Francis Dane: 1725-1745
52 Weeks, 52 Ancestors: Military
When I think of military service in relation to family history research, I generally think about service to the United States, or to the colonies during the Revolution. However, my ancestors served other countries before they emigrated to the United States, or served England before the Revolution. My 6th Great Uncle Francis Dane is an example of military service to the King of England prior to the revolution, service that took his life before his twentieth birthday.
Francis was the youngest of the six children born to my 6th great grandfather, John Dane (1692-1763), and 6th great-grandmother, Sarah Chandler Dane (1693-1747). He was born December 21, 1725 in Andover, Essex County, Massachusetts.
By the time Francis reached adulthood in the mid-1740s, the English settlers in the American colonies had grown concerned about the French further north in what is now Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. In 1744, this colony was known as Ile Royale, and its capital was the city and fortress of Louisbourg. England was engaged in the War of the Austrian Succession, also known as King George’s War, and was fighting the French. The war had spread to the colonies.
According
to Wikipedia, in the summer of 1744,
“a French and
Wabanaki Confederacy force sailed from Louisbourg…to the nearby British fishing
port of Canso, attacking a small fort on Grassy Island and burned it to the
ground, taking prisoner 50 English families. This port was used by the New
England fishing fleet as it was the closest mainland North American British
port to the fishing grounds; however, the Canso Islands (including Grassy
Island) were contested by both Britain and France.
The prisoners
taken during the Canso raid were first brought to Louisbourg, where they were
given freedom to move around. Some of the military men took careful note of the
fortress design, layout and condition, as well as the size and condition of its
garrison and armaments.[4] These men were eventually released to Boston, where
their intelligence, along with that provided by merchants who did business at
Louisbourg, proved useful in planning [an] attack…” on Louisbourg.
The Wikipedia article goes on to state,
“In 1745, the
governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, William Shirley, secured by a
narrow margin the support of the Massachusetts legislature for an attack on the
fortress. He and the governor of the Province of New Hampshire, Benning
Wentworth, sought the support of other colonies. Connecticut provided 500
troops, New Hampshire 450, Rhode Island a ship, New York ten cannons, and
Pennsylvania and New Jersey funds.[7] The force was under the command of
William Pepperrell of Kittery (in the portion of the Massachusetts colony that
is now the state of Maine), and a fleet of colonial ships was assembled and
placed under the command of Captain Edward Tyng. Governor Shirley sent to
Commodore Peter Warren, the chief officer of the Royal Navy's West Indies
station, a request for naval support in the event of an encounter with French
warships, which would significantly outclass any of the colonial ships. Warren
at first declined this offer, lacking authorization from London to assist. Only
a few days later, he received orders from the Admiralty to proceed to protect
the New England fisheries. The expedition set sail from Boston in stages
beginning in early March 1745 with 4,200 soldiers and sailors aboard a total of
90 ships.”
Among those 4,200 soldiers was 19-year-old Francis Dane. I don’t know whether he volunteered for the expedition or whether he was conscripted by the colonial government. The British and colonial forces chose to attack by land where the fortress was more vulnerable rather than by sea. The forces landed May 11, 1745 and began a long siege of the fortress, slowly gaining ground and capturing the Island Battery that defended the fort from sea attack, and eventually building a battery of their own, hauling in ten cannons to shell the fortress. The French and Native American forces surrendered on June 28 after six weeks of siege.
Francis, along with his fellow colonial soldiers, was probably jubilant. The British and colonial forces had experienced minimal losses during the siege, far fewer than the French forces. However, as the year dragged on, the weather took a toll on the occupying forces. Wikipedia notes that, “Losses to the New England forces in battle had been modest, although the garrison that occupied the fortress during the following winter suffered many deaths from cold and disease.” Apparently only 100 troops were killed or wounded in the six-week battle, but 900 were lost to disease.
Sadly, young Francis was one of these deaths, succumbing to unspecified disease on November 12, 1745. The Andover death records state that he “died with sickness in the king’s service at Louisbourg”. He was six weeks shy of his twentieth birthday. His body was returned to Andover for burial.
I had never heard about the War of Austrian Succession or the Siege of Louisbourg before my research on young Francis Dane led me to learn about it. His life may have been short, but it led me to discover a fascinating period of colonial history. The discoveries and connections to the past make genealogy exciting for me.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Louisbourg_%281745%29
https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=2495
https://www.cbisland.com/louisbourg/
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