his older brother Roger Dearing Phipps who died four years earlier at the age of 35. During the course of the American Revolution, David Phipps served on the Alfred under Commodore Hopkins and on the sloop Providence, brig Cabot, and frigates Raleigh, Warren, Trumbull, Boston and Confederacy. He was taken prisoner three times and exchanged during the war. He was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant of the brig Cabot in the Continental Navy on 22 August 1776, where he served until late 1776. According to his testimony in the pension applications of Nathan Gould, Joshua Newhall, John Peters and Nehemiah Storer; Phipps was commissioned in February 1776 despite some sources which cite 22 August 1776. Prior to that time in January 1776, Phipps signed a document as Master of the ship Alfred. According to the Jonathan Mix Genealogy, during that month, he and nephew-in-law Jonathan Mix recruited approximately 100 men and sailed from New London “to the mouth of the Delaware where they were detained by ice until March 15th” when they joined “with the fleet commanded by Ezekiel Hopkins, consisting of the ship Alfred, the Admiral’s; the ship Columbus, Captain Preble each mounting 36 guns; the brig ?? and brig Cabot, Captain Hopkins, the commander’s son and sloop Providence and one more sloop and two schooners.” After the command of his ship was given to Commodore Hopkins, Phipps and Mix were ordered aboard the Providence under Captain Hazard until the fleet’s arrival at New Providence. At the conclusion of the successful expedition for which Hopkins was criticized and eventually lost his command, the fleet sailed for Rhode Island but was chased into New London by the waiting British fleet. Remaining at New London until the brig was refitted, Lieutenant Phipps and the Cabot under Captain Elisha Hinman then cruised to intercept a fleet homeward bound from Jamaica. According to the Jonathan Mix Genealogy, “Off the western islands they fell in with the fleet of five ships loaded with sugar, rum and coffee, two days later returned to safety with more prisoners on board then crewmen. Three weeks later a three month cruise began. Took seven British ships and brigs – burning two, manning four, of which two got in and two were retaken.” On 28 September 1776, the Cabot took as a prize the three-decker Westmoreland outward bound from Jamaica with a cargo of rum and sugar under Captain Moore and Lieutenant Phipps was placed on board as prizemaster. David Phipps received a commission as 2nd Lieutenant on the Trumbull under Captain Dudley Saltonstall on 10 October 1776 serving through 1777. In January 1778, he left the Trumbull with about forty men to serve as 1st Lieutenant on the Warren under Captain John B. Hopkins lying at Providence. Later in 1778, he was 1st Lieutenant on the Raleigh under Captain John Barry on her ill-fated cruise out of Boston. He was taken prisoner with most of the ship’s crew to New York until exchanged. Phipps’ naval service on the frigate Boston is supposed to have occurred between this release and his service on the Confederacy. According to his testimony in Lewis Evan’s pension application #S-34820, Phipps was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant of the Confederacy at Philadelphia on 22 August 1780. A deposition in the pension file #W-2503 of Cornelius Wells names Gross as 1st Lieutenant, Phipps as 2nd Lieutenant and Gregory as 3rd Lieutenant on the Confederacy’s final cruise to Cape Francois. The Account Book and Roll of the Continental Ship Confederacy 1780-1781 at the National Archives outlines Phipp’s recruiting activities on behalf of the ship during late September 1780. He was serving as Lieutenant on the Confederacy when captured again according to Seth Harding: Mariner by James L. Howard. After his parole, at a meeting of the Council of Safety at Hartford, CT on 28 May 1781, “Lt. David Phipps requested to have the liberty of a Flag to New York” in order to obtain the freedom of his crew. “He was permitted to go under flag from New Haven by water to New York under the direction of Samuel Bishop, Esquire in compliance with his parole.” Phipps was allowed only L 15 by the state toward the costs of this endeavor, the balance to be at his own expense. Even this sum remained outstanding until paid by the Committee of Pay Table War Losses after the war. Phipps’ logbook survived the Revolution according to one source; however, its present whereabouts has not been determined by this author. On 17 September 1782, David Phipps was commissioned to command the Connecticut privateer brigantine Hetty. The Reminiscences of Thomas Painter note Captain Phipps was in command of the armed brig Hetty fitting out at the New Haven wharf and “calculating to keep company down the Sound.” According to newspaper advertisements, Phipps held a series of commands of merchant vessels after the war. He is noted as arriving in New Haven in May 1787 on an unnamed ship from the West Indies. One command included the new ship Connecticut which sailed from New Haven in February 1792 to Ireland to return that Spring via Philadelphia. Phipps served as Inspector of the Port of New Haven in 1793. He is noted as Master of the new 80 ton sloop Caroline Packet sailing out of New York in July 1794 to St. Mark’s in Hispaniola. It is not certain if Captain Phipps had returned from this voyage before the death of his wife in her fifty-first year on 27 October 1794. She was one of the last victims of putrid or yellow fever which swept through New Haven that Summer and Fall, only after first claiming their twelve year old son Roger Dearing Phipps on 25 September 1794. In August 1795, Phipps is again noted as Master of the sloop Dolphin out of New York. In September 1797, David Phipps was Master of the schooner Lucy bound for New York out of Jamaica when the ship was captured by the French privateer Barcelona and ordered to Guadaloupe. She had sailed to Jamaica from Mole St. Nicholas thirty days before. On 20 September, the Lucy was retaken by the British frigate Ceres and sent to Halifax. Captain Phipps prevailed upon the crew to make port in New York. David Phipps was commissioned 1st Lieutenant in the newly re-organized United States Navy on 2 July 1798, the same rank he had attained twenty years before on the Warren. His obituary suggests that he would have been offered a higher commission by President Adams when the Department of the Navy was formed had he not been sailing on a foreign cruise when the ranks were filled. The obit further notes that Phipps was specifically offered the commission as Lieutenant on the frigate Essex under the command of Commodore Preble, former captain of the ship Columbus.

XXVIII Second Lieutenant Josiah Shackford (2/7/1745-7/26/1829) of Portsmouth joined the Raleigh on 5 August 1776 and probably remained on board until her capture in 1778. According to British shipping records, Josiah Shackford was master of a number of ships trading in the West Indies immediately prior to the Revolution. In 1772, he commanded the 110 ton ship Middlesex built in Piscatagua in 1769 for owner John Langdon on a cruise to Montserrat. He travelled to St. Christopher’s and Montserrat again in 1772 and 1773 as master of the newly built 200 ton Montserrat Planter for owner John Langdon. Shackford cruised to Nevis in 1775 as captain of the 120 ton ship Marlborough built in Piscatagua the previous year for Woodbury Langdon. After serving on the Raleigh, in 1780 Shackford was master of the New Hampshire privateer ship Diana of ten guns owned by Thomas Martin and George Wentworth of Portsmouth. Shackford married his stepsister Deborah Marshall (d. 16 February 1826) on 21 February 1771. It is said that during one absence at sea, his father Josiah Shackford, Sr. married Madame Eleanor Marshall and moved into the mansion built by her father Nathaniel Mendum on the South side of State Street opposite Mulberry. “When he returned home, he sought the residence of his father. He met Deborah at the door. As soon as he saw her he fell desperately in love, and determined in his mind to make her his wife: but on making a declaration, she refused him, saying she had no heart to bestow, as hers was engaged to another. He however persisted in his suit, declaring she was the one who was raised up before him by an astrologer in Europe, and he should marry her or nobody. She being naturally of an amiable and condescending disposition, like a dutiful child took her parents’ advice and married him.” He sailed ships out of New York for many years. It is said, “He wished his wife to move to New York, but she refused to leave Portsmouth, and for several years she did not hear from him, when he returned suddenly to Portsmouth, put up at the hotel, took tea with his wife, and left the town next morning, never to return.” “In the Essex Journal and New Hampshire Packet of 2 May 1787, we find the following, related by a gentleman at New York, “A Mr. Shackford, sometime since, from Piscataqua, having the misfortune of discontent with his wife, left that place for Surinam. On his arrival there, he left the vessel he first sailed in, and took the command of one for Europe. He performed his voyage and gave such satisfaction to his owners, that they gave him a cutter-built sloop of about 15 tons. With her he returned to Surinam ALONE, after a passage of 35 days. When he arrived, the novelty of the expedition excited unusual surprise, so far as to induce the government to take notice of the fact. Suspicions prevailed of his having dealt unfairly by the people who were supposed to have come out with him. But he produced his papers and journal, and proved his integrity so far to the satisfaction of his examiners, that they permitted him to take another man on board and proceed to Sr. Bartholomews, where he arrived in safety, and now follows the coasting business from that Island.” We have understood that the place in Europe which he left was Bordeaux, in France. The vessel appears to have been a personal gift to him. He engaged a man to accompany him, who becoming fearful when he put to sea, jumped on board the pilot’s boat, and left Capt. Shackford with no other companion than his dog. He was a man of too stern materials to turn about, so he undertook the voyage of three thousand miles alone.” Moving to Alexandria first in 1802, Shackford “was next heard of in Ohio, where he purchased a large tract of land when that State was almost a wilderness, laid out a township, and in commemoration of the place of his birth called it Portsmouth. He erected mills and stores, and built several houses. He lived alone, excepting a boy, and never would suffer a woman to enter his house, having his washing and sewing sent out and brought home by his boy. His wife, after her mother’s death (at age 91), offered to go and live with him. She wrote him several letters, but received no answer. He wrote to his nephews in Portsmouth, and said if one would come out and settle there, he would make him his heir. The late Samuel Shackford, about forty years ago, went and visited his uncle, but returned, not liking well enough to remove there. At his death he left his property to strangers. He died about forty years since (on 26 July 1829), over 80 years old, living to see his town, so beautifully situated at the junction of the Scioto and Ohio rivers, become a place of note and the chief county town. He was a studious man, intelligent, but of an eccentricity which to some minds bore marks of insanity–but those who recollect him in Ohio will not allow that he was any other than a sane man.” Shackford was a freemason.

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.”

Captain of Marines George Jerry Osborne of Exeter, NH joined the Raleigh on 12 August 1776 and also remained with her until her capture in September 1778. He was a schoolteacher at Portsmouth for several years before the Revolution and raised a company of artillery at Portsmouth in 1775 which he captained. Osborne was commissioned a Marine Corps Captain on 22 July 1776. After the Raleigh’s capture, when Captain Barry was promised command of the frigate America, then under construction at Portsmouth, on 20 November 1779, Captain George Jerry Osborne was appointed to command the marines of the ship at Barry’s request. Since it would be “a considerable time before there is occasion to raise the men,” he was appointed “on the principle of his being useful in doing matters relative to the ship until that time.” George Jerry Osborne married Olive Pickering, daughter of Capt. Thomas and Dorothy Pickering of Portsmouth, making their residence at Portsmouth after marriage.

XXIX Lieutenant of Marines Jabez Smith, Jr. (8/31/1751-6/2/1780) was the son of Jabez Smith (1715-1782) and Amy Avery (1724-1801) of Groton. In addition to the Raleigh, he served as Lieutenant of Marines on board the Trumbull and was killed in action with the British frigate Watt on 2 June 1780 in what has been called the severest sea battle of the Revolutionary War. In the engagement, Captain James Day was mortally wounded and Captain of Marines Gilbert Saltenstall was wounded eleven times before the Watt surrendered. An image of the ship Trumbull is depicted on the grave of Jabez Smith which reads “anchored in the haven of rest” located at the Granary Burying Ground in Boston.

