The Angel Gabriel was a 240-ton English passenger galleon. She was commissioned for Sir Walter Raleigh's last expedition to America in 1617. She sank in a storm off Pemaquid Point, near the newly established town of Bristol, Maine, on 15 August 1635. [1] [2] The sinking occurred during a hurricane in the middle of the Great Migration.
The ship was initially built as the Starre in 1615 and renamed the Jason by Sir Walter Raleigh for use in his second expedition to Guiana (then under control of the Spanish) in 1617. Following Raleigh's return it was seized and became a merchant ship, renamed the Angel Gabriel.
A stout ship designed and built to cope with combat, even as a merchant ship, the Angel Gabriel was involved in many further skirmishes between 1618 and 1635, including a notable engagement in 1627 off Cales where it was boarded several times but was able to clear its decks each time and eventually beat off three Spanish ships. This was possible because the defenders were able to retreat into the forecastle and sterncastle, which had reinforced bulkheads fitted with gunports for small cannon and shoulder weapons.
From England to Massachusetts in a fleet of five ships, the Angel Gabriel joined the James, the Elizabeth (Bess), the Mary and the Diligence. As they approached New England, an unusually powerful early season hurricane struck, known as the "Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635", and the James and the Angel Gabriel were forced to ride it out just off the coast of modern-day Hampton, New Hampshire. According to the ship's log and the journal of Increase Mather, whose father Richard Mather and family were on the James, the following was recorded:
All one hundred-plus passengers aboard the James managed to make it to Boston Harbor two days later.
The Angel Gabriel was wrecked off the coast of Maine, but the smaller, faster ships, the Mary, the Bess, and the Diligence outran the storm, and landed in Newfoundland on 15 August 1635. [4]
Several plaques commemorating the loss of the Angel Gabriel have been placed near Pemaquid. One reads:
Official records state that William Furber, Samuel Haines, and the Cogswells were aboard; the other passengers on the list are reported in family records, genealogies, and other secondary sources. [6]
Bristol, known from 1632 to 1765 as Pemaquid, is a town in Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,834 at the 2020 census. A fishing and resort area, Bristol includes the villages of New Harbor, Pemaquid, Round Pond, Bristol Mills and Chamberlain. It includes the Pemaquid Archeological Site, a U.S. National Historic Landmark. During the 17th and early 18th century, New France defined the Kennebec River as the southern boundary of Acadia, which put Bristol within Acadia.
Whydah Gally was a fully rigged ship that was originally built as a passenger, cargo, and slave ship. On the return leg of her maiden voyage of the triangle trade, Whydah Gally was captured by the pirate Captain Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy, beginning a new role in the Golden Age of Piracy.
The Popham Colony—also known as the Sagadahoc Colony—was a short-lived English colonial settlement in North America. It was established in 1607 by the proprietary Plymouth Company and was located in the present-day town of Phippsburg, Maine, near the mouth of the Kennebec River. It was founded a few months after its more successful rival, the colony at Jamestown.
Richard Mather was a New England Puritan minister in colonial Boston. He was father to Increase Mather and grandfather to Cotton Mather, both celebrated Boston theologians.
Sir William Phips was born in Maine in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was of humble origin, uneducated, and fatherless from a young age but rapidly advanced from shepherd boy to shipwright, ship's captain, and treasure hunter, the first New England native to be knighted, and the first royally appointed governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Phips was famous in his lifetime for recovering a large treasure from a sunken Spanish galleon but is perhaps best remembered today for establishing the court associated with the infamous Salem Witch Trials, which he grew unhappy with and was forced to prematurely disband after five months.
The Pemaquid Point Light is a historic U.S. lighthouse located in Bristol, Lincoln County, Maine, at the tip of the Pemaquid Neck.
The Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 was an extraordinarily powerful and devastating Atlantic hurricane that brushed Colonial Virginia and struck the New England Colonies in late August of 1635. Accounts of the storm are very limited, but it was likely the most intense hurricane to hit New England since European colonization. The storm had a similar track and forward speed to that of the 1944 Great Atlantic hurricane and is the first of five known major hurricanes to have struck the modern New England region. The storm also likely produced one of the greatest storm surges in United States history, modern analysis has found.
