Mailing List:2007-01-18 01, Re: A Bold New England Rover, by Theresa Shirley
Mailing List Archives > 2007-01-18 01, Re: A Bold New England Rover, by Theresa Shirley
From: <emrldpth -at- earthlink.net> Subject: Re: [WHITNEY] A Bold New England Rover Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:53:35 -0800 In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> Thanks for that gem. My grandkids, being HornBlower fans, will love it. -----Original Message----- From: whitney-bounces -at- rootsweb.com -at- rootsweb.comOn Behalf Of whitney-request -at- rootsweb.com Sent: 01/16/2007 10:02 PM To: whitney -at- rootsweb.com Subject: WHITNEY Digest, Vol 2, Issue 10 Today's Topics: 1. Article in the London Times.. (GJones3747 -at- aol.com) 2. Samuel Austin Whitney - a Bold New England Rover (Farns10th -at- aol.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:13:04 EST From: GJones3747 -at- aol.com Subject: [WHITNEY] Article in the London Times.. To: WHITNEY-L -at- rootsweb.com Message-ID: <d13.45a1794.32de6fb0 -at- aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" _<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2539571.html">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2539571.html</a>_ (<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2539571.html">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2539571.html</a>) ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:41:11 EST From: Farns10th -at- aol.com Subject: [WHITNEY] Samuel Austin Whitney - a Bold New England Rover To: whitney -at- rootsweb.com Message-ID: <bde.de8aabe.32de7647 -at- aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Samuel Austin Whitney A Bold New England Rover by S. R. Dennen, D. D. p.1 Part 1. Source: Cornell Library Cornell Education Making of America. Few family names have been more conspicuous in our New England annals than that of Whitney. Few families have contributed more to the things that are beneficent and valuable in our midst. The characteristic push and courage of the Whtineys of earlier days have been trans- mitted to their descendants. Whenever you find anything significant among us in invention, in art, in music, in manufacture and enterprise, in politics or religion, you are very apt to find the name of Whitney on the father's side or on the mother's side. Few of this good New England name of Whitney have been more remarkable thant the adventurous man who is the subject of this brief sketch. Samuel Austin Whitney was born September 27, 1770 at Concord, Massachusetts, a town that has reared more great men and women than almost any place in all our borders. When five or six years of age his parents removed to Boston. Here he received as thorough an education as the Boston schools then afforded. At the age of twenty or twenty-one, the family emigrated to Castine in the province of Maine; and it was here that he entered upon his noted career of business. When a lade he was frail and developed a tendency to consumption, that scourge of New England. Several brothers had died of the same disease. Young Samuel Whitney was sent on a sea voyage in the hope of strengthening his constitution. While in a foreign port he was seized with the small-pox and lay for weeks at the point of death. He finally recovered and all physical weak- ness was gone and with it all tendency to pulmonary disease. No more robust and healthy man, to the end of his days, could be found. This voyage in quest of health roused in him a love of the sea and a sailor's life. The people of the province of Maine, moreover, were a ship-building and sea-faring people. What wonder, then, that the enterprising young man should turn to the sea as a means of getting on in the world? At this time, when young men looked forward to a home and family of their own, none of them to a life of single selfishness, he became interested in a beautiful young woman of his own village. A mutual attachment sprang up between them. Her taste, however, was not for the sea. She was a lands-woman. She refused to be married unless young Whitney would quit the sea. He was in a strait betwixt two - desiring to follow his sailor's life, but desiring still more, the companionship of the girl whom he loved. Like the toper who resolves to leave off his cups by taking a final glass, young Whitney deter- mined to make one more voyage. This should be the last. He would then quit the quarterdeck and leave the sea-breezes and excitement of the sailor's life behind him, marry and settle down as a sober business man and pater-familias. We find him, therefore, in the summer of 1796, at Plantation Number 2, in the district of Penobscot, some sixteen miles from Castine, busily at work building the ship, Hiram, a staunch vessel in which to sail his last voyage and make his farewell bow to Neptune. To be continued - Part 2 - p. 2. Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth A Bold New England Rover Samuel Austin Whitney by S. R. Dennen, D. D. Part 2. p.2 November of 1796 finds his vessel completed and loaded with a valuable cargo of ship-timber and oil of spruce. On the 7th of December she spread her sails and cleared for Liverpool. We may add here that at the age of twenty-six, Samuel A. Whitney was sole owner of the ship Hiram and her entire cargo. He both built and loaded the ship, and that at an age when most young men, Micawber like, are waiting for something to turn up. He was also an accomplished ship-master and sailed his own vessel. All went well and promised a profitable venture, when lo ! On the afternoon of January 4th, 1797, he was sighted and chased by the French privateer, La Vengeance. Night shut down before the ship Hiram was overtaken. But all through the darkness the privateer watched, ready to spring upon her prey as soon as daylight reddened the eastern horizon. Two shots were fired across her bows and she was ordered to lay to. Promptly the command was obeyed. A boat was sent to take off the young Captain and his papers. Once on board the privateer Whitney gave a frank answer to all questions and delivered up his papers. Under the pretense that his papers were not regular, his ship was seized together with his crew with the exception of the first and second mates were taken out, and a crew of fifteen Frenchmen, under a prize-master, put onboard and ordered to some port in France or Spain. Scarcely had the excitement of the capture quieted down, when four hours later, the ship Hiram was recaptured by an English man-of-war - the ship, Clyde, and brought into Portsmouth, England. After going through the High Court of Admiralty, and being ordered to pay the value of one-eigth of his ship and cargo, and give the court a grand dinner, to which he was not even invited, and innumerable annoyances and delays, Whitney sailed for Liverpool, where he disposed of his outward cargo and reloaded with a valuable assorted return freight - sailing for Savannah, Georgia, on August 2nd. For a time all went well, and visions of home cheered the hearts of all on board. On the 13th of Sept- ember, he was again sighted by a French sloop-of-war, pursued and captured. His crew, with the except- ion of Henry Whitney, his seventeen year old brother, one man, and a twelve year old boy, were taken off the Hiram and ten Frenchmen, under a prize captain, put on board and ordered to Cayenne. Capt. Samuel Whitney determined, after measuring the calibre of his captors, to retake his ship. Four days afterwards he put his resolve into execution. His own story, as related in a letter written from Martinique, November 18, 1800, to a gentleman in Boston, and published in the Mercury and New England Palladium on January 16, 1801: "I arrived here the 13th instant, after being twice taken and retaken, and one hundred and two days at sea..... To be continued Part 3 - p.3 Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth. Samuel Austin Whitney A Bold New England Rover by S. R. Dennen, D. D. p.3 Part 3. Source: Cornell Library Cornell Education Making of America. His own story, as related in a letter written from Martinique, November 18, 1800, to a gentleman in Boston, and published in the Mercury and New England Palladium on January 16, 1801: "I arrived here the 13th instant, after being twice taken and retaken, and one hundred and two days at sea. I left Liverpool the 2nd of August and on the 13th of September, being in longitude 55 and latitude 29, I was taken by a French sloop-of-war, and all my people taken out, except Harry, (aged seventeen years), one man, and a boy twelve years of age, an apprentice of mine; and manned with ten Frenchmen, and ordered to Cayenne. I, being determined on an attempt to retake my ship, on first discovering her to be French, loaded my pistols and hid them in a crate of ware, which had I not done I should have lost them, for no less than three different times were my trunks searched for them, as were the cabin and all parts of the ship which they could come at. They found my ammunition, but my pistols were secure; and such was their extreme caution that they would not allow any man to be off deck, but ate, drank and slept on deck. "Finding that I could not obtain any advantage of them by getting them below, I determined to attack them openly by daylight. Therefore, at about four o'clock, on the fourth day after being taken, I secured my pistols in my waistband, having previously told Harry and my man of my determination, and directed them to have a couple of handspikes where they could clasp their hands upon them in an instant, and when they saw me - begin to come to my assistance. The prize-master was now asleep on the weather hen-coop, his mate at the wheel. The master started up so quick that I could get but a very slight strike at him, upon which he drew his dirk upon me, but I closed in with him, sallied him out of the quarter-rail and threw him overboard. "But he caught by the main chains, and so escaped going into the water. By this time I had the remaining eight upon me, two of whom I knocked backwards over the quarter-deck, and Harry and my man coming aft at this time with handspikes, played their part so well among them that I soon got relieved. I then drew a pistol and shot in the head one fellow, who was coming at me with a broad-axe. The ball only cut him to the bone, and then glanced, but it had an excellent effect, by letting the rest know that I had pistols, of which they had no idea. By this time, the mate, whom I had first knocked down, had recovered, and ran down to his trunk and got a pistol, which he fired directly at my man's face, but the ball missed him. The prize- master, whom I hove over the quarter, got in again, and stabbed Harry in the side, but not so bad as to oblige him to give out till we had conquered. "In this situation we had it pell-mell for about a quarter of an hour, when we got them a-running, and followed them on, knocking down the hindmost, two or three times around the deck, when a part of them