Pitchforks Against a Navy

The men who captured HMS Margaretta were not soldiers. They were fishermen, lumber workers, and small farmers from one of the remotest corners of the colonies. Their weapons included pitchforks. The British officer they killed was a professional naval captain commanding a vessel of the Royal Navy. The disparity was absurd. What the Machias men had was the tidal geography of the bay, boats they knew how to handle, and the conviction — sharpened by the news from Lexington that had arrived just weeks before — that the time for compliance was over. They called it the Lexington of the Sea. The name stuck.