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Fort William and Mary

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Fort William and Mary

Built in the early 18th century, in honor of King William and Queen Mary, overlooking Portsmouth Harbor, in the town of New Castle, Province of the New Hampshire Plantations. It was built on top of an earlier earthworks fort constructed in 1632, and a timber blockhouse constructed in 1666 at the same location.

By the time William and Mary came to the throne of England, a strong rivalry with France had developed and stronger defenses were required. Cannon and military stores were sent from England in 1692 and a breastwork was constructed to protect them. This fort was named Fort William and Mary and took its place in the line of so-called castles along the coastal area of the colonies. Although additional guns were sent and repairs were made to the fort from time to time during the French and Indian Wars, the breastwork remained essentially the same until the time of the Revolution. Each breastwork was a rampart of turf three feet high on which batteries of guns were clamped to wooden platforms protected by a stone wall about seven feet high. The stone walls had window-like openings called embrasures through which the guns were fired.

New Hampshire had only become an independent colony from Massachusetts recently, and still fell under the occasional attacks from Ossipee, Mascoma, and other regional tribes of the Algonquin until the last of the Indian Wars in 1765, as well as depredations of Pirates of various sorts, including Blackbeard, who had buried a treasure and left a wife a few miles offshore in the Isles of Shoals.

Before the Raid

Few events in the history of New Hampshire have excited more interest or caused more controversy than the successful attack upon Fort William and Mary. Too much has been written that is not history, and many statements concerning these events are generally accepted as facts which have had their rise in the fertile imagination of some writer. Many articles have appeared in the public press, but only a few really scholarly attempts have been made to determine the actual facts.1

Throughout the year 1774 the people of Portsmouth and vicinity shared in full measure the unrest that was felt throughout the whole country. Much sympathy was expressed for the people of Boston, and the populace were beginning to show signs of resisting the odious domination of the British ministry. The assembly had shown a disposition to refuse to vote the necessary supplies and men for Fort William and Mary. In May a message was sent from the committee at Portsmouth to the committee at Boston, promising assistance in anything agreed upon by the colonies.2 On June 8th, Governor Wentworth dissolved the assembly which he had from time to time adjourned to prevent action toward the appointment of delegates to a provincial congress.3 On July 4, twenty-seven chests of tea had been quietly brought into Portsmouth. A town-meeting was immediately called, the consignee was forced to export the tea, and the vessel carrying it was kept under guard, until it finally sailed for Halifax.4 On July 6, Governor Wentworth ordered the sheriff to direct the committee of correspondence, who had met to choose delegates for a general American congress, to disperse and keep the king's peace. This they did, but only to meet privately later in a tavern where they chose delegates to assemble in Exeter.5 On August 29, Governor Wentworth wrote the Earl of Dartmouth that the assembly had met in Exeter, and adds "I think this Province is much more moderate than any other to the southward, although the spirit of enthusiasm is spread and requires the utmost vigilance and prudence to restrain it from violent excess."6 Again later, Governor Wentworth reported the arrival of a second consignment of tea with results similar to the first. On November 15 he reported continued discontent throughout the province, and fears that disturbances will continue unless quiet is restored in Massachusetts Bay.7 On December 2, he wrote that there is a growing unrest and a disposition on the part of the people to follow all the "Resolves of the Congress and to approve them fully."8

The Raid on Fort William and Mary

It was on the eve of the Revolution that the fort played its most dramatic role in history. On December 13, 1774, Paul Revere rode from Boston with a message that the fort at Rhode Island had been dismantled and troops were coming to take over the fort. He met Samuel Cutts, chair of the New Hampshire Committe of the Sons of Liberty, who organized the committee to resolve the issue. The following day the bells rang, drums beat, and fifes played to collect the Sons of Liberty, and 400 men from Portsmouth, Rye and New Castle.

Governor Wentworth seems to have had some intimation of what might happen, for he sent word to Captain Cochran, commanding at the fort, to be upon his guard. In Wentworth's report on the affair, however, he states that "before any suspicion could be had of their intentions, about four hundred men were gathered together." Certain it is that, about twelve o'clock on Wednesday, December 14, all secrecy ended; for members of the committee, accompanied by drum and fife, paraded the streets of Portsmouth and called the citizens together. By order of Governor Wentworth the chief justice of the province made proclamation that what they proposed was open rebellion against the king, but they did not waver.

Captain Cochran warned the Patriots off as they approached the fort, by firing a volley of musket and cannon, which apparently did not harm anyone, and which was answered by small arms fire in return. Meanwhile some patriots breached the fort and quickly subdued the commander and his five men in residence. The Patriots removed 98 barrels (approximately five tons) of gun powder, leaving one additional on hand for local militia. The seized powder was ferried to Durham and delivered to General John Sullivan, who distributed it to various militias in the region.

