This is the first in a series of articles looking at Marblehead’s history of privateering.
Marblehead’s history as a fishing community is well documented, its dangers acknowledged, its waning importance lamented. Since 1629, the sea has offered bounty and heartache to Marbleheaders who head offshore in ships.
Imagine yourself one of Marblehead’s commercial fishermen in 1776. Since you were 14, you’ve been employed, if not richly rewarded, for your skills as a seaman aboard Marblehead fishing schooners. Sailing home with a hold full of salted cod, there was a ready market for your hard earned product among the merchant seamen ashore.
Marblehead’s seas in 1776 are far from calm, however. Col. Jeremiah Lee, Marblehead’s richest man, who owned about 20 ships, once procured a sizable majority of the catch. Lee owned the fish flakes where the salted fish was dried, then shipped the best quality to Europe.
Lesser quality fish went to the Caribbean to feed enslaved workers kidnapped from Africa.
But Lee was no more. The year before, in April, 1775, Lee, then the wealthiest man in Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry and Azor Orne met with fellow revolutionaries Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Menotomy (now Arlington.) That night, Lee, already ill, literally caught his death of cold hiding from British soldiers in a corn field. Three weeks later, Lee died intestate, and a year later his business affairs were a muddle.
Privateering vs. pirating
Lee’s revolutionary compatriots, using guns and ammunition Lee obtained for them from Spain, have turned rumblings of discontent into a hot war. A fishing trip to George’s Bank now holds more threat than sudden storms — British naval ships capture fishing schooners and impress Marblehead seamen into British deckhands.
Some are signing on with Capt. Nicholson Broughton, who’s fitting out the schooner Hannah, built in Marblehead, with Marblehead seamen, to make it the first warship of the new American Navy. Fighting on the open sea where you will either kill or be killed? When the new Navy may not pay enough to support a family?
Other Marblehead seamen are considering a different endeavor — capturing “enemy” ships and selling their cargo. Is that a legal way to make a living?
Yes. Privateering is not piracy. Specially outfitted and licensed privateer ships stalk and capture enemy ships and seize their cargo, but not as a criminal enterprise. Privateering is encouraged by the new American government as a way to make money.
Even after deducting costs and payment to the government, the potential rewards of privateering to even the lowliest seaman add up to serious money — more than five times his annual income of $200. Privateering was a dangerous business, with significant payout if all went well.
Hundreds of Marbleheaders were privateers
Few are aware how involved Marbleheaders were in privateering, a lucrative business during both the American War of Independence and the War of 1812. Hundreds of Marblehead shipowners, captains and seamen were among the thousands of Americans who risked their lives seeking to augment their income as privateers.
Fortunately for historians, some Marblehead families saved documents, ledgers and letters that date back to the Revolution and beyond. From those sources and others, we can develop a fair understanding of how privateering worked at that time.
Marblehead resident Eric Jay Dolin has explored the nascence and history of 18th- and 19th-century privateering throughout the coastal colonies in his book “Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution and the War of 1812.” As Dolin explains in detail, privateering laws were both complicated and clear — to avoid being branded as pirates, privateers had to follow regulations to the letter. We are indebted to Dolin for his work, which provided rich background for our research into Marblehead’s privateers.
Starting in the Middle Ages and continuing to the mid 19th century when it was banned by the Treaty of Paris, international law allowed countries at war to license private vessels to seize and plunder enemy vessels. The brand-new United States had no navy other than ships like the Hannah that were just being built to battle Britain’s vast naval might. So it made sense, and was legal, to give shipowners authorization to arm themselves and to capture cargoes — as long as they had an official “letter of marque and reprisal.”
Privateering was enthusiastically supported by men like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Marblehead’s own Elbridge Gerry wrote the Massachusetts bill that authorized the Commonwealth to issue letters of marque to shipowners seeking to equip ships as privateers at their own expense, requiring each to post a bond of $5,000, to be forfeited if the shipowner violated the regulations set forth in the bill.
Once empowered by the Continental Congress, privateers attacked and captured enemy ships — both the vessels and their cargo. The cash-poor new government saw privateering as a way to fill its meager coffers and required that a sizeable portion of the value of each captured “prize” be given to the government to build its treasury.
The Lindsey family
The Lindsey family of Marblehead was deeply involved in privateering, first during the Revolution and then in the War of 1812. Thanks to the conservation habits and generosity of the heirs of Nathaniel Lindsey Sr, (1746-1798) and Jr. (1771-1842), the Marblehead Museum has a treasure trove of 18th- and 19th-century papers documenting the complexities of Marbleheaders’ privateering.
Nathaniel Lindsey Sr. was a mariner (referred to in papers as “Captain”) and merchant who served in the Continental Army. Following the Revolution, he served the town of Marblehead as a constable, tax collector, selectman and coroner. Lindsey Sr. was deeply involved in the business end of privateering, acting as an agent and as an attorney for shipowners, captains and seamen (and their survivors when they died in the act of duty.)
Clearly understanding the profits to be made with privateering, Lindsay invested his own funds in privateering ventures. His records indicate that he was part owner of the Schooner Springbird, built in 1778, the brig Terrible, built in 1779, both specifically as privateers, and also show that he was involved in building the Oh starting in 1779.
Nathaniel Jr. was also a mariner and was directly involved in privateering during the War of 1812 as captain of the privateer Growler. Several years after the war, he was captured by pirates in 1829 as captain of the Candace but survived to serve the town as a selectman and as tax collector in the mid 1830s.
Lindsey Sr.’s records for each of the ships he served as an attorney, agent, shareholder and/or part owner are voluminous. Purchasing goods and services, holding funds in escrow, and itemizing the detailed transactions involved, including the number and value of shares to be paid out at the end of a voyage, were among the many responsibilities Lindsey took on for his clients.
Guns, sails and rum
In the neat calligraphic hand typical of the day, Lindsey documented the sundry expenses involved in fitting out a privateer, whether by converting a former fishing boat or merchant vessel or purpose-building one.
Guns, of course, gunpowder, and cannon were a first order of business — enemy ships rarely surrendered without a fight, and good quality munitions were a critical need. A special type of cannon called a “swivel cannon” was typically mounted on fishing or merchant vessels converted to privateers.
Every piece of material for outfitting a ship for privateering during war was dutifully detailed in Lindsey’s records: sails, canvas, tar, rope, tools including knives and wrenches, pots and kettles, “duck” fabric, “tick” for bedding, clothing, shoes and other sundries for the seamen. Food, including “flower,” “suger,” “pease,” “onyons,” oranges, apples and lemons, barrels of beef and pork, and of course rum, were counted among the staples required for a typical six month voyage.
The substantial total cost of outfitting a privateer would be subtracted from the value of a captured ship after the new government took its allotted portion. The “prize” balance was then divided by the number of “shares” allocated to the investors and to each seaman on board the vessel.
Shares were portioned based on rank. On the Terrible, the captain, John Conway, was apportioned eight shares. Conway’s First Lieutenant, Josiah Leech, was apportioned five, as was the surgeon, Josiah Lord. The second lieutenant, Joseph Hibbert, and the master, William Steward, four each. The least skilled seaman might be apportioned ¼ of a share, but even that could amount to a sizeable sum by late 18th-century standards, since the total value of a captured prize could total in the tens of thousands.
Lindsey’s records kept close track of share values and documented when shares were sold or traded. Share trades were recorded prior to a privateer’s sailing and even negotiated onboard during a voyage. A fisherman could sell half his quarter share before he sailed, for a sum that would feed and house his family while he was away. Many eager buyers who’d heard of the profits from privateering considered purchasing a share portion a sure bet.
Nathaniel Lindsey Sr. was among those eager buyers. Several of his records show that he tendered cash (usually in pounds — money at that point was transitioning from British pounds to American dollars, with neither form of legal tender in abundance) for a portion of seamen’s shares. At times, the wives of seamen, perhaps desperate for income, would sell Lindsey portions of their husbands’ shares while men were still at sea.
On October 22, 1777, Sarah Thorner acknowledged receiving 15 pounds from Lindsey in exchange for “one quarter part of a full share of all the prize and prizes that is or shall be taken by the brig Freedom…as my husband William Thorner is Ingaged on Board said Brig.” Apparently not literate, she signed with an X noted as “Her Mark.”
Many embarking mariners from Marblehead and Salem signed documents naming Lindsey their “lawfull attorney” to represent their rights to captured prizes on voyages which could last three to six months.
Lindsey was trusted in town as a scrupulous man. And, as a businessman he was not above earning a commission on the ships he helped provision and protect.
Up next: Nathaniel Lindsey Jr. and the Brown Family
