“The right of all Americans to learn about our history and culture”

The American Council of Learned Societies is a federation of more than eighty scholarly organizations in the humanities and related social sciences, founded in 1919.

This week it issued a statement about the Trump White House’s attempt to dictate the work of the Smithsonian Institution:

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) stands in firm opposition to the latest directive by the White House forcing Smithsonian Institution museums to subject their presentation of American history to government review. This supersedes the oversight of professional scholars and makes the museums tools of the presidential administration. . . .

The Smithsonian was established in 1846 to advance knowledge through research and to make knowledge accessible to all through museums, education programs, and public outreach. Many steps are required to make knowledge part of public understanding. Scholars and scientists start with evidence—a worm-eaten page in an archive, an artifact found in an archaeological dig, a book written in a rarely studied language, and all sorts of familiar objects and texts—and only after careful study, writing, editing, informal and often formal peer review do we make the results public. These steps are where expertise is tested and where academic freedom is expressed in real time.

The historical materials at the Smithsonian Institution museums are intended to paint a full and accurate picture of the American experience; by forcing them to edit their exhibits at the administration’s command, the White House is engaging in authoritarian censorship. It is taking another step toward divesting in professional expertise and dismantling principles of academic freedom.

The genuinely patriotic thing we can all do in this moment is to speak out on behalf of the scholars who have dedicated their lives to helping us understand our nation, and for the right of all Americans to learn about our history and culture free from government intrusion.

On the one side, we have this long collective effort to develop, explore, and share knowledge. On the other hand, we have an executive branch in thrall to a man whose conviction for fraud was just upheld, reaching past what the law allows.

“Whittled down to a couple of dozen notables”

I started this week planning simply to pass on the Professor Buzzkill podcast’s analysis of the “We must hang together, or separately” remark.

But then I looked into the evidence myself to be sure. I found holes in the record, and more questions. I went in a different, and more prolix, direction.

Nonetheless, I do commend this analysis of how we remember the Revolution as time passes:

As the revolutionary generation started to die out and become part of the early written history of the young United States, the vast number of people involved in the revolution and the development of the new government was gradually whittled down to a couple of dozen notables in popular memory and history. I call this “the Mount Rushmore effect.” You can’t possibly talk about the hundreds or thousands of people directly involved in something important, so people concentrate on leaders and on the famous.

As time rolls on, and more and more events become part of the “American story,” the number of individual historical figures well-known in the popular mind continues to go down. We forget about all the second- and third-level people who do most of the work for which political and military leaders get all the credit. And that’s not even mentioning the hundreds of thousands of, if you will, “foot soldiers” on the ground. Archaeologists (perhaps alien archaeologists) thousands of years from now will find Mount Rushmore, and assume that the four men depicted there were responsible for most of American history.

Plus, of course, Benjamin Franklin.

“Grant they may all hang together”

Was “We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately” (or the shorter form “We must all hang together, or separately”) an established saying by 1776?

Other phrases we often now attribute to a particular Founder, such as “Facts are stubborn things” and “A penny saved is a penny earned,” turn out to have been common aphorisms.

The hallmarks of such sayings seem to be:

• There’s a standard wording, with only slight variations.
• That wording shows up multiple times in the written record.

I haven’t found evidence of those things when it comes to the “hang together/separately” wordplay. As I noted yesterday, as early as 1681 two British playwrights penned lines that played off the double meaning of “hang”—but in different forms.

I couldn’t find further examples in a search of colonial American newspapers. Now I might not have hit on the right wording, but that suggests the wordplay hadn’t cemented itself in the language yet.

I did find jokes using the “hang together” phrase, but not in the context of a warning for unity. For example, on 14 Sept 1779 the Norwich Packet reprinted an essay from the Connecticut Courant that included this passage:

But that Congress should be ass-riden with a junto, is a matter that wants proof. This junto, by your account of it, is as full of wonders as the beast in the Revelations is of horns, and near as powerful. It consists, you say, mostly of New-England men; who we know are elected not without regard to their religion as well as their politics: Yet they are here combined to vote alike in all cases, let oath and conscience go where it will, and let the public interest go where it will. They are to take care of themselves and connections, and at all events hang together; and if all this is true they ought all to hang in one halter; and I should have no objection, Sir, if you crave the jobb, to your being hangman.

