Name: Connecticut Pirates & Privateers
Brand: Renwick Griswold
SKU: 9781626199217
Price: 21.99 USD
Availability: InStock

Renwick Griswold

Connecticut Pirates & Privateers

9781626199217

$21.99

The waters, inlets and islands of Connecticut once swarmed with fabled corsairs like Captain Kidd and Blackbeard who may have buried their booty in Constitution State soil. In colonial times and through the nineteenth century, over one hundred privateers used the Connecticut River and waterways as a home port, influencing the geopolitics of the time. During the Revolutionary War, the infamous traitor Benedict Arnold attempted to destroy the state's privateer fleet. In 1779, Captain Elisha Hinman cleverly devised a system that allowed the large privateer ship Governor Trumbull to avoid enemy attack by becoming super-buoyant and passing over dangerous shoals. Wick Griswold uncovers the swashbuckling stories of Connecticut's pirates and privateers, brimming with historical facts and local myths.

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Harry Gratwick

The Maritime Marauder of Revolutionary Maine

9781626195189

$21.99

In 1775, Captain Henry Mowat infamously ordered the burning of Falmouth—now Portland. That act cast him as the arch-villain in the state's Revolutionary history, but Mowat's impact on Maine went far beyond a single order. The Scottish Mowat began his North American career by surveying the Maine coast, capturing and confiscating colonial merchant ships he suspected of smuggling. Already feared by Mainers when the war broke out, his legacy was further tarnished when he was blamed for dismantling Fort Pownall at the mouth of the Penobscot River. In this volume, local historian Harry Gratwick examines the life of Henry Mowat and whether he truly was the scoundrel of Revolutionary Maine.

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Mark Allen Baker

Spies of Revolutionary Connecticut

9781626194076

$21.99

Covert intelligence played a critical role in the American Revolution. Connecticut produced an extraordinary number of spies on both sides of the conflict, from the infamous traitor and Norwich-born Benedict Arnold to Patriot Nathan Hale, executed by the British for espionage. Spying during the Revolution entailed coded messages, early submarines with the first exploding torpedoes and the penalty of death for those caught in the act. Despite the risk, some spies even played both sides as double agents, such as Edward Bancroft, who was never caught. With stories of Silas Deane, Ethan Allen, Thomas Knowlton, the Culper Spy Ring and others, author Mark Allen Baker navigates the intrigues, dangers and double crosses of Connecticut's most legendary Revolutionary spies.

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Christian M. McBurney

Spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island

9781626197244

$21.99

Espionage played a vital role during the American Revolution in Rhode Island. The British and Americans each employed spies to discover the secrets, plans and positions of their enemy. Continental navy lieutenant John Trevett dressed as an ordinary sailor, grew out his beard and went from tavern to tavern in Newport gathering intelligence. Metcalf Bowler became a traitor on the order of Benedict Arnold, as he spied for the British while serving as a Patriot leader in Providence. Disguised as a peddler, Ann Bates spied for the British during the Rhode Island Campaign. When caught, one spy paid with his life, while others suffered in jail. Author Christian M. McBurney, for the first time, unravels the world of spies and covert operations in Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War.

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Sam Baltrusis

Ghosts of Concord's Colonial Inn

9781467153980

$21.99 $17.59 Save 20%

Nestled in the town square of Concord, Massachusetts, the windows of the Colonial Inn have gazed upon more than three centuries of bloodstained history.

Known for its role in the American Revolution, the Inn was originally built as three separate buildings with the oldest section of the property dating back to 1716. A stone's throw from Old North Bridge, the Inn is notoriously haunted by the ghosts from its Revolutionary War past. Guests report phantom footsteps, disembodied voices, and spirited soldiers lurking in the shadows of the labyrinthine hallways and empty rooms of this infamous inn.

Local author Sam Baltrusis has worked the graveyard shift at Concord's Colonial Inn trying to unravel the chilling mysteries and lingering legends associated with one of the country's oldest and most haunted hotels.

