Tales of the Cochran Family

The 8 Sept 1845 Exeter News-Letter followed up the tale of James Cochran’s captivity and return with remarks about his son—though it got that man’s name wrong.

The 8 November Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics reprinted the first paragraph of that account, correctly naming the man as John Cochran:

He led a sea-faring life in his younger days, and sailed out of Portsmouth a number of years, as a ship-master, with brilliant success. A short period before the war of the Revolution broke out, he was appointed to the command of the fort in Portsmouth harbor. The day after the battle of Lexington, he and his family were made prisoners of war by a company of volunteers under the command of John Sullivan, afterwards the distinguished Major General Sullivan of the Revolution, President of New-Hampshire, &c. Captain Cochran and his family were generously liberated on parole of honor.

That paragraph, flattering to both Cochran and Sullivan, now came with the endorsement of one of John and Sarah Cochran’s daughters, who had moved back to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

It was, however, wrong. The move on Fort William and Mary led by John Sullivan (shown above) happened four months before the Battle of Lexington and Concord, not the day after. And to read John Cochran’s own accounts from December 1774, it was much less friendly than this retelling describes.

The Portsmouth Journal didn’t name the Cochran daughter or state her age, so we don’t know if she was old enough to recall these events herself or had heard about them from her parents and older siblings.

She provided some new anecdotes:

Not far from this time Gov. J[ohn]. Wentworth took refuge in the Fort, and Captain Cochran attended him to Boston. In his absence the only occupants of the fort were Mrs. Cochran, a man and a maid servants [sic], and four children.

At this time all vessels passing out of the harbor, had to show their pass at the Fort. An English man-of-war one day came down the river, bound out. Mrs. C. directed the man to hail the ship. No respect was paid to him. Mrs. C. then directed him to discharge one of the cannon. The terrified man said, “Ma’am I have but one eye, and can’t see the touch-hole.” Taking the match, the heroic lady applied it herself; the Frigate immediately hove too [sic], and showing that all was right, was permitted to proceed.

For this discharge of duty to his Majesty’s Government, she received a handsome reward.

Again, the timing of this event seems off. Sarah Cochran appears to have been on the family farm rather than at the fort when Gov. Wentworth departed in August 1775. The New Hampshire Patriots would hardly have let her take charge of the guns, and there was little gunpowder left anyway. If something like this story happened, it was probably earlier, under royal rule.

The daughter’s account continued:

It was thought by some of the enemies of Gov. Wentworth that he was still secreted at the fort, after he had left for Boston. A party one day entered the house in the Fort, (the same house recently occupied by Capt. Dimmick), and asked permission of Mrs. Cochran to search the rooms for the Governor.

After looking up stairs in vain, they asked for a light to examine the cellar. “O yes,” said a little daughter of Mrs. C. “I will light you.” She held the candle until they were in a part of the cellar from which she well knew they could not retreat without striking their heads against low beams, when the roguish girl blew the light out.

As she anticipated, they began to bruise themselves, and they swore pretty roundly.—The miss from the stairs in an elevated tone cried out, “Have you got him?” This arch inquiry only served to divide their curses between the impediments to their progress and the “little Tory.”

Was this “little daughter” the same one telling the story or an older sister of the narrator? Was this an anecdote from the militia raids on the fort in December 1774 or truly a search for the departed governor months later?

The Portsmouth Journal then returned to the text from the Exeter News-Letter, adding only one parenthetical correction:

Captain John Cochran, (who was a cousin, and not the father, as has been stated, of Lord Admiral Cochran) immediately joined the British in Boston; and, as it was believed, being influenced by the double motive of gratitude towards a government that had generously noticed and promoted him to offices of honor, trust, and emolument, and for the sake of retaining a valuable stipend from the Crown, remained with the British army during the war. It is due to his honor to state, however, that he was never known to take an active part in the conflict.

At the close of the war, he returned to St. Johns’, New-Brunswick, lived in the style of a gentleman the remainder of his days, and died at the age of 55.

John Cochran’s sister and then his daughter, both living in America, apparently didn’t want people to think he was too fervent in his loyalty to the Crown. Therefore, they insisted he was “never known to have taken an active part in the conflict.”

That’s a direct contradiction to what Sarah Cochran told the Loyalists Commission back in 1787. She described her husband as working for both the British army and the Royal Navy, including in the invasion of Rhode Island, and Abijah Willard backed her up.

