Richard Besswick
MSA SC 3520-18137
Biography:
Richard Besswick was the son of Nathan and Sarah Besswick.[1] Nathan Besswick was a rather successful planter who grew mostly tobacco in Kent and Talbot County with the help of at least five slaves.[2] The Besswick family as a whole also owned about 200 total acres of land in tracts known as Christophers Lott, Stephen’s Plains, and Sarah’s Addition.[3] Nathan Besswick was a Quaker and raised Richard and his siblings, Rebecca, Susannah, Nathan Jr., Robert, and Mary in the Quaker faith as well.[4]
Richard Besswick, however, deviated from his pacifist Quaker principles on January 25, 1776, when he enlisted in the Fourth Independent Company of Maryland troops.[5] This was a huge risk for Besswick. Quakers vehemently opposed the Revolutionary War on moral grounds and forbade any of their members from participating in or supporting the conflict. Many young Quakers were disowned by their meetings for joining the fight against the British. Like them, Besswick was unable to resist his desire for liberty and consequently took up arms to defend his homeland. Luckily for him, however, Besswick had no such action taken against him by his meeting.
In the summer of 1776, the Fourth Independent Company became one of many Maryland companies sent to New York to reinforce the Continental Army against an imminent British attack. Besswick and his fellow soldiers arrived in New York at the end of July.[6] Just a few weeks later, on August 27, 1776, the Americans and British clashed in the first major engagement of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Brooklyn.
The battle was a disaster for the Continental Army. It was quickly outflanked in the course of the battle and soldiers were forced to retreat by swimming through Gowanus Creek under heavy fire. The Continental Army and George Washington himself faced total elimination as a result. They were saved, however, by the courage of a group of soldiers who came to be known as the Maryland 400. In the midst of the frenzied retreat, the Maryland 400 launched a daring counterattack and held off the British long enough for Washington and his army to escape. Two hundred and fifty-six Maryland soldiers were either killed or captured as a result of their bravery.
Besswick survived the horrors of Brooklyn and continued to fight alongside his fellow Marylanders. The Fourth Independent saw action at the battles of White Plains, Trenton, and Princeton in the subsequent months. After witnessing four major battles and suffering the consequences of an ill-supplied army, Besswick chose to reenlist on March 4, 1777.[7] At this time, the independent companies were being combined to form the Second Maryland Regiment. Although this was a new title, Besswick would be fighting alongside many of the same men he had first seen combat with at Brooklyn.
In 1777, Besswick fought at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, which were both crushing American defeats. He must have fought well, though, for near the end of 1777, Besswick was promoted to corporal.[8] As a corporal, Besswick served until 1780.
While Besswick was off fighting the British in the summer of 1778, his father, Nathan Besswick, passed away in Kent County, Maryland.[9] Nathan Besswick divided his estate amongst his six children. He also gave each of them a specific slave. Richard Besswick received a twenty-two year old slave named Peter.[10]
Besswick returned home after his term of enlistment was up, but it was not long before his country required his service once again. On August 30, 1781, Besswick was drafted into the Talbot County militia to reinforce the Continental Army. Besswick served in this unit until December 10, 1781, most likely aiding the Continentals at some skirmishes in the Southern Campaign.[11]
Once Besswick was done with battles and the colonies had won their independence, he presumably followed in his father’s footsteps and became a planter. He owned multiple slaves and was active in the domestic slave trade. In 1801, he sold a woman, Easter, and her 9 month-old daughter, Mary, to Robert Elliott.[12] That same year, he sold a woman named Lid to his relative, George Besswick and Richard Bewley.[13]
On April 8, 1800, Besswick was made a tobacco inspector.[14] As a tobacco inspector, Besswick’s job was to oversee the inspection process for all tobacco that was being exported from his county. Quality control had become an issue in the colonies, as planters sometimes stuffed heads of tobacco with trash in order to make more profit for less crop. Prior to the inspection system, this ruse would not be discovered until the shipment had made it across the ocean.
The latter part of Besswick’s life is a mystery. No record of him can be found after his appointment as tobacco inspector in 1801.
Jillian Curran, Explore America Research Intern, 2019
Notes:
[2] Inventory of Nathan Beswick, 1778, Kent County Register of Wills, Inventories, Box 33 Folder 44, p. 58 [C1059-14, 1/15/1/44].
[3] Debt Book, 1733-1775, Land Office, Talbot County, Liber 49, p. 220 [S12-216, 1/24/3/9].
[4] Will of Nathan Beswick, 1778, Kent County Register of Wills, Wills, No. 6, p. 65 [C1107-8, 1/15/1/26].
[5]
Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 24.; Besswick is also recorded as enlisting in the Fifth Maryland Regiment on December 10, 1776. This enlistment, however, is most likely the result of a double enlistment, which were common. Besswick never actually served in the Fifth Maryland Regiment.
[6] Mark Andrew Tacyn, “‘To the End:’ The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 44.
[7] Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, p. 1-9, from Fold3.com.
[8] Compiled Service Records..[10] Beswick Will.
[11] Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 387. The Richard Besswick listed as serving in the Talbot county militia could be either the same Richard Besswick of the Maryland 400 or his uncle, who was also named Richard Besswick. No distinction can be made between the two.
[12] Talbot County Court, Land Records, Deed, Richard Besswicks to Robert Elliott, 1801, Liber JL no. 29, p. 180 [MSA CE 90-32].
[13] Talbot County Court, Land Records, Deed, Richard Besswicks to Richard Bewlyey and George Beswicks, 1801, Liber JL no. 29, p. 197 [MSA CE 90-32].
[14] Talbot County Court, Land Records, Bond, State of Maryland from Richard Beswicks, James Jones, and John Palmer, 1800, Liber WSB no. 28, p. 524 [MSA CE 90-30].
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