The next night, a small party led by Gen. Sullivan carried off 16 pieces of small cannon and military stores. Sullivan carted at least a few cannon into Portsmouth and laid seige to Governor Wentworth's mansion, sending the Governors family into great fear for their safety.

This raid took place months before the incidents at Concord and Lexington (the following April), and was important in the chain of events leading to the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. Where the events at Concord and Lexington were defensive in nature on the part of the colonists, the raid on Fort William and Mary was an overt and positive act of pre-emptive agression intended to secure necessary supplies and arms for the revolution, as General Howe had previously enacted an embargo on importation of gunpowder, firearms, or cannon into the colonies.

It is said the King George became outraged at the affrontery of the raid and would not hear of any further attempts to negotiate with the Continental Congress over a peaceful resolution to the crises and oppressions that led up to these events. While the raid was arguably the first battle of the Revolution, and is recognised as such by many historians not from Massachusetts, its offensive rather than defensive nature also contributes to it being downplayed in official American histories of the War.

Aftermath

Governor John Wentworth immediately sent to Boston for help. The sloop Canceaux arrived December 17, followed two days later by the frigate Scarborough. The latter had 40 guns and carried 100 British marines on board. This prevented further raids by the patriots, but produced a dangerous state of tension.

By the summer of 1775, Governor Wentworth, with Lady Frances and their infant son, took refuge in the fort and lived there two months in hopes that a conflict could be avoided. Admiral Graves sent a transport under the Falcon to dismantle the fort and carry off the cannon to Boston. Finally on August 24, 1775, the Governor and his family sailed to Boston on the Scarborough. Wentworth made a brief visit a month later when, from the Isles of Shoals, he issued a proclamation discontinuing the assembly. This was the last act of royal authority in New Hampshire.

The assembly (which Wentworth had previously repeatedly adjourned, dismissed, broke up, and discontinued in the past whenever debate regarding appointment of Committees of Correspondence and delegates to the Continental Congress came up) adjourned and reconvened in a local tavern, where they passed their Declaration of Independence (the first in the colonies, and months before the Continental Congress passed their own) and organized a new government as the Republic of New Hampshire, with a flag, state seal, and coinage, and a Constitution along Lockean lines, which went so far as preventing a powerful Governorship, by electing an Executive Council through which the Governor needed to gain approval for many executive decisions.

The independence of New Hampshire was gained without a single death or injury, much like the Glorious Revolution of the previous century. For the duration of the American War for Independence, no further battles would be fought on New Hampshire soil, nor would British troops occupy a single acre of territory within the Republic. However, many New Hampshire militiamen would serve in several New Hampshire regiments through the War, assisting the Continental Army and the resistance of other states' militias to British tyranny.

The following year, powder and cannon taken from the fort was of crucial use in the Battle of Bunker Hill and in both the phyrric tactical victory of the British, and the strategic victory of the Patriot militias, in facing down the British Army through three assaults, and causing three times more casualties among the British than they themselves suffered. The damage done to the British emboldened the cause of the Patriots and proved that militia could beat the British. Without the supplies taken from Fort William and Mary, and the many New Hampshire militiamen recruited as a result of the earlier victory in NH, this Battle would not have had the effect that it did.

Colonel John Stark and his men of the First New Hampshire Regiment would go on to play crucial roles in the Revolution, in particular, Stark's insubordination in deploying to Bennington, Vermont, rather than Saratoga, New York resulted in Stark's capture of General "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne, commander of an invading army of British and Hessian troops, and Mohawk warriors that came down from Canada through Lake Champlain in hopes of cutting off New England from the rest of the Colonies as a decisive battle to end the Revolution. The defeat and capture of Burgoyne at Bennington, after Burgoyne's victories over Benedict Arnold in the naval battles on Champlain, and his victory at Ticonderoga, rallied the Patriots cause and convinced the French that American militia could defeat the British Army regular troops on level ground, leading to French financing and military support of the war, guaranteeing the eventual victory of the American cause at Yorktown.

FOOTNOTES

  1. An especially fortunate find was made in the library of Mr. Lucien Thompson of Durham, N.H., consisting of several early copies of the New Hampshire Spy and the New Hampshire Mercury of the year 1789, which appear to be the only known ones extant and which contain descriptions of the affair over the signatures of two of the participants. [Now part of the New Hampshire Newspaper Collection (MC 2), UNH Special Collections]
  2. American Archives, by Peter Force, Vol. 1, p. 337.
  3. Letter of Governor Wentworth, American Archives, Vol. 1, p. 393.
  4. Letter of Governor Wentworth to Earl of Dartmouth, American Archives, Vol. 1, p. 513.
  5. American Archives, Vol. 1, p. 516, 536.
  6. American Archives, Vol. 1, P. 744.
  7. American Archives, Vol. 1, p. 982.
  8. American Archives, Vol. 1, p. 1014.