ncible Americans. This attempt was in the end a miserable fiasco,
but it occasioned much alarm at the time and was the cause of some
distress to the loyal inhabitants of that region.

The leader of the expedition against Fort Cumberland was Jonathan
Eddy, who had lately been commissioned a lieutenant colonel by the
Massachusetts congress. He was a native of Norton (Mass.), and had
settled in Cumberland about 1763, but early in the Revolution returned
to Massachusetts. About the time of the Declaration of Independence,
in July, 1776, Eddy set out from Boston in company with Jonathan Rowe
(lately a resident at St. John) and proceeded to Machias. He left that
place about the middle of August in a schooner with only 28 men as a
nucleus of his proposed army. At Passamaquoddy a few people joined
him. The party did not meet with much encouragement on their arrival
at St. John, although Hazen, Simonds and White from motives of
prudence refrained from any hostile demonstration. Proceeding up the
river to Maugerville Eddy met with greater encouragement. "I found the
people," he writes, "to be almost universally hearty in our cause;
they joined us with one captain, one lieutenant and twenty-five men,
as also sixteen Indians." The captain of the St. John river contingent
was probably Hugh Quinton[101] who has as his lieutenant one Jewett
of Maugerville. Others of the party were Daniel Leavitt, William
McKeen, Elijah Estabrooks, Edward Burpee, Nathan Smith, John Pickard,
Edmund Price, Amasa Coy, John Mitchell, Richard Parsons, Benjamin
Booby and John Whitney. The rest of the party lived in Maugerville but
their names are not known.

[101] Hugh Quinton is called Captain Quinton by the rebel Col. John
Allan in his diary, printed in Kidder's "Military Operations
in Eastern Maine and Nova Scotia during the Revolution." The
report of Major Studholme's exploration party in 1783 states
that "Quinton was one of the Cumberland party, but since hath
taken the Oath of Allegiance to his Majesty and behaved in a
loyal manner; turned out sundry times and fought the rebel
parties."

On his arrival at Cumberland Jonathan Eddy was joined by many of the
settlers there who, like himself, were originally from New England.
His whole force probably did not exceed 200 men, badly equipped and
without artillery. The Indians of the St. John were under the
leadership of Ambroise St. Aubin, one of th