Earlier this month I posted about a series of history lectures at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Massachusetts. The first had to be canceled because an icy Evacuation Day, but tomorrow looks good for the talk on Revolutionary Freemasonry by Steven C. Bullock.
Starting with his first advertisement in America, dentist John Baker promoted his dentifrice as a preventive or cure for practically any tooth problem: gum disease, loose teeth, discoloration. Leaving Boston in 1767, Baker assured his customers that:
His Dentifrice, with proper Direction for preserving the Teeth and Gums, will be to be had at Mrs. Eustis’s, near the Town House, after he had left the Town. N B. Each Pot is sealed with his Coat of Arms, as in the Margin of the Directions, to prevent Fraud.Using the Baker coat of arms (perhaps the one shown here, perhaps not) was not only a protection against “counterfeit drugs” but also a signal to customers that Baker came from a respectable family.
DOCTOR BAKER,Starting in 1785, the printer of the State Gazette of South-Carolina sold Dr. Baker’s products in Charleston. The next year, Spotswood and Clarke of Baltimore announced themselves as the exclusive source in Maryland. Other merchants in the big American cities carried Baker’s dentifrice along with others.
Begs Leave to inform the Public in general, and his Friends in particular, in the Thirteen United States, that he has just received a fresh Assortment of Medicines, which will enable him to prepare the genuine Antiscorbutic Dentifrice, and Albion Essence, for preserving the Teeth, Gums, Sockets, Breath, &c. &c.
This Essence and Dentifrice is prepared by himself, and warranted perfectly free from the least corrosive Particle or Injurious Property whatever.
It is replete with that Balsamic Quality, which prevents all defluxions, falling on the gums, or putrefactions that cause bad breath; It takes off the mucilaginous properties that dissolve the sockets of the teeth, and prevents the tooth-ach arising therefrom; it prevents obstructions and inflamations of the nerves and vascular parts of the teeth, and the head and tooth-ach arising therefrom; It concocts the vitiated juices, renders, beyond description, a juvenile fragrance to the breath, makes the teeth white and beautiful, causes the gums to grow firm to the teeth, makes the salivia pure and balsamic, eradicates the scurvy, and restores the gums to their pristine state, if the teeth and gums have been thoroughly cleaned by some skilful Dentist.
Its efficacy is well known to the principal nobility, gentry, and others, of France, Holland, Great-Britain, Ireland, and other principal places in Europe, also to some thousands in America.
N.B. Dr. Baker’s Albion Essence, and Antiscorbutic Dentifrice, is sold wholesale and retail, at his house in No. 45, Second-street, below the City Tavern; where all merchants, shop-keepers, masters of vessels, and others, may be supplied with any quantity to send to foreign parts, with proper printed directions. By attending properly to the directions, and observing the necessary precautions, people may not only free themselves from a great deal of pain, and preserve their teeth and gums throughout life, but also those of their children; as health, and beauty of the teeth, depend in a great measure of the care and treatment of them in early life.
Each pot of Anti-Scorbutic Dentifrice, has, to prevent fraud, his name on the cover, and sealed with his coat of arms, the same as the copper-plate arms on the lable of the bottle of Albion Essence.
MARRIED] On Sunday evening the 14th instant [i.e., this month], Doctor JOHN BAKER to Mrs MARY BONANG—a Lady of real worth.Evidently Dr. Baker had married a wealthy widow, changing his circumstances. He seems to have stopped promoting his services as a surgeon-dentist. But Baker’s dentifrice and Albion Essence stayed on the market. Perhaps he was still making it; perhaps he had licensed it to someone else. Throughout the 1790s Dunlap’s American Daily Advertiser ran ads like this, from 14 Aug 1793:
DOCTOR BAKER’sI’m not sure what “3aw3w” meant, but it and similar codes appear in lots of Philadelphia newspaper ads from the 1780s on. I suspect they were how printers kept track of how often an ad had run.
Antiscorbutic Dentifrice
and Albion Essence,
Just received, and for sale at
W. Poyntell’s stationary store,
No. 21, Second-street, between Market and
Chestnut-streets 3aw3w
When I started this series of postings on dentistry with the arrival of John Baker in Boston, I’d never looked into that man’s life before. I was just trying to distract myself from the stitches in my gum. But the more I’ve scraped, the more I’ve found, and today’s posting is about how it’s even possible that Baker’s dental practice affected on the outcome of the Revolutionary War.
As I wrote on Tuesday, Baker set up shop in Williamsburg in 1772. He treated George Washington, among other Virginians. After the war began, he went on the move again. The Pennsylvania Packet of 24 Dec 1778 announced:
Doctor Baker,This was, as far as I can tell, the first time Baker used the title “doctor” in advertising his services. And whether or not he intended to stay in Philadelphia at that time, he eventually did settle there for many years—perhaps the rest of his life.
SURGEON-DENTIST,
Has just arrived in this city from Williamsburg, Virginia. His stay here will be short. Those who are disposed to apply to him may not be disappointed.
A day or two ago I requested Col. Harrison to apply to you for a pair of Pincers to fasten the wire of my teeth. — I hope you furnished him with them. — I now wish you would send me one of your scrapers as my teeth stand in need of cleaning, and I have little prospect of being in Philadelph. soon. — It will come very safe by the Post — & in return, the money shall be sent so soon as I know the cost of it.This letter is now in the papers of Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, then the commander of British land forces in North America. Despite Washington’s confidence that a scraper would “come very safe by the Post,” British spies or patrols must have intercepted Washington’s mail packet and delivered it to Clinton’s headquarters.
Before John Baker arrived from London and promoted the notion of specialized “surgeon dentists,” it looks like most Bostonians went to their regular doctors for dental care—which usually meant having teeth pulled rather than repaired. Indeed, losing one’s teeth seem to have been an experience that connected people.
John Cary, the biographer of Dr. Joseph Warren, wrote: “During the first years of practice, Warren charged one shilling, four pence for the extraction of teeth, one of his most common medical services.” On 27 Jan 1765, for example, Warren recorded extracting a tooth from Hannah Flucker, who was then fourteen years old. Her father was Thomas Flucker, later the last Secretary of the royal province, and her younger sister Lucy married Henry Knox.
Dr. Elisha Story extracted teeth from town watchman Benjamin Burdick’s wife and children. Indeed, Story’s office records for 12 Oct 1768 seem to be the only documentation for one of those children. Burdick and Knox were both at the Boston Massacre, trying to calm the conflict.
Ame [pronounced, I think, as “Amy”] and Elizabeth Cumings were two sisters who came to Boston from Scotland in the 1760s to set up a shop. Among the many things they sold, according to their ad in the 11 Nov 1765 Boston Gazette, were “Teeth Tincture and Powder.” In 1771 Knox rented space from the Cumingses for his first bookshop.
Merchant John Rowe wrote in his diary on 14 June 1769:
Sent for Dr. [James] Lloyd to have my Tooth drawn & had not Resolution to go thro’ the Operation.One person who didn’t remove teeth was the painter John Singleton Copley (whose painting of Warren appears above, and who also painted Flucker). But the Rev. Dr. Mather Byles, Sr., who rarely passed by a chance for a pun, reportedly told a man to go to Copley’s house to have a tooth drawn. Drawn—get it? (With jokes like that, it’s no surprise that Dr. Byles’s congregation swiftly voted to remove him from their pulpit after the war began.)
After John Baker left Boston for colonies to the south, as described in yesterday’s posting, other “surgeon dentists” arrived from Europe, but none seem to have stayed long. Rather, a couple of locals adopted his methods.
During his time in Boston, Baker taught some of his techniques to Isaac Greenwood (1730-1803), a craftsman living on Salem Street next to what’s now called Old North Church. Greenwood made umbrellas and tools, and was an “ivory-turner”—hence the affinity for tooth repair. His apprentice Samuel Maverick was the youngest fatality of the Boston Massacre.
