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Sarah Helen Whitman, Providence Poet Who Dumped Edgar Allan Poe

Sarah Helen Whitman loved poetry and loved Edgar Allan Poe – for a while, at least.

Sarah Helen Whitman by C.G. Thompson, 1838

She was a poet in her own right who used to meet Poe in the Providence Athenaeum, where he once defaced library property.

Sarah Helen Whitman

Born Sarah Helen Power in Providence, R.I., on Jan. 19, 1803, she moved to Boston after her marriage to John Whitman. A lawyer, he also co-edited the Boston Spectator and Ladies’ Album.

In Boston, Sarah Helen Whitman published poetry in her husband’s magazine. She also befriended Transcendentalist writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller. Whitman died in 1833, and she moved back to Providence to live with her mother and sister.

In Providence, she met Poe. In 1845, he was walking down the street with his friend Frances Sargent Osgood. They passed Whitman’s house and Poe saw her standing in her rose garden. It was love at first sight.

Perhaps romance was inevitable. Sarah liked to wear black clothes and a coffin-shaped charm around her neck, and she probably held seances on Sunday to communicate with the dead.

Several months later, Poe and Whitman — both widowed — began to write each other. That correspondence turned into a relationship.

Edgar Allan Poe

Ulalume

Sarah’s mother didn’t approve of Poe. Not only did he drink, gamble and take drugs, but he had no money. But Sarah Helen Whitman couldn’t stay away from him, as his wild, fascinating talk and his writing captivated her. And so they met away from her mother in the Providence Athenaeum.

While at the library, she inspired him to deface library material. The story is told in Old Providence, a pamphlet published in 1918 by the Merchants National Bank of Providence.

According to the story, Brown University’s librarian, Dr. H.L. Koopman, heard that Whitman told Poe she admired an anonymous poem that appeared in the American Review in 1847. At the time she and Poe were in the Athenaeum, and she asked him if he had read this poem, Ulalume. He said he not only knew the poem, he had written it. Before leaving the Athenaeum, he found the magazine in which the poem appeared and signed it.

Koopman went to the Athenaeum and looked up the issue of the American Review in which it was supposed to have appeared. He found the magazine and the signature.

Providence Athenaeum around 1958. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Lips That Touch Liquor

She only reluctantly agreed to marry Edgar Allan Poe. But on his way to see her, he tried to commit suicide on the train to Providence. Before he boarded at Lowell, Mass., he took four doses of laudanum. By the time he reached Boston, he was close to death.

Sarah took care of him in Providence.

But it was alcohol, not laudanum, that persuaded her to dump him. He’d promised her he wouldn’t touch the stuff. He then broke that promise a few days later.

Sarah’s mother also found out that Poe chased other women, which she no doubt shared with her daughter. And for his part, Poe didn’t like her friends, Margaret Fuller and some of the other transcendentalists.

According to one story, she broke off the engagement when someone slipped her a note saying he broke his promise not to touch alcohol. According to another, he got so drunk the night before the wedding that the police arrested him. And according to a third, she dumped him in the Providence Athenaeum on Dec. 23, 1848 — the day of the magazine defacement.

End of the Affair

Edgar Allan Poe and Sarah Helen Whitman never got married. But she defended his literary reputation after he died — less than a year after their proposed wedding date.

His enemies belittled him, and she wrote a book on behalf of his work. She also shared her letters from him with his English biographer.

Sarah Helen Whitman died on June 27, 1878, and was buried in the North Burial Ground in Providence.

This story was updated in 2023.

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10-Year-Old Loyalist Watches Battle of Bunker Hill

A 10-year-old Loyalist girl named Dorothea Gamsby watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from a window. She was staying with her uncle, Sir George Nutting, when the American Revolution broke out. She didn’t go home because of the danger in traveling back to her parents, who lived in the countryside.

Battle of Bunker Hill by Percy Moran

Dorothea Gamsby stayed in Boston until Evacuation Day , when she sailed away with her aunt and uncle. It would be many years before she saw her parents again. She wrote a recollection of the battle to her granddaughter many years later.

The Battle of Bunker Hill

…the Colonys were ripening to rebelion, bloodshed and civil war. They sent a host of troops from home. Boston was full of them and they seemed to be there only to eat and drink and enjoy themselves, but one day there was more than usual commotion. Uncle said there had been an outbreak in the country, and then came a night when there was bustle, anxiety, and watching. Aunt and her maid walked from room to room, sometimes weeping. I crept after them unable to sleep when everyone seemed wide awake and the streets full of people. It was scarcely daylight when the booming of cannon on board the ships in the harbour shook every house in the Citty. My uncle had been much abroad lately and had only sought his pillow within the hour but he came immediately to my aunt’s room, saying he would go and learn the cause of the fireing and come again to inform us. He had not left the house when a servant in livery called to say that the rebels had colected in force on Breed’s Hill, were getting up fortifications, and that Governor Gage requested his presence.

‘There must be a brush,’ he said, ‘for General Howe has ordered out the troops to dislodge them.’

There they were, the audacious rebels! hard at work, makeing what seemed to me a monstrous fence. ‘What is it they are going to do, aunt, and what are they makeing that big fence for?’

‘They mean to shoot our King’s soldiers, I suppose,’ she said, ‘and probably the fireing is intended to drive them away.’

‘But, Aunt, the cannon balls will kill some of them. See, see, the soldiers and the banners! O, Aunt, they will be killed! Why can’t they stay out of the way?’

Pomp and Brilliance

The glittering host, the crashing music, all the pomp and brilliance of war moved up toward that band of rebels, but they still laboured at their entrenchment; they seemed to take no heed. The bullets from the ships, the advanceing column of British warriors were alike unnoticed.

‘I should think they would begin to get out of the way,’ said my aunt.

Every available window and roof was filled with spectators, watching the advanceing regulars. Every heart, I dare say, throbed as mine did and we held our breath, or rather it seemed to stop and oppress the labouring chest of its own acord, so intensely we awaited the expected attack, but the troops drew nearer and the rebels toiled on. At length one who stood conspicuously above the rest waved his bright weapon; the explosion came attended by the crash of music, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying.

My aunt fainted.

Joseph Warren

Poor Abby, (the maid), looked on like one distracted. I screamed with all my might. The roar of artilery continued, but the smoke hid the havoc of war from our view. The housekeeper attended to my aunt and beged for somebody to go for Dr. (Joseph) Warren, but everybody was to much engaged with watching the smokeing battlefield.

Little did they know Dr. Joseph Warren died during the battle.

O, how wild and terrific was that long day! Old as I am, the memory of that fearful contest will sometimes come over my spirit as if it had been but yesterday. Men say it was not much of a fight, but to me it seems terrible. Charleston was in flames, women and children flying from their burning houses sought reffuge in the citty.

Dismay and terror, wailing and distraction impressed their picture on my memory, never to be effaced. By and by drays, carts, and every description of vehicle that could be obtained were seen nearing the scene of the conflict and the roar of artillery seaced. Uncle came home and said the rebels had retreated. Dr. Warren was the first who fell that day. Then came the loads of wounded men attended by long lines of soldiers, the gay banners torn and soiled, a sight to be remembered a lifetime. I have read many times of the glory of war but this one battle taught me, however it be painted by poet or novelist, there is nothing but wo and sorrow and shame to be found in the reality.

For a soldier’s eyewitness account of the battle, click here. This story last updated in 2022.

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Mary Katherine Goddard Risks Her Life, Prints the Declaration of Independence

In January 1777, the Continental Congress asked Mary Katherine Goddard to print the Declaration of Independence for distribution throughout the colonies.

Declaration of Independence printed by
Mary Katherine Goddard

She agreed, though she risked her life to print the document. The British considered it treason.

It was the second printing of the Declaration, but Mary Katherine Goddard was the first to print it with the names of all 56 signers on it. She was also one of the most important printers of the American Revolution.

Connecticut Roots

She was born in New London, Conn., on June 16, 1738, the daughter of Dr. Giles Goddard, a wealthy doctor and postmaster, and Sarah Updike Goddard.

Her father died in 1762, and her mother moved with Mary Katherine and her brother William to Providence, R.I.

Her mother loaned William the money to start Providence’s first newspaper, the The Providence Gazette and Country Journal. William traveled frequently, though, leaving mother and daughter to run the newspaper.

Five years later, William started the Pennsylvania Chronicle in Philadelphia with several partners, including Benjamin Franklin. Mary Katherine followed him to Pennsylvania and took over the Chronicle when her mother died in 1770.

Baltimore Postmaster

Mary Katherine Goddard

By 1773, the British authorities started interfering with the mail, eventually forcing the Goddard siblings to shut down the Chronicle. Again they moved, this time to Baltimore, where William started the Maryland Journal. Again Mary Katherine ran the newspaper while William traveled. She also served as Baltimore’s postmaster.

In July 1776, the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia to escape the British army. They took the Declaration of Independence and other papers to Baltimore. In January 1777, heartened by the Continental Army’s victories at Princeton and Trenton, the Congress ordered a second printing of the Declaration of Independence with the names of all the signers.

When the war ended, Goddard and her brother had a falling out, and she stopped printing the paper. She continued as postmaster of Baltimore until 1789, when she was forced out of the job, over the protests of the Baltimore business community.

She stayed in business selling books, stationery and dry goods until the early 19^th century.

Mary Katherine Goddard died on Aug. 12, 1816.

Image of Mary Katherine Goddard courtesy the Enoch Pratt Free Library. This story was updated in 2017.

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George Frazier on the Best-Dressed Men of 1960

For 40 years, George Frazier was to Boston what Jimmy Breslin was to New York, what Mike Royko was to Chicago and Herb Caen to San Francisco.

Handsome and elegant, he wrote columns about jazz, sports, politics and style for publications in the United States and Europe: the Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, Down Beat and Life.

His Esquire piece, The Art of Wearing Clothes, was a George Frazier classic, recounting the history of “this rare masculine art and of the men who practice it extremely well.”

Duende

His most important – and popular – subject was duende, an Andalusian-Spanish word that he said meant “class.”

“So difficult to define, “ he wrote, “but when it is there it is unmistakable, inspiring our awe, quickening our memory. To observe someone who has it is to feel icy fingers running up and down our spine.’’ He made his commitment to duende evident in his fastidious dress, often sporting a white carnation in his buttonhole.

Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding. He had duende.

His Esquire essay on men’s style required years of research. In his final analysis, New England’s finest men’s clothiers ranked with the best in London, Paris and New York, he wrote. Many catered to the region’s storied institutions of higher learning, such as J. Press at Yale, Andover Shop at Phillips Academy and Chipp at Harvard.

Firefighter’s Son

George Frazier had a steeper learning curve about men’s fashions than did the wealthy socialites he wrote about. He was born in South Boston on June 10, 1911, the son of a firefighter. He graduated from Boston Latin School and then Harvard College in 1932. Soon after graduation he began writing about jazz – in both French and English.

Frank Sinatra — definite duende

He analyzed what was best about popular culture and elevated it to a higher plane. George Frazier celebrated the way the music of Count Basie wafted over the Public Garden from the Roof at the Ritz. He made readers wish they’d seen Hobey Baker play hockey at Princeton.

In his essays on duende, Frazier tried to separate what was genuinely excellent from dross. Frank Sinatra had duende, he wrote; Dick Haymes did not. Nantucket had it, Martha’s Vineyard didn’t. Ted Williams had it when striking out; Stan Musial didn’t even when hitting a home run.

Esquire

For Esquire, Frazier deconstructed the clothing preferences and habits of the best-dressed men he knew — men with duende:

The best-dressed American men — at least for the most part — not only cherish venerable clothes, but cherish venerable milieux as well. Like their apparel, they, too, are full of tradition, being, rather more often than not, products of such sanctified New England private schools as St. Mark’s, Groton, and St. Paul’s, and of ivied universities like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton; living, not in such youthful and characterless cities as Los Angeles, but in either what Roger Angell has termed “The Effete East” — which is to say the hallowed ground of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and the posher precincts of Long Island.

The best-dressed American men also respected and liked the men who sell them clothes, wrote George Frazier. They began buying clothes at Brooks Brothers on Christmas vacation. When they got married, he wrote, “it would have been absolutely unthinkable not to have had a Brooks Brothers representative on hand to tie their and their ushers’ ascots.”

J. P. Morgan, wrote Frazier, greeted a Brooks Brothers’ employee with “Good morning, Mr. Webb.” Webb replied, “Good morning, Jack.”

Credit to BroBro

George Frazier gave credit to Brooks Brothers for creating the foundational garment of the well-dressed New Englander: the No. 1-sack suit. Not-yet-President John F. Kennedy wore it, though Frazier didn’t include him on his list of best-dressed men.

Angier Biddle Duke

He did include Kennedy’s future chief of protocol, Angier Biddle Duke. Duke was the nephew of A.J. Drexel Biddle – about whom “it would be something of a task to find a male more elegant than he,” wrote Frazier.

Biddle sworn in as ambassador to Norway. Clearly the most elegant person in the room.

