Joshua Loring

Joshua Loring (3 August 1716 – September 1781 ) was an 18th-century colonial American naval officer in British service. During the French and Indian War, he served as a commodore in the Great Lakes region and was active during much of the Ontario and Quebec campaigns.

Biography Born in Boston, Massachusetts to parents Joshua and Hannah (Jackson) Loring, and a great-great-grandson to colonist Thomas Loring, he was apprenticed as a tanner but instead chose to enlist in the Royal Navy as a young man. He rose to command a privateer during King George's War, however he was captured by the French in 1744. Held as a prisoner in Louisbourg, Nova Scotia for several months, he was eventually released and was made a captain on 19 December 1757

Later life

Loring settled in Jamaica Plain and lived at Loring-Greenough House for over a decade. He was appointed as a member of the governor's council by Governor Thomas Gage,

Family Loring's eldest son, Joshua Loring, Jr., served as high-sheriff in Suffolk County, Massachusetts and was Commissary General of American prisoners-of-war in New York from 1777 until 1783. Together with William Cunningham, he was held responsible for the deaths from starvation and disease of thousands of Americans held prisoner on ships moored in New York Harbor. "ut it is not easy to ascertain the truth, or to determine his personal responsibility in the treatment of prisoners." He was discharged from his office on the grounds of corruption and departed for England, where he died in 1789. Joshua Loring, Jr's son, John Wentworth Loring, served in the Royal Navy and rose to the rank of admiral.

Henry Lloyd Loring, another son of Joshua Loring, Jr., also had a successful career in the service of Britain, becoming an archdeacon of Calcutta.