Introduction: America 250 Celebration – Melissa Davenport Berry begins a series exploring the lives and service of Revolutionary War patriots. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

“Our Union, liberty, and independence were defended by the best blood of every American.”
–Daniel Adams, colonel of Moses Little’s regiment

A potent spark of energy is awakened when we hear the heroic tales of the patriots who fought for freedom and liberty in the American Revolutionary War.

Illustration credit: https://depositphotos.com/home.html

Captain Offin Boardman

For example, we pay homage to the spirited privateer Captain Offin Boardman (1748-1811) and the 17 Herculean wildcats under his charge who captured the British ship Friends of London, commanded by Capt. Archible Bowie, off Plum Island in 1776.

Anthony Davenport

Anthony Davenport (1752-1836), son of Captain William Davenport and Sarah (Gerrish) Davenport, was a prominent merchant, wharf owner, and privateer in Newburyport, Massachusetts, who greatly increased his fortune by operating armed vessels, most notably the brig Hazard, under letters of marque to disrupt British supply lines during the American Revolution.

Anthony Davenport happens to be my ancestor and the patriot I joined under for membership to DAR.

His father, Captain William Davenport, operated the famous Wolfe Tavern. On 26 September 1765, men were summoned there to a meeting to commiserate over the unfairness of the Stamp Act.

The gathering was nothing new, as the sturdy patriarchs had sat many a night around the fire in Davenport’s parlor nursing their toddies while rocking the cradle of liberty. A tavern had the proper ingredients to ease the “Greate Uneasiness and Tumult of the saide Towne, on occasion of the Stamp Act.” Read more: “Ancestor’s Outrageous Bar Bill Shows Extent of Stamp Act Protests & Drinking.”

The montage below consists of: an advertisement (center) for Wolfe Tavern from the Boston Gazette (Boston, Massachusetts), 2 August 1762, page 1; and illustrations of the tavern (left) and a sign (right) from the Boston Herald (Boston, Massachusetts), 12 January 1908, page 36.

Col. Nathaniel Wade

Patriot Col. Nathaniel Wade (1749-1826) is the son of Timothy Wade and Ruth (Woodberry) Wade. He married Mary Foster, daughter of Col. Joseph Foster and Lydia (Giddings) Foster, and 2nd Hannah Treadwell, daughter of Jacob Treadwell and Mary (Rogers) Treadwell. He left descendants.

Below is Col. Wade’s obituary. He died on 26 October 1826 in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

This article reports:

In Ipswich, on Thursday, in the 77th year of his age, Nathaniel Wade, Esq. Treasurer of the county of Essex. Col. Wade was a tried and faithful soldier of the Revolution, having served in the great cause from the battle of Bunker Hill, in which he was a captain, through the greater part of the war, during most of which time he commanded a regiment in active continental service.

Daniel Treadwell (1791-1872) is the son of Captain Jabez Treadwell and his second wife Elizabeth (Dodge) Treadwell. He married Adeline Lincoln, daughter of Levi Lincoln and Desire (Thaxter) Lincoln. Daniel, one of the most eminent American mechanicians and inventors, published a memorial on Colonel Wade’s wartime history in the Boston Courier newspaper:

“Colonel Nathaniel Wade was an officer in the army during most of the Revolutionary War. Being with the garrison at West Point under Arnold, the command of that fort by order of General Washington devolved upon him immediately after Arnold’s defection. This command was held but a few days, as, upon the arrival of more troops, it was necessarily given to a general officer. Colonel Wade remained in the army until near the close of the war, when he returned to Ipswich, his native town. Upon the breaking out of the insurrection under Shays he again went into the service in command of the Essex regiment, one of the four regiments sent under General Lincoln for the winter campaign against the rebels in 1786-87. This was his last service in the field. During the remainder of his life he lived at Ipswich, honored and beloved throughout the county for his sound judgment, his perfect integrity, and his unfailing benevolence. He died in 1826, at the ripe age of seventy-seven years.”

Historians say the epitaph on Wade’s gravestone in Ipswich was most likely written by Daniel Treadwell.

First to Be Killed at Bunker Hill?

Simeon Pike (1753-75), son of James Pike and Anna (George) Pike, served as a private in Captain Sawyer’s company, Colonel Frye’s Massachusetts regiment.

Below is a Massachusetts account record listing Simeon Pike as killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

According to a letter published in 1825, historian Dr. John Wingate, of Amesbury, stated that the first person killed in the Bunker Hill fight was Salisbury’s Simeon Pike.

Pike was decapitated by a cannonball, and the eyewitnesses present were his neighbors. Wingate stated that “Isaac Whittier, Paul Hardy, John Hoyt, and David Huntington” told him the contents of Pike’s head “were scattered upon them.”

I found a newspaper clip, a letter to the editor, that reveals a similar story about how Simeon died at Bunker Hill.

This letter reads:

…A gentleman by whom every important particular in the history of that desperate day [Battle of Bunker Hill] is still freshly remembered, informs us, that “the first man who fell in our lines on the memorable 17th of June, 1775, was SIMEON PIKE, a much esteemed and promising young man, aged 22 years; only son of James Pike, of Haverhill, East Parish. Isaac (afterwards Col.) Whittier and Paul Hardy, of Amesbury, were at his side, when a cannonball from the enemy raked the earth which had been thrown from a trench they were then digging, struck the head of Pike and killed him instantly – the top of the head having been so taken off, that the brains were seen quivering long after he fell.”

To be continued…

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Note on the header image: “The Spirit of ’76,” by Archibald Willard. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

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