On 8 Sept 1785 the New-York Packet printed this “BON MOT.”:

A SCOTCH Parson in the Rump-time, in his prayer, said, Laird bless the grand council, the parliament, and grant they may all hang together.

A country fellow standing by, said, Yes, yes, with all my heart, and the sooner the better; and I am sure it is the prayers of all good people.

But friends, said Sawney, I don’t mean as that fellow means, but pray they may all hang together in accord and concord.

No matter what cord, replied the other, so it is but a strong cord.

That joke appears to blame the Scottish clergy, or Scotsmen in general, for supporting the ongoing Long Parliament of 1648–1653. In fact, Scotland was politically wary of that English Parliament and its policies, and Oliver Cromwell invaded the kingdom to keep the Scots from providing a haven for Charles II. However unfair, that joke was reprinted in other American newspapers for years afterward.

A variation appeared in The Paragon Jester; Or, The Polite Wit’s Museum, published in Southwark, London, in 1798:

Hugh Peters being to preach a sermon to one of the companies of London, and desired therein to exhort them to love and unity; he concluded his sermon with a wish that they might be all joined in concord, accord, or any cord, so that they might all hang together.

This version lampooned an English preacher who supported the Puritan Parliament, Cromwell, and the execution of Charles I. The Rev. Hugh Peter was himself executed for treason in 1660, making him a safe target for this joke a century later.

In sum, while eighteenth-century British and American writers did craft jokes using the double meaning of “hang together,” there doesn’t seem to have been a pithy saying with that phrase. In particular, we don’t have evidence of the phrase being used with the political alternative of hanging separately.

Two people who were in Philadelphia in 1774 and 1775 (Alexander Graydon and John Adams) later said Richard Penn came up with the resonant witticism, and Carter Braxton wrote it down (crediting “a Wit”) in 1776. So that looks like the origin of the joke, even if Benjamin Franklin ended up with most of the credit.

“According to Dick Penns bon Mot”

As quoted here, in April 1776 Carter Braxton wrote home to Virginia from the Continental Congress: “It is a true saying of a Wit—We must hang together or separately.”

Was Braxton referring to a generic “Wit,” or had he heard this remark from a specific person, or attributed to a specific person? His letter didn’t say.

Editors of the Benjamin Franklin Papers suggested that Braxton might have been alluding to Franklin. But given how Alexander Graydon credited the remark to Richard Penn speaking in 1774 or 1775, Braxton might have been referring to that lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania instead.

Graydon didn’t publish his Memoirs of His Own Time until 1811, however. While that’s decades before anyone attributed the remark to Franklin, it’s also decades after Penn allegedly spoke. Is there any closer evidence?

Indeed, there is. In April 1786, John Adams wrote home from London to his brother-in-law Richard Cranch. At the time Britain and the new U.S. of A. were trying to sort out their trading arrangements, and states were starting to compete with each other.

Charles Jenkinson (1729–1808, shown here) was the new president of the Council for Trade and Plantations overseeing British overseas commerce. Jenkinson had served in the administrations of Lord Bute, George Grenville, and Lord North, and Adams viewed him as part of a cabal inimical to America. (Later in 1786 Jenkinson became Baron Hawkesbury, and in 1796 the first Earl of Liverpool.)

Adams wrote:

Mr Jenkinson, I presume, has, by his late Motions in Parliament, all of which are carried without opposition, convinced the People of America, that they have nothing but a ruinous Commerce to expect with England.

Our Crisis is at hand, and if the states do not hang together, they might as well have been “hanged Seperate,” according to Dick Penns bon Mot in 1784.