Midshipman David Porter was a resident of Boston, MA. His first privateer command of the war was the Maryland Privateer Sloop Delight, commissioned on 1 May 1778. On 18 October 1779 he was appointed to the Massachusetts Privateer Ship Tartar, a vessel of twenty guns. Porter sailed in November 1779 and cruised around Jamaica for several months. Under the name American Tartar, Porter captured the British ship Wallace on 9 March 1780. On 2 October 1780, he was commissioned to the Massachusetts Privateer Ship Aurora. The Aurora was captured by HMS Royal Oak. Porter was taken to New York and later he was exchanged. He was appointed to command the Massachusetts Privateer Brigantine Prospect on 30 December 1781 and on 3 December 1782 he was commissioned to the Massachusetts Privateer Sloop Assurance. David Porter was the father of the future US Navy Admiral David Dixon Porter.

Midshipman Jesse Jacocks (Jesse Jeacocks or Jacox) served under Captain Seth Harding on the Defence from March or 12 April 1776 to 15 November 1776 as second mate. The sons of his older sister Mabel and her husband Jabez Disbrow, 21 year old Russell and 18 year old Simon Disbrow also served on the Defence with their uncle from 12 March 1776. Jesse Jacocks continued to serve on the Defence under commander Samuel Smedley as mate from 15 November 1776 to 15 June 1777. All of the Frigate Confederacy Riggers’ Returns from November 1778 to February 1779 in Folders 18 & 19 of The Frigate Confederacy Papers 1776-1786, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Collection 222 were approved by Jesse Jacocks, confirming that Jacocks retained the rank of midshipman that he held on the Raleigh when he began service on the Confederacy. However, Silas Cleveland’s pension file #S-12486 names Jacocks as first mate on the Confederacy and Frederick Calkins as second mate, suggesting that his appointment as midshipman was revoked. Perhaps it was former Defence commander Seth Harding’s confidence in Jacock’s loyalties which permitted him to remain in a position of authority in the Navy on the Confederacy after Captain Barry’s accusation of treachery in the loss of the Raleigh. According to British shipping records for the West Indies, in the Spring of 1775, Jacocks was master of the Barbadoes bound schooner Jane of 70 tons out of Halifax carrying a cargo of mackeral and oats for owners Thomas, James and William Cochran. The ship was no doubt named for Jane Allan Cochran, the wife of the Hon. Thomas Cochran. Thomas (1733-1801), James (1741-1819) and William Cochran (1751-1820) were the Irish-born sons of Joseph Cochran, wealthy merchants and leading Tory political figures in Nova Scotia. Perhaps it was this association which instigated Captain Barry’s violent accusations against Jacocks. Jesse Jacocks was born on 1 May 1741 and died in Westport, CT sometime prior to his widow’s marriage to Sergeant-Major Joshua Disbrow on 2 February 1792. Jesse Jacocks was the son of Joshua Jacocks (1707-1753), who was born on Long Island and died in Westport, and his wife Deborah (died 6/27/1769) who were married in Stratford, CT. Presumably named after his uncle Jesse born in 1716, Jacocks married Deborah Hendrick in the Congregational Church in Old Fairfield on 3 August 1777, just after his service on the Defence and prior to his service on the Raleigh. Deborah was born in 1746 in Westport, the daughter of John Hendrick and Phebe Coe. After Jesse’s death, the widow Jacocks married the older brother of her sister-in-law Mabel’s husband. Deborah Hendrick Disbrow died on 28 February 1807. Her second husband Joshua Disbrow was a shoemaker and lived some time longer, according to his pension application #S-37882.

Midshipman Matthew Clarkson of Philadelphia, born in 1761, was previously acquainted with Captain Barry from his service on the Delaware. A 17 September 1779 outletter of the Continental Marine Committee to Captain Seth Harding of the Confederacy reads “Mr. Clarkson an Acting Midshipman on board shall have leave to stay in France for his education.” Clarkson was appointed as first mate on the Pennsylvania Privateer Brigantine L’Antoinette commissioned 30 March 1782 under William Smith.

XXX The crew list of the Frigate Confederacy on page 62 of the Records and Papers of the New London County Historical Society does not list the posting or rank of petty officers and crewmen. However, the list does appear to place the names in order of relative rank of the commissioned and non-commissioned officers and mates. The Riggers Returns in Folders 18 & 19 of The Frigate Confederacy Papers 1776-1786, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Collection 222 suggest that Jacocks retained the rank of midshipman that he held on the Raleigh when he began service on the Confederacy. However, Silas Cleveland’s pension file #S-12486 names Jacocks as first mate on the Confederacy and Frederick Calkins as second mate. Perhaps it was former Defence commander Seth Harding’s confidence in Jacock’s abilities and loyalty which permitted him to remain in a position of authority in the Navy on the Confederacy after Captain Barry’s accusation of treachery. According to British shipping records for the West Indies, Jacocks was master of the schooner Jane owned by Thomas, James and William Cochran. The ship was no doubt named for Jane Allan Cochran, the wife of the Hon. Thomas Cochran. Thomas (1733-1801), James (1741-1819) and William Cochran (1751-1820) were the Irish-born sons of Joseph Cochran, wealthy merchants and leading Tory political figures in Nova Scotia. Perhaps it was this association which instigated Captain Barry’s violent accusations against Jacocks. On the other hand, the sympathetic Seth Harding was a Cape Cod native who moved to Liverpool, Nova Scotia in 1771 where he owned and operated a salmon fishery until he was forced to abandon his business interests and home, relocating back to Norwich in August of 1775 due to his rebel political sentiments.

XXXI John Lawrence (1753-1817) was born 5 July 1753, oldest son of Queens County magistrate William Lawrence (1729-1794) and his wife Anna Brinckerhoff (1733-1770), both of New York. When Long Island was captured in 1776, part of William Lawrence’s home in Newtown was made the headquarters of British and Hessian generals. He served as captain’s clerk on the Confederacy under Captain Seth Harding. According to James L. Howard in Seth Harding, Mariner on pages 152-4, Lawrence lived with the Harding family in Norwich in May 1782 after his release from the Jersey prison ship and even authorized his former captain to obtain funds from his father on his behalf during a trip to New York. At Harding’s request, the elder Lawrence shipped his son’s support in the form of dry goods which was by misfortune confiscated as smuggled contraband by Connecticut authorities. Later in 1786, Lawrence would participate in one of Harding’s West Indies merchant ventures by trading two horses for two hundred gallons of rum resulting in a lucrative return on his investment (Howard, pages 179-80). John Lawrence was “familiarly called the commodore” from his having been an officer on board the frigate Confederacy. John and his brother Isaac Lawrence “were large wholesale dealers and importers of silks and china ware from the East Indies to New York, when few were active in this business.” Other brothers were Richard and William Lawrence. According to Walter Barrett in The Old Merchants of New York City (1863), John Lawrence “lived and did business at 162 Queen (or Pearl) Street. In 1795, he took in his younger brother Isaac, who had been clerk with him for two years previous, and the new sign was placed over the store at 154 Water on the corner of Fly Market…The firm of John & Isaac Lawrence continued until 1803, when the brothers separated after doing a very prosperous and extended commerce…When the house of J. & I. Lawrence dissolved, the store was at 208 Pearl Street…” Isaac became president of the United States Branch Bank in New York in 1817, the same year John died. He had been a director in the old United States Bank, as was his brother John. John Lawrence was married first to Elizabeth Eaton Berrien, widow of cousin Nathaniel Lawrence who died in 1796 and daughter of Judge John Berrien, US Attorney General. He later married Patience Lawrence Riker, the daughter of Samuel Riker, Esq. His children included Madison Samuel, Louisa who married John Campbell, Jane who married Benjamin F. Lee, Julia who married first John P. Smith then Wilson G. Hunt, Patience who married Timothy Gridley Churchill and John who died unmarried. Daughter Jane was a celebrated beauty who was the subject of the painting known as “The White Plume” by Charles Cromwell Ingham, one of the founders of the National Academy of Design. Her husband, Benjamin F. Lee was one of the pioneers in the manufacture of vulcanized rubber for Goodyear. At some point, John Lawrence moved from 162 Pearl Street to 82 Murray Street and finally to 391 Broadway. John Lawrence died in New York on 29 August 1817. Interestingly, Lawrence’s involvement with his crewmates extended long after the war. Apparently the former captain’s clerk held the forty dollar mortgage on Confederacy marine John Ames’ ten acres and log house in Plymouth, Chenango County, NY. Unfortunately the property was foreclosed on by Egbert Benson executor for the estate of John Lawrence and auctioned off in October 1821. Egbert Benson was appointed 1st Attorney General of New York in 1777, served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and the US House of Representatives and sat on the bench of the New York Supreme Court prior to his return to private practice in 1803.

Jonathan Roath is also listed on the crew list of the Confederacy with Frederick Calkins. In 1789, Roath is listed with other captains Robert Niles, Christopher Vaill and Timothy Parker in the History of Norwich, Page 478 as master of the coasting sloop Lark. On page 501, the wreck of his sloop Ruby out of Norfolk on Block Island in a 20 January 1804 snowstorm is noted. Jonathan Roath is listed in the 1790 Census from New London County and the 1800 Census from Norwich. He appears to have familiar associations with Stephen and Eleazer Roath and perhaps Samuel, Joseph and David Roath.

XXXII The 1779 crew list manuscript in which Frederick Calkins appears has not been examined by this writer to date. Howard on page 212 of Seth Harding, Mariner suggests correctly that the second crew list of the Confederacy is rather a muster roll of Captain Joshua Huntington’s Company of Colonel Selden’s Battalion, which participated in battles around New York in 1776. One of only three names on both lists, John Gardiner appears to have been recruited by Joshua Huntington to serve as Surgeon’s Mate on the Confederacy which he oversaw construction. A second crew list, dated after Frederick Calkins’ discharge, may be extant in Navy Department File 629, Ledger of the Continental Ship Confederacy, June 1780 to March 1781.

