The Forgotten Chapters: My Journey into the Past by Dimancescu Katherine

Author:Dimancescu, Katherine [Dimancescu, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Colonial New England, The Forgotten Chapters, Colonial Connecticut, Colonial America, Katherine Dimancescu, Colonial New England Genealogy, The Forgotten Chapters: My Journey into the Past, Dimancescu, Colonial American roots
ISBN: 9780989616997
Published: 2014-01-26T22:00:00+00:00

Unlike Erastus Williams, Captain John Appelman was not born and raised in Connecticut. On March 14, 1784, he was born far away in Wolgast, a part of Swedish Pomerania. He was the fourth child of John Jacob Appelman and his first wife. John later recalled his father: “of his profession I have no definite knowledge farther than he spent his time in attending to offices of the Presbyterian Church of which he was a Member as well as all of our family.”4 John’s career at sea, which he referred to as “a Mariners life,”5 commenced when he was sixteen years old.

John’s emigration from his homeland occurred after meeting Paul Burrows, a man from Mystic, Connecticut, while in Liverpool, England. The men formed a strong friendship, and Paul “became a successful shipmaster, but was lost with his brother George in the ill-fated brig Jane Coates, which he commanded.”6 Paul directly influenced John’s choice to settle in Mystic. Paul’s father, Captain Paul Burrows Senior, let John live in his Mystic home until he established a home of his own. When John arrived in New England between 1805 and 1806, he was a Swedish citizen. In 1815, his home city of Wolgast became part of the Prussian-ruled Province of Pomerania.

By the summer of 1812, John was settled in Mystic with his wife, Matilda (Noyes) Appelman, and their first child, John, who was born on March 26, 1812, a few months before the war started. John’s participation in the War of 1812 was recounted in his obituary.

And here in conclusion we may mention an episode in Capt. Appelman’s career which was familiar to all of his early friends. We refer to the part he took in the re-capture of the prize sloop Fox, a Mystic vessel which was returning, in command of Capt. Jesse Crary, in the spring of 1813, home from some southern port laden with a cargo of corn. She was a fast sailer, and the British knew it. The enemy therefore planned a successful surprise, capturing the Fox and cargo but releasing her crew. With this fast-sailing prize well manned, the British managed to capture twenty-seven sail of vessels, in the short space of two weeks. Meantime Crary was concocting a scheme to retake his vessel. With a picked crew of about thirty men, and provided with a privateer’s commission, the sloop Hero set sail under Capt. Ambrose H. Burrows, with his brother, Paul, the friend and shipmate of Appelman, as sailing master, and with the latter acting as gunner’s mate. Provided with a four-pounder, small arms and ammunition, she first convoyed several trading vessels into Newport, and then run off South of Block Island to find the object of the expedition. The Fox was then in command of Lieutenant Claxton of the Ramlies, and soon descried the Hero, unarmed as he supposed, and trying to escape. Claxton bore down upon him, but upon a near approach declined to overhaul the Hero whose true character he suppected [my guess is that this word was meant to be suspected].

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