Page 59 - Demo

Jabez Smith, Jr.’s name as it appeared in Groton’s 1775 tax rolls. Indian and Colonial Research Center.
wound at Ticonderoga which cost him a leg. Captain Caulkins, however, served in the state militia.
Fortune smiled again when Michael Phelps— chairman exemplar of Connecticut’s committee on pretensions—investigated the family further and discovered an unrepresented lieutenant
of marines in my lineage. By the time I was given the honor of joining the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Connecticut, I knew instinctively the message I wanted to share.
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I want you to know the story of Jabez Smith, Jr., who was born in the seafaring town of Groton, Connectictut, in 1751, the third of seven children of Jabez Smith. The elder Jabez served as a captain in the first company of Groton’s trained band. His son and namesake joined the Connecticut State Navy early in the Revolutionary War and joined the Continental Navy in the summer of 1777. He was assigned to the brig Resistance as a lieutenant of marines. The little warship sailed for the West Indies in mid-October and captured her first prize, the Mermaid, a Scottish merchant ship bound for Barbados with a cargo of dry goods, flour and beef valued at £7,000 sterling. It was an auspicious beginning. Within a few weeks,
Resistance had captured a twelve-gun sloop near Barbados and in the waters north of that island she engaged fire with the British naval packet Grenville which fled to the security of Bridgetown in a “Shatterd Condition.”
In the spring of 1778 Jabez was assigned to the frigate Raleigh as second lieutenant of marines under Captain John Barry. Raleigh set sail from Boston the morning of September 25 and had barely cleared the harbor before two British warships, Experiment and Unicorn set off in pursuit. After two days, the Unicorn ran the Raleigh down.
Jabez’s shipmate, Marine Captain George Osborne described the encounter. “The second broadside she gave us, to our unspeakable grief, carried away our fore topmast and mizzen top gallant mast; he renewed the action with fresh vigor, and...we determined for victory...Night coming on, we perceived the sternmost ship gaining on us very fast; and being much disabled in our sails, masts and rigging, and having no possible view of escaping, capt. Barry thought it most prudent, with the advice of his officers, to wear ship and stand for the shore, if possible, to prevent the ship’s falling into the enemy’s hands.”
Barry ran the Raleigh aground on barren, remote Wooden Ball Island, south of Penobscot Bay.
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