SEARCHING FOR THE "GENERAL WASHINGTON" AMONG MANY
Thanks to Prof. John Sheets for this article with new information about an elusive subject
Emigrants from the Isle of Colonsay, Argyll, Scotland, settled in North America along a "Chain of Migration" that reached the Great Lakes by mid-19th century. Gaelic-speaking Colbhasaich (People from Colonsay) planned together, boarded ships together, and arrived together in groups of kin who then established enclaves on the advancing frontier. They came to Bruce County, Ontario, on Lake Huron in the 1850s, preceded by settlers to Wellington County, north of Toronto, in the 1830s, in turn, preceded by a shipload to Prince Edward Island in 1806. Before Napoleon's era, a favorite destination was pre- and post-Revolutionary America, especially Wilmington, North Carolina, and inland to Fayetteville (initially called "Cross Creek"). So popular was the passage to Cape Fear that Colonsay's parish minister expressed his fears in Scotland's First Statistical Account (1791-96): "A few emigrated from Colonsay to America, summer of 1792; but in summer 1791, a considerable proportion of the inhabitants crossed the Atlantic. Those who remain give out that they are waiting only good accounts from their relations, and a proper opportunity of being transported to the other hemisphere. Pity it is that such numbers should bid farewell to their native country…" Colonsay traditions identify the "General Washington" as one of the emigrant ships to Wilmington. In Cargoes of Despair and Hope: Scottish Emigration to North America 1603-1803 (1993), the appendix lists a "General Washington" among the vessels of 1791. Under "Master Miller," it departed in August from Greenock, Scotland, with "50" passengers to North Carolina. Can we discover more on both sides of the Atlantic?
Although history and people go forward in time, the study of their records usually goes in reverse. Often the quality and quantity of documents diminish backward in time, or suffer the ravages of events like the American Revolution (alternatively, that remorseless revolt by some thankless colonials). A search for the "General Washington" poses a particular problem of notoriety. After all, Americans constantly cited their Commanding General and first President with his name applied to almost anything, like maritime vessels of every type. In a classic study of The Commerce of North Carolina 1763-1789 (1936), CC Crittenden describes five categories of commercial vessels in and around North Carolina: the one-masted sloop, the two-masted schooner, the two-masted brigantine (or "brig…particularly well adapted for use in time of war"), the three-masted ship, and the almost three-masted snow ("in North Carolina waters only infrequently"). They increase in average size (and crew), from 50 T for sloops and schooners, 100 T for brigs, to 150 T for ships. Any of them might honor America's hero through a redundancy of names: eg, General Washington, George Washington, American George, Washington Packet, Lady [Martha] Washington, Washington or just George (probably not for the British monarch). Plus, the vessels and their surviving records were scattered among the five ports of colonial North Carolina, from north to south: Port Currituck (on the Virginia border), Port Roanoke (at Edenton), Port Bath (at Bath), Port Beaufort (at New Bern), and Port Brunswick (at Cape Fear to Wilmington). As the parish minister feared, the motive truly existed for a trans-Atlantic passage to Wilmington, then up the Cape Fear River to Fayetteville, site of an "Argyll Colony" during the 1730-40s. According to Crittenden, Fayetteville in 1790 "contained 274 heads of families, or a total population of considerably more than 1,000; many prosperous merchants were located there; and a busy trade was carried on up and down the river…"
The North Carolina State Archives (in Raleigh) houses the Treasurer's and Comptroller's Papers and Port Records from the colonial period, microfilmed and abstracted. The Port Brunswick authorities kept a variety of lists, such as Shipping Registers, Collector's Certificates, Vessels Entering, and Vessels Clearing Outward. A vessel's line-entry usually (but not always) detailed the date, name, captain, category, size, number of crew, when and where built, when and where registered, owner, cargo, "From Whence" or destination. There are no Passenger Lists and rarely a mention of passengers, being secondary to cargo and profit. Ships from Scotland populated North Carolina's ports before 1776 and occasionally brought more than commodities on board. For example, the "Ulysses" entered Port Brunswick, from Cork, Ireland, on 28 February 1774 with a cargo of "beef, pork, butter, bread [and] ballast." The 115 T ship sailed under James Chalmers and a crew of eight, was built at Massachusetts Bay in 1771, registered at Glasgow in 1772, and owned by Walter Ritchie. When it returned on 18 October from Greenock, it had a different captain, a crew of ten and a full cargo of "linen, leather, shoes and saddles, sugar, ale, hats, woolens, sail cloth, gunpowder, pewter, earthenware, mustard, linseed oil, paint, glass, silk, iron, haberdashery, wine [and] 111 Scotch Passengers."
The Revolution interrupted trans-Atlantic commerce and changed the status, even the appearance, of some vessels plying the North Carolina coast. The rebels worried about a threat to their ports by the Royal Navy. WN Still's North Carolina's Revolutionary War Navy (1976) is a slim, bicentennial volume about a small fleet of five vessels. Their story begins in December 1775 when the Provincial Council "ordered three armed vessels to be fitted out, one at Cape Fear, one at New Bern, and a third at Edenton…" Among these was a 'merchantman' named "General Washington," purchased at Port Brunswick on 17 January 1776 for conversion to a brig; the Council also commissioned two small galleys, one named "Washington." However, during hard times and scarce cash, plans go awry. On 1 March 1777, Port Brunswick's Commissioner complained to the governor about the "want of Hands" and lack of powder and shot aboard the "General Washington"; in May he told the state's Assembly that "the [General] Washington is utterly deprived." The anchored brig went for sale at Wilmington in February 1778; apparently there was no buyer since it received British prisoners that April. North Carolina's under-funded brigs seldom moved, could not protect the coasts, and cost too much on the line or in the market. Was the "General Washington" one of the "armed brigs" destroyed by a British fleet raiding Caper Fear and capturing Wilmington in February 1781? The Admiralty Papers (Still's reference is "1/1501"; Crittenden's is "1:486, pp 1235-1236") in the Public Records Office of London may confirm or deny this. For the British, it quickly became moot after heavy losses at Guilford Court House, North Carolina, in March. Soon, General Cornwallis retreated to the Yorktown, Virginia, peninsula for evacuation by the Royal Navy, wedging himself between General Washington's army and the French navy toward surrender on 17 October 1781.