Did Adams write the wrong date, meaning 1774 instead of “1784”? That would be in accord with Graydon’s memory and Braxton’s 1776 mention of “a Wit.” Penn left Pennsylvania for Britain in 1775, carrying the Olive Branch Petition, and I don’t think he returned during the war (contra Graydon). Or did Adams hear Penn voice or repeat this remark in London in 1784?

TOMORROW: Looking for eighteenth-century uses.

“Hang Together” on the Restoration Stage

Yesterday I alluded to a Professor Buzzkill podcast as my spur to look for the statement “We must hang together or separately” in a letter by the Virginia politician Carter Braxton.

That same episode from 2022 stated that the “hang together” wordplay can be traced further back to “John Dryden’s 1717 book, The Spanish Fryar, where it is referred to as a ‘Flemish proverb.’”

Dryden (1631–1700) produced his play The Spanish Fryar, or The Double Discovery in 1681, and it was reprinted often after that. In Act IV, Scene 1, one character says, “I’ll not hang alone, Fryar,” and Friar Dominick eventually replies, “in the Common Cause we are all of a Piece; we hang together.”

Dryden wasn’t the only playwright to play on the phrase “hang together” in 1681, however. Aphra Benn (1640–1689, shown here) wrote this exchange in The Round-Heads; Or, The Good Old Cause (Act III, Scene 1):

Fleet. My Lords and Gentlemen, we are here met together in the Name of the Lard———

Duc. Yea, and I hope we shall hang together as one Man—a Pox upon your Preaching. [Aside.

Unsurprisingly, Dr. Samuel Johnson chose Dryden over Benn to demonstrate the use of “hang together” in his dictionary.

As for Professor Buzzkill’s remark about a “Flemish proverb,” I can’t find any mention of that phrase in three early editions of Dryden’s Spanish Fryar. Perhaps that was an annotation by the editor of a later edition based on the 1717 text. Or perhaps separate references to a “hang together” saying got muddled together.

It would be striking if the “hang together” witticism came from another language because double meanings of that sort are often hard to translate. Indeed, the Rev. E. O. Haven’s 1869 textbook on Rhetoric uses Edouard Laboulaye’s unsuccessful attempt to render the saying (credited to Benjamin Franklin) in French as evidence for his warning “Puns usually Untranslatable.”

Be that as it may, the idea that a “Flemish proverb” was the seed of this American quotation has taken hold and now appears several places—all apparently after 2022. I welcome any earlier reference.

TOMMOROW: A post-Revolutionary reference.

“It is a true saying of a Wit”

In 2014 and again in 2016, I noted that the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor Richard Penn was the first Revolutionary figure credited with this remark:

An evidence of this was the pleasantry ascribed to him, on occasion of a member of Congress, one day observing to his compatriots, that at all events “they must hang together:”

“If you do not, gentlemen,” said Mr. Penn, “I can tell you that you will be very apt to hang separately.”

More recently, the Professor Buzzkill podcast called my attention to a letter the Virginia delegate Carter Braxton wrote on 14 Apr 1776:

Upon reviewing the secret movements of Men and things I am convinced the Assertion of Independence is far off. If it was to be now asserted, the Continent would be torn in pieces by Intestine Wars and Convulsions. Previous to Independence all disputes must be healed and Harmony prevail. A grand Continental league must be formed and a superintending Power also. When these necessary Steps are taken and I see a Coalition formed sufficient to withstand the Power of Britain, or any other, then am I for an independent State and all its Consequences, as then I think they will produce Happiness to America. It is a true saying of a Wit—We must hang together or separately.

Less than three months later, Braxton voted for independence.

Did Braxton have a particular “Wit” in mind? Alas, he didn’t say.

TOMORROW: Flemish roots?

