Belknap wrote that “Maj. John Sullivan and John Langdon distinguished themselves as leaders in this affair.” Adams, in his annals of Portsmouth, said it occurred “under the direction of Maj. John Sullivan and Capt. John Langdon.”
Sullivan himself said: “When I returned from Congress in 1774, and saw the order of the British king and council prohibiting military stores being sent to this country, I took alarm, clearly perceiving the designs of the British ministry, and wrote several pieces upon the necessity of securing military stores, which pieces were published in several papers.” Quint said: “Sullivan, bold and daring, then an active member of the Continental Congress, and well known throughout the province by his leadership at the bar, had great influence. The seizure of the munitions at the fort, though sudden at last, was doubtless not without previous thought. The result of this act was momentous. It was the first act of armed rebellion. It preceded Concord and Lexington by four months of time. The captors of the fort entered it against the fire of fieldpieces and muskets openly, and in daylight they pulled down the royal flag, the first time in American history. They gave three cheers in honor of their success. They carried off a hundred barrels of gunpowder, some light guns and small arms which, under the care of Sullivan, were taken up the river, which was at that time covered with thick ice, through which a channel had to be cut.”
This bold and audacious act was deeply felt in Great Britain. Conciliation was now out of the question. The king’s anger was aroused. It was already bitter enough on account of the Massachusetts troubles. Governor Wentworth issued threatening proclamations.
He dismissed the offending major and captain from their posts in the militia. In answer to his edict all persons in Durham holding civil or military positions under the governor, headed by Sullivan, assembled at the tavern on the green, and there publicly burned their commissions and insignia of office. There was no further need of secrecy. The die was cast and the leaders were well known. The official positions, civil or military, held by many of those who were principals in the affair, obliged them, up to this time, to act with caution. After the burning, not of his ships, but of his commission, Sullivan boldly stepped to the front. The very next day after the capture of the powder he headed a body of men numbering between three and four hundred from Durham and the adjoining towns, and, marching to the Council Chamber, demanded an answer to the question as to whether or not there were any ships or troops expected here, or if the governor had written for any.
His excellency meekly answered: “I know of none.”
The greater part of the powder was stored in the basement of the meeting-house in Durham. The balance, for safety, was distributed in several places, some of it going to Exeter. That stored at Durham, as well as another portion placed with Capt. John Demerritt, was taken by the latter in his own ox-cart, under Sullivan’s direction, to Cambridge, where it arrived barely in time to be dealt out to the troops at Bunker Hill. Of how much value it was there and how badly it was needed, is too well known to bear repetition. Without it and lacking the men from the old Granite State accompanying it, Bunker Hill would not have been such a serious affair for the British army.
In claiming the leadership for Sullivan in this affair there is no desire to extol him at the expense of those with whom he was associated,—men like Langdon, Weare, Bartlett, Thornton, Scammell, Thompson, Folsom, Wentworth, Gilman, and others whose names are now household words. The position was freely conceded by them at the time, and acknowledged by the best informed to-day. After the Lexington fight, and while Sullivan was in attendance at the Second Continental Congress, the gallant young Scammell, who was in his office in Durham, wrote him that, “when the horrid din of civil carnage surprised us on the 20th of April, the universal cry was ‘Oh, if Major Sullivan was here!’ ‘I wish to God Major Sullivan was here!’ ran through the distressed multitude.”
Capt. Eleazer Bennett, who died in Durham in 1852, at the age of one hundred and one, said “that at the time of the capture of the powder he was in the employment of General Sullivan, at his mill at Packer’s Falls, when word was brought in to come down to Durham, to go to Portsmouth, and to get anybody else he could to come with him.” So far as he could remember, the following persons were with him: Maj. John Sullivan, Capt. Winborn Adams, Ebenezer Thompson, John Demerritt, Alpheus and Jonathan Chesley, John Spencer, Micah Davis, Isaac and Benjamin Small, Alexander Scammell, John Griffin, James Underwood, and Eben Sullivan, the major’s brother.
On arriving at Portsmouth they were joined by John Langdon with another party. They captured the fort, took the captain and bound him, and frightened away the soldiers. In the fort they found one hundred casks of powder and one hundred small arms. A portion of the powder was taken by Major Demerritt to his house in Madbury, but most of it was stored under the pulpit of the meeting-house in Durham. On July 19, 1775, as a final proof of Sullivan’s leadership in this movement, Matthew Patten, chairman of the committee of safety for the county of Hillsborough, wrote to General Sullivan congratulating him on his appointment to the rank of Brigadier-General, in which he said: “An appointment which, as it distinguishes your merit, so at the same time it reflects honor upon, and shows the penetrating discernment of those truly eminent patriots from whom you received it; nor are we less sanguine in our expectations of the high advantages which must result under God to the public by your military skill and courage, as you have been indefatigable in attaining the first, and have given a recent instance of the latter, to your great honor and reputation, in depriving our enemies of the means of annoying us at Castle William and Mary, and at the same time furnishing us with materials to defend our invaluable rights and privileges. This, sir, must ever be had in remembrance, and (amongst the actions of others, our heroes of 1775) handed to the latest posterity. That the Almighty may direct your counsels, be with you in the day of battle, and that you may be preserved as a pattern to this people for many years to come, is our frequent prayer.” In Sullivan’s reply he said: “It gives me great pleasure to find so respectable a number of the worthy sons of freedom, in the colony to which I belong, have so publicly given their approbation of my conduct in assisting to secure the warlike stores at Fort William and Mary, and thereby preventing these evils which must have resulted from our enemies having possession of them.”
Nothing further need be said regarding the value of the powder captured on this occasion, or the boldness of the act itself. At Lexington and Concord the British were the aggressors, the Americans acting on the defensive; but at Newcastle the Americans were the aggressors, made the attack boldly in the open day, and as Quint said, “for the first time in American history the British flag was torn down by men in armed rebellion.” John Sullivan’s history is well known. He and his three brothers gave their best services to the land of their birth, and in memory of those services the state of New Hampshire erected a monument of Concord granite on the site of the church in Durham, under which was stored the powder, and in the presence of the governor, council, and other officials, state and national, and a large concourse of people on Thursday, Sept. 27, 1894, the one hundredth anniversary of his death, dedicated it with appropriate exercises. The inscription reads: