ON JULY 8, 1776, THE Sachem, UNDER COMMAND of Captain Isaiah Robinson, sighted the Lexington near Cape May. As she approached, Barry recognized her immediately as the old Edward. It must have given him pleasure to see her so well repaired, now heading back into action under American colors. While copies of the Declaration of Independence were available by the time Robinson departed Philadelphia, it is not known if he had one aboard or the latest issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette, boldly announcing that “the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS declared the united colonies free and INDEPENDENT STATES.”1 This news certainly resulted in cheers from the Lexingtons, and Barry in particular must have welcomed it. As a Continental officer he already risked the gallows or imprisonment if captured by the British. Now he and his sailors were no longer fighting for redress of grievances, peace, or reconciliation. Robinson delivered new orders from John Hancock and the Marine Committee to Barry:
As we find our coast is now lined with Men of War of too great a force for you to cope With, We think it can be of little use for you to remain cooped up at Cape May, and as the frigate You are to command is not yet launched, her guns and anchors not yet ready, We think it a piece of justice due to your Merit to take a Cruize in the Lexington for one or two months, in hopes that fortune may favor your industry and reward it with some Prizes.2
The letter accompanied a “copy of the resolves of Congress respecting Prizes . . . what to take and what to let pass” and suggested that Cape May and Egg Harbor were the safest destinations for Barry's future prizes.3
The Marine Committee's letter noted that the Sachem had “liberty to make a cruise and it may be advantageous that you go in concert.” Barry and Robinson conferred and decided to depart Cape May together before splitting up. With the Kingfisher already sailing north and the Orpheus at Cape Henlopen, the two American captains sailed away undetected. The Lexington headed east by south, with Barry's intention to cruise for prizes in the same waters where he had taken the Edward.4
Two weeks passed; the Lexington was within a day's sail of Bermuda on what had been thus far an uneventful cruise. By now, Barry's officers and crew knew his moods pretty well; this unproductive sailing was never enjoyable for him. Finally, at dawn on Saturday, July 27, the Lexington's lookout sighted a sail: a sloop whose captain soon realized that his ship was too small to fight Barry's brig. The sloop changed course before the wind with the Lexington “right through the windward.”5 Barry ordered the Lexington after her, the beginning of a six-hour stern chase.
The sloop's captain, using a “three pounder out of My Cabin windows,” fired futilely at the Lexington in hopes of scaring her off.6 But Barry continued his dogged pursuit, his bow-chasers returning fire. While not hitting his quarry, each cannonball splashed closer to his target as the chase went on. As the Lexington closed, the pursued commander became desperate, “Giving [the] sloop a yaw and fetching some of my after guns to bear upon her”—that is, turning his ship and firing a small broadside in an effort to slow the Lexington and increase the distance between them. The maneuver only gave Barry more of a chance to catch his prey. With “her Bough guns aplaying upon me,” the Lexington came up alongside the sloop. “Having but 10 men on board 6 of which was down with the Small pox and 2 more not worth their salt,” the captain asked Barry for quarter. Barry gave it.7
The sloop was the Lady Susan of Virginia. She carried one less gun than the number of her crew: eight 4-pounders in addition to the 3-pounder in the cabin. Her captain, William Goodrich, was a son of Virginia shipbuilder John Goodrich. William was described as “A well made lusty man, about 34 years of age, about 5′8″ inches, stoop shoulder'd, with forced full features, and sometimes looks reddish about the eyes [with] short light or yellow coloured curly hair.”8 Cronies of Lord Dunmore, the Goodrichs were anathema to American sailor and congressman alike.9 Dunmore dispatched the Lady Susan to purchase an eighteen-gun brig believed to be in Bermuda, but the errand proved to be a wild-goose chase. Goodrich found “there was no such Vessil to be had” and was sailing home when the Lady Susan encountered the prize-hungry Lexington.10
Goodrich, “When carryed onboard of the Brig,” was greeted “with A Grate Deal of Joy” by Barry, who gave Goodrich “a harty welcom onboard of the Lexenton.” The clueless Goodrich could not comprehend why his captor “never was . . . gladder to see any man in all his life altho we never Saw each other before.”11 Perhaps allowance should be given the well-born Virginian: being captured by an Irishman was a new experience for him. On the other hand, after two luckless weeks at sea, Barry's joy in taking a ship —and one of Lord Dunmore's, at that—was a perfect occasion to let his wry humor surface.
Happily, Goodrich's crew did not seem physically ill as much as sick of being in Dunmore's service. No less than seven of them signed the Lexington's muster roll. One, Richard Dale, was a young adventurer with eight years at sea under his belt. Dale was a lieutenant in the Virginia State Navy when his ship was captured and he agreed to join Dunmore's Navy. Now here he was, captured again. Barry persuaded Dale to accept a midshipman's berth aboard the Lexington. That day, Dale began a lifetime friendship with his new captain, and a lifetime of service to the United States.12
Below deck, the Lexingtons also discovered eight slaves. According to Congress, they were property, and therefore part of the libel and condemnation process by the Admiralty Court in Philadelphia.13 Barry placed a prize crew aboard the sloop and sent her to Philadelphia. Her arrival on August 2 was cause for more celebration; John Adams noted that “Barry has taken another Tender,” and fellow Congressman Josiah Bartlett happily wrote home that “Captain Barry in the Lexington” had “taken and sent here a privateer of six carriage guns commanded by another of them infamous Goodrich's of Virginia.”14
The Lexington cruised through another fruitless period lasting nearly a month, when another enemy ship was sighted northeast of Cape Charles on August 24. With no flag flying atop his mast, Barry hoisted a British flag and came alongside the unsuspecting sloop, the Betsy, Samuel Kerr, Master. The ruse worked: Kerr believed the Lexington to be a British tender. Relieved, he ordered the Betsy's crew to give three cheers for their presumed comrades. The sardonic Barry ordered the three cheers returned by his men. Taking speaking trumpet in hand, he informed Kerr of his true identity, and of Kerr's new standing in the war: as a prisoner of the Continental Navy. “I was hartily sorry for Mr. Kerr's loss,” the hapless Goodrich recalled, “but could not keep myself from laughing at him.”15
Kerr was sailing under orders from both Dunmore and Hamond, his sloop carrying a cargo of “several Kinds of Merchandize and other Effects” for Dunmore's fleet. Another prize crew sailed her to Philadelphia, with Goodrich along as well. The captures of the Lady Susan and the Betsy did as much for the morale of Barry and his crew as the knowledge that a considerable sum of prize money would soon be jingling in their pockets.
But the mood soon changed from merriment to fear. The Lexington encountered a terrible thunderstorm. An old hand like Barry had seen enough storms before; once he determined the crew had things well in hand against the rain, wind, and thunder, he turned in for the night. Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck the ship. At that very instant, everyone on deck, young Dale among them, “was prostrated [and] senseless.” The crackling blast brought Barry immediately out of his cabin and onto the deck. Calling for all hands, Barry soon brought the ship under control. Luckily, each stricken sailor was “providentially restored in a few minutes.” The Lexington's shredded and charred rigging could only be repaired in a hurried, makeshift fashion.16
Barry got the Lexington through the Capes, picked up a pilot from Fisher's steadfast group, and sailed up the Delaware to Philadelphia without further incident, arriving on September 26. He relinquished command of the brigantine two days later.17 For the rest of his life, Barry remained proud of his accomplishments aboard the Lexington, with which he “Cleard the Coast of all Small Cruisers that was out on it by taking some of them and Keeping the others in port[,] All tho at that time there was a forty-fore gun ship and two Frigates of the Enemy in the Capes.”18 Thanks to the published reports of his deeds, he was quite the celebrity in his hometown. Already renowned for his skills as a mariner, his deeds aboard the Lexington only added to his reputation. Philadelphians, congressmen, and even the British saw him as the embodiment of the American fighting sailor.