George Frazier traced the spread of the sack suit style among Yale undergraduates by the venerable J. Press, which had catered to Yalies since 1902. In the 1940s, two tailors left J. Press and opened a shop in Harvard Square called Chipp, which later opened a shop in New York. Chipp closed its Cambridge store by 1960, but still had its New York branch.

Frazier called Zareh of Boston and Brookline, Mass., “one of the few authentically tasteful men’s shops in the United States.” He praised Marty Sullivan’s in New Bedford. The shopowner was so attuned to men’s fashion he sent his buyers and designers to hang out in P.J. Clarke’s in Manhattan so they could watch “the creatively dressed Ivy Leaguers” who frequented the bar.

George Frazier also approved of the Boston Bootmakers of Boston and Andover Shops in Cambridge and Andover, Mass., which to this day caters to Phillips Academy students.

Invisible Elegance

Frazier, in his Esquire essay, noted that elegance didn’t have to be visible. Playwright Moss Hart, he wrote, favored solid-gold monogrammed collar stays. Noted English dandy Freddie Cripps would only have his underwear made in Vienna. He traveled there regularly for fittings. And then this:

In the case of the late William Rhinelander Stewart, for example, elegance was nothing more costly than not venturing out in the evening without first having his rumpled paper money ironed flat by his valet!

Moss Hart

Best Dressed List By George Frazier

George Frazier then ended his 10,000 word essay with his picks for the best-dressed men he knew. They included:

FRED ASTAIRE — Then 61, he “favors English-type jackets, suede shoes, often uses silk handkerchiefs as belts. He has had many suits made by Anderson and Sheppard of London, but, at the moment, he is using John Galuppo of Schmidt and Galuppo, Inc., of Beverly Hills.” Frazier also quoted Astaire: “I often take a brand-new suit or hat and throw it up against the wall a few times to get that stiff, square newness out of it.”

DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR, — Fairbanks, 50, then lived in London. “He is a member of the Century and Lambs clubs in New York, Buck’s and White’s in London, the Travellers in Paris, and the Metropolitan and the Army & Navy in Washington, D.C. His tailor: Stovel & Mason (48 guineas or $141.12 a suit) in London.”

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

ROY HAYNES — The thiry-five-year-old jazz percussionist belongs on any best-dressed list if only because of his taste in selecting clothes that flatter his short stature (five feet, three and a half inches). His suits are custom made (around $125 each) by the Andover Shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Roy Haynes at radio KJAZ Festival, Davies Symony Hall, San Francisco 1981 © Brian McMillen

Also Well-Dressed

CARY GRANT — “Although Grant, who is fifty-six, favors such abominations as large tie knots and claims to have originated the square-style breast-pocket handkerchief, he is so extraordinarily attractive that he looks good in practically anything. He insists upon tight armholes in his suit jackets, finds the most comfortable (and functional) of all underwear to be women’s nylon panties. Something of a maverick as to tailors, he now goes to Quintino (around $225 a suit) in Beverly Hills, California, and, whenever possible, certain of the preposterously low-priced geniuses in Hong Kong.”

Cary Grant

MILES DAVIS — Frazier noted the 34-year-old “genius of “progressive jazz” trumpet” favors skin-tight trousers and Italian-cut jackets. “His seersucker coats, which have side vents, are custom made. His tailor: Emsley (New York), which charges $185 a suit.”

Miles Davis

JOHN McLEAN: JOHN McLEAN — The 41-year-old son of Washington hostess Evalyn Walsh McLean belonged to the Racquet & Tennis Club in New York and the Seminole in Palm Beach. He helped originate red socks for wear with a dinner suit. He goes to Bernard Weatherill.

George Frazier died on June 13, 1974. Studs Terkel had this to say about him:

Duende was George Frazier’s favorite word. It is, of course, the precise word to describe his life and his writings: roughly translated—grace, wit and class.

You can read the whole essay here.

With thanks to Another Man’s Poison: The Life and Writings of Columnist George Frazier by Charles Fountain.

End Notes

Images: Roy Haynes by By Brianmcmillen – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77365373. This story was updated in 2021. A.J. Drexel Biddle Harris & Ewing, photographer. (1935) Biddle sworn in as Minister to Norway. Exclusive picture was taken Tuesday when Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., was sworn in as minister to Norway in the State Dept. bldg. Left to right: Sen. Joseph F. Guffey D. of Penn., Acting Sec. of State William Phillip, Minister to Norway Biddle and Percy F. Allen, Chief of the Appt. Division, seen swearing Mr. Biddle in to his new post, 7/23/35. United States, 1935. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2016881245/. Paul Newman By Lmattozz – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56807570. Cary Grant By farid_s_v. – Flickr. Information about which film this is from is in here., CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48810000. Roy Haynes By Brianmcmillen – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77365373. Miles Davis By Mallory1180 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56137966. Fred Astaire by kate gabrielle via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

This story updated in 2023.

