By Colin Kelley
Introduction: As part of the East Hampton Historical Society’s celebration of our nation’s semiquincentennial, a podcast, written and recorded by East Hampton High School Senior, Colin Kelley, has been created as a monthly timeline of events in East Hampton during 1776. The podcast began in January of this year, and plots the course of East Hampton’s early involvement in the movement to break from English rule, with details about events and activities of local residents, many whose ancestors still reside here. It’s a fascinating study, a great podcast and we thank Mr. Kelley and the EHHS for allowing this reprint. We urge you to listen from the beginning. This article reports the month of April 1776 in East Hampton. Each installment is about 3 minutes long and can be found at this link.
By April 1776, East Hampton found itself caught between two pressures of war – supporting fighting far from home while facing danger close to its own shores. The town was asked to provide men for the broader Revolutionary effort, even as British ships appeared just offshore. April became a month where distant battles and local fears collided.
One connection to the wider war was the Canadian Campaign. In late 1775, American forces had marched into Canada attempting to remove British control and possibly bring Canada into the Revolution. The campaign was difficult and marked by long marches, disease, and harsh winter conditions. By April of 1776, American forces were retreating, and colonies like New York were being pressed to supply more men to replace losses.
Captain John Davis of East Hampton had been among the soldiers fighting in Canada. By April 1776, he had returned home and wrote a letter to the New York Provincial Congress acknowledging his responsibility to recruit more soldiers. His role highlights how East Hampton was drawn into the war beyond its borders, supplying men for a campaign hundreds of miles away, even as the town itself remained vulnerable.
That vulnerability became alarmingly clear on April 9, when Reverend Samuel Buell reported seeing a British fleet off Fisher’s Island, just across the water from East Hampton. Buell urgently wrote to the Provincial Congress asking for one or two regiments to protect the area. His pleas suggests that town leaders understood how exposed East Hampton was and feared that an attack from the sea could come at any time.
The danger did not fade. On April 17, Burnet Miller also wrote to Congress reporting the same fleet. Multiple sightings confirmed that this was not a false alarm. British ships were present, visible and close. Unfortunately, these appeals for protection went unanswered, increasing frustration and anxiety. For East Hampton, war was no longer something that was happening elsewhere. By April 1776, it was quite literally on the horizon.