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Rory Raven

Burning the Gaspee

9781609494780

$21.99

This book chronicles the history of the HMS Gaspee, a sloop in the British Royal Navy that was sent to patrol the waters of Narragansett Bay in 1772.

The Gaspee cracked down on smugglers and enforced British customs regulation, particularly the Stamp Act. The ship and her captain, William Duddington, were quickly hated by colonists for their campaign of brutality, harassment, and arbitrary enforcement. When the Gaspee ran around in shallow waters, while in pursuit of a colonist merchant ship, they took immediate action. The colonists, led by John Brown and other local notables, burned Gaspee and wounded her captain. This act of revolt preceded the Boston Tea Party by 18 months.

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Courtney McInvale

Revolutionary War Ghosts of Connecticut

9781467118804

$21.99 $17.59 Save 20%

Bloody battlefields and raucous taverns in Connecticut served as the backdrop for pivotal figures and bold actions vital to the American Revolution. Nathan Hale is said to still conduct lessons in New London and East Haddam, and many suspect that George Washington occasionally visits the Shaw Mansion and Fairfield's Sun Tavern. The presence of notorious traitor Benedict Arnold is often felt in the Leffingwell Inn and at Ye Antientist Burial Ground in New London, where he commanded troops numbering 1,600 as a newly turned Loyalist. Picnickers claim to see apparitions of wounded soldiers seated among them at Fort Griswold in Groton. Step foot into a time when the Sons of Liberty, Tories and Patriots changed the course of history as author Courtney McInvale uncovers the Revolutionary haunts of Connecticut.

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Stephen D. Butz

Shays' Settlement in Vermont

9781625859501

$21.99

The ruins of Daniel Shays's fortified settlement reveal the hidden story of the famous rebellion.

Shays and the Regulators founded the settlement deep in the Vermont wilderness after fleeing the uprising they led in 1787 in Massachusetts. Rediscovered in 1997 and under study since 2013, these remnants divulge secrets of Shays's life that previously remained unknown, including his connection to Millard Filmore and the Anti-Federalist lawyer John Bay.

As the leader of the site's first formal study, Stephen D. Butz weaves together the tale of the archaeological investigation, along with Shays's heroic life in the Continental army, his role in the infamous rebellion that bears his name and his influence on American law.

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Robert J. Allison

The Boston Tea Party

9781933212111

$12.95

A Historical Guide to an Iconic Revolutionary Event

Leading Boston historian Robert J. Allison continues his series on the American Revolution with the lead-up, the action, and the complex aftermath of what contemporaries called the destruction of the tea.

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Jessie Haas

Revolutionary Westminster

9781609491666

$21.99

The Battles of Lexington and Concord have long been considered the beginning of the American Revolution. However, Vermonters know that the first blood was actually shed in Westminster in March 1775. Over a month before Lexington and Concord, Westminster Whigs endured an attack from their own Loyalist sheriff and his men that left two dead. In response, the county rose in revolt in what became known as the Westminster Massacre. This bloody event set the stage for Vermont's separation from New York and its position as a mainstay of American independence throughout the entire war. Jessie Haas and the Westminster Historical Society vividly retell the story of the real first battle of the American Revolution and Windham County's important role throughout the war.

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Christopher Pagliuco

The Great Escape of Edward Whalley and William Goffe

9781609493028

$21.99

Author Christopher Pagliuco reveals the all-but-forgotten stories of these Connecticut heroes.

When Puritans Edward Whalley and William Goffe joined the parliamentary army against King Charles I in the English civil wars, they seized an opportunity to overthrow a tyrant. Yet when his son, Charles II, regained the throne, Whalley and Goffe were forced to flee to the New England colonies aboard the ship Prudent Mary--never to see their families or England again. Even with the help of New England's Puritan elite, including Reverend John Davenport, they struggled to stay ahead of the authorities in Boston, New Haven, and the outpost of Hadley, Massachusetts. Though forced to live out the rest of their lives fugitives, these former major generals survived frontier adventures in seventeenth-century New England, and became embedded in early United States history.