Gorham, John, 1709-1751

John Gorham was born in Barnstable, Mass., in 1709. As a teenager, he became familiar with Canadian ports as a ship hand, and was occasionally involved in land speculation in Nova Scotia and Maine, but in 1741 he, like the Gorham men of the previous three generations in America, found his true vocation in the military.

At the outbreak of King George's War, Gorham raised a company of 50 rangers to reinforce the garrison at Annapolis Royal, N.S. Consisting mostly of full- and half-blood Mohawks, Gorham's Rangers were highly successful at employing free-ranging, "unorthodox" tactics, and were said to be particularly skilled in the applied use of terror. The arrival of the rangers swung the balance at Annapolis Royal in favor the English, earning Gorham a strong reputation in the colonial military establishment.

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