William Clapham
William Clapham was an American military officer who served in Father Le Loutre's War and the French and Indian War. Clapham was considered a competent commander in engagements with French troops and Native American warriors, but towards the end of his military career he was unpopular with the soldiers under his command. Following his retirement from military service, Clapham and his family were killed by Lenape warriors on his farm in 1763.
Early career and family
Nothing is known of William Clapham's early life. He was commissioned into the Massachusetts Militia at the rank of captain in Boston on 1 November 1747, and may have been born in Massachusetts.He was married to Mary Clapham. He had one son, William Clapham, Jr., who served as a lieutenant in the Third Battalion, Pennsylvania Regiment of Foot after it was formed in late March, 1756, and who was killed by two Panis slaves in June 1762. Clapham also had a daughter Mary.
Defamation case, 1747
Court records for Suffolk County, Massachusetts, show that on 30 June 1747, Clapham filed charges against William MacLanahan for defamation, claiming that MacLanahanThe outcome of the case is not recorded.
Service in Nova Scotia, 1748–1754
In 1748, Clapham was sent as a company commander to defend Annapolis Royal as part of a wave of New England reinforcements destined for Nova Scotia, where he served with Jedidiah Preble and Benjamin Goldthwait.Clapham was stationed in Nova Scotia during Father Le Loutre's War. On 19 August 1749, Clapham was in command at Canso, Nova Scotia, when Lieutenant Joseph Gorham and his party were attacked by Mi'kmaq who took twenty prisoners and carried them off to Louisbourg. After Governor Edward Cornwallis complained to the governor of Ile Royale, the prisoners were released.
After the 1749 raid on Dartmouth, Clapham raised a company of 70 men, known as "Clapham's Rangers," to fight the Mi'kmaq. Cornwallis offered £10 for every Mi'kmaq scalp or prisoner. The bounty of scalps was raised to £50 in 1750, motivating Clapham and Francis Bartelo to form new ranger companies to search the land around Halifax, Nova Scotia for Mi'kmaq. Clapham relieved John Gorham in the Battle at St. Croix on 23 March 1750, by arriving at Pisiguit with his company of rangers and two cannons, forcing the Mi'kmaq to withdraw. Clapham fought in the Battle at Chignecto on 3 September 1750. Although fighting continued across the Chignecto Isthmus during 1751, by summer Cornwallis had disbanded all ranger companies except Gorham's Rangers, a primarily Native American unit formed in 1744.
During the 1751 raid on Dartmouth on 13 May 1751, Miꞌkmaq warriors and Acadian militia under the command of Acadian Joseph Broussard, raided Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, destroying the town, killing twenty British colonists and wounding four soldiers. Clapham and 60 soldiers from the 45th Regiment of Foot were stationed on Blockhouse Hill. He and the company are reported to have remained within the blockhouse firing from the loopholes during the whole raid. A court-martial was called on 14 May, the day after the raid, to inquire into the conduct of the commanding officers who allowed the town to be destroyed. In June, Clapham's sergeant was acquitted.
Prosecution for homicide, 1751
In 1751, Clapham was prosecuted in Halifax for killing a drunk prisoner of war by gagging him too tightly. The case was unique in that Clapham was not brought before a court martial, but was instead tried in a civilian court. The outcome of the case is not recorded.Divorce, 1754
Following his service in Nova Scotia, Clapham returned to Boston to face divorce proceedings. Records for the Massachusetts House of Representatives for 17 October 1754, show a "special act" in the case of Mary Clapham v. William Clapham, sponsored in part by James Otis Sr., dissolving their marriage contract, after William Clapham stood convicted of "leaving the said Mary, cohabiting and committing Adultery with Another Woman in Nova Scotia." The act allowed Mary to marry again, and the council later awarded Mary her household furniture, worth £100.Promotion to colonel, 1756
Clapham then moved to Pennsylvania to assist Benjamin Franklin in constructing a series of forts along the frontier. In late 1755, Governor Robert Hunter Morris ordered the construction of forts garrisoned with Pennsylvania militiamen, and plans were made to begin building Fort Hunter, Fort Halifax, and Fort Augusta. Following the Penn's Creek massacre, Great Cove massacre and Gnadenhütten massacre, Franklin had been charged with the rapid construction of three small forts in northeastern Pennsylvania but he felt that the responsibility for building forts should be given to someone with more military training, and offered a commission to Clapham, who accepted. Franklin writes in his autobiography:Clapham was commissioned into the Pennsylvania Provincial Forces at the rank of colonel in February 1756, and given command over the Augusta Regiment as well as defenses in Northampton County.
Fort Hunter
The Pennsylvania colonial government decided to construct a fort at Hunter's Mill in response to the Penn's Creek massacre in October 1755. The mill was located about six miles north of Harris' Ferry, probably five hundred feet east of the mouth of Fishing Creek, near its confluence with the Susquehanna River, in present-day Dauphin County. Fort Hunter was initially a stockaded gristmill in the Great Valley, owned by Samuel Hunter who lived on Fishing Creek. The mill was fortified with a simple stockade in January, 1756, and garrisoned with volunteer militia recruited by Thomas McKee, an Indian trader who operated a trading post nearby. He was appointed captain of "McKee's Volunteers," but provisions, clothing and ammunition were in short supply, and the post was vulnerable to attack.On 8 March 1756, Franklin wrote to August Gottlieb Spangenberg that:
On 7 April 1756, Morris ordered Clapham to march his regiment to Hunter's Mill to begin construction. On 11 May 1756, McKee handed over command of the fort to Clapham. The fort probably consisted of a block house surrounded by a defensive ditch. There are references in historic documents to a stockade and to the construction of "a Room for the Officers & Barracks for the Soldiers...in Hunters Fort." It was described as having "a commanding view of the river." Fort Halifax was 160 feet wide with bastions, so Fort Hunter was likely similar in construction, but no drawings or plans exist.
