Sparking a Revolution: 18th Century Arms at Sherburne

Greetings and Salutations, my name is Michael Kelley, and I am a rising Senior at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. There I study Classical Archaeology, with a minor in Philosophy, and have for my entire life been fascinated with the advances in technology surrounding warfare and the defense of nations from outside forces. During the early period of the Portsmouth area, there were many different types of armaments moving about, especially during and leading up to the Revolutionary War.

The Sherburne family, whose house was the site of a 1980s and a more recent 2019 excavation, were merchants, and occupied that land for several generations. Among the recovered artifacts, there were a few miscellaneous items that fell under the category of weapons or in this case, ammunition and parts of weapons. It is within that miscellany that I have chosen to place my research, specifically into the weapons that the Sherburnes could have kept, as well as indicators of the turbulent time period that they were living during, and what kind of weapons were being used in the area to defend the settlement from the British in the Revolutionary War. 

In my search for these types of artifacts, I was able to find within the boxes a few items relating to armaments. In Joseph Sherburne's 1745 probate inventory, a pair of flintlock pistols and a flintlock rifle were listed. I found Gun Flints that the Sherburnes would have used in flintlock rifles, a musket ball that may have served as ammunition for the rifle or pistol, as well as a cannonball that would not have come from the Sherburne family’s personal protection, but perhaps from the nearby Fort Washington, that served as a line of defense against British attacks aimed down the Piscataqua River. 

Fort Washington was a small fort built on nearby Peirce Island, that was a long, semi-rectangular structure built from stone and earth, serving as a rudimentary structure that served the purpose that was required of it. Interestingly, earthen fortifications provide some advantages over stone ones, as if a cannonball were to strike the stone fortifications, there is a chance that the walls would explode, and send shrapnel flying at the defending soldiers. With earthen fortifications, that problem does not exist, as the cannonballs would simply sink into the walls, though this does come at the cost of inferior structural integrity and lack of permanency. 

The cannonball that was recovered from the Sherburne site could have been destined for use in Fort Washington, in a four-pounder cannon, which is a French style cannon, that fires cannonballs with a weight of approximately 3 lbs. 

Returning to the Sherburne family’s personal defense, the gun flints that were recovered from the site were both of different make, and in differing shapes of wear and tear. The flint pictured below is an English gray gun flint, known for its grayish hue. This flint has been broken in half, likely from overuse, or from being discarded and being broken in the period between it being thrown away and its recovery. 

The second gun flint from the site is a French Amber gun flint, and is a wholly intact piece of flint. From this gun flint we can see that it has seen heavy use, though is still in one piece. You can see from the right most side of the flint the chips that it sustained from being struck to generate the spark to fire the rifle. 

Finally there is the musket ball, which was also recovered from the site, that has markings indicative of firing, so we can safely assume that this musket ball has been fired before, and after being fired, was discarded. This musket ball is made of lead, and is of the approximate size to fit into a French-made Charleville musket that was supplied to the army in the Revolutionary War.