Portsmouth Tidal Estuary

Where the Sagamore River meets the tidal estuary by Portsmouth out behind the historic Carey Cottage is a beautiful spot with a meandering waterway, small inlets, northern pines and grassy shores all the way down to the rocks and water.  Fortunately I was able to catch a shady spot on this sunny August morning while attempting to catch the sparkling water and warm palette of the shoreline. (Oil, 8x8, linen panel)

This area is rich in early American history as well.  As I painted I wondered if the militia under command of John Langdon escaped up these tributaries with the gunpowder taken from Fort William and Mary (renamed Ft. Constitution) in the dead of night on December 14th, 1774.  Some argue this act of insurrection was the real start of the Revolutionary War.

Setting the scene, gunpowder was in high demand as it was being confiscated by the British army as they tried to control its rebellious Massachusetts colony.  After the Boston Massacre in 1770, the Tea Party in 1773 and the enactment of the Intolerable Acts closing down the Port of Boston to trade, British General Gage realized he was sitting on a ticking time bomb.  The army had already had some conflicts with the locals in removing gunpowder so as to limit the actions and activities of the militia, Sons of Liberty and Patriots.  Back then gunpowder was normally stored in a powder house in town, even personal stores of gunpowder, out of concern for safety. Fires were everywhere in colonial homes and farms (cooking hearths, candles, etc. . . ) so this was a wise course of action for most people.  They were not happy when the British began to raid powder houses in the towns surrounding Boston taking not only the King’s gunpowder but private stores as well.  These incidents and conflicts resulted in the Massachusetts militia developing a fast information relay system to alert people that the British were coming to take their gun powder or, if taken, to encourage the militia to respond quickly with a show of force.  This is how the Minuteman concept began.  Paul Revere and William Dawes became two of the more famous minutemen riders and the concept was soon tested in this incident in Portsmouth.  

General Gage who had, in effect, enacted a form of martial law in Boston had intended to remove any gunpowder stores (it was a munitions depot for both the Crown and province) at Ft. William and Mary in Portsmouth, NH sensing that trouble was brewing and conflict might be inevitable.  NH was under the control of a Loyalist Governor, John Wentworth, who had no issue with turning over the gunpowder.  The plan was discovered, however, and Paul Revere road up to Portsmouth on December 12, arriving on the 13th, to meet a fellow Patriot and organizer in Stoodley’s Tavern.  Stoodley’s Tavern is currently located at Strawberry Banke, a living history museum, in Portsmouth.  It has its own interesting history but I digress.

24 hours later several hundred patriots under the leadership of John Langdon and Joseph Cutts from both NH and Massachusetts (Maine was part of Massachusetts) gathered and proceeded to cross the harbor in gundalows (shallow bottomed boats unique to this area) to New Castle, the small island at the head of the Piscataqua River where Ft William and Mary was located.  As there were only 5 soldiers and their Captain on active duty at the Fort there was little contest.  The men from Portsmouth, Kittery, Rye, Durham and Exeter soon swarmed the walls of the Fort and only a few shots were fired.  Just as significant, the men soon had the British colors (flag) taken down at the Fort, a symbolic act and the first of its kind in the Colonies.  Over 100 barrels of gunpowder had been seized and spirited away up the Piscataqua and other tributaries and hidden in the surrounding countryside by those loyal to the cause. It is said the gunpowder that was seized that day was used in the Battle of Bunker Hill months later.