The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn

by Robert P. Watson

  On August 27, 1781, the British frigate Solebay caught the American privateer. The Fair American was a capable ship, but it was no match for the superior warship and was easily defeated in the short battle. Andros and his crewmates were taken to the city, where they learned they were to be detained aboard the most ill-famed ship of the war.

  Ebenezer Fox was born, as he described, in 1763, “at the conclusion of the treaty of peace between England and France, at the termination of the long and harassing war, known as the ‘Old French War.’” Because he was one of many children of a poor tailor who struggled to feed his family and because he was a large and physically strong boy, at the age of seven Ebenezer was apprenticed to a farmer near his family home in Roxbury, Massachusetts. The young boy recalled that for five long years, he “suffered many privations and endured much hardship… compared with that of many other boys of my age.” Fox grew “dissatisfied” with his “situation” and, fascinated by the revolutionary events that were swirling throughout New England, he longed for adventure and opportunity. Even as a boy, he was angered by the stories of “injustice and wrongs” at the hands of the British and soon became swept up by the “spirit of disaffection [that] pervaded the land.”

  When news arrived of the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, Fox knew what he wanted to do. Young Fox and a friend named John Kelley, who was a few years his senior, decided they would run away and join the war. It was a bold decision. A few days after the start of the war, Fox, with half a dollar in his pocket and the clothing on his back, set off with his friend to enlist with a military recruiter. The boys walked for days before arriving in Providence, where they discovered that it was easy to “find employment as sailors.” Crews of privateers were being organized on a regular basis throughout New England’s coastal communities. These vessels of fortune were typically crewed by teenage boys, who were paid but a meager wage and promised only a small share of the riches plundered. Still, for many of them such as Ebenezer Fox, it was the promise of adventure as much as the pittance they earned—a sum that far surpassed what they made as an apprentice—that brought boys in droves to Providence’s harbor.

  Fox and Kelley were hired by Captain Joseph Manchester as cabin boys and paid half the wages of a sailor. They were told the merchant ship was sailing for the West Indies to trade for molasses. It was probable the ship was also a privateer. It scarcely mattered, however, as the boys were in the fight. It was their first time at sea. Ebenezer Fox was only twelve years old.

  Although the small craft did not seize any British ships, the captain managed to avoid the warships that prowled the waters off the coast during their first round-trip voyage. Their luck did not hold. During the second trip, they were caught by British warships. While trying to elude the warships, Captain Manchester mistakenly sailed the small schooner onto a sandbar not far from Providence. The British opened fire. With exploding spouts of water all around the ship, the crew jumped overboard and swam for shore. Fox was frozen with fear and indecision. Curiously, Captain Manchester, who chose to remain with his ship, ordered the cabin boy to “remain on board with him and be taken prisoner.” Fox hesitated, not knowing what to do, but as the British tender neared the merchant vessel, Fox could stand the tension no longer and jumped into the water.

  As he swam, Fox remembered, bullets “whistled around my head while in the water.” He made it ashore and, with the British still firing at him, raced into a nearby cornfield. But, finding his “wet clothes an incumbrance,” he “stripped them off and ran with all speed.” At the end of the field, he found the other sailors hiding. One of them lent him a shirt, which covered the boy down to his feet. Ebenezer Fox managed to elude the British. The young boy walked all the way to Providence to his aunt’s home.

  Fox remembered that the event should have been seen by him “as judgments against any more attempts” to go to sea. He failed to heed the warning.

  The Sherburnes hailed from England and, in a familiar story, they sailed to America in search of a better life, settling in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The family later moved to Rye, New York, where Andrew, the fourth child in a family of five boys and eight girls, was born in 1765. It was the year the Stamp Act was imposed on the colonies. As a child, Andrew had a close call with death. Just shy of his third birthday, the infant fell into a spring and, had it not been for the quick thinking of one of his older sisters, would have drowned. It formed a lifelong fear of the water in the lad, something that should have kept him from joining a privateer a few years later, where he would cheat death again and again.