XXXIII According to his widow Margaret’s pension application #W-3141, Samuel Holt was born in New London on 27 February 1754. Samuel was the son of William Holt and Sarah Way. His obituary in the 12 May 1818 edition of the Boston Patriot & Chronicle suggests his birth date as 1761. According to the testimonies of William Ashcroft and James Chapman, Jr. who was the captain’s son and the future husband of his niece, Holt enlisted as a Private in Captain James Chapman’s Company in 1775 serving at Roxbury, MA. After his re-enlistment, the Army marched to New York in relief of Colonel Samuel Holden Parsons. Samuel Holt was a drummer and drum major when he became acquainted with Ashcroft at this time. Holt was sick in the Hospital when the British landed on Long Island and marched to New York City. Chapman, recently promoted to Major, was killed in the capture of the city. Holt was discharged in Westchester County in 1776. He appears to have served under Seth Harding on the Oliver Cromwell from May to September 1777 as Sergeant although this is not mentioned in the pension records. Later with Ashcroft in 1777, Samuel Holt traveled from New London to Providence and went on board the Warren under Captain John Hopkins. Holt was Lieutenant of Marines and sailed 2 or 3 cruises on the Warren. Although listed as Ensign of Marines on the Confederacy in Silas Cleveland’s pension file #S-12486, according to his own pension records, Samuel Holt was transferred to the Confederacy in 1779. His subordinate Andrew Palmes served with Holt in Chapman’s Company and as his Sergeant on the Warren before being transferred with Holt to the Confederacy. Both sailed with the ship to Philadelphia in 1779, where Holt met and married Margaret Warnack in the Gloria Dei Swedish Church on 19 August 1780 after returning from Martinique. Margaret was born on 6 December 1764 in Philadelphia. She lived with her mother on Penn Street near the wharf where the ship docked, neighbors to the Martin home where two midshipman from the Confederacy were boarded while recuperating from smallpox. Mary Martin recounts “Lieutenant Samuel Holt was at her mother’s house almost every day to see them. He wore a green coat turned up with buff and metal buttons with his sword at his side. The officers of the ship and the Captain whose name was Harding were in the habit of calling almost every day to see the sick with the smallpox.” She further remembered that one died and one named Moore (Morey) recovered. Samuel Holt left with the Confederacy on her final cruise and was captured with the ship on 14 April 1781, just months before his first child was born in August. The child died the same month. Holt was not promptly paroled to New London with Captain Harding as From the Revolution A History of Continental Marines in the American Revolution 1775 – 1783 by Charles R. Smith suggests, but rather was placed on board the Jersey prison ship until he was reunited with his young bride living at her mother’s home in Philadelphia on a “Parole of Honor.” Several months later when his parole was almost up, he said to his wife, “Peggy…I must go to the War Office and see if they have any officer to be exchanged in his place, if not he must return to the prison ship. On his return from the War Office, he said they had sent an English Officer in his place and he remained at home and was not called out again.” After the war, Holt moved with his wife back to New London, taking up residency with his brother William Holt. Their oldest two surviving children were born in New London, Samuel, Jr. in 1784 and Robert W. in 1786. A newspaper advertisement for the sale of the schooner Betsey lying at Capt. Packwood’s wharf and associated with Samuel Holt in New London during October 1786, suggests the timing of a change in the Holt residency. The family moved back to Philadelphia sometime before the birth of Elizabeth (Elizabeth Young) in 1789. Other children would follow; Margaret born 1791 (died 1792), Sarah born 1793, William born 1797, Jacob born 1800, Margaret born 1803 (died 1808), Abigail born 1805 (drowned 1809) and Edward born 1807 (died 1809). Samuel Holt’s maritime career after 1794 is suggested by Philadelphia and New York newspaper sources. With the British capture of his ship Minerva, Holt was imprisoned in St. Pierre, Martinique while his ship was condemned on 30 April 1794. Later that year in September, he is listed as Master of the brig Active sailing from Philadelphia for Havana and Savannah. Holt made at least two more round trips between Philadelphia and Charleston on the Active between December 1794 and May 1795. It is possible he is the Samuel Holt who purchased real estate on the Edisto River in South Carolina during this decade. In October 1796, Samuel Holt is identified as Master of the brigantine Betsey in Jamaica in early October 1796. Holt is noted as Master of the boat Dolphin of Philadelphia taken by the French in October 1797. In January 1800, he is listed as Master of the sloop Mary sailing from New York and later that year during November in command of the schooner Delaware traveling from New York to Philadelphia. In April 1802, Holt is captain of the brig Julia sailing from Philadelphia to Charleston. The Holt residence in Philadelphia in 1801-1802 appears to be 20 Shippen Street and between 1808-1810 at 435 South Front Street. In January 1808, Captain Holt is recorded as Master of the brig Molly in Curracoa, reporting that his 1st Officer Thomas Norris was impressed by the British sloop Lark. He is in command of the New York to Philadelphia bound sloop Guinea Hen in November 1815. One source suggests a China voyage sometime during the year just before his death of pleurisy in Philadelphia on 19 April 1818. According to his obituary, Samuel Holt was “an honest man & worthy citizen.” His widow Margaret lived in Northern Liberties late in life.

Gurdon Bill was born in Norwich, CT on 26 August 1757, the oldest surviving son of Captain Ephraim Bill (1719-1802) and Lydia Huntington (1727-1798), the only daughter of Major Joshua Huntington. He was named for his older brother who died four years before with two other siblings during the Summer of 1753. Bill grew up in the small one and a half story home of his parents on Shetucket Street, near the old bridge leading to Preston. According to the Records and Papers of the New London County Historical Society, Volume 1 (1890), Gurdon Bill was remembered early in life as exhibiting “an adventurous disposition, and the sea with its stir and change led him to become a sailor. He was in the privateer service, the family tradition being that he commanded one of these enterprising craft.” Gurdon Bill’s father Captain Ephraim Bill was appointed to superintend the construction of the Connecticut Navy ships Defence and Oliver Cromwell. Gurdon Bill’s mother’s father, Major Joshua Huntington was responsible for construction of the Continental Ship Confederacy. His cousin David Bill, who was killed in action during the Trumbull’s engagement with the Watts on 2 June 1780 and Gurdon’s two year younger brother Ephriam Bill, who reportedly died at sea in November 1780, both served as Lieutenants of Marines. The Frigate Confederacy Papers include a letter from Bill to Major Huntington dated 22 February 1779 indicating that he is “ready to go onboard ship.” Two days later on 24 February, Lieutenant Bill also submitted an invoice for “board and rum” on behalf of Samuel Belden. Belden apparently boarded many of the officers of the Confederacy as Gurdon Bill was listed on an undated invoice with others, as well as, a 26 April 1779 itemized invoice listing other officers and charging for boarding the lieutenant for twelve weeks and fourteen days. According to www.awaitsea.com, “in December 1778, Gurdon Bill applied to Huntington for the position of Lieutenant of Marines aboard the Confederacy. If otherwise filled, he requested an appointment as steward. Although some of his early letters are signed as Lieutenant of Marines, he apparently acted as steward or purser from 18 January to 4 February 1779 while the vessel was fitting out at New London. Bill signed a letter in the newspaper of 5 January refuting rumors that the officers of the Confederacy were unhappy with their captain.” Bill sailed on the Confederacy from before her sailing from New London on 1 May 1779 until her capture by British frigates Orpheus and Roebuck on 14 April 1781. Gurdon Bill and others were sent to England where he either escaped or was exchanged. On 6 July 1782 the American Commissioners to France gave him $120 to pay for his passage to America. At some point during his service on the Confederacy, Gurdon Bill was promoted to Captain of Marines, as indicated in the The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 36. Confederacy payroll records suggest this occurred sometime prior to 27 September 1780. According to page 28 of the Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine (1922), Gurdon Bill was on duty in Philadelphia 28 April 1783. According to newspaper shipping news, Gurdon Bill sailed from New London to Ireland in January 1784 as master of the brig Little Joe. After his return, later in the year, Bill arrived in New London on 10 September 1784 from Bristol via New York. Two months later on 18 November 1784, the Norwich Packet reports that Gurdon Bill will sail in November for London in commander of Howland & Coit’s brigantine Little Joe. In 1785, he made two additional voyages to Europe on the Centurion. Newspaper reports indicate the Bill arrived at Rhode Island on 28 January 1786 on a sloop from St. Eustatia and was aboard the brig Nancy in Aux Cayes on 28 April 1786. Other shipping news report that Captain Gurdon Bill arrived at Aux-Cayes on 7 January 1787, still in command of the brig Nancy. A news article dated 7 March 1787, notes that Bill and the brig Nancy arrived in New London the previous Wednesday after a 22 day passage from Aux-Cayes. Four months later on 23 June 1787, Captain Bill sailed for the West Indies in command of the sloop Friendship. Newspapers report that Gurdon Bill sailed again for Aux-Cayes, this time in command of the brig Enterprize on 23 March 1789 and that he sailed the following year from New London to Cape Francois and back between late April and early July 1790 on the brig Polly. Bill’s activities between 1790 and 1797 have not yet been determined. An advertisement dated 18 October 1797 indicates that Bill “just landed” with a cargo of Turks Island salt, rum, sugar molasses and pine lumber for sale on the 115 ton schooner Jenny and Hannah, which is also available for purchase. Two months later, Gurdon Bill married Betsey Backus Tracy (1781-1847), daughter of Andrew Tracy, in Norwich on 23 December 1797. According to the records of a lawsuit filed on behalf of the owners of the brig Betsey under master Zebulon Burnham, Captain Gurdon Bill was part owner of some of the contraband cargo confiscated with the ship by the French privateer Pauline on 25 November 1797 and carried into Gonaives. Soon after his marriage, Bill apparently served a short stint with the Navy under Commodore Truxton as Lieutenant of Marines in 1798. Bill named his oldest son born in 1799 after the Commodore. In December of 1798 on a West Indies voyage, his ship, the schooner Hannah was seized by the French and he was confined at Guadaloupe where he met fellow Norwich resident Jesse Breed. Breed was former crewmate of Bill’s on the Confederacy, a Midshipman who came on board in November 1780 from the Trumbull and served with him until the capture of the Confederacy on 14 April 1781. This time, both escaped to Paris where they they were sent home by the American Minister. According to the Norwich Courier of 8 May 1799, Captain Gurdon Bill came into New London as a passenger on the sloop Farmer under the command of “S. Freeman of this port” after a 24 day sail from St. Thomas. Within three months of his return, Bill was reported to have arrived in New York four days after his 15 August 1799 departure from Norwich for Spain on the “elegant new ship Truxton” of 18 guns. The following year in his will, Bill’s father Captain Ephraim Bill left to Gurdon and his younger brother Sylvester, his lot “on the little plain” between the houses of the Rev. Walter King and Captain Solomon Ingraham. The sons were also appointed executors to distribute the estate in equal parts to theselves and their three surviving sisters. It is said that Gurdon Bill gave up the sea in 1801 at the “earnest solicitation” of his wife, however, an 1802 advertisement offers the Coit and Phillips owned 280 ton ship Mercury under the command of Bill “for freight or charter” on a voyage to Liverpool. Gurdon and Betsey Bill had eight children including William Truxton born 10 March 1799, George Washington born 9 December 1801, Henry born 10 June 1804 who married Letitia Smith, Lydia Huntington born 18 March 1806 who married the Rev. Samuel Seabury, Mary Elizabeth born 18 January 1808 who married William Jones, Joseph Howland born 18 March 1810 who married Caroline Day, Abby Woolsey born 27 March 1812 and Leonard Tracy born 4 September 1814. The oldest two sons died together at sea in November 1825 and Joseph Howland Bill became a doctor in the U.S. Army. His activities after retirement from a mariner’s life are best described in a Windham Herald advertisement from the Fall of 1805 where Gurdon Bill continues to manufacture at his soap and candle factory on the Point at Norwich Landing, “white, shaving and brown soap, mould and dipt candles of various sizes…fresh Providence stone lime…a few barrels of excellent sugar.” Bill also offers cash for ashes and tallow in advertisements of the same time. The property at the Point had passed to Gurdon from his father, having been passed down to his mother from her father Joshua Huntington. Gurdon Bill is reported in the newspapers as one of the Norwich health officers in 1805 and 1806 whose responsibilities included maintaining pubic sanitation in order to protect the town from disease. In 1806, Bill was one of the original proprietors who purchased land and built the Chelsea Grammer School. He was admitted to the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati on 7 July 1790 and was also a freemason. His death was foreshadowed by an advertisement in the Norwich Courier the month previous, offering for sale “the tools and all the implements for carrying on the business of making soap and candles” including the building and wharf on which it stands. Even his single share in the Chelsea Grammer School was listed for sale. From other advertisements, it appears that Bill was attempting to divest himself of the soap making business as early as 1812. Although a death notice in the 21 March 1815 edition of the Connecticut Herald mistakenly reported his age as 63, Gurdon Bill was fifty-eight at the time of his death in Norwich on 6 March 1815. According to the History of the Bill Family, after Gurdon’s death, his widow Mary Tracy Bill was married to Jonathan Little.

