The Sad Account of Francis and Mary Archibald on the Maine Frontier

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January 24, 2018
by Charles H. Lagerbom Also by this Author

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In the years prior to the American Revolution, plenty of opportunities awaited young Massachusetts men on the down east frontier, especially for those who needed to get out of Boston. This may have been the case for twenty-year-old Francis Archibald III. In 1770, he decided to leave Boston and take up service as a soldier at Fort Pownal, present-day Stockton Springs, at Cape Jellison on the Penobscot River in Maine. But not before he had participated that March in an altercation that widely became known as the Boston Massacre, a confrontation with British troops during which he had broken a soldier’s wrist.

Francis Archibald III was born in Boston on October 19, 1750. His father, sometimes referred to as Francis Jr. in documents, appears not to have been very successful as a Boston merchant, as judged by numerous Suffolk County court cases where he appeared as defendant. Young Francis may have welcomed the opportunity for a fresh start in down east Maine, especially after his involvement in the “massacre.” On March 5, 1770, British soldiers fired into an angry Boston crowd, just a block from Archibald’s house. The shootings were a culmination of events that had been brewing for some time. Francis and several other young men and boys had become part of a crowd which formed at Dock Square that afternoon and early evening. Many Bostonians had long resented the presence of British troops in the city and this cold March day saw tempers boil over, results of which that night included dead and dying men in the street.[1]

Francis Archibald. (Author)

Archibald said he saw about ten minutes after nine a soldier and another mean-looking fellow with a cutlass in his hand. Someone told the fellow to put away his cutlass, it was not right to carry it at that time of night. The man advanced on them and said “damn you, ye Yankee boogers, what’s your business?” The man with the cutlass then struck one of Archibald’s companions. A scuffle immediately ensued and Archibald testified they beat the man back, which was when seven or eight soldiers came out of the barracks, armed with tongs and other weapons. One soldier aimed a blow at John Hicks, who stood near Archibald, but Hicks countered the blow and knocked the soldier down. As he tried to get to his feet, Archibald struck the soldier down again, later learning he had broken the man’s wrist. He then went to King street, and when the guns were fired, saw several persons dead.[2]

By the end of the year, Archibald may have felt the need to leave Boston. Col. Thomas Goldthwait had long been recruiting Boston locals to come serve as soldiers at Fort Pownal in down east Maine. Goldthwait had been provincial secretary of war for Massachusetts Gov. Francis Bernard. In 1763, he was appointed commander of Fort Pownal and arrived at the fort in early 1764 to find the garrison numbered only forty men. Even those numbers were soon reduced. By 1770, there were only twenty-six men stationed there. Goldthwait constantly recruited suitable young men for service and one of them was Francis Archibald. By December 1770, the young man was in Maine.[3]

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Archibald’s penmanship and accounting abilities were excellent at a time when many young soldiers lacked those skills, so he was soon put to work keeping records for Goldthwait, often acting as his secretary. In some legal proceedings in 1772, Archibald’s occupation is listed as a scribe or clerk. Duties included maintaining a ledger of purchases made at the fort store. These records are the Waste (or Wast) Book. Entries involved money earned by odd jobs such as cutting wood, weaving and repairing fish nets, or filling out shipping manifests and other papers. Store transactions tended to be many and varied. Charges were meticulously kept in pounds, shillings and pence on the right-hand side of the page. Separate charges were noted by their separate dates. Repeat customers were assigned a number. When he experienced credit problems with a customer, Archibald usually limited that person to transactions on just cash basis. Customers in serious arrears had trade privileges terminated.[4]

Archibald bought items for himself, but also things such as a snuff bottle, new pairs of shoes, a coat, moccasins, and a jacket for two personal servants Huldah and Azor, who lived in his household and who may have been slaves. Huldah apparently was a regular user of snuff. They had likely been part of Goldthwait’s household, until Archibald’s marriage to Goldthwait’s daughter Mary and may have been part of her dowry. There is no record of when Francis and Mary wed; as Justice of the Peace her father no doubt performed the ceremony. Mary Goldthwait Archibald, born in Massachusetts on March 1, 1753, was in her early twenties when she became Archibald’s wife.[5]

