Name of Vessel:

Mary Ann [Mary]

Master of Vessel:

Arthur Turner

Rig of Vessel:

Brigantine

Date of Capture:

[July] 1777

Place of Capture:

Captor:

Connecticut Privateer Sloop American Revenue and Rhode Island Privateer Sloop United States

Home Port:

From What Port:

St. Christophers, British West Indies

To What Port:

Ireland

Cargo:

Rum

Tonnage:

80

Battery:

Crew:

Owners:

Prize master:

Prize crew:

Ordered Into:

Boston, Massachusetts

Into What Port:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date Arrived:

Date Tried:

19 August 1777

Date Sold:

Action:

No

Recaptured:

No

Comments: Connecticut Privateer Sloop American Revenue (Commander Samuel Champlin, Jr.) and Rhode Island Privateer Sloop United States (Commander Benjamin Pearce [Pierce]) sailed on a cruise from Bedford, Massachusetts in June 1777. The first prize captured by the two, in July 1777, was the 80-ton brigantine Mary Ann [Mary] (Arthur Turner), bound from St. Christophers, British West Indies, to Ireland with a cargo of rum. She was sent into Boston, where she was libeled on 4 August 1777, in the Massachusetts Maritime Court of the Middle District, with her trial set for 19 August. She was condemned and her cargo sold for $13,342. On 19 November 1777, in an elaborate settling-up of accounts, Nathaniel Shaw noted that American Revenue had seventy men aboard at the time of her capture, and the United States had thirty-eight aboard. Prize shares were being paid on this cruise by 28 November 1777.

[NDAR, X, 539-540 and 540 notes, 622-623; Middlebrook, Maritime Connecticut During The Revolution, II, 51-53; The Boston Gazette, and Country Journal, Monday, August 4, 1777]

Revised 20 January 2009