The Hyder Ally's captain was Israel Thorndike of Beverly, Massachusetts; second in command was Lt. Henry Oxnard of Portland, Maine, and the third officers were a Perry of Salem and Noah Edgecomb, a Portland rigger. Thorndike ran a tight ship with strict discipline.
There was a crew of fifty men, many from Portland including Isaac Fickett, a relative of the builder and caulker on the shop during her entire privateer career. Historian Goold received most of his information on the ship from this man.
BAD LUCK?
Maine authorKenneth Roberts wrote that the Hyder Ally's bad luck came to her initially because of the HMS Boxer's guns being transferred to her.
The new privateer set sail from Portland across the Atlantic Ocean on January 31, 1814, and no one was thinking about bad luck.
The ship took several prizes in the Indian Ocean, but none of them were ever able to make to an American port for the prize money. As a mater of fact, neither did the Hyder Ally herself.
Bad Luck. --Brock-Perry
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