Misc. Notes
Killed during the Expedition to Quebec, Canada, 1690; a sergeant
80 149 150, 175, 1905The Moseley home was located near the cemetery at the foot of Pottapaug Hill. John Hazen sold fifty acres on the hill to Increase Moseley of Norwich in December, 1713. The records of the First Church of Norwich state that “Incrase Maudsley and ye wife of Increase Maudsley” owned the Covenant 6 Nov 1715, and at the same time their first two children were baptized.
Trolling humiliation and defeat behind them in the frigid St. Lawrence River, the retreating detachment of 2,300 New Englanders wanted nothing more than to sail back home, crawl into their warm beds in Massachusetts, and put their disastrous invasion of Canada behind them.
Smallpox and fatigue had weakened them. Food supplies were dwindling. Then their situation worsened. The fleet of some 30 vessels—attempting to navitage the river without an experienced pilot—began to run aground.
Four ships were lost. By the time the retreating flotilla floundered into Boston, some 400 men had died.
The abortive 1690 attack on Quebec City became the most significant of a series of skirmishes known as King William’s War, primarily a European grudge match between the Protestant English monarch and France’s Catholic ruler, Louis XIV. Sir William Phips, knighted after his successful salvaging of a Spanish galleon, commanded the English invasion. Except for Phips, the names of the ill-fated participants were largely lost to history.
Then, on Christmas Eve, 1994, Marc Tremblay noticed some peculiar submerged items half-buried in the sand near his cottage at Baie-Trinite on the St. Lawrence River. An unusually strong storm had swept away the top layer of sediment to reveal a scattering of muskets, bottles, axes, and shoe fragments. Tremblay, who happens to be a wreck diver, also recognized several lengths of timber—clearly the remains of a wooden ship.
Marc-Andrea Bernier, an underwater archaeologist with parks Canada, rushed to the remote site by snowmobile and with the help of Tremblay and other local divers gingerly reburied the artifacts with sandbags.
Parks Canada experts suspected that the wreck was from Phips’s expeditionary fleet. They returned that spring. Now, after two seasons of excavation and several years of studying the retrieved items, they are convinced they have opened a window on a key event in North American history.
In the winter of 1689-90 the French and their Native American allies raided English settlements to the south. Fighting back, the English staged a two-pronged assault; by land on Montreal and by sea—under Phips’s command—on Quebec. The two forces were supposed to strike simultaneously, but bad weather delayed the sea convoy. The Montreal attack was a complete failure, and by the time Phips’s ships arrived at Quebec, French reinforcements had already arrived.
Unaware of the reinforcements, Phips sent an officer ashore to demand the surrender of the legendary French commander Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau. Frontenac’s stinging response: “I have no reply to make to your General except from the mouths of my cannons and by gunshots.”
For two days Phips’s fleet bombarded Quebec, Phips tried to mount a land attack from the rear and dispatched cannon ashore, but they were set up far out of range. The French returned fire, damaging some ships and killing 30 men. In the end Phips ran out of ammunition. He turned his ships around and headed home.
The defeat was dispiriting; what followed was disastrous. Tossed into confusion by a hasty retreat and punishing storms, the fleet was scattered. Four ships never made it back to Massachusetts. Those that did make it back fared little better. Diarist Samuel Myles, hoping to draw the king’s attention to the colonies, wrote, “Some of the vessells are arrived, haveing lost some halfe their men, some more some even all....Great Complaints there are that there was no suitable Care, nor provision for such an Army, men ... haveing their Eyes and Cheeks Eaten by Ratts before found.”
Hundreds of families lost their breadwinners. Massachusetts, which had invested heavily in the expedition and had planned to cash in on its share of the expected plunder from Quebec, was brought to near bankruptcy.
Now, three centuries later, from several feet of water in the St. Lawrence, the ghosts of Phips’s fleet are emerging.