Goldthwait’s wife and children lived with him at the fort, including the Archibalds. Mary Archibald earned extra income by making deliveries for her storekeeper husband. When Jonathan Lowder and Jedidiah Preble Jr., joined in a fish weir partnership on March 18, 1773, Francis Archibald attested to the agreement while Goldthwait’s eighteen year-old daughter Jane was second witness.[6]

War arrived at Fort Pownal in April 1775, when the British sent two ships to disarm the garrison and take the armaments back to Boston. Gen. Thomas Gage, commander of all British forces in North America, wrote a letter to Goldthwait ordering him to allow Royal Navy forces to remove the fort’s heavy guns. On April 9, 1775, five days before fighting at Lexington and Concord, the armed 120-ton six gun topsail schooner Diana with thirty men sailed from Boston to Cape Jellison in Penobscot Bay. She was accompanied by the schooner Neptune with a contingent of soldiers from the 64th Regiment. In command was no-nonsense naval officer Lt. Thomas Graves, nephew to Vice Admiral Samuel Graves, commander of British naval forces in North America. Archibald and his wife were witnesses to the event.[7]

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Even after being disarmed, the fort’s store continued to operate. On May 15, 1775, by order of Capt. John Lane and dutifully recorded by Archibald, local Indian interpreter Andrew Gilman was provided with a coat, jacket, breeches and a handkerchief. This may have been to make Gilman more presentable when he traveled to Boston with local Penobscot Indian chiefs.[8]

Fort Pownal’s troubles were not over. Col. James Cargill of Newcastle with a force of men arrived at Belfast on July 24, 1775 in pursuit of some British marauders. He sent part of his regiment forward to Fort Pownal, where they assisted Goldthwait in removing his belongings from the fort into the nearby chapel. Another source states their actions were more in line with “capturing” the fort commander. Goldthwait was ordered out in the night, his portrait mutilated and himself threatened with violence. Cargill recorded nothing about Goldthwait’s treatment but it was most likely not very polite. Goldthwait also never wrote of his treatment, so one is left to wonder. Francis Archibald and wife Mary were also turned out from their accommodations. Cargill’s men ransacked the fort and then burned the blockhouse, “reducing it to ashes,” ostensibly to keep it from being occupied or used by the British. Even after the destruction, Archibald continued to take and record store transactions. The following month, local Jonathan Buck was placed in charge of what was left of the post. Goldthwait, Archibald and their families lived quietly near the ruins.[9]

For men of the fort, their service officially ended, although Francis Archibald continued to record store transactions for two more years. Four years later, war returned to the Penobscot region. In June 1779, British naval forces from Halifax arrived and landed an army under command of Brig. Gen. Francis McLean on the Castine peninsula across the river from the ruins of Fort Pownal. A fortification was soon built, named Fort George, in honor of the British king.[10]

The site of Fort Pownal today. (Author)

For Thomas Goldthwait, the British arrival and occupation disrupted the quiet he had lived under since Fort Pownal’s demise in 1775. For four years, the Goldthwaits including Archibald lived quietly in the chapel remains. All that changed when a British ship arrived off Cape Jellison in July 1779, part of MacLean’s invasion force. Goldthwait and his family, including Archibald and Mary, were removed to Castine; whether by choice or not is not clear. One source states they had been harassed by locals, so at first opportunity sought British protection at Fort George. Another suggests the British took it upon themselves to remove the Goldthwaits and take them to Castine. At first, Archibald and Mary, along with the Goldthwaits, were quartered aboard one of three ships, most likely the Albany. When on July 25, 1779, Massachusetts naval forces arrived to attack Fort George, the family was moved to a house and barn far from shore, which became a military hospital. It also became a social center for many who tended to congregate there in the evenings. Once the fighting began, Goldthwait’s wife and daughters, including Archibald’s wife Mary, helped administer first aid to wounded British troops.[11]

