Patricia Hubert’s devotion to seeing that the contributions of Maine’s soldiers, sailors, and one junior officer of the American Revolution, in particular, are finally recognized resulted in the publication of her book Major Philip M. Ulmer: A Hero of the American Revolution in August 2014, after six years of research, documentation, and writing.

In March of this year, Ms Hubert was honored with a Certificate of Achievement for the Excellence in American History Book Award 2015 from the Connecticut State Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Ms Hubert, a regent of the Mary Wooster Chapter of the DAR, had provided copies of the book to Deborah Payne, state historian for the DAR, and to DAR State Regent April Staley, last year. Nominated for this award at the state level by Ms Payne, both of the DAR officers have also nominated Ms Hubert’s book to the National Society of the DAR.

It will be one of 50 books, one from each state, examined by a professional panel. Only one book will receive this first-time DAR award, to be announced the end of May.

The national award, said Ms Hubert, will be given to the winner at the Continental Congress Award Ceremony in late June, in Washington, DC. Just to have been nominated, she said, is a great honor.

Ms Hubert, a retired elementary school teacher, and her husband, Richard, were researching his family history at Lake Champlain in New York, when they came upon a roadside marker. It commemorated the American Revolution “Battle of Valcour Island” on Lake Champlain in October 1776 that neither had ever heard about.

She had no idea that her curiosity about the event would lead to a consuming effort to bring it, and its hero, to the attention of the American public.

“It is my humble effort to bring a voice to this forgotten first generation American patriot and his regiment of soldiers, and their struggles to survive and to help found the new nation of the United States of America,” said Ms Hubert.

The story of Major Philip M. Ulmer began to unfold with the Hubert’s first visit to the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vermont, where the archeologist had recently been recovering artifacts of the battleground beneath Lake Champlain. There they learned that the Battle of Valcour Island was the first fleet-to-fleet naval engagement of the American Revolution, with General Benedict Arnold leading the American flotilla against British General Sir Guy Carleton.

The three-day running gun battle, while resulting in the loss of the entire American fleet, would delay the British campaign to split the colonies from north to south long enough for winter to set in and the British to retreat to Canada.

Junior officer Maj Ulmer was on the gunboat The Spitfire, and while that boat sank to the bottom, the major survived to go on to fight in many other crucial battles of the American Revolution.

“This battle [of Valcour Island] was very pivotal,” explained Ms Hubert, as the British retreat gave General George Washington time to assemble and strengthen the American army, and allowed Congress to raise arms and supplies for that army, in support of the public’s desire for liberty from Great Britain.

As she learned more about Maj Ulmer and the Spitfire (which rests intact at the bottom of Lake Champlain), Ms Hubert became convinced of the need to find out more about him, his participation in the Revolution, and a better understanding of the people who first fought for America’s independence.

A Family Connection

Her curiosity was piqued, as well, by the fact that Ulmer was a last name on her father’s side of the family.

“Little did I know,” Ms Hubert said, “that all the newly discovered information I would uncover would also change my direction in life, offering new insights into the understanding of my own family history in America, as well as my perspective on the American Revolution.”

It is because Maine was then a part of Massachusetts that the Maine regiments are overlooked, Ms Hubert said. Major Ulmer, for instance had been a staunch supporter of the Revolution since the shots fired at Lexington and Concord. Her book, she said, “Lights up the involvement of these frontiersmen from Maine, whose story has been unknown all these years.”

When Ms Hubert found out that one of the researchers of the Spitfire and Major Ulmer was going blind and would have to let the research drop, she volunteered to try to find out more about this little-known hero of the Revolution. Her search led her to the National Archives, the Massachusetts Archives, various historical societies, and through pages and pages of old history books and dusty documents.

“It was like being a detective; a little clue here and a little clue there. Like putting puzzle pieces into the puzzle of his life. I discovered Ulmer had been raised in Salem, Mass., as well as in Broad Bay [now Waldoboro, Maine], where his father was a mariner out of Marblehead,” she said.

Many road trips filled the Huberts’ free time for the next few years, as Ms Hubert tracked Maj Ulmer from his Maine roots through his long military career. From Bunker Hill to the Battle of Trenton — where Gen Washington valued the officer’s ability to translate and interpret for Hessian soldiers captured there — the major had been involved in ever critical Revolutionary battle, she discovered.

“The most fulfilling point was when we went to Lincolnville, Maine,” said Ms Hubert.

“He became the founder of Lincolnville, Maine. His shipyard was in Duck Trap,” Ms Hubert said, and while she found the site of his homestead there, the house had burned down in the 1930s. It was the discovery of Major Philip Ulmer’s forgotten gravesite at Duck Trap Cove Cemetery that moved her, though.

“We place a memorial wreath and an American flag on his grave in 2010, and gave him a full Masonic funeral,” Ms Hubert said.

The book was almost finished when Ms Hubert found documentation that linked her family to that of Maj Ulmer’s grandfather, who had brought the family to America from Ulm, Germany.

“The material showed that during the Plague in Europe, there was a single survivor of the Ulm family, a teenager. In gratitude, this survivor made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem,” she said. Attacked by Turkish bandits, he was enslaved in Egypt for 15 years, and eventually indentured to a Venetian merchant. When he had earned his freedom, he returned to Ulm, only to find it destroyed.

“He married, though, and had two sons. Philip Ulmer’s family descends from the younger son. My family,” said Ms Hubert, “descends from the older son.”

There was a huge amount of information to process, and overwhelmed, Ms Hubert took a break to process it all.

“Information just kept gravitating to me, and I wondered if I could finish,” she said.

She kept awakening to a voice urging her on, though. “Don’t give up! You have to tell our story!”

Re-engaged, she began writing again. “Whenever I’d get discouraged, the voices would come back, ‘You have to tell our story!’ It was quite an experience,” she said.

The more she learned about Maj Ulmer and the Maine regiments, the more she desired to tell the story. “They need to be recognized for what they gave to our nation,” she said.

The profits from the sale of her book will support the Lincolnville Historical Society and Cemetery Committee, for the discovery and repair of others’ gravesites from Maj Ulmer’s company believed to be buried there, as well as the Lake Champlain Museum. Ms Hubert has donated 250 copies of the book to that museum, and profits from it will go to the Spitfire Management Project to salvage Maj Ulmer’s gunboat from beneath the lake. Eventually, Ms Hubert said, a building will be built on museum grounds to hold the recovered ship and create an exhibit there on the history of the New England area during the American Revolution.

Major Philip M. Ulmer: A Hero of the American Revolution is among the five finalists for the Excellence in American History Books Award, at the national level, and Ms Hubert is thrilled to have made it so far.

“[The book] has taken on a life of its own. It’s very exciting. I’m just trying to do my part to help these patriots be noticed and recognized,” she said.

Major Philip M. Ulmer: A Hero of the American Revolution, from History Press (now Acadia, out of London and Canada) is available at amazon.com, or at Barnes & Noble bookstores, as well as other major bookstores across the nation, in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.