Harry Gratwick is a seasonal resident of Vinalhaven Island in Penobscot Bay. A retired teacher, Gratwick had a forty-five-year career as a secondary school educator. Harry is an active member of the Vinalhaven Historical Society and has written extensively on maritime history for two Island Institute publications, the Working Waterfront and Island Journal. Gratwick is a graduate of Williams College and has a master's degree from Columbia University.

In 1775, Captain Henry Mowat infamously ordered the burning of Falmouth--now Portland. That act cast him as the arch-villain in the state's Revolutionary history, but Mowat's impact on Maine went far beyond a single order. The Scottish Mowat began his North American career by surveying the Maine coast, capturing and confiscating colonial merchant ships he suspected of smuggling. Already feared by Mainers when the war broke out, his legacy was further tarnished when he was blamed for dismantling Fort Pownall at the mouth of the Penobscot River. In this volume, local historian Harry Gratwick examines the life of Henry Mowat and whether he truly was the scoundrel of Revolutionary Maine.