After the Massachusetts fleet was routed and destroyed, Francis Archibald and wife Mary remained in Castine, mostly likely since the departing Massachusetts forces had set fire to their buildings at Fort Pownal. Thomas Goldthwait soon left for New York and then England, possibly to pursue restitution for his lost properties in Maine. Once there, he made deposition stating that his lands in Frankfort Township, about 25,000 total acres, had been seized by rebels and his buildings and mills destroyed. He received £100 as a pension until January 1781. While he claimed nearly £6400 in property losses, Parliament allowed him only £1820 mostly for his services, less than a third of his loss.[12]

Naval Capt. Henry Mowatt (infamous for his burning of Falmouth, Maine early in the war) and Fort George’s later commander Col. John Campbell described Goldthwait’s losses in more detail. Their deposition dated April 21, 1781 stated:

In the year 1779, upon the landing of the Kings Troops in Penobscot Bay, their whole stock of Horned Cattle forty in number with Horses, Sheep, Hogg, &c and Farming utensils, the Crop then growing were all carried off and destroyed. – Soon after this himself & family were driven from their Possessions, and obliged to take shelter on board of Vessells & in the Hospital, whereby they underwent great hardships particularly during the Siege. The rebels, the day of their defeat, sat fire to their dwelling houses, Stables, barnes, Windmill, Wharfs, Fences which entirely consumed them.[13]

After his departure, the Goldthwait family remained in Castine, including Archibald and Mary. Goldthwait’s wife eventually joined her husband in retirement at Walthamstow, Essex, a few miles north of London. Their daughter Jane also went there, as did Thomas Goldthwait Jr. and most of their other children. Thomas Goldthwait Sr. died “rather suddenly” at Walthamstow on August 31, 1799 at age eighty-two. His wife Catherine had died on December 16, three years earlier at age eighty-one. Both are buried in the Walthamstow churchyard, alongside daughter Jane. As late as 1806, his estate tried to collect debts owed him on his Maine lands, especially from Thomas Flucker’s estate, part of the Waldo Patent.[14]

Francis Archibald became clerk of works as part of the engineers and kept Fort George construction records, much like he had done for store records at Fort Pownal. One source states soon after his arrival in Castine, he took the British oath of allegiance. Throughout the remainder of the war, he assisted fort engineer Capt. Thomas Hartcup. One source notes he was convinced Britain was going to retain the Penobscot region after the war, so he bought and planned to settle 100 acres on Orphan Island, present-day Verona Island.[15]

Loyalist evacuations to Nova Scotia began in January 1784, hastened by the official creation of New Brunswick on June 18 that same year. Archibald and Mary decided to stay in the Penobscot area; one source states his property was plundered due to his Loyalist leanings, perhaps his holdings on Verona Island. It is not clear why he chose to remain in the Castine area or even where they ended up living. It is possible at this time they returned to Stockton Springs, near the ruins of Fort Pownal. An Archibald family genealogy source notes he was a Tory and went to England to live, but that was not the case. Francis Archibald III died just short of his thirty-fifth birthday. On October 8, 1785 (another source states December 29), he suffered an injury to his foot with a misguided swing of his hatchet and quickly bled to death. The fatal accident occurred shortly before the birth of their daughter Catherine. She seems to have been their only child, although another source states they had two children; perhaps one had died earlier in infancy. It is also not clear where Archibald was buried, as there is no grave marker for him in the Castine or Stockton Springs cemeteries.[16]

Thomas Goldthwait learned of Archibald’s death from a letter received in 1785 from his former Fort Pownal gunner Jonathan Lowder. With his daughter now a widow, Goldthwait signed two deeds in May 1786 which conveyed to her certain real estate located in Stockton Springs. One was a deed to Beaver Brook Meadow about one hundred acres of cleared land. The other was to a grist mill and saw mill near Sandy Point.[17] The letter from Lowder also convinced her brother Thomas Goldthwait Jr., also then living in Walthamstow, to convey to Mary lot No. 8 of fifty acres he had purchased from Stephen Littlefield in 1773.[18]