Command of the Lexington passed on to William Hallock. Barry attended to the reports on his cruise, and kept track of the Admiralty's trials on the libel and condemnation of his two recent prizes. The Pennsylvania Packet published a “Libel of Captain John Barry Against Eight Negro Slaves” whose owners “may appear and shew cause . . . why the same should not be condemned” and then resold into slavery. The premium paid for them went toward the Lexington's prize money.19
Interestingly, the three men from the Lady Susan who declined Barry's offer to join Lexington's crew were not imprisoned but “dischargd and permitted to go to their Families in Maryland.”20 The condemnation of the Lady Susan was appealed by its original owner, Joseph Hickson from Bermuda, who stated that his ship had been seized and confiscated by Lord Dunmore. He was rewarded with one half the purchase price of the Lady Susan's sale, which cut deeply into the total prize money. Barry and his men received one third of the remainder—or, using Continental Congress math, a little over 8 percent.
While Barry was on his last cruise with the Lexington, Congress turned to the business of ordering uniforms for the navy. Captains were issued a “blue coat with red lapels, a slash cuff, a standup collar, flat yellow buttons with anchors on them, red waistcoat with narrow gold lace, and blue Breeches.” A simple cocked hat topped the captain's uniform. Those for lieutenants and masters were similar, minus the gold lace and slashed cuffs. Midshipmen's attire was distinguished by “red facings on the cuffs and red stitching” on the coat's buttonholes; Marines wore a “dashing green coat with white [piping], white breeches edged with green and black garters.” There was no uniform designed for sailors, although green shirts were suggested “if they could be provided.”21
What Barry thought of the uniform, we do not know. John Paul Jones did not like it one bit, and would later design a smarter-looking uniform that mirrored that of a British captain—a blue coat with white breeches and waistcoat. It was so close in resemblance that it would assist in deceiving the enemy into believing a sighted American ship was British, as American commanders needed to display cunning as frequently as courage. Jones also added epaulettes, a French twist that would help a shorter man's shoulders artificially “grow” an inch or two.22 Barry, arriving in late September, was one of the last captains fitted with the new uniform.
On the heels of the issuance of uniforms came another decree from the Marine Committee, one few officers found to their liking. It listed “the rank of the captains of the navy” along with their ship assignments:
Captain, Ship, Guns.
1. Jas. Nicholson, of the Virginia, 28
2. John Manly, Hancock, 32
3. Hector M'Neil, Boston, 24
4. Dudley Saltonstall, Trumbull, 28
5. Nicholas Biddle, Randolph, 32
6. Thomas Thompson, Raleigh, 32
7. John Barry, Effingham, 28
8. Thomas Reed [sic], Washington, 32
9. Thomas Grenell, Congress, 28
10. Charles Alexander, Delaware, 24
11. Lambert Wickes, Reprisal, 16
12. Abraham Whipple, Providence, 28
13. John Hopkins, Warren, 32
14. John Hodge, Montgomery, 24
15. William Hallock, Lexington, 16
16. Hoysted Hacker, Hampden,
17. Isaiah Robinson, Andrew Doria, 14
18. John Paul Jones, Providence, 12
19. James Josiah [no ship assigned]
20. Elisha Hinman, Alfred, 28
21. Joseph Olney, Cabot, 16
22. James Robinson, Sachem, 10
23. John Young, Independence, 10
24. Elisha Warner, Fly,
Lieut. [John] Baldwin, Wasp, 8
Lieut. [Thomas] Albertson, Musquito, 423
The list created a tempest of ill feelings. Given a chance to review the performances of over a dozen captains appointed since November 1775, the enlarged Marine Committee picked up where former member Stephen Hopkins left off, emphasizing political connections over talent.24 Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison described the list as “a vanity of localities,” believing that wiser, less politically concerned leaders would have placed Jones, Barry, Biddle, and Wickes in the top four. James Nicholson could thank Richard Henry Lee for his being placed at number one; while he had spent time in Maryland's Navy, he was still waiting to serve his first day on board a Continental vessel.25 Manley and McNeill, veterans of Washington's navy, as well as Thomas Thompson, could thank John and Sam Adams for their high placement. Numbers four and five, Saltonstall and Biddle, had at least served in the navy. Biddle well deserved his position, while Saltonstall had yet to impress.26
Barry's seventh-place finish was as high as his success (or Morris's support) could get him. Wickes, Read, and Robinson were farther down the list, while John Paul Jones, who had turned down offers of command in Hopkins's fleet before demonstrating his capabilities captaining the Providence and Alfred, ranked eighteenth. With Joseph Hewes his only backer in Congress—and Hewes was away when the list was compiled—Jones lacked the pull to place higher. He remained bitter until the end of his life over this list.
And Barry? “If Barry complained,” an earlier biographer wrote, “no record of such survived.”27 Barry had been through all of this the year before. And, unlike Jones, there was a frigate being built for him, literally in his own backyard.
The four Philadelphia frigates were in various stages of completion. Getting them built, launched, outfitted, and armed was too much of a strain on the Marine Committee's budget. The Randolph and Delaware were launched in July; the Washington finished in August. The Effingham, named after one of Queen Elizabeth's “Sea Hawks,” was still in Grice and Company's shipyard above Philadelphia and Kensington. She was finally launched on October 31—Barry's wedding anniversary. Besides her captain, the frigate had other admirers, among them Joseph Hewes, who called her “the finest vessell of the whole.”28
By November the Randolph and Delaware received their supply of guns, leaving few for the Washington and Effingham—although the guns cast in the Philadelphia area were best known for their unreliability, frequently splitting when “proved.” In getting the Delaware ready, the coal supply ran out, ending labor on her anchors and other ironwork.29 If the Effingham was ever finished, she promised to be a formidable fighting ship. Over 126 feet long, with a 34-foot 4-inch beam and at 682 tons, she would dwarf the Lexington. Her plans called for twenty-eight guns, 12- and 9-pounders—how maddening these delays must have been for Barry.30
The patriotic euphoria ushered in by the Declaration of Independence in July was cooling with the autumn weather and the latest news from the battlefront. The war was not going well. Washington's Continentals, routed out of New York, were in retreat to Philadelphia, hoping to keep the Delaware River between them and the victorious British army, comprised of redcoats and Hessian mercenaries under Generals Howe and Cornwallis. One Philadelphia Tory described the bedraggled American soldiers as “diseased and covered with Vermin to a loathsome degree.”31
On November 19, 1776, just as Fisher sent word that seven British warships were off the Capes, and another series of chevaux-de-frise were ordered for the river's defenses, two Philadelphians, David Rittenhouse of the Council of Safety and Thomas Mifflin, the Continental Army's Quartermaster General, spoke at a rally at the State House yard.32 Their appeals for service inspired 2,000 citizens to shoulder their muskets (if they had them) and join the newly formed Philadelphia Brigade.33 “The enemy intends to make a push for Philadelphia,” one diarist wrote, and to many Philadelphians, it seemed certain that nothing could stop them.34 From his cabin on the Roebuck, Hamond celebrated the American's bad fortunes, with “The Rebel army being in a manner broke up & dispersed” and “Lord Cornwallis in the Jersey driving the Enemy everywhere before him.”35 By December the Continental Army had been reduced by thousands, not from casualties so much as mass desertion—now a daily occurrence.
