Reuben Colburn Reuben Colburn ( 1740 – 1818 ) was a shipbuilder in Pittston , Maine who made great contributions to the American side in the Revolutionary War . His home , the Major Reuben Colburn House , is listed in the National Register of Historic Places . Biography . In 1761 , Colburn , his seven siblings and parents moved to Gardinerston in Maine , then a province of Massachusetts . He arrived near the beginning of serious tensions between the colonists and the British . A strong patriot , Colburn , a lumberman and shipbuilder , took up arms in 1775 when the revolution started , obtaining command of his local committee of safety . To bring local Indians in on the American side , he gathered the Abenaki tribes of the St . Francis . Traveling by canoe Colburn led them to Cambridge , Massachusetts for an audience with General George Washington at his temporary headquarters . A surprised Washington welcomed them with open arms and enlisted the chiefs on the spot . When informed of a plan to capture Quebec City under the command of American Colonel Benedict Arnold , Colburn offered his services to the Continental army , complete with scouts , maps , and boats . Arnold was enthusiastic about the new support and wrote Colburn immediately : Sir , His Excellency General Washington Desires you will Inform your self how soon , there can be procured , or built , at Kennebec , Two hundred light Batoos Capable of Carrying Six or Seven Men each , with their Provisions & Baggage , ( say 100 wt . to each man ) the Boats to be furnished with four Oars two Paddles & two Setting Poles each , the expense of Building them & whether a sufficient quantity of Nails can be procured with you . Colburn sped to Maine , making plans for the expedition . Once home , he put his crew to work building the bateau x and procuring the foodstuffs from the local citizenry , many of them Tories unsympathetic to the patriot cause . He ordered maps and sent three scouts to explore the upper Dead River ahead of the coming army . Colburn made three trips to Cambridge during August of that year while the crews , under the supervision of his brothers , Oliver and Benjamin Colburn , and partner Thomas Agry , labored to fill the contract . They had only fifteen days to complete the task . Due to the short time frame and time of year , no dried pine was available and he was forced to cut fresh green pine to attach to the oak ribs . When the transports arrived on September 20 , 1775 , the bateaux were just about finished . With Arnold on the transport " Broad Bay " was a 19 - year - old volunteer soldier by the name of Aaron Burr . Both were entertained in the Colburn home for three days until the army moved on upriver to Fort Western . Many legends surround the activities of Burr , but his stay with Reuben and Elizabeth Colburn is well documented . Two divisions remained at Colburn House for a week . Colburn followed the expedition with a company of carpenters , fixing the flotilla as needed . The army barely made it through to supplies in Canada , and the 600 remaining men led by Arnold later mounted an unsuccessful attack on Quebec . Most of the commanders were captured and Arnold received the leg wound that plagued him for the rest of his days . Colburn and his brothers returned to Pittston , where he continued to build ships and support the American cause for the remainder of the war . He served in the Massachusetts General Court and was a delegate to the Falmouth Convention , where he was the first to vote for statehood for Maine . That effort failed . Colburn was never paid the money promised him by Washington . Thus , in the winter of 1776 , when he first contacted Washington about the matter , a campaign began to gain payment that would last until the last family member failed in 1856 . Treasury officials lost his receipts and for 20 years they sat in a box in New York after the commissioner died . In 1792 , an act of limitation passed in the Continental Congress banning all Revolutionary claims as questionable due to the length of time passed , but this was challenged as unjust . Colburn suffered great economic hardship for this great expense and died in 1818 , financially ruined by the embargo and the War of 1812 . In 1819 the Congressional Committee on Pensions and Revolutionary claims reported that Colburn had pressed a claim on the United States for the sum of £523 15s 10d ; that he had received in September 1775 the sum of £332 10s 6d in cash ; that credit was given to the United States for the amount of £159 10s 6d leaving a balance of £364 4s 4d ; that there was sufficient time until 1794 for the claim to have been settled until barred by the statute of limitations ; and that to admit a claim after 40 years after being barred was inexpedient and that claim should not be granted . Kenneth Roberts ' 1929 novel " Arundel " mentions Reuben Colburn on several pages . The journals of the members of the original expedition complied by Roberts in " March to Quebec " are a critical primary source for the ill - fated Arnold Expedition . A new biography of Reuben Colburn : " Patriot on the Kennebec : Major Reuben Colburn , Benedict Arnold and the March to Quebec 1775 " by Colburn descendant Mark A . York , was published by The History Press of Charleston , South Carolina , in February 2012 .