  As was common among poor families with many children, Andrew was sent away to live with a relative, in his case an aunt in the town of Londonderry. He was only seven and would not see his family again for another four long years. Lonely, the boy became despondent until his life was changed at age nine when a woman from Ireland, described by Sherburne as “crippled from birth,” moved in with his aunt to serve as his tutor. His new tutor was deeply religious and introduced Andrew to the Bible. Religion soon became the center of his life. But his new tutor’s God was one of vengeance and little patience. Under her stern instruction, Andrew soon believed he was a sinner and that his separation from his family was God’s punishment. The young boy also developed a conviction that he needed to atone for his sins… somehow.

  An idea presented itself the next year, when Andrew was ten years old and the war began. As was the case with Ebenezer Fox, the fighting at Lexington and Concord prompted many boys in rural New York to enlist. Sherburne was one of them. “I wished myself old enough to take an active part in this contest,” he later recalled. Two years later, at age twelve, he traveled to hear a preacher in the nearby town of Epsom and was deeply moved by the sermon. Sherburne walked home alone afterward filled with thoughts of redemption. Along the way, he had a revelation: it was time to join the war. This would redeem him and allow the boy to atone for his perceived sins.

  Sherburne said good-bye to his aunt and tutor and traveled to Portsmouth to inform his family of his intentions. While there he saw men and boys enlisting and ships being built. He also heard about treasure captured by privateers during the war. An older brother had joined the navy, so the boy made up his mind. “I was filled with anxiety to become an actor in the war,” he admitted. Sherburne immediately informed his family of his intention to join the crew of a privateer, but his father disapproved of privateers and told his son that he was also too young to fight.

  Thinking himself “almost a man,” Sherburne announced his intention to run away and join the crew of a privateer over his father’s objections. Worried their son was serious, Mr. and Mrs. Sherburne reluctantly gave their approval for him to join the war as long as it was not serving on a privateer. The Continental Navy was a more reputable service than a privateer, and two of Sherburne’s half uncles were sailors on the warship Ranger. Several boys from the area were also enlisting, so at age thirteen, Andrew Sherburne became a sailor on the Ranger. He and nearly thirty other young boys signed a contract with the captain of the ship; then they simply had to “pack up their clothes, take a cheese and a loaf of bread, and steer off.”

  Writing years later, Sherburne admitted that the “rash young adventurers did not count the cost, or think of looking at the dark side of the picture.” He went looking for adventure, service, and redemption for some imaginary sin, and it would nearly cost him his life.

  At twenty-five, Thomas Dring was the “old man” of the group of five wide-eyed young sailors. Andrew Sherburne was the only one with combat experience. Little did they know it, but Hawkins, Dring, Fox, Andros, and Sherburne were about to become a part of the bloodiest battle of the Revolutionary War.

  6

  Adventure on the High Seas

  Dull flew the hours, ’till from the East displayed,

  Sweet morn dispelled the horrors of the shade.

  On every side, dire objects met the sight,

  And pallid forms, and murders o
f the night.

  The dead were past their pain; the living groan,

  Nor dare to hope another morn their own.

  —Philip Freneau, “The British Prison-Ship” (1781)

  Twelve-year-old Ebenezer Fox returned home from his initial voyage, only to travel to Providence to enlist on a ship commanded by a Captain Thomas just four days later. This time he was away at sea for six months. Having given him up for dead, the boy’s family was surprised and overjoyed by his return. Fox’s father warned him against enlisting a third time, saying that his son had been lucky to avoid any “evil consequences” from his “imprudent” action. He pleaded with the young boy, “I hope you will abandon all such schemes in the future.”

