Hey! We have a Navy now!
Okay, it’s only one ship, but it’s a start. And to be clear, it’s Georgia’s navy, not the navy of the Continental forces. But we’re getting somewhere.
And what’s more, on its first day it took on a British ship, with amazing results. Listen in and learn the story.
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Thomas Boyle wasn’t born in Baltimore, Maryland, but when he was a young man he made it his home and became quite successful there, as a merchant marine and an overall businessman.
And, of course, given Baltimore’s penchant for naming streets after historic people and events, there is a Boyle Street. It’s not very long; in fact you see the entire road in the photo below.
In this picture the viewer is standing on Fort Avenue looking down toward Key Highway. The green structure in the background is the Baltimore Museum of Industry, and the Inner Harbor is just beyond that. Based on my research, Boyle didn’t live near this location; he’d settled in a part of town called Fell’s Point, which is on the other side of the harbor and about a mile to the east. If a person standing where the camera was for this photo turned to the right, they could probably see the entrance to Fort McHenry.
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Full Disclosure: I have no idea whether I pronounced “Machias” correctly. We’ll all have to live with that one, I suppose.
The Battle of Machias was not exactly one of epic proportions. It was a couple of boats chasing after a couple of other boats, and one boat got away but the other one managed to damage itself and was ultimately boarded.
So why is it significant?
Well. Not only was it the first naval battle of the American Revolution, it was a battle that the Colonies won, no matter how you look at it. And every little win was, in fact, a big win.
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Some of what you’ll be hearing today will have overlap with yesterday’s episode, but we all have shorter memories, we read in an article…uh, somewhere.
But in the long run, that’s okay, because context is everything, and it’s important to understand what a big deal this particular incident was against the bigger picture.
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Not to be confused with Chelsea of Battle Creek, who has worked for a famous cereal company for 28 years. (We may have made that up.)
Lexington and Concord was the first “official” battle of the American Revolution, but at best it was a draw: Patriots took a bunch of losses, soldier-wise, but the British were forced to retreat under fire the entire time, and they wound up mostly sequestered in Boston when the dust settled.
This could be considered the next chapter in that story, in that the Siege of Boston led directly to the events of this day, and the next, in 1775. Claude is setting up the story, and Mike will be finishing it off tomorrow. Enjoy!
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The Thirteen Colonies didn’t have a lot in the way of a navy to help them with their battles, especially not against perhaps the biggest and best navy ever up until then.
What they did have was people who were willing to act in lieu of a navy. Some of them did it out of sheer patriotism, and others were a little more mercenary about it. Specifically, privateers.
Now, “privateers” sounds a little like “pirates” and people often use the words interchangeably. You should stop being friends with those people. Privateers are a specific breed of sailor. They’re government-sanctioned to act as a kind of ad-hoc navy, authorized to take action in times of war. Typically, their job was to disrupt merchant vessels (hence the confusion with pirates).
It wasn’t long after the Revolution began that Fairhaven, Massachusetts, became a place known for privateer activity.
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Extra credit activity: check out the West Wing, Season 4, Episode 18. You’ll learn more about privateers, and as a bonus, you’ll never think of Francis Scott Key the same way ever again.
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If you’re like me, you’ll hear a less-common name from history and have yourself a moment of “Wait…I should know that name, but from where…?” William G. Weld was one of those names, but it turns out that William wasn’t necessarily the famous one here; it’s just that he was a direct ancestor of so many other people named Weld.
Listen in and learn about the patriarch of a family of merchants and politicians, and suddenly it’ll come to you that it wasn’t THIS William Weld you’re thinking of…it’s his great-great-great grandson, also named William, who got a bunch of press in recent years.
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Henry Eckford was born in Scotland on this day in 1775 and died in Constantinople in 1832. In between he spent a great deal of time in the Thirteen Colonies and then the United States, primarily in New York.
Eckford also dabbled in politics, serving in the state legislature and as a delegate to the Electoral College, before moving to the Ottoman Empire to assist with rebuilding the fleet there. He died quite suddenly there, probably of cholera, and his body was brought back to America, where he was buried in the graveyard at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Hempstead, L.I., along with his wife.
Coincidentally, many years ago I attended a wedding in that church. The weird bumps you make with history when you live on the East Coast, I tell you what.
(At right: Eckford’s grave; picture via findagrave.com)
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Until Israel Gregg came along, steamboat commerce on the Ohio river was considered impractical, largely because the currents were so strong.
But Gregg had an interesting approach to demonstrate that it was, in fact, possible. In some portions of the river, there was a confluence with another river, which meant that there were multiple currents in the river for some distance. This is what made it hazardous in the first place.
Gregg made a point of seeking out the currents of a specific river in each confluence, and navigating only that river’s current. So from Brownsville to Pittsburgh, Gregg used the currents of the Monongahela River. From Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, he used the currents of the Ohio River. Then he remained with the current of the Ohio to Louisville. From there he returned to Pittsburgh, running against the current of the Ohio. A few cycles of this had people convinced, and his ship, the Enterprise, became one of the first of that name to go down in history. (Specifically, it was the third in American history.)
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When I (Claude) was younger, I read a Star Trek novel titled The Final Reflection by John M. Ford. Trek novels weren’t considered canon, and later events in the films and subsequent series kind of wiped out some of the concepts put forth in the book, but what I found fascinating was that it was told entirely from the Klingons’ point of view. (It also provided an interesting explanation regarding why Federation transporters give off a high-pitched whine.)
Before you think I’ve digressed before I’ve even started, my point here is that today’s episode focuses on a British military figure rather than one of the Founding Fathers or other Colonial figure. We’re taking an all-too-brief look at Lord Horatio Nelson, who did have an important life event take place on this day in 1775.
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Also, when you listen to the episode, you’ll see I just have Star Trek on my mind.
