Over the next five years, she rarely saw her husband, once journeying to Boston to care for him after a serious wound. There's some conjecture that she suffered a miscarriage, which prompted a solicitous, loving letter from her husband. The couple never had children. After the war, Sarah accompanied her husband on a "peaceful" cruise from Newport to Williamsburg to pick up tobacco to carry to Holland. Sarah became so wretchedly seasick that Barry was forced to put her ashore in Virginia. 23 After a successful voyage to China, John Barry "swallowed the anchor" and he and Sarah began enjoying the life of a retired captain, buying an estate above Philadelphia they called Strawberry Hill. His retirement from sea wo uld be short-lived. In 1794, President George Washington made Barry first among captains in the new United States Navy, and he served during the QuasiWar with France. Sarah had bouts with timidity over horses and traveling, but while her husband was away she grew into a savvy head of the house, once squaring off with a shady manure salesman who had promised three wagon loads of manure for three wagon loads of hay. He got the hay-and a coolly worded letter from Sarah, assuring him that if the manure didn't arrive soon that he would Commodore john Barry
find his reputation stained with it. The wagons were at Strawberry Hill the next day. Few letters between John and Sarah survive. His are mixed with dry accounts of battles, policies, and his patience tried by the whims of bureaucrats and Mother Nature, typically concluding with his inquiring as to her health and that he missed her. Sarah's salutations to John are always "My Dear Life" and, while some of her letters are eighteenth-century versions of "you never write, you never call," they are more often loving accounts of what has been going on at home, solicitous of his travails, and imparting wisdom or encouragement when needed. One letter closes with the charming phrase that it was composed "by candlelight and With Out Spectacles." 24 May all romances, on land and sea, be so blessed. J,
Tim McGrath, a business executive, has written articles on management, US history, and healthcare issues for various newspapers and magazines. His first book, John Barry: an American Hero in the Age of Sail (Westholme Publishing), won the first Commodore John Barry Book Award established by the Navy League ofthe US-NY Council, the American Revolutionary Roundtable Book ofthe Year Award, and was a finalist for the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature. His latest book, Give Me a Fast Ship (HAL/Penguin) was awarded the New York Revolutionary Round Table Book of the Year for 2014, and won the Marion Brewington Award for Naval Literature, given by the Maryland Historical Society. Tim is currently working on a biography ofPresident James Monroe.
NOTES 1
Watson's Annals, Vol. 2, "Occurrences of the War oflndependence," 295. Gregory Keen, "The Descendants of Joran Kyn," PMHB 4:486; HSP, Christ Church Marriage Records, 717177; with thanks to Dr. Susan Klepp regarding Sarah's wedding dress! 3 Historical Society of Pennsylvania ("HSP"), Biddle Family Papers, Nicholas Biddle to Lydia McFunn, 4/26/76. 4 Naval Documents of the American Revolution ("NDAR"), 8: 439-442, Marine Committee to Biddle, 4/26/77; HSP, Biddle Papers, Nicholas Biddle to James Biddle, 3/10/77. 5 Ibid., 9:821-822, John Dorsius to Continental Marine Commirree, 8/26/77; 9:919-920, Biddle to Robert Morris; 9112177; W illiam Bell Clark, Captain Dauntless, 187-191, 207. 6 Will of Nicholas Biddle, quoted in Clark, 224-225. 7 NDAR, 11 :543-544, Journal of the H.M. S. Yarmouth, Captain Nicholas Vincent, 3/7/78; Joseph LaRoche Rivers: Some South Carolina Families (Charleston, published by the author, 2005-2006), 3. 77. 8 Library of Co ngress, John Paul Jones Papers (JPJP), Lr. William Grinnell to Jones, 1117177; Jones to Captain Hector McNeill, est. Summer '77. 9 Ibid., Captain Thomas Thompson to Jones, 12/26/77. 10 Ibid., American Commissioners to Jones, l/15/78; Jones to de Chaumont, 12/11/78 . Historians differ on whether Jones's involvement with Mme. De Chaumont was platonic or sexual. Jones was forever att racted to younger women, and Madame was older, and her days as a young beauty were a bit. .. behind her. 11 Ibid., Countess de Lowendahl to Jones, 617180; Jones to Countess de Lowendahl, 717180. 12 Ibid., Franklin to Jones, 3/14/79. 13 American Philosophical Society (APS), Benjamin Franklin Papers, Wickes to Franklin, 1/14/77; NDAR Vol. 8, American Commissioners in France 2
SEA HISTORY 152,AUTUMN 20 15
to Samuel Nicholson, 1126/77; 14 Auckland Manuscripts, King's College, Cambridge, England, Samuel Nicho lson to Joseph Hynson, 2/2/77; NDAR, Vol. 8, 631, Plan to Capture Jose ph Hynson's Sloop, 313177. 15 NDAR, Vol. 8, 728-30, "Statement Co ncern ing the Employment of Lieut. Col. Edward Sm ith with Regard to Captain Hynson and a Sketch of the Information Obtained, 3/31177"; Vol. 10, 981, Silas Deane to Jonathan W illiams, 1118/77; Memorandum by King George III, 4/6/77, from William Bell Clark, Lambert Wickes, Sea Raider and Diplomat (New Haven, CT: MacMillan, 1932), 175. 16 Pennsylvania Magazine ofHistory and Biography (PM HB), "Narrative of Gustavus Conyngham," 486-87. James L. Neeser, Letters and Papers Related to the Cruises ofGustavus Conyngham: a Captain ofthe Continental Navy (New York: printed for the Naval Historical Society by the DeVinne Press, 1915), 162. 17 Pennsylvania Gazette, 814179; Neeser, 182-83; Letters of Delegates of Congress, John Jay to Christopher Hele, 2/16/79; Marine Committee to John Beatty, 8/27/79; APS, BFP, Franklin to David Hardey, 8/20/79; PA Archives, 5:401, Washington to Collier. 18 Neeser, 183-194. 19 Ibid ., 198-203. 20 Ibid., 41; APS, BFP, Thomas Digges to Frankli n, 4/14/and 8/18/80; Franklin to Conyngham, 6/20/81; Conyngham to Franklin, 6/2l/and 7/4/81. 21 PA Archives: Series II, 154. 22 Ibid, 154-55. 23 Ibid., John Brown to Barry, 6/26/81; Barry to Brown, 7/8/83; ] CC, 1129178; Pennsylvan ia Gazette, 6/27/81; 24 Haverford College, Charles Roberts Autograph Collection, Correspondence between John and Sarah Barry, 1794-1801.
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