Maine Memory Network

This pendant belonged to the Reverend John Wiswell (1731-1812), a resident of Falmouth (Portland) in the late 18th century.

His Episcopalian faith and allegiance to the Church of England eventually forced him to flee abruptly and without his family to Boston on Captain Mowatt’s British warship on the eve of the American Revolution in 1775.

This locket commemorates Wiswell's wife, Mercy, and daughter, Elizabeth, who died while trying to reach him in Boston.

Also memorialized are their two young sons (unnamed) who died in 1773.