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Solomon Lovell


Solomon Lovell (1732–1801) was a brigadier general in the militia of the state of Massachusetts during the American Revolutionary War. He is best known for leading the land forces during the 1779 Penobscot Expedition, a disastrous attempt by Massachusetts to dislodge a British force from a settlement on a peninsula in Penobscot Bay, present-day Castine, Maine.

Solomon Lovell was born in Abington, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, on June 1, 1732, to David and Mary (née Torrey) Lovell. His father was a Harvard graduate, teacher, and sometime preacher. He died when Solomon was quite young, and the boy was raised first by his grandfather Enoch Lovell, and after his death by his stepfather, Samuel Kingman. Kingman, a military man, may have influenced the young Solomon to develop an interest in the military. Lovell's military service during the French and Indian War (1754–1760) is not known in detail; he is known to have served as a first lieutenant in a militia company at Lake George, New York during the 1756 campaign. In 1758 he married Lydia Holbrook, the daughter of a neighbor. The couple had two children; the first died in infancy, and Lydia died during the birth of the second in 1761. The following year Lovell remarried, to Hannah Pittey, a woman who had originally spurned his proposal to her before his first marriage. With Hannah he settled into her house in Weymouth; they had seven children, three of whom survived to adulthood. He was active in town affairs, and began serving in the provincial assembly in 1771. He was also active in the local militia, rising to the rank of major in July 1771 and colonel in 1775.

With the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, Lovell's military activity increased. He was commissioned a colonel of the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment in February 1776, and his troops were among those that occupied the heights south of Boston, prompting the British to withdraw the city. He continued to be active in the defense of eastern Massachusetts, and was promoted to brigadier general of the Suffolk County militia on June 24, 1777. Lovell led Massachusetts troops in the 1778 Battle of Rhode Island, where Lovell was one of several officers who "distinguished themselves by their coolness and courage."


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