Lanterna Rally

Author: Gardner Weld Allen

Publisher:

Published: 2015-08-04

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 9781332109166

Excerpt from Captain Hector McNeill of the Continental Navy The Chamberlain Collection in the Boston Public Library and the Bostonian Society each contributes one letter. To the officials of all these institutions we are indebted for very interesting and valuable material. A number of other items are reprinted from the Proceedings of this Society; also two letters from the Publications of the Naval History Society and two from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Among the papers in the Gray collection is an autobiographical sketch which throws much light on McNeill's antecedents and early life. Unfortunately it comes down only to the period of the French and Indian War. From this account it appears that he was of Scotch descent and was born in County Antrim, Ireland, October 10, 1728. He came to Boston with his parents in his ninth year, arriving September 7, 1737. He was educated in the Boston schools and in later life followed the sea. November 12, 1750, he was married in the First Presbyterian Church to Mary Wilson. Their first child, Robert, was born April 12, 1752, and died in September the following year. In November, 1753, came the birth of another son, Hector, and just two years later that of the eldest daughter, Mary. Another daughter, Lettice, was born at some time after the period covered by this sketch. Entering the king's service in April, 1755, McNeill, then master of a vessel, carried General Monckton to Nova Scotia and apparently remained during the siege of Beausejour. He returned to Boston in October, but about the end of the year 1755 was again in the Bay of Fundy. He was soon captured with his ship by Indians, near Passamaquoddy Bay. With this incident the sketch comes abruptly to an end. We have a bit of information, however, derived from Indian sources and recorded in a journal kept in 1764 by James Boyd, a settler on Passamaquoddy Bay. Boyd learned from the natives of that region that McNeill, after his capture, had been taken to St. Andrews and thence to Quebec. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.