Example 1777 World Events

Crowell / Nickerson

TOC

Abner Crowell was born in 1726, the son of John Crowell and Experience Higgens. Abner married Sara O’Killey – and they had eight children. Sara died in 1775. On April 3 rd , 1777 Abner married Ruth Nickerson. Abner died on Feb 8 th 1778 while imprisoned on a British prison ship in Newport Harbor. British Prison Ships had bad provisions, bad water, and scant rations. No medical men attended the sick, disease reigned, and hundreds died from pestilence, or were starved. American Sea Captain Dring wrote: “At night silence was a stranger to our dark abode. There were continual noises. The groans of the sick and the dying; the curses poured out upon our inhuman keepers. The suffocating heat and the confined and poisonous air, mingled with the wild and incoherent ravings of delirium. These were the sounds, every night, that were around us in all directions. And, the suffering from the rage of thirst during the night, was very great.“ In mid October, 1777 , one of the prison ships was burnt. It was reported, at the time, that the prisoners had fired their prison, which, if true, proves that they preferred death, even by fire, to the lingering sufferings of pestilence and starvation.