HMS Somerset was a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment, and launched on 18 July 1748.

The 48-day siege by Admiral Edward Boscawen and General Amherst ended with the French surrender on 26 July, clearing the way for a British expedition to sail up the Saint Lawrence River to take Quebec City the following summer.

[2] The expedition against Quebec City, led by General James Wolfe, was landed by a force that included HMS Somerset.

The British were victorious at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on 13 September 1759 giving Britain control of Canada and North America's Atlantic seaboard.

Colonel Paul Revere had set out that night to ride to Lexington to warn two prominent Colonial leaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, that their lives might be in danger.

Having departed Boston by rowboat to cross the Back Bay into Charlestown, he narrowly avoided being noticed by HMS Somerset, which was anchored there.

On the night of 16 June 1775, several thousand militia forces began occupying the strategically important Charlestown Peninsula and fortified Breed's Hill, a position from which they would be able to bombard the British in Boston.

The position was eventually taken by British troops, ferried across the bay under protection of the navy's guns, but at considerable cost in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

A tremendous amount of scarce war material was chopped or pried away from the wreck by local residents before the state put a guard over what remained.

Severe winter storms in December finally broke apart the remains of the ship, moved it closer to shore, and eventually buried it under tons of sand at an area known locally as Dead Man's Hollow.

In 2010 the National Park Service commissioned a digital survey using 3D imaging technology to accurately record the exposed timbers that were visible.

The Life and Times of an Eighteenth Century British Man-o-War and Her Impact on North America, Marjorie Hubbell Gibson, Abbey Gate Press, 1992, currently out of print.