The Key: Three initials—IMS—seen on the dolphin-decorated handle of a porringer, helped identify the wreck as one from the English fleet commanded by William Phips. “I” and “S” stand for the first names of a married couple, “M” is for their last name. Records reveal one such militiaman aboard the ship; Sgt. Increase Modsley. He and many fellow soldiers never returned from fighting Frontenac’s troops.
The Players: Phips was born in a house his father built with a partner in Maine. His father died, his mother married the partner, and their descendant Frank White now visits the site to assist archaeologists. Lowered from the Parliament building for cleaning, a statue of Quebec’s defender, Frontenac, usually gazes over waters where the English, flying the Union flag attacked.
Personal Effects of War: The men of Phips’s fleet were farmers, tradesmen, and townspeople—certainly not sailors. They dressed in their everyday attire. However, discoveries like a silk-covered button, a fragment of a silk ribbon, and fashionable buckle shoes indicate that some expedition members, probably the officers, wore finer clothing.
Of the guns found in the wreckage, many had seen years of use by the time Phips sailed. “Some muskets were likely 60 to 70 years old,” says Grenier. Weapons found show signs of modification and repair.
Besides their guns, the militiamen brought their own personal items, including eating untensils such as spoons and ammunition containers like a leather cartridge box. Side arms found include belt axes and swords. Despite centuries submerged, the items still clearly show decorative flourishes and initials identifying their owners. Each name represents a family that waited in vain for the owner to return with the fleet to Massachusetts.
“Saray Modsley, widow of the sergeant whose porringer we found, waited 13 years before remarrying,” says Grenier. “Others were even more optimistic. Twenty years after the expedition, Ezra Clap made provisions in his will for his son Edward, lost with Phips’s fleet, should he ever return.
“He never did.”
151“[In the year 1690, a large company of soldiers was raised in Dorchester, to embark in the Canada expedition. Forty-six of this company, it is supposed, never returned; many of them, probably, perished at sea. A list of the entire company was found among the papers left by Evenezer Clap, son of Nathaniel (see Reg., xv, 225-227), who in 1690, was one of the active citizens of the town. We give the list as printed in the
Hist. of Dorchester, p. 256].
“CANADY SOLDIERS.
A list of the names of the Soldiers under the command of John Withington, Oct. 3, 1690.
Capt. Joh. Withington
Left. George Minott
Insine Samuel Sumner
Sargt. Ammiel Weeks
Sargt. Richard Butt
Sargt. Samuel Sumner
Sargt. Increase Modsley
Corp. John Poope
Corp. Joseph Curtis
Corp. George Holmes
Joseph Weeks, Clarke
Joseph Trescott, Drummer
Ebenezer Sumner
Henry Lyon
Eliab Lyon
Unight Modsley
William Cheney
Peter Calley
Ebenezer Poope
William Sumner
Eleazer Walles
William Cooke
Joseph Long
Thomas Weeks
Thonmas Andrews
William Sumner
Samuel Sandras
Edward Wiatte
Benieman Hewens
James Swift
Hopstill Sandras
Solomon Clarke
John Lord
Consider Atherton
Jezeniah Sumner
Adam Barr
James Robinson
Cornelius Tilestone
Richard Euins
Samuel Hicks
John Tolman
John Jones
Ebenezer Crane
Samuel Chandler
William Fowst
William Belshar
David Stevenson
Henry Jackson
Thomas Bird
Augusten Clements
William Swift
Moses Chaplin
Joshua Shoot
John Anderson
John Leeds
Isaac Caps
John Crowhore
‘These on bord Capt. B---y.
Corp. Daniell Hensha
William Blake
John Gulliver
William George
Joseph Atherton
Samuell Triscott
Thomas Kelton
John Morrill
James Morey
Edward Clap
Jehosephat Crabtree
John Briant
Robert Husay
Charles Readman
William Baker
Matthew Mapley
John Jones
Elias Moonke
152Misc. Notes