Opposing “authoritarian control over the national narrative”

The Organization of American Historians has issued a statement on the White House attempt, discussed yesterday, to dictate the operation of the Smithsonian Institution:

No president has the legitimate authority to impose such a review. Established by Congress in 1846 as a unique and independent agency, the Smithsonian Institution is not, and has never been, under the authority of the Executive Branch. It is an independent statutory agency, led by the Secretary and governed by a bipartisan Board of Regents as established by law. This legal structure is ignored by the letter, as the stated goals of the review are to “ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”

The White House’s effort to assert control over the Smithsonian’s staff, archives, donors, public-facing content, curatorial processes, exhibition planning, and collection use constitutes an alarming infringement on the autonomy and integrity of this 179-year old distinguished institution. Moreover, it asks the hundreds of professionals who work at the Smithsonian to violate their ethics and their dedication to free and open historical inquiry.

The effort as outlined is divorced from the realities of an evidence-based, comprehensive telling of the U.S. past, and is part of an aggressive push to flatten American history into a narrowly conceived, unrepresentative, and simplified story. Historians, scholars, or subject-area experts will not be conducting this mandated review—and certainly not those whose exhaustive research, reviews, and consultations preceded the public staging of exhibits—but rather it will be undertaken by presidential appointees aligned with a specific political agenda. This is exactly what the architects of Smithsonian independence sought to avoid.

The end result of this process will be the opposite of a fulsome presentation of the history of the United States that reflects the Smithsonian’s mission for “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Instead, the review and the method used to compel it, will undoubtedly be in service of authoritarian control over the national narrative, collective memory, and national collections.

It is particularly distressing to see this effort of historical censorship and sanitizing tied to the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding—what should be a moment for thoughtful reflection about and celebration of the American experiment with all its tragedies and triumphs. Together, these moves threaten to weaponize our shared past to serve political imperatives of the present and an imagined future. They politicize the artifacts, recorded stories, and historical experiences that belong to the American people and that help to bring a full, unvarnished picture of our democracy into public view not for indoctrination, but for education.

Full statement here.

(James Smithson, founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution, was a younger half-brother, born out of wedlock, of Col. Earl Percy.)

“To ensure alignment with the President’s directive”

On 12 August, White House officials sent a letter to the Smithsonian Institution stating that it “will be leading a comprehensive internal review…to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”

This political incursion into the operation of an independent establishment was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which stated:

The White House plans to conduct a far-reaching review of Smithsonian museum exhibitions, materials and operations ahead of America’s 250th anniversary to ensure the museums align with President Trump’s interpretation of American history.

The Civil War historian Kevin M. Levin responded:

First, let’s stop referring to Trump’s “interpretation of American history.” He doesn’t have an interpretation of anything remotely related to history. What Trump has is an authoritarian agenda that demands control over how Americans remember history as a means to justify its current political and ideological agenda and claim to power.

This most recent act of censorship is right out of the authoritarian playbook and one we have already witnessed in reference to the National Park Service.

At the Bulwark, Grand View University professor Thomas Lecaque took particular issue with the letter’s demand that “our national museums reflect the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story”:

We uncover new sources; we apply new methodologies; we have new lenses to look at sources and new contexts. Languages, databases, technologies, viewpoints—we don’t rewrite history as we learn but rather ask new questions about the texts we already knew. Historians of every generation have new issues that they are interested in, that they read the texts and find are important. When today’s historians write about the historical effects of climate change or about the ways pandemics shape societies or about the lives of trans people in centuries past, we’re not “inventing” these things, we’re just paying new attention to things that have been there all along, and seeing them with fresh eyes.

I’ll tell you what the Trump administration is inventing, though. That line about “Americanism” in the Trump letter, focusing on the country’s “strength, breadth, and achievements”? That invitation to imagine a flawless nation making an unbroken string of progress is really just a bedtime story for children. White children. It’s not history; it’s not reality; it’s propaganda to allow Trump and his followers to sleep at night before they get up for another day of brutalizing people of color.

My perspective is that Donald Trump cares about what gratifies his ego. Sometimes that touches on history, such as when he promotes a false story about his golf course property being important in the Civil War or when he insists he’s outdone all previous Presidents on some measure. But studying history depends on respecting facts, and Trump has never done that—not in history, not in business, not in politics, not in his personal life.

The Smithsonian Institution is popular and widely respected. So is the National Park Service. So are our schools, universities, and libraries. All are under attack. We the people need to protect our historical and scholarly institutions from trumpery, and from the ideologues and sycophants who are pushing it.

Thomas Jay McCahill Fellowships for 2026–27

The Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Hampshire, in partnership with American Revolution Institute in Washington, D.C., and the American Independence Museum in Exeter, is offering two Thomas Jay McCahill III Fellowships for researchers in the 2026–27 academic year.

The announcement says:

The McCahill Fellowship will provide up to $75,000 for a one-year period to support the cost of research, travel, housing and per diem expenses for one or more scholars to undertake advanced research on a topic germane to American history in the colonial and revolutionary periods. Fellows will have sustained access to collections and professional staff in a quiet study room at the American Revolution Institute’s headquarters, Anderson House, in Washington, D.C.

The McCahill Fellowship is open to graduate students and advanced and independent scholars who are conducting research that may benefit from various primary resources, with an emphasis on the collections of the American Revolution Institute and/or the American Independence Museum.

The McCahill Fellow’s research is expected to be on one or more of the following periods:

• the Revolutionary War
• colonial British America, preferably for research leading in some way to an issue of the revolutionary period
• the early American republic, preferably for research leading in some way to an issue of the revolutionary period.

Applicants should submit the following:

• Curriculum vitae, including educational background, publications and professional experience.
• Brief outline of the research proposed (not to exceed two pages), along with an expectation of how the fellow might use the research library and collections of the American Revolution Institute.
• Writing sample of 10-25 pages in the form of a published article, book excerpt, or paper submitted for course credit, which can be submitted in Word or P.D.F. format.
• Budget for proposed research project to include a schedule and related costs for housing and travel.
• For current graduate students only: Two confidential letters of recommendation from faculty or colleagues familiar with the applicant and his or her research project. Note: If letters are to be mailed independently, please include the names of recommenders when submitting the application.

The deadline for application is 31 October 2025. Applicants will be notified of the selection committee’s decision by the end of January 2026.

The upcoming year’s McCahill fellow is Prof. Christine DeLucia of Williams College, writing on “Land, Diplomacy, and Power in the Revolutionary Northeast.”

“The Revolution belongs to all Americans”

Johann Neem, author of Creating a Nation of Joiners: Democracy and Civil Society in Early National Massachusetts, Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, and other historical studies, is a forthright critic of today’s political trumpery.

The New Republic just published Neem’s essay “Unfit to Lead: Trump Is the Enemy of the American Revolution.”

Here are some passages:

Today, as we approach the Declaration of Independence’s semiquincentennial, Donald Trump and his allies claim the Revolution for themselves. They have made fealty to the American Revolution part of their culture war against “woke” progressivism. The Revolution has become a pawn in Trump’s politics of retribution against the country’s supposed cultural enemies. Trump and his allies claim to be patriots while regularly violating the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and undermining the government established by our Constitution. . . .

For Trump, [Chief Justice John] Roberts, and their allies, the actual principles of the Revolution matter less than its capacity to signify tribal loyalty by distinguishing “real Americans” from domestic enemies. Trump conflates respect for the Revolution with loyalty to him. The gross spectacle of Trump hosting a military parade on his birthday—as do kings and dictators—and connecting it to the birth of the Continental Army illustrates all too well that he seeks to legitimize his own rule by wrapping himself in the Revolution.

To our Founders, there was a causal relationship between legislative consent and liberty. Today, we often think freedom is the ability to do what one wants. To our Founders, in contrast, freedom was a collective possession, not a private one. Freedom was only possible in a free state in which the people or their representatives actively made the rules that govern their shared life. . . .

