The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

The episode was taken seriously in England as shown by an item in the Gentleman’s Magazine of London of April 17, 1775, which reported: “By a ship just arrived at Bristol from America, it is reported that the Americans have hoisted the standard of liberty at Salem.”

William Gavett of Salem wrote an account of the affair of which he was an eye-witness and described certain lively incidents as follows:

“One David Boyce, a Quaker, had gone out with his team to assist in carrying the guns out of reach of the troops, and they were conveyed to the neighborhood of what was then called Buffum’s hill, to the northwest of the road leading to Danvers and near the present estate of Gen. Devereux. My father looked in between the platoons, as I heard him tell my mother, to see if he could recognize any of the soldiers who had been stationed at Fort William on the Neck, many of whom were known to him, but he could discover no familiar faces and was blackguarded by the soldiers for his inquisitiveness, who asked him, with oaths, what he was looking after. The northern leaf of the draw was hoisted when the troops approached the bridge, which prevented them from going any further. Their commander (Col. Leslie) then went upon West’s, now Brown’s, wharf, and Capt. John Felt followed him. He then remarked to Capt. Felt, or in his hearing, that he should be obliged to fire upon the people on the northern side of the bridge if they did not lower the leaf. Capt. Felt told him if the troops did fire they would be all dead men, or words to that effect. It was understood afterwards that if the troops fired upon the people, Capt. Felt intended to grapple with Col. Leslie and jump into the river, for said he, ‘I would willingly be drowned myself to be the death of one Englishman.’ Mr. Wm. Northey, observing the menacing attitude assumed by Capt. Felt, now remarked to him, ‘don’t you know the danger you are in opposing armed troops, and an officer with a drawn sword in his hand?’ The people soon commenced scuttling two gondolas which lay on the western side of the bridge and the troops also got into them to prevent it. One Joseph Whicher, the foreman in Col. Sprague’s distillery, was at work scuttling the Colonel’s gondola, and the soldiers ordered him to desist and threatened to stab him with their bayonets if he did not—whereupon he opened his breast and dared them to strike. They pricked his breast so as to draw blood. He was very proud of this wound in after life and was fond of exhibiting it.”

From a painting by Lewis J. Bridgman

“Leslie’s Retreat,” North Bridge, Salem, Mass., February 26, 1775

It was a son of this Captain Richard Derby who carried to England the first news of the Battle of Lexington in the swift schooner Quero, as the agent of the Provincial Congress. No American’s arrival in London ever produced so great a sensation as did that of this Salem sailor, Captain John Derby, in May, 1775. He reached England in advance of the king’s messenger dispatched by General Gage, and startled the British nation with the tidings of the clash of arms which meant the loss of an American empire.

Three days after the fight at Lexington, the Provincial Congress met at Concord, and appointed a committee “to take depositions in perpetuam, from which a full account of the transactions of the troops under General Gage in the route to and from Concord on Wednesday last may be collected to be sent to England by the first ship from Salem.”

Captain Richard Derby was a member of this Congress, and he offered his fast schooner Quero of sixty-two tons for this purpose, his son Richard, Jr., to fit her out, and his son John to command her for this dramatic voyage. Old Captain Richard, hero of the North River bridge affair, was a sturdy patriot and a smart seaman. He knew his schooner and he knew his son John, and the news would get to England as fast as sail could speed it.

General Gage had sent his official messages containing the news of the Lexington fight by the “Royal Express-packet” Sukey, which sailed on April 24th. Captain John Derby in the Quero did not get his sailing orders from the Provincial Congress until three days later, on April 27th. These orders read as follows: