Joseph Barss

 

 

Joseph Barss felt he was born to sail the seven seas, just like his father before him. As the captain of the Rover and the Liverpool Packet, he took part in adventure after adventure, and lived to become one of Nova Scotia’s most famous privateers.

 

 

The son of a famous sea captain, Joseph Barss Sr, it is no surprise that the young Joseph had a fascination with ships and in fact anything to do with the ocean. This fascination led to Joseph Barss Jr becoming one of the most famous privateers to come out of Nova Scotia.

The Barss family was one of the first to settle in Liverpool, Novia Scotia, in 1761 and they built one of the largest houses in the area to accommodate their fourteen children. The house still stands today and is part of the Lane’s Privateer Inn, with 12 large rooms and an enormous kitchen with a large fireplace and several brick ovens.

Liverpool was a seaside community and its people relied heavily on the ocean to make their living. They built their own sailing vessels using timber from the nearby forest and sailed up and down the American coast, trading as they went. They traded wood and pickled fish in return for rum and salt, and the young Joseph watched with envy each time his father sailed out of port. At the age of 14, Joseph, being one of the older children in the Barss family, was delighted when his father allowed him to become a crew member on his salmon-fishing boat. The young boy took to the sea like a duck to water and, having watched all the privateering activities in and out of the port for the past decade, it is no wonder that he ended up serving on the crew of more than one pirate ship. In 1798, he was appointed second lieutenant on board the privateer, the Charles Mary Wentworth and by October the following year, he was offered the command of the Lord Spencer. Unfortunately the schooner sank after hitting a reef in the West Indies, but Barss and his entire crew survived and were picked up by other privateer ships in the area. The United States was at war with France and Barss Sr suffered heavy losses from French war ships and fellow privateers. Barss Sr started to fit out his own ships to attack enemy French and Spanish ships in the Caribbean Sea.

 

The Rover

Joseph Barrs Jr’s fame as a privateer stems from his command of the brig Rover, a noted pirate vessel from Liverpool. It was renowned for its voyages under the command of Alexander Godfrey, another privateer to come from the Nova Scotia region. The Rover carried a crew of approximately 60 men and there are several entries in the diary of Simeon Perkins, a merchant from Liverpool, giving accounts of the Rover’s activities.

On the 26 January 1801, the Rover departed for sea, with Joseph Barss Jr, as Commander. Eleven weeks later, on 18 April, the Nostra Sen. Del Carman hauled into Liverpool, a prize that the Rover sent in. Not long after that, on 8 May, the Rover returned to Liverpool. She was not left to lie long, for on 11 May, the owners were fitting her out again.

On this occasion (11 May), Joseph Barss Jr turned down the offer of captaining the Rover, and spent the next few years on merchant vessels. In 1804, he married Olivia DeWolf, who was the daughter of Elisha DeWolf, a judge and political figure in Nova Scotia. DeWolf represented King’s County in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1793 to 1799 and from 1818 to 1820. Joseph and Olivia went to live with Joseph Barss Sr on Dean’s Point.

In 1812, the United States declared war on Britain and thousands of privateers were employed to attack British ships in the North Atlantic. Joseph Barss Jr was given the captaincy of a captured slave ship called the Liverpool Packet. Originally nicknamed the Black Joke, the Liverpool Packet was a slave trader captured by the Royal Navy. She was a Baltimore clipper schooner, 53 ft long with an 18 ft hold. After being refitted the schooner was armed with guns, pistols, muskets, pikes, cutlasses, grappling irons and nets. The new Liverpool Packet was given a crew of 140 men from Novia Scotia and, under the command of Joseph Barrs, succeeded in capturing between 100 and 120 ships off New England. Joseph was renowned for his astute command of the vessel and his fair treatment of prisoners. When his bounty was auctioned, it raised an enormous amount of money. By law, when a prize was captured it was sent to the privateer’s home port and inspected. It was then sent to Halifax, where a court of vice admiralty would determine whether the vessel and its captain had been captured legally. If the prize was considered legal, a date was set to auction the vessel. If the prize was deemed illegal, it returned to its owner and a fine would be levied against the privateer who made the capture. It is considered that as many as 50 of Barss’ captured vessels were deemed to be legal.

 

Barss Meets His Match

In June 1813, the Liverpool Packet finally met her match, in the much larger American privateer, the Thomas of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. This defeat brought no shame on Joseph Barrs, as the Liverpool Packet was completely outnumbered in size, manpower and weapons. After fighting bravely, the Liverpool Packet was forced to surrender, but not before several members of the Thomas had been killed. Captain Barss was taken to Portsmouth where, manacled and guarded by militia, he was made to march through the streets. After several months of imprisonment, Barss was released on the condition that he did not resume command of any privateer vessel. However, he broke the terms of his parole when, in 1814, he took command of the Wolverine. Joseph was captured for a second time and spent another brief spell in prison. At the end of the war, Joseph came back to Liverpool, but his health was suffering as a result of his spells in prison where conditions were poor and rations were sparse.

Joseph and his wife decided to retire away from the ocean and made plans to buy a farm in Kentville, Nova Scotia. However, shortly before their move a thief broke into the family home on Dean’s Point and stole a variety of valuables. The thief was an Irishman by the name of Hurley. Joseph was woken up by a noise downstairs and decided to go and investigate. He pursued Hurley to the riverbank and managed to catch him, recovering the majority of the stolen goods. Hurley was sentenced to death by hanging at a trial in Liverpool in July 1817.

That summer the Barss family moved to their farm where they raised a large family of nine children. Joseph Barss died at Oak Grove Farm on 3 August 1824, at the relatively young age of 49. Joseph Barss Sr died two years later and father and son were both buried in the cemetery at Oak Grove, Kentville.