Greenwood in turn passed his knowledge to his sons William P. (1756-1851), Isaac, Jr. (1758-past 1806), and John (1760-1819), who advertised their dental services in Boston, Salem, Providence, Savannah, New York, and other towns in the early republic. Like Baker, they often had to travel to find enough clients to support themselves.
John Greenwood is known in dental history for inventing a treadle-powered drill, reportedly inspired by his mother’s spinning-wheel (though he was probably also familiar with his father’s lathes). At the age of fifteen, John had enlisted in the American army as a fifer, and I’ve quoted some passages from his memoir The Revolutionary Services of John Greenwood of Boston and New York, 1775-1783 here on Boston 1775.
But the most direct pitch to Bostonians who had come to rely on John Baker’s dental techniques appeared in the Boston Evening-Post on 5 Sept 1768:
Whereas many Persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore Teeth by accident, or otherways, to their great Detriment, not only in Looks, but Speaking, both in public and private:—Revere turned to dentistry when his goldsmithing business had fallen off due to economic doldrums and boycotts. Because he focused on building false teeth and cleaning teeth, he could apply his existing skills in metalwork and, well, scraping. Jayne Triber’s biography A True Republican notes that Revere stopped advertising his dental services in 1770, after he began to earn more from other tasks—including engraving “cane heads” for ivory-turner and fellow dentist Isaac Greenwood.
This is to inform all such, that they may have them replaced with false Ones, that look as well as the Natural, and answer the End of Speaking, to all Intents, by PAUL REVERE, Goldsmith, near the Head of Dr. Clarke’s Wharf, Boston.——
All Persons who have had false Teeth fix’d by Mr. John Baker, Surgeon Dentist, and they have got loose (as they will in Time) may have them fastened by the abovesaid Revere, who learnt the method of fixing them from Mr. Baker.
Yesterday I posted John Baker’s announcement in June 1766 that he had arrived in America to care for the inhabitants’ teeth in the most modern way. That December, Baker traveled to Rhode Island, advertising in the Newport Mercury that he had treated “some Hundreds in the Town of Boston.”
Then the 29 Jan 1767 Boston News-Letter announced:
JOHN BAKER,Brackett was proprietor of an upscale tavern and inn known as the Cromwell’s Head because its sign featured a portrait of the late Protector (as did its billhead, shown above). Most of the British Empire then saw Cromwell as a dictator, a warning against both popular power and religious enthusiasm, but Boston, with its Puritan heritage, still admired him.
Surgeon Dentis,
Begs Leave to take this Method of informing the Public, That he shall leave this Place in twenty Days at farthest.—That those who are disposed to apply to him may not be disappointed.
He also begs Leave to express his Gratitude for the Favours he has received while in Boston; and hopes that those who doubted of the Safety of his Art, from its Novelty in this Country, are now convinced of its Safety and Usefulness.
Until he leaves his Town he continues at Mr. Joshua Brackett’s in School-Street; where he will be ready to contribute to the utmost of his Power to serve the Publick in his Profession.
I had some minor oral surgery this afternoon, so I’m wondering when I’ll eat solid foods again and if I can survive entirely on soft ice cream until then.
To take my mind off my own teeth, I did some poking around among other people’s teeth. This advertisement appeared in the Boston Post-Boy on 30 June 1766:
John Baker,In other words, this dentist made house calls.
Operator for the Teeth, &c.
Begs Leaves to acquaint the Gentry, that he is now in Boston, at Mr. Joshua Brackett’s in S[c]hool Street, and will wait on them, on receiving their Commands.
He cures the Scurvey in the Gums, first cleanes and scales the Teeth, from that Corrosive, Tartarous, Gritty Substance which hinders the Gums from Growing, infects the Breath, and is one of the principal Causes of the Scurvey, and by degrees (if not timely prevented) eats away the Gums, so that many Peoples Teeth fall out Fresh.Of course we must ask: if Dr. Baker had such a busy and wealthy clientele in Europe, why was he trying his fortunes in a distant colony?
He fills up with Lead or Gold those that are hollow (so as to render them useful) and prevents the Air getting into them, which aggravates the Pain.
He makes and fixes Artificial Teeth, with the greatest Exactness and Nicety, so that they may eat, drink, and sleep with them in their Mouths as natural ones, from which it cannot be discovered by the sharpest Eye.
He having given sufficient Proof of his Superior Judgment in this Art, to the principal Nobility, Gentry and others, of Great-Britain, France & Ireland, and other principal Places in Europe.
His Dentifrice, which is free from any corrosive Preparation will restore the Gums to their pristine State, will preserve the Teeth, and render them perfectly white, will fasten those that are loose, and prevent them from further decay.Baker then went on to list many items of jewelry that he had brought from London to sell.
N.B. His Dentifrice may be had at his Lodgings at ONE DOLLAR each Pot, with proper Directions.
Here is one of the charming treasures of the Yale Center for British Art: George Stubbs’s 1774 painting “Pumpkin with a Stable-Lad.”
Notably, in this portrait the horse has a name, the lad none. The boy does, however, have the decade’s fashionable mullet.
Through 23 June, the New York Public Library is offering an intriguing exhibit that it describes this way:
Prints of the American RevolutionI can’t help but note that all those featured prints come from Massachusetts. The show features a lot more, but not much from New York itself.
Stokes Gallery (Third Floor), Humanities & Social Sciences Library on 5th Avenue and 42nd Street [that’s the famous building with the lions]
Printmaking in America expanded during the Revolutionary War to fulfill the increasing needs for visual reportage of current events, easily distributable political propaganda, and tokens of patriotism. This exhibition will feature prints and drawings of key figures, battles, and events of the Revolutionary era and will examine the roles these images played in the struggle for independence.
Drawn primarily from the Print Collection’s outstanding holdings of American historical prints, it will include such highlights as Paul Revere’s A View of Part of the Town of Boston in New England and Brittish Ships of War Landing Their Troops, Henry Pelham’s The Fruits of Arbitrary Power, and Amos Doolittle’s engravings of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Late this spring the Washburn Humanities Center, in association with the University of Maine at Farmington, will host a conference on
The conference will be held 14-16 June 2007 at the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center in Livermore, Maine.
Billie GammonFor questions, contact Rob Lively, Dean of Arts & Sciences at the Farmington campus.
42 Hathaway Hill Road
Livermore, ME 04253
The Second Pennsylvania Regiment, Valley Forge National Historical Park, and the Friends of Valley Forge will present a special full-day program on the Revolutionary War soldier outside Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, 31 March 2007.
Lock, Stock and Barrel: The World of the Revolutionary War Soldier will feature authorities on a variety of topics: the Philadelphia campaign, the French army, camp followers, military artifacts in the Colonial Williamsburg collection, archeology at Valley Forge, and more. The day will end with a presentation by acclaimed author Thomas Fleming in the auditorium of nearby Valley Forge National Historical Park.
The main program will take place at the Inn at Valley Forge (formerly the Valley Forge Hilton) on Rte. 202 in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and include a buffet lunch. For a full schedule and a downloadable registration form, visit the Friends of Valley Forge website.
Yesterday I wrote about the Quartering Act of 1765 and its 1774 revision, which were among the so-called “Intolerable Acts” that supposedly led up to the Revolution. Since they didn’t require people to house soldiers in their homes, as our modern conception has it, why were those laws so controversial?
There were two major arguments over the Quartering Act in the decade before the Revolutionary War. First, in January 1766, the New York legislature refused to pay for food and supplies for the several regiments stationed in the colony, as that law required. There were more British troops in New York than any other colony, most of them in New York City.
In response, in June 1767, the London government under Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend secured a new law threatening to suspend the New York assembly until it complied with the Quartering Act. New York was among the least unified and confrontational of the colonies, but the legislature held out through two election cycles until 1769. At the end of the year it finally voted to pay £2,000 for food and supplies for the troops.