The tragedy of losing her husband and birth of her daughter may have been too much for Mary and she was soon declared insane. By this time, there were no more Goldthwaits in the area and her father’s lands had been confiscated in 1784. Her sister lived in Boston, the closest location for any relative. Why she and the new child were not taken there is lso not clear; perhaps Archibald’s Loyalist leanings made that impractical. Local ordinances stated the birthright of any citizen born in town was the responsibility of that town for maintenance of paupers and infirm. What arose was a practice known as the selling of paupers at auction for the least sum per week. This may have been the case with Mary Archibald. By 1790, she and her five year old child lived on the lot Mary had received from her brother. Also in that residence was war veteran and trader William Farley, who apparently managed her affairs. One or both of the family servants Huldah or Azor may have still lived to help take care of the widow and child. It is not clear where Farley was from or how he ended up being Mary’s caretaker, who by this time was known as Miss Polly or sometimes Miss Farley.[19]

By 1800, fifteen year-old Catherine moved to Boston where she was adopted by her childless aunt Catherine Goldthwait Gardiner Powell. She legally changed her name to Catherine Goldthwait Powell and in 1804 married Stephen Caldwell and moved to Gardiner, Maine. Mary continued to reside with William Farley. That all changed by the 1810 US Federal Census. By then, Farley had either died or moved on, and Mary was in the care of another war veteran, Joseph Plumb Martin. After the war, Martin had followed the rumors of free land in Maine. He soon ran afoul of Gen. Henry Knox, one of George Washington’s war-time advisors. Knox sought control of the Waldo Patent, land which Martin and many others had cleared for farming. Knox claimed ownership through his wife Lucy Knox, grand-daughter of original proprietor Samuel Waldo. It is not clear if Martin joined the resistance to Knox, but by the early 1800s, Martin had to pay $100 to secure rights to the land he had cleared, which he was unable to do. Perhaps to make ends meet, he agreed to house Mary Archibald.[20]

In February 1808, Mary’s daughter Catherine gave up any claim to her mother’s Stockton Springs lot No. 8 for $5 paid by Martin, who may have lived on the lot for a time. It is not clear whether Catherine was in contact or ever visited her mother again. For the next decade or so, Martin and his family took care of Mary, even as his financial situation worsened. By 1811, he lived on only fifty-six acres of land, it is not clear if that included Mary’s Lot #8. In 1818, he applied for a veteran’s pension, saying he owned no real estate and faced bleak financial prospects. One source says Mary Goldthwait Archibald died at some point between 1810 and 1820, although her burial marker records the year of her death as 1825. Her grave marker is not even stone, but simple metal embossed strips affixed to pipes. There is little doubt the original marker was simple, wooden and low cost. Her marker sits off by itself in the back row at the edge of Mount Prospect Cemetery in Stockton Springs.[21]

The grave marker of Mary Goldthwait Archibald. (Author)

One of Mary’s prized possessions was the old ledger book from the Fort Pownal store her husband Francis Archibald had dutifully kept forty years earlier. The Wast Book remained with her for years until it ended up in the possession of Martin. It eventually became property of Faustina Hichborn, who wrote of its existence in her local history of Stockton Springs. Mary Goldthwait Archibald also apparently told Martin about the layout of Fort Pownal. In 1828, the aged war veteran is credited with writing out detailed descriptions of the old fort, whose operation he had never seen.[22]

 


[1]Francis Archibald,” Suffolk County Court of Common Pleas – Index to Cases (1756-1776), Court, Land and Probate Records; Mellen Chamberlain, A Documentary History of Chelsea: 1624-1824 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1908), 604; and Frederic Kidder, History of the Boston Massacre March 5, 1770 (Albany: J. Munsell, 1870), 11.

[2] Kidder, History of the Boston Massacre, 11, 134-135; and, Hiller B. Zobel, The Boston Massacre (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 253, 272.

[3] Robert Carver Brooks, “Martha, the Wife of Zetham French (1745-1830) of Sandy Point Maine” Maine Genealogist (August 2005), 102, 104; Robert G. Carter, Record of the military service of First Lieutenant and Brevet Captain Robert Goldthwaite Carter, U.S. Army, 1862-1876 (Washington, DC: Gibson Bros., 1904), 5-6; James H. Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution (Boston: W. B. Clarke, 1907), 355; Chamberlain, History of Chelsea, 603, 608, 609; “Letter to Governor Bernard from Capt. Thomas Goldthwaite – 26 March 1764” Massachusetts Archives v33, 289; and Sandra Gordon Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall: Military Outpost on the Maine Coast 1759-1775, MA Thesis, University of Maine (1984), 55-56, 66, 72.

