Silas Talbot

Silas Talbot became Captain of Constitution near the end of a dramatic, upwardly mobile trajectory from farm boy to colleague of the mighty, including Washington, Hamilton and Lafayette. A hero of the American Revolution on land and sea, Talbot was a Rhode Island Militia officer, a successful privateer, and a U.S. Navy Captain who saw action during the Quasi War with France. This biography by Professor William M. Fowler, Jr. of Northeastern University, based in large part on the collection of Talbot papers in the G.W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport Museum, brings us the life of a plain citizen of the new republic — a citizen whose bravery and energy helped to create it.

Silas Talbot became Captain of Constitution near the end of a dramatic, upwardly mobile trajectory from farm boy to colleague of the mighty, including Washington, Hamilton and Lafayette. A hero of the American Revolution on land and sea, Talbot was a Rhode Island Militia officer, a successful privateer, and a U.S. Navy Captain who saw action during the Quasi War with France. This biography by Professor William M. Fowler, Jr. of Northeastern University, based in large part on the collection of Talbot papers in the G.W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport Museum, brings us the life of a plain citizen of the new republic -- a citizen whose bravery and energy helped to create it.

William M. Fowler, Jr. is Director of the Massachusetts Historical Society and consulting editor to The New England Quarterly. He received his undergraduate degree from Northeastern University and his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of a number of books on American history including Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle For North America, 1754-1763, Rebels Under Sail: The Navy in the Revolution, The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock, Jack Tars and Commodores: The American Navy 1783-1815, and Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War. He is also co-author of America and The Sea: A Maritime History of America. He was Professor of History at Northeastern University from 1971 to 1998 and has taught a variety of courses in American history. He also teaches at Mystic Seaport Museum and has lectured at the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Naval War College and the Sea Education Association. He is a member of the Massachusetts State Archives Advisory Commission, The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the American Antiquarian Society, and an Honorary Member of the Boston Marine Society and the Society of the Cincinnati. He received an Honorary degree from Northeastern University in 2000. The author lives in Boston, MA.