This page was last updated on 11 August 2021

Click here to 
Print this page

Biography finder

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

 

 

Index of first names

Hamilton Douglas Halyburton

 

 

 

 

 

Lt. Hon. Hamilton Douglas Halyburton (10 October 1763 – 31 December 1783) Lt. Hamilton died of exposure while commanding the barge of HMS Assistance, which was caught in a snowstorm while going to look for deserters and wrecked on Sandy Hook.

Hamilton Douglas Halyburton (10 October 1763 – 31 December 1783) was a British Lieutenant who died at Sandy Hook, New Jersey. He was born to Sholto Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton and Katherine Hamilton, granddaughter of Thomas Hamilton, 6Th Earl Of Haddington.  

 

He had changed his name to Halyburton when he inherited the Pitcur estates. The date of James Halyburton’s death has not been firmly established. Family histories place it around 1742–3, but his son, Colonel James Halyburton, was served as heir on 17 July 1755. When the colonel, who was himself by all accounts a rather unstable individual, died childless in 1765, Pitcur passed to his great-nephew, Hamilton Halyburton Douglas, son of the 15 th Earl of Morton.

He died on 31 December 1783 when he was in command of the barge of the HMS Assistance. He was using it to chase deserters off of Sandy Hook. He and his crew were caught in a winter storm and they all died, all but one of the bodies washed ashore the next day. They were described as "12 gentlemen and one common sailor".

Katherine Hamilton, the Dowager Countess  of Morton erected a monument, but it was destroyed by the French. The grave was rediscovered in 1908 during expansion of a road.

In 1937, a new Halyburton Memorial was constructed.

 

"On this spot were buried the remains of the Honorable Hamilton Halyburton, 1st Lieutenant, Royal Navy, son of the Earl of Morton, and James Ohampion, Lieutenant of Marines. Together with twelve members of the crew of H.M.S. Assistance who died here at Sandy Hook in line of Duty on December 31, 1783.."



Explanatory information board:

"In January of 1783, as the Revolutionary War was ending, British warships withdrew from New York Harbor. While the warship H.M.S. Assistance was anchored in Sandy Hook Bay, some of her crew deserted and escaped into the salt marshes here. A search party of thirteen men, led by 1st Lieutenant Hamilton Douglas-Halyburton was sent to find them only to get caught in a blizzard and perish. The bodies were buried in a common grave that, some time later, was lost. In 1908, workmen discovered the remains and the British sailors were re-interred at Cyupress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn. The present memorial was erected by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1937."

 

The H.M.S. Assistance was off Sandy Hook at the end of December, ready to sail back across the Atlantic. On the 31st, six seamen under the command of a midshipman set off from the Assistance in a long-boat to retrieve water from the transport Bridgewater nearby. These men overpowered the midshipman, cut the rope, and pushed toward the Jersey shore. (Five men had also deserted from the Assistance on the preceding day.) The fourteen men named above boarded a barge in pursuit of the deserters. Soon after the sailors left the Assistance the weather began to worsen; the wind picked up and it began to snow heavily. The snow and wind continued on New Year's day, so much so that the crew members aboard the Assistance could not make out any of the smaller boats.



The morning of 2 January 1784 saw moderate and clear weather. The men on the Assistance were able to make out both the long-boat of the deserters and the barge of their pursuers on the beach. An unnamed officer was sent ashore to find the men and bring them back to the Assistance. The officer found the bodies of the men frozen to death, near the water's edge. The deserters were never found. Their names, as listed in the muster book of the Assistance were: Michael Broderick, 21, of Tipperary; Jonathan Cooney, 21, of Dublin; Anthony Crane; George Dicks, 28, of Portsmouth; Bernard Innes, 24, of London; William McDonald, 22, Greennough, Scotland; Thomas Martin, 22, Wexford, Ireland; Jonathan Morris, 21, Bristol; Thomas Murphy, 31, Dublin; Jonathan Shears, 22, Broadhampton; Samuel West, 24, Richmond.

