Richard Gridley was a soldier and military engineer who served for the British Army during the French and Indian Wars and for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
Background
Richard Gridley was born on January 3, 1710 in Boston, the son of Richard and Rebecca Gridley.
He was descended from Richard Gridley, described as “an honest poore man, but very apt to meddle in publike affaires, beyond his calling or skill, ” who arrived in Boston about 1630.
Education
Richard, of the fourth generation, was apprenticed to a Boston wholesale merchant.
Career
Having a bent for mathematics, he became a surveyor and civil engineer. While employed in this profession he acquired a skill in drawing later attested by A Plan of the City and Fortress of Louisburg; With a Small Plan of the Harbour from the Original Drawing of Richard Gridley (Boston, 1746, and London, 1758), and studied military engineering under John Henry Bastide, a British officer engaged in planning fortifications for Boston harbor and vicinity.
In 1745 he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel and captain of the artillery train of the expedition then preparing to invest Louisburg, the French fortress on Cape Breton island. Commissioned chief bombardier during the siege, he supervised the erection of the British batteries surrounding Louisburg. In 1746 he was employed in drawing plans for a battery and other fortifications in Boston harbor in anticipation of an attack by the French fleet. He accompanied Gov. William Shirley on his journey to the Kennebec in 1752 and built Fort Western (Augusta) and Fort Halifax.
Commissioned colonel (1755), he commanded the provincial artillery during the Crown Point expedition, and as chief engineer built Fort William Henry and the fortifications around Lake George. He was blamed by the Earl of Loudoun, British commander-in-chief in America, for opposing the junction of provincial and regular troops. During the second siege of Louisburg (1758) he had charge of army stores and supervised the carpentry work. In 1759 Major General Jeffery Amherst, in response to a request from William Pitt, placed Gridley in command of the provincial artillery, and in this capacity he participated in the battle on the Plains of Abraham and the capture of Quebec. Following the restoration of peace he went to England to adjust his accounts with the War Office.
For his services he was granted the Magdalen Islands, with a valuable seal and cod fishery, half pay as a British officer, and 3, 000 acres of land in New Hampshire. He lived for several years on the islands.
In 1772 Gridley and Edmund Quincy began smelting iron ore at Massapoag Pond in Sharon, Massachusetts. At the outbreak of the Revolution the Massachusetts Provincial Congress commissioned Gridley chief engineer and colonel of artillery with the rank of major-general. He constructed the breastworks on Breed’s Hill and was wounded in the ensuing battle of Bunker Hill. For a few months he held a commission of colonel of artillery from the Continental Congress but was replaced because of his “advanced age” after a council of officers requested his removal. He was retained as chief engineer of the Continental Army and was later engineer general of the eastern department.
In March 1776 he fortified Dorchester heights and following the evacuation of Boston destroyed the British intrenchments on the Neck and strengthened the fortifications in the region of Boston. During 1776 and 1777 he manufactured mortars and howitzers at his furnace in Sharon. When peace was celebrated in Boston at the close of the Revolution he was not invited to participate.