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This Day in Boston History
May 19th, 1775
Battle of Shirley Gut

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On
this day, Captain James Mugford of the privateer Franklin
found himself grounded on Shirley Gut off Deer Island near Boston. Just
two days earlier he had commandeered a huge British gunpowder ship stranded
in the same location, gaining desperately needed gunpowder for the revolution.
This time the English navy was ready, and sent soldiers rowing whaling
boats to board the Franklin and arrest Mugford. The Franklin opened
fire on the approaching boarding parties. Her sailors had soaped the
sides of the ship to make boarding difficult and easily repelled the
English soldiers with sharpened pikes, while capsizing the smaller English
row boats.
The only American casualty was Captain Mugford, whose heroism is memorialized
near his Marblehead home.
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INTRODUCING |
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From the writers of iBoston.org |
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