During the first summer of the War of 1812, Hulan and her daughter were aboard her vessel the Industry near St. Mary's Bay when it was seized by the American privateer, the Benjamin Franklin, and escorted to New York.
[1] During a marine court of inquiry in September that year, the determined Ann Hulan convinced commissioner Nathaniel Davis that she was not a threat to the United States and depended on the earnings from her cargo.
The fiftyish widow won the investigators' hearts; Davis pleaded for her release in a letter to the American Secretary of State James Monroe, writing that Ann and her crew shouldn't be considered prisoners of war.
[2] She retrieved her cargo, primarily fox furs and 152 barrels of cured salmon, received a safe conduct pass from the U.S. government, and was home for Christmas.
[2] Hulan continued to develop her business enterprises and established an extensive commercial farm,[10] one of the first and largest on the west coast of Newfoundland,[1] producing cheese, butter, domestic poultry, oats, barley, wheat, and potatoes.
"[citation needed] Of her, Cormack wrote, She is indefatigably industrious and useful, and immediately or remotely related to, or connected with, the whole population of the bay, over whom she commands a remarkable degree of material influence and respect.