Nicholson Broughton

Washington needed a navy to supply ships and troop transports, needing their provisions and military stores. At age 50, and having over two decades of seafaring, Captain Broughton enlisted 24 April 1775 in the Marblehead Regiment (along with Captain Robert Wormsted[https://archive.org/details/gloversmarblehea00gard/page/24/mode/1up/search/nova bio][https://books.google.com/books?id=8twUAAAAYAAJ&dq=captain+%22robert+wormsted%22&pg=PA123 A Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions, with ..., Volume 3 By Timothy Alden, p. 122][https://books.google.com/books?id=QNBQsQZEmvUC&dq=captain+%22robert+wormsted%22&pg=PA230 p. 230][http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~silversmiths/genealogy/makers/silversmiths/223142.htm Silversmith - Wormsted][http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~silversmiths/genealogy/makers/silversmiths/49022.htm silversmith mentor]).{{sfn|Askew|Askew|1975|p=47}} Broughton set sail in Hannah out of the harbor of Beverly, Massachusetts on 5 September 1775. {{HMS|Lively|1754|6}} tried to catch Broughton but he found protection in the harbor of Gloucester, Massachusetts. The same day Lively captured the American vessel Unity. Two days later, on 7 September, leaving Gloucester Harbor, Broughton re-captured {{HMS|Unity|1728|6}}.{{sfn|Askew|Askew|1975|p=47}} The crew of Hannah did not get prize money because it was a re-capture. Broughton's crew mutinied. They were arrested and court martialied in Cambridge on September 22.{{sfn|Askew|Askew|1975|p=49}}{{Cite book|url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112005302416?urlappend=%3Bseq=86|title=Naval documents of the American Revolution / editor, William Bell Clark ; with a foreword by President John F. Kennedy and an introd. by Ernest McNeill Eller. ... v.2.|via=HathiTrust|year=1964 |publisher=Naval History Division, Department of the Navy |hdl=2027/uiug.30112005302416?urlappend=%3Bseq=86|isbn=9780160724954 }}{{Cite book|url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112005302416?urlappend=%3Bseq=466|title=Naval documents of the American Revolution / editor, William Bell Clark ; with a foreword by President John F. Kennedy and an introd. by Ernest McNeill Eller. ... v.2.|via=HathiTrust|year=1964 |publisher=Naval History Division, Department of the Navy |hdl=2027/uiug.30112005302416?urlappend=%3Bseq=466|isbn=9780160724954 }}

File:Captain Nicholson Broughton (1764–1804), Marblehead, Massachusetts (cropped).png

Hannah was then engaged in the first official naval engagement of the war. On October 10, Admiral Samuel Graves ordered {{HMS|Nautilus|1762|6}} (16 guns, 125 men), under the command of Captain John Collins, to hunt down Hannah.{{Cite web|url=https://morethannelson.com/officer/sir-john-collins/|title=Sir John Collins}} Collins pursued Broughton off Marblehead until Broughton escaped by running his ship onto Beverly beach. Nautilus began firing at that ship. The local militia began to return fire. With a receding tide, Nautilus got stuck on the ocean floor for 2.5 hours while under fire. Two men were wounded and the ship suffered severe damage. After 2 months and 21 days, Hannah was also damaged and retired.{{sfn|Askew|Askew|1975|p=50-51}}

Washington sent Broughton to lead an expedition off Nova Scotia to interrupt two British ships full of armaments bound for Quebec. Broughton commanded {{USS|Hancock|1775|6}} (not the LynchNumerous historians having been trying to address this error in the historic record - see

[https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2321&context=dissertations_1 p. 40];

[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112005302416&view=1up&seq=688 p. 688];

[http://ibiblio.org/anrs/docs/E/E3/ndar_v03p01.pdf Naval Chronicles, p. 3]; and

[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112005302416&view=1up&seq=524 Naval Chronicles, p. 474]), joined by Captain John Selman in Frankin (4 guns). Broughton gathered intelligence at Canso, Nova Scotia that the two ships en route to Quebec had already gone to Quebec the month earlier. Broughton and Selman wrote Washington that "we are however something comforted in that no Vessel passes this season to Boston, Halifax or to any part of America from Quebec but must pass within gun Shot of us."[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112005302416&view=1up&seq=949 Letter to Washington 6 November 1775, p. 899]