Meanwhile, another Quartering Act quarrel arose in Boston, where the British government moved four regiments starting on 1 Oct 1768. The mission of those soldiers was to make it easier for the Customs service to collect Townshend’s new duties by discouraging townspeople from rioting. Under the Quartering Act, the province was obliged to supply barracks for those troops.
Fine, said the Whigs; the soldiers can go into the barracks at Castle William. A company of Royal Artillery had spent the winter there a couple of years before, and the Castle was within the town’s legal borders. There was only one problem in regard to the military mission: Castle William was on an island in Boston harbor. (At least it was an island at high tides. Now the site is called “Castle Island,” but it’s attached to the mainland. Go figure.) So the military commanders couldn’t accept those quarters.
Instead, Gov. Francis Bernard wanted to house the troops in a big building next to Boston Common called the Manufactory-House. It had been erected in the 1750s to house spinners and weavers manufacturing linen and wool cloth. That business venture had failed, and the building became property of the province. A family of weavers named Brown lived there, perhaps along with some other families, and they, encouraged by local leaders, refused to leave.
Meanwhile, the troops in town had to be housed somewhere. At first they went into other government buildings, and the Whigs complained in their newspaper dispatches:
We now behold the Representatives’ Chamber [in the Town House], Court-House, and Faneuil-Hall, those seats of freedom and justice occupied with troops, and guards placed at the doors; the Common covered with tents, and alive with soldiers; marching and countermarching to relieve the guards, in short the town is now a perfect garrison.Then some friends of the royal government rented space to the army, and the Whigs pointed out how two of them were (a) not from around here, and (b) profiting:
Report, that James Murray, Esq; from Scotland, since 1745, had let his dwelling house and sugar houses [actually his sister’s], for the quartering of troops, at £15 sterling per month, and that Mr. Forrest from Ireland had let them a house lately purchased for about £50 sterling, at the rate of £60 sterling per annum.After hearing about two more regiments on their way from Ireland, Gov. Bernard again demanded use of the Manufactory. On 18 October, the Council—the upper house of the Massachusetts legislature—voted to approve this move. Two days later, Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf and his deputy Joseph Otis led some soldiers into taking part of the building by force. The Whigs tried to portray this action as tyrannical, reporting that Brown had “received several [sword] thrusts in his cloaths.” Newspapers praised the hold-outs, highlighting “children at the windows crying for bread.” Brown sued Greenleaf and Otis in court.
Parliament’s Quartering Act has a lousy historical reputation. It was one of the “Intolerable Acts,” according to Patriot politicians in 1774. [Whoops. Actually not.] A lot of us probably imagine that law forcing subjects to host soldiers in their homes. After all, the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution seems to have been written to forestall just such a law:
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.At least, that’s what I thought until I looked at the “quartering” conflicts that came up in the years before the Revolution, and at the texts of the Quartering Acts themselves.
An act to amend and render more effectual, in his Majesty’s dominions in America, an act passed in this present session of parliament, intitled, An act for punishing mutiny and desertion, and for the better payment of the army and their quartersSo the first and most important part of this law required local authorities to “quarter and billet” royal troops “in the barracks provided by the colonies.” Because of the long string of wars with France and the militia system, most large port towns colonies had such barracks. (Why say “quarter and billet” when those two words were synonyms? Legal formulas of the period contain a lot of redundancy: “will and testament,” “have and hold,” “cease and desist,” “breaking and entering,” “aiding and abetting,” &c. Parliament liked to be totally clear and transparent.)
...such constables, tithingmen, magistrates, and other civil officers as aforesaid, are hereby required to quarter and billet the officers and soldiers, in his Majesty’s service, in the barracks provided by the colonies;
and if there shall not be sufficient room in the said barracks for the officers and soldiers, then and in such case only, to quarter and billet the residue of such officers and soldiers, for whom there shall not be room in such barracks, in inns, livery stables, ale-houses, victualling-houses, and the houses of sellers of wine by retail to be drank in their own houses or places thereunto belonging, and all houses of persons selling of rum, brandy, strong water, cyder or metheglin, by retail, to be drank in houses;
and in case there shall not be sufficient room for the officers and soldiers in such barracks, inns, victualling and other publick alehouses, that in such and no other case, and upon no other account, it shall and may be lawful for the governor and council of each respective province in his Majesty’s dominions in America, to authorize and appoint, and they are hereby directed and impowered to authorize and appoint, such proper person or persons as they shall think fit, to take, hire and make fit, and, in default of the said governor and council appointing and authorizing such person or persons, or in default of such person or persons so appointed neglecting or refusing to do their duty, in that case it shall and may be lawful for any two or more of his Majesty’s justices of the peace in or near the said villages, town, townships, cities, districts, and other places, and they are hereby required to take, hire, and make fit for the reception of his Majesty’s forces, such and so many uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns or other buildings, as shall be necessary, to quarter therein the residue of such officers and soldiers for whom there should not be rooms in such barracks and publick houses as aforesaid, and to put and quarter the residue of such officer and soldiers therein.
That if it shall happen at any time that any officers or soldiers in his Majesty’s service shall remain within any of the said colonies without quarters, for the space of twenty-four hours after such quarters shall have been demanded, it shall and may be lawful for the governor of the province to order and direct such and so many uninhabited houses, out-houses, barns, or other buildings, as he shall think necessary to be taken, (making a reasonable allowance for the same), and make fit for the reception of such officers and soldiers, and to put and quarter such officers and soldiers therein, for such time as he shall think proper.Again, this boosts the power of the royal governors—including Gen. Thomas Gage. But again, it’s limited to “uninhabited houses, out-houses, barns, or other buildings.” I haven’t found a single case of the peacetime British army in North America demanding the use of a private home to quarter troops. Instead, as we saw in yesterday’s posting about Boston in late 1774, the army rented buildings, mostly from friends of the royal government.
A colleague from the reenacted His Majesty’s 5th Regiment of Foot asked me where the original unit lived in Boston in 1774-76. After nosing around, I thought that inquiry shed a little light on the challenge of finding quarters for troops in a less than friendly town. And of course I’m always desperate grateful for stuff to blog about.
On 4 July 1774, Boston merchant Joshua Green wrote in his almanac diary (now at the New England Historic Genealogical Society): “The 38th: regiment landed & encamp’d on ye: common.” The next day he added: “The 5th: ditto.” So the regiment first lived in their tents on Boston Common.
They were still there on 8 August, when Col. Percy wrote to a friend in Surrey:
As Gen. Gage is obliged by orders to reside at Salem, I have the honour of commanding the Troops encamped here, wh[ich] consist of the 4th., 5th., 23d., 38th., & 43d. Regts., besides 3 cos. of artillery, who have with them 4, 12-pounders 12, 6-pounders & 4 howitzers.Gage had to be in Salem as royal governor; the ministry in London had told him to convene the provincial legislature there as a way to punish Boston after the Tea Party. Gage returned to Boston in late August and very shortly lost all practical authority outside that town.
As it was found difficult to furnish quarters for so many men, it was resolved (to avoid extremities) to build barracks on the Common, where we are encamped; for some regiments timber was provided, and the frames pretty well advanced, when they thought proper to issue their orders to the carpenters to desist from working for the troops, upon pain of their displeasure. And one man who paid no attention to their order, was waylaid, seized by the mob, and carried off, and narrowly escaped hanging.Indeed, on 15 Nov the young Patriot printer John Boyle wrote in his journal of events, published in the NEHGS’s Register:
However, the Government have procured distilleries and vacant warehouses sufficient to hold all the regiments, and our own artificers, with those of the men-at-war, and about 150 from New York and Halifax, are now at work upon them, and we hope to get into them in ten days or a fortnight.
This day the Troops broke up their Encampments in the Common, &c. and are gone into Houses, Stores, &c in different parts of the Town, Vizt.There were many underused warehouses in Boston because the port was closed to traffic from Europe, the Caribbean, and other distant ports. There were also many underused distillery buildings because the molasses-producing Caribbean colonies had started to distill their own rum for export, cutting out the New England processors. The rum business was already in a doldrums, it appears, before the Revolutionary turmoil—though not for want of local demand.4th. (or King’s own) Regt. at Lechmere’s Distill-House at New-Boston [i.e., the west part of town]
5th. Coffin’s Distill-House, South-End.