As the crisis escalated, Barry and the other four Continental captains in port—Biddle, Read, Alexander, and John Nicholson—met to discuss raising a company of sailors and bringing their cannon ashore. They presented their offer to Congress, who “Ordered, that it be referred to the Marine Committee, who are determined to pursue such means as they think proper in consequence there of.” With the Randolph and Hornet ready for action, Biddle and Nicholson were ordered to stand by their ships and get to sea as soon as possible. The other three were taken up on their offer.36 After he reviewed the most recent bill of naval stores for the Effingham, from “two thirds gallons of wine” and “two hundred Lines” to “Beef for Lunch” and “one and one half load of Boards,” John Barry joined the army.37
Barry and Read hoped to raise volunteers among the sailors, dockhands, and carpenters now idle on the Philadelphia docks and shipyards, only to find that practically every able-bodied patriot was already bearing arms or performing some indispensable duty. They did recruit about five dozen seamen from idle privateers. With some cannon now remounted to wheeled carriages and in their new uniforms, Barry, Read, and their volunteers were placed under command of another Philadelphian, Colonel John Cadwalader.38
The blue-blooded Cadwalader, thirty-four years old, was an expert foxhunter and considered one of the finest skaters in Philadelphia.39 Set up by his father in the merchant trade while still in his teens (around the same time that Barry arrived in Philadelphia), he tired of the business after a few years. He was an early and ardent supporter of the Revolution, organizing and leading the “Philadelphia Greens,” now with the Pennsylvania Militia. Washington sent Cadwalader orders directing that “the Marines, sailors & ca. from Philadelphia” be placed under Cadwalader's command while asking if the tars “came out resolved to act upon Land or meant to confine their Services to the Water only.”40
Barry and Read, along with their men and artillery, reached Bristol, Pennsylvania, on December 11. Read was put in command of the men and a battery, while Cadwalader assigned Barry to his personal staff as his aide.41 Also on the eleventh, Philadelphians watched “Congress leave this City for Baltimore, the Militia going out fast for Trentown, Streets full of wagons going out with goods.”42 Smallpox and camp fever raged among the soldiers, with countless dead Continentals and militiamen lying in shallow graves near Walnut Street Prison (what is now Washington Square).43 The city began to resemble a ghost town.
One congressman remained. “I am now the only member of Congress left in this City,” Robert Morris wrote to Silas Deane, informing the envoy to France of the recent disasters.44 Morris not only told Deane of the loss of New York and New Jersey, but also that “We are told the British Troops are kept from Plunder but the Hessians & other Foreigners looking upon that as a right of War, Plunder where they go.” Like an American Job, Morris ended his lamentations with hope: “France should therefore strike with us & she will reap an immediate Harvest,” including everything from “tobacco and iron” to “Bees Wax and Whalebone.”45
About 1,400 Hessians under Colonel Johann Rall were quartered in Trenton, part of the 12,000-man army Howe had brought down from New York.46 Washington, needing a miracle, was planning to cross the Delaware and surprise the Hessians. The freezing cold weather and the ice along the Delaware were not welcome factors at all. “The Ice has driven off the Gallies,” Cadwalader complained to the Council of Safety.47 But if the weather was an obstacle for Washington's plans, it also served as an ally.48
Washington began Christmas Day with a letter to Morris back in Philadelphia: “I agree with you, that it is in vane to ruminate upon . . . our past Misfortunes, we should rather exert ourselves and look forward with Hopes, that some lucky Charm may yet turn up in our Favor. Bad as our prospects are, I should not have the least doubt of Success in the End.” Next, Washington addressed the lack of manpower for the “Continental Ship of War in the Delaware,” suggesting “two New England Regiments,” mostly “Watermen” who “would willingly . . . navigate them round to any of the ports in New England.” He updated Morris on the enemy's “Intentions . . . to cross the Delaware as soon as the Ice is sufficiently sturdy.” Before wishing that “the next Christmas will prove happier than the present to you,” he reviewed the possible exchange of Richard Boger—the British officer Barry had captured from the Edward—for an American naval officer. The biggest event thus far in Washington's life was only hours away, and he still found time to encourage a fellow patriot, come up with a possible solution for manning the frigates, relay the plans of the enemy, and inquire about the exchange of Barry's highest ranking prisoner. He then sent a message to Cadwalader that “I am determined, as the night is favourable to cross the River and make the attack.”49 With 2,400 men to strike Rall at Trenton, Washington crossed the Delaware.
