Today's DAR
Physician Dr. Edmund Hagen of Scarborough, Maine, served as a surgeon on a fairly successful expedition on Massachusetts privateer Putnam, captained by John Harmon, in the autumn of 1776 – successful, that is, until the vessel was captured by a British frigate, and he and his crewmates ended up on a prison hulk in Halifax harbor. Dr. Hagen never made it back home, dying onboard his floating prison in the winter of 1777, but his medical chest and some papers were returned to his family. Inspired by his father’s sacrifice, Dr. Hagen’s 14-year-old son Edmund vowed to avenge the death of his father, and signed up for military service, lying about his age.
The story of the last months of Dr. Hagen’s life is told in the journal found in his papers donated to the Americana Collection of the NSDAR Archives in 1973 by Ellen Lane Love, one of his direct descendants and a member of the Martha Washington Chapter in Washington, D,C. Earlier this year, when talking to DAR archivist Amanda Vasquez about the treasures in the Americana Collection, I was intrigued by this dramatic story, and wanted to make it accessible to more researchers, while drawing attention to the work performed by the DAR in collecting and preserving historical documents.
During the spring months, I transcribed and annotated the manuscript in order to provide some context to modern readers and to answer some of the questions not answered by Dr. Hagen: questions such as “On what ship was he serving?,” and perhaps most important – “How was he captured?” In the course of my research, I was also able to identify some of the other members of the ill-fated crew