10th. Long-Lane. 18th. (or Royal Irish) Back-Street.
23d. (or Royal Welsh Fuzileers) and 39th. near Fort-Hill.
43d: Sloane’s Distill-House and Gould’s Store, Back-Street.
52d. From Liberty-Tree to the Fortification [on Boston Neck].
59th. Doane’s Stores in King-Street.
64th. To remain at Castle-William.
47th: Near the Market. 65th. Town-Dock.
Regt. of Marines, North-End.
Regt. of Artillery, Griffin’s Wharf [site of the Tea Party].
A posting from Thomas Pray to the Revlist drew me to Living History: A Photographic Study, a young blog by a young photography student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She comes from a family of eighteenth-century reenactors, and is sharing some of her own photography from living history experiences, and providing a forum for others to share theirs.
This thumbnail shows an image supplied to the blog by Larry Winkiewicz, Sr. Click on it for the entry that can supply the full-size photograph of Jake Brillhart on the fiddle.
Last week the U.S. government released a transcript of its extralegal proceedings at Guantanamo Bay determining that (“whether” seems to give too much credit to all concerned) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is an “enemy combatant.” According to the censored document, Mohammed took responsibility for several murderous attacks and a lot of vague “plans,” and apparently mentioned being tortured in U.S. custody. He then made a rambling statement, made even harder to follow by the language barrier and possible transcription problems. Among other things, he said that some of the U.S.A.’s “enemy combatants” were actually prisoners of the Taliban regime, suspected of having been sent (by Saudi Arabia?) to assassinate Osama bin Laden.
In that statement, Mohammed also twice drew an analogy between himself and Gen. George Washington:
I consider myself, for what you are doing, a religious thing as you consider us fundamentalist. So, we derive from religious leading [reading?] that we consider we and George Washington doing same thing. As consider George Washington as hero. Muslims many of them are considering Usama bin Laden. He is doing same thing. He is just fighting. He needs his independence. . . .(Full transcript downloadable from the Pitt Law School.)
If now George Washington. If now we were living in the Revolutionary War and George Washington he being arrested through Britain. For sure he, they would consider him enemy combatant. But American they consider him hero. This right the any Revolutionary War they will be as George Washington or Britain.
The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.These campaigns might have been the source of Washington’s Seneca nickname “Town Destroyer,” or might simply have reinforced the ominous meaning of that name for Native Americans. But Washington did not seek to maximize the civilian death toll.
Next Sunday afternoon, 25 March, there will be a free concert at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s birth in 1807.
Longfellow was the most popular American writer in the world in the late 1800s. He and his family were proud to make their home in the Cambridge mansion where Gen. George Washington had lived from July 1775 to March 1776, directing the siege of Boston. His narrative poems focused on the American past, creating legends for the nation to share: “Paul Revere’s Ride” depicted the start of the Revolution on the eve of the Civil War while “The Courtship of Myles Standish” portrayed the Plymouth Colony settlers. Longfellow was thus a crucial figure in the “colonial revival” of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Among his contemporaries Longfellow was unusually interested in minority cultures within the U.S.: Evangeline followed the Acadians displaced in the wars between the French and British Empires, The Song of Hiawatha was a sympathetic attempt at portraying the Native American past, and Poems of Slavery supported the Abolitionist political movement. (Longfellow’s father-in-law, who paid for his house, was a major textile mill-owner, and thus opposed any steps that would disrupt the production of cotton.)
This concert, in the same site as a centennial celebration of Longfellow one hundred years ago, will feature:
Charles Swift at the City Record and Boston News-Letter has observed Evacuation Day by posting a map of Revolutionary Boston and some surrounding towns—many of which were eventually absorbed by the city. I believe this map was derived from one created by Henry Pelham in 1777, which showed all the fortifications inside and outside the town.
Note Dorchester Heights, item #4. Large cannons brought by Fort Ticonderoga by Henry Knox provided the decisive threat that prompted the British military to leave on 17 March 1776. Pelham and Knox were classmates at the South Latin School in the late 1750s; both eventually dropped out.
In Suffolk County, the 17th of March is Evacuation Day, commemorating the departure of the British army from Boston in 1776. By coincidence, the same date has long been St. Patrick’s Day. So the provincial society that viewed most Irish with suspicion and contempt has ended up producing a legal holiday when people celebrate Irish culture. Ain’t America wonderful?
I looked through my files for any references to St. Patrick’s Day from the Revolutionary period, and found one—of a sort. It appeared in the “Journal of the Times,” a series of newspaper essays sent out by Boston’s Whigs to printers in other American towns after the army first arrived in late 1768. Those articles reported on conflicts between the British military and the locals, always favoring the latter.
The “Journal” dispatch for 20 Mar 1769 said:
Saturday last [i.e., 18 March] being the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act, the same was noticed as has been usual. The British flag was displayed on Liberty Tree, and at noon a number of gentlemen met in the hall under the same [see above], and the greatest order and decorum observed by the company.How much of this happened exactly this way? Though the “Journal” insists that the rumor about the effigy of St. Patrick was spread by provocateurs, Bostonians did parade with anti-Catholic effigies on Pope Night, and they did complain about how many of the soldiers were Irish Catholics.
The confinement of the soldiery to their barracks upon Saturday, together with a wicked report, which was spread among them by our enemies, that the Sons of Liberty had intended, to expose the effigy of St. Patrick, upon the Tree of Liberty, on said day, so provoked our military, that numbers of the three companies, quartering at Murray’s sugar-house [rented out by magistrate James Murray, but actually owned by his sister Elizabeth Smith], determined to sally forth that night, and cut down the Tree of Liberty;
accordingly, just before 11 o’clock the signal was given by firing a gun, as was intended, over the guard house, when by carelessness they fired a brace of balls [i.e., two musket balls] through the same, but happily hurt no one; immediately thereupon every man was out with his arms complete; and also axes and saws, to demolish the Tree of Liberty;
one soldier in his freak, fired a ball from one room to another, and shot the tail of a sergeant’s shirt off, but did no other damage: The officers were immediately alarmed, and by their intreaties and promise of pardon; the soldiery returned to their barracks, and remained quiet through the night.
Yesterday I quoted Charles Conner’s testimony about how Patrick Carr was shot during the Boston Massacre. Unless I’m combining two men of the same name, which is always possible, Conner seems to have been around Boston for quite a while, involved in several significant events, though never fully embraced by the town’s leaders nor coming fully into focus.
Charles Conner was born in Ireland in 1734, according to later statements about him. He pops up in my sources first in 1755, sailing along the coast of Maine under Captain Hector MacNeill, another Irish immigrant to New England. In his 1773 memoir, MacNeill wrote about how a sailor named Charles Conner proved reliable during an attack on his ship by native soldiers, an early skirmish in the Seven Years’ War.
On 1 April 1758, Conner married Hannah Davis in King’s Chapel. The couple had three children baptized there: Charles, Jr., in 1762; Hannah in 1768; and Mercy Thompson in 1770. (They also sponsored other families’ children for baptism.)
In 1760 the Conners were living on Mackrel Lane. Unfortunately, we know that because they were burned out in the last of Boston’s disastrous colonial fires. By then Charles had the title “Captain,” so he’d become a ship’s captain while still in his twenties. He also seems to have been trading or supplying ships since he lost far more than one small family would need: 13 barrels of rum, 50 barrels of cider, 60 bushels of potatoes, 6 barrels of pork, 7 barrels of beef, 600 pounds of Smoked Beef, 300 pounds of sugar, 3000 pounds of cheese, “12 doz Neats Tongues” [calves’ tongues—yum!], 200 pounds of spun yard, 12 pairs of new shoes, 11 dozen shirts of different kinds, 24 Guns and two Swords, a “Hanging Compass,” a mainsail for a sloop and most of a ship’s rigging, 96 “Wooden Cans & Dishes,” and so much more. In all, Capt. Conner lost £414 and fourpence worth of property.