James Storer was born 14 April 1742 in Charlestown, MA to John Storer and Mary Griffin. Older brother of Ebenezer Storer (1753-1810) who also served on the Confederacy during Frederick Calkins’ service, James Storer was instrumental in the cutting of timber for the ship’s construction [Ships of the American Revolution and Their Models By Harold M. Hahn, 1988, pages 103-4]. In 1792, the Treasury Department settled the claims of crew members of the Confederacy including James Storer, Carpenter dated 19 August 1779 for $94.78 [dsegelquist1@cox.net]. Folder 8 of the Frigate Confederacy Papers include a letter written by James Storer to Major Joshua Huntington dated 2 April 1779 demanding seven dollars per day wages plus one bushel of corn versus the six previously paid writing, “You will not expect me to work for smaller wages than those men that cannot dow more work in a day than I and as there is very much wanted as many as six good carpenters…”

Dr. John Gardiner (1752-1823) served as Surgeon’s Mate and is only one of three named on both purported crew lists of the Confederacy. Howard on page 212 of Seth Harding: Mariner supposes that the second list is actually the muster roll of Captain Joshua Huntington’s Company of Colonel Selden’s Battalion which participated in the battles around New York in 1776. This would suggest that he was recruited by Huntington to serve on the Confederacy while it was being built. He entered service on the ship on 1 November 1778 as the “ship lay in the harbor of New London, fitting for sea.” After the return of the Confederacy to Philadelphia, he was discharged on 19 May 1780. His discharge papers signed by John Lawrence are in the pension file. After his discharge, he went to sea in a private ship. Gardiner practiced medicine in Southold after the war according to page 353 of The Refugees of 1776 from Long Island to Connecticut by Frederic Gregory Mather, 1913. He was born in Southold on 12 August 1752 and was the proprietor of Gardiner’s Neck in Mattituck, Long Island. Suffolk County New York. John was a surgeon’s mate on the Frigate Confederacy, his allowance was $240 dollars a year he had received $330.38 dollars. He was placed on the pension rolls as #S-3386 on 29 September 1819 with commencement of his pension 19 October 1818.

XXXIV It is probable that Nathan Hinman is son of either Captain Nathan Hinman (1729-1761) or Coe Hinman and the nephew of Captain Elisha Hinman of New London. In 1794, the Treasury Department settled the claims of crewmembers of the Confederacy including Nathan Kinman (Hinman), Midshipman dated 23 July 1780 for $23.20 [dsegelquist1@cox.net].

Amos Latham’s story is sketched in his pension application #S-36683 and summarized in an article by Sallie McNeil published in the Nassau Genealogist, Vol. IX, #3, Summer 2002. “Amos Latham was born on 18 July 1759 in Groton, New London County, CT. He was the son of Jasper and Deborah Avery Latham. In May 1777, Latham enlisted for three years as a corporal in the Continental Army at Groton under Lt. Thomas Avery, Capt. Shumway’s Company of Col. [Jedidiah] Huntington’s 1st Connecticut regiment. By December 1777, Latham’s regiment was at Valley Forge where he spent the winter of 1777-1778. On 28 June 1778, he was wounded at the Battle of Monmouth with a “wound in the leg which rendered him unfit for duties of the field.” [In his pension application, he recalled the names of officers from the time he was stationed at Trenton as Col. McKean, Col. Will, Capt. Bowers and Capt. Ingles. He also appears to have served in Colonel Samuel Prentis’ Regiment.] At this time, Latham was transferred to the Marines. From 5 October 1778 until August 1781, Latham served aboard the Continental frigate Confederacy as a sergeant of marines. Most of the officers were paroled and the crew was confined to the prison ship Jersey until exchanged or released. According to family stories, Amos Latham was released in Charleston, SC. By 1808, Latham had moved to Camden County, Georgia, where he received a land grant of 200 acres on the south side of the Satilla River. In 1800, he married Jane Parsons, the daughter of Hillary Parsons. Jane was born on 1 June 1775 in Craven County, NC. Mary Ann Latham was born on 8 May 1810 in Glynn County, GA. Jane Maria Latham was born on 30 December 1812, also in Glynn Co. George Washington Avery Latham was born on 8 June 1815. A Revolutionary War pension application was filed in Camden County, Georgia, on 9 March 1819 [and granted on 9 September of that year retroactive to the date of application in the amount of $96 per annum]. On 6 May 1840, Amos had his pension transferred from Georgia to Nassau County, Territory of Florida. At that time, he gave an oath before the mayor of Fernandina that the government had moved the lighthouse in Cumberland Island, Georgia, to Amelia Island, Florida, and “as keeper of the same he was bound to remove”. Amos died on 18 April 1842 and was buried at the Amelia Island Lighthouse near Fernandina. His birth date on his new tombstone gives the date he used in his pension application which is two years later than the birth date found in Connecticut vital records. Perhaps his memory had become ‘fuzzy’ when the application was made. Jane died on 24 November 1840 and was buried beside him at the lighthouse. Both were later re-interred in the Morse plot in Bosque Bello Cemetery.” Amos Latham’s service on the Confederacy commenced in October 1778 while she was still under construction in Connecticut. His name appears in the frigate Confederacy Riggers’ Returns from November 1778 to February 1779 in Folders 18 & 19 of The Frigate Confederacy Papers 1776-1786, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Collection 222. Listed as Sergeant on the Confederacy and noted to be from Groton, Latham is mentioned in Silas Cleveland’s pension file #S-12486. A 21 January 1794 Treasury Department payment for claims of crew members of the Confederacy indicates that Amos Latham also served as Midshipman on the ship in addition to Sergeant of Marines prior to 23 July 1780, the date of settlement. This date is shortly after the Confederacy’s return from Martinique and before the sailing of her final ill-fated cruise. While his pension application states he served on the Confederacy until its capture on 14 April 1781, his name is not recorded in the Account Book and Roll of the Continental Ship Confederacy, June 1780-March 1781, item 629 located in Record Group 45 at the National Archives. One David Latham is the only individual with this surname mentioned. Despite family claims to have been released in Charleston, Amos Latham’s pension application indicates his discharge almost one year after the expiration of his three year enlistment in Philadelphia during August 1781. This is consistent with his claim to have been imprisoned on the Jersey prison ship and details of other crew members’ release from captivity while explaining his initial residency in Southwark after the war. The Connecticut Gazette of 14 April 1786, the fifth anniversary of the loss of the Confederacy, includes a report from Rio Essequibo dated 16 February that Amos Latham of New London, in command of a schooner, “lost all his stock & one man.” The same paper includes his name on a list of letters waiting to be picked up at the post office on 20 October of the same year. A Rhode Island newspaper, the United States Chronicle of 2 November 1786 indicates that all monies owed by yeoman Jesper Latham and Amos Latham, mariner of Groton, New London to mariner Lewis Morey have been repaid in full and placed on deposit with shipwright Robert Morey of North Kingston as of 30 September 1786. Of course, Lewis Mory entered on board the Confederacy as a midshipman about the same time as Amos Latham while Mory’s brother Robert was working on the ship. Jesper Latham was Amo’s older brother. One genealogical source suggests Amos Latham was first married to Mary Perkins, daughter of James Perkins, in Groton about 1785. Although both individuals appear in the Groton tax records of 1784, no confirmation of this marriage has yet been made. According to his pension application, after the war Amos Latham resided first in Southwark, Philadelphia, then Dumfries, VA before removing to Glynn County, GA. Dumfries is located on the Chesapeake Bay near Quantico, VA. His marriage to the daughter of Hillary Parsons, a prominent citizen of Glynn County, indicates Amos Latham relocated to that area by the 1800 marriage. His wife Jane and her mother were residents of the Neuse River area of Craven County, NC at the time of the 1790 Census. According a manuscript dated 8 May 1829 in The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Amos Latham was recommended as the lighthouse keeper at Cumberland Island, Camden County, GA- succeeding original keeper Robert Church- by Stephen Pleasonton and subsequently was appointed by the president. Latham had been living in Camden County since at least 1819, the year of his pension application. He served as keeper of the Cumberland Island Lighthouse from 1829 until 1838 when the eighty foot tall lighthouse was dismantled brick by brick, ferried across the St. Mary’s River and re-erected on the opposing shore upon the highest point of Amelia Island, FL. Amos Latham continued as keeper of the Amelia Island Lighthouse beginning in 1839, tending it’s fourteen lamps and reflectors until his death on 18 April 1842. Government records indicate his salary remained fixed at $400 per year from 1831 through 1835. As noted in Sallie McNeil’s sketch biography of Latham, Amos and his wife Jane were re-buried under the live oak trees shading the Morse family plot in the beautiful woods, or Bosque Bello Cemetery on North 14th Street in Fernandina when some lighthouse land was sold by the Coast Guard. The Morse plot was used as Amos Latham’s daughter Mary Ann (1810-1848) was first married to Joab Morse in 1814. After Morse’s death, Mary Ann remarried to Captain Samuel Cribb in 1837, the same year that Cribb and Mary Ann’s brother Captain George Washington Avery Latham (1815-1876) organized the first Association of Branch Pilots for Fernandina. George W. Latham’s daughter Jane Rebecca Latham married harbor pilot James Madison Morse and their son , Captain Edward Francis Morse was also a harbor pilot. Captain George W. A. Latham’s son George became a pilot as well. Amos Latham’s third named child Jane Maria Donnelly, following in her father footsteps, served between 1869-1871 as assistant to Amelia Lighthouse keeper Joseph H. Donnelly. Interestingly, the second-to-last civilian keeper of the lighthouse, Thomas J. O’Hagan was married to a direct descendant of Amos Latham. During a recent restoration project, a broken but original soap stone collar was discovered buried near the lighthouse. One piece was found to be carved with the initials “A L”.

W. Powers is likely William Powers , Master of the Connecticut Privateer Sloop American Revenue, commissioned on 15 June 1776 under Commander Stephen Tinker. Powers remained when William Packwood took command. After an unsuccessful cruise, Samuel Champlin, Jr. took command on 9 October 1776. The prize brig Sally was captured on 22 January 1777 and Powers was assigned as prize master and ordered to New Bern, NC arriving on 21 February 1777. The Connecticut Privateer Sloop American Revenue was sailing for her home port of New London from Surinam when she encountered and captured the brig or brigantine Sally (Barry Hartwell) on 22 January 1777. The Sally was a large two-decked vessel, bound from London, England to St. Augustine, East Florida or Tobago, BWI with a cargo of dry goods and “English goods.” The Sally had sailed from England as part of a convoy escorted by HM Frigate Glasgow (Captain Thomas Pasley) and HM Sloops Hornet, Beaver, and Fly. She was parted from the convoy about 15 December 1776. Champlin was impressed with Sally, and called her “a fine Sailor with a good new Sute of Sailes…” By 13 March 1777 Nathaniel Shaw, owner of the American Revenue, knew of Powers’ arrival at New Bern and wrote to John Wright Stanley to take care of the prize, not knowing of Champlin’s orders to Powers. Orders were given as to how to get the money and Powers back to Connecticut. On 20 March, Stanley reported the safe arrival of the brigantine. Following Champlin’s orders, she was tried in a few days and sold in about twenty. Stanley recommended Ocracoke Inlet for any future prizes captured by Shaw’s vessels. He is on the Frigate Confederacy Riggers’ Returns 1778-1779 as Wm. Powers.

