Joseph Frye

For those of a similar name, see Joseph Fry (disambiguation).

Joseph Frye (March 19, 1712 – July 25, 1794) was a renowned military leader from colonial Maine.

Born in Andover, Massachusetts, he obtained the rank of general in the Massachusetts militia after serving in King George's War and the French and Indian War. For services during that conflict, the Massachusetts General Court in 1762 granted him a township on the Saco River which had once been the Sokokis Abenaki village of Pequawket. In 1777, the plantation was incorporated as Fryeburg, Maine, named in his honor. Frye is best known for the role he played expanding the colonial frontier into lands formerly held by both the French and Abenakis. He is regarded as the successor of John Lovewell, and also an enemy of Molly Ockett, leader and sage among dispossessed Algonquian peoples.

Frye served in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, first as a major general of Massachusetts militia, and then briefly as a brigadier general in the Continental Army. He resigned on April 23, 1776, because his age made him ill-suited for active duty.

References

• Joseph Frye: Maine Proprietor and Soldier

• Collections of the Maine Historical Society By Maine Historical Society (1891 Original from the University of Michigan)