Samuel Waldo

Brigadier General
Samuel Waldo
Portrait by Robert Feke, c. 1748–1750
Born(1696-08-07)August 7, 1696
Boston, Massachusetts
DiedMay 23, 1759(1759-05-23) (aged 62)
Near Bangor, Massachusetts
Resting place
King's Chapel Burying Ground, Boston
Spouse
Lucy Wainwright
​
(m. 1722)​
RelativesLucy Flucker Knox (granddaughter)
Military career
AllegianceMassachusetts
Branch
Massachusetts Provincial Forces
Service years
1744–1759
Rank
Brigadier general
Commands2nd Massachusetts Regiment
Conflicts
Other worknamed Mount Waldo
Signature

Brigadier General Samuel Waldo (August 7, 1696 – May 23, 1759) was an American merchant, military officer, slave trader and politician from colonial Massachusetts.

Life

Samuel Waldo was born on August 7, 1696, in Boston, the son of Jonathan Waldo and his wife Hannah. In 1722, he married Lucy Wainwright and eight years later Waldo purchased a 17th-century title to a large tract of land in the British colony of Nova Scotia with the intent of establishing a colonial settlement there; the title did not stand up when he proposed this plan to authorities in England. A one-time business partner of Thomas Westbrook, Waldo acquired a large tract of land between the Penobscot and Muscongus rivers in what is now Maine where he arranged for Irish and German immigrants to settle. Like many wealthy Bostonians, Waldo was also a slaveowner.

From the late 1720s onwards Waldo was active as a slave trader, selling Black slaves in Boston and organizing slave-trading expeditions to Africa. He advertised slave sales through Boston newspapers and in 1734 Waldo's sloop Africa was sent to Guinea to purchase slaves. The sloop was captained by Samuel Rhodes, to whom Waldo wrote "for your safety as well as mine, you'll have the needful guard over your Slaves, and put not too much Confidence in the Women nor Children lest they happen to be Instrumental to your being surprised which may be fatall." Once arriving in Guinea Africa's crew purchased 200 African slaves and returned to the Americas but on the return voyage most of the slaves she was transporting died of dysentery. This led Waldo to unsuccessfully sue Rhodes for damages.

During King George's War, Waldo was commissioned as a brigadier general in the Massachusetts Provincial Forces in 1744 and began raising men for the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment. In 1745 he participated in the expedition which captured Louisbourg from the French and served on the temporary council that administered the settlement until Peter Warren was named governor. In 1757, during the French and Indian War, Waldo submitted a plan to William Pitt the Elder which served as a basis for the second capture of Louisbourg from the French the following year. Waldo died of apoplexy near present-day Bangor, Maine in 1759 while participating in a military expedition with Governor Thomas Pownall.

Waldo was initially buried at Fort Pownall (at Cape Jellison), but his remains were transported to Boston in 1760 and interred at the King's Chapel Burying Ground. The Maine towns of Waldo and Waldoboro, together with Waldo County, are named for Waldo. His son-in-law Thomas Flucker was royal secretary of Massachusetts and later Provincial Governor. His granddaughter, Lucy Flucker Knox, married Revolutionary War hero and founding father Henry Knox. The Knox family built the impressive Montpelier on Waldo's tract of land in Thomaston, Maine.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Lincoln, Waldo (1902). Genealogy of the Waldo family : a record of the descendants of Cornelius Waldo, of Ipswich, Mass., from 1647 to 1900. Worcester, Mass.: Press of Charles Hamilton. pp. 96–105.
  2. ↑ https://www.jstor.org/stable/359465?seq=2
  3. ↑ Charles H. Browning, The American Historical Register; The Historical Register Publishing Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1895
  4. ↑ "Falmouth in Casco Bay and the George Tate House: New Insights, 1726-1775". Maine Memory Network. Retrieved August 22, 2026.
  5. ↑ "Robert Feke's "Portrait of Brigadier-General Samuel Waldo"". Art Museum. Retrieved November 9, 2026.
  6. ↑ "Suffolk. Court Records 1735–1737". familysearch.org.
  7. ↑ Greene, Lorenzo J. (1944). "Mutiny on the Slave Ships". Phylon (1940-1956).
  8. ↑ Ford, Amelia C.; Rhodes, Samuel (1930). "An Eighteenth-Century Letter from a Sea Captain to His Owner". The New England Quarterly. 3 (1): 136–145. doi:10.2307/359465. ISSN 0028-4866.
  9. ↑ Rawlyk, George A. (1974). "Waldo, Samuel". In Halpenny, Francess G. (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Vol. III (1741–1770) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  10. ↑ Collections of the Maine Historical Society
  11. ↑ Chadbourne, Ava H. (April 20, 1949). "Many Maine towns bear names of military men". Lewiston Evening Journal. pp. A-2. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
  12. ↑ Portrait number 8

Further reading