William Beckwith or Beekwith was posted as Midshipman on the Confederacy as evidenced by the 1792 Treasury Department settlement of his claim for $100.59 dated 23 May 1780 [dsegelquist1@cox.net]. Listed with other crew of the Confederacy in Silas Cleveland’s pension file #S-12486. On Frigate Confederacy Ship Yard, Boat Builders’ and Top Builders’ Returns 1777-1779.

XXXV David Whitney was the second son and third of nine children of Lieutenant Benjamin Whitney (1741-1821) and his first wife Mary Turner (1741-1778) who were married 12 August 1761. Altogether, Benjamin Whitney was married four times and fathered seventeen children. Lieutenant Benjamin Whitney enlisted in 1775 and served as a Sergeant in the militia in Captain Van Haw’s Company, Parson’s Regiment during the Revolution. David Whitney was born 11 February 1766 in Pepperell, MA. During the nine days between 25 August and 3 September 1778, when David was just twelve, his mother Mary and six of his siblings died- four on one day. Both David and his older brother Benjamin served in the Revolutionary War at a very young age. During the war, David resided in Windham, CT where he became acquainted with the Frederick Calkins’ family. David Whitney served in Captain Bebee’s Company in Col. Roger Enos’ Connecticut Regiment in 1778. In 1791, Lieutenant Benjamin Whitney, with his three sons Benjamin Aaron, David and Abel, moved to Tunbridge, VT from Pepperell where they appear on the 1800 Census. The sons settled on their father’s land “two miles up the hill from the valley of the First Branch of the White River”, the area still known as Whitney Hill. David married Susannah Huntington, both twenty-seven years old, in West Randolph, VT on 21 November 1793. Susannah was second daughter of Annis Huntington Calkins’ oldest brother William Huntington (1736-1816) and his first wife Annie Pride (1740-1776). Susannah was born 25 July 1766 in Norwich, CT, just three years after her parents’ 11 December 1763 wedding. Susannah had migrated with her family from Norwich, CT to Lebanon, NH and finally to Tunbridge, VT in the Summer of 1790. Susannah and David Whitney had seven children: David born 15 December 1795, Benjamin born 18 February 1796, William born 10 February 1800, Cyrus born 21 December 1802, Daniel born 28 October 1809, Ann who married Azro Burton Curtis on 15 March 1830 and Betsy who married John Whitney on 7 March 1839. Refer to: Whitney Genealogy: The Descendants of John Whitney who came from Whitney-on-the-Wye, England, to Pepperell, Mass., to Tunbridge, Vermont. Twelve Generations, 1553-1977 by Fred F. Whitney, published Rutland, VT, 1977. David was living at Tunbridge with his son Cyrus and without Susannah who is presumed died in the 1850 Census just before his death on 28 August 1850. He was buried in the Whitney Hill Cemetery. The 260 acre family homestead, including a house built by David Whitney in 1820 and Octagonal Barn built in 1907, is known today as New Acadia Farm.

XXXVI Seth Kennedy appears on the crew list of the Frigate Confederacy on page 62 of the Records and Papers of the New London County Historical Society as Seth Cavady. Dr. Seth Kennedy was born 14 August 1758 in Norwich, CT to Benjamin Kennedy and Olive Rude. He died in Hancock Co, GA on 4 June 1835. His pension application #S-31789 indicates he was living in Gainesborough or Gageborough when called into service. Kennedy enlisted 10 May 1775 in Gageborough, MA as private in Captain Nathan Watkin’s Company, Colonel John Patterson’s Regiment. The muster roll dated 1 August 1775 lists his service as 2 months, 27 days. The pension application states that his company marched to Boston in May 1775 under Captain Cady who was promoted to Major when the troops where organized into Patterson’s Regiment at Boston. Kennedy states he was stationed as a picket between the British and American Armies at Fort #3 in a salt marsh between Prospect Hill and Boston with Colonel Mifflin’s Rifle Regiment and 150 Stockbridge Indians under the commands of Generals Washington and Putnam. He recounts that the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought within eyesight and that he participated in the Battle of Sitehman’s Point. He next served under Colonel Champion as an assistant to the Commissary’s son Reuben Champion. Kennedy states he was next called up to serve in the militia company of Captain Hooker of Farmington. Finally, he notes that six months of service was as a substitute for his brother. He was stationed at White Plains and saw ‘no action.’ His pension application states Kennedy “presented himself to Captain Seth Hardin, Captain of the ship, who commanded said ship and preceded to enter onboard the services of said ship, provided he could obtain some appointment above that of a marine.” Furthermore he recalled “Deponent was while lying at Chester appointed Master of Arms, Captain Harden in order to divert the man from withdrawing from…service.” After the ship was dismasted at sea, he testified, “there being many above crippled from the storm and a number sick this deponent was (although he had not studied medicine) appointed (2nd) Surgeons mate and the intercession of Doctor James Garner [Gardiner].” Finally when the Confederacy returned to the States, “this deponent was left at Martinique by the Confederacy with abut 20 Americans in the (French) hospital which was according to his recollection one year from his entering on board the Confederacy at New London; he states that he was during this time, three months a ships corporal, four as master of arms and four as Surgeons mate.” According to his pension application, Kennedy sailed to Philadelphia about one year after the Confederacy arriving at about the close of the war. After the war, Kennedy moved to Farmington, CT, spent two years at Guilford then moved to Gwinyd. Seth Kennedy married Elizabeth Greer in Columbia Co, GA on 10 January 1794 and married again, on 16 September 1795 to Mary (Polly) Adams, daughter of James Adams, a Revolutionary War veteran. Seth Kennedy died in Hancock Co, GA on 4 June 1835. On 9 May 1792, the Treasury Department settled the claim of Seth Canady of the Confederacy, Master-at-Arms, May 19, 1780 for $69.28.

XXXVII Men known to have served on the Confederacy who do not appear on the crew list of the Frigate Confederacy on page 62 of the Records and Papers of the New London County Historical Society include: Ephraim Bill, Jesse Breed, Enoch Bretts, Anthony Carner, Phillip Carney, James Leander Cathcart, Midshipman Clarkson, Samuel Collins, Uriah Corning, Paul Doane, Nathan Dorsey, Nicholas Duartis, Thomas Edgar, Abraham Edwards, Charles Edwards, Lewis Evans, Jeremiah Everett, Midshipman Fanning, Hugh E. Fiddus, Nathaniel Gates, Andrew Gordan, Richard Greenfield, George Griffiths, Southerly Grinnel, William Hamilton, Thomas Hancock, Joseph Hardy, James Hayes, Benjamin Hazard, Abraham Hicks, David Holmes, Jesse Hunt, Porter G. John, Jacob Johns, Chaplain Keith, Joseph Keth, Samuel Knapp, John Knight, John Linton, Skipper Lunt, John McClain, William Miller, Rial Moarhouse, Mr. Morton, Enos Nero, Henry Norwel, Henry Norris, William Nourse, Dennis O’Bryan, Andrew Palmes, John Parker, Abraham Perkins, David Phipps, Nathaniel Richards, Nathaniel Randall, John Richmond, Quaco Robinson, Benjamin Rothrock, Christopher Scott, William Shirtnursey,John Shober, John Steel, Richard Stewart, Robert Swift, Dick Tuttle, John Wainwright, Samuel Walker, Cornelius Wells, John Wigglesworth and Benjamin Woods. Many of these men served on the first and second cruises of the Confederacy with some serving on the third and last cruise. A second crew list is extant in Navy Department File 629, Ledger of the Continental Ship Confederacy, June 1780 to March 1781.

XXXVIII In addition to Gerard and Jay and their traveling companions, the entourage sailing with the Confederacy included Chevalier Roche, Captain Remuy, Major Peter Scull and Mr. Williamson.

XXXIX Thomas Vaughn was commissioned Lieutenant on 17 August 1776. A resident of Philadelphia, Vaughn was married to Hannah Humphreys on 30 July 1779 at the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia just three months before sailing with the Confederacy again on 26 October 1779. Hannah was widowed less than one year later with his drowning on 26 April 1780. His will, dated 18 September 1779, was probated on 27 June 1780. Thomas Vaughn’s executors were Hannah Vaughn and Richard Humphreys and witnesses to the will: Peter Thomson, William Thomson, Peter Thomson, Junr. The initials T.V. that appear with the initials of Captain of Marines George Jerry Osborne in the Boston newspaper account of the Raleigh engagement suggest Thomas Vaughn also served as lieutenant on that ship with Calkins.

XL It appears the first news of the fate of the Confederacy and the death of local David M’Intosh reached New London on 23 February 1780 as reported by the Independent Ledger of Boston on 6 March 1780. The article erroneously reported that the Confederacy proceeded on to France after her refitting in Martinique.

XLI No record is found for Jonathan Smith serving on the crew of the Confederacy, however, New Haven native Jonathan Smith appears to have served with Frederick Calkins as a Landsman on the Trumbull. Elijah Parrish also appears on the same Confederacy crew list and also on the Frigate Confederacy Riggers’ Returns 1778-1779 with Calkins although nothing more is known of him.

The Golden Voyage: The Life and Times of William Bingham, 1752-1804 by Robert C. Alberts, 1969 details the life of Continental Agent William Bingham who returned from Martinique to Philadelphia with Frederick Calkins onboard the Confederacy as reported by the Connecticut Journal dated 11 May 1780. Bingham was appointed as Continental agent to Martinique to procure arms for General Washington and “to discover the designs of the French,” arriving on 3 July 1776 with Captain Wickes’ Reprisal. While there, he operated both as a profiteering merchant and public official. Bingham advanced considerable sums of his own fortune and credit on the account of Congress who largely ignored his presence and war efforts. When in February 1779, the General Gates and frigate Deane sailed into St. Pierre for refitting, William Bingham raised the cost by borrowing it from the government of Martinique. By the time the Confederacy came into port, Bingham already owed an enormous debt on behalf of Congress, only to be informed that the expenses incurred in the refitting of the two earlier ships would not be reimbursed. This lack of money contributed to the slow progress in refitting the crippled Confederacy. Bingham personally advanced cash to the officers of the Confederacy after John Jay wrote to Congress that he was appalled at “the idea of our officers being obliged to sneak, as they phase it, from the company of French officers, for fear of running in debt with them for a bottle of wine or a bowl of punch, because not able to pay for their share of the reckoning.” Bingham decided to return home to Philadelphia on the Confederacy assuming Congress’ lack of response to his request to be relieved signaled assent. A letter to Benjamin Franklin summed up his state, “I am afraid that I have not answered their expectations in this point; however, I have this connotation, Quod potui, feci: facient meliora potentes” which translates I’ve done my best- let abler men do better. After Bingham’s return home, he was eventually rewarded with full payment of the debt owed to him by the government through his friend and business associate Robert Morris, newly named Congressional Superintendent of Finance. He would be one of the few patriot merchants to survive the war with his fortune intact and in less than two decades would become the largest land owner and richest man in America.

