Bucklin at attack on HMS Gaspee pre Revolutionary War Rhode Island

Joseph Bucklin fired a musket and hit a British Navy captain, in the first American intentional and planned attack on English military forces. The captain thought he was going to die, and surrendered his ship and crew. In short: Joseph fired the most important shot in the capture and burning of the boat "Gaspee". Not only was Joseph's shot the most important part of the capture events, Rhode Island celebrates it as the first shot in the American Revolution, claiming the shots in Lexington and Concord may have produced more carnage, but were not the first shots of the revolt by the Americans.

[From the account written by Epraim Bowen.] In about a minute Dudingston mounted the starboard gunwale in his shirt and hailed, "Who comes there?" No answer. He hailed again, when Capt. Whipple answered as follows: "I am the sheriff of the county of Kent, G... d ..n you. I have got a warrant to apprehend you, G.. d..n you; so surrender, G.. d..n you."

I took my seat on the main thwart, near the larboard row-lock, with my gun by my right side, facing forwards. As soon as Dudingston began to hail, Joseph Bucklin, who was standing on the main thwart by my right side, said to me, "Ephe, reach me your gun and I can kill that fellow."

I reached it to him accordingly, when, during Capt. Whipple’s replying, Bucklin fired and Dudingston fell, and Bucklin exclaimed, "I have killed the rascal."

[From the account written by Dr. John Mawney.] I then directed [Joseph Bucklin] him to place his hands as I had mine, which was, the ball of my left hand on the orifice of the wound, and giving him the word to slip his hand under mine and to press hard to prevent the effusion of blood; which being done, I ....[prepared a bandage compress].... All being prepared, I told Bucklin to raise his hands, when I instantly placed the compresses on the orifice, and placing the bandage round the thigh over the wound and crossing it above, drew tight, so that the effusion of blood was stopped.

Go to Joseph Bucklin 5th Biography for biography of the other of the two candidates for being the celebrated Joseph.

The Gaspee was an English revenue cutter, preventing smuggling and collecting taxes. When the "Gaspee" went aground, a number of men of the Providence area rowed out, wounded the captain, took the rest of the crew off the ship, and burned the ship.

When the news reached London, the English Attorney General called the Gaspee capture five times as serious as the Stamp Act protests. Lord Hillsborough ordered Admiral Montague to go to Rhode Island and arrest the persons involved. Parliament quickly passed an act specifically providing that the burning of the Gaspee was treason, and the men involved were to be brought back and tried in England. A reward of 1000 pounds - plus full pardon - was provided for anyone giving information leading to the arrest of the person who shot the English ship captain.

The Bucklins obviously had reasons for hoping that the American Revolution did not end in failure with the instigators of the Revolution being hanged as traitors.

The Rhode Island patriots sought the expert counsel of Samuel Adams. A group of men, including the deputy governor, wrote to ask him what to do next. Adams agreed with Thomas Hutchinson that the Gaspee's burning should open eyes to the seriousness of the growing rebellion. But Adams wrote that it was the American colonists, not the British, who had been "too long dozing upon the brink of ruin." Adams took the position that the Gaspee affair should unite the colonists against the English government. In a second letter, Adams wrote to Darius Sessions : "I have long feared this unhappy contest between Great Britain and America would end in rivers of blood. Should that be the case, America, I think, may wash her hands in innocence."

The First Shot of the American Revolution!