Benjamin Goldthwait

{{Short description|British army officer (1704–1761)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

File:BenjaminGoldthwaiteSignature.png

Benjamin Goldthwait (1704–1761) was a British army officer who served in King George's War and the French and Indian War. He fought in the Siege of Louisbourg (1745) (along with his brother Joseph).[https://archive.org/stream/recordofmilitary02cart#page/n3/mode/2up Captain Joseph Goldthwait's journal of 1745] He arrived in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia in 1746 and then fought in the Battle of Grand Pre. He then fought during the French and Indian War in the Battle of Fort Beauséjour.

His half-brother was Col. Thomas Goldthwait, commander at Fort Pownall (1763–1775).[https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofmai03lcmain#page/23/mode/1up/search/nova+scotia Thomas Goldthwait - was he a Tory. Collections of the Maine Historical society, p. 23 (includes Goldthwait portrait p. 1)] His brother, Ezekiel Goldthwait, was a prominent businessman in Boston with loyalist feelings, but who was also one of those who engaged lawyer James Otis, Jr. to challenge the British in the writs of assistance case of 1761.Sabine, Lorenzo. The American Loyalists, pp 328-9, Charles C. Little and James Brown, Boston, Massachusetts, 1847.Smith, M. H. The Writs of Assistance Case, pp 29-34, University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 1978. {{ISBN|978-0-520-03349-8}}.Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution, pp 46-7, Little, Brown & Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1943.