Conner was apparently involved in the “coasting trade,” sailing up and down the North American coast instead of crossing the Atlantic. For example, the 11 Mar 1771 Boston Post-Boy announced:
Just arrived from Virginia, the Schooner Nancy, Charles Conner Master, with Bread and Flour, which is to be sold by Wholesale or Retail, on board the said Schooner lying at Minot’s T [a particular dock].John Adams’s legal notebooks include a model document taken from a trader’s complaint against Conner for not delivering goods; lawsuits were an ordinary part of New England business.
Captain Conner, a letter of horses in this place, not many years since remov’d from dear Ireland, who ript up the lining of his coat and waistcoat under the arms, and watching his opportunity had nearly fill’d ’em with tea, but being detected, was handled pretty roughly.Conner wasn’t totally persona non grata with the Patriots after that, however. On 20 Oct 1775, the Rev. Dr. Jeremy Belknap was visiting the provincial troops in Roxbury, and wrote in his diary:
They not only stripp’d him of his cloaths, but gave him a coat of mud, with a severe bruising into the bargain; and nothing but their utter aversion to make any disturbance prevented his being tar’d and feather’d.
After breakfast, came into General [Artemas] Ward’s quarters several persons who had the preceding night made their escape from Boston; viz., Captain Mackay, Captain Conner, and Mr. Benjamin Hitchborn.Conner had brought out copies of the Loyalists’ complimentary addresses to Gen. Thomas Gage, then sailing for England. (Hitchborn had escaped from British custody after being captured with letters that embarrassed John Adams, but that’s another story.)
Our Brethren in the Country are informed, That SLAUGHTER HOUSES are provided for the Reception of CATTLE and SHEEP, by the Country, viz.——At Mr. Robert Hewes’s, in Pleasant-Street; at Capt. Conner’s, by the Mill Creek; and at Capt. John Ballard’s Wharf, North End.In 1784, Capt. Conner put his “House and Land, Situated in Boston, near Union-Street,” on the market. He might be the “Mr. Connor” living in Boston with two white females in the 1790 U.S. census, but by then the town had other notable inhabitants named Conner or Connor.
On 15 March 1770, the day after Patrick Carr became the fifth death from the Boston Massacre, coroner Thomas Dawes took this deposition from a man who had been with Carr on the night of the 5th:
I Charles Conner of Boston, of lawful Age being duly sworn to Testify and Say; that on the evening of the fifth of March, between the hours of nine and ten of the Clock in the evening: I was in Kingstreet with Mr. Patrick Carr, the occasion of my going, was the Cry of Fire and bells ringing:The coroner then apparently asked Conner about the size of the crowd because he then wrote, “and semingly not more than 50 or 60 people there,” followed by a footnote:
we was their but a few minutes before several Small Arms was fired from a Detachment of Regiment soldiers drawn up near the Custom house
instantly upon the guns firg., the said Patrick Carr, who stood next to me and who had no Stick or any sort of weapon whatever about him, said to me, Conner; that was he wounded
I told him I hoped not, but asisted in carrying said Carr to a House in Fitch’s Alley and imeadiatly went for a Doctor for said Carr; seing of him badly wounded: the said wounds was received by the ball or balls that was fired by said detachment.
It was not the first gun that was fired, by which said Patrick received his wound. but a Second or Third;
Almost every one that have given Evidence agree that there was but a few persons in Kingstreet when the Guns were fired Some say about 50 Some 60—Some that there may be thereabouts &c.This document is in the Chamberlain collection of the Boston Public Library’s manuscripts department, along with many others that seem to have been either rescued or liberated from legal files in the late 1800s.
Tonight from 5:00 to 7:00, the National Park Service is running a “Listening Session” in Faneuil Hall. This is billed as an opportunity for us citizens to comment on the NPS’s priorities over the next decade.
Given the lack of publicity and the short period for public comments (get them in by 2 April!), this seems more like an effort to drum up support for the Bush-Cheney administration’s legacy-burnishing Centennial Initiative as Congress determines the U.S. budget. Does listening to two-minute remarks from citizens truly affect policy?
The Centennial Initiative is supposed to infuse more money into the NPS by 2016, the hundredth anniversary of its founding. Where will that money come from? Federal budgets under future Presidents and Congresses, mostly. And every dollar will have to be matched in some way by the public—the same people paying the taxes that should fund the National Park Service in the first place.
In general, this administration has preferred to privatize and politicize public resources. Under this initiative, it’s insisting that all projects “Use current staffing, unless additional staffing is provided through endowed positions or partners.” So would you like to buy your very own park ranger? Kurt at National Parks Traveler shares a hint of what to expect from NPS retiree Owen Hoffman, as well as observations on the planning of these sessions.
On 14 March 1770, a young Irish immigrant named Patrick Carr died in Boston. He had been shot on the 5th, and thus became the fifth (and by most counts the last) fatal casualty of the Boston Massacre.
On the H-OIEAHC email list, someone recently asked why we don’t know more about Patrick Carr. I replied that we know very little about any working-man of the time. In fact, we know more about Carr than about most men of his circumstances because of how he died.
Shortly after the Massacre, Boston’s newspapers had described Carr this way:
Mr. Patrick Carr, about 30 Years of Age, who worked with Mr. Field, Leather-Breeches-Maker, in Queen-Street, wounded; a Ball entered near his Hip, and went out at his Side.The records of King’s Chapel, from which he was buried, also gave his age as thirty.
he was a native of Ireland, that he had frequently seen mobs, and soldiers called upon to quell them: whenever he mentioned that, he always called himself a fool, that he might have known better, that he had seen soldiers often fire on the people in Ireland, but had never seen them bear half so much before they fired in his life.In addition, Jeffries said that Carr told him he had left Field’s house when the church bells rang, and was “carried home to Mr. Field’s by some of his friends” afterward.
John Field,George R. T. Hewes, whose memory had proven reliable in many details, recalled Carr’s employer as living “on Prison Lane,” the west end of Queen Street (modern Court Street). So in March 1770 John Field and his household were only a couple of blocks from the site of the Massacre at most. Then at the end of the year they moved around the corner onto Cornhill. (I’m digging deeper into the Fields’ life, and have found some strange holes to discuss sometime.)
Breeches-marker and Glover—takes this Opportunity to Acquaint the Publick, that he as removed from the House he lately lived in, in Queen-street, opposite to the Old Brick Meeting-House, near the Town-House, where he has a large parcel of the best Buck and Doe skin Breeches, and a large Assortment of the best Gloves, which he means to sell by Wholesale or Retail; such Gentlemen as are pleased to favour him with their Custom, may depend on having their Work done in the neatest and best Manner.
In yesterday’s Boston Globe, H. D. S. Greenway closed an opinion piece titled “‘Surge’ doomed to final failure” with a Revolutionary anecdote. It began:
In early April 1775, the British governor of Boston sent John Howe out to gather intelligence in that hotbed of insurgency now called the western suburbs, but then the Anbar province of its time.The analogy is fairly solid, but the anecdote is not. “John Howe” was the putative author of a pamphlet published in 1822, but it was a hoax, a rewrite of an authentic British spy report with more exciting stories and better jokes. See more detail from Mass Moments.
The National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Massachusetts, has announced an excellent lineup of Lowell Lectures for this spring. These talks will be delivered in conjunction with the exhibition “Sowing the Seeds of Liberty: Lexington and the American Revolution.”
Saturday, 17 March, 2 p.m.
“It Rained Cats and Dogs the Day the Revolution Began: A Forgotten Story of Popular Mobilization in 1775”: T.H. Breen of Northwestern University will discuss popular 18th-century publications and how they mobilized colonists into action. Drawn from his work, America’s Insurgency: Popular Political Resistance to Imperial Rule, 1775–1776, Dr. Breen will show how a popular English publication called The Crisis served as a model for our own early press.I think that insurgency book must be what Breen’s working on now. His latest was The Marketplace of Revolution.