The Assistance was 'flying the flag of Sir Charles Douglas', commander in chief of the Nova Scotia station, when a boat load of seamen deserted the ship. This was not an unsual occurence, and so Lt Hamilton, together with '12 gentlemen and one common sailor' were sent in pursuit. They all perished when the barge got stuck on a sandbar.

File:Halyburton Memorial Sandy Hook.jpgHalyburton's mother, the Countess Dowager of Morton, originally erected a marble monument over the graves of the men at Sandy Hook. Sometime around the year 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars, an armed French vessel landed on the Hook, and some of the crewmen took the time to destroy the monument. The grave was rediscovered when excavations were being done at Fort Hancock with the view of erecting new government buildings there. The New York Times reported that a vault was found during the excavation in which the remains of fourteen men of the Royal Navy were found. The remains were reinterred at Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York in 1909, and a large, granite monument was erected over their grave in 1939.



At Sandy Hook lye interred
The Remains
of the Honourable Hamilton Douglas Hallyburton, Son of Sholto Charles Earl of Morton and Heir of the Ancient Family of Hallyburton of Pitcurr in Scotland, who perished on this coast with twelve more young gentlemen and one common Seaman, in the spirited Discharge of Duty
on the 30th or 31st of December 1783
Born on the 10 of October 1763.
A youth who in contempt of hardship or Danger, though possessed of an ample Fortune served seven years in the British Navy with a manly Courage and seemed to deserve a better fate.

This plain Monumental stone is erected by his unhappy Mother Katherine Countess Dowager of Morton to his dear memory and that of his unfortunate companions.


James Champion Lieutenant of Marines
Alexander Johnstone, George Paddy, Robert Haywood
Midshipmen
Charles Gascoigne William Tomlinson
Andrew Hamilton William Spry
William Scott John McChain
David Reddie Robert Wood
Young Gentlemen
George Towers common seaman
Cast away, all found dead and frozen, and buried in one Grave.


On Hamilton Douglas Halyburton's death in 1783, Lord Douglas Gordon-Hallyburton (10 October 1777 – 25 October 1841), a Scottish soldier and Member of Parliament, succeeded to the estate of Pitcur, near Kettins in Forfarshire, and adopted the name and arms of Hallyburton of Pitcur.

 



 

 

 

 

Any contributions will be gratefully accepted



 

 

Errors and Omissions

The Forum

What's new?

We are looking for your help to improve the accuracy of The Douglas Archives.

If you spot errors, or omissions, then please do let us know


Contributions

Many articles are stubs which would benefit from re-writing. Can you help?


Copyright

You are not authorized to add this page or any images from this page to Ancestry.com (or its subsidiaries) or other fee-paying sites without our express permission and then, if given, only by including our copyright and a URL link to the web site.

 

If you have met a brick wall with your research, then posting a notice in the Douglas Archives Forum may be the answer. Or, it may help you find the answer!

You may also be able to help others answer their queries.

Visit the Douglas Archives Forum.

 

2 Minute Survey

To provide feedback on the website, please take a couple of minutes to complete our survey.

 

We try to keep everyone up to date with new entries, via our What's New section on the home page.

We also use the Community Network to keep researchers abreast of developments in the Douglas Archives.


Help with costs

Maintaining the three sections of the site has its costs.  Any contribution the defray them is very welcome
Donate

 

Newsletter

If you would like to receive a very occasional newsletter - Sign up!

 
 
 


 

Back to top

 



The content of this website is a collection of materials gathered from a variety of sources, some of it unedited.

The webmaster does not intend to claim authorship, but gives credit to the originators for their work.

As work progresses, some of the content may be re-written and presented in a unique format, to which we would then be able to claim ownership.

Discussion and contributions from those more knowledgeable is welcome.

Contact Us

Last modified: Monday, 25 March 2024