Edward Cleaveland appears with Frederick Calkins in the crew list of the Frigate Confederacy on page 62 of the Records and Papers of the New London County Historical Society. Edward was born to John and Mary Cleveland about the same year as Frederick Calkins in North Kingston, RI. Relatives say that he went to Connecticut early in life from Rhode Island. According to tradition, “the first he could remember was aboard a British man-of-war, where he remained until aged 27. While on coast of America, deserted and went to Vermont.” Edward was a Revolutionary War soldier and pensioner from Rhode Island. Edward was large in stature and had 5 fingers on each hand and 6 toes on each foot. Just prior to his service on the Confederacy, Edward married Mary Horsington (or Hawsington) Hendricks widow of Francis Hendricks near Woodstock, VT. The children of Edward and Mary Cleveland were: Edward born 3 April 1775, Benjamin born 22 June 1777, Jerusha born 11 September 1778, John born 18 May 1782, Mary born 29 August 1787, Enos born about 1790 and William born February 1794. His wife Mary died December 19, 1830 in Jackson, PA. Edward Cleveland died at Sterling (now Morristown) VT. Listed with other crew of the Confederacy in Silas Cleveland’s pension file #S-12486. Silas Cleveland’s pension testimony indicates that Edward Cleveland escaped from the British after the capture of the Confederacy and came to live with him.

Samuel Dennis is listed in the Coopers’ Returns of the construction of the ship in the Frigate Confederacy Papers in late 1778 and early 1779. According to his pension application #S-37884, Norwich resident Samuel Dennis was a mariner and cooper aboard the frigate Confederacy between 20 January 1779 and 19 May 1780. His discharge from the ship’s service signed by John Lawrence as Captain’s Clerk is in the pension file. No other record of Revolutionary War service is in the file. Samuel Dennis, son of Benjamin Dennis and Thankful Bliss, was born on 4 May 1756 probably in New London, but maybe Ireland, and died on 31 August 1821 in Norwich. He was married to Eunice Gallup (8/7/1755-7/1/1829) in Groton on 16 October 1783 by William Williams, Esq. of Cider Hills (J.P. of Groton). Eunice and Samuel had six children born between 1785 and 1796. According to Dennis’ 1820 affidavit, he was a cooper by trade but had not been able to do bodily labor for several years. The children of Eunice and Samuel Dennis include Eunice Dennis born 22 March 1785, Henry Dennis born 9 October 1786, Anna Dennis born 10 March 1788, Benjamin Dennis born 5 May 1789, Betsy Dennis born 21 March 1793, Jared Gallup Dennis born 18 June 1796 and who was married on 7 July 1822 to Lorhnamy Davis (who died 5 February 1833), and again on 4 August 1833 to Nancy Congdon.

James Elderkin is listed on the crew list of the Confederacy with Frederick Calkins. Prior to service on the Confederacy, he was posted as Gunner’s Mate under Captain Seth Harding on the Ship Oliver Cromwell from 14 April to 14 October 1777 and as Gunner on the Schooner Spy under Captain Zebadiah Smith from 20 October 1777 to 20 February 1778. In Annis Calkins’ pension application, Daniel Perkins testified the Elderkin was the Gunner’s Mate on the Confederacy and that he was a relative. Perkins was married about 1787 to Polly (Mary) Elderkin, daughter of Joshua Booth Elderkin, Commissary of Connecticut Militia. Joshua Booth Elderkin lived in Chelsea, VT with Frederick Calkins. The family relationship between Joshua Booth and James Elderkin has not been established. Listed with other crew of the Confederacy in Silas Cleveland’s pension file #S-12486.

XLII While not eligible to join the Society of Cincinnati, Frederick Calkins might well have sought post-war camaraderie among the fraternity of veterans who became Freemasons. No record of his membership into the brotherhood has been located in the extant records of Union Lodge #31 of New London, St. James Lodge #23 of Norwich which merged with Somerset Lodge #34 of Preston or George Washington Lodge of Chelsea which became extinct in 1850. Although the list of members of the George Washington Lodge was kept secret except the masters, between 1804 and 1830, not one of the masters was a member of the Congregational Church of Chelsea.

XLIII Rachel Ann Nixon of Medicine Lodge, KS was the daughter of Ezra Nixon and Jesse Millington. Jesse Millington was the daughter of Daniel Azro Millington and Mary Ann Smith. Mary Ann Smith was the daughter of John Smith and Mary Prentice Calkins. Mary Prentice Calkins was the daughter of Frederick Calkins and Annis Huntington.

XLIV A cursory search of a selected sampling of twenty-two reels of microfilm titled Records of the Danish Government of the Virgin Islands, 1745-1807 located in Columbia University’s Butler Library (Call #FH T-39) did not reveal any record of Frederick Calkins as master of a ship touching at one of the ports included in these records between the years 1780 and 1788. An exhaustive search of these records are complicated by the poor quality of the microfilmed documents and because they are written in Danish. Also, ship data including master are written in prose paragraph format rather than easy to scan listing in columns as typically found in British shipping records.

XLV David Hough and Abigail Huntington Hough (Annis’ sister) are listed in the Lebanon, NH 1790 Census (5 males over 16, 2 males under 16 and 6 females) with with Frederick and Annis Huntington Calkins (1 male over 16, 2 males under 16 and 5 females), as well as Annis Calkins’ brothers: unmarried Roger Huntington, William Huntington (4 males over 16, 1 male under 16 and 6 females) and James Huntington (3 males over 16, 3 males under 16 and 4 females) along with other Hough’s.

Epilogue: The Calkins Children

Phebe Calkins was born 2 September 1773 in Norwich, CT [Norwich Vital Records, Page 498] to twenty-five year old Frederick Calkins and his nineteen year old wife Annis Huntington Calkins. According to a deed transacted by her father, Phebe appears to have married someone named Cole by April 1801. Nothing further is known concerning Phebe. It is conceivable that she married in Lebanon, NH. during her family’s residency there between 1788 and 1791.

Elizabeth Calkins was born 13 May 1775 in Norwich, CT [Norwich Vital Records, Page 498] to twenty-seven year old Frederick Calkins and his twenty-one year old wife Annis Huntington Calkins. Sometime between 1820 and 1830, Elizabeth and her mother Annis, widow of Frederick Calkins, came to live with younger sister Chloe and her husband Ebenezer Merrill. Both appear in the Merrill household in both the 1830 and 1840 Census records. Unmarried Elizabeth is living in Hanover, NH with her sister Chloe and Ebenezer at the time of the 1850 Census. She does not appear to be living in 1860.

Frederick Calkins, Junior was born 30 June 1778 in Norwich, CT [Norwich Vital Records, Page 498] to thirty year old Frederick Calkins and his twenty-four year old wife Annis Huntington Calkins. He died at age thirty on 15 December 1808 in Chelsea, VT. It is suspected that he never married.

Annis Calkins was born 15 June 1781 in Norwich, CT [Norwich Vital Records, Page 498] to thirty-three year old Frederick Calkins and his twenty-seven year old wife Annis Huntington Calkins. She married Asa Garfield probably in 1799, but certainly before April 1801. Asa Garfield was born 4 October 1775 in Spencer, MA to Samuel Garfield, Jr. & Phebe Rice. Asa was the cousin of future President James A. Garfield. He died in 1830 in LeRoy, NY, nine days after establishing residence there. His widow Annis continued operation of the sawmill after his death, however, in the fall of 1838, she moved with her children to Lee Township, Calhoun County, Michigan. Their emigration story is captured in a biographical sketch of her youngest son Martin on page 898 of Portrait Biographical Album of Calhoun County, Michigan published in 1891. “He was but four years old when his parents removed to Genesee County, NY and there as he grew older he attended school and began to help in the sawmill. Not long after he entered his teens he made the journey to this State, the family crossing the lake on the Great Western and having a stormy voyage. At Detroit they took a team and so completed their journey to their new home. Young Garfield at once began to work in the sawmill (Alcott Mills) and to do teaming with oxen, and remained at the mill until 1848″ when he moved to Convis. The newly built 185′ long Great Western (1838) was the first steamer on the Great Lakes to be built with spacious upper cabins. Asa and Annis Garfield’s oldest child was George Cary Garfield, known as Sceavy, born on 3 March 1800 in Orange, VT. He is later listed on 1820 Census in Hardwick, VT. Phebe Garfield was born on 11 Jul 1802 in Chelsea, VT. Hollis Garfield was born on 17 October 1804 in Marlboro, NH during the time his father Asa, a millwright, set up and operated a sawmill in Keene, NH. On 5 March 1829 in Hardwick, Caledonia, VT, Hollis married Sarah “Sally” Shepard born 8 July 1797 in VT. Two children are listed in the Lee, Calhoun County, Michigan 1850 Census at which time Hollis, a house carpenter, and his wife are residing next to his brother Frederick: George born in NY about 1834 and Mary born in NY about 1837. Both of Hollis’ children are listed in the 1840 Census for Fenton, Genesee County, MI along with another adult woman slightly younger than wife Sarah, perhaps sister Caroline. Fourth child Frederick Garfield was born 7 April 1807 in Marlboro, NH. Frederick was employed in milling at Alcott Mills. The first Lee Township meeting in Calhoun County was held in 1840 at the home of Frederick, who was elected town clerk, eventually serving also as assessor and justice of the peace. In addition to Frederick, listed in the Lee, Calhoun County, Michigan 1840 Census are a woman presumed to be his sister Caroline, two males born 1825-30 (probably including younger brother Martin) and 1810-1820 (likely brother William or Samuel) and one older woman born 1770-1780. The older woman is his mother Annis Calkins Garfield, daughter of Frederick Calkins, who died 29 January 1848; “her last hours being cheered by Christian faith and hope, she being a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.” He married presumably for the second time Mary Whipple, born in New York about 1820, in Eaton County, MI on 19 December 1849. In addition to his younger brother Martin noted as a farmer, and wife Mary, only one child of laborer Frederick Garfield is listed in the Lee, Calhoun County, MI 1850 Census, Solomon L. born in NY about 1846. Some sources suggest Frederick and Mary Garfield had at least three additional children: Lafayette, A. Delbert and Andrew M. Garfield. Asa Garfield, Jr was born on 28 June 1809 in Marlboro, NH. He married Hannah Murdock born about 1811 on 25 August 1835 in LeRoy, NY. Asa and Hannah had two children before Hannah died 30 March 1841. Asa remarried to Mary Jane Ellison in 1844 in Wayne County, OH. Asa and Mary Jane Garfield had three children. After Mary Jane died, Asa married a third time to Clarissa Rising on 25 December 1869 in Ionia, MI. Asa died 10 January 1873 in Saranaqac, Michigan. Sixth child of Asa Garfield, Sr. was William Garfield, born on 19 August 1813. He married Lucy Ann Hazen on 24 December 1856. He died in 1857. Samuel Garfield was born on 12 May 1817 in VT. Caroline Garfield was born on 28 August 1822 in Hardwick, VT. She married Rodney B. Allen in Michigan in 1840. Allen must have died prior to the 1880 Census, as Caroline is living in her brother Martin’s household by that time. She died on 16 February 1915. Asa and Annis Garfield’s youngest child Martin C. Garfield was born on 13 August 1826 in Hardwick, VT. Martin is listed as living with his brother Frederick in the 1850 Census. On 30 March 1851 at the bride’s home in Marshall Township, Martin married Lydia Jeanette Campbell born in NY in 1835. Martin and his wife are living in Convis, Calhoun County, MI at the time of the 1880 Census with their son Frank A. who was born about 1857 in Michigan. Sister Caroline Allen is also living with them. Martin Garfield died on 14 January 1895.

Martin Calkins was born 16 April 1783 in Norwich, CT [Norwich Vital Records, Page 498] to thirty-five year old Frederick Calkins and his twenty-nine year old wife Annis Huntington Calkins. He was infirm at least by the age of twenty-eight when he began receiving public assistance. He died 30 November 1815 in Chelsea, VT nine days after his father.