[4] “Francis Archibald Jr.” Suffolk County Court of Common Pleas – Index to Cases (1756-1776), 233; Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall, 71, 123, 182; Brooks, “Martha, the Wife of Zetham French,” 103; Fort Pownall Wast Book 1772-1777: A Day or Waste Book Kept by Sergeant Francis Archibald Jr. (1750-1785), Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME; and “Entries in a Wast Book at Fort Pownal Maine 1772-1777,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, v90 (1936), 85-88.

[5] Fort Pownall Wast Book 1772-1777, 19 (26); and “Entries in a Wast Book.”

[6] “Land Indenture Agreement, Jedidiah Preble Jr. and Thomas Goldthwait – 18 March 1773” #GLC02437.00042 Gilder Lehrman Collection; Henry Knox, The Papers of Henry Knox v1 (Boston, 1960), 36; “Jedidiah Preble Jr.” Maine Historical Magazine v8 (1893), 90; “Thomas Goldthwaite” New Englanders in Nova Scotia (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1939), 481; George Henry Preble, Genealogical Sketch of the First Three Generations of Prebles in America (Boston: David Clapp & son, 1868), 130-133; Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall, 124, 175, 189 note 8; Alice V. Elllis, The Story of Stockton Springs (Stockton Springs, ME: The Historical Committee of Stcktn Springs, 1955); Fort Pownall Wast Book, 19 (26); and Daniel J. Tortora, Fort Halifax: Winslow’s Historic Outpost (Mt. Pleasant, SC: The History Press, 2014), 35-36.

[7] William D. Williamson, The History of the State of Maine (Hallowell, ME: Glazier Masters & co., 1839), 418; Henry Mowat, “A Relation of the Services in Which Capt Henry Mowat was engaged in America from 1759 to the end of the American War in 1783” Journal of History (1910), 334-343; Thomas Gage to Thomas Golthwaite, April 8, 1775 and Gage to Samuel Graves, April 8, 1775, in Naval Documents of the American Revolution v1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1964), 172-173, 173; Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall, 74, 76; “Deposition, June 28, 1777” Audit Office 13/73, Folio 590, British National Archives; “Col. Thomas Goldthwaite – Was he a Tory?” Maine Historical Society v2, (1896); 363; Harry Gratwick, Captain Henry Mowatt: The Maritime Marauder of Revolutionary Maine (Mt. Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2015), 50-59; and Patricia M. Hubert, Major Philip M. Ulmer: A Hero of the American Revolution (Mt. Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2014), 463, 471-472.

[8] Williamson, The History of the State of Maine, 426; Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of Bangor – September 30, 1869 (B. A. Burr, 1869), 38-39; Fort Pownall Wast Book, 71; John E. Godfrey, “The Ancient Penobscot or Panawanskek” (Portand, ME: Maine Historical Society, 1872), 7; John E. Godfrey, History of Penobscot County, Maine: The Annals of Bangor 1769-1882 (Cleveland: Williams, Chase, 1882), 520; and “Soldiers of the American Revolution: Maine Indians in the Revolution” Sprague’s Journal of Maine History v1 (1918), 107, 108.

[9] Williamson, The History of the State of Maine, 426, 429; Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall, 78, 79; George Wharton Rice, The Shipping Days of Old Boothbay from the Revolution to the World War, with Mention of Adjacent Towns ( Boothbay Harbor, ME, 1938), 401; Robert C. Brooks, “More on Fort Pownall” Letter to the Editor, The Republican Journal (September 4, 1974), “Thomas Goldthwait – Was He a Tory?,” 49-50; and Wilbur H. Siebert, The Exodus of the Loyalists from Penobscot to Passamaquoddy (Columbus: Ohio State University 1914), 7.