“Building the Temple of Liberty: Freemasonry and the Founding of America”: Dr. Steven C. Bullock, Professor of History at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, will discuss Freemasonry in the Revolutionary era, noting its role in the coming break with England, in the war that followed, and in the new American nation that emerged out of it.The museum being a Masonic institution, this will presumably be quite a popular topic for its members. Bullock has written about the topic in Revolutionary Brotherhood.
“Taverns and Drinking in 18th-Century Massachusetts”: Dr. Sharon Salinger, Professor of History at the University of California at Irvine, will explore the European and English origins of the tavern and its importance in the social and political world of colonial Massachusetts. Dr. Salinger will examine the laws that controlled these establishments, the groups of people who frequented them, and the use of tavern space in fomenting revolution.Salinger is the author of Taverns and Drinking in Colonial America.
“‘A Decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind’: The Creation of a Revolutionary Aspiration”: A distinguishing feature of the Revolutionary War was its leaders’ determination to win freedom in a way that would earn the respect of other nations. Dr. Richard Ryerson, Senior Historian at the David Library of the American Revolution, will explore the late colonial origins of this respect, its great practical value in winning European military support, and its powerful effect on colonists’ conduct in the war for independence.Ryerson spent years in Boston as an editor of the Adams Papers.
Yesterday I wrote about glimpses of adolescent rebellion in colonial America, particularly how apprentices rebelled against masters rather than against parents. When that society itself became rebellious in the 1760s and 1770s, what did that mean for adolescents?
I think our current culture still expects the political side of adolescent rebellion to follow the model of the 1960s, when the “youth movement” fueled profound social changes and less lasting political changes, producing widely reported generational conflicts. But that phenomenon may have been a historical aberration.
In Revolutionary Massachusetts, young people—particularly teenage boys—lent their youthful energies to the majority Whig cause. Schoolboys marched against the Stamp Act in August 1765, and in 1770 seem to have taken the lead in organizing picket lines against importers. Boys were among the first people killed when frightened servants of the Crown pushed back. But those rebellions were aimed at a small minority of royal officials and a distant government.
That Whig cause had the support of most of the fathers of those boys, and most of their local political leaders. In other words, these adolescents weren’t rebelling against their parents or the society they knew. They gladly adopted the dominant values and goals. Leading Whigs didn’t worry about opposition from the town’s youth; they worried about reining in boys lest they go too far.
That situation meant that the boys could have all the rebellious fun and excitement of being rowdy yet still see themselves (and be seen) as standing up for their rights, as Englishmen were supposed to do. Just as attacking the Pope and Pretender licensed the misrule of Pope Night, as I argued in an article for the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, so picketing importers’ shops gave boys license to yell and throw mud at people in the street. While their elders occasionally repudiated teenagers for their rash actions, leaders valued support from youth. In turn, participating in the Revolutionary movement helped adolescents make a place for themselves in adult society.
Boston 1775 reader Philamom wrote me about this dynamic a while back:
I think too often in YA books [i.e., novels for teenagers], kids from the past are presented as far too well-behaved, obedient, and all-out goodly! The [“From Saucy Boys to Sons of Liberty”] article also confirmed a theme I've woven into my book - how the patriots were sort of the naughty boys to England's strict father.Indeed, both at the time and in the centuries since, Americans have viewed our Revolution as a “coming of age,” separating from the “mother country” once we outgrew her protection, as adolescents are supposed to do. In A Season of Youth, historian Michael G. Kammen notes how most of the best and most popular Revolutionary War novels are coming-of-age tales: Johnny Tremain, My Brother Sam Is Dead, &c.
I fancy his [James Franklin’s] harsh and tyrannical treatment of me might be a means of impressing me with that aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to me through my whole life.(The image of Benjamin working industriously above comes from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.)
With him [a farmer named Pelham] I continued five years, performing such services in the house and upon the farm as were adapted to my age and strength. I imagined however that I suffered many privations and endured much hardship; which was undoubtedly true, were my situation compared with that of many other boys of my age at that time, or in this more refined period. . . .So Fox and a friend left their masters and headed for Newport, to go to sea. Yet for all their thinking about liberty and bondage, those boys knew so little of the political situation that they didn’t realize why there was so much activity on the roads the night they chose to flee—18 April 1775.
I had for some time been dissatisfied with my situation, and was desirous of some change. I had made frequent complaints of a grievous nature to my father; but he paid no attention to them, supposing that I had no just cause for them, and that they arose merely from a spirit of discontent which would soon subside.
Expressions of exasperated feeling against the government of Great-Britain, which had for a long time been indulged and pretty freely expressed, were now continually heard from the mouths of all classes; from father and son, from mother and daughter, from master and slave. A spirit of disaffection pervaded the land; groans and complaints, and injustices and wrongs were heard on all sides. Violence and tumult soon followed.
Almost all the conversation that came to my ears related to the injustice of England and the tyranny of government.
It is perfectly natural that the spirit of insubordination, that prevailed, should spread among the younger members of the community; that they, who were continually hearing complaints, should themselves become complainants. I, and other boys situated similarly to myself, thought we had wrongs to be redressed; rights to be maintained; and, as no one appeared disposed to act the part of a redresser, it was our duty and our privilege to assert our own rights. We made a direct application of the doctrines we daily heard, in relation to the oppression of the mother country, to our own circumstances; and through that we were more opposed than our fathers were.
I thought that I was doing myself great injustice by remaining in bondage, when I ought to go free; and that the time was come, when I should liberate myself from the thraldom of others, and set up a government of my own; or, in other words, do what was right in the sight of my own eyes.
Back when I was writing about how Christopher Seider, Edward Garrick, and other lads helped to participate in and precipitate the political violence of early 1770, a couple of Boston 1775 readers sent me interesting questions about general adolescent behavior of the time. xAlpha wrote:
did kids and teens rebel in the 18th century too? Did they play Beethoven (I suppose that might be a little late in history) loudly on their violins to piss off their Baroque-loving parents?I think that for most eighteenth-century boys the sequence of passages went this way: going to work at or before age fourteen, going through puberty around the same time (biologically, the changes probably came later than they do now), heading out on your own after twenty-one, establishing yourself in your profession, and finally marrying in the late twenties. Some boys got to continue their education in college, which also started at age fourteen, but they were a very small minority, and they still had to work at their studies.
I do know there wasn't much of an adolescence phase in those days, though. You hit puberty, got married, and started doing work, so maybe they never had time to be bored and restless.
the pranks of...apprentices—a class of persons whose science it seems to have been in those days to harass their masters as much as they possibly could without getting flogged for itThe anecdote that follows starts with Hewes and a friend staying out past the house curfew. Even though all they did was make themselves coffee and toast in the house of the friend’s father, on their return their master promised to whip them immediately after he got dressed. While he was out of the room, they set a bunch of metal pots and pans in front of the door. As the master came back through—tripping, clanging, and cursing—the boys escaped to their bedroom and locked the door. Then before the next workday dawned, Hewes reported, he and his friend left that master for good.
Though a brother, he considered himself as my master, and me as his apprentice, and accordingly, expected the same services from me as he would from another, while I thought he demean’d me too much in some he requir’d of me, who from a brother expected more indulgence.Benjamin couldn’t have been an easy apprentice. He was already the smartest fellow in the room, and willful; see my posting about when he caused trouble in the kitchen by becoming a vegetarian. And like Hewes, after a while Benjamin simply left, running off to Philadelphia.
Our disputes were often brought before our father, and I fancy I was either generally in the right, or else a better pleader, because the judgment was generally in my favor. But my brother was passionate, and had often beaten me, which I took extreamly amiss; and, thinking my apprenticeship very tedious, I was continually wishing for some opportunity of shortening it, which at length offered in a manner unexpected.
