User:RWIR/Thomas Westbrook

Thomas Westbrook was an innkeeper, councilor, government mast agent, a land speculator, a colonial New England militia colonel and, for a time, the senior New England militia officer in the conflict known as the French and Indian War or Lovewell's War or Dummer's War. The city of Westbrook, Maine was named after him.


 * One of the most energetic and useful men of New England during the first half of the [eighteenth]... century was Thomas Westbrook. Colonel Westbrook's services in the wars with the Indians, and as a leading inhabitant and business man of old Falmouth, render everything with which he was connected of interest to the present residents of the towns whose territory once formed a part of that ancient jurisdiction.  He was the foremost public man of the town.  His daring expedition to Norridgewock in winter, for the capture of Father Rasle and the private papers of the priest, which were brought off, has been the theme of all writers of the annals of his time. He was a native of New Hampshire and early came into public life as a councilor.  ...

Family
He was the son of John Westbrook and Martha Walford of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His siblings included Mary who married Nathan Knight, and whose family continues to own and operate the "Smiling Hill" farm.

Thomas married Mary Sherburne, daughter of the mariner John Sherburne and his wife Mary Cowell. The restored Sherburne house at Portsmouth, New Hampshire's Strawbery Banke has been identified as theirs. Their only child, Elizabeth, married Richard Waldron (Secretary) of a prominent colonial New Hampshire family.

Though he had no sons, several descendants, starting with a grandson, were named "Thomas Westbrook Waldron". One descendant of this name, a US Consul who died in 1844 at Macau, was commemorated in a Washington DC ceremony by Secretary of State Clinton. The name "Westbrook" was in use among descendants well into the twentieth century.

Early adulthood
A Portsmouth, New Hampshire native, in his youth (1704) he applied for a commission as scout and "Indian fighter" and had three men to accompany him while scouting during Queen Anne's War. . From 1720 he was the owner and proprietor of the Globe tavern on the Plains area of Portsmouth.

He moved to Falmouth (near modern Portland, Maine) "as early as 1719" to enter the lucrative business of providing masts to the British navy as a private contractor. He was one of only a few European-descended residents there at that time.

Captain and Colonel
During the years 1721-3 Westbrook became a captain in the militia and, after the fall of Colonel Shadrack Walton from favour with Massachusett's acting Governor William Dummer, became the colonel in charge of the militia in the "East" (Maine)

A focus of the conflict was the New England effort to apprehend Father Sebastien Rale, a Jesuit priest and French national who resided with and, the New Englanders thought, guided the natives to raid and kill or abduct New England colonists. The General Court of Massachusetts in December 1721 directed the militia to apprehend Rale and bring him to Boston to answer these charges.

In January 1722 Colonel Westbrook led a group of militia that, unable to find Rale, seized a strongbox containing his correspondence with Marquis de Vaudreuel, the French leadership in Quebec, and a hand written dictionary of the native Abenaki language. The letters, which proved French complicity in urging native American tribes to attack New England settlements, were conveyed to authorities in Boston. The dictionary is now in Harvard University's Houghton library The strongbox itself was retained by Westbrook and descended through his family and through the Massachusetts Historical Society until his descendant the Catholic Reverend E.Q.S. Waldron lodged it with the Maine Historical Society. An expandable colour image is on the Mainememory.com website. . The key to the strongbox is kept at a museum in Maine after it was found substantially later at the site of the former Norridgewock.

Westbrook was not present during an August 1724 raid which culminated in the death of Rasle and the slaughter of fleeing native villagers. He was present at the December 15th, 1725 Falmouth peace treaty with the Indians, "Dummer's Treaty", which ended the hostilities, apparently his last act as a militia officer.

King's Mast Agent
He was appointed as King's Mast Agent in 1727 and moved the "King's mast business" from Portsmouth to Falmouth. The mast agent was charged with marking, protecting and providing to the Crown any trees which were suitable for ship's masts in the Royal Navy.

Harrow House
Westbrook built his "splendid seat" of "Harrow House" with garrisons on the south side of Stroudwater River on a 69 acre property.

Mills
He built two mills, a gristmill whose stones still survive as markers of other historical sites, and a papermill. Native chief Polin travelled to the governor to protest Col. Westbrook's failure to provide a way for spawning fish to get past his mill.

Councilor
As early as 1710 he was part of the King's Council appointed by the governor, and held his post (though often absent) until 1730 when he resigned voluntarily. . In 1733 he was briefly in Boston as a representative to the council from Falmouth and courted by Governor Jeremy Belcher to be a supporter of the Massachusetts government. He showed little interest in these duties and was fined for being absent.

Prosperity and Bankruptcy, Death
With Brigadier General Samuel Waldo he became a land speculator of as much as 15,000 acres in the Falmouth area (near present-day Portland, Maine). The two partners prospered until, for reasons that are not entirely clear, Waldo "[who had] led him into large land speculations ... then struck upon him in an unfortunate time." "Waldo by unscrupulous or ruthless means divested Westbrook of his lands and much of his wealth by 1743..." A copy of one of his letters, desperately seeking a loan from a prominent figure, survived and was transcribed into an appendix to Trask's Letters of Colonel Thomas Westbrook.

He died heavily in debt on 11 Feb 1743/1744 "of a broken heart caused by Waldo's Acts ...." in a smaller building adjacent to his beloved Harrow House, which had been lost to his creditors. Despite his bankruptcy his estate was valued at seven thousand, three hundred and two pounds. In contrast, his probate inventory totalled £1052/14/5 and included a house, a pew in Rev Smith's meetinghouse, and books.

Secret Burial
Fearing that his creditors might apprehend his body and hold it until payment of his debts had been made, his family secretly buried his body at night. The burial location was unknown until the 1976 bicentennial celebrations except to descendants of his sister Mary (Westbrook) Knight. The gravesite has been marked by the Daughters of Colonial Wars in Maine and is pictured on the Knight family farm's website.

City named for him
thumb|left|Seal of City of Westbrook

In 1814 the town of Stroudwater was created from Falmouth. Within a couple of months, the town was renamed Westbrook in honour of the Colonel. It became a city in 1891.

Letters of Colonel Thomas Westbrook
His reports of activities as a militia captain and colonel to Governor Dummer were a series in the New England Historic & Genealogical Register (including vol 44, 1890 to vol 45, 1895) and then published in a book: Letters of Colonel Thomas Westbrook and others relative to Indian affairs in Maine, 1722-1726, William Blake Trask, A.M. editor. (1901). This work is often cited as a primary source in other histories.