  However, after a few months back home in Roxbury apprenticing for a wigmaker, the boy learned that the Massachusetts militia was recruiting local boys. The wigmaker, a Mr. Bosson, had fallen on hard times and was feeling pressure to join the militia. Instead, he offered Fox the chance to take his place. The young boy agreed, and the payment was arranged by Bosson to both Fox and the militia recruiter. The young boy was thrilled to be making four dollars a month, the “largest sum I ever before possessed,” he would later recall. Fox had a three-month enlistment with a unit from Boston. It was September 1779 and he was not quite sixteen.

  Fox made it through his enlistment with no more excitement than blisters on his feet from all the marching. After his discharge, the young boy desired to return to sea to make money. So in January 1780 he joined the crew of the Protector, a twenty-gun warship of the Massachusetts colony commanded by John Foster Williams. Fox and the other new recruits marched to the port singing a tune popular among sailors of the time:

  All you that have bad masters

  And cannot get your due;

  Come, come, my brave boys,

  And join with our ship’s crew!

  In February the warship set sail with 350 men. They sailed north into the cold waters of Newfoundland hunting British merchant ships and small warships. After several uneventful weeks, Captain Williams sailed south for the main British trade routes from the West Indies. Finally, after four months spent mostly at sea, through the fog on the morning of June 9, Fox and his mates finally saw a British ship. It was a warship boasting thirty-two guns. Captain Williams ordered the crew to fly the British Union Jack. The trick worked, and the British ship allowed the Protector to approach close enough that Fox counted the guns and could read the ship’s name—the Admiral Duff.

  Fox was assigned to the quarterdeck. He and his crewmates were told to stay hidden and quiet until Captain Williams gave the command. Nervously they waited for the coming battle. Williams hoisted a trumpet and asked the British captain the purpose of his cruise. The Admiral Duff was sailing from Jamaica to London laden with sugar and tobacco. But then the British captain, becoming suspicious, responded with his own questions. It was at that moment that Captain Williams gave the command to fire. The crew brought down the British flag and hoisted the Stars and Stripes. Loaded cannons were rolled out through the gun ports. From the quarterdeck, Fox helped ready a 6-pounder. The order rang out: “Fire!” The Protector unleashed a broadside into the Admiral Duff. Although the British ship was larger, her crew was caught unprepared.

  The fight raged for thirty minutes, with both ships exchanging fire. The Admiral Duff, her sails and rigging nearly destroyed, attempted to sail away, but the Americans gave chase, pulling alongside the damaged ship to continue the fight. Fox was standing next to Captain Williams on the quarterdeck when a musket ball dinged loudly on the commander’s trumpet. Fox exhaled when he realized his captain was unharmed and marveled at his calm during the battle. It inspired courage in the young boy. But at that moment a great explosion rang out. A storm of small iron balls and sharp objects known as grapeshot poured onto the quarterdeck of the Protector, killing and wounding several of Fox’s crewmates. The scene was one of mayhem on both ships; the British were putting up a determined fight.

  From the deck of the Protector, marines armed with muskets returned fire, sending volley after volley onto the upper deck of the Admiral Duff. Few men remained on the deck of the British warship. The battle was turning decidedly in favor of the Americans. Then finally one of the Protector’s cannonballs struck a powder supply in the stern of the Admiral Duff, igniting a great and terrible explosion that blew the back half of the ship into the sky. The battle was over. The Protector suffered massive damage but was still seaworthy.

  The Americans surveyed the toll on the Admiral Duff, which Fox described as a “terrible slaughter among the enemy.” For the first time in his life, the boy witnessed blood and death up close. Young Fox’s first taste of combat ended in a grand victory, but he remembered being rendered momentarily deaf from the constant cannon fire and the explosion near him. The Protector sailed back to Boston for repairs.

  Back home and contemplating his future, Fox watched a recruiting party that “paraded the streets under the American flag, accompanied by a band of martial music.” Inspired by the spectacle and emboldened by the Protector’s victory, he decided to reenlist and set sail again in October 1780. On its next voyage the Protector enjoyed successful missions in the waters off Halifax, San Juan, and Charleston. Back home, enjoying the money he earned and his share of the plundered wares, Fox made the choice to go back to sea yet again. He also stopped worrying about getting captured or killed in combat, believing the prospect of any “evil” was likely “afar off” and that luck was with him. It was not.

