Chartered by Order of Washington
The first ship to be so named by the Navy, Lynch, a fishing schooner chartered by order of General George Washington 26 January 1776 from Col. John Lee of Marblehead, Massachusetts, was commissioned 1 February 1776 at Manchester, New Hampshire, Comdr. John Ayers in command.
USS Lynch (1776) was a schooner acquired as part of the Continental Navy in 1776. She served for over a year on the New England coast, interfering with British maritime trade when possible. In 1777 she was assigned dispatch boat duty and, after delivering her secret dispatches in France, set sail for the United States with French secret dispatches, only to be captured by the British, but only after destroying the French dispatches.
Continental Navy Service
Lynch eluded fire from HMS Fowey when she sailed 7 February 1776 from Manchester, New Hampshire, to fit out at Beverly, Massachusetts. Shortly after midnight 2 March, Lynch slipped out of Beverly and dodged Fowey and Nautilus to make her way to rendezvous in Cape Ann Harbor with three other ships in the little American fleet commanded by Commodore John Manley.
On the night of the 4th, Manley’s schooners drove off British brig Hope in a spirited engagement. The next day they took their first prize, Susannah, a 300-ton English merchantman laden with coal, cheese, and porter for General Howe’s beleaguered army in Boston, Massachusetts.
After escorting their prize to Portsmouth, Manley’s squadron returned to Cape Ann, where on the 10th he captured a second prize, Boston-bound transport Stokesby, a 300-ton ship carrying porter, cheese, vinegar, and hops. Lynch and the others escorted the prize toward Gloucester, Massachusetts, but Stokesby ran hard aground. After much of the prize’s cargo had been removed, British brig Hope arrived and put the torch to the hulk.
* Noteworthy
1808 – The Rum Rebellion is the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia.
1838 – Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States
1841 – James Bremer takes formal possession of Hong Kong Island at what is now Possession Point, establishing British Hong Kong.
1905 – The world’s largest diamond ever, the Cullinan weighing 3,106.75 carats (0.621350 kg), is found at the Premier Mine near Pretoria in South Africa.
1911 – Glenn H. Curtiss flies the first successful American seaplane.
1920 – Former Ford Motor Company executive Henry Leland launches the Lincoln Motor Company which he later sold to his former employer.