[10] Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall, 78-79; The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay v19, 53; “Castine in 1774” Maine Historical Magazine v7, 26; Henry I. Shaw Jr., “Penobscot Assault 1779” Military Affairs v17, No 2 (Summer 1953), 85; Jon Nielson, “Penobscot: From the Jaws of Victory” American Neptune (October 1977), 293; John Calef, The Siege of Penobscot (London: G. Kearsley, 1781), 2, 3; Louis Arthur Norton, “The Penobscot Expedition: A Tale of Two Indicted Patriots” The Northern Mariner v16 (2006), 1; Russell Bourne, “The Penobscot Fiasco” American Heritage (1974), 29; A “Supplement” to the Nova Scotia Gazette and the Weekly Chronicle (Tuesday July 6, 1779); Robert C. Brooks, “The Artificers and Inhabitants Who Built Fort George, Penobscot 1779-1780” Maine Genealogist (May 2004), 53; and Siebert, The Exodus of the Loyalists, 10-11.

[11] “Agreement between Benjamin Wheeler and Thomas Goldthwait – 30 November 1772” #GLC02437.09074 Gilder Lehrman Collection; George E. Buker, The Penobscot Expedition: Commodore Saltonstall and the Massachusetts Conspiracy of 1779 (Rockport, ME: Down East Books, 2002), footnote 34, 169; Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall, 65-66, 79; Lincoln County Deeds v20; William D. Patterson, “Some Transactions of Colonel Thomas Goldthwait at Fort Pownall, 1764 to 1786” Maine Historical Magazine v9, 28; Joseph Williamson, “Thomas Goldthwait” Bangor Historical Magazine v2 (1886), 87-89; “Col. Thomas Goldthwaite – Was He a Tory?,” 48; New London Gazette (July 1779); Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, 354-358; Samuel Francis Batchelder, The Life and Surprising Adventures of John Nutting, Cambridge Loyalist, and His Strange Connection with the Penobscot Expedition of 1779 (Cambridge, MA, 1912), 82 note 5; William Hutchings’ Narrative of the siege and other reminiscences in George A. Wheeler, History of Castine, Penobscot and Brooksville, Maine (Bangor: Burr & Robinson, 1875); Charles Bracelen Flood, Rise, and Fight Again: Perilous Times Along the Road to Independence (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976), 169-170, 198; E. Alfred Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts: Their Memorials, Petitions and Claims (London: Saint Catherine Press, 1930), 147-148; Chamberlain, History of Chelsea, 604-605; Siebert, The Exodus of the Loyalists, 7; and Anette Ruppel Rodrigues, “1779-1783: Looking at Fort George Through Royal Eyes,” Castine Historical Society (2017), 9.

[12] Buker, The Penobscot Expedition, footnote 34, 169; Williamson, “Thomas Goldthwait”, 87-89; “Col. Thomas Goldthwaite – Was he a Tory?,” 48; Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, 354-358; Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall, 79, 80; Batchelder, The Life and Surprising Adventures of John Nutting, 82 note 5; Chamberlain, History of Chelsea, 604-605; Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, 8-9; “Thomas Goldthwaite,” New Englanders in Nova Scotia, 481; Siebert, The Exodus of the Loyalists, 7-8, 13-14; Report on the American Manuscripts in the Royal Institute of Great Britain, II (1904), 15, 16; Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Series II, v1 (1896), 391, 392; William Hutchings’ Narrative; “Deposition,” Audit Office 12/105, Folio 11, and Audit Office 12/109, Folio 59, 148-149, British National Archives.

[13] “Deposition,” March 4, 1780, Audit Office 13/73, Folio 592-593; and Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall, 80.

[14] Buker, The Penobscot Expedition, footnote 34, 169; Williamson, “Thomas Goldthwait,” 87-89; “Col. Thomas Goldthwaite – Was he a Tory?,” 48; Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, 354-358; Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall, 79; Batchelder, The Life and Surprising Adventures of John Nutting, 82 note 5; William Hutchings’ Narrative; Chamberlain, History of Chelsea, 604, 605; Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, 8-9; “Thomas Goldthwaite” New Englanders in Nova Scotia, 481; Siebert, The Exodus of the Loyalists, 7-8, 13-14; Report on the American Manuscripts, 15, 16; Collections of the Maine Historical Society, 391, 392; “Power of Attorney Thomas Goldthwaite – 12 August 1806” #GLC02437.05198 Gilder Lehrman Collection; and Charlotte Goldthwait, Goldthwaite Genealogy (Hartford: Hartford Press, 1899), 95, 96, 97.

