SPECIAL EDITION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY SHORE: Dunmore and the Gun Powder Raid

Pictured: John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore. 1765 portrait by Joshua Reynolds.

By Kellee Blake

April 21, 1775

On this very day, 250 years ago . . .

Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s Royal Governor, learned the coast was clear.  For five days his servants had carefully watched for a breach in the guarding of the Williamsburg powder magazine. For some unknown reason, the volunteer local sentries were not at their posts in the early morning of April 21st.  

It was the moment the British awaited.  Lord Dunmore presented the magazine’s key to his aide, Captain Edward Foy, who alerted British marines, seamen, and gunners on the nearby HMS Magdalen. Some twenty armed young men skillfully moved from the vessel through the pre-dawn cold toward town. They were discovered just as they reached the magazine and locals sounded the alarm for the town’s would-be defenders to rush to action. Too late. The British successfully purloined a reported fifteen half-barrels of gunpowder and carried it away to a place of “safekeeping” on a wagon supplied by Dunmore. 

The Williamsburg citizens were outraged.  How dare Dunmore to take control of the powder they had paid for and needed in the event of an invasion or uprising? The Royal Governor nimbly claimed that he had learned of “an insurrection in a neighboring county” and had preemptively removed the powder for their own safety. Don’t worry, he assured them, the powder could be delivered in half an hour  in the case of “any insurrection.” Dunmore, in a phrase, told the Virginians the powder could quickly be had.  Whether it would be used for or against the colonists remained to be seen, as did the endurance and leadership of Lord Dunmore himself. 

DID THE GUNPOWDER COME TO THE SHORE?

In 1853,  novelist, newspaper editor, and future “Confederate War Clerk” John Beauchamp Jones published The Monarchist: An Historical Novel Embracing Real Characters and Romantic Adventures of the Revolutionary War. Jones had been married to the Shore’s Frances Thomas Custis since 1840 and certainly had access to  Revolutionary anecdotes and stories from Shore veterans and families. While some of The Monarchist’s stories ring true, many are the stuff of pure imagination and encumbered with historical error. 

In The Monarchist, Jones claims that some of confiscated Williamsburg gunpowder was carried from the Sloop Liberty’s shallop to the entrance of Deep Creek for storage on the Shore. According to Jones, the powder, shallop, and her sailors were  captured by ten Shoremen led by John Wise and the seized goods and prisoners were then administered by the Accomack County Court as prize. While Jones’ story includes real people, places, and vessels, none of his account appears supported by surviving primary evidence.  The Accomack County Court records, the HMS Magdalen’s journal, newspaper/personal paper accounts, and available sets of British archives make no reference to an encounter that would have been—certainly in April 1775—sensationally defiant.  

It is certain, however, that the HMS Magdalen prowled Shore waters in early 1775 seeking vessels and goods allegedly violating British admiralty law.  Leading Shore merchants Isaac Smith, Thorowgood Smith, John Bowdoin, and Preeson Bowdoin, as well as their famed Williamsburg lawyer, George Wythe, soon felt the ferocious legal assault of the Magdalen’s captain.   A new war on the water was at hand.  

Join WESR on the 4th of each month to learn more about Virginia and the Shore’s role in the War for Independence.  Welcome to the Revolutionary Shore!