Barry and Cadwalader did not. The legend that Barry fought at Trenton is a false one. Cadwalader's forces were to cross at Bristol and attack the Hessians from the rear, but Cadwalader found “It is impossible to pass above Bristol with the ice” and saw no way to get the cannon Barry had delivered across the river.50 By the time Cadwalader's force got to New Jersey on December 26, not only was the battle of Trenton over, but the victorious Washington had crossed back to the west side of the Delaware.51
Washington's victory at Trenton is the most written about battle of the Revolution, but rarely from a British perspective. In his captain's cabin, Andrew Snape Hamond wrote, “From my other intelligence I learnt that [Cornwallis] was gone to his winter quarters at Brunswick: and that a Brigade of Hessians which he had left as an out guard near Trentown on the Delaware, under the Command of Colonel Rhole [Johann Rall], had been surprized by the Enemy; and that 700 Men, with all their Baggage Camp Equipage & several Field Pieces had fallen into the Rebels hands. A most sad blat!”52
Cadwalader took his men up to Bordentown and headed east toward Crosswicks, New Jersey, in pursuit of the enemy's baggage train. “I hope to fall on their rear,” he wrote Washington. He received an immediate reply from the commander-in-chief, ordering him to return to Crosswicks until further notice.53 Washington had other plans for Cadwalader and his men.
Some of Cadwalader's forces were assigned to a defensive line along Assunpink Creek, running east of Trenton. On January 2, 1777, Barry gave Thomas Read orders to station his battery at the stone bridge over the Assunpink; he then rode off to meet Cadwalader. British and Hessian forces—part of General Cornwallis's army he had personally led to Perth Amboy—advanced on the bridge, in an attempt to strike at Washington's main camp. The American sailors were part of the line that repulsed the British attack.54
As aide-de-camp, Barry joined Cadwalader and the rest of his force in an open field a mile north. Washington left four hundred men in Trenton to build scores of bonfires, creating the illusion that the entire army was camped down for the night. At his own headquarters, Cornwallis bragged to his subordinates that they would “bag the fox” the next day.55 But the fox was behaving . . . like a fox. On that cold, windy night, Washington led a combined force of regulars and militia around Cornwallis's encampment and north to Princeton, to attack the British forces remaining there.
Barry may have missed action the day before, but he saw plenty of it the next morning. Cadwalader's troops were behind General Hugh Mercer's Delaware “Blue Hens.” Mercer's men surprised British forces under Colonel Charles Mawhood, marching south to reinforce Cornwallis. In the fighting, Mercer was bayoneted to death, and his retreating men ran pell-mell into Cadwalader's soldiers. While some Pennsylvanians also fled, others stood their ground, including Cadwalader's artillerymen, firing grapeshot from their 4-pounders point-blank at the enemy. Their example helped Cadwalader, Barry, and the other officers convince their fellow Philadelphians to turn and fight.56
Just then Washington arrived, astride his white horse, and took over field command, giving reassurance to Mercer's men while he advanced with Cadwalader's. At one point, with the British only thirty yards away, Washington ordered “halt and fire!” Both sides blasted away. One of Washington's aides covered his eyes, not wanting to see his general shot down. When he reopened them, the charmed Virginian was still in his saddle. In a full, violent day, Washington led his troops to a complete victory over the British, whose muskets, canteens, and knapsacks lined the path of their retreat. “It's a fine fox chase, my boys,” the fox lustily declared as he led the pursuit.57
At battle's end, Washington's army left Princeton heading north, just as the outwitted Cornwallis and the main portion of his army came in from the south, too late to have any impact on the battle. The Americans marched to the high ground at Morristown. Cornwallis returned to New Brunswick. Of this novel experience of war on horseback, the tight-lipped Barry merely recalled in the third person, that “the services he rendered here, being in an Element new to him, must be judged by his Superior officers and his Country.”58
On January 7, Cornwallis dispatched an envoy under a white flag with a letter asking Washington's permission to send a British surgeon, medicines for the care of the British wounded, and the baggage and other personal belongings of the captured Hessians from Trenton. The latter had been sent to Philadelphia (a safer place for them due to their plundering of New Jersey along the route to Trenton). Washington gave his permission, sending “Captain Barry the Bearer of this [letter], to give a safe conduct to the Hessian Baggage as far as Philadelphia, and the Surgeon and Medicines to Princeton.”59
Previous biographers have cited this letter and told the tale of John Barry's meeting Cornwallis and leading this wagon train back to Philadelphia. The facts prove otherwise. Miltary historians and experts on Washington's papers are convinced that this “Captain Barry” is actually Captain Thomas Berry of the Eighth Virginia Regiment, which was principally made up of German-speaking patriots from western Virginia.60 It was only appropriate for Washington to use a German-speaking officer for this errand. As we will see, Washington and John Barry would cross paths often, but that lay in the future.
