Background
Daniel McNeill was born on April 5, 1748, at Charlestown, Massachusetts. He was the son of William and Catherine (Morrison) McNeill and the grandson of Daniel McNeill who emigrated from Ireland in 1683.
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Daniel McNeill
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McNeill first comes into notice as commander of the privateer brig Hancock, in November 1776. He commanded five other privateers during the Revolution: the America, Eagle, Ulysses, Wasp, and, most noted of all, the General Mifflin, a ship of twenty guns and 150 men, in which he cruised in European waters in 1778 and 1779. In this vessel he took thirteen prizes and fought an engagement with a British sloop of war. Until the outbreak of hostilities with France in 1798 he was probably employed either as master or owner of ships. On July 17 of that year he was commissioned a captain in the United States navy and given command of the ship Portsmouth, of twenty-four guns. She was attached to the squadron of Commodore Barry and until the end of 1799 cruised in the West Indies and off the coast of Surinam, where, with the help of a revenue cutter, she blockaded a French man-of-war and forced her surrender. In April 1800, McNeill was sent in the Portsmouth with dispatches to France and brought home the American peace commissioners. After his return McNeill was given command of the frigate Boston and was sent again to France, in October 1801, with the new United States minister, Robert R. Livingston. He then proceeded to the Mediterranean under orders to join the squadron of Commodore Dale, engaged in war with Tripoli. During 1802 he was employed in cruising and in blockading Tripoli. Throughout his stay in the Mediterranean he never fell in with either Commodore Dale or his successor, Commodore Morris, and was supposed to have purposely avoided them. He returned to Boston in October 1802 and was dismissed from the navy on the 27th of that month, under the Peace Establishment Act of March 3, 1801. McNeill's later years were passed in Boston, where he acquired property in real estate and became a man of substance.
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On February 10, 1770, McNeill married Mary Cuthbertson, whose early death may be assumed, for not later than 1772 he married Abigail Harvey, of Nottingham, England. The eldest of their ten children was born July 20, 1773. His son, Daniel McNeill, Jr. , entered the navy as a midshipman in 1799 and was dismissed in 1807.
