Collection Highlights Case: Gloucester During the Revolution
June 11 – July 27, 2025
CAM Green Campus
13 Poplar Street, Gloucester, MA
The objects collected here represent a community bracing for, engaging in, and coping with the aftermath of events in the American War of Independence. Field notes from both Patriot and British forces detail life on the warfront. A bill for coffins for men killed in the attempted siege on Gloucester by the British ship Falcon shows the impact of the war on local Cape Ann communities. Continental currency, a letter written by Paul Revere, and c.1780 portraits by Salem-based artist Benjamin Blyth (1746-1787) of Gloucester residents Elizabeth Rogers Low (1764-1810) and Captain John Somes (1745-1816), commander of the privateer Swallow during the war, further connect Cape Ann to the larger series of events unfolding in Boston and throughout the colonies. Finally, ribbons given to veteran Benjamin Webber of Gloucester on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and a lecture given on the battle’s 150th anniversary in 1925 speaks to the persistence of commemorating the impactful Revolutionary years.