The stories offered to American readers in 1845 didn’t say anything about Patriots taking the Cochrans’ property, or the years of separation on opposite sides of the war, or the journey of Sarah Cochran and her chldren to New York.

The tale of Sarah Cochran forcing a British warship to “hove to” and show a pass may also have been shaped to appeal to American readers. Though she reportedly “received a handsome reward” from the Crown for that action, that anecdote depicted a woman in America bossing around a frigate.

Sarah Cochran had told the Loyalists Commission about her husband’s debilitating strokes. Again, a fellow refugee in New Brunswick confirmed that. But John Cochran’s sister, followed by his daughter, didn’t mention his health at all, instead emphasizing how he had “lived in the style of a gentleman.”

Much of the Portsmouth Journal’s article went into Lorenzo Sabine’s compendium of stories on American Loyalists. It was thus an early source on the Patriot raids on Fort William and Mary, but not a very reliable one.

“Died leaving a memory respected”

In the fall of 1845, as I described yesterday, New Hampshire newspapers published a pair of articles printing Cochran family lore, particularly the story of young James Cochran’s brief and bloody captivity by Natives.

Neither article named its source, but both contained clues.

The first, published in the Exeter News-Letter, described a daughter of James Cochran this way:

well remembered by many of the surviving inhabitants of Derry and Londonderry. She is particularly recollected as a “maiden lady,” highly celebrated as a beauty and a wit, when at an age she was not averse to own, and even delicate and shrewd when far advanced in the “sear and yellow leaf.” Her tongue was a two edged sword, and woe to him who recklessly called forth its exercise. She was for many years a distinguished Mistress of the rod and ferule and died leaving a memory respected, and was gathered to her fathers—for, husband, ”she ne’er had ony.”

I take that as a hint that the writer “G.” had personally known this woman as a schoolteacher (“Mistress of the rod and ferule”). He may well have heard the family stories from her but didn’t write them down until after her death and thus had no way of assaying this ”tradition.”

In contrast, the editors of the Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics dropped that character sketch entirely from their version. Perhaps it didn’t sit right with their new source: a living granddaughter of James Cochran through his son John, and thus a niece of the teacher.

That granddaughter said she had known her grandfather in his old age:

Capt. James Cochran removed to St. Johns, New-Brunswick, where he closed his life in 1795, at 84 years of age. This lady was with him several years, watched over him in his declining years, and attended his dying bed. She says, he never used to speak of the Indian adventure with exultation. The anniversary of that day he ever observed with a melancholy, grateful feeling—regarding it as a merciful providence, than as an achievement of personal heroism.

Thus, she might have heard James Cochran’s story of captivity and escape from the man himself, decades later.

However, instead of getting that granddaughter to tell the story as she had heard it, the Portsmouth Journal mostly reprinted the earlier article, now with her endorsement. The second version includes a little more detail about James getting out of his bonds and his canoe sinking, but that’s it. Otherwise, the second account is a word-for-word replication of the first.

We’re thus presented with a story that appears to be one remove from James Cochran (James —> granddaughter), but was actually in some respects multiple steps away (James —> daughter —> “G.” —> granddaughter?).

The Portsmouth Journal also ran an expanded version of the Exeter News-Letter’s anecdote about James Cochran’s son at Fort William and Mary. It offered important corrections like:

• That man was John Cochran, not a second James.
• He “was a cousin and not the father, as has been stated, of Lord Admiral Cochran.”

(That had to be a distant cousinage at best.)

Nonetheless, the second telling once again adopted some sentences word for word from the first. John Cochran’s daughter told her own story in part through the voice of “G.,” whom she had apparently never met.

TOMORROW: Those anecdotes from the fort.

(The picture above, courtesy of Find a Grave, shows a stone in East Derry, New Hampshire, carved “In Memory of James Cochran…,” who died in 1795 “in ye. 85th. year.” Given the granddaughter’s description of his death in St. John, this would be a cenotaph, not a gravestone.)

“What is all history but facts or falsehood”?

On 8 Sept 1845, the Exeter (New Hampshire) News-Letter and Rockingham Advertiser published an item signed “G.” and dated one week earlier.

Titled “Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction,” it told the story of how at age fourteen “Captain James Cochran” was captured by a Native couple, killed and scalped them, and returned to his family’s settlement on the Penobscot frontier.