Sophia Calkins was born 16 October 1786 in Norwich, CT [Norwich Vital Records, Page 498] to thirty-eight year old Frederick Calkins and his thirty-two year old wife Annis Huntington Calkins. She is unmarried in December 1801 but is living outside of the Calkins household by June 1808. Sophia was married to nineteen year old Justus Rhoads of Marlborough, NH on 6 August 1806, Chelsea, Orange County, VT by Justice of the Peace Theo. Huntington. [Chelsea Book 1, Page 80] Born on 18 January 1787, Justus Rhoads was the youngest of eleven children of Ebenezer Rhoads (1745+-7/4/1825) and Sarah Page (6/16/1745-10/6/1821) who were married on 12 March 1767. Ebenezer Rhoads, aka Rhodes, came to Marlborough, NH at 18 years of age from Walpole, MA and built a Tavern known as the Rhodes Inn, completed in 1771. [History of the Town of Marlborough by Charles A Bemis, Page 611] Justus fathered at least four children prior to Sophia Calkins Rhoad’s death on 14 May 1823 in Dickersonville, Niagara County, NY. Oldest son Justus Addison was born 3 June 1807, Frederick W. born in 1809, Ransom A. born on 13 September 1811 and Judson A. born 13 March 1823, just two months before his mother’s death. The older children appear to have been born in Marlborough, NH while young Judson A. was born in New York. Shortly after being widowed, Justus Rhoads married Sophia’s younger sister Eunice Huntington Calkins on 4 March 1824 at Nicholville, St. Lawrence County, NY. Four years later, Justus Rhoads died at his hometown of Marlborough, NH on 17 September 1828. A search of the family gravestones at the Rhodes Cemetery 0.3 miles south of Marlborough on Hill Street may located his resting place. Justus Addison Rhoads appears to be residing in Jay, Essex County, NY in the 1850 Census and Lawrence, St. Lawrence County, NY in the 1860 Census. Forty-one year old Frederick W. Rhoads and his thirty year old wife Mary, born in New York, are living in Pierpoint, Ashtabula County, Ohio in 1850 where he is described as a cabinet maker. All eight of their children are noted as born in Ohio- Cordelia F. born 1834, Alonzo G. born 1837, Laura born 1839, Archibald P. born 1841, Theresa S. born 1843, Justus M. born 1845, Halsey M. born 1847 and Mary E. born 1849. Five years later, the widowed Frederick W, Rhoads is living in the household of his Uncle John Smith and Aunt Mary Prentice Calkins in Iowa City, Iowa with only two of his eight children- Laura and Justus. By the following year in 1856 Frederick moved to Fairview, as Story City was formerly known, in Lafayette Township, Story County, Iowa where he became the second resident after John J. Foot, who “accommodated the traveling public.” Early in 1857, the post office was established in Fairview with Frederick W. Rhoads as the first postmaster. His residence was on the West side of the Skunk River, as was the residence of his youngest brother Judson A. Rhoads. By 1860, Frederick moved to Nevada, Story County, Iowa and was succeeded as postmaster by Noah Harding. The History of Story County, Iowa details the tragic death of Frederick A. Rhoads due to a fall from a scaffold on the old Alderman Building in October 1867. His memorial notes “Mr. Rhoads was a carpenter and a man of much strength of character” whose oldest daughter was the respected Mrs. Laura Berry and whose two sons were newspapermen. Ransom A. Rhoads was married to Mary Ann Harrington in New York in 1844. Mary Ann was born on 20 April 1821 in New York to Daniel Harrington and Polly Ayelesworth. The 1850 Census places them in Constantine, St. Joseph County, Michigan, the 1860 Census in Elba, Dodge County, WI and the 1870 Census in Orange, Juneau County, WI. Family history suggests they resided in LeGrange County, Indiana and Ohio as well, finally arriving in Lowell, WI by 1854. Ransom A. Rhoads died on 22 October 1888 in Millston, Jackson County, WI where he is buried in Brookside Cemetary. His wife died in Shawano County, WI on 3 December 1904. The youngest son of Sophia and Justus Rhoads, Judson like his older brother Frederick W. Rhoads, was living in the household of his Uncle John Smith and Aunt Mary Prentice Calkins in Iowa City in 1855. Census data suggests the family lived in Illinois immediately prior. With his brother Frederick, he planted roots in Lafayette Township on the West side of the Skunk River at West Bend, Iowa. The 1860 Census includes the thirty-six year old Judson A. Rhoads and his Canadian-born thirty-year old wife Ruth M., along with three children- A.M. born in 1852, Edwin Augustus born in 1854 and Franklin Benjamin born in 1856. Judson A. Rhoads died 9 March 1911.

Eunice Huntington Calkins was born 14 September 1791 at Lebanon, NH [Chelsea Book 1, Page 29] to forty-three year old Frederick Calkins and his thirty-seven year old wife Annis Huntington Calkins. She was not married in April of 1801. Records suggest she was also out of the Calkins household by June of 1808. She is named for Annis’ sister who died the year before her birth. Without a doubt, she is the Eunice H. Rhodes who testified in 1837 of being present at Frederick’s death in 1815 and who would have been aged 24 at that time. At age thirty-three, on 4 March 1824 at Nicholville, Niagara County, NY, Eunice married her sister Sophia’s husband Justus Rhoads after her death the preceeding May. Four years later, Justus Rhoads died at his hometown of Marlborough, NH on 17 September 1828. Eunice Meredith is mentioned in Rachel Ann Nixon’s 1915 letter concerning Frederick Calkins’ war service and pension records. It is speculated that Eunice Huntington Rhoads may have been remarried to someone named Meredith after her 1837 testimony on behalf of her mother’s pension application and the drafting of her mother’s will in 1843.

Mary Prentice Calkins was born 7 March 1794 in Chelsea, VT [Chelsea Book 1, Page 29] to forty-five year old Frederick Calkins and his thirty-nine year old wife Annis Huntington Calkins. She was the eighth of ten children and the sixth of eight daughters. Mary Prentice Calkins married John Smith in 1812 probably in Chelsea or Waterbury, VT. The 1860 Census suggests John Smith was born in 1787 in Vermont and the 1850 Census suggests 1797 in NH, however, DAR information taken partially from his gravestone lists his birth as 1 April 1787 in Chelsea, VT. Family history suggests John Smith was born in West Henniker, NH and also suggest his father’s name was William Smith, possibly a British soldier during the Revolutionary War. Family history also suggests William Smith’s children’s names are William, John, Austin, Robert (4/2/1800-10/7/1860), James (1804-10/15/1834), Jane, Margaret and Nancy. Sarah Ann Smith (1763-1830) is reported to be the mother of John Smith. None of the Smith family data has been independently verified. John Smith and Mary Prentice Calkins had twelve children, most probably born in Waterbury, Washington County, VT. Caroline, the oldest child, was born about 1814/5 in Vermont. The oldest son Martin was born 20 November 1821. Another daughter Mary Ann was born 8 October 1826. According to the 1830 Census, John and Mary Prentice Smith and their family of two sons and two daughters less than ten years old and two older daughters less than twenty years old along with another adult male are living near Mary Prentice’ younger sister Sybil and her husband Robert R. Smith in Waterbury, VT. Apparently the two sisters were married to two brothers. Son Henry was born in 1834 followed one year later by a daughter Fanny.
By the time of the 1840 Census, John and Mary Prentice Smith had moved their family to Hickory Creek, Frankfort Township, Will County, IL. This probably occurred sometime between 1833 and 1840, most likely between 1835 and 1839 at the same time Mary’s sister Sybil and her husband Robert R. Smith emigrated. The 1840 Census indicates that both boys and three of the four older girls were surviving from the previous census. In addition, one younger boy and girl were born to Mary Prentice in the intervening decade. The 1850 Census lists the four children remaining in the household as Caroline, Martin, Henry and Fanny. One family researcher who is in possession of a picture of three of the daughters, suggests John and Mary Prentice Smith had a total of eleven children: Caroline, Achsah, Charles, Martin, William, Phebe, Charles, Mary Ann, John, Verona, Henry. Daughter Mary Ann Smith, since married to Daniel Azro Millington in 1848, was residing next door with the newlyweds’ one year old daughter Mary C. born about 1849 at the time of the 1850 Census.
Mary Ann Smith married Daniel A. Millington, born in Hubbardton, VT, on his twenty-fifth birthday. He had moved to Will County in 1844 from Rutland County, VT and would go on to become a founder, mayor and postmaster of Winfield, KS, as well as, editor of the Winfield Courier. An excerpt from the hand-written Journal of a California Miner by D. A. Millington housed in the California State Library reads, “D. A. Millington and Mary Smith were married May 16, 1848 by Wm B. Cleveland J.P. in the home of John Smith her father near Chelsea Post Office Will County Ill. The house was an old rickety frame building in the edge of a beautiful notch of prairie near the head of the timber skirting Hickory Creek and known as the Hickory Creek Timber. This notch was on the south east of the timber and about 1/4 of a mile south of the creek. Westward an excellent and beautiful grove of timber extended along the bank of Hickory Creek twelve miles to the town of Joliet the county seat of Will county…One fourth of a mile Eastward was a small grove of about 160 acres known as Van Horne’s Grove. This was also on the bank of Hickory Creek and two miles to the south East was a larger grove called Skunk Grove. Southward was the grand rolling prairie extending in graceful undulation 30 miles south to the Kankakee river and continues NNE 32 miles to Chicago broken by several small groves…The persons present at the wedding were John Smith the bride’s father, Mary (Calkins) Smith her mother, Martin & Henry Smith her brothers, Caroline Smith her sister, R. (Robert) R. Smith her uncle, Sybil (Calkins) Smith her aunt, Sarah Ann, Phebe & Charles Smith her cousins (Robert & Sybil’s children)…The marriage took place about 11 o.c. A.M. In the evening the new married parties drove to Joliet and put up at the Exchange Hotel….They continued their trip through the counties of Kendall, Kane & DuPage and returned in one week.”
Mary Ann and Daniel’s younger daughter Jesse Millington, born 22 November 1856, married Ezra Harrison Nixon on Thursday evening 8 October 1885 in Winfield, Cowley County, KS in a “Brilliant Wedding.” The wedding was held on the mother of the bride’s birthday which grandmother Mary Prentice Calkins Smith would not live long enough to attend. The groom was born 10 November 1856. Ezra Nixon’s father Samuel was a prominent farmer of Section 31 in Cedar Township near Utica, IA and it was said that he owned the first corn planter in use on the Utica prairie. Ezra’s occupations included: cattleman, deed abstracter and Registrar of Deeds. In 1889, he also formed a business called Nixon & Noble Hardware. In 1902 he served as a Republican state representative for two years representing House District 78. He was a Federal Land Agent in 1906 and he organized the Barber County Abstract Company in 1912. Jessie Millington Nixon was a charter member of the Monday Afternoon Club and helped organize the City Library and Episcopal Church in Medicine Lodge. Online photos are extant for both E.H. Nixon and Daniel A. Millington. A descendant remains in possession of photographs of E.H Nixon in 1902, as well as, photos of Daniel A. and Mary Ann Millington. The couple is buried in the Millington plot in Winfield.
Ezra and Jesse Millington Nixon’s daughter Rachel Ann Nixon was born 11 Jan 1888 in Barber County, KS, one of four children. She graduated with the Class of 1905 from Medicine Lodge High School and attended Southwestern College. Rachel Nixon was a secretary and advertising manager for Best Brothers’ Keenes Cement Company until 1933, when according to descendant John Nixon, she was fired due to the depression. Best Brothers is now Gold Bond National Gypsum. Medicine Lodge is located in the heart of Kansas’ Gypsum or “Red” Hills, so named owing to their distinctive color formed by rusting iron in eroding soils. Rachel then moved to Clovis, NM where she lived until her death and bought the Fox News Stand sometime after 1936. Rachel Nixon later started the magazine Wholesale. She was a member of IAG, DAR, Huntington Family Association, Boon Family Association, Kansas Authors, Monday Afternoon Club, and director of the Medicine Lodge Indian Peace Council Treaty Memorial Association. As a member of this last organization, Rachel accompanied Chief I-See-O to locate the actual site of the signing of the 1867 Treaty and wrote the prologue to the treaty celebration which is recited even today. It was Rachel Nixon who wrote to the Pension Dept in 1915 from Medicine Lodge, KS inquiring about a Mary Prentice Calkins supposedly married to Frederick Calkins, a Revolutionary War sea Captain. She understood that Mary Calkins pension vouchers were signed by a daughter Mrs. Eunice Meredith. Of course, Mary Prentice Calkins could only be Frederick Calkins’ daughter or mother, not his wife Annis Huntington Calkins who was the recipient of the $180 per year pension. Miss Rachel Ann Nixon’s DAR application number is 129280 and her ancestry to Frederick Calkins is listed in Lineage Book 1933 on page 86. An original copy of Rachel’s DAR application, as well as, her genealogical research and personal library are still extant and remain in the possession of a descendent.
By the time of the 1860 Census, John and Mary Prentice Smith were living with their son Martin and his wife Barbara A., born in Ohio on 22 March 1832, with their three children ages 3, 5 and 7 in Salt Creek Township, Tama County, IA. The census records, indicating the place of birth of the Smith children, suggest the Smith family moved to Iowa away from Mary Prentice’s sister Sybil and her husband Robert R. Smith in Will County, IL sometime between 1855 and 1857. The 1878 History of Benton County, Iowa indicates that in July of 1857, a Mrs. Martin Smith and Mr. Smith’s mother (probably Mary Prentice Smith) were part of the first class of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Irving, a village which lies partly in Tama County just four miles from Belle Plaine. John Smith died 15 October 1868 in Chelsea, IA just two miles from Belle Plaine. Martin Smith died on 3 December 1882 just five years after his mother, followed by his wife Barbara A. on 19 April 1890. Martin and Barbara are both buried in the “Odd Fellows” cemetery in Salt Creek, IA.
Sometime between the death of her husband John Smith in October of 1868 and the August 1870 Census, Mary Prentice Smith moved back to Will County, IL to live in the Plainfield home of her daughter Caroline and her husband Henry Aulsbrook with their three surviving children Charles E. (a traveling agent for the furniture maker) born about 1843-4, Edward (or Edmund) born about 1853 and Julius H. born about 1854/5. The Aulsbrook family had been living in Plainfield since before the 1860 Census. A younger child Jesse was not listed in the census taken thirteen years after his birth in 1857. Henry Aulsbrook was a cabinet maker born in England about 1810/11. By 1875, Aulsbrook moved his family the 250 miles from Plainfield, IL to Belle Plaine, IA, less than thirty miles away from the home of his brother-in-law Martin Smith, where Mary Prentice was living with her husband John. Henry Aulsbrook is listed among the Benton County businesses from the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875 as a furniture manufacturer operating in Belle Plaine. Henry was in business with Martin E. Ausbrook who subsequently became a successful furniture manufacturer in Sturgis, MI. Presumably, Mary Prentice Smith returned to Iowa with her son-in-law Henry Aulsbrook at the time of his move in 1875 and lived in Belle Plaine until her death a few years later on 28 August 1877. Henry Aulsbrook and Caroline his wife with son Julius are residing in Iowa Township, Benton County, IA at the time of the 1880 Census. Mary Prentice Smith’s obituary in the Winfield Courier of 6 September 1877 reads, “DIED. Mrs. Mary Smith, mother of Mrs. Millington, of this city, died at Belle Plaine, Iowa, on the 28th of August, at the advanced age of 84 years. Hers has been a very eventful life, in many scenes of which she has manifested heroic fortitude, as well as the more tender graces and virtues of womanhood, and she has ever enjoyed the love, respect, and admiration of all her acquaintances. She was an enthusiastic and consistent member of the M. E. church.” She and her husband are buried in Irving Cemetery, Benton County, IA.

