Pine Tree Naval Ensign
9-15 MAY 1775
PINE TREE NAVAL ENSIGN
Samuel Thompson was a Brunswick (modern Maine) tavern owner appointed to command the Brunswick Militia in 1774. The seeds of revolution were starting to sprout in New England in 1774, and Thompson was ordered by the Continental Congress to boycott all British goods. His resolve was tested on 2 March 1775, when the sloop John and Mary arrived in Falmouth (modern Portland, Maine) having carried a shipment of spars, line, and rigging across the Atlantic. The shipment was bound to Thomas Coulson, a Falmouth Loyalist and shipbuilder. Thompson acted, halting the off-loading of the cargo and demanding the ship leave Falmouth harbor. Coulson negotiated that the ship be allowed, at least, to make repairs after her trans-Atlantic crossing. And while those repairs were proceeding, Coulson quietly sent word to the British in Boston.
HMS CANCEAUX was dispatched from Boston under command of LT Henry Mowat, RN. She arrived in Falmouth on March 29, turning the tables in favor of His Majesty. CANCEAUX was an 80-foot sloop built for charting and hydrographic surveying, but she mounted eight 1/2-pounders and six larger guns. She had been used as a warship in situations calling only for moderate force. Under her protective guns Coulson resumed the lightering of the naval stores. Then word reached Falmouth of the Revolution’s start the previous month at the battles of Lexington and Concord outside Boston.
The news prompted Thompson. Fifty patriot militiamen had arrived in Falmouth by then, each with a sprig of spruce tucked in his hat for identification. A plan began to form for a small boat mass attack on CANCEAUX as more militia collected in town. Indeed, their growing boat flotilla was led by one bearing a spruce tree with its bottom branches removed as an ensign tied to the transom. By early May, nearly 600 patriot militia had gathered, whose goal was to capture His Majesty’s warship.
But events overtook the plan on May 9 when Mowat came ashore to arrange church services for his crew. He was fallen upon and captured. CANCEAUX’s 1st LT fired two blank charges in the direction of the town and threatened an actual bombardment if Mowat was not released. Though the British were vastly outnumbered, cooler heads did prevail. Mowat was released, and CANCEAUX and the stores ship weighed anchor and departed on 15 May. The Patriot militia, frustrated at missing a fight, loosed their venom by ransacking the homes of Coulson and another loyalist, Sheriff Tyng.
A spruce tree as a naval ensign is thought to have inspired the Pine Tree Flag used in several forms during the Revolution.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 12 MAY 25
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
“Colonel Samuel Thompson to the President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.” dtd. 29 April 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1 1774-1775. Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, p. 244.
“Falmouth Customs Officers to Commissioners of the Customs.” dtd. 29 April 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1 1774-1775. Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, p. 245.
“Jedidiah Preble to Massachusetts Provincial Congress.” dtd. 14 May 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1 1774-1775. Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, pp. 327-29.
“Journal of His Majesty’s Ship Canceaux, Henry Mowat, Commanding.” dtd. 15 May 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1 1774-1775. Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, p. 333.
Leamon, James. Revolution Downeast: The American Revolution in Maine. Amhearst, MA: Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 1993, pp. 60-67.
“Lieutenant Henry Mowat, R.N., to Edward Parry.” dtd. 29 April 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1 1774-1775. Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, pp. 244-45.
“Minutes of the Committee of Inspection of Falmouth, Maine Province,” dtd. 10 Apr 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1 1774-1775. Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, pp. 174-75.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Mowat would exact his revenge that same year. Under orders to bombard coastal towns thought to be aiding the rebels, Mowat returned to Falmouth in mid-October and burned most of the town to the ground. He commanded British forces at the disastrous Patriot defeat at Penobscot Bay in 1779. He rose to the rank of CAPT in the Royal Navy and died of natural causes while on deployment in 1798.
Thompson was promoted to BGEN of the Cumberland County Militia the following year. He survived the war and went on to serve in public office for the State of Massachusetts. He was a major benefactor of Bowdoin College.
