Jeremiah was the son of Irish Catholic immigrants who settled in Maine. His father owned two sawmills in the town of Macchias. He was 21 at the time of Lexington and Concord. A few weeks after, two British merchant ships escorted by the schooner HMS Margaretta came to Macchias to trade for lumber. The townsfolk realized the lumber would probably be used to build fortifications in Boston. On June 12, 1775, when the British leader demanded the colonists cooperate, they rebelled and captured the two merchant ships and caused the Margaretta to flee. Jeremiah, his five brothers, and 25 other patriots chased in the Unity. The men were lumbermen and fishermen. They were armed with guns, swords, axes, pitch forks, and a small cannon. They caught up and an hour-long battle ensued ending with the Unity’s crew boarding the British ship. The British leader was killed in the fight. The victory was the first naval victory for the colonies in the war. Since the Unity was a merchant ship, the US Merchant Marine marks the date as the beginning of its service to the US. Jeremiah renamed the Unity the Macchias Liberty and sailed it as a privateer. In July, the British sent two sloops to capture it, but the Macchias Liberty and the other captured merchant ship turned the tables and captured the two British ships. In 1777, O’Brien was captured by the British and put on the infamous Jersey prison ship in New York harbor. From there, he was sent to England and imprisoned. He bribed a washerwoman to get him some civilian clothes and walked out of the prison into freedom. He returned to America and got back into privateering. He commanded six different privateers by the end of the war. O’Brien has been honored by the Navy by having five ships named after him, including the SS Liberty (a Liberty ship) in WWII.
https://aoh.com/2026/03/06/before-the-u-s-navy-there-was-obrien/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_O%27Brien
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