In some texts that make mention of John Sr and Dolly, the suggestion is that they lived in the northern part of Haddam \u2013 a village known as Higganum, although other evidence suggests that they lived in Haddam proper.\u00a0\u00a0Something to settle on another day.\u00a0 It is apparent that he owned some acreage that included his house, barn, a couple of cows, pigs, chickens, and a small orchard.\u00a0 And we do know that son John Jr. did own property in Higganum and there also had his own shipbuilding venture.\u00a0 There have been recent attempts by genealogists to link this John Sr. and Dolly to other contemporaneous couples with the same or similar names in other parts of North America and in England. \u00a0Please be careful with your research and do not confuse \u201cmy\u201d people with yours unless you have clear and well researched proof. I am certain of my work \u2013 be sure of yours.<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n John Sr. sailed on merchant vessels down the Connecticut River, into Long Island Sound, and off to the Caribbean ports with goods sent by the owners for trade.\u00a0 I have no data on his early years as a sailor before he earned the position of a captain; the calling of a ship master \u201ccaptain\u201d was a common courtesy when actually they were the \u201cmaster of the vessel\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cCaptain\u201d was actually a military rank; at sea, it was the equivalent of an army colonel, and he held command of the vessel he was assigned.\u00a0 For civilian purposes, a ship\u2019s master was an individual who would be hired under a contract to sail the owner\u2019s vessel on a particular voyage in trade with another port or a whaling voyage, or a passenger vessel.\u00a0 In 1789, John May was the master of the sloop RANGER of Lyme, CT, sailing goods to Turk\u2019s Island, Guadaloupe, and St-Martins.\u00a0 In the first half of 1790 he was the master of the brig BETSEY of Middletown, CT, sailing to Martinique and Saint-Domingue, then later the sloop LEVINA for the same ports.\u00a0 These are all common trading ports, bring down New England goods for items made in the Islands or to trade with other foreign nationals in the common markets.\u00a0 He was then hired in 1791 to master the brig (converted from her original schooner rig) PEARL of Hartford (belonging to John Chenevard and Jonathon Huntington) to St-Martins and Martinique, bringing back mostly molasses and sugar. The end of 1791 through much of 1792, he was the master and part owner\/investor of the brig HIRAM, out of Middletown, CT, sailing for Martinique.<\/p>\n John May was recommended for a commission as a lieutenant in the new US Navy by Moses Tryon of Wethersfield.\u00a0 He was appointed on 23 April 1799 to serve as \u201cnumber 2\u201d on board of the yet-to-launched USS CONNECTICUT.\u00a0 His commission was dated from 24 April 1799, and once arrived, Captain Tryon administered the oath to John on 13 May 1799.\u00a0 Lt. John May was put in charge of recruitment duty; he took out ads in Middletown and later New London, CT, setting rendez-vous points for those who wished to sign up.\u00a0 The ship was launched on 6 June 1799 and as work continued before sending the vessel down river towards the Sound and thence to New London, officers and new crew members arrived for duty.\u00a0 Lt-John May left his duties on shore and reported on board the CONNECTICUT on 22 July 1799; four days later, the ship began her trip down the Connecticut River.<\/p>\n On the 16th<\/sup> of October, the USS CONNECTICUT sailed from New London, CT, on her cruise in the Caribbean for French privateers, she being in the squadron headed by the USS PHILADELPHIA under Commodore Morris.\u00a0 Lt-May was usually the officer sent over to waylaid and captured vessels for assert if papers were in order or to take command of captured ships, bringing them into Basseterre, St-Kitts \u2013 the base of operations.\u00a0 On 1 May 1800, Lt-John May is promoted on the quarterdeck to 1st<\/sup> Lieutenant\/1st<\/sup> officer which is his station for the remainder of the cruise.\u00a0 On the 19th<\/sup> of October 1800, the CONNECTICUT arrived home in New London after her year of enlistments was completed.\u00a0 She began to undergo repairs while a new crew was either reenlisted or replaced.\u00a0 Capt. Tryon took a furlough for his health and Captain Richard Derby of Salem, Massachusetts (he being a revenue cutter captain) was put in his place.\u00a0 Lt-May remained with the ship until the news of the Quasi-War was ended and most ships were either being sold off or moth-balled.\u00a0 The CONNECTICUT would be sold in New York and officers encouraged to retire as the Navy was being dramatically downsized.\u00a0 Lt-John May resigned under this Peace Establishment Act on 1 May 1801, and returned home and to the merchant service.