For more than two centuries, stories have circulated along the Washington County coast: that the British burned a captured Revolutionary War schooner in Jonesport’s Sawyer Cove. Some versions were recorded in 19th-century newspapers and George Drisko’s 1904 “Narrative of the Town of Machias.” Others were handed down through families like the Sawyers.
In the 1960s, Valdine Atwood and her mother followed those stories to the shoreline. “Dorley Sawyer’s family lived nearby,” said Atwood, now a Machias historian. “And the story passed down was that they saw the Margaretta beached, saw the crew run into the woods, and saw the British come and set it afire.”
No wreck was visible on the day of their visit to the shore, but Atwood reached blindly into the mud and pulled up a piece of timber.
On their way out, they passed a white cross on the rocks.
“They used to do that to mark a shipwreck,” she said.
Atwood said she always believed the stories. Now, a multi-year archaeological study strongly supports her instincts and centuries of oral tradition — the wreck of the Margaretta likely lies in Sawyer Cove.
The area around Sawyer Cove is now private property, with no public access, but a neighboring landowner permitted the research team to work on-site.
“The wreck in Jonesport, we think, is Margaretta,” said archaeologist Arthur Spiess, co-author of a report about the shipwreck that is soon to be released by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. “There’s no evidence against it, and some strong evidence for it.”
Spiess and fellow archaeologist Nathaniel King were alerted to the shipwreck in 2021, when Maine Game Warden Joe McBrine — also a local historian — heard reports of “a ship coming up out of the mud.”
“At low tide, you could see it,” recalls McBrine. “We measured it, and it was within a couple of
feet of what the Margaretta would have been. I thought, ‘Man, this could really be it.’”
McBrine already knew the story well. As a member of the Machias Historical Society and a local reenactment group, he’s spent years educating the public about Washington County’s Revolutionary War-era clashes — including what some view as the first naval battle of the American Revolution, the Battle of the Margaretta.
That battle began just weeks after Lexington and Concord. On June 2, 1775, three ships sailed into Machias Bay — among them the British schooner HMS Margaretta. Their mission: to trade for lumber, forcibly if necessary, to supply British troops occupying Boston.
The residents of Machias had other ideas. They planned to capture the British officers during Sunday services, but when the British escaped to their vessel and sailed for Machias Bay, the Americans gave chase. They met in battle exactly 250 years ago, from June 11 to 12 of 1775.
The clash ended with the deaths of three Americans — John McNeil, Robert Avery, and James Coolbroth — and the injury of several others, as well as the mortal wounding of British commander James Moore and the capture of the Margaretta. The Americans soon hid the 50-ton schooner in what is now Marshfield’s Middle River.
In 1776, when Machias men judged it safe to move the vessel, they likely reballasted her in Machias — using local ballast stones that now provide one of three key pieces of evidence linking the shipwreck to the Margaretta.
“Her ballast was derived from eastern glacial till deposits,” said Spiess, “and that fits with the rumor that it was laid up for a year and refloated.”
Spiess believes the ship’s original ballast stones would have come from modern-day Massachusetts, where the vessel was likely built. The wreck’s construction also offers a critical clue.
“The way it was built was not ‘Navy fashion,’” said Spiess. “Everything’s a little bit variable. It’s a local job, not a military job, not perfect.”
This fits with British records showing the Margaretta was not purpose-built but a hired vessel — brought into service by Vice Admiral Samuel Graves, then the highest-ranking Royal Navy officer in North America, to serve as tender to his flagship, HMS Preston. The rougher workmanship of the Jonesport wreck also helps rule out another local theory: that the wreck was an 1812-era Revenue Cutter, which would have been built to stricter military standards.
To help date the ship, Spiess and his team extracted pencil-sized samples from one of the rib bases — each with 82 growth rings — and sent them to environmental and maritime archaeologist Brita Lorentzen, a specialist in dendrochronology and shipwreck dating.
“Dr. Lorentzen is an expert in this field,” said Spiess. “She determined that growth ring 79 near the outer edge formed between 1750 and 1765.”
He added, “That means the tree was still alive around that time, which is exactly the right range for a vessel that could have been built five to fifteen years before the Revolutionary War.”
Spiess and his colleagues stop short of a definitive identification.
“The statistics on this are that that date range, 1750 to 1765, has an 80 percent chance of being correct, and a 20 percent chance of being wrong,” Spiess said.
But with no contradictory evidence and several key alignments, Spiess said the case is “very strong.”
But why did the Margaretta end up in Sawyer Cove?
According to McBrine’s research, after the Americans repurposed the Margaretta, they used it to pursue British forces and privateers in Machias Bay and the Bay of Fundy. Possibly seeking revenge for the capture of five fishing boats, they set out to pursue the British vessel, HMS Viper.
“When they rounded Mount Desert Island, they saw a British ship on the horizon,” said McBrine. “As they got closer, they realized it was bigger than they thought. They turned back toward Machias but couldn’t outrun her. So they went right to the head of Sawyer Cove.”
And the rest is history.
Before releasing the report to the public, the research team — Spiess, King, J.N. Leith Smith, Lorentzen and McBrine — is waiting to learn whether the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command will assert a legal claim.
“I think this research is important to the entire region,” said McBrine. “To be able to piece together the puzzle — and have experts say this is likely the Margaretta — it adds to our understanding. And it brings a little more respect to the people who were willing to stand up, fight, be wounded and even die to capture her.”
Spiess, McBrine and other Revolutionary War history enthusiasts and reenactors will attend the 250th Margaretta Days Celebration, June 20-21, at West Branch Farms Event Center in Machias.
