“The Prize Papers of the American War” Workshop, 8 Oct.

On Friday, 8 October, the Prize Papers Project at Britain’s National Archives will host an international symposium on “The Prize Papers of the American War of Independence.”

Online registration to this event is available, but folks should know that it will take place in London. The discourse will start at 4:30 A.M., Boston time.

The workshop description says:

Bringing together specialists on prize law, the American War of Independence and the Prize Papers, the workshop approaches the collection as a transnational archive of wartime capture and its afterlives. The workshop creates a forum for sustained international exchange and collaboration.

The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of both the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in July and the opening of the British Vice-Admiralty Court in newly-captured New York City in September 1776. Although exceptionally rich, the prize papers of this court have been largely inaccessible. The newly catalogued papers of the New York court (and its mother-court in London) provide new perspectives on the War of Independence at sea, and on lived experiences of the time, through the intercepted papers and letters found by the British on merchant and fighting ships.

Maritime warfare was central to the War of Independence. Controlling, disrupting, and capturing shipping was crucial to the war on both sides. America started privateering early, in 1775, and sought new (previously forbidden) trading partners. From 1778, French naval and privateering activity expanded the war against Britain, followed by Spain and the Netherlands. British naval forces and loyalist privateers sought to stop American and allied shipping, enforce their imperial authority, and weaken the Continental cause. The conflict eventually extended far beyond the North American seaboard.

An initial group of papers from 150 captured ships, American or supporting America, will be published online on 8 October in the Prize Papers Portal, the open-access online database of the Prize Papers Project. . . . Major bodies of captured material from American, French, Spanish, Dutch and recaptured British vessels will be published in the coming months and years…

Presentations schduled for 8 October include:

• Amanda Bevan & Luan Cakolli: “A Voyage of Discovery and Delivery … and what we’re learning along the way”
• Suzanne Foxley: “American Experience of British Prize Law”
• Séverine Angers: “Write to me by different ships as the English capture many”
• Randolph Cock: “Piecing Together Clues from the U.S.S. Lexington, 1777: A Whodunnit”
• Rebekah Harbord: “Behind the Scenes: Preparing documents from the Prize Papers for digitisation”
• Bethany Groff Dorau: “‘Taken by 64 Guns’: A Case Study of Dalton Marine Captain Offin Boardman”
• Christopher Minty: “‘False & Colourable’: The Brigantine Adventure and the Paper War of the American Revolution”
• Abby Mullen: “Mutiny or Loyalty?: Revolt from the Enemy in American Prizes”
• Graham Moore: “Revolution 250: Exhibiting the Prize Papers at The National Archives”
• John Beiner & Lucas Haasis: “History at the Helm: The Prize Papers and the Making of the Videogame Ahoy”

The keynote address to close out Friday will be delivered by Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, author of The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It (Basic Books, 2024).

The Prize Papers Project is run by the National Archives, U.K., and the University of Oldenburg, Germany. Other organizers of this event are the German Maritime Museum Bremerhaven and the German Historical Institute London. The workshop will be hosted by Nele Popp, Amanda Bevan, Oliver Finnegan, and Lucas Haasis.

This symposium occurs alongside an exhibit at the National Archives in Kew titled “Revolution 250: America's Independence Story 1763–1783,” which will run through 29 November.

“Overset in the Storm near the Isle of Sholes”

In the Boston newspapers printed on Thursday, 15 Sept 1735, we can watch the maritime town struggle to gather and digest news of a calamity at sea. First, the Boston Post-Boy:

Last Monday Night we had a hard Storm, the Wind from N. E. to S. E. in which sundry Vessels were drove on Shoar in the neighbouring Ports . . .

We hear, that a Sloop belonging to Newbury, one Offin Boardman Master, bound from Casco-Bay to this Place, having a Raft of Masts at her Stern, was overset in her Passage, on Monday Night last, and thirteen People drown’d, being all the Persons on board, Nine of them were Passengers; she was carried into the Isle of Shoals last Wednesday.

This Offin Boardman (1698-1735) was the grandfather of a man of the same name who commanded a privateer during the Revolutionary War and lived on Historic New England’s Spencer-Pierce-Little Farm after 1796.

Here’s the 15 Sept 1735 Boston Gazette:

Monday Night last in the Storm Offin Boreman bound from Casco to Newbury in a Sloop laden with Lumber, was overset in the Storm near the Isle of Sholes she had on board 8 or 10 Passengers, some belonging to this Town, among whom were three Married Women, all lost; we have heard the Names of some of ’em but not with the certainty as to mention ’em. Mr. Boreman has left a Wife and 3 or 4 Children, and had on board with him a valuable Negro.

That evening came the Boston Evening-Post:

Monday Night last we had a very severe Storm of Wind at N. E. which did some Damage to the Shipping in our Harbour . . .

The same Night a Sloop coming from Casco-Bay, Offin Boardman of Newbury Master, was overset near the Isle of Shoals, and all the People drowned. ’Tis said there were on board, (besides Three Men belonging to the Sloop,) Ten Passengers, some of which belonged to this Town, but tho’ several Sloops came in Yesterday from Casco-Bay, yet we cannot get a particular Account of their Names. We hear that the Sloop has been since found, and is towed into the Isle of Shoals.

A week later, the 22 Sept 1735 Boston Post-Boy finally provided specifics:

We have now certain Information, That in the Sloop which was overset in the violent Storm we had last Monday Night was Se’n-night, as mention’d in our last, there were but Eight Persons, all of whom were drowned, viz. Offin Boardman, Master, Thomas Coker and Edmund Pilsbury, all of Newbury; a Man belonging to the Sloop, whose Name was cannot learn; Mr. James Jackson of Boston, Founder; the Wife of Nathaniel Lock, the Wife of John Sweet, and the Wife of William Bucknam, all of Casco-Bay.

At the Sign of the Brazen Head in Boston, Mary Jackson was left a widow with two sons. William was four years old, and James was only four months.

COMING UP: Picking up the pieces.