When war came to down east Maine in the spring of 1775, a rough frontiersman named Andrew Gilman joined the patriot cause. He served with distinction as an Indian interpreter, a courier, and as a lieutenant in command of a group of Penobscot Indians and local settlers in an American ranger force that protected the […]
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 […]
In early morning fog on April 15, 1775, just days before the momentous clash at Lexington and Concord, two innocent-looking vessels appeared off Cape Jellison in Penobscot Bay a few hundred yards from Fort Pownal (present-day Stockton Springs, Maine). The fort’s gunner, Jonathan Lowder, looked out upon the waters and saw two schooners. They turned out […]