[15] Robert Carver Brooks, “Joseph Plumb Martin, Soldier-Author” Journal of the American Revolution (September 2015); David E. Maas, Divided Hearts: Massachusetts Loyalists 1765-1790 (1980), 4; Brooks, “The Artificers and Inhabitants,” 51, 54, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63; and Robert Carver Brooks, “Refugees, Deserters, Prisoners on HMS Albany During the Siege at Penobscot July-August 1779” Maine Genealogist (November 2006), 174.

[16] Alice V. Ellis, The Story of Stockton Springs, Maine (Belfast, ME: The Historical Committee of Stockton Springs, 1955), 10; Faustina Hichborn, Historical Sketch of Stockton Springs (Waterville, ME: Press of Central Maine Publishing Co., 1908) 4; Brooks, “Joseph Plumb Martin”; Maas, Divided Hearts, 4; Brooks, “The Artificers and Inhabitants,” 51, 54, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62,63; Brooks, “Refugees, Deserters, Prisoners,” 174; “Castine and Penobscot Names, etc” Bangor Historical Magazine v1 (1885), 57; and Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, 19.

[17] “Some Transactions of Thomas Goldthwait,” Maine Historical Magazine v9 (1895), 27-28.

[18] Williamson, “Thomas Goldthwait,” 87-89; “Col. Thomas Goldthwaite – Was he a Tory?,” 48; Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, 354-358; Olson, The Archaeology of Fort Pownall, 79; Batchelder, The Life and Surprising Adventures of John Nutting, 82 note 5; William Hutchings’ Narrative; Chamberlain, History of Chelsea, 604, 605; Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, 8-9; “Thomas Goldthwaite,” New Englanders in Nova Scotia, 481; Siebert, The Exodus of the Loyalists, 7-8, 13-14; Report on the American Manuscripts, 15, 16; Collections of the Maine Historical Society, 391, 392; “Power of Attorney Thomas Goldthwaite – 12 August 1806”; and Goldthwait, Goldthwaite Genealogy, 95, 96, 97.

[19] 1790 US Federal Census; and Brooks, “Joseph Plumb Martin.”

[20] “Revolutionary War soldier settled in Maine, decried military treatment of veterans,” Bangor Daily News (July 4, 2012); 1810 US Federal Census; and James Kirby Martin (editor), Ordinary Courage: The Revolutionary War Adventures of Joseph Plumb Martin (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), xi-xiii.

[21] “Revolutionary War soldier settled in Maine, decried military treatment of veterans;” Brooks, “Joseph Plumb Martin;” “Some Transactions of Thomas Goldthwait,” 27-28; Maas, Divided Hearts, 36; American Migrations 1765-1799, 72; 1800 US Federal Census; and Ellis, The Story of Stockton Springs, Maine, 10.

[22] Hichborn, Historical Sketch of Stockton Springs, 4; and Ellis, The Story of Stockton Springs, Maine, 5.

2 Comments

  • I love how you pulled this all together, given they are my direct ancestors, but I have to correct you, it’s Archbald, no “i” in that name.

    FYI, Francis Archbald is buried in the Granary Cemetery in Boston.

    Daughter Catharine actually eloped with Stephen Caldwell, he was a valet in the Powell household.

  • A couple of comments about a wonderful article about my family containing information that I have never seen before. First comment is that to the best of my knowledge the family has never had slaves. The two individuals mentioned as possible slaves are Azor, aged 7, my 3rd great grandfather and Huldah, his sister aged 9. Both are buried in the Archbald tomb at the Granary in Boston. I have visited the tomb several times. The stone was replaced in 1900 by a coalition of relatives led by my father. I agree about the reason that Francis went to Maine (then part of MA) but cannot guess why his two younger siblings accompanied him. Azor Gale Archbald married Lucretia May and was included in the May Family Genealogy. I am not sure if Huldah married.

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