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South Carolina Privateer Schooner Witch |
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| Witch | Commander Samuel Spencer |
| Schooner | [May] 1779- |
| South Carolina Privateer Schooner |
| Commissioned/First Date: | [May] 1779 |
| Out of Service/Cause: |
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| Tonnage: |
| Battery: | Date Reported: Number/Caliber Weight Broadside
Total: Broadside: Swivels: |
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| Description: |
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| Cruises: |
| Prizes: | (1) Schooner Tomlinson (Farrow), [May] 1779, with unknown South Carolina Privateer
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Comments:
South Carolina Privateer Schooner Witch was active in mid-1779 under Commander Samuel Spencer.1 Witch may have been a Georgia vessel.
On 15 May 1779 the schooner Tomlinson (Farrow) arrived at Charlestown. She had sailed from North Carolina but was captured by one of the Goodrich family’s British privateers. She was ordered into New York, but was liberated by Spencer and Captain Taylor, in two privateers from Charlestown. At the same time arrived the brig Liberty (Ramsay). Bound from St. Augustine to New York, New York, with molasses and hides. She had also been captured by Spencer and Taylor.2
On 1 August 1779 Witch returned to Charlestown, South Carolina from a cruise. During the cruise she recovered sixty-three slaves which had escaped, or been kidnaped, by the British. She captured a small schooner privateer from St. Augustine in East Florida, made and then paroled twenty prisoners. The prize schooner arrived in port on 2 August.3
In early November 1779, it was reported that the Witch had cut out the brig Betsey, with a cargo of lumber and rice, from the port of Sunbury. She was sent to Charlestown, but was re-captured by HM Frigate Guadeloupe (Captain Hugh Robinson) and ordered to Antigua.4
1 Coker, Charleston’s Maritime Heritage, 300
2 The Pennsylvania Gazette [Philadelphia], June 30, 1779, “Extract of a letter from Charlestown, May 18”
3 The Pennsylvania Evening Post [Philadelphia], Wednesday, September 29, 1779
4 The New Jersey Gazette [Burlington], Wednesday, December 8, 1779, datelined Philadelphia, December 1
| Posted 6 April 2011 |
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