My Family Tree

Author: David Crandall Schafer

Benjamin Hallet was born January 18, 1760 at the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, a son of Jonathan Hallett and Mercy Bacon. He was the seventh of right children. His siblings were: John, Abner, Jonathan, Nathaniel, Anna, Samuel and Edward.

At the age of sixteen, Benjamin Hallett entered service in the Massachusetts Militia as a private in Captain John Russell’s company which was raised in defense of the seacoast. He was stationed at Martha’s Vineyard; serving from July 28, 1776 to November 22, 1776. He enrolled in Captain Elisha Nye’s company January 10, 1777 and served to April 1. He was stationed at Naushon Island which had a small fort containing three nine-pound canons with which to command the sound and prevent suspicious vessels from passing.

Benjamin went to sea in the Merchant Service, and in April 1780, was a yeoman on board the Brig Thomas, James Tyler Master. The ship having returned from the West Indies, and being in the outer harbor of Boston, the Brig Thomas was boarded from the Deane Frigate. Benjamin and six other seamen were impressed and taken on board the Deane Frigate, Samuel Nickerson, Commander. The Deane Frigate mounted 32 guns and had 210 men. The Deane Frigate then sailed for Philadelphia and took provisions for a year’s cruise. They were joined by the ship Trumbull, with 30 guns, and James Nickerson, brother of Samuel, Commander. The Deane Frigate and Trumbull cruised in company off the Capes of Virginia and to the South, and in December 1780 put into Cape Francois at the West Indies where the ships were overhauled and repaired. After about two months, they sailed in company with the frigate Alliance and others as a convoy, arriving at Boston in April 1781, where Benjamin was discharged.

Benjamin married Abigail Lovell of Barnstable, January 30, 1782. Together they had eleven daughters and one son who lived to adulthood: Mercy, Abigail, Persis, Christina, Temperance, Penelope, Henrietta, Benjamin, Adeline, Julia and Martha.

Benjamin Hallett commanded the first vessel that sailed between Boston, Albany and Troy. In 1788, he executed a contract for transporting loads of marble from Kinderhook for the Building of the State House at Boston. He was known among the coasting trade as Captain of the Ten Sisters, which he built at Catskill in 1805, and was the most famous packet of her time. As a member of the Legislature of Massachusetts, he took an active part for religious freedom, in the charter of Amherst College, the first free bridge at South Boston, and in the erection of the Bunker Hill Monument. He was a Republican of the school of Jefferson, and for sixty-seven years a member of the Baptist Church.

His wife Abigail died December 4, 1845 at the age of 80 years and was buried at the Hillside cemetery at the village of Osterville, of the town of Barnstable. Benjamin Hallet died December 31, 1849, aged 89 years, and was buried beside his wife.