  A few days out at sea on Fox’s next sailing, the lookout aboard the Protector spied two ships in the distance. It was soon apparent the ships were hunting them. The lookout announced they were both flying French flags, but Captain Williams informed the crew that their pursuers were likely British. He was right. As the ships neared, the French flags were taken down and replaced with the Union Jack. Williams ordered the Protector to make a run for it.

  The Protector’s crew worked to catch the winds, but over the next few hours the two British warships closed the distance. Fox and his crewmates realized they were about to be caught. The sight of what was hunting them panicked the crew on the Protector. Closing fast was the forty-gun Roebuck and twenty-eight-gun May-Day. Sure enough, the British ships fired warning shots, then strategically separated, with one pulling alongside the starboard and the other off the port of the Protector. The British captains offered the Americans a choice—surrender or be fired on from both sides. Captain Williams wisely surrendered.

  Fox remembered the fear he felt as the British boarded the Protector and yanked down the Stars and Stripes. To curses of “damned rebels,” the victors proceeded to “strike or kick every [American] sailor.” They then began confiscating the ship’s supplies and the Americans’ possessions. When the British found money on some of their new prisoners, they ordered all members of the Protector’s crew to strip naked and be searched. Fox had cleverly hidden money beneath the insole of his shoe and in the crown of his hat. However, when it was his turn to be searched, he was shaken and knocked around so violently that his hat fell off and the money was found. But his captors never found the money he hid in his shoe. Other members of the crew lost everything.

  Young Ebenezer Fox’s luck had run out. He and his crewmates were forcefully shoved down into the holds of the Roebuck and not permitted to go above deck for a full day and night. He soon learned he was being taken to New York.

  One of the prisoners with a unique perspective on British prisons in both America and England—as well as on land and in ships—was Andrew Sherburne, the young boy from New York, convinced he was a sinner in need of redemption. Young Sherburne sought repentance by joining the crew of the Continental warship Ranger. He set sail in June 1779 on the eighteen-gun warship from Portsmouth as part of a three-ship squadron of frigates from Boston and Providence. The experience was rough for a landlubber. Sherburne and the other new members of the crew immediately became violently seasick. Nor did the naive boy understand th
e strange “dialect” and salty customs of the sailors. Like other teens at sea, he was also “ridiculed… insulted, and frequently obliged to fight” the older sailors. However, once he learned to fight and stand up for himself, the abuse abated.

  Sherburne was soon assigned to wait upon the ship’s boatswain, a man named Charles Roberts.* It was not the adventurous experience Sherburne wanted, but the job would soon end up saving his life.

  The crew of the Ranger spent long days drilling and firing the cannons. In between these preparations Sherburne had to attend to the boatswain, serving him dinner and performing various chores. After “several weeks,” they were cruising in the West Indies when the tedious routine was broken at seven one morning by a lookout screaming, “A sail, a sail on the lee-bow; another there, and there!” They had spotted a British fleet en route to Jamaica. As the thick morning fog dissipated, the lookout counted fifty sails through the spyglass. Hearts raced as the men were called to battle stations. They closed the distance to the convoy, and Sherburne soon saw three times as many sails, some of them atop armed escorts.

  Undeterred, the Ranger boldly pursued the largest warship in the convoy, the twenty-two-gun Holderness, while the other two American ships chased the merchant vessels. Fortunately for Sherburne and his crew, their foe was slow and the crew not at full strength; the Ranger caught the rear guard of the convoy in only one hour. After weakening their foe from a distance, the Ranger repeatedly hit the Holderness with broadsides at close range until she struck colors. The marines on board the Ranger boarded their prize and found her hull filled with cotton, coffee, sugar, rum, and spices. In total, the small Continental squadron claimed ten ships. It had been a terrifying but exciting experience for young Sherburne.