The raid and capture of Turtle Bay Depot, New York City, on July 20, 1775, a British military storehouse and magazine, was another cog in the wheel that churned towards a war upon which there was no going back. It was a bold and decisive move by leaders of the militant branch of the New York City’s Sons of Liberty. No lives would be lost in this brief action that supplied the patriot activists in both New York and Boston with supplies and weaponry, allowing the Whig’s to back up their rhetoric for action with military muscle.
War Erupts
By July, 1775, New England was ablaze. After years of brewing hostilities, war erupted on April 19th resulting in the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The main British army in North America was soon after hemmed in on Boston’s Peninsula in a siege by thousands of passionate colonists. June 17th , and the Battle of Bunker Hill proved a vicious struggle in which the British suffered what would be among their one-day highest number of casualties in the entire war.
Following on the heels of that, the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia elected General George Washington as commander-in-chief of the makeshift army assembled outside Boston. Washington arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and assumed command on July 3, 1775. Before arriving in Cambridge, he had traveled through New York City to great hurrahs from the patriot faction of the city; a city deeply divided between patriotic ‘rebels’ and crown ‘loyalists.’ This greatly increased the rebellious fervor of those in the city who believed the time had come for stronger action.
New York City’s and Boston’s Sons of Liberty
New England, like New York City, had its fair share of rebellious Sons-of-Liberty rabble-rousers. They occupied seats in provincial legislatures and in the form of strongarmed, rank and file ruffians. Both cities had early violent encounters with the British military. Boston had its famous Boston Massacre, and New York’s was the lesser-known Battle of Golden Hill. The pair dumped tea into their respective harbors; Boston’s again becoming the more famous when treated to a higher level of propaganda. And both had their passionate, single-minded ‘do or die’ leaders. Boston’s was Samuel Adams; an unsuccessful, unemployed businessman and tax collector, until he found his true niche in life – organizing ‘dockworker thugs’ and stirring up a revolution. And New York City had Isaac ‘King’ Sears; a merchant captain by trade, his fiery advocacy of violence mobilized street fighting ‘billy boys’ to rough up the British authorities to achieve his rebellious ends, including anyone who disagreed with him.
Earlier that year, on May 27th, the HMS Asia had arrived at New York City harbor. The 64-gun, third rate warship had an additional contingency of 500 marines on board to help quell any outbursts among the rebellious townspeople. Rather than restore order, the Asia’s presence only incised the ‘rebels’ to stage more protests.
Raid Planned
Perhaps buoyed by Washington’s reception and even a desire to get in on the action taking place outside Boston, New York City’s Sons-of-Liberty upped their resistance. The raid on the Turtle Bay Storehouse was planned for the early morning hours of July 20, 1775. Turtle Bay was a small, rock-bound cove in the East River at the foot of present day’s 47th Street in Manhattan. A forty-one acre Turtle Bay farm encompassed the area. While no doubt the cove at one time was a habitat for turtles, its name is a corruption of the early Dutch’s name, Deutal Bay (or Knife Bay) because the cove was shaped like a knife-blade.
Before or on the 19th, Sears gathered some of his more active lieutenants. Along with trusted ‘regulars,’ they traveled to Greenwich, Connecticut, on the Long Island Sound, about thirty-five miles northeast of New York City. While there, they took it upon themselves to embellish the plan by taking possession of provisions and clothing deposited at the town of Greenwich by the Loyalist government. Among the leaders were: Alexander McDougall – merchant, privateer, and passionate patriot, later a general stationed mainly in the Northern Highlands. John Lamb – wine Merchant turned activist, he was an early active leader of NYC Sons of Liberty, later commander of 2nd Continental Artillery. Marinus Willett – cabinetmaker turned street fighter, later he commanded the 5th NY regiment and after the war, elected the 48th mayor of NYC.
The Raid
On the 19th, the raiders boarded a sloop and sailed from Greenwich, Connecticut. It was twilight when they passed through Hell Gate, a narrow tidal straight in the East River about seven miles north of downtown New York. Just after midnight, they anchored in the cove and quietly rowed to shore, clambering out of their boats and up to the storehouse. The single guard must have been shocked to be confronted by several men, whose stern faces only accentuated the knives and bludgeons held in tight fists. The guard was easily overpowered and the patriots set to pilfering the depot, carrying supplies out to long boats to be rowed out to the sloop.
Some accounts of the raid state that the sloop then captured the HMS Asia. The thought of a sloop manned by perhaps forty or so men in a 50 ton sloop could capture a 64-gun, third rate battle ship with approximately 1,200 British sailors and marines on board is beyond far-fetched. Other accounts state they commandeered a tender of the Asia. This could have happened, but there are no primary sources available to confirm this. It could be that the sloop encountered one of the Asia’s tenders after the raid.
Afterward
To avoid confrontation with the powerful HMS Asia, the sloop most likely sailed back to Greenwich, Connecticut where the British supplies were offloaded. They were reportedly shared by the Committees of Correspondence and Committee of Safety (the legislative and military arm of the Sons of Liberty) in both Boston and New York City.
In an ongoing plan to force the British to give up New York City, a month later, the Sons of Liberty staged another bold raid this time on Fort George, formerly Fort Amsterdam, at the tip of Manhattan Island. On the night of August 23, 1775, John Lamb and his artillery company, along with several ‘liberty boys’, raided the fort and stole a dozen cannon, many still in their mounting trucks. The cannon were hauled up Broadway to the Commons where most were spiked. The HMS Asia lowered a boat to investigate. The launch was fired upon, striking one British sailor. The Asia responded with a broadside into the city. The short bombardment shattered nerves as shells crashed into several buildings, miraculously with no injuries.
On October 19, 1775, the Sons of Liberty claimed a victory. British Governor William Tryon decided to leave his New York City mansion for refuge on the HMS Halifax, anchored in the harbor. Later, he would relocate to a merchantman, the Dutchess of Gordon, so too anchored in the harbor. From there he attempted to continue governing the colony; similar to Royal Governor Lord Dunmore’s departure from Norfolk, Virginia to a British ship anchored in the bay.
After the British abandoned New York City in April of 1776, local patriots and Continental troops dug the Turtle Bay Redoubt at the cove. The earthwork was located between present day 44th and 46th Streets. It was one of dozens of such earthworks and batteries initially recommended by General Charles Lee to ring lower Manhattan Island as a defensive measure against an attack by sea.
The old stone storehouse building was reported by Lossing to be still standing circa 1858, some seventy-three years after the raid. It is the subject of a sketch by Benson J. Lossing in his historical text on the American Revolution.
There are no remains of the depot or redoubt or the entire Turtle Bay Cove for that matter. The bay had been reclaimed through land-fill and is now the present location of the Turtle Bay residential area and the United Nations Park, just north of the UN building.
