The strategic economic importance of Cape Henry, at the juncture between the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, was recognized early on in the American colonies with a recommendation that building a lighthouse at that location would be “of great Advantage to the Trade of this Bay.”[1] It took almost half of a century to […]
Thomas Read (1740-1788) of New Castle, Delaware, as we read in the first part of this series, began his seafaring career as a merchant captain, sailing for the Philadelphia firm of Willing and Morris in the ship Aurora, alongside his friend John Barry in Black Prince. After fighting had erupted around Boston, in May 1775 […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Louis Arthur Norton on what happened to captured Continental Navy, states’ navies, and privateer sailors and officers when captured by the British. Most were interred onboard prison hulks where many perished, but others attempted to escape. New episodes of Dispatches are available for […]
During the Revolutionary War, the British were particularly sensitive to challenges to their maritime sovereignty. Members of the Continental Navy, states’ navy sailors or letter of marque privateers, when taken prisoner, were usually interned onboard prison hulks moored in Wallabout Bay in New York harbor. Seamen captured far from North American shores were often incarcerated […]
One of the most colorful men to seek and earn an officer’s commission in the Continental Navy was Joshua Barney. He was a man with little formal education or military experience; a mariner who had natural gifts of seamanship, leadership, and courage. Barney took part in thirty-five Revolutionary War naval engagements and lost only five […]
Today, Jacob Jones’s portrait as a naval officer hangs in the assembly room of the Old State House in Dover, Delaware. It honors his victory in one of the first five naval battles of the War of 1812. That victory was the only one not won by a stronger American frigate; it was between the […]
Joshua Barney was born to sail the seas. Between 1771 and 1782, he served as an apprentice aboard a pilot boat; a second mate on the unarmed brig Sidney; a Master’s Mate on the ten-gun sloop Hornet; a first mate on the four-gun schooner Wasp; and a lieutenant aboard the ten-gun sloop Sachem, the fourteen-gun […]