In March 1757, Deputy Governor William Denny met with Lord Loudoun, Conrad Weiser, and Clapham and determined that Fort Hunter should be demolished. Its garrison and supplies were to be divided between Fort Augusta and Fort Halifax. In July and August, settlers in the area protested that removing the fort would put their homes in danger, and after several months of consideration, the governor instead decided to demolish Fort Halifax and transfer its garrison to Fort Hunter, strengthening it from 40 men to 80 men.
The fort was abandoned after the end of Pontiac's War in 1763 and fell into ruins. The community of Fort Hunter, Pennsylvania was established nearby after 1787.
Dispute with Governor Morris
Clapham's temperament was revealed in May, 1756, when he and several officers stayed with Governor Robert Morris at Harris's Ferry, operated by John Harris Sr. and the future site of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Captain Joseph Shippen later wrote to his father that Governor Morris had made some remarks which offended Clapham, so that Clapham refused to speak to the governor for several days afterward, and eventually saddled his horse with intent to ride away and abandon his troops. Captain Shippen and other officers persuaded Clapham not to leave, and were able to mediate a reconciliation between the two men. Historian William Albert Hunter comments on this event that:Fort Halifax
On 5 June 1756, Clapham left Fort Hunter with five companies, marching north along the Susquehanna River to select a suitable location for Fort Halifax. Clapham and his men marched from Harris's Ferry, while 18 bateaux and canoes loaded with materials traveled down the Susquehanna River, arriving on 11 June to start construction. Clapham picked a site near a large stand of pines which he planned to use for construction, close to a water-powered sawmill on Armstrong Creek. In a June 11 letter to Governor Morris, Clapham noted that the site he chose for the fort was appropriate because of "...the vast Plenty of Pine Timber at Hand, its nearness to Shamokin and a Saw within a Quarter of a Mile." In later correspondence he mentions the complete absence of roads along the river. The Lenape village of Shamokin had been abandoned a few weeks earlier.On 10 June, Clapham held a conference with Oghaghradisha, an Iroquois chief, at Clapham's military camp. Oghaghradisha presented Clapham with a wampum belt and gave Clapham the Iroquois name "Ugcarumhiunth." He told Clapham that
Fort Halifax was a stockade fort square, with four bastions and surrounding earthworks about 10 feet high. Once finished, it was garrisoned by Pennsylvania Colonial Militia and served as the chief supply post between the area settlements and Shamokin where Fort Augusta would be built later that summer.
The fort was abandoned in late 1757, and was dismantled in mid-1763.
Fort Augusta
Construction
In June, 1756, Major James Burd finally received sufficient funding and supplies to begin building Fort Augusta at the former site of the Native American village of Shamokin. The fort was positioned so as to prevent Native American war parties from descending the Susquehanna River, to serve as a refuge for civilians under attack, and as a staging area for military expeditions against enemy forces. The plan of the fort had been previously drawn up by Governor Morris, who wrote to Clapham on 12 June recommending "a square with one ravelin to protect the curtain where the gate is, with a ditch, covered way, and glacis." In early July, Clapham marched with his troops from Fort Halifax, while the canoes and bateaux carried supplies downriver, encountering numerous falls and rapids which hindered their progress. On 14 August, Clapham wrote to Governor Morris: "We have the walls of the fort now above-half finished and our other works in such situation that we can make a very good defense against any body of French and Indians that shall seat themselves before us without cannon."Clapham had largely completed Fort Augusta by late August 1756. Named for Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, the mother of King George III, it was the largest British fort built in Pennsylvania, with earthen walls more than two hundred feet long topped by wooden fortifications. Buildings included a bakery, smoke house, beef cistern, pork cistern, and a powder magazine with an underground powder keg. The wall facing the river was composed of upright logs, and the rear wall was made up of lengthwise logs. Beyond the main wall was a dry moat that was half as deep as the wall was high. Triangular bastions on each corner permitted a crossfire covering the entire extent of the wall. A well was located in the westernmost bastion. In front of the main gate, a small bridge over the moat could be raised in the event of an attack. Blockhouses connected by a stockade formed a covered way to the river.
Clapham was concerned that the fort would be vulnerable to French assault from the west, if the French were to deploy artillery. On 7 September 1756, he wrote to Franklin requesting permission to hire another carpenter for additional fortification of the fort's walls:
On 8 September 1756, he wrote to Franklin requesting additional supplies and horses:
In late October, Clapham described the final stages of the fort's construction: "In eight or ten days more the ditch will be carried quite around the parapet, the barrier gates finished and erected, and the pickets of the glacis completed."
The fort was garrisoned by sixteen officers and 337 men and had twelve cannons and two swivel guns. It served as base for the Third Battalion, Pennsylvania Regiment of Foot, known as the Augusta Regiment, which was originally formed to build and garrison Fort Augusta.