Whatmore Family History

I was surfing the net a few days ago when I came across a pamphlet about a member of the Watmough family. The title of the pamphlet was ‘A Brief Sketch of the Services of John G Watmough During and Subsequent to the Campaign of 1814 and 1815 when an Officer in the United States’. The pamphlet was published by and printed for a Committee of his friends, at Philadelphia in 1835.

Having never heard of John G Watmough and being woefully ignorant about American history, I decided to read the pamphlet and find out more. This post is the result.

The pamphlet can be downloaded at this link: http://www.archive.org/details/briefsketchofser00phil

 John Watmough’s line can be traced back to a Captain Edward Watmough was born about 1729 in Nova Scotia in what is now Canada. He married Maria Ellis on 30 January  1749 at Boston, Massachusetts. He died  at Halifax, Nova Scotia.

A colony was established in what was later called Nova Scotia as early as 1604 but was abandoned in 1607. In 1621, James I of England changed the area’s name from Acadia to Nova Scotia and in 1629 large groups of Scots settled at Charlesfort near Port Royal and at Rosemar on Cape Breton Island. The British and the French battled for control over the area during the remainder of the century but the British encouraged  further settlement and gradually established complete control over the area. The date of the Watmough family’s arrival in the area is unknown.

 Click to enlarge

Map reproduced from ‘ Pictorial Fieldbook of the War of 1812′ by Benson J Lossing  published 1869

One of the children of Captain Edward Watmough and Maria was James Horatio Watmough born in 1754 in Novia Scotia. He married Anna Carmick on 4 March 1784 at Christ Church, Philadelphia. He died on 23 Jan 1812 at Philadelphia.  James Horatio Whatmore was the ward of Henry Hope - the owner of an Amsterdam and London banking firm. The famous ‘Hope’ diamond was named after a later generation of the family. In 1784 Henry Hope bought the Whitemarsh estate near Philadelphia as a wedding gift for James Horatio Watmough. The property was formally deemed to James Horatio Watmough on 23 July 1807. James renamed the property ‘Hope Lodge’ in honour of his benefactor. One of the finest ‘Georgian’ style house in North America, Hope Lodge is open to the public. Details of the house and its association with the Watmough family can be read at this link:   http://www.ushistory.org/hope/history/watmough.htm

A video about the house can be viewed at this link:  http://www.ushistory.org/hope/more/wmv.htm

James Horatio Watmough was a wealthy Philadelphia merchant who had travelled to the West Indies, Great Britain  and Ireland.

James Horatio Watmough and Anna were the parents of John Goddard Watmough, the subject of this post. John Goddard Watmough was born on 6 December 1793 at Wilmington, Delaware. but he will have spent much of his time at Hope Lodge.  He married Ellen Coxe on 16 May 1820 and they had seven known children. These were: Edmund Coxe 1821; James Horatio 1822, Mary Ellen 1824, Anna 1826, Pendleton Gaines 1828, Catherine 1829 and an unnamed child who presumably died soon after birth.

Ellen died before 1832 as on 15 November in that year John Goddard Watmough remarried in Washington DC to Mary Matilda Pleasanton. They do not appear to have had any children.

Fort Erie   Photograph from Wikopaedia     Copyright: Ernest Mettendorf who has generously shared his photographs for others to enjoy

John Goddard Watmough was well educated, having attended Princeton College where he graduated in Classical Studies. He also undertook postgraduate work at the  University of Pennsylvania  in Philadelphia.

John was not yet 18 when the ‘Second War of Independence’ broke out and he at once applied for a commission in the regular army. Whilst waiting for the result of his application, John joined a detachment of volunteers raised for the defence of Delaware. When this detachment was ordered to return home as its services were no longer necessary, John received a commission as a lieutenant in the Second Regiment of the United States Artillery. The company to which he was attached received orders to march for the Niagara frontier. Their destination was Fort Erie.

The ‘Second War of Independence’ had begun when the United States had declared war on Great Britain on 12 June 1812.  It was the end product of a series of long-standing disputes – the main one being the impressment of American soldiers by the British. There were also disputes over the North West Territories and the border between Canada and the USA, and the attempted blockage of the French by the British had also caused tensions.

Following the arrival of the American troops at Fort Erie there were several weeks of  battle – sometimes one side and sometimes the other being the victors, but on 2 August 1812, the British Army appeared in full force in  front of the walls of the fort. Several days of intense bombardment followed and in the evening of 13 August, Lt. Watmough who was stationed on the advance battery, was wounded by a piece of shell. He was taken to the hospital, but refused to stay there for long and returned to the fighting.

The major battle at Fort Erie was during the night of 15 August when there were attacks made on the Fort at several points by three columns of British troops. The battery where Watmough and his senior colleagues Captain Alexander Williams and Lt. Patrick McDonough were stationed was attacked by a column of a thousand men and the two Captains were both killed, leaving Lt. Watmough as the most senior officer at the battery.

Driven to the edge of the parapet, Lt. Watmough received a blow from the butt end of a musket  which knocked him down into the ditch outside the fort. In evidence given at a subsequent court-martial, Lt Watmough redcalled: ‘… the enemy repeatedly called out on charging, to “surrender” – called us “damned Yankees” and even “rascals” I believe they called the men and repeated “no quarter, no quarter”. It was about this time that I received the blow on my side that knocked me over into the ditch’.

Recovering his wits, Lt Watmough made his way back into the fort. He saw that the enemy were in possession of the bastion but that a gun on an adjacent blockhouse had been abandoned. With the aid of Corporal Farquar, Lt. Watmough reloaded and fired the gun several times onto the bastion. The British now turned their full attention on Lt Watmough as he continued to fire the gun. Eventually he was struck in the chest by a musket ball, but as he lay wounded he saw the bastion blow up and soon afterwards received the news that the British had been driven back at all points. The battle had been won by some 1834 Americans opposed by some 5000 British!

 Lying in hospital near Buffalo, Lt. Watmough heard news of the disasters at Washington and sought and received permission to return to Philadelphia. His bed was placed in a one horse wagon which made its slow way to Watmough’s home city.

Once he was back in Philadelphia, Lt. Watmough reported for duty and was attached to the staff of General Gaines. Despite his wounds and the wishes of  his Doctor, Lt. Watmough now set off in the middle of Winter with General Gaines, for New Orleans, but arrived too late to be able to contribute to the  victory there on 8 January.

Congress Hall, Philadelphia      Photograph from ‘The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia’ by Frank Cousins and Phil M Riley published by Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1920

On 15 August 1814, John Watmough was brevetted First Lieutenant for gallant conduct in the defence of Fort Erie.

After further military adventures Lt. Watmough eventually resigned his commission and returned to private life in the winter of 1816.

Lt. Watmough served in the Twenty-second and Twenty-third Congresses from 4 March 1831 – 3 March 1835. He was High Sheriff of Philadelphia in 1835 and 1836 and Surveyor of the port of Philadelphia  from 1841 – 1845. He did not retire from public life until 1854. Lt Watmough died at Philadelphia on 27 November 1861 and is buried in Christ Church Cemetery.