Washington's victories at Trenton and Princeton lifted patriot hearts and renewed the will to keep fighting. In one week, his leadership and courage brought his army and country back from complete collapse. Dubbed the “Year of the Hangman” due to its three 7's resembling three gallows, 1777 was off to a good start for the American cause.
The land service of the navy captains came to an end later in January. They and their volunteers were mustered out of Cadwalader's brigade, and their valuable cannon returned.61 Barry and his men arrived back in Philadelphia just as many other citizens were returning home, now that the British invasion plans were as cold as the Philadelphia winter. It would be another two months before Congress returned from Baltimore.
Barry paid a courtesy call on Robert Morris, who briefed him on what had happened to his naval colleagues while he was away.62 Despite the recent prize takings of the Roebuck and her consorts along the Capes, not all of the news was bad. Barry learned that his old command, the Lexington, had been captured by the British only to be recaptured the next day by her crew, including Richard Dale.63 The Andrew Doria had sent more good news into port via the captured British sloop Racehorse. The American ship also received the first salute of the American flag in a foreign port at St. Eustatia.64 Then, there were the further adventures and accomplishments of John Paul Jones, easily the most successful officer from Hopkins's original squadron. Biddle was preparing the Randolph for a cruise with the Hornet as consort, but Morris complained that “our River is so full of Ice and our Bay pestered with British Men Of War” that it was impossible to tell when Biddle could depart.65
As for the Effingham, Morris could only tell Barry that nothing had been done in his absence. As senior naval officer in Philadelphia, Barry divided his time between his futile efforts to get the Effingham further along and presiding over courts of inquiry.66 For the next two months, he watched as the Randolph, Hornet, Independence, and Sachem all left Philadelphia and slipped past the Capes while next to nothing was done regarding the Effingham and Washington. Barry and Read were dry-docked.
Congress returned to Philadelphia in March, adding the task of completing the Effingham and Washington to its “to do” list.67 All of the carpenters, rope-men, iron workers, and sailmakers were back from their stint under Washington's command and at the shipyards. The Marine Committee and Navy Board reconvened to discuss procuring the canvas, wood, and iron required to finish the ships and enlist crews. However, with no materiel to continue construction, there were no ships ready to recruit a crew for. The double-edged sword—no progress on the Effingham or Washington, and therefore no need to enlist a crew—still hung over Grice and Company's shipyard.
There was one upside to the lethargic progress on Barry's frigate. He had time to fall in love.