The first two paragraphs and the last of this article were all about whether people should believe this story. “I have it only by tradition,” the writer said at the start before concluding, “But what is all history but facts or falsehood, having, at a time, a legendary existence?”

That article also made two claims about James Cochran’s descendants:

• His “second son, James,” was a ship captain, put in “command of the fort in Portsmouth harbor,” and “made prisoners of war by a company of volunteers under the command of John Sullivan” on “The day after the battle of Lexington.” 
• One of that man’s sons was “now high in office and renown in the British Navy, adorning the title of—Lord Admiral Cochran.”

The first item was obviously a garbled version of the story of John Cochran, commander of Fort William and Mary, as I’ve explored it this past week.

The second might be a wishful reference to Adm. Thomas Cochrane or Adm. Thomas John Cochrane, neither of whom had any discernible family connection to the New Hampshire Loyalist John Cochran.

Two months later, on 8 Nov 1845, the Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics published a new version of the tale:

ADVENTURE OF CAPT. JAMES COCHRAN.
“Truth Stranger Than Fiction.”

This newspaper assured its readers:

The statements published we have submitted to a daughter of Capt. John Cochran, who is a resident of Portsmouth, and we are enabled from these traditions, and from conversation with that lady, to present a more full account of the historical incidents of the family, which may be relied upon as accurate.

Unfortunately, this newspaper didn’t name that woman or say how she had come to live in Portsmouth seventy years after her father had been driven away. I haven’t found other mentions of her.

TOMORROW: The daughter’s story.

(The picture above shows Adm. Sir Alexander Inglis Cochrane, father of Adm. Thomas John Cochrane and uncle of Adm. Thomas Cochrane as well as brother-in-law of Maj. John Pitcairn. Born in 1758, this man served in the navy during the American War for Independence. That we can rely on.)

“An Act to Authorise Sarah Cochran…”

As I wrote back here, John Cochran died in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1790.

Though he’d been in ill health for years, he didn’t leave a will, and the probate court appointed his widow Sarah to administer his estate.

Back in 1779 the New Hampshire legislature had passed a law empowering the state to confiscate John Cochran’s property and sell it to defray the costs of the ongoing war.

However, the 1783 Treaty of Paris urged states to repeal such laws and allow Loyalists to return. Some Americans objected to that provision. It took until 1786 for any state to follow that path, but New Hampshire was the first.

Thus, when John Cochran died, his estate included some property he’d left behind in New Hampshire, apparently unsold. Sarah petitioned to be able to sell that land.

On 20 June 1793, the state assembly, still meeting in Portsmouth, passed a law authorizing her to do so:

Whereas Sarah Cochran of Saint-Johns in the Province of New Brunswick in British America, hath petitioned the general Court, representing that she is Administratrix of the estate of her late husband John Cochran of said Saint Johns decd., that she hath taken out letters of Licence from the Judge of probate of wills & within the aforesaid Province To sell and convey all the Estate of said decd., more especially a certain tract of land, situate in said Londonderry Wherefore she prayed that she might be enabled to make and execute, by herself or her Agent, duly appointed a good and valid deed of the land aforesaid in said Londonderry — The prayer of which petition appearing reasonable.

Therefore be it enacted by the Senate and house of Representatives in General Court convened, that the said Sarah Cochran, be and she hereby is authorised and impowered to sell, and make and execute by herself or her Agent duly appointed a good and valid deed of the lands aforesaid, situate in said Londonderry, she the said Sarah or her Agent giving bonds with sufficient surety to the Judge of probate for the County of Rockingham, to account to the said Judge for the money arising on such sale, or to the creditors of said deceased or his heirs when they shall arive to full age or otherwise to such person or persons, to whom of right it may belong.

That’s the last trace of John or Sarah Cochran that I’ve found. Of course, it’s likely that Canadian sources that I’m unfamiliar with have more to say.

John’s father James evidently moved to St. John, New Brunswick, to be with that part of the family. He died there in 1794, aged eighty-four.

TOMORROW: The child who came back.

“Liberty to remove with her sd. family to her husband”

Ideally I would have quoted today’s documents earlier in this series about Sarah and John Cochran, but I hadn’t find them yet.

As described back here, the Cochrans were separated in 1775, forced to communicate by letters between independent Londonderry, New Hampshire, and British-held Long Island, New York.

