Neptune's Needle

...Near the end of the [Revolutionary] war, he went to Boston, there taking up the life of a mariner. He served as an officer on a letter-of-marque, probably the Charming Sally, commanded by Capt. Dunn, being wounded in one of several desperate engagements. Later, while in the merchant service, he was at Port-au-Prince during the negro revolution, and gave aid to the white residents... After passing several years at sea, gaining necessary capital in the West Indian trade, he settled down as a merchant in 1798 in Portland in the District of Maine... In this business he was so successful, in spite of some eccentricities and the lack of formal education, that in 1809 he paid taxes in Portland second only to those of his senior partner, Matthew Cobb. Although his trade, which extended to Europe, the East and West Indies, and South America, was seriously affected by the embargo of 1807, Clapp supported the Government. In the unsettled days after the embargo was lifted, his ships were detained in the Sound by the Danes...suffering damages for which, in 1831, he submitted a claim totaling with interest $124,520.50... When war came in 1812, he again supported the Government, subscribing, it is said, half his fortune to the national loan. He was one of nine owners of the privateer Mars, commissioned [in] 1815. ...As the wealthiest man in Maine and a lavish dispenser of hospitality, he entertained many notables at his mansion...on Congress St., Portland.

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Peter Richards