New Harbor is a small scenic coastal village in the town of Bristol, in Lincoln County, Maine, United States. In 2019, the town of Bristol, and in turn New Harbor, was a finalist in the Reader's Digest award for "America's Nicest Place." Bristol and New Harbor were also nominated for and won the "Nicest Place in Maine Award" by Reader's Digest. New Harbor has historical sites such as the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse and Fort William Henry. New Harbor is the site of Pemaquid Beach, on Johns Bay.
The Portland Gale was a storm that struck the coast of New England on November 26 and 27, 1898. The storm formed when two low pressure areas merged off the coast of Virginia and travelled up the coast; at its peak, it produced a storm surge of about ten feet in Cohasset harbor and hurricane-force winds in Nantucket. The storm killed more than 400 people and sank more than 150 boats and ships. It also changed the course of the North River, separating the Humarock portion of Scituate, Massachusetts, from the rest of Scituate.
The 1804 New England hurricane was the first tropical cyclone in recorded history known to have produced snowfall. An unusual late-season storm in 1804, it yielded vast amounts of snow, rain, and powerful winds across the northeastern United States. Prior to its approach towards the East Coast of the United States, it passed through the Caribbean Sea on October 4, and later emerged near Georgetown, South Carolina. By early on October 9, a trough near the Virginia Capes turned the disturbance toward New England. Soon thereafter, the hurricane's abundant moisture clashed with an influx of cold Canadian air, leading to the deepening of the resulting pressure gradient and provoking inland intensification. While situated over Massachusetts, it attained its peak intensity of 110 mph (175 km/h), undergoing an extratropical transition. Even as it drifted towards the Canadian maritimes, consequently gradually weakening, precipitation persisted for another two days before the snowstorm finally subsided on October 11.
The Old Ship Church is a Puritan church built in 1681 in Hingham, Massachusetts. It is the only surviving 17th-century Puritan meetinghouse in the United States. Its congregation, gathered in 1635 and officially known as First Parish in Hingham, occupies the oldest church building in continuous ecclesiastical use in the country. On October 9, 1960, it was designated a National Historic Landmark, and on November 15, 1966, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Richard Dummer was an early settler in New England.
Captain John Evered (ca.1611–1668), also known as Webb, was one of the first Europeans to settle what is now known as the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts, specifically the town of Dracut, which Evered named.
John Ayer (1582–1657) was one of the original European settlers to Massachusetts, settling in Ipswich, Haverhill, and Salisbury.
The ship James made several trips during the early 17th century Great Migration out of England to the New World. It is unclear how many ships were named James during the Great Migration, as the name James was very popular in England during the reign of James I of England (1567–1625).
The 1689 Boston revolt was a popular uprising on April 18, 1689, against the rule of Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of the Dominion of New England. A well-organized "mob" of provincial militia and citizens formed in the town of Boston, the capital of the dominion, and arrested dominion officials. Members of the Church of England were also taken into custody if they were believed to sympathize with the administration of the dominion. Neither faction sustained casualties during the revolt. Leaders of the former Massachusetts Bay Colony then reclaimed control of the government. In other colonies, members of governments displaced by the dominion were returned to power.
John Cogswell (1592–1669) was a leading figure and large landowner in the early history of Ipswich, Massachusetts and a deputy for the General Court of Massachusetts. He is the immigrant ancestor to a large number of notable Americans as well as connected the Aristocracy of Britain and the British Royal family as the 10th Great Grandfather to Diana, the Princess of Wales.
Ada K. Damon was a Grand Banks schooner that was used for fishing and later for sand transportation. She was wrecked on 26 December 1909 during a large snowstorm when her anchor chain parted, setting her adrift. Today, the remains of the wreck are a local landmark, a tourist attraction, and an archeological site.
James Atherton was an early settler and one of the founders of Lancaster, Massachusetts. He emigrated to the New England Colonies from the parish of Wigan, Lancashire, England, in 1635.