<\/p>\n In January 1803, John was given command of the merchant brig SALLY TRACEY in New York, the ship berthed on the east side of Fly Market (the foot of Maiden Lane, Manhattan, later to become the Fulton Fish Market \u2013 so, within South Street Seaport Museum territory).\u00a0 The ship sailed for Cadiz, Gibraltar, and Malaga.<\/p>\n Dolly died on 28 Jan. 1804 and is buried in the \u201cAncient Burial Ground of Thirty Mile Plantation\u201d, Haddam, CT. \u00a0\u00a0I have not found anything to indicate what she had died from.\u00a0 John continued to sail if to work out his mourning.\u00a0 In March he was the commander of the schooner INDIANA of NY when on his voyage to his usual Caribbean ports he came across the schooner DOLPHIN, Capt. Farley, who seemed to be in some trouble for the lack of usable provisions.\u00a0 Capt. May supplied the DOLPHIN with enough to get him home.\u00a0 In October of that year, the schooner SEA-HORSE of New Bedford, a crew of 42, bound for home with a load of salt, when the schooner sprung a leak.\u00a0 All hands were kept to pumping but it was a losing battle.\u00a0 Twelve days into pumping and little headway, Capt. May happened upon them in his INDIANA; he took all the crew on board his vessel and as they sailed away the SEA-HORSE was on her beams-end (sideways and sinking).\u00a0 May delivered the crew of the SEA-HORSE to New Bedford on the 31st<\/sup> of October.<\/p>\n John Sr. returned home, and he remarried, 14 Nov. 1804, to Margaret (DeWitt) Dwight (widow of Maurice William Dwight, M.D.) of Milford, CT. Only one child, daughter Catharine Pond May (b. 13 July 1806), issued from this marriage. \u00a0Catharine married Richard Edwards of Pittsburgh, PA. on 3 Oct. 1828, and there moved. \u00a0Widowed again, Margaret remarried a 3d time, on 23 Feb 1812, in Haddam, CT to Reuben Cone of New York. But Reuben died in Haddam the following year and Margaret left Haddam for New York, becoming a member of the Brick Presbyterian Church on Manhattan in 1814.\u00a0 So, it is safe to conclude that she had removed to NY, but later moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to live with her eldest daughter, Mrs. William Bell. It is believed that Margaret died there on 11 July 1824, age 59.<\/p>\n In December of 1804, May was the master of the New York schooner INDUSTRY bound for Gaudaloupe, returning in March of 1805.\u00a0 There is a curious article published in the Republican Watch-Tower<\/u> of New York on 9 Oct 1805 in which Capt. John May gives deposition \u2013 dated 23 Sept. – regarding an incident back in May wherein he was in Washington City attending a court issue and when he went into town on a horse, he got down from said horse to be taken by the hand of the inn keeper who wished him, John May, joy for being nominated a justice of the peace; something he had not been aware that he was allowed to be in the running for, as he is a resident of Connecticut.\u00a0 He was introduced to a few other politicos and it became apparent that he was being put up to be a puppet for their control in local governing affairs, to which he wanted no part.\u00a0 They persisted and asked that he keep this all a secret, but clearly John was concerned and wanted to keep a paper trail in case something should come of all this.\u00a0 I have learned no more of the matter.<\/p>\n Another interesting insight to John May came from an old shipmate from the days of the USS CONNECTICUT.\u00a0 Horace Lane was a boy of 10 when he signed aboard the ship while in Middletown, CT, and served as a ship\u2019s boy\u2026 Running powder to the guns, doing sundry jobs for the crew, &c.\u00a0 In 1839 he published his memoires called The Wandering Boy, Careless Sailor, and Results of Inconsideration<\/u>.\u00a0 A very interesting read; he devotes some time to his service in the Navy, but on pages 70, 71, he bumps into John May while in Manhattan in 1805.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n << As I was rambling along the wharves one day, I fell in with Captain John May.\u00a0 This gentleman had been the first lieutenant of the Connecticut, the first ship I sailed in from New-London.\u00a0 He commanded a vessel, then nearly ready to sail, and solicited me to go with him, offering me good wages.\u00a0 I agreed, purchased a chest, and a good stock of clothes.\u00a0 We set sail, and proceeded to Guadeloupe.\u00a0 Captain May indulged me with all I could wish.\u00a0 So great was his kindness to me, that those captains of other vessels who occasionally visited ours, took me to be his son.\u00a0 All the vessel\u2019s stores and provisions were committed to my care.\u00a0 Even the mate had to ask me for anything he wanted, although it was much against his inclination; for he was jealous, and would have treated me ill, if the captain had not been my friend\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u2026 The yellow fever was taking from American vessels about twenty every twenty-four hours.