The Rev. Dr. Mather Byles, Sr. (1706-1788), was the minister of the Hollis Street Meeting-house, in the far South End of Boston. He was unusual among the town’s Congregationalist pastors in siding with the Crown rather than the Whigs. But he refused to leave Boston in March 1776 even as his sons and the other Anglican ministers did. His congregation voted to dismiss him, and the legislature placed him under house arrest. The congregants were never able to get him out of the house they had bought, and his daughters reportedly refused to pay local taxes while they lived in it for a couple more decades, too.
What Bostonians remembered most about Byles was his love of puns. In his autobiography John Adams referred to him as “Dr. Byles of punning Memory.” I suspect that locals in the next century dropped his name the way we say, “As Mark Twain said,...” or “As Will Rogers once remarked,…” to signal that we’re about to recite a joke. Which might mean that Byles didn’t necessarily voice every remark ascribed to him.
Among the most famous of those witticisms was one Dr. Byles reportedly delivered on 8 March 1770, during the funeral for the first four victims of the Boston Massacre. Witnesses estimated that several thousand people participated in the processions that day, dwarfing even the ceremony for Christopher Seider. Watching this crowd, Byles is said to have asked a young companion:
which is better—to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away, or by three thousand tyrants not a mile away?That remark even got into Mel Gibson’s mouth in the movie The Patriot. But how reliable is the quotation?
throwing out Sam and John Adams and John Hancock and some few other leaders, the majority of our New England patriots were a sorry set.Emmons was known for his fervent opposition to Unitarianism, Universalism, and almost any doctrine but evangelical Calvinism. He preached against Thomas Jefferson. The educator Horace Mann, a childhood congregant of Emmons, recalled that he
I stood with Parson Byles on the corner of what are now School and Washington Streets, in March, 1770, and watched the funeral procession of Crispus Attucks—that half Indian, half negro and altogether rowdy, who should have been strangled long before he was born.
There were all of three thousand in the procession—the most of them drawn from the slums of Boston; and as they went by the Parson turned to me and said: “They call me a brainless Tory; but tell me, my young friend, which is better—to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away, or by three thousand tyrants not a mile away?”
expounded all the doctrines of total depravity, election, and reprobation, and not only the eternity but the extremity of hell’s torments, unflinchingly and in their most terrible significance, while he rarely if ever descanted on the joys of heaven, and never, in my recollection upon the essential and necessary happiness of a virtuous life.And if Gilmore recalled Emmons’s remarks accurately, he was also free to express prejudice about class and race. He strikes me as having been a temperamental conservative, disliking any new idea and any person not from his high class. He also seems to have had a talent for pithy quotes.
Last November I quoted a letter from Robert Treat Paine’s sister Abigail reminding him to send his laundry home from college. Paine went on to try schoolteaching and merchant sailing before he became one of the province’s leading lawyers. He married at age thirty-nine to Sally Cobb, a young woman from a prominent Taunton family.
The Papers of Robert Treat Paine, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, offers a few more glimpses of their family life. Here’s a letter that Sally wrote to Robert on 9 Apr 1775. He was then at the Massachusetts Provincial Congress meeting in Concord, looking ahead to returning to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia after a stop in Taunton. Sally contacted Robert with a familiar spousal reminder: errands he shouldn’t forget on his way home.
Dear Husband,
I have Sent your Breeches to be Colour:d. I am in hopes they will be done for you to Bring home. You must Call upon Allen Crocker for them and pay him for the Colouring. If your Cloaths should be wove befor your return I Shall Send it to Liscumb to be Colour:d pea Green unless I hear from you.
I am in Great want of that Cambrick if you have an opportunity due Send it up.
I want to know when you expect to come home, I hope I Shall See you with your head on your Shoulders once more but my Stout heart begins to quiver for fear of blood Shed. I hear their is a great number going to see Col G—— to night with a Desire to carry him to providence but what the event of this will be I do not know.
Our family are well at present. Give my Love to your Sisters. I am in haste your Loving wife,
Sally Paine
I read Alexander the Corrector, by Julia Keay, many months ago, and don’t have a copy available. So I might not remember some details, but the book itself isn’t really the focus of this posting.
Alexander Cruden (1699-1770) was a Scottish-born scholar who moved to London and became a proofreader and moral scold. His great achievement was a complete concordance of the Bible; his one-man production proved even more authoritative for the next century and and half than Johnson’s dictionary.
The Notable Names Database entry on Cruden restates the understanding of the man’s difficult life that’s prevailed since the first book about him, by a sympathetic colleague in the London publishing world:
He took the degree of master of arts, but soon after began to show signs of insanity owing to a disappointment in love.Specifically, according to his earliest biographer, Cruden was shocked to find that a young woman he fancied had been impregnated by her brother. Because he was locked up as insane shortly after this shock, the authorities were quick to lock him up again later in life, Keay argues.
Keay never fully explains how Cruden managed to produce his immense book all by himself at the same time as holding down the job of bookseller to the queen and then proof-reader. He must have had a mind like a human search engine, coupled with incurable logorrhoea. . . . What made Cruden so single-minded? Why did he dare take on a task similar to Samuel Johnson's dictionary but with none of Johnson's resources? And how on earth did he pull it off? The odd banal judgement such as “Alexander Cruden was a deeply religious man” does little to clear up matters.There are really four mysteries to Cruden, not just the reason for his first confinement. There is, as this reviewer says, the question of why he was so good at this type of detail-oriented work. Not only was his Bible concordance a monumental task in a pre-digital age, but, the NNDB says, “several editions of Greek and Latin classics are said to have owed their accuracy to his care.”
At the end of this engaging book, I was left wishing that, instead of spending quite so much time protesting Cruden’s sanity, Keay had done more to unravel the brilliant product of this strange mind.
In spite of his earnest and self-denying piety, and his exceptional intellectual powers, he developed idiosyncrasies, and his life was marred by a harmless but ridiculous egotism, which so nearly bordered on insanity that his friends sometimes thought it necessary to have him confined.Finally, there’s the question of why Cruden had such difficulty dealing with people, from refusing to recognize the Earl of Derby’s dismissal from employment as final to not realizing when Cambridge students were making a game of him. Elizabeth Blackwell wasn’t the only woman he seems to have been infatuated with; in at least one other case, his inappropriate behavior toward a woman led to his being locked up. Cruden never married.
Persons with AS show marked deficiencies in social skills, have difficulties with transitions or changes and prefer sameness. They often have obsessive routines and may be preoccupied with a particular subject of interest. They have a great deal of difficulty reading nonverbal cues (body language) and very often the individual with AS has difficulty determining proper body space. . . .A lot of that description seems to apply to Alexander Cruden. He was exceptionally intelligent, obsessed with Biblical language, and so socially inept that throughout his life many people judged him to be insane. He was probably “high functioning,” in modern terms, and well born enough to benefit from a top education and some of the deference offered to gentlemen. But never in his adult life did he think or act like most other people.
By definition, those with AS have a normal IQ and many individuals (although not all), exhibit exceptional skill or talent in a specific area. Because of their high degree of functionality and their naiveté, those with AS are often viewed as eccentric or odd and can easily become victims of teasing and bullying.
While language development seems, on the surface, normal, individuals with AS often have deficits in pragmatics and prosody. Vocabularies may be extraordinarily rich and some children sound like “little professors.” However, persons with AS can be extremely literal and have difficulty using language in a social context.
In colonial Boston, some newspapers published each Monday, and some each Thursday. Because the Boston Massacre occurred on a Monday evening, the first press reports appeared on Thursday the 8th—237 years ago today. The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter listed the casualties this way:
Mr. Samuel Gray, Ropemaker, killed on the Spot, the Ball entred his Head broke the Skull.What seems off about this list? Well, for one thing, though people expected apprentices Christopher Monk and John Clark to die shortly, neither did. Monk remained disabled by his wound for several years before dying, so he’s not memorialized among the standard five Massacre victims.
