Chelsea Creek... separates the city of Chelsea from the East Boston neighborhood of Boston. Today the river is plied by oil tankers and is home to a landscape dotted with the city's iconic tripledeckers.Here’s the same story as reported in London by the Telegraph; compare and contrast. And here’s the state’s press release, saying that the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources will spearhead this effort.
But more than 200 years ago, the creek was the site of one of the earliest and least-remembered engagements of the Revolutionary War. The Battle of Chelsea Creek was also the first naval engagement of the American Revolution.
For two days in May 1775 [specifically, 27-28 May], British Redcoats and members of the Continental Army battled up and down the waterway.
The British were trying to reach farmers who would still trade food and livestock. The revolutionary forces were trying to deny them those resources.
As the fighting raged, the British sailed the Diana up the river to provide reinforcement. For a while it worked. Then the tide turned, literally, and the Diana found itself run aground in the mud despite the best efforts of British troops to free it.
An unknown number of redcoats died in the fighting. The rest fled, leaving the ship behind. The Continental Army forces took what they could and torched the rest. . . .
Now, Massachusetts has received a $48,300 grant from the National Park Service to preserve the battlefield where the Battle of Chelsea Creek was fought.
State researchers will use the money to pull together all they know about the battle, fill in what blanks they can, and then try to match that narrative to the existing landscape. And maybe dig up the remnants of the Diana along the way.
Here are a couple of contemporaneous accounts of this fight. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress reported only three of its soldiers wounded, and couldn’t estimate British military’s casualties. That didn’t stop the 8 June 1775 New York Journal from reporting 30 enemy dead, probably a wild exaggeration. Records from the British warship Somerset indicate that seamen George Williams and William Crocker died.