\u00a0 This was in 1805, a year to be noted for acts of vain glory; for instance, the battle of Trafalgar.\u00a0 The French fleet ran through the West Indies, taking, ransoming, and burning different places.\u00a0 The fleet was commanded by Jerome Bonaparte.\u00a0 There were eighteen vessels fitting out at that time at Guadeloupe, privateers, for the purpose of scouring the ocean in quest of lawful plunder.\u00a0 We got a cargo of sugar, and set sail for New-York.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n After encountering several tedious blasts, we made the land near Sandy Hook.\u00a0 It was in the latter part of February <\/em>(1806); the wind blew a stiff breeze from the north.\u00a0 As our captain did not know how to take advantage of the tide, and the pilots did not make their appearance, we, with a dozen other vessels, had to box about, in sight of land, for ten days, till our vessel was completely covered with ice ten inches thick; some of our hands were so frost-bitten, that they lost the use of some of their limbs.\u00a0 Here again I was the lucky boy, for my employment was to get wood from the hold, keep the stove warm in the cabin, and dry the sailors\u2019 stockings and mittens.\u00a0 We were so much rejoiced when the wind backed to the westward, and permitted us to sail up to the city.\u00a0 Captain May was eager to have abide with him, telling me that I did not know when I had a friend.\u00a0 Here he was mistaken; I was not insensible to his kindness, but I did not like the voyage he was going to undertake.\u00a0 I told him he would get taken by the British, and it happened so.\u00a0 Another reason I had for leaving him was, I was then in my seventeenth year, and had formed a resolution to go to Connecticut, and learn a trade. >>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n On 23 April 1807, John May unloaded his cargo from a run to Curacoa in the brig ST-BRIDES; \u201cfirst quality Caraceas Cocoa\u201d to WM. H. Morton, 27 South Street, NY.\u00a0 On 15 August 1807, John May unloaded the cargo from his brig BLACK WALNUT, recently from Havanna, Cuba, with a cargo of \u201csegars\u201d (cigars) and sugars both white and brown, all to the store of Thomas Buchanan & Son at No. 41, Wall-Street, NY.\u00a0 In a Philadelphia shipping news of 6 April 1809, John May is the master of the brig FEDERAL, bound for Boston, carrying sundry items, to sail on the 14th<\/sup> coming of the month.<\/p>\n In May 1811 the brig RECOMPENCE lay at Edgar\u2019s Wharf in New York, waiting for the hold to be filled and thence a voyage to Cuba.\u00a0 The vessel was rated at 150 tons burthen and had been purchased the previous month at Murray\u2019s Wharf by Fred & Franz Dederichs & Co. of 79 Washington Street, NY. The vessel was cleared for sail on the 27th<\/sup> of the month and likely sailed on that day or the following, headed for Havanna, Cuba\u00a0 John May Sr. died on the return voyage to New York on 31 July 1811 of consumption (tuberculosis) and was buried at sea. The brig was returning with sugars from Havanna to F. & F. Diederichs & Co, when John May, captain of the vessel, succumbed to his disease, and the mate Howes took over.\u00a0 The vessel was boarded by the British sloop of war GOREE, (built 1794), Captain Henry Dilkes Byng, and treated politely while off the Floridas, and the RECOMPENCE put in at NY about the 10th<\/sup> or 11th<\/sup> of August 1811. \u00a0It is likely this incident that Horace Lane refers to regarding being \u201ctaken by the British\u201d, with the probability that Horace did not have the whole story but merely word of mouth.\u00a0 The 16 gun HMS GOREE was returning south (Around this time, the GOREE also intercepted and took into\u00a0Nassau\u00a0the\u00a0SAN CARLOS, after determining from an inspection of her papers that she was “An American ship engaged in the African Slave Trade under Spanish Colours.”) from having escorted to Nova Scotia the HMS LITTLE BELT from a battle encounter with the USS PRESIDENT: a major incident leading to the War of 1812.\u00a0 The stone marker for John<\/a> is in his memory alongside his beloved Dolly, but his mortal remains are not beneath it.<\/p>\n Photo taken by the author, 2007.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John May was the 2d officer about the USS Connecticut, having joined the crew in April of 1799 and served under Captain Moses Tryon and later under Captain Richard Derby until his discharge on 1 May 1801 when the US … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ussconnecticut1799.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/John-May-ID.jpg\")
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