In early 1777 one of those letters was intercepted alongside a letter from John’s patron, royal governor John Wentworth. Gov. Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut sent copies to the New Hampshire government and to Gen. George Washington, and an extract was printed in the New-Hampshire Gazette in April.

About a year later, Sarah Cochran gave up trying to stay. She petitioned the New Hampshire government:

To the honble The Committee of Safety for said State now sitting at Exeter — The Petition of Sarah Cochran, of Portsmouth in the County and State aforesaid humbly sheweth that your Petitioner’s husband John Cochran lately of said Portsmouth has for several years past been absent from his family and is now at Long Island without the least prospect of being likely to return to this State —

and your Petitioner having a large family which she finds extremely difficult to support in the absence of her said husband and as he has frequently written to her to come with her family to him —

your Petitioner humbly prays your honors wd grant her liberty to remove with her sd. family to her husband for which favour your petitioner as in duty bound, will ever pray —

Portsmouth April 23d 1778.

Your Petitioner further begs that your honors would grant her liberty to carry her household furniture with her

Five days later, the committee granted Sarah Cochran and her children to go to New York “after having advertized her Departure three weeks Successively in the New Hampr. Gazette.” State leaders didn’t want her to run out on any creditors.

On 27 October, this notice appeared in that newspaper:

The Subscriber by Permission
Of the Committee of Safety for the State of New Hampshire, being about to depart the same, gives this Notice thereof, That all Persons who have Accounts open with her Husband John Cockrin, lately of Portsmouth, may within three Weeks from this Date, appear and settle the same.

Oct, 27, Sarah Cockrin.

That spelling of the family name meant it took me forever to find this ad.

Together these sources suggest that Sarah Cochran and her children traveled from New Hampshire to New York late in 1778. Thus, when the New Hampshire legislature confiscated John Cochran’s property in June 1779, it didn’t have to worry about resistance from his wife.

TOMORROW: Back to that property.

“No Civil Authority as yet Established”

John and Sarah Cochran and their family arrived in Saint John, New Brunswick, in July 1783, as I recounted yesterday.

Unlike Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the Loyalists from Boston found refuge in the spring of 1776, Saint John was a small port without a lot of resources.

In fact, it wasn‘t even Saint John until 1785, when the Crown united the settlements of Parrtown and Carleton on opposite sides of the harbor into Canada’s first incorporated city.

The influx of Loyalists made that possible but also brought troubles as those people had to figure out how and where to live.

By 14 December, John Cochran had recovered enough from his second stroke to write to his old patron, John Wentworth:

there is no Civil Authority as yet Established to prevent any One from doing what he thinks best in his Owne eyes. Upon the whole they appear at present to be in a State of Anarchy and will Continue so untill there is the Civil law put in force.

I pity the Officers of the discharged Regmts. They are more liable to be insulted than any others. Among the whole there is nothing but Murmering and discontent on Account they were promised land but as yet they have not been able to obtain any excepting a few who has Purchased and there does not appear any likelyhood of their Getting any Except it is the disbanded Regiments.

David Bell quoted that letter in Early Loyalist Saint John: The Origin of New Brunswick Politics, 1783-1786.

Ultimately, the Cochrans were among the families who received a land grant. They settled at what Sarah called “Mahogany.” I believe that was on or near Mahogany Island, now called Manawagonish Island. It appears in the picture above as “Meogenes Island.”

In 1787 Sarah went back to Saint John to testify to the Loyalists Commission on her husband’s behalf. Because of his strokes, she explained, “he could hardly be understood” by strangers and “His memory is gone.” A local apothecary, the Boston native Adino Paddock, Jr., confirmed that condition.

Abijah Willard endorsed John’s loyalty, as did letters from former governor Wentworth and Gen. Sir William Howe. It looks like the commission did grant John Cochran a pension in exchange for his losses and his service in the Revolution, but I don’t know the details.

John Cochran died in 1790, about sixty years old. According to Loyalist Trails, the household goods in his estate were valued at £134 and included a cribbage board and a “Baggammon” table. The family was doing their best to maintain a genteel life on the edge of the empire.

TOMORROW: Leaving New Hampshire.

“Perfectly Loyal, no one more so & very active”

As recounted yesterday, as of May 1777 John Cochran was on British-held Long Island in New York while his wife Sarah was still back home in Londonderry, New Hampshire.

(We know that because the Patriot authorities who intercepted a letter from John to Sarah were gracious enough to print it in the New-Hampshire Gazette that month for everyone to read.)