Trump’s violations of the Constitution are too long to list here, but among them are illegally suspending laws and violating court orders. He has sought to dominate the other two branches of government by encouraging extralegal violence against legislators, judges, and their families. He has weaponized the Justice Department to go after his political enemies. He threatens the media, universities, and other civil society institutions that dare to question his edicts. Indeed, he seeks to destroy any person or institution that checks his will. . . .

Trump and his allies distort the past to convince their followers that respecting the American Revolution is somehow compatible with supporting a tyrant. They want to turn the Revolution into a symbol for tribal loyalty, but the Revolution belongs to all Americans. The United States was born from a revolt against lawless tyranny and arbitrary power. Today, future generations of Americans are counting on us to protect the republic. Like those who sacrificed so much to secure our freedom two and a half centuries ago, once again we Americans must pledge our sacred honor to uphold the legacy of the American Revolution from those who invoke it only to betray it.

The New Republic article on the web has links to show some of the events Neem refers to.

“Praising and glorying in Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom”

In July 1898, The Spirit of ’76 magazine devoted much of its front page to a poem by Mary M[elissa]. Durgin Gray (1848–1939).

The poem was illustrated by a photo of Betsey Folsom Durgin, as shown here. She was the poet’s grandmother and herself the granddaughter of the poem’s subject.

Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom.

GRANDMOTHER dear, in the picture there,
With snowy cap and silvery hair,
Delighted to talk of the days of yore
And the part her honored grandsire bore,
First, in the great battles under the King,
And subsequently in the following
Of Washington and the heroes bold
Of the Revolution, and ever told
With a touch of pride her grandsire’s name,
Lingeringing [sic] slightly over the same,
Lieut. Jonathan Folsom.

Grandmother, in truth, was really quite small
When he died, at her father’s, his looks to recall;
Her big brother Isaac had doubtless instilled
In her mind the facts which their grandsire drilled
Into his; and her stories, eagerly learned
By me, (while my spirit with strong ardor burned)
Familiar as even the Bible tales grew;
I felt as if I had known Jonathan, too.
In school, the word lieutenant being given
To define, I, by artless child-logic driven,
Made answer, Jonathan Folsom.

His brother Nathaniel, more widely known,
To rank of Colonel rose under the Crown;
In General Congress, with Washington
And others, fame for sagacity won;
Then, after Lexington’s bloody affray—
Became Major General early in May.
Full due for his bravery Grandmother paid
Nathaniel, and praise, yet greater stress laid
On her grandsire’s service at famed Bunker Hill;
A volunteer, crippled—yet calling him still
“Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom.”

That Bunker Hill service!—Grandmother thrilled
My soul as she talked of the brave soldiers killed
Around him—her one-legged grandsire brave—
As he toiled in the fray, his loved country to save.
How, firing the mortar, of which he had charge,
Sending bombs on the deck of a man-of-war large
In the harbor, he caused her at last to retire.
(Had they known the projector, how great were their ire.)
The Stamp Act’s repealing, some nine years before
He had sought to announce with an old cannon’s roar;
It burst, and one leg was forever despoiled;
Yet think you his work for his country was foiled,
Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom’s?

Do you think that a man who, when scarce twenty-two
(Commissioned Lieutenant) the French to subdue,
Engaged in the siege of Louisburg when
The untutored troops against disciplined men
Small chance had of winning, (yet they did.
Though their work ’neath the boast of the Red-coats was hid);
Do you think such a man could abide in the rear
When he saw his old comrades gathering near,
When those Louisburg drums (after Lexington’s fray)
Were used in the battle on Bunker Hill day;
When Gridley who Pepperell’s batteries laid
Likewise the intrenchments at Bunker Hill made,
Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom?

At Duquesne, Crown Point and Niagara, you
See the War Rolls record him and Nathaniel, too.
Historians tell how the Exeter men
The French force defeated again and again.
Brave Jonathan, shot through the shoulder, yet bore
His part in the capture of prisoners and store;
Therefore, when Nathaniel was given command
Of the troops in this region, could Jonathan stand
Inactive because he was minus a leg?
Ah no, he had gotten a fine wooden “peg,”
And he strayed into the battle, enlisted or no,
Performing his part in routing the foe;
Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom.

