Marblehead

Marblehead sent fishermen to war, and those fishermen saved the Revolution. Twice. John Glover's Marblehead Regiment — recruited from the town's fishing fleet — provided the seamanship that kept the Continental Army alive at two of the war's most desperate moments. Without Marblehead, there might not have been an American nation.

The first rescue came at Long Island in August 1776. After Washington's army was defeated in Brooklyn, Glover's men rowed 9,000 troops across the East River to Manhattan in a single night, through fog and current, saving the army from destruction. The second came at the Delaware crossing in December 1776. The famous painting shows Washington standing in a boat — but it was Marblehead fishermen pulling the oars, ferrying 2,400 soldiers, 18 cannon, and horses through ice-choked water in a winter storm. The Trenton attack that followed saved the Revolution from collapse.

Marblehead was a fishing town, not a political center. Its people were rough, practical, and accustomed to danger. The Grand Banks fishery produced men who could handle boats in conditions that would terrify soldiers raised on farms. When the army needed water transport, it turned to Marblehead because no one else could do it.

The town paid heavily. Marblehead lost more men per capita than almost any town in Massachusetts. Its fishing fleet was devastated by the war. The prosperity that fishing had built was destroyed, and the town never fully recovered its prewar standing. Marblehead gave the Revolution its most critical practical skills and received, in return, economic ruin.