Hannah Continental Army Schooner [Broughton]
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Hannah Captain Nicholson Broughton Schooner 24 August 1775-11 October 1775 Continental Army Schooner [Boston Squadron] Commissioned/First Date: 24 August 1775/[15] August 1775 Out of Service/Cause: 14 November 1775/discharged from service Tonnage: 78 Battery: Date Reported: 5 September 1775 Number/Caliber Weight Broadside 4/4-pounders 16 pounds 8 pounds Total: 4 cannon/16 pounds Broadside: 2 cannon/8 pounds Swivels: Crew: (1) 24 August 1775: 45 [total] Description: Officers: (1) First Lieutenant John Glover, Jr., 24 August 1775-; (2) Second Lieutenant John Devereux, 24 August 1775-; (3) Master Richard James, 24 August 1775- Cruises: (1) Beverly, Massachusetts to Gloucester, Massachusetts, 5 September 1775-6 September 1775 (2) Gloucester, Massachusetts to Gloucester, Massachusetts, 6 September 1775-7 September 1775 (3) Marblehead, Massachusetts to Beverly, Massachusetts, 6 October 1775-11 October 1775 Prizes: (1) Ship Unity (Flagg), in Massachusetts Bay, 7 September 1775 Actions: (1) Action in Beverly Cove, 10 October 1775 ©awiatsea.com-posted August 2019 --1-- Comments: Perhaps as early as 4 August 1775, more probably by 15 August, a small schooner had been taken up at Beverly, Massachusetts, for conversion to a cruiser. She was the Hannah, owned by Colonel John Glover, and was the first vessel of the Continental Army squadron in the Boston area.1 Hannah’s charter was dated 24 August.2 She was a 78 ton schooner. Her charter rate was $1.00 per ton per month, and she was in service for two months and twenty-one days, at a total cost of $208.06 (or £32.8.0).3 Hannah had been built in 1765, was purchased by Glover in 1769 and had been used in the fishing and West Indies trade.4 Hannah, named after Colonel John Glover’s wife or daughter, was then moored at Beverly.5 Hannah had already had a run-in with the British. On 6 June 1775 Hannah (under master John Gale) was returning to Marblehead with a “white flag with a blue diamond” at her masthead, which was the house flag for Glover’s vessels. HM Sloop Merlin (Commander William Burnaby) was blockading the town to “prevent all kinds of illicit and contraband Trade”. Merlin sent her barge to intercept the schooner for inspection. Glover himself, watching ashore, saw the barge and set out in his own boat and pulled for the Hannah. According to Ashley Bowen: “John Glover went off and met her, and the Merlin’s barge met her at the same time. The officer of the barge ordered her 1 NDAR, “Stephen Moylan and Colonel John Glover to George Washington,” 2: 368-369 and 369n. The note refers to Colonel John Glover’s Colony Ledger. 2 Magra, Christopher P. The Fisherman’s Cause: Atlantic Commerce and Martitime Dimensions of the American Revolution, Cambridge University Press: New York, 2009, 188. This was the date of the entry into Glover’s Colony Ledger, which was clearly added at a later date. 3 The origins and ownership of the Hannah are subject to some controversy. John Glover owned the schooner and she is listed in his colony ledger with the tonnage and charter rates as given above. Glover was a well known Marblehead merchant and a colonel in Washington's army, garrisoned in Cambridge. In an exhaustive and authoritative study entitled: “In Troubled Waters: The Elusive Schooner Hannah,” The Peabody Museum, 1970 by C. F. Smith and Russell W. Knight, investigated the background of the Hannah. The authors relied on records of ships’s clearances from Barbados and concluded that there were several Hannahs owned by the Glover family. One was owned by Jonathan, John Glover’s brother (as confusing as that is) and was named for his daughter, Hannah. There was a second one, owned by John Glover, and named for his wife, the former Hannah Gale. The former, captained at one time by Richard James, John Glover's brother-in-law, and later by Richard Stiles, who was lost at sea in the West Indies. The authors also discovered that John Glover’s Hannah, listed in Glover’s "Colony Ledger" as 78 tons, was actually smaller than that; actually 45 to 50 tons. Based on Smith and Knight, the Hannah was a vessel with a keel of 43 feet, a beam of 16.5 feet, and a seven-foot depth of hold. Magra, in his The Fisherman’s Cause, says this: “Here, Glover’s own words pertaining to his own vessel in his own ledger are taken at face value, and his math skills are discounted.” Christopher P. Magra, The Fisherman’s Cause, Cambridge University Press: New York, 2009, p. 188n39. The words of an active participant must override later speculation. There is a second theory about the Hannah. As expounded in Thomas Macy, The Hannah and the Nautilus: The Beginning of the American Revolution at Sea, Beverly: Minuteman Press, 2002, pp. 6-7, the Hannah had recently been built by Colonel John Lee of Manchester, Massachusetts, who was the father of John Glover, Jr.’s wife. This Hannah was said to be leased on 7 August with the value of the vessel set at £400. She was then moved to Beverly for refitting. This seems to be unlikely. 