Samuel Waldo

Brigadier General Samuel Waldo (August 7, 1696 – May 23, 1759) was an American merchant, military officer, politician from the Province of Massachusetts Bay , and prosperous slave trader.

Biography He was born in Boston, the son of Jonathan Waldo and Hannah Mason. In 1730, he purchased a 17th-century title to a large tract of land in Nova Scotia with the intent of establishing a colony there; the title did not stand up when he proposed this plan to the authorities in England. A one-time business partner of Colonel Thomas Westbrook, Waldo acquired a large tract of land between the Penobscot and Muscongus Rivers in what is now Maine where he settled Irish and German immigrants and dispossessed the indigenous people living there.

He was an enslaver and court documents, letters, and advertisements Waldo posted in Boston newspapers document his having enslaved over 220 men, women, and children. Approximately 215 of these individuals were enslaved aboard Waldo's sloop "Africa" on a 1734-1736 voyage bound for Guinea. Writing to ship captain Samuel Rhodes in 1734, Waldo warned "for your safety as well as mine, you'll have the needful guard over your Slaves, and put not too much Confidence in the Women nor Children lest they happen to be Instrumental to your being surprised which may be fatall." Many of the people Waldo enslaved died while on board the ship. He sued Rhodes, the ship's captain, for damages. Waldo lost the case.

During King George's War, he served as brigadier-general in the reduction on Louisbourg Fortress in 1745 and served on the temporary council that administered the settlement until Peter Warren was named governor. In 1757, during the French and Indian War, he submitted a plan to William Pitt which served as a basis for the second capture of Louisbourg from the French the following year. Waldo died of apoplexy near present-day Bangor, Maine in 1759 while participating in a military expedition with Governor Thomas Pownall. He was initially buried at Fort Pownall (at Cape Jellison), but his remains were transported to Boston in 1760 and interred at the King's Chapel Burying Ground.

The Maine towns of Waldo and Waldoboro, together with Waldo County, are named for their early proprietor.

His son-in-law Thomas Flucker was royal secretary of Massachusetts and later Provincial Governor. His granddaughter, Lucy Flucker Knox, married Revolutionary War hero and founding father Henry Knox. The Knox family built the impressive Montpelier on Waldo's tract of land in Thomaston, Maine.