Thomas Penniston

Thomas Penniston[1] (fl. 1704-1706) was a privateer who operated out of New England. He was known for sailing alongside Adrian Claver and Regnier Tongrelow.

For the British baronet, see Sir Thomas Penyston, 1st Baronet.

History

The first records of Penniston’s privateering are from July 1704 when French privateer Captain Davy captured ships off the Capes of Delaware. Adrian Claver in his ship Castel del Rey was sent to catch Davy but failed; upon his return, Claver set out again after Davy, this time with Penniston alongside in the sloop Setty.[2] They returned in August, still unsuccessful, and Davy moved on to menace ships off Tarpaulin Cove.[3] Claver and Penniston sailed together again in early 1705, this time against the Spanish, cruising off Venezuela before returning in August with a Spanish prize ship taken near Havana.[4]

Penniston was in port the following month to sell off a captured prize ship of his own full of wine and brandy. While ashore, his sailors met up with the crew of fellow privateer Captain Gincks’ ship Dragon and began a drunken riot. They beat several men, harassed the local sheriff, and killed a Lieutenant who happened into the fracas.[5] Soldiers from the local Royal Navy ship arrived to quell the riot and arrest the perpetrators; the Lieutenant’s killer was tried and hung.[6]

Claver’s Castel del Rey was now under the command of Otto Van Tuyl. Penniston’s Setty and Regnier Tongrelow’s New York Galley along with Van Tuyl and their tender (captained by Nat Burches) left for the West Indies in December 1705, though Van Tuyl was killed when his ship was wrecked leaving New York harbor.[4] The others used Barbados and Bermuda as bases to raid the Caribbean. Penniston sent back a series of captured prize ships before he and Tongrelow combined to take several vessels from a French convoy near Petit-Goave.[6]

Tongrelow searched for a large Spanish vessel which Burches had forced ashore, and shortly afterward Penniston engaged a group of French vessels. He was known for fearlessly attacking groups of targets,[7] and engaged an 18-gun vessel and a 24-gun vessel simultaneously.[6] After the Setty was badly mauled, with several sailors killed and Penniston having lost an arm, they were forced to retreat.[8] Penniston tried to make it to port in Jamaica but the heavily damaged Setty sank en route and was lost with all hands.[4]

It was over 10 years later in 1717 that his heirs were finally granted “the quantity of fifty ounces of Plate aforesaid, for Sloop hire and Service done by Capt. Penniston in an Expedition against some ffrench Privateers.”[9]

See also
  • War of Spanish Succession – the European conflict which spilled into the Americas as “Queen Anne’s War,” occasioning a rise in privateering commissions.

References
  1. First name also Tom, last name occasionally Pennistone or Peniston.
  2. Marley, David (2010). Pirates of the Americas. Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO. p. 562. ISBN 9781598842012. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  3. "The History Box |Newspaper Correspondence 1704-1708 Part I". thehistorybox.com. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  4. Groenendijk, R. L. Van Tuyl and J. N. A. (1996). A Van Tuyl Chronicle: 650 Years in the History of a Dutch-American Family. Decorah IA: Rory Van Tuyl. pp. 128–129. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  5. Wilson, Rufus Rockwell (1902). New York: Old & New. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. p. 132. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  6. Alden, Henry Mills; Allen, Frederick Lewis; Hartman, Lee Foster; Wells, Thomas Bucklin (1895). Harper's (Volume 90 ed.). New York: Harper's Magazine Foundation. pp. 335–339. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  7. Manhattan Company, Bank of the (1915). SHIPS AND SHIPPING OF OLD NEW YORK. New York: Walton Advertising and Printing Company. p. 27. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  8. Fletcher, R. A. (2013). In The Days Of The Tall Ships. Worcestershire UK: Read Books Ltd. ISBN 9781473383456. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  9. Lincoln, Charles Zebina (1894). The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution, Including the Charters to the Duke of York, the Commissions and Instructions to Colonial Governors, the Duke's Laws, the Laws of the Dongan and Leisler Assemblies, the Charters of Albany and New York and the Acts of the Colonial Legislatures from 1691 to 1775 Inclusive. Clark NJ: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. p. 958. ISBN 9781584775966. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
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