Gaspee Virtual Archives
Research Notes on Abel Easterbrooks

The Gaspee Days Committee at www.gaspee.COM is a civic-minded nonprofit organization that operates many community events in and around Pawtuxet Village, including the famous Gaspee Days Parade each June. These events are all designed to commemorate the burning of the hated British revenue schooner, HMS Gaspee, by Rhode Island patriots in 1772 as America's 'First Blow for Freedom'®.  Our historical research center, the Gaspee Virtual Archives at www.gaspee.ORG , has presented these research notes as an attempt to gather further information on one who has been suspected of being associated with the the burning of the Gaspee. Please e-mail your comments or further questions to webmaster@gaspee.org.

This web page presents research notes only on one of the known Gaspee Raiders, Abel Easterbrooks.

While blissfully preparing for Christmas 2005, we were presented with the following surprise e-mail from Pam R. Thompson who was doing some genealogical research of her own.

I found the following curious entry in the Revolutionary War Pension File, #S21404, for Ezra Ormsbee, born 30 March 1751 in Warren, RI, son of Ebenezer Ormsbee (sometimes spelled Ormsby) and Hannah Cole (Benjamin3, Hugh2, James1)  Ezra applied for his pension in Warren, RI, on 24 August 1833.
 
". In June 1772 when the English Revenue Cutter Gaspee was burnt in Providence River, I was one that went from this town and helped do it. Capt John Greenwood, James Smith, Abner Luther, Abel Easterbrooks, Nathaniel Easterbrooks, Hezekiah Kinnicut and myself went together in a whale boat and we helped burn her. I mention this merely as a revolutionary incident and not as connected with my pension claim. All the above named persons who were with me in burning the Gaspee have a long time now decd."
 
I do not find any of these names on your lists of participants.
We have long known that people from the Bristol and Warren, RI area participated in the attack, but we have only known of the names of Simeon Potter, and possibly Thomas Swan.  In fact, we only know the names of about half of the 64 men alleged to have participated in the attack on the Gaspee. This gives us a first hand list of an additional seven men to investigate to be patriots of the forthcoming American Revolution.
Biographical notes and random musings

From the Ormsbee Genealogical Website, we have http://www.ormsby.org/genie/Miscellaneous/Cole_connection.html  Ezra Ormbee was also in the Bristol boat that attacked the Gaspee.
In the Ormsbee family burying ground on the still existing Ormsbee farm near Porter Corners, Town of Greenfield, Saratoga Co., N.Y., are the graves of Ambrose Cole and his wife Altheare Cole. From a genealogy: "Descendants of James Cole of Plimouth 1633" by E.B. Cole (1908), we find that this branch of the Cole family lived at Swansea, Mass., then moved to Warren, R.I., and later to the Town of Greenfield, Saratoga Co., N.Y. as did this branch of the Ormsbees. There were several inter-marriages between the Coles and Ormsbees, and between the Coles and Easterbrooks family. The Easterbrooks and Coles preceeded the Ormsbees to Greenfield, and it was from Royal Easterbrook that Isaac Ormsbee bought the still existing farm in 1796. Not only were the families inter-married, but they seem to have been closely associated in their migrations, searching for better conditions after the Revolutionary War.

So as to not cause confusion, there was also an Abel Easterbrooks from New Hampshire whose pension application is found on HeritageQuest, but nowhere in the file does it relate any evidence of a Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or New York connection. However, the town where this Abel Easterbrooks died, Ludlow, is in mideastern Vermont, not an impossible distance from the Greenfield-Saratoga, NY area to where the Easterbrooks family moved.  We also find in the 1800 Federal census an Abiel Easterbrooks living in Herkimer, NY in 1800.  Interestingly, the Upstate location of his home is along the route of what was to become the Erie Canal, a common thread of many Gaspee burners.

The Gaspee Days Committee proudly recognizes Abel Easterbrooks as a Gaspee raider, one of the select group of true American patriots.  We unfortunately do not know more about this man.

That's all the evidence we have for now folks. If you know more, please e-mail us at webmaster@gaspee.org.  Thanks!
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Originally Posted to Gaspee Virtual Archives 1/2006  Last Revised 1/2006     AbelEasterbrooks.html