Benjamin Burton

(December 9, 1749 – May 21, 1835) 

Benjamin Burton, a 24-year-old coastal sailor from Maine, was stationed onboard the ship Cumberland anchored in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773.

He heard about the pending revolutionary action and decided to participate in the Boston Tea Party on impulse.  

During the Revolutionary War, Burton enlisted in the Continental Army as a Lieutenant in September 1776. From there, he rose through the ranks, becoming a Captain in 1777 in Colonel Thurburn’s regiment during the Rhode Island campaign. As the war continued, he was promoted to Major with his own volunteer company under General Peleg Wadsworth’s regiment. In that capacity, his luck, as did General Wadsworth’s, ran out, and the two of them were imprisoned in the British fort in Castine, Maine, in February 1781. Not content to await their fates, which would have had them transported to England, the two men reportedly engineered a dramatic escape from the British fort under cover of a severe storm on June 18, 1781. Undeterred by that unplanned break in his service, the now Lieutenant-Colonel Burton went on to command a reconstituted Boston militia company. After the war, Burton served as a magistrate and was often elected to the Maine legislature. 

Benjamin Burton died in Warren, Maine, on May 21, 1835. He is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Warren.