Years have passed—all these patriots lie in their graves;
The banner of Liberty over them waves;
For Freedom they fought and in Freedom they died;
The country they gave us is glorious and wide;
Their memory many essay to revive;
Societies vieing in keeping alive
Accounts of their deeds and the fields where they fought,
And I, in the wave of enthusiasm caught,
The record of Jonathan hastened to find,
Because, I confess, it was more to my mind
To enter the line with a title, though slight;
(Another great grandfather gave me a right.)

He with Stark, as a private, to Bennington went;
But in Jonathan’s name my papers I sent;
What though as a private I found him enrolled?
By epaulets only is bravery told?
His previous record and service proclaim
The man, and I quote, “What’s there in a name?”
But Grandmother, low in her far-away grave?
Did she know that her hero, her grandsire brave,
As “Jonathan, private,” recorded had been
All those years she was praising and glorying in
Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom?

Most of this poem is a retelling of the family lore about Jonathan Folsom, as discussed yesterday—and a depiction of how that story was passed down and embedded in younger generations’ minds.

The phrase “To enter the line” clearly places this composition during the period when it was new and fashionable to join the Daughters of the American Revolution and Sons of the American Revolution. Gray made clear she was eligible for membership (“Another great grandfather gave me a right”).

However, the last stanza takes an amusing swerve into how Jonathan Folsom is not listed as a lieutenant on any rolls from the Revolutionary War. How embarrassed Gray’s grandmother might be to learn her grandfather was a mere private in 1777!

Except he wasn’t. The Jonathan Folsom in the poem had a son of the same name, much more eligible for emergency militia service against the Burgoyne campaign than a one-legged, fiftysomething retired lieutenant. Indeed, that younger Jonathan Folsom was Betsey Folsom Durgin’s father, so she probably knew about his short Revolutionary service.

Lt. Jonathan Folsom was unquestionably an officer in one of the North American colonial wars. The General Society of Colonial Wars had been founded in 1893, making some of his descendants eligible for membership—but the National Society Daughters of Colonial Wars wouldn’t arise until 1917.

On her death, Mary M. Durgin Gray was described by her daughters as an “author of children’s stories.” I’ve found two poems attached to that name in the Granite Monthly in 1900 as well as a sketch in the Boston Home Journal. Those magazines also published some items credited to Mary M. Gray in a similar style, so I bet those are hers, too. But I can’t find any published stories for children.

“He hobbled into battle on his wooden leg”

Jacob Chapman’s 1882 Genealogy of the Folsom Family: John Folsom and His Descendants, 1615-1882 devoted an apprendix to Jonathan Folsom, sharing this bit of family lore:

when the Revolutionary war commenced, he set out for another campaign, and found his way to Bunker Hill. Here he hobbled into battle on his wooden leg, and took charge of a mortar

It is said that at the second shot he threw a bomb upon the deck of a British man-of-war, which led her to draw off as soon as possible into safer quarters.

There’s no supporting evidence for this story. No other American account says the provincial forces at Bunker Hill had a mortar. (They had six four-pounder cannon, though only one trained gun crew at the height of the battle.)

No American veterans described a man with one leg amputated above the knee joining the fight. Nathaniel Folsom didn’t mention his brother in the letters he sent back to New Hampshire.

No British naval sources complained about provincial mortar fire or blamed a shell for pulling back from the battle.

One source for this tale, if not the only one, was Jonathan Folsom’s granddaughter Betsey, born in 1792. She could have known her grandfather directly since he died around 1800. Betsey Folsom married a man named Daniel Durgin and then outlived him by three decades, dying in 1878. Her son Mark William Franklin Durgin of Medford appears to have been one of Chapman’s sources on the family.

