By David Harry

Staff Writer

Months before Thomas Jefferson elaborated on the reasons American colonies needed to be free of British rule, Scarborough men had taken up the cause for independence.

Jefferson’s words will be commemorated Sunday with a Fourth of July parade along Pine Point beginning at 9 a.m. The thoughts and deeds of the men fighting to enact the Declaration of Independence are found at the Scarborough Historical Society.

The parade route is from the parking lot at Hurd Park to the Pine Point Fire station on King Street.

Prior to the parade, a one-mile “fun run” for children ages 5 to 12 begins at 8:05 a.m.

As detailed by Scarborough historian Dorothy Shaw Libbey in lists she compiled for Scarborough Historical Society, more than 370 men from town fought for independence, enlisting even before the declaration dated July 4, 1776.

In her lists and as detailed in “The History of Scarborough 1633-1783,” by William Southgate, news of the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 spurred the formation of local companies that marched almost immediately to Cambridge to fight against the British.

A regiment of Cumberland County militia led by Col. Edmund Phinney was comprised of companies led by Scarborough captains John Rice and Abraham Tyler.

A letter home from Rice, described in historical society files as a “retailer and inn-holder” born in the Dunstan area, said his company saw little action initially as George Washington began forming what would become the Continental Army.

“Things remain peaceable at present,” Rice wrote in July 1775. “I hope through God we shall be able to make them turn their backs ashamed.”

Libbey said the regiment was the first to enter Boston after it was evacuated by the British in March 1776.

Tyler served in the Continental Army through the campaign at Fort Ticonderoga in New York in 1776 and then again in a militia company in upstate New York in 1778 and 1779, according to Libbey’s research.

The road to independence moved up and down the East Coast, and apparently was well followed by Silas Burbank. Burbank, who rose to captain in 1777 after enlisting April 24, 1775, was part of Continental Army victories at Saratoga in New York in October 1777, and Monmouth in June, 1778.

Between those successes, Burbank endured the winter of 1777 and 1778 at Valley Forge, when the Continental Army under Washington suffered through cold, disease and hunger. Burbank served until Jan. 1, 1781 and moved to Parsonsfield after the war. He died in 1814.

Burbank also had two sons who fought in the Continental Army.

Then considered a district of Massachusetts, Maine was not the site of many campaigns or battles during the American Revolution. What action occurred in the state did not go well for the cause of independence, but did involve Scarborough soldiers.

Benjamin Larrabee, buried in Black Point Cemetery, led men in the defense of Portland in 1775 and on the ill-fated Penobscot Expedition in 1779, according to Southgate’s history.

In October 1775, British forces shelled Portland, then called Falmouth, two days after about 600 area militia members converged to protect the city. Southgate said the men were dismissed as it was hoped the British would then spare the town.

In 1779, a joint naval and land operation was launched against Castine where perhaps 700 to 800 British troops had been stationed in June, according to www.myrevolutionarywar.com.

Its history says officers of the Massachusetts General Court ordered and paid for the operation to dislodge the troops. Scarborough Historical Society records indicate Larrabee was a militia captain.

The operation was a costly failure as forces failed to press an early advantage and superior troop numbers before British reinforcements arrived. All American ships were lost and the troops who escaped did so by land. According to Southgate’s history, Scarborough native Joseph Waterhouse returned with the only trophy from the campaign – a British gun taken from a soldier he captured in Castine.

Records at the Maine Society of the Sons of the American Revolution website show a number of Scarborough residents who fought for American independence moved to Gorham, Standish or Limington after the war ended. Graves of men buried at Dunstan and Black Point cemeteries are marked by flags and circular metal emblems with Sons of the Revolution insignias.

Staff writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219