Documents published in the Parliamentary Papers show that John Cochran was continuing to collect ten shillings per day as captain of Fort William and Mary, plus “rations of provisions and fuel.”

In return, Cochran did various tasks for the king’s military. Sarah later told the Loyalists Commission:

He was occasionally employed in the Navy. Went on a Voyage as Pilot on Board the Lively. He Continued with the Army; always ready to give them his assistance by Land or Sea.

He was employed by Genl. [Richard] Prescot [shown above] on Rhode Island to attack an Enemies out Post, which he performed & took ye Picket. He was on a Cruise with Mr. [George] Leonard. Went with Dispatches from Rhode Island to New York, and was employed on various occasions.

Abijah Willard confirmed this service, telling the commission that Cochran “was very forward in giving Intelligence. Joined the Brit. very early.” The Loyalist colonel said he considered the man “perfectly Loyal, no one more so & very active.”

Cochran was also a lieutenant in a Loyalist militia company.

In June 1779, the state of New Hampshire moved to confiscate John Cochran’s property. If Sarah had been staying on the farm to forestall that move, it hadn’t worked. Maybe that’s what finally drove her away. By 1783, the whole Cochran family was in New York.

Sometime that year John suffered “a paralytic stroke.” Sarah described him as “not capable of doing any Business,” with “no more strength or understanding than a Child.”

When the order came to evacuate New York City, John’s militia company was assigned to the ship Bridgewater. Sarah got her husband and their four children aboard along with three dependents, including an eleven-year-old black boy named Adam who was indentured until he turned twenty-one, according to this article from Loyalist Trails.

That fleet left New York in June and arrived at Saint John, New Brunswick, on 5 July. John was still “not capable of doing any Business,” and then suffered another stroke about two months later.

TOMORROW: Life in a new province.

“Best to remove farther off in the country”

On 3 Feb 1787, Sarah Cochran appeared before the Loyalists Commission in Saint John, New Brunswick.

She described how her husband John “went to Boston with Govr. [John] Wentworth” in late August 1775, as recounted here.

At the time, she and at least some of her children were living on the family farm in Londonderry. According to the Loyalist leader Abijah Willard, another commission witness, the Cochrans’ “Land was in a very good part of the Town, near the meeting house.“

(The picture here shows the First Parish Meetinghouse in Derry, New Hampshire, which might be the building Willard referred to. The oldest part of this church dates to 1769. It’s been significantly enlarged, and the impressive tower went up in 1822.)

Sarah Cochran testified that around October:

about 2 months after he went, she was ordered to quit the Premises, which she did & was moving her goods, on which a Mob rose & took every thing she had, calling them ye goods of a Tory. She got part back, but lost to amount of £150 lawful.

Unfortunately for us, Sarah didn’t recount where she went. Possibly she took refuge with her own family, or even with other members of the Cochran clan who were siding with the rebels.

We know Sarah didn’t follow her husband into Boston that fall, or to Halifax and then New York the following year. Instead, the next sign of her appears in the 29 May 1777 Independent Chronicle of Boston, publishing an “Extract of a letter from John Cochran, on Long-Island, to his wife in New-Hampshire, intercepted with others sent by the late Governor Winthrop to his sister”:

My Dear,

I would willingly advise, but know not how or what to advise you to at this distance. I shall leave it intirely to your judgment what you think best to be done in these unhappy days, for I am so puzzled about giving my advice what to do, that I am almost crasy.

However, I think upon the whole, it would be best to remove farther off in the country, as I am afraid you will suffer where you are, before it will be in my power to protect you, as there will be nothing but destruction of property without any reserve. In that case, I would have you send off the most valuable effects you have left to some place, if you know of any.

I shall either hope to find you at the Isle Shoals, or up at Londonderry—If you intend to tarry where you are, I pray for God’s sake that there be no CLERGYMAN in the house; if their is, your life is not worth a farthing as the whole race of that tribe will be spilt.

If you see any prospect of the affairs being given up without bloodshed, I had rather find you at Hampton than any where else…

I don’t know why Cochran was so anxious about his wife giving refuge to a minister. It’s possible that the family was Presbyterian and feared their ministers would be suspected of disloyalty by New England Congregationalists.

In June 1779 the New Hampshire legislature moved to confiscate the property of men away from the state and “residing with the enemys thereof.” Its new law listed individual names starting with former governor Wentworth, Surveyor General Samuel Holland, and one-time Stamp Act administrator George Meserve. The fourth name was John Cochran.

