Biography

Captain Mugford commanded the schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

 Franklin

USS Franklin (1775)

The first USS Franklin was a schooner in the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War. She was named for Benjamin Franklin....

 in the Continental Navy, serving through 1775 in John Manley

John Manley (naval officer)

John Manley was an officer in the Continental Navy and the United States Navy.-Early life:Tradition holds that John Manley was born in 1733 near Torquay, Devonshire, in south west England. As a young man, he settled in Marblehead, Massachusetts, eventually becoming the captain of a merchant...

’s squadron off Boston. He captured British ship Hope with a large cargo of military stores and powder, and took his prize into Boston, running under the noses of the British fleet lying in the outer harbor.

Franklin was attacked during the night of May 19, 1776 in the company of Lady Washington (a small privateer schooner with a crew of 7 commanded by Joseph Cunningham) by British boarders claiming to be friends from Boston; Captain Mugford was killed in the action.

The report of General Ward, the overall American commander in Boston, stated:

Captain Mugford was very fiercely attacked by twelve or thirteen boats full of men, but he and his men exerted themselves with remarkable bravery, beat off the enemy, sunk several of their boats, and killed a number of their men; it is supposed they lost sixty or seventy. The intrepid Captain Mugford fell a little before the enemy left his schooner; he was ran through with a lance while he was cutting off the hands of the pirates as they attempted to board him, and it was said that with his own hands he cut off five pairs of theirs.... The Lady Washington....was attacked by five boats, which were supposed to contain near or quite a hundred men; but after repeated efforts to board her they were beaten off by the intrepidity and exertions of the little company, who gloriously defended the Lady against the brutal ravishers of liberty.

Namesake

Two United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 ships, USS Mugford

USS Mugford

USS Mugford may refer to:*USS Mugford , Wickes-class destroyer that was launched in 1918 and decommissioned in 1922*USS Mugford , Bagley-class destroyer that was launched in 1937 and served until 1947, having served through World War II...

, have been named for him.