After the Chapman book, the story of Jonathan Folsom firing a mortar at Bunker Hill appeared in a few publications of the Sons of the American Revolution. Though Lt. Folsom’s service in the French & Indian War was well documented, descendants joining that organization needed to say he fought in the next war as well.

TOMORROW: Versifying.

“Having loaded a Swivel that had lain buried near 25 Years”

Last month I quoted in passing how “Ensign Jonathan Folsom was shot through the shoulder” in the Battle of Lake George in 1755.

According to some family historians, this Jonathan Folsom (1724–1800?) had also served in the Louisburg campaign ten years earlier.

However, the man of that name was already a lieutenant in 1744, and he was listed as “Decd.” on 20 Jan 1745 in New Hampshire records. So I think that was probably a relative.

By 1758 the former ensign Folsom had recovered from his shoulder wound enough to be serving as a first lieutenant. (His younger brother Nathaniel Folsom rose much higher in provincial military rank.)

The 2 June 1766 Boston Post-Boy ran this article:

We hear from Exeter, that great Rejoicings were made there on Monday last, upon receiving the News of the Repeal of the Stamp-Act, by Ringing of Bells, Firing of Cannon, Illuminations, Fireworks, &c.

The following Accident happened last Monday at Newmarket, to Lieut. Jonathan Falsom of that Town—he having loaded a Swivel that had lain buried near 25 Years, it burst in Pieces, one of which struck him in the Breast and several others in one of his Legs which split the Bone thereof to Pieces, on which the Surgeons thought proper to cut it off above the Knee.

The first paragraph was the summary of an item in the 30 May New-Hampshire Gazette from Portsmouth, the second a word-for-word transcription of a later paragraph from that paper.

The timing strongly suggests that Folsom decided to fire the old swivel gun (a small cannon designed to be mounted on fortification walls or ship rails) to celebrate the Stamp Act repeal. And that turned out to be a poor decision.

That history wasn’t always transmitted accurately, though. One genealogy for this family, Nathaniel Smith Folsom’s Descendants of the First John Folsom (1876), said the accident happened during “rejoicings over the recent capture of Louisburg.” Everything pointed back to Louisburg.

TOMORROW: More Folsom family lore.

“Bell led a small band of the historically curious through Lexington…”

Early on Friday morning, I got a text alerting me that I was on the front page of the Boston Globe’s Metro section.

The photo by Josh Reynolds above appeared alongside an article by Brian MacQuarrie, long in the works, about hard-core history fans attracted to Massachusetts by its Revolutionary past.

The story begins:

As the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution unfolds, hundreds of history buffs from around the country will descend on Boston this weekend for a busy, immersive gathering where the present will focus on the past.

They’re coming for History Camp Boston — amateurs and academics, neophytes and experts — to partake of a smorgasbord of 50 diverse presentations, from an early American sex scandal to a deadly Lawrence mill collapse, on a day-long menu of simultaneous presentations Saturday at Suffolk University Law School.

History Camp Boston took place yesterday, organized by The Pursuit of History. I spoke about Henry Knox and attended sessions on the British army, battlefield archeology, digital recreations of historic landscapes, researching Revolutionary veterans, and more. This History Camp was the biggest yet, and it still sold out.

To report this story, MacQuarrie was embedded in this spring’s Pursuit of History Weekend on “The Outbreak of War.” He reported:

Earlier this year, Bell led a small band of the historically curious through Lexington, Concord, and along the trail of the bloody British retreat to Boston following the “shot heard ‘round the world.”

At one stop in Lexington, they trudged up Belfry Hill to view a replica of the bell tower that warned the town’s militia of the British advance on April 19, 1775.

They did it in the rain. Cheerfully. Stepping carefully. And listening to sound bites of local history connected with the start of the Revolutionary War.

Months later, the article appeared during the Pursuit of History Weekend on “The Siege & Liberation of Boston.” Which also sold out all its slots.

So I guess one additional piece of news to take away from this story is that you want to join the crowd intensively exploring Revolutionary events through the Pursuit of History offerings, you should sign up early.