TOMORROW: Serving the Crown.

The Cochrans of New Hampshire

The Cochran family came to New England from northern Ireland. They settled in towns named to attract such migrants: Belfast in what would be Maine and Londonderry in New Hampshire.

At least that’s according to a family history recorded in Lorenzo Sabine’s American Loyalists, based on the account of a daughter of John and Sarah Cochran living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1845.

However, some details of that account don’t match what contemporaneous documents tell us about the confrontations over Fort William and Mary in 1774 and 1775. That daughter might have been too young to grasp the details and chronology.

It’s also not clear how the daughter (never named, alas) came to be in Portsmouth when her parents had moved with four of their children to New Brunswick, Canada, in 1783.

Multiple Cochran households settled in the region in the early 1700s. Leonard A. Morrison’s History of Windham in New Hampshire (1883) has an extensive genealogy for one family, but focuses on descendants that remained in the U.S. of A. The Cochrans I’m interested in may have been related, and they certainly used the same common given names, but I have no hope of sorting them all out.

The best I can say is that it looks like John’s father James was born in Ireland about 1710 and made the trip across the Atlantic. John was born in America in 1730. He went to sea for some years. The New-Hampshire Gazette reported a captain of his name in charge of the Berwick in 1762, the Onondaga in 1763, and the Londonderry in 1769 and 1770.

John Cochran then returned to the family farm in Londonderry. His wife Sarah and their children lived there—possibly as part of an extended clan. They ultimately held deeds for well over a hundred acres of land.

In 1770 John accepted the post of commander of Fort William and Mary from Gov. John Wentworth, which took him back to the sea—or at least to an island in Portsmouth harbor. On St. John’s Day in 1771 and 1774, Brother Cochran hosted a Freemasons’ dinner at the fort.

As I recounted here, John and Sarah were in the fort on the afternoon of 14 Dec 1774 when John Langdon led in a militia force that took away all but one barrel of gunpowder.

James Cochran joined his son at the fort, perhaps brought by news of that confrontation. He was still there the next night when John Sullivan, recently returned from the First Continental Congress, showed up with more militiamen to collect artillery pieces and ordnance.

According to Gov. Wentworth, the older Cochran laid into Sullivan:

The honest, brave old Man stop’d him short, call’d him and his numerous party perjur’d Traitors & Cowards, That his Son the Capt. Shou’d fight them two at a time thro their whole multitude, or that He would with his own hands put him to death in their presence, Which the Son readily assented to, but none among them wou’d take up the challenge, relying on and availing themselves of their numbers to do a mischief which they never wou’d have effected by Bravery.

Sullivan had been struggling all day to figure out how to handle this event, pushed by more radical militiamen while trying not to go too far in defying the king. He probably didn’t care to hear James Cochran’s opinion.

But the New Hampshire forces left the Cochrans alone. John continued to command the fort, soon protected and probably rearmed by the Royal Navy. Sarah and their children, and probably James, continued to farm in Londonderry, even as war began down in Massachusetts.

On 23 Aug 1775, as I said yesterday, Gov. Wentworth and John Cochran sailed away from Fort William and Mary for Boston. That left Sarah and the children behind. And the environment had changed.

TOMORROW: Cochrans on the move.

The Last of the Last Royal Governor of New Hampshire

As evening fell on 14 Dec 1774, New Hampshire militiamen finished their (first) raid on Fort William and Mary.

They loaded over a hundred barrels of gunpowder into a flat-bottomed boat. Just before embarking, they released John Cochran, commander of the fort, and his wife Sarah from confinement in their house.

But first they told Cochran to “go and take care of the Powder they had left.” As he reported that evening to Gov. John Wentworth (shown here), the raiders had left “one barrel.”

The royal governor lost most of his authority that day. He couldn’t even get men to row him out to the fort on his official barge.

Wentworth soon knew the identities of many of the raiders, but he didn’t foresee prosecuting them. “No jail would hold them long, and no jury would find them guilty,” he wrote. The most he could do was fire them from their appointed positions.

H.M.S. Canceaux and H.M.S. Scarborough arrived in Portsmouth harbor over the next week, preventing further attacks. The result was a stalemate, with the Patriots leaving Gov. Wentworth alone as long as they could proceed with their plans.