Sarah Austin was twenty-three years old when she met John Barry. She was a descendant of the Kyn family, one of the first Swedish families that settled around Philadelphia in the 1620s. The name had been anglicized by the influx of Quakers and other English-speaking settlers to Keen well before Sarah's birth. Her mother, also named Sarah, was twice married; Samuel Austin, her second husband (and Sarah's father), owned and operated the Arch Street Ferry, which traversed the Delaware to Camden and back. Sarah and Samuel married in 1746. The bride brought with her a daughter from her first marriage, Christiana Stille. The Austins eventually had three children: William (1751), Isaac (1752), and finally Sarah (1754), known as Sally to friends and family her entire life.68
Running what became known as the “New Ferry” made Samuel a fairly rich man. He soon owned a fine house at Arch and Water streets, as well as the ferry, ferry house and wharf, along with several “tenements” by the river (one which son Isaac would use as his watch repair shop).69 As a further sign of status, he had his own pew at Christ Church.70 Samuel also owned slaves. One of them, a man named London, “about 5 Feet 3 Inches high, born in Barbados,” had run off near the end of Samuel's life. Between October 1765 and February 1767, he ran several advertisements for London's capture and reward. With London “Apt to hire himself on board of Vessels,” Samuel Austin offered anywhere from forty shillings to eight dollars for his return.71
Shortly before his death in 1767, while “indisposed in body, but blessed be God of sound mind,” Samuel drew up his will, leaving his estate to his wife, except for the watch repair shop which went to Isaac.72 After the funeral services, Mrs. Austin and her eldest son, William, published a notice in the Gazette that all debts were to be paid, all bills to be given to her as executrix, and that “the ferry will be continued by Sarah [widow] and William Austin,” who “take this opportunity of returning thanks to their former customers, to whom they shall be obliged for a further continuance of their favours, etc.”73 In one stroke of business savvy William began catering to “commuters,” offering the reasonable sum of two shillings “including baggage” for “a round trip to New Jersey and back.”74 Under William's management, the family business thrived. His personal life was not so charmed; he and his wife had several children, but only one would live to adulthood.75
As a girl, Sarah's “prudence, fortitude and active benevolence were extremely exercised” and she “commanded the respect, esteem, and tender affection of all those who had the happiness of an intimate acquaintance with her.”76 With that kind of regard, added to her family's prestige in the community and her good looks, she was certainly a young lady of note in social circles. By 1775 she was involved with a group of women at Gloria Dei Church, whose sewing circle was kept busy making flags. The best known of these “stitch-sisters” was a seamstress and upholstery maker, Betsy Ross.77 On June 14, 1777, Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the official flag of the United States and appointed John Paul Jones captain of the sloop-of-war Ranger. He was presented with one of Sarah's flags. It was the first one to be saluted in Europe.78
Sarah's brother Isaac had shouldered a musket and marched with Washington to Trenton and Princeton in December 1776, a fact he was proud of all his life. William Austin was not so inclined. He was just as staunch in his support of King George, and remained in Philadelphia to run the ferry.79 Their half-sister Christiana's husband, Reynold Keen, also fought at Trenton—but with seven children and an eighth on the way, was wavering in his support of the Cause.80
No documents or family stories were handed down to tell us where and how John and Sarah met, although her service in making flags for the navy provides grounds for an encounter. Sarah certainly had plenty of suitors. But it was the older, tall Irishman, resplendent in his Continental uniform, who won out over the other gentlemen callers. No doubt romance was behind Barry's pursuit of Sarah, but her family's wealth and social status would not go unnoticed by such an ambitious man.81
The first celebration of the “Glorious Fourth” set the tone for future observances. At noon, “armed ships and galleys” fired thirteen-gun salutes “with their gay streamers flying.” After Barry attended “an elegant dinner” for congress and military officers, he joined Sarah and thousands of Philadelphians for a “ringing of church bells, a grand exhibition of fireworks on the commons, and an illumination of the houses.”82
Three days later John and Sarah were married at Christ Church. The steeple had been struck by lightning just four weeks earlier, but the carpenters and roofers stopped their hammering long enough for the ceremony to be conducted peacefully. The extended Austin family was present in force, along with the mutual friends of the bride and groom, including Robert Morris, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Barry, and Patrick Barry's wife, Mary. Reverend William White presided over the marriage ceremony. The Anglican minister, his sympathy for the American cause well known throughout the city, took his place at the “wine-glass pulpit.” Sarah and John stood at the altar; the bride in a colorful dress (as was the fashion of the day), the groom in his spotless blue and red uniform.83
So, on July 7, 1777, the most hangman-like day in the “year of the hangman,” John Barry once more became a husband. The new bride was certainly aware that there were challenges and difficult days ahead, due in no small part to her groom's profession and the seeming inevitability of a British invasion. Sarah had no idea how immediate—and formidable—those challenges would be.