escaped below, and the rest begged for mercy, which we granted on their delivering up their weapons, which consisted of a discharged pistol, a midshipman's dirk, a broad-axe, and hand-saw, etc. We then marched them aft into the cabin and brought them up one at a time, after strictly searching them, and confined them down forward." To be continued - Part 4 - p.4 Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth Samuel Austin Whitney A Bold New England Rover by S. R. Dennen, D. D. p.4 Part 4 of 4 Parts. Source: Cornell Library Cornell Education Making of America. Ten days after this daring action the Hiram was again captured by a French privateer from Guadaloupe. The vessel was now plundered of all her cargo to the value of eight or ten thousand pounds sterling, a crew of fifteen Frenchmen put on board to take care of one Yankee captain and a little boy and ordered into Gaudaloupe. But the Frenchmen were ignoramuses, knowing nothing about sailing the vessel. After floundering about for many days and nearly wrecking the Hiram, they were forced to call on Captain Whitney to take the wheel. This he did, meaning to bring her into Savannah. In this he failed, and steered for Port Royal, Martinique, then in possession of the English. When off the harbor, on the 11th of November, he was captured, as he meant to be, by an English man-of-war, under Rear-Admiral Duckworth, and brought into port. A second time he went through the prize court, paid his condemnation, costs of the court, and salvage. A few weeks later he sailed for Savannah, with a large fleet of merchant vessels, under convoy of an English man-of-war. He abandoned or sold the Hiram for a mere trifle and returned overland to Castine. This ended his sea-life. This eventful voyage consumed more than a year of time and entailed a loss of many thousands of dollars. This is the subject of one of the French spoliation suits now before the Court of Claims. Shall we glance a moment at this plucky seaman's subsequent fortunes? Nothing daunted, he entered at once into active business. He married and began a most energetic new career. The same indomitable will and push that marked him as a sailor, remained with him on the land. He crossed Penobscot Bay and located at the mouth of Duck Trap River and began the town of Lincolnville, Maine. The river was bridged, a dam built, a saw-mill, grist-mill, carding-mill and shipyard all put in successful operation. Here he built a large number of vessels. His fortune, however, was a chequered one. The river on whose banks he cast his lot, was a fickle and treacherous one. It drained a large and steep watershed and was subject to sudden and fierce overflows. He went to bed at night with all snug and safe, only to wake in the morning and find bridge, mills, dam, shipyard - all swept away, and thousands of logs floating in the bay. He was not even bent by the storm. Noontime found him courageously at work repairing his shattered fortunes; bridge, dam, mills, and shipyard sprang back to life as if by magic. This same disaster befell him again and again; with each recurrence he quickly rallied and rebuilt what the flood had destroyed. He built the village of Lincolnville and owned nearly every house in that place. He was not only a remarkable business man, his character was remarkable. Richly endowed with every noble and generous trait, his influence was felt far and wide. His touch put life into individuals and into enterprises. His enthusiasm and hopefulness were inspiring at a time when these were needed on the rough frontier of the Province of Maine. As a generous landlord and employer, he was beloved by the whole community, most of whom were his employees. As a benevolent man his hand was open to all calls for aid. As a citizen he was active and wise in all public affairs. He was especially so in the transition period when the Province of Maine took on inde- pendent Statehood, and cut loose from Massachusetts. He gave time and money without stint to the new State, and entered enthusiastically into all that concerned the public weal. His intense activity and nervous strain told on him at length, and mind and body wasted slowly away. His life, little known indeed in the broader fields of history, was a strong, typical New England life. His sons, also, were among the most honored and enterprising in the land. Samuel Whitney and John P. Whitney were to New Orleans what Amos and Abbott Lawrence were to Boston. When John P. Whitney died, the flags on the public buildings and shipping in Liverpool and London were placed at half-mast, an honor accorded to few Americans. Such men as Samuel Austin Whitney are to be remembered and their names are to be cherished. From such services it is that New England and, indeed, the whole nation, derive their courage, their ingenuity, their enterprise, their public spirit and their honor. End. Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth ------------------------------ To contact the WHITNEY list administrator, send an email to WHITNEY-admin -at- rootsweb.com. To post a message to the WHITNEY mailing list, send an email to WHITNEY -at- rootsweb.com. __________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to WHITNEY-request -at- rootsweb.com with the word "unsubscribe" without the quotes in the subject and the body of the email with no additional text. End of WHITNEY Digest, Vol 2, Issue 10 **************************************
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