Jonathan Buck was born in

Woburn, Massachusetts Woburn ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,876 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Woburn is located north of Boston. Woburn uses Massachusetts' ...

on February 20, 1719, and raised in

Haverhill, Massachusetts Haverhill ( ) is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. Haverhill is located north of Boston on the New Hampshire border and about from the Atlantic Ocean. The population was 67,787 at the 2020 United States census. Located o ...

. He died March 18, 1795, in

Bucksport, Maine Bucksport is a historical town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. The population was 4,944 at the 2020 census. Bucksport is across the Penobscot River estuary from Fort Knox and the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, which replaced the Waldo–H ...

. He is the founder of the town of Bucksport, having settled what was known as Plantation 1, building the first sawmill and opening the first general store. Colonel Buck was a justice of the peace and is the subject of a legend that holds that he ordered a witch put to death by burning, and this witch put a curse on his tomb. There is a monument to Col. Buck erected in the Bucksport Cemetery in 1870 which bears a stain roughly in the shape of a woman's lower leg. According to the legend, the stain is the leg and foot of the witch, and that the mark has reappeared whenever the tombstone has been replaced. Notably, executions for alleged witchcraft are not known from Maine, and those that took place elsewhere in New England pre-dated Buck's birth and were not carried out by burning. Jonathan Buck left Haverhill when his request to build a shipyard on the

Merrimack River The Merrimack River (or Merrimac River, an occasional earlier spelling) is a river in the northeastern United States. It rises at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers in Franklin, New Hampshire, flows southward into M ...

was denied and instead he was offered privileges on a tributary on another side of his land. Since Buck did not own the land on the opposite side of the brook, he saw no ability to thrive as a shipbuilder in Haverhill. In 1775 Buck was appointed by the

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

Provincial Congress as Colonel in the 5th Regiment of the District of Maine Militia in Lincoln County and placed in charge of Fort Pownall located at the mouth of the Penobscot River. He was one of the leaders of the

Penobscot Expedition The Penobscot Expedition was a 44-ship American naval armada during the Revolutionary War assembled by the Provincial Congress of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The flotilla of 19 warships and 25 support vessels sailed from Boston on July ...

in July–August, 1779, a major loss for the colonial forces. After this, Buck trekked back to Haverhill to be with his sons, and did not return to Maine until 1783.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buck, Jonathan 1719 births 1795 deaths 18th-century people from Massachusetts