Richard Gridley

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Richard Gridley (born January 3, 1710 in Boston , Province of Massachusetts Bay , British colony , † June 21, 1796 in Canton , Massachusetts, USA ) was a British-American military engineer who sided with the British and during the French and Indian War served on the American side during the American Revolutionary War.

Life

Gridley was the pre-eminent military engineer in British service during the French and Indian Wars. Gridley had been trained by English engineers in the spirit of the Vauban School. The siege of the fortress Louisbourg allowed him to use the French methods of planning and construction of military constructions for attacking and defending fortified positions and gained fame in the destruction of the fortress Louisbourg. In 1756 Richard Gridley was authorized to unite all Freemasons in the campaign against Crown Point and to establish military lodges .

In the Battle of the Abraham Plains in 1759, which led to the fall of Québec , he was General James Wolfes chief engineer at the instigation of British Prime Minister William Pitt . Paul Revere also served in Gridley's regiment . When the French struck back, Gridley was entrusted with fortifying Boston.

Richard Gridley worked on various civil projects between the wars. Among other things, he built the Boston Quay. He also founded the New Forge at Masspoag Pond in Hardware, Massachusetts, where he made the iron for the first cannons and mortars to be cast in Massachusetts.

He rose in rank and retired as a colonel from the British Army after key positions in three wars. For his service he was honored by William Pitt with an officer position in the British Army , the Magdalen Islands , 3,000 acres (approximately 1,214 hectares ) of land in New Hampshire and a life annuity.

With the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, the rebels had only two men with adequate knowledge of military engineering at their disposal, as all other military engineers joined the British: George Washington and Richard Gridley. After Washington was appointed Commander in Chief, he recommended Gridley to the Continental Congress as Chief Military Engineer of the Continental Army . As a result, Gridley was promoted to Chief Military Engineer of the New England Provincial Army with the rank of major general in May 1775 . Richard Gridley, of course, immediately lost all British perks.

Gridley was instrumental in the Battle of Bunker Hill . Twenty years earlier he regretted having planned the fortifications of Castle Williams in Boston Harbor, since this was now made the starting point of the British attack on Breed's Hill and Bunker Hill. On June 16, 1775 he took command of the fortifications on Breeds Hill with his own enthusiasm, despite the fact that none of the officers present had military engineering experience and some had no military experience. In the dark he marked out the 10 rods (approx. 50 meters) long foremost line of the defense system with a white tape .

Richard Gridley died of blood poisoning while pruning bushes in his garden, and was killed on June 23, 1796 at the Gridley Cemetery in Canton next to his wife Hannah Gridley († October 17, 1790) and his son Scarborough Gridley († December 16, 1787) buried. On October 28, 1876, he was reburied at Canton Corner.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lenning: General Manual of Freemasonry. Third edition of Lenning's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, completely revised and brought in line with new scientific research. Published by the Association of German Freemasons. 1901. Leipzig, Max Hesse's publishing house.

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personal data
SURNAME Gridley, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-American military engineer
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1710
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1796
Place of death Canton , Massachusetts