Those activists had already called a province-wide meeting in July 1774 to send delegates to the First Continental Congress. They did that again in January 1775 for the Second Continental Congress. Another meeting in late April endorsed the New Hampshire militia companies already heading toward Boston.

Gov. Wentworth convened the official New Hampshire legislature on 4 May 1775, then prorogued it. He tried to make peace between Capt. Andrew Barkley on the Scarborough, who was seizing supplies and sailors from ships, and the Patriot militiamen, now fortifying Portsmouth harbor against attack from the water.

On 13 June, Wentworth offered shelter to John Fenton, a retired British army captain and a New Hampshire militia colonel. A crowd gathered outside his mansion, pointing a cannon at the front door. Fenton gave himself up. The governor and his wife fled out the back, carrying their infant son.

The Wentworths took refuge at Fort William and Mary, still commanded by John Cochran. The governor reported, “This fort although containing upward of sixty pieces of Cannon is without men or ammunition,” but it was protected by the Scarborough.

Wentworth continued to try to exercise gubernatorial authority, sending messages to the provincial assembly as if he were in his mansion nearby rather than on an island in the harbor. The legislature ignored him and his declarations that their session was adjourned.

Soon it became clear that there was no point in staying in New Hampshire. Capt. John Linzee and H.M.S. Falcon arrived to carry away the fort’s remaining cannon and keep them out of rebel hands. On 23 August the Wentworths boarded a warship to sail to besieged Boston.

With Gov. Wentworth went John Cochran, commander of Fort William and Mary.

Cochran’s wife Sarah and their children weren’t in the fort that summer, however. They were on the family farm in Londonderry.

TOMORROW: A Loyalist family’s troubles.

“Beset on all sides by upwards of four hundred men”

In 1770, New Hampshire governor John Wentworth appointed John Cochran (1730–1807) the official commander of Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth harbor. This was a more permanent responsibility than a militia rank, though less than the regular army.

According to an article in Loyalist Trails, Cochran was a sea captain who had settled on a farm in Londonderry, New Hampshire, with his wife Sarah and their children.

Both John and Sarah Cochran were on the fortified island on 14 Dec 1774, 250 years ago today. The evening before, Gov. Wentworth had sent a warning that local Patriots might try to take possession of the fort or its military supplies.

The Cochrans noticed an unusual number of visitors that day—men saying they’d just dropped by the island to chat, even though they’re never done that before. The couple became suspicious, and Sarah brought John his pistols.

More men arrived, kept outside by the fort’s guns. Future Continental Congress delegate John Langdon and sea captain Robert White convinced Cochran to let them in for a conversation.

Those two men told the commander they wanted to remove all the gunpowder from the fort. Cochran asked if they had authorization from the royal governor. Langdon reportedly replied that he “forgot to bring his Orders, but the Powder they were determined to have at all Events.”

In the evening Cochran wrote a quick report to Gov. Wentworth about what had happened next:

I received your Excellency’s favour of yesterday, and in obedience thereto kept a strict watch all night, and added two men to my usual number, being all I could get.

Nothing material occurred till this day one o’clock, when I was informed there was a number of people coming to take possession of the Fort, upon which, having only five effective men with me, I prepared to make the best defence I could, and pointed some Guns to those places where I expected they would enter.

About three o’clock the Fort was beset on all sides by upwards of four hundred men. I told them, on their peril, not to enter; They replied they would. I immediately ordered three four pounders to be fired on them, and then the small arms, and before we could be ready to fire again, we were stormed on all quarters, and they immediately secured both me and my men, and kept us prisoners about one hour and a half, during which time they broke open the Powder House, and took all the powder away, except one barrel, and having put it into boats and sent it off, they released me from my confinement.

To which can only add, that I did all in my power to defend the Fort, but all my efforts could not avail against so great a number.

Wentworth later interviewed witnesses, gathered depositions, and compiled a longer account. Those documents weren’t published until the 1970s. They contained more dramatic details, such as where the fort’s cannon shot had ended up: one four-pound ball “went thro a warehouse,” another “pass’d thro a Sloop,” and the third “lodg’d in an House in Kittery,” Maine.

As the attackers stormed in, Cochran found himself pushed back against a wall, his musket broken, jabbing at assailants with his bayonet. A Portsmouth sailor named Thomas Pickering jumped onto the captain’s shoulders and grabbed him by the neck. Finally the “Multitude” marched Cochran off to his house to retrieve the key to the powderhouse.

