CAPTAIN THOMAS WELD PHILBROOK

CAPT. THOMAS WELD (s. of Capt. Jonathan and Dorothy (Weld) PHILBROOK, b. at Providence, R. I., in 1760, d. in 1841, ae. 81 years. When a small child his parents removed to Maine, and he was brought up by his maternal grandfather, Rev. Habijah Weld of Attleboro', Mass. He entered Harvard college about 1775, but in 1776, the class was broken up to enlist in the army of the Revolution. He enlisted in a Connecticut regiment, and was in the campaign at Ticonderoga. In the spring of 1779, he entered on board the sloop Providence, which was one of the fleet destined for the reduction of the British Forces upon the Penobscot river. The fleet sent upon the disastrous expedition, was commanded by Commodore Dudley Saltonstall, and consisted of two continental vessels, the Warren, 32 guns, and the Providence, 12 guns, and 17 other vessels, carrying in all 324 guns, and manned by more than 2000 men. All these vessels were taken, or driven ashore or blown up. The crew of the Providence escaped to the woods and when nearly starved, some of them came out at a farm house, where the good woman pitying them, hung on the big pot with pork and beans of which she supposed she had enough to feed the company. While the beans were cooking, some one came into the room and called her Mrs. Philbrook. One of the soldiers said to her "Why there is a young man of our company, back of us, of that name, Philbrook." She asked "Is his name Tommy?" "Yes," was the answer. The mother's heart was more deeply moved, and she said to herself, "He is starving and must be delicately fed; a chicken must be killed." Immediately came the thought "These soldiers are all somebodies' sons"; and many of her chickens were killed, and the hungry men made welcome at her table. Soon the second detachment appeared, and sure enough Tommy with them emerged from the forest upon his own father's farm. In four months he had returned to Boston, and early in 1780 he joined, as quartermaster, a Massachusetts regiment under Col. Mitchell of Norton. At one period of the war he was for eight months confined in the Jersey prison ship. During most of this time the prisoners' only food was "wormy bread and stinking water." He would sometimes find a dead man each side of him when waked in the light of the morning. With two others he once escaped upon the ice, through a hole cut with a jack knife, but two of them were retaken, he was put in irons that were two small for him, and the scars left by the wounds they made he carried to his grave. By the kindness of his guard he was released, taking the place of a Hartford man whose name was on a cartel for exchange of prisoners, but who died before it came.

After the war Captain Philbrook resided at Providence, R. I., and engaged as a partner in business, but lost all his property through the villainy of his partner, who absconded taking all the funds and most valuable goods. He gave up everything left to his creditors, and they released him upon the pledge of his word that if he prospered he would pay them in full. So he was not imprisoned, as he might have been, for debt, but went to Maine, having received a deed of wild land in Bath. He commenced clearing it, but the land was recalled. He then opened a school in the vicinity which gave him a living, but would not furnish funds to pay his debts. His wife, anxious to aid him and to support the children, opened a school in Providence, and he went to sea as supercargo for years, and at last succeeded in paying his creditors, principal and interest. He continued his voyages at sea hoping to secure the means to retire, and release his wife from the labors of the school, but success no longer followed him. One disaster came after another. He was shipwrecked several times, and returned at last broken down in health and unfit for business. His wife had commenced teaching as a temporary effort to relieve her husband's pecuniary distress, but owing to his later misfortune she continued it forty-two tears, till she was seventy years old. She spent the last 22 years of her life in the quiet of her family, and died at the age of 92.
Transcribed from

"A Genealogy of the Philbrick and Philbrook Families, descended from the emigrant, Thomas Philbrick, 1583-1667" by Rev. Jacob Chapman of Exeter, N.H. 1886

CLICK HERE FOR A TRANSCRIPTION OF CAPT. THOMAS' ACCOUNT OF
THE PENOBSCOT EXPEDITION.

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