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Long Island is well remembered as the area occupied continuously by the British in the 13 colonies for the longest period during the Revolutionary War. The British took control of the island after the Battle of Brooklyn on August 27, 1776, and held it until their all-out military evacuation seven years later in November 1783. Though history remembers this area as a redcoat stronghold, Long Islanders were deeply divided over the British, as exemplified in my article last month covering Meigs Raid.
With its well-established year-round ports, the city of New York served as an excellent locus for the British navy to facilitate control of both the northern and southern colonies. Indeed, because of this, the waters around Long Island, both the bay and the sound, experienced an increased British naval presence after the Redcoats took control of the island.
One of these vessels was the HMS Culloden. Designed to carry up to 74 guns and hold 650 men, the Culloden was a formidable ship. In her years of service, she had been off Cape Finisterre, Spain, tasked with attacking enemy ships carrying supplies to the Americans; the British coast, where she was assigned to destroy any merchant vessels trading with France; Gibraltar, for various maritime exploits; and the Caribbean. By September 1780, the Culloden was one of 14 warships instructed to merge with a small British fleet stationed in Gardiners Bay. This would end up being her final voyage.
The ship, along with three others, was specifically charged with patrolling an area off Montauk Point roughly 100 miles long which ended at the Nantucket Shoals. Their task was to prevent any French vessels from entering this area by essentially forming a blockade.
Their effectiveness was tested in January 1781, when the British got word that three French warships, which were part of a larger fleet known to be anchored at Newport, were preparing to run the blockade by heading south. The ships Culloden, America and Bedford were the three tasked with capturing them. In haste, they set sail toward Newport to intercept the runners.
On the third day of their search, a severe winter storm hit the squadron with biting winter winds and turbulent seas. In the midst of the chaos, the battered ships lost their way desperately fighting the storm. The America ended up being blown far south, while the Bedford was forced to Long Island shores, managing to drop anchor before being battered into the rocky shoreline by the icy waves. She was dismasted in the process.
The Culloden, however, fared the worst out of the three. As it was trying to reach safety, land and dangerous breakers were sighted and the crew, not able to do anything else, dropped anchors in an attempt to save the ship. The anchors failed and the ship struck bottom, ending its maritime career. At daybreak, the crew found themselves at Will’s Point, off the northern coast of Montauk. They realized that amid the violence of the previous night, the wind and currents had been strong enough to drive their ship astern, undoing their forward progress and driving them to where they now lay.
After failed attempts to free the Culloden from her resting place, she was extensively stripped of all valuables over the next few weeks and eventually ordered to be burned to prevent enemy salvaging. The ship’s captain, Balfour, was later tried in a court-martial proceeding but was honorably acquitted.
The three French runners the Culloden had initially been pursuing had turned back to Rhode Island before the storm could reach them; it is possible this initial attempt to run the line was but a ruse to lure the British into the winter storm. The runners succeeded in their second attempt shortly after, leaving Rhode Island and sailing down to Virginia. Will’s Point was eventually renamed Culloden Point after the war, and it retains the name to this day. You can still visit the shipwreck in Montauk; it lies in 15 feet of water and is a popular diving destination for tourists and locals alike.
There are so many stories from the East End, the shipwreck of the Culloden being one of them. Unlike in my column last month, this time I want to relate more than one story. I humbly ask you to imagine a tenacious 18th-century dissident. He is a man who has had enough. I must note that the following yarn comes from a generational oral tradition which rarely fails to embellish and often omits citations; thus, it should not be treated as embellishment-free.
Isaac Van Scoy was the first in his family to settle in East Hampton. Born c. 1732, he was raised by his grandfather, and this may have played a part in his independent nature. He married a woman in 1757 by the name of Mercy Edwards and shortly after ventured into the dense forests of what is now Northwest Harbor to carve out a home for himself. In quick time, he cleared a portion of land and built a handsome home for himself and his wife. Over the years, it became clear he had built a prosperous life for Mercy and their 15 children, though only eight survived into adulthood. Van Scoy had been illiterate at the time of his marriage but learned quickly to read, a testament to his resolute nature.
When Mercy died in 1782, Van Scoy remarried a widow from a large family herself. He lived to the ripe old age of 82. To put that into perspective, historians estimate that only a small percentage of the total population lived past the age of 80 in this time period.
During the war, the British often raided people’s homes for goods and supplies. Van Scoy wasn’t an exception. One night, a band of raiders demanded he hand over a large sum of money they had gotten wind of. Upon refusal, they threatened Van Scoy. Having none of it, Van Scoy grabbed a sharpened two-pronged pitchfork he kept for protection and attacked them. He managed to kill one and wound two others. He was eventually overpowered and taken to a prison ship lying in Sag Harbor to await his trial. Sometime later, his friends rowed out under the cover of darkness to the ship and managed to break him out via a porthole.
The sheer brazenness of Isaac Van Scoy’s temperament and lifestyle humbles and inspires me. As with the HMS Culloden, this is a story of perseverance. The men and women of the American Revolution period created their own reality. They had great trials ahead of them, yet they continued on in the face of it all. It is a position I find us in again 250 years later.
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