Instead, they found Sarah Cochran, who had herself “snatch’d a bayonet” and tried to rescue her husband. The crowd overpowered her and locked the couple (and perhaps their children) in the house while some went to break open the powder supply.

TOMORROW: What happened to the Cochrans?

Web Exhibit about the Raids on Fort William & Mary

At the same time that Rhode Island’s preparations for war included moving cannon from Newport to Providence, where they would be beyond reach of the Royal Navy, the New Hampshire militia was taking similar but more dramatic action.

This website from the University of New Hampshire library preserves an exhibit on the militia raids on Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth’s harbor on 14-15 Dec 1774. The exhibit is largely based on chemistry professor Charles Lathrop Parsons’s The Capture of Fort William and Mary, published in 1903. It provides a good overview of this lesser-known event.

There are still some glitches in the online exhibit. The link labeled “The Gunpowder at Bunker Hill” leads instead to a letter from the governor; I haven’t found a webpage on powder. The webpage titled “Gentleman in Boston writing to a Mr. Rivitigton of New York” actually refers to James Rivington, printer of the Loyalist New York Gazetteer. That letter, as transcribed in American Archives, clearly did not endorse what had gone on in Portsmouth starting the night of 14 December:

With difficulty a number of men were persuaded to convene, who proceeded to the Fort, which is situated at New-Castle, an Island about two miles from the Town, and being there joined by a number of the inhabitants of said New-Castle, amounted to near four hundred men; they invested the Fort, and being refused admittance by the Commander of it [John Cochran], who had only five men with him, and who discharged several guns at them, scaled the walls, and soon overpowered and pinioned the Commander; they then struck the King’s colours, with three cheers, broke open the Powder House, and carried off one hundred and three barrels of Powder, leaving only one behind.

Previous to this expresses had been sent out to alarm the country; accordingly, a large body of men marched the next day from Durham, headed by two Generals; Major [John] Sullivan, one of the worthy Delegates, who represented that Province in the Continental Congress, and the Parson of the Parish [John Adams], who having been long-accustomed to apply himself more to the cure of the bodies than the souls of his parishioners, had forgotten that the weapons of his warfare ought to be spiritual, and not carnal, and therefore marched down to supply himself with the latter, from the King’s Fort, and assisted in robbing him of his warlike stores.

After being drawn up on the parade, they chose a Committee, consisting of those persons who had been most active in the riot of the preceding day, with Major Sullivan and some others, to wait on the Governour [John Wentworth], and know of him whether any of the King’s Ships or Troops were expected. The Governour, after expressing to them his great concern for the consequences of taking the Powder from the Fort, of which they pretended to disapprove and to be ignorant of, assured them that he knew of neither Troops or Ships coming into the Province, and ordered the Major, as a Magistrate, to go and disperse the people.

When the Committee returned to the body, and reported what the Governour had told them, they voted that it was satisfactory, and that they would return home. But, by the eloquent harangue of their Demosthenes [i.e., Sullivan], they were first prevailed upon to vote that they took part with, and approved of, the measures of those who had taken the Powder.

Matters appeared then to subside, and it was thought every man had peaceably returned to his own home, instead of this Major Sullivan, with about seventy of his clients, concealed themselves till the evening, and then went to the Fort, and brought off in Gondolas all the small arms, with fifteen 4-pounders, and one 9-pounder, and a quantity of twelve and four and twenty pound shot, which they conveyed, to Durham, &c.

Two opposing military forces facing off against each other (albeit one comprising only six men). The royal troops firing muskets and cannon, and the colonial militia storming a fortification and capturing the men inside (albeit with no killed or wounded on either side). Territory, gunpowder, and ordnance changing hands. The end of royal government in New Hampshire as Wentworth sought shelter and then departed for Boston. One might even think that a war had begun.

The Rev. John Adams, minister at Durham from 1748 to 1778, suffered from what we’d now call bipolar disorder, according to the description of the Rev. John Eliot:

For he was in his best days, and when he was not exposed to peculiar trials of his ministry, very much the sport of his feelings. Sometimes he was so depressed as to seem like a being mingling with the dust, and suddenly would mount up to heaven with a bolder wing than any of his contemporaries.

Local tradition says that he allowed some of the gunpowder from Fort William and Mary to be hidden under his pulpit. It probably seemed like a good idea at that moment.