If North Carolina's "General Washington" survived the war and re-entered the commercial fleet, it joined others entering and 'clearing' Port Brunswick and Wilmington with a Washington namesake. A 60 T schooner "General Washington," registered in Wilmington by its owners in New York, entered and left more than ten times between January 1788 and January 1789. It typically brought iron, steel, shot, powder, cloth and dry goods from New York, returning with tobacco, tar, turpentine, leather and hides. And uncharacteristic for a schooner, on 9 February 1789, it departed for the East Indies and Canton, China, with an exclusive cargo of "Snuff & Tobacco." At the same time, a 125 T brig "General Washington" cleared Port Roanoke for Liverpool on 30 May 1788. Registered and owned in Edenton, it carried naval stores, tobacco and "63 loggs [sic] black walnut." The brig returned from Liverpool on 13 December, under the same captain and a crew of eight, with "nails, hats, linens, woolens, salt." Port Brunswick's "Vessels entering…4 July 1789 to 10 March 1790" recorded the same vessel from Greenock on 28 September 1789, still registered and owned by "Hill and Pons" in Edenton. Under a different captain, Joseph Bryan, it brought "rope, cart brushes, ovens, skillets, sickles, salt, wine, sugar, ammunitions, arms, sundry goods and merchandise." Another roster of "Vessels entering Port Brunswick 1 July 1789 to 1 January 1790" also includes the "General Washington" from Greenock on the same day, a shorter cargo list, plus its "Importers…Robert Adam by George Duncan." Two months later, on 30 November 1789, a "Collections Certificate" was issued at Port Brunswick to the 125 T ship "General Washington" under Joseph Bryan; a curious notation follows, "a Brig when entered." George Duncan of Wilmington owned the ship "General Washington" now registered in Wilmington; it 'cleared outward' on 30 November en route to Cape Francais, West Indies, carrying "lumber, flour, shingles, tobacco."
A later Collector's Certificate at Port Brunswick states the "General Washington…entered this day" of 3 March 1790. On 24 May "The Ship General Washington-Joseph Bryan Master-cleared under the Laws of Congress." That is, the new maritime 'Laws of Congress,' commencing on 10 March, shifted port authority and record-keeping away from the states and to the new federal government. Is this the "General Washington" of North Carolina's formerly understated navy? Is this also the "General Washington" taking Colbhasaich to Wilmington in August 1791? Only the existence and discovery of allied documents in London's Public Records Office and in Washington, DC's National Archives can address these questions.
BACKGROUND NOTE: In "Argyll Colony Plus" Vol 6 No1, April 1992, there is a lengthy article by the late A I B Stewart entitled "Highland Emigration to America with particular reference to North Carolina"(pp 3 - 24). Starting at page 22 it reads:
"On 3rd September 1791 the Board [of Customs] enquired [of the Campeltown office] regarding a considerable number of people from Colonsay about to embark in Islay for North Carolina. British manufactures were threatened.
"You are particularly to guard against any tools or utensils used in the woolen and silk or made use of in the Iron and Steel Manufactures being exported to foreign parts and to prevent the seducing of artificers or workmen employed in these manufactures to go into parts beyond the seas. We are further to observe that no Countenance is due to emigration."
Today it is the USA that imposes restrictions on exports of technological importance.
Mr. Malcolm Campbell, the Islay officer reported that the ship had come to Islay and then gone to Colonsay:
"to take in the passengers with all their effects which consist only of wearing apparel, as they are poor labouring people who have been deprived of their farms by their landlord and they will not be stopt by him [presumably the landlord - sic]."
The master had refused to go to Campeltown to make the necessary declarations but stated:
"The ship would take 150 full passengers to be landed at Wilmington in North Carolina".
It was later reported that the ship was the General Washington, James Miller master, and that she had the following passengers: from Islay 19 men 21 women 31 children; from Jura 1 man; from Colonsay 28 men, 28 women 86 children and from Mull 4 men 4 women and 125 children.
This was accompanied by a claim from Mr Campbell for the expences incurred and a Protest by him against James Miller taken before Archibald Campbell of Colonsay "for all harm damage or detriment that may arise from his refusal".
The Board agreed to meet the expenses subject to a detailed account, but warned:
"In future the Collector is to avoid incurring expense where the improbability of rendering effectual service shall be so apparent as in the present case.""
The references are to Campbeltown Customs House Records, SRO CE82 2/79. Subsequently. a reference was discovered elsewhere identifying the "General Washington" as having been re-named after capture from the British, having originally been called the "General Monck". It is extraordinary that such a poignant event as this has been all-but-erased from our consciousness … readers are implored to contribute any scrap of information on this subject. Is there any evidence of what became of these 347 souls? Editor
Regulars