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The 1772 Gaspee Affair, Rhode Island’s Own Tea Party (But the Ship Burned) Part 2

To read Part 1 of this story about the Gaspee Affair, click here.

Early in the morning of June 10, 1772, some of Rhode Island’s most prominent citizens rowed out to the hated revenue schooner HMS Gaspee. It had run aground in Narragansett Bay near Warwick, R.I. The raiders intended to capture her crew.

Burning of the Gaspee

They hadn’t planned on 18-year-old Joseph Bucklin taking a shot at the Gaspee’s commander, Lt. William Dudingston, as their longboats approached the ship.

Their attack on a British military vessel would be considered treason and an act of war. A Royal Commission of Inquiry would investigate, and the Gaspee raiders could potentially go on trial in England. But silence surrounded the capture and burning of the Gaspee, and the raiders went unpunished. But the prospect that they could be tried and hanged in England helped set in motion the events that led to the American Revolution.

Many Rhode Islanders celebrate Joseph Bucklin’s shot as the first shot of the Revolution.

Life Saver

As Dudingston lay bleeding on the deck, more than 100 Sons of Liberty swarmed over the vessel and overtook the crew. Dudingston, thinking himself mortally wounded, surrendered the ship. The Gaspee raiders took the crewmen captive, tying their hands.

They took Dudingston below deck, and John Brown told John Mawney to attend to him. Mawney, a wealthy young doctor, found Dudingston lying under a white blanket, blood spurting from his femoral artery. Bucklin had shot him in the left arm and the groin, five inches below his naval.

Mawney began to tear his shirt to make bandages, but Dudingston told him not to. He had linen in the trunk, he said. With Bucklin’s help, Mawney stanched the bleeding from Dudingston’s femoral artery, saving his life. The raiders carried Dudingston out of the cabin and took him ashore. He survived to continue his naval career and died a rich man in Scotland.

Loaded Into Longboats

One by one, the raiders loaded the captured crewmen of the Gaspee into the longboats with their possessions. The sun would soon rise, and they had left one boat and the leaders of the raid behind. They took the Gaspee crew to the cellar of a house, the wounded Dudingston to a home where a doctor would take care of him.

Joseph Wanton

Left behind were the leaders of the raid, including prominent Rhode Islanders John Brown and Abraham Whipple. They went through Dudingston’s papers and then, as dawn broke, set fire to the ship and boarded their longboat. First the hull of the schooner burned, then the two masts. On shore, people heard a set of explosions when the fire reached the powder magazine. The Gaspee burned to the waterline.

To protect the raiders, newspapers printed nothing about the affair. The British attorney general and solicitor issued opinions that the raid on the vessel was treason and an act of war.

Gaspee Affair

The Gaspee Affair put Rhode Island Gov. Joseph Wanton in a bind. A friend of John Brown and his family, he sympathized with the colony’s merchants suddenly pushed around by rude and condescending British customs officials. Wanton, though a wealthy merchant, did not want war with the British.

Wanton received an appointment as chairman of the Royal Commission of Inquiry. He managed to placate the British authorities in England and to delay the proceedings. Rhode Islanders fiercely protected the identities of the raiders during the months of the inquiry and afterwards. In the end, the commission determined that persons unknown had undertaken the Gaspee Affair.

Wanton would serve as governor until the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775. But since he wanted to avoid war with Britain, he was called a Loyalist. He managed to stay neutral, and the patriots left his property alone – unlike other provincial governors.

But the possibility of the Gaspee raiders would be sent to Britain and tried for treason so alarmed the colonists that they began to form committees of correspondence. Those committees would serve as shadow governments and catalysts for the American Revolution.

The annual Gaspee Days festival is usually a big deal, with the Gaspee Days Parade, fireworks, a concert by the Warwick Symphony and the burning of the Gaspee. The COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to the 2020 Gaspee Days, but they returned in 2022. Click here for more details about this year’s event.

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The 1772 Gaspee Affair, Rhode Island’s Own Tea Party (But the Ship Burned), Part 1

The real first shot of the American Revolution may have been fired at the HMS Gaspee, a British customs schooner, on Narragansett Bay in 1772 rather than on Lexington Green in 1775.

