Washington’s Army needed gunpowder and strategically needed to increase Boston’s deprivations which had been experiencing food and cooking fuel shortages. For Boston the necessities of fuel wood for its kitchens arrived by sea. A few miles east was the Town of Marblehead, Massachusetts with its fishing and trading vessels. The Towns schooners were large and fast and with some modifications to the rigging and sails could become reliable military vessels. The British Navy had even been recommended to entertain the acquisition a few of the Marblehead schooners to use as armed escort ships. Time was not on Gen. Washington’s side.
Meanwhile the Continental Congress had been steadfast in its reluctance to challenge British naval authority with having a navy of its own. Washington however began to see the necessity of raising one but he kept his aspirations and development of a permanent naval fighting force hidden from the Congress until he could demonstrate its necessity.
The first ship to be converted under orders of Washington from a fishing and trading vessel into a cruiser for the service of the Continental Congress was the schooner Hannah that was leased to the Army by Col. John Glover of Marblehead. It was to be berthed in Beverly, Massachusetts in a winding and difficult to navigate channel in a harbor inlet defined on one side by the neck of Salam, Massachusetts. This part of the harbor was under the watchful gaze of tbe earthen works of one of Salem’s forts. On the day The schooner Hannah was to be sailed from Marblehead to its new berth in Beverly, Captain Thomas Grant and his men arrived on foot from Cambridge, Massachusetts to sail the boat to Beverly. Washington had an Army on the ocean.
Today there are two coastal communities separated at the coastline by Salem, Massachusetts and a long standing rivalry that both claim to be the birthplace of the American Navy. Those two communities are the Town of Marblehead and the City of Beverly. What bragging rights have Marblehead and Beverly been fighting for? Well…
That’s a story best told on the tour. Suffice to say, this Naval force tried George Washington’s patience.
Kenneth Glover
find my tour at http://www.salemwalkingtours.com or through the easy to remember domain address of http://www.salemwalkingtours.com
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