Sybil Calkins, or Sibyl [Sibal in Chelsea Book 1, Page 29] was born 1 June 1796 in Chelsea, VT to forty-seven year old Frederick Calkins and his forty-one year old wife Annis Huntington Calkins. She was the ninth of ten children and the seventh of eight daughters. Sibyl joined the Congregational Church of Chelsea, the church of her parents, at age twenty-three on 5 September 1819. Twenty-nine year old Sybil was married to Robert R. Smith of Waterbury, VT on 30 March 1825 in Chelsea, VT by Calvin Noble, “Minister of the Gospel” of the Congregational Church of Chelsea [Chelsea Book 1, Page 223]. Twenty-five year old Robert R., born on 2 April 1800 in Vermont, was the son of Sarah Ann Smith (1763-3/15/1820). He is the younger brother of John Smith who married Sybil’s older sister Mary Prentice Calkins. Robert and Sybil Smith’s oldest daughter Minerva S. was born 6 July 1829 in Vermont. The 1830 Census indicates that Sybil and her husband Robert Smith had moved to Waterbury, VT sometime in the intervening five years. The census further indicates that a young male born between 1820 and 1825 was also living with them in addition to another woman born between 1800 and 1810. Sybil and Robert probably moved to be near her older sister of two years Mary Prentice who had in 1812 married John Smith, perhaps a New Hampshire born relative of Robert who also appears on the 1830 Census from Waterbury. Sybil, now Mrs. Smith, was officially dismissed from the Congregational Church of Chelsea to Waterbury in 1833.
Sometime between 1833 and 1840, Sybil and Robert R. Smith moved and settled near Hickory Creek, Frankfort Township, Will County, IL. They had a claim in what was then Indian Territory. They were apparently part of the “Vermont migration” to the Plainfield, IL area and other areas of the burgeoning West. The social and economic history of this period of national geographic and economic expansion and its consequential impact on the local Chelsea, VT community is well documented in “Those who Stayed Behind: Rural Society in Nineteenth-Century New England” by Hal S. Barron. According to the 1850 Census, Robert R. Smith was a farmer. According to family history, Sybil was a midwife or a practical nurse and is said to have delivered a lot of babies in that area. Their oldest daughter Minerva S. married John Bill, born 1808 in Vermont, and moved out of their household by 1850. According to the 1850 Census, Minerva had a son Henry H. born about 1842 when she was thirteen and a daughter Sarah E. born about 1847. Minerva and John Bill with six children ages 1 to 13 were living in Wheatland, IL according to the 1860 Census. Ten years later, the couple with seven children ages 1 to nineteen were still residing in Wheatland. Minerva died in Fitzgerald, GA on 11 October 1915 presumably at the home of one of her children, but was buried in Plainfield, IL. Sybil also bore a son Charles about 1836. Twins Phebe E., probably named for Sybil’s oldest sister, and Sarah Ann, named for Robert’s mother; were born in 1839 when Sybil was forty-three years old. The 1850 Census indicates all three children were born in Vermont, suggesting that Robert and Sybil moved to Will County, IL in 1839 or 1840, however, family history suggests 1835 as the year. Sybil is reputed to have born two sets of twins, however, research to date has not been conclusive. It is said the three younger children died young, however this also is not verified.
A descendant of Minerva Smith and John Bill remains in possession of an original photograph of Robert and Sybil in their later years taken in Belle Plaine, IA. This image probably was taken on a visit to Sybil’s nephew Martin Smith’s home at Salt Creek Township in Tama County, just “down the road” where her sister Mary Prentice Smith lived just prior to Robert R, Smith’s death on 7 October 1860 at 60 years old. Another relative of Minerva and John Bill indicates online that her aunt was in possession of the Bill Family Bible, as well as, additional photos of Robert R. and Sybil Smith. This material appears to have been passed down in the family through John and Minerva’s son Gillman Charles Bill. She adds “they were taken on glass had beautiful gold inlays and (are) in velvet cases to protect them from getting broken and the light. She allowed me to take them 25 years ago to have copies made of them, but no one seems to know what happen to the originals.” Sybil Calkins Smith died almost ten years after her husband on 19 September 1870. Both Sybil and Robert R. Smith are buried in Wheatland Cemetery in Naperville, IL where a corresponding descendant notes “the original gravestone is very worn. A second gravestone, lists the two as great-grandparents of William Weller.”

Chloe Calkins, or Cloe, was born 3 June 1800 in Chelsea, VT [Chelsea Book 1, Page 29] to fifty-one year old Frederick Calkins and his forty-five year old wife Annis Huntington Calkins. She was the youngest of ten children and the last of eight daughters. Chloe married Ebenezer Merrill, born in New Hampshire in 1790, likely late in 1821. Their oldest son Franklin Harmon was born 27 July 1822. Daughter Elmira Caroline was born 28 January 1824 and died 22 March 1851. Another son, Frederick Calkins Merrill born 2 September 1827, was named for his grandfather Frederick Calkins who had died twelve years before. Another daughter, Lucitta Adelia born 12 March 1830, appears to have died before the 1840 Census. Sometime between 1820 and 1830, Chloe’s new husband Ebenezer came to reside with her mother Annis, widow of Frederick Calkins, along with Chloe’s older sister Elizabeth in the Calkins homestead. Both Calkins women appear in the Merrill household in the 1830 and 1840 Census records. Chloe and Ebenezer joined the Congregational Church of Chelsea, the church of Chloe’s parents and older sister Sybil, on 4 September 1831. Daughter Issabel Allis was born 8 November 1834. Sons Martin Ebenezer born 30 June 1838, Charles Parker born 14 March 1840 and George Washington Merrill born 19 February 1845 complete the Merrill household. Only Charles and George are living at home by the time of the 1860 Census.
Ebenezer Merrill is listed as Head of Household for Annis Huntington Calkins, age 85, at Chelsea, VT in the 1840 Census of Pensioners. Annis died on 6 September 1847 in Chelsea at the age of 92. Chloe and Ebenezer Merrill moved shortly thereafter to Hanover, NH with their family and Choe’s older sister Elizabeth, sometime after the certification of their children in the Chelsea Town Records on 10 September 1849 [Book 2,Page 16]. Ebenezer is listed as a farmer and landowner in Grafton County, NH in the 1850 Census record dated 9 September 1850. Chloe and Ebenezer Merrill transferred church membership from the Congregational Church of Chelsea to Dartmouth College, NH on 4 March 1858. Both Chloe and Ebenezer appear to be living at the time of the 1870 Census. On 6 March 1853, son Frederick Caulkins Merrill married Almina Babbitt, born 11 February 1833 in Hanover, NH. They are living in Hanover, NH at the time of the 1860 Census with son Ransom born about 1850, daughter Emma born in 1857 and Frederick’s younger brother Martin.The family of six is living in Plainfield, Sullivan County, NH at the time of the 1870 Census along with cooper Carroll James born in NH about 1794. Frederick Calkins Merrill was last living in Enfield, Grafton County, NH in the 1880 census with his wife Almina and five children, Emma C. born 20 March 1857, Alger (or Algie) F. born 15 March 1861, Nellie W. born 1867, Ernest Herbert born about1869 and Ella G. born February 1872.