Ten Days of Truxton- Commodore's Background
Okay day 3.Who was Thomas Truxtun?
He's a boy from Long Island, 20 miles from the "town" of New York. Born in February 17, 1755 son of a barrister who was working on his second family. His father had left the first set in Jamaica, West Indies. Tom Truxtun had about two years of formal schooling before he was sent off to sea at the age of 12. Though this reminds me of a Dicken’s plot, his mother had died and his father was working on family #3 and poor Tom gets apprenticed to the Pitt. The Pitt was a Bristol ship and Tom was to be cabin boy. At the age of 16 he was pressed into His Majesty’s Royal Navy (remember America was still a colony) during some international flap between England and Spain. After England and Spain settled peacefully Tom Truxton, went back to merchant seamanship on the London.
When he was 20 years old he became captain of the Charming Polly and married a 15 year old girl named Mary in 1775. He was captured in that same year, due to hostilities between the British and the American Colonies, lost his ship (of which he’d owned ½) when overtaken by the Brits in the Caribbean. When he got back to America he became a privateer as captain of the Chance exacting his revenge on British ships in the Caribbean.
Next- Ten Days of Truxton- What I did During the American Revolution
Labels: history, Truxton Circle
posted by Mari @ 1.10.09
1 Comments:
i think it's deeply cool that he was a Privateer.
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