I was reading about some of my families founding members and I came across a text which uses the term "Captain of the top". The man they are referring to would only have been 14 or 15 years old so it may just be an honorary type title? Or was it an actual position?
Here is the text its from:
"On returning to England, he enlisted on board the King's ship bound to the Island of Jamaica with a cargo of military stores. This voyage completed, he again enlisted on an English man-of- war vessel, and, with that vessel, was captured by the American ship Black Prince, commanded by Richard Crowminshield. He and his shipmates were confined in irons and nearly devoured l)y lice. On application to the commodore, who was moved with sympathy for the youth, his shackles were removed and permis- sion given him to mingle and labor with the sailors of the Black Prince who manned the captured man-of-war vessel and took her into an American port (presumably Boston), where they landed in May, 1778. The succeeding fall, this vessel was impressed into the American service, sent to the Maine coast to aid in driv- ing the British from the Penobscot, and young Francis, having sworn allegiance to the cause of America, acted in the capacity of "captain of the top" in the engagement at Castine that soon followed, in which this vessel was an active participant."
In the period of the American revolution, sailing ships(1) would generally have two or three masts, each of them made up of smaller pieces of wood that were literally lashed together to form portions of a mast. The portions of the mast would each have their own names -- the stick that was set in a ship's keel would be called the "mast" and the stick lashed to it would be called the "topmast" with more information prepended, the stick lashed to that would be the topgallant, the stick lashed to that would be the royal, and so forth. Further, the entire construction would be called a mast. So a ship would have a foremast, mainmast, and mizzen mast, but you can further distinguish between the foremast, fore-topmast, fore-topgallant, fore-royalmast, and so on and so forth. The masts above the top, with their rigging, could be taken down manually by sailors in bad weather or during drill.
Anyhow, the area where the mast would meet its topmast usually had a platform there, called a top, that was used in rigging the mast, storing things like signal flags and ropes, and, in battle, fighting the mast -- sailors or Marines would be stationed there to annoy the enemy with muskets and grenades.
So now that you know how ships were constructed, let's talk about how sailors were organized. In the British navy, and the American navy which imitated the British model, every sailor on a ship would have a station in normal sailing as well as in action, and a sailor would usually report to both a warrant officer and a midshipman or lieutenant who commanded what's called a "division," or group of sailors. A ship's boatswain (bosun), a warrant officer, was in charge of all the ship's masts, rigging and tackle, and his mates would take charge of individual divisions. Each mast would have its own "captain," an informal title, who would command the seamen under him and who were called "captain of the maintop, captain of the foretop, captain of the mizzen top," etc. -- this is what your fellow was!
Sailing ships had petty officers (non-commissioned) in charge of various parts of the ship. A "captain of the top" would have been the petty officer in charge of the top of one of the masts on a sailing ship. This would have been a position for experienced seamen, sort of like a sergeant in a land army.
Here's a short quote discussing the British system of rating sailors in the Victorian era, which is not quite the same as Revolutionary War America, but this was only a few decades off, the technology and terminologies did not change much, and the two nations had the same naval traditions:
As he gained experience & knowledge he might be promoted to LS (Leading Seaman), then to PO2 (Petty Officer 2nd class) & PO1 (Petty Officer 1st class). At that time he would have held a rating of say 2nd Captain of the Mizzen Top – this meant his rank was PO2. When he was promoted to Captain of the Mizzen Top he would have been promoted to PO1. There are many ratings in the RN & they vary from time to time during the Victorian period.
http://www.britishmedals.us/collections/BW/vncg/raterank.html
Awesome answer, thanks! I now feel like I did not accomplish much by the time I was 15...
