Eliphalet Downer

Background

Eliphalet Downer was born on April 4, 1744 in Franklin, Connecticut, United States. He was the ninth child of Joseph and Mary Sawyer Downer.

Career

Downer practised medicine in Brookline, Massachusetts till the Revolution. He was a volunteer fighter against the British on their retreat from Lexington, but later ministered to the wounded Redcoats and even collected wine, linen, and money for their relief. After Lexington he served as surgeon of the 24th Continental Regiment of Foot, and was mentioned by General.

In May 1776, he sailed as surgeon of the privateer sloop Yankee. The ship made several rich captures in June, but in July its crew were overpowered by the prisoners aboard and taken first into Dover and then into London. Downer, in a deposition to Franklin, which was sent to the British ambassador in France as a protest against the harsh treatment accorded American prisoners by the British, and which was later circulated in American newspapers, told how the crew were kept in suffocating quarters and were given little attention when sick. Downer himself was confined in various prison ships at London and Sheerness until gangrene set in in one of his legs and he was moved to Haslar Hospital, Gosport. There he recovered, and then escaped to France at some time not later than March 1777. From April 16 of that year to about July 6, he served as surgeon of the Continental sloop Dolphin, Captain Samuel Nicholson, which in company with the Reprisal and Lexington, circled the British Isles and made nineteen captures. In returning to France, however, the Dolphin was chased, sprung a mast, and had to throw overboard her guns to get safely into St. Malo.

On September 18, 1777, Downer sailed for the United States as a passenger on the Lexington, commanded by his former captain of the Yankee, Henry Johnson. The next day, however, off Ushant, the ship was captured after a furious engagement of several hours by the British sloop Alert, Captain Bazely, and carried into Dover. According to his pension claim, Downer volunteered to fight and was severely wounded in the left arm by grape-shot. After confinement in Forton Prison, Portsmouth, from October 13, 1777 to September 6, 1778, he again made his escape to France, this time with fifty-six other Americans, by tunneling under the wall. Downer is said to have been so corpulent that he stuck in the narrow passage until it was enlarged. When he finally returned to America he was commissioned surgeon-general of the Penobscot Expedition from July to October 1779, and received fifteen dollars in compensation for instruments lost. After the Revolution he was given a grant of land in the Marietta Reserve, and acted as an agent for the Ohio Company in the sale of land.

Achievements

• Eliphalet Downer was known chiefly for his service during the American Revolution.

Connections

Eliphalet Downer married Mary Gardner in 1766.

Father:

Joseph Downer

Mother:

Mary Sawyer Downer

Spouse:

Mary Gardner