Battle of Chelsea Creek: The Untold History in the Siege of Boston
Let’s go back 250 years to the dawn of the American Revolution. It is the spring of 1775, and the Siege of Boston has been underway for months. British forces occupy the city, but their survival depends on livestock and supplies stored on nearby harbor islands.
With farms across Middlesex, Suffolk, and Norfolk Counties under militia control, the British turned to Noddle’s and Hog Islands in Boston Harbor to raise cattle and gather hay. Trapped inside the city, British troops hoped to retrieve these provisions to sustain their hold. But the American militia had a different plan: deny the British all access to resources.
Map of Boston Harbour and the surrounding area during the Siege of Boston
Political cartoon from 1775
The Battle: May 27–28, 1775
One month after the alarm at Lexington and Concord, the American militia launched its first organized offensive in the fight for independence. On the night of May 26, troops under Colonels John Stark and John Nixon crossed into Hog Island and began driving off livestock. By morning, they had moved onto Noddle’s Island, dragging animals through the shallow inlet between the islands.
Vice Admiral Samuel Graves, alarmed by the loss of supplies, sent 400 Royal Marines and the armed schooner HMS Diana up Chelsea Creek to block their retreat.
The confrontation escalated quickly. Militia forces, firing from both sides of the creek, repelled British landing attempts. Lieutenant Thomas Graves, commanding Diana, attempted to withdraw downstream, but shifting tides and musket fire left the vessel stranded near the Winnisimmet Ferry.
General Israel Putnam arrived with over 2,000 men and two field cannons, surrounding HMS Diana. Stranded in the shallow waters of Chelsea Creek, the schooner was bombarded, boarded, and stripped of armaments, sails, and rigging by American forces. At dawn on May 28 , when it could no longer be salvaged, she was set on fire.
Destruction of HMS Diana
A schooner is a fast, two-masted sailing ship made famous over three centuries by the fishermen of New England. (The tall ship SVV Ernestina-Morrissey is an excellent example of the schooners built in New England during that period.) HMS Diana, in fact, was built in America and later purchased by the British to expand their fleet.
The destruction of HMS Diana marked the first American naval victory of the Revolutionary War and a turning point in early naval strategy. It laid the foundation for future cooperation between regional militias and demonstrated the growing strength of American resistance.
Tracing the Land’s History
Chelsea’s waterfront played a key role in these defining moments. It remains a place of resilience, reinvention, and remembrance.
Long before the Revolution, this land held deep cultural and ecological importance. For over 10,000 years,Chelsea was the traditional land of the Pawtucket people and a place of meeting for other tribes including the Massachusett, Wampanoag, Nipmuc, Pennacook, Passamaquoddy and others, and lived along Chelsea Creek. The first decades of colonization in this area brought devastating epidemics and violence that completely annihilated the Pawtucket tribe as a distinct people. In the early 1600s, European settlers began to arrive. In 1624, Samuel Maverick established a fortified homestead near Winnisimmet. The name Winnisimmet, meaning “good spring nearby,” reflects its significance as a gathering and sustaining place.
Governor Bellingham Cary House
This building and the acreage surrounding the Governor Bellingham Cary House have been witness to over 350 years. The Cary family and their extended household lived here from the 1760s until the beginning of the 20th century. At the start of America's War of Independence, and most notably during the Siege of Boston, the property was used by the newly formed Continental Army as they assisted refugees escaping Boston via the Winnisimmet Ferry, engaged in surveillance of British ships, and defended Chelsea during a pivotal moment in the Revolution.
By 1631, the Winnisimmet Ferry connected Chelsea to Boston, marking the beginning of a long legacy of transportation and commerce. Over the next two centuries, Chelsea evolved into a major industrial hub. By the mid-1800s, it had become a multicultural city shaped by waves of immigration and working-class resilience.