4 Magra, The Fisherman’s Cause, 188 5 Clark, George Washington’s Navy, 7 ©awiatsea.com-posted August 2019 --2-- to bring to. Glover ordered her not, and the schooner ran under the ship’s stern, paid no regard to her and run alongside the wharf. All is well that ends well.”6 While Hannah was fitting out at Beverly, Washington selected his commander. Nicholas Broughton of Marblehead was selected to command the vessel.7 Broughton was “a Man of some property and note in the said Town” of Marblehead, and was recommended by Glover to command the Hannah.8 He was age 50, and was a pretentious, contentious, and acquisitive man.9 Moylan, defending Glover’s schooner’s reputation later, said that the “Strongest proof of his good opinion of the schooner” was that Glover had ventured his “brother & his favourite son on board of her.”10 The “brother” was his brother-in-law Richard James, her sailing master. The son was John Glover, Jr., age 20, a Lieutenant in the elder Glover’s regiment. He became First Lieutenant of the Hannah. Her second Lieutenant was John Devereaux, was also a lieutenant in the Marblehead regiment and husband of Broughton’s daughter.11 The crew was to be drafted from Glover’s Marblehead regiment, but a sailing master, master’s mate and four sailors were hired at Beverly on 24 August. These men were definitely not in the Army. The crew was to be fifty men.12 Thirty-six privates were drafted from Glover’s regiment, with twelve from Broughton’s own company.13 The companies of Broughton and Captain Thomas Grant contributed half the total.14 On 24 August this “Company of Volunteers arrived from Cambridge for privateering” at Marblehead.15 Before going aboard the Hannah, took leave at Marblehead first. Hannah continued to fit out at Beverly through the last part of August. Glover’s ledger reveals her portledge bill amounted to £44.5.4.16 By late August Hannah had been armed with four 4-pounders, 6 Nelson, George Washington’s Secret Navy, 83, quoting the Journal of Ashley Bowen 7 NDAR, “General Orders of George Washington,” 2: 175-176 and 176n. 8 Clark, George Washington’s Navy, 3 9 Clark, George Washington’s Navy, 7 10 NDAR, “Stephen Moyland and Colonel John Glover to George Washington,” 2: 368 and 368-369 notes. 11 Clark, George Washington’s Navy, 5; NDAR, “Stephen Moyland and Colonel John Glover to George Washington,” 2: 368 and 368 note 12 Clark, George Washington’s Navy, 4 13 NDAR, General Orders of George Washington,” 2: 175-176 and 176 note, says ten from Broughton’s company. Clark, George Washington’s Navy, 5 says twelve. 14 NDAR, “General Orders of George Washington,” 2: 175-176 and 176n. 15 Clark, George Washington’s Navy, 5 16 NDAR, “Stephen Moylan and Colonel John Glover to George Washington,” 2: 368-369 and 369n. The note refers to Colonel John Glover’s Colony Ledger. ©awiatsea.com-posted August 2019 --3-- There is no known contemporary drawing of this schooner nor is there a plan of this vessel. Nevertheless, there are many later interpretations of how she looked, both in picture and in model form. The United States Naval Academy Museum has a diorama of this vessel as she was moored during her fitting out process. For a larger view click here. --4-- a few swivels.17 She was ready for her crew to go aboard. On 2 September 1775, Washington Issued Broughton his sailing orders, noting that Broughton, being a “Captain in the Army of the United Colonies of North America”18 was to take command of his detachment and proceed aboard the Hannah, “lately fitted out & equipp’d with Arms, Ammunition and Provisions,” and now at Beverly.19 Washington was detailed and specific: Broughton was to sail at once against “such Vessels as may be found on the High Seas or elsewhere, bound inward and outward to and from Boston, in the service of the ministerial Army, and to take and seize all such Vessels. .”20 Any prizes were to be sent into a port near the Army, under a careful prize master who was to immediately notify Washington. Broughton was to diligently search for enemy mall, and to forward any found which might give warning of enemy Intentions to Washington. Prisoners were to be treated kindly, nor were their private goods to be seized, and all prisoners were to be turned over to headquarters when port was made.