Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC 29403
www.historypress.net
Copyright 2014 by J. North Conway and Jesse Dubuc
All rights reserved
First published 2014
e-book edition 2014
ISBN 978.1.62584.945.8
Library of Congress CIP data applied for.
print edition ISBN 978.1.62619.409.0
Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For my mother, my most stubborn fan and supporter.
Jesse Dubuc
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to the following:
WAREHAM SUMMER OF CELEBRATION COMMITTEE:
Coordinator: Claire Smith
President: Rudy Santos
Vice-president: Nancy Miller
Clerk: Angela Dunham
Treasurer: Robert Powilatis
Board of directors: Sharon Boyer, Jovina Dean, Eleanor Martin, Malcolm Phinney, W. Robert White
Committee members: Nora Bicki, Robert Blair, Linda Burke, Mary Jane Burke, Jacqui Healey, William Heaney, Mel Lazarus, Laura Lopes, Deborah McGonnell, John McGonnell, Clifford Sylvia, Paula Tufts
LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES:
Chair: Bethany Gay
Vice-chair: Roger Bacchieri
Secretary: William White
Members: Johnna Fredrickson, Rachel Kuklinski, M. Kathleen LaFlamme Diane OBrien
Liaison to the board: Judy Whiteside
WAREHAM HISTORICAL COMMISSION:
Chair: Angela M. Dunham
Vice-chair: Mack Phinney
Treasurer: Len Boutin
Clerk: Cheryl Knapp
Board of selectmen liaison: Alan Slavin
WAREHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY OFFICERS:
President: Angela M. Dunham
Vice-president: Mary Hull
Treasurer: Sandy Slavin
Secretary: Cathy Phinney
WAREHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD MEMBERS:
June Strunk
Joella Cruz
Bernard Greenwood
Paul Girard
Alan Slavin
David Warr
AUTHORS:
Scott Ridley
Michael Tougias
Will Staples
Jennifer Reeser
PUBLISHING:
Tris Coburn, literary agent
Dani McGrath, Northeast sales, The History Press
Tabitha Dulla, commissioning editor, The History Press
Darcy Mahan, project editor, The History Press
IN CROSSING
Commemorative Poem by Katy Whittingham
18142014
As far from timeas History
As near yourselfas Today
Emily Dickinson
Over the highest spar, can you picture a community?
Sketch and shade with predetermined destiny
and neatly settled susceptibility?
In its age of arranged marriage between land and water,
orphaned islands, crooked rivers,
high harvests: cotton, rods, nails, bread,
can you still hear the tall sea tale
as it once washed over the weary waterman
in decidedly neutral beds?
Stop, and listen to the expectant hum
before orders, before eighteen guns, before
a simple sound could sunder, and not so simple men
might propose a peaceful end
There are not always words that can capture, but when
they do they can be too powerfully accurate,
as brazen and blazing as that infamous red glare,
urgent as surge winds and heavily burdened like iron rails
what choice did twelve Fearing men have
but to stand for all of the others, among them,
Cape cousins: Fancy, Nancy, and Elizabeth.
Yet, chance is chance, and fortitude
matches with what sea souls might expect.
As an elephant will run from a bee,
the mightier many set off on their watercourse
with deserted vow to come back.
But with waters crossed, history did change,
once marched streets now call out names,
and the earlier picturea little tired in form,
yet finely grained with preserved intent,
may be mounted in the celebratory frame,
in honor of the value secured,
positioned at the arch of our inviting gateway.
Wareham resident KATY WHITTINGHAM is a poet and educator. Her book of poems, By a Different Ocean, was published by Plan B Press in Virginia in 2009. She teaches English at the University of MassachusettsDartmouth and Bridgewater State University.
Introduction
THE YIN AND YANG OF HISTORY
A PLEASURE TO WRITEONE BOOK AFTER ANOTHERBECOMING A WRITERALL MY FRIENDS ARE WRITERSTHE WAR OF 1812HEROES GALORETHE YIN AND YANG OF WAR
History is important. If you dont know history it is as if you were born yesterday.
Howard Zinn
Fiction is easy. Nonfiction is hard. Writing nonfiction, you only have so much to work with, and you still have to make it entertaining and enlightening for the reader. With fiction you can make stuff upvampires attack, theres a car chase, it was all a dream. You dont have that latitude with nonfiction. It is what it is. You only know what you know. Its not like you can write a different ending to a particular historic eventand then John Wilkes Booth was tackled by the brave Secret Service agent who saved President Lincolns life at the Ford Theater that night.
This is a true story. There is no fiction involved. There is no Hollywood ending to this story. Sorry. But despite it being nonfiction, it is still an important story. Thats what writers do: they tell stories. Jesse Dubuc, my coauthor, is a historian. Historians make sure the facts are correct. So with this book, you get the best of both worlds: a story and correct facts.
A PLEASURE TO WRITE
It is with the greatest pleasure that I accepted the opportunity to write this book about the attack on Wareham in June 1814 by the British navy vessel the HMS Nimrod. I am also exponentially pleased that Jesse Dubuc, an extraordinarily talented local historian and Bridgewater State University graduate, agreed to join me in writing it. And further, I am genuinely exultant that Wareham poet and university professor Katy Whittingham agreed to write a commemorative poem for the book. If that all isnt great, I dont know what is.
ONE BOOK AFTER ANOTHER
This is my twelfth nonfiction book. It is also the sixth book I have written in six years, beginning in 2008 with the publication of another one of my books with The History Press, The Cape Cod Canal: Breaking Through the Bared and Bended Arm. This book was followed by a trilogy on New York City during the Gilded Age that included King of Heists (2009), The Big Policeman (2010) and Bag of Bones (2011), all published by Globe Pequot/Lyons Press. In 2012, I wrote a fourth book on New York City called Queen of Thieves, scheduled for publication in the fall of 2014 by Sky Horse Publishing. In the summer of 2013, I was contracted by Cadent Press in Maine to coauthor, with Michael Vieira, an illustrated coffee-table book, The Weather Outside Is Frightful, a compendium of the worst hurricanes, snowstorms, floods and other natural disasters in New England. The book is due out in October 2014. Busy, busy.