By June 9, 1772, the Gaspee’s crew had almost daily been boarding and searching colonists’ vessels, even little packet boats, in search of smuggled goods. Americans sailing Narragansett Bay were especially offended by the Gaspee’s arrogant and aggressive commander, Lt. William Dudingston.

The Burning of the Gaspee by Charles deWolf Brownell, c1892

So on that June night, a young man sitting in a rowboat noticed Dudingston in a white shirt leaning over the starboard gunwale of the Gaspee. Joseph Bucklin realized he had a shot at Dudingston – and took it.

Bucklin wasn’t the only patriot on Narragansett Bay that night. He was one of a hundred or so Sons of Liberty who rowed out in longboats to capture the crew of the Gaspee. Then they burned the ship to the waterline. What happened that night is celebrated to this day in Rhode Island’s annual commemoration of its own Tea Party.

Customs

Dudingston had a right to board ships in Narragansett Bay. Rhode Island was a notorious haven for smugglers and privateers, and Britain badly needed the customs revenue from the tax they were evading.

The British government bore a crushing debt incurred in winning the French and Indian War. It needed money, and collecting customs duties was one way of getting it.

In 1764, the British Parliament passed the Sugar Act, a tax on sugar, and the British Admiralty bought six ships ‘of Marblehead design’ to enforce it. At the time ‘Marblehead’ was understood to be of the type built in Essex, Mass. One of those vessels was the Gaspee.

Rhode Islanders didn’t take kindly to British ships enforcing the new law. In 1764, they attacked the HMS St. John. Five years later they burned the HMS Liberty, a customs ship, in Newport Harbor.

By 1772 the Gaspee had become a daily nuisance in Narragansett Bay because her crew had an incentive to collect as much customs duty as possible: They shared in it.

Rhode Island was fed up with the Gaspee; so much so that on May 20, 1772, Gov. Joseph Wanton wrote a letter to the British secretary of state complaining about her. He argued the Gaspee‘s crew didn’t have the right to seize a quantity of rum and try the owner outside of the colony of Rhode Island. On top of that, they insulted the colonists with ‘the most abusive and contumelious language.’

Gaspee Makes A Big Mistake

On June 9, 1772, the Gaspee gave chase in Narragansett Bay to a packet boat named Hannah and ran aground on Namquid Point.

The captain of the Hannah, Thomas Lindsey, came ashore at Providence and went right to John Brown to tell him what happened.

Abraham Whipple

John Brown was perhaps the wealthiest man in Rhode Island, a merchant who engaged in the slave trade and the China trade. He had for years invested in privateers.

On talking the Hannah’s captain, Brown immediately concluded the Gaspee would be grounded until well after midnight. Then the rising tide could free her. Brown saw a way to rid Rhode Island’s merchants of the ship commanded by the much-hated William Dudingston.

Brown ordered eight longboats delivered to Fenner’s Wharf, their oars and oarlocks muffled. He sent a drummer around town to announce the grounding of the Gaspee. Anyone interested in destroying that troublesome vessel should go to James Sabin’s house, right next to Fenner’s Wharf.

Ephraim Bowen, years old about 19, answered the call. He grabbed his father’s gun, powder and shot and found a crowd at Sabin’s. Some were casting musket balls in the kitchen. His friend, 18-year-old Joseph Bucklin, a tavern-keeper’s son, had arrived, too.

Who Goes There?

On that moonless night, more than 100 Sons of Liberty silently rowed out in a line of longboats to the Gaspee,

Lt. William Dudingston leaned over the starboard gunwale in his white shirt and demanded, “Who goes there?”

Abraham Whipple responded. He was a Providence, R.I.-born seafarer who worked for John Brown and privateered during the French and Indian War. He was also sheriff of Kent County.

Dudingston asked again, “Who goes there?”

Said Whipple, “ “I am the sheriff of the county of Kent, G… d ..n you. I have got a warrant to apprehend you, G.. d..n you; so surrender, G.. d..n you.”

Joseph Bucklin, standing on the main seat of the longboat, realized he had a shot at Dudingston.

“Ephe, reach me your gun and I can kill that fellow,’ he said to Ephraim Bowen. Bucklin then fired at Lt. William Dudingston, hitting him in the arm and lower abdomen. He exclaimed, “I have killed the rascal.” Dudingston fell back, thinking himself mortally wounded.

Today, Rhode Islanders celebrate that shot as the ‘First Shot of the Revolutionary War.’

Read the rest of the story in Part 2. This article was updated in 2023.

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