=== Canso ===

Broughton and Selman captured seven British vessels around Canso.{{Cite book|url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112005302416?urlappend=%3Bseq=1372|title=Naval documents of the American Revolution / editor, William Bell Clark ; with a foreword by President John F. Kennedy and an introd. by Ernest McNeill Eller. ... v.2.|via=HathiTrust|year=1964 |publisher=Naval History Division, Department of the Navy |hdl=2027/uiug.30112005302416?urlappend=%3Bseq=1372|isbn=9780160724954 }} On 29 October Broughton captured the schooners Prince William (Capt. William Standley Cr) and Mary (Capt. Thomas Russell). Two days later, Broughton wrote to Washington, that he captured the sloop Phoebe commanded by Captain James Hawkins. The sloop was owned by Boston loyalist Enoch Rust. Broughton indicated that Rust was "contrary … to the Association of the united American Colonies." He also described Loyalist Boston as a "Den of Mischievous Violators of the rights of Humanity."{{Cite book|url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112005302416?urlappend=%3Bseq=900|title=Naval documents of the American Revolution / editor, William Bell Clark ; with a foreword by President John F. Kennedy and an introd. by Ernest McNeill Eller. ... v.2.|via=HathiTrust|year=1964 |publisher=Naval History Division, Department of the Navy |hdl=2027/uiug.30112005302416?urlappend=%3Bseq=900|isbn=9780160724954 }} Five days later, on 5 November, Broughton took the sloop Warren owned by Thomas Cochrane of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Warren was commanded by Captain John Denny, who Broughton described as not being in a "a very favorable light respecting their attachment to American Liberties."{{Cite book|url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112005302416?urlappend=%3Bseq=950|title=Naval documents of the American Revolution / editor, William Bell Clark ; with a foreword by President John F. Kennedy and an introd. by Ernest McNeill Eller. ... v.2.|via=HathiTrust|year=1964 |publisher=Naval History Division, Department of the Navy |hdl=2027/uiug.30112005302416?urlappend=%3Bseq=950|isbn=9780160724954 }}

At Pictou, Broughton heard that the Governor of St. John Island was recruiting for the war efforts against the Americans. As a result, Broughton headed for Charlottetown.

[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112005302416&view=1up&seq=1372 p. 1322 – Selman’s full account]

On 17 November, both captains landed with two parties. They took three prominent people: the Acting Governor Phillips Callbeck, the Surveyor General Mr. Thomas Write and Senior naval commander on the Island Captain David Higgins."Memorial of Sir James Montgomery, Baron of the Court of Exchequer of Scotland" dated 1791, enclosed in a letter dated Edinburgh, December 3, 1791, from Sir James Montgomery to Rt. Hon. Henry Dundas. Public Archives of Canada, MG - 23, - 6. See also Letter of Job Prince to James Montgomery, dated December, 1788,

They ransacked Callbeck's home, emptied his stores and took the province silver Seal weight 59 ounces and Governor Patterson's Commission. They also broke into plundered Governor Patterson's House.

Broughton also searched for the wives of Callbeck and Higgins, both of whom were daughters of prominent Boston loyalists. Callbeck's wife was the daughter of Nathaniel Coffin Jr., who a few months earlier had ordered the felling of the Liberty Tree on the Boston Common.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oIjjAd6vOOoC&q=Nathaniel+Coffin+Jr.+(and+his+wife+Elizabeth+Barnes)&pg=PT302|title=The Loyalists of Massachusetts And the Other Side of the American Revolution|first=James Henry|last=Stark|date=February 12, 1972|publisher=Library of Alexandria|isbn=9781465573919|via=Google Books}} Higgins wife was the daughter of Job Princes of Boston.[https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2321&context=dissertations_1 Callbeck to Dartmouth, p. 43]{{Cite web|url=http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-03-02-0172|title=Founders Online: To John Adams from Benjamin Hichborn, 25 November 1775|website=founders.archives.gov}}{{Cite web|url=https://reidgen.com/getperson.php?personID=I48786&tree=ReidFamilyTree|title=David HIGGINS b. Abt 1745 England d. 27 Apr 1783 Charlottetown, Queens, P.E.I., Canada: Reid-Schroeder Family Tree|website=reidgen.com}}

While George Washington censored Broughton and released his prisoners, John Adams supported Broughton stating, "Capt: Broaton {{sic}} may perhaps deserve censure for going counter to his orders, but I think in justice to ourselves we ought to seize every [Loyalist] officer in the service of {{sic|Gover|ment}} wherever they may be found."

Afterward, Broughton became 2nd Major in the 5th Essex County Regiment in February 1776 and in December was Major in Colonel Pickering’s regiment, which was ordered to march to Danbury Connecticut.(Gardner, p. 18){{Cite book|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015070578813&view=1up&seq=36|title = Extracts relating to the origin of the American navy|date = 22 July 1890|publisher = Boston}} Broughton's home is still standing at 6 Lee Street, Marblehead.

• Nova Scotia in the American Revolution

{{reflist}}

• {{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/beverlymassachus00aske|title=Beverly, Massachusetts and the American Revolution : one town's experience|first1=Thomas A.|last1=Askew|first2=Jean M.|last2=Askew|date=1975|publisher=Beverly American Revolution Bicentenial Committee}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Broughton, Nicholson}}

Category:1724 births

Category:1798 deaths

Category:People from Marblehead, Massachusetts

Category:Privateers from the Thirteen Colonies

Category:American Revolutionary War prisoners of war held by Great Britain

Category:United States Navy personnel of the American Revolution

Category:People from colonial Massachusetts

Category:Nova Scotia in the American Revolution