A Mollatto Man, named Johnson, who was born in Framingham, but lately belonging to New-Providence, and was here in order to go for North-Carolina, killed on the Spot, two Balls entering his Breast.
Mr. James Caldwell, Mate of Capt. Morton’s Vessel, killed on the Spot, two balls entering his Breast.
Mr. Samuel Maverick, a promising Youth of 17 Years of Age, Son of the Widow Maverick, and an Apprentice to Mr. Greenwood, Joiner, mortally wounded, a Ball went through his Belly, and came out at his Back: He died the next Morning.
A Lad named Christopher Monk, about 17 Years of Age, an Apprentice to Mr. Walker, Shipwright; Mortally wounded, a Ball entered his Side and came out of his Back; apprehended he will die.
A Lad named John Clark, about 17 Years of Age, whose Parents live at Medford, and an Apprentice to Capt. Samuel Howard of this Town; Mortally wounded, a Ball entered just above his Groin and came out at his Hip, on the opposite side, apprehended he will die.
Mr. Edward Payne, of this Town, Merchant, standing at his Entry Door, received a Ball in his Arm, and shattered some of the Bones.
Mr. John Green, Taylor, coming up Leverett’s Lane, received a Ball just under his Hip, and lodged in the under Part of his Thigh, which was extracted.
Mr. Robert Patterson, a Seafaring Man, who was the Person that had his Trowsers shot thro’ in [Ebenezer] Richardson’s affair, wounded; a Ball went thro’ his right Arm.
Mr. Patrick Cole, about 30 Years of Age, who work’d with Mr. Field Leather- Breeches-maker in Queen-Street, wounded, a Ball entered near his Hip and went out at his Side.
A Lad named David Parker, an Apprentice to Mr. Eddy the Wheelwright, wounded, a Ball entered his Thigh.
Richard Burke Jones is a lawyer and court official in Newburyport who also paints historical scenes. Many of his images show Newburyport, but he’s recently completed a bird’s-eye view of Boston just before the Revolution. Here’s Jones’s website, which displays some of his images, including close-ups of the Boston canvas.
Jones took a perspective similar to Paul Revere’s engraving of British troops marching up Long Wharf in 1768. Look closely at the close-up of the Town House, and you’ll see gun-wielding soldiers confronting a crowd, an image based on Henry Pelham’s engraving of the Massacre. Take in the whole image, and it’s a good reminder of how small the town was back then. (The opening shot of Disney’s Johnny Tremain movie does the same thing from a different perspective.)
Here’s a story from a regional section of the Boston Globe that profiles Jones, and offers an interview/slide show as well.
His Majesty’s 10th Regiment of Foot, American Contingent, which reenacts a unit of the British Revolutionary army, is offering a reward of $1,000 for the return of two stolen flags, no questions asked.
These battle flags, or Colours, disappeared from an automobile in Waltham in early January. They are not Revolutionary artifacts; rather, they represent friendship between the U.K. and U.S. of A., having been presented to the group by British supporters in the 1970s.
The flags are made of embroidered silk, over six feet by six feet in size. Their designs appear on this page (which—be warned—also plays music). People can contact the group’s leaders through this page. On each Patriot's Day, the 10th Foot leads the charge on Lexington Green, re-enacting the skirmish that began the Revolutionary War.
I’d like to be able to report the return of these Colours soon.
The Boston Massacre anniversary is over—whew! As you might have noticed, I’d worked up to that event with a series of postings about some of the people involved.
My summary of the Massacre itself left out a lot of detail, and may not connect all the dots exactly right. (For example, when did Dr. Thomas Young tell people to go home? Did Pvt. Montgomery shoot first or yell “Fire!” first?) We have more testimony about this event than any other in Revolutionary America, I suspect, so describing and reconciling everyone’s point of view would fill several books. A person could write a long blog entry simply from the point of view of Ann Green, one of the (probably) teenage girls that Bartholomew Broaders escorted home from the apothecary—and maybe next year I’ll do that.
For folks who want to read a full history of the fatal event, the best book is Hiller B. Zobel’s The Boston Massacre, published by W. W. Norton to coincide with the 200th anniversary. While the shootings on King Street on 5 March 1770 are the center of this history, it also covers the years of violent conflict in Boston before then and the immediate aftermath. Zobel prepared for this study by co-editing The Legal Papers of John Adams. Volume 2 of that series includes the records of the trial of Ebenezer Richardson; volume 3 is devoted to the trials of Capt. Thomas Preston and the eight soldiers.
There are, inevitably, some flaws and holes in Zobel’s study. Prof. Pauline Maier of M.I.T. pointed out the Tory slant of the book’s rhetoric in reviewing it for the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. [Her method inspired my posting about another author’s treatment of Samuel Adams here on Boston 1775.] Prof. John Philip Reid argued against Zobel’s analysis of John Adams’s courtroom behavior in an American Journal of Legal History article a few years later.
I think that The Boston Massacre is a masterful recreation of events from a variety of sources, but agree that in its analysis and rhetoric it leans to the right. So for determined researchers I also recommend seeking out a copy of Dirk Hoerder’s Crowd Action in Revolutionary Massachusetts, 1765-1780, which leans to the left. Unfortunately, that book’s not nearly so engaging or well written as Zobel’s. (I shouldn’t complain: Hoerder writes so much better in English than I could write in German.)
There have also been thirty-seven more years of research since Zobel was at work, with personal computers, digital databases, and the internet making it so much easier to collect information. So now we have even more information about the Massacre. In fact, my postings about it have focused on stuff that you won’t find in The Boston Massacre:
As night fell on the 5th of March, 1770, small groups of British soldiers and Boston workers resumed the fights of the previous week. These confrontations coalesced into a big brawl around “Murray’s barracks,” named for the man who had rented his widowed sister’s idle distillery to the army to house much of the 29th Regiment.
King Street in the center of town was still peaceful, though. Teenaged apprentice Edward Garrick was standing there, near the shop where he worked for wigmaker John Piemont. Capt. John Goldfinch of the 14th Regiment passed by. Edward yelled out that the officer had not paid his barber’s bill.
Capt. Goldfinch showed young Edward the receipt he had in his pocket and— No, of course he didn’t. The captain did have a receipt in his pocket, but he was a British officer and gentleman, and he didn’t deign to reply to a greasy barber’s boy yelling in the street. (Grease was a necessary ingredient in shaping and styling wigs.) Especially with all the insults that Bostonians had yelled at the army since 1768.
Nearby, at the mansion rented by the Customs Service for its office, stood Pvt. Hugh White of the 29th Regiment. He was thirty years old and had served in the British army for eleven years. [Thanks to Don Hagist for alerting me to the British National Archives online record that contained that info.] Though Capt. Goldfinch ignored the barber’s boy, Pvt. White didn’t. He told the teenager that the officer “is a gentleman, and if he owes you any thing he will pay it.” Edward, who had visited with other soldiers of the 29th the night before, replied that there were no gentlemen in the 14th regiment.
Then Edward’s fellow apprentice Bartholomew Broaders arrived with a young woman on each arm. Those women, probably teenagers as well, were servants in the Customs House. The father of one of them had asked Bartholomew to escort the girls to the apothecary. Edward joined the party, and all four young people went into the mansion’s kitchen for a visit.
Meanwhile, Capt. Goldfinch arrived at Murray’s barracks. As the senior officer on the scene, Goldfinch broke up the brawl, shoving and ordering soldiers indoors. Merchant Richard Palmes and Dr. Thomas Young, the most radical of Boston’s Whig leaders, told locals to go home.
Back at the Customs House, one young woman’s brother came into the kitchen and told the barber’s boys that it was getting late. Having spent about an hour inside, Bartholomew and Edward went back out onto King Street. They headed home quietly and— No, that would be too sensible. Edward Garrick started complaining about Capt. Goldfinch’s bill again.
But Pvt. White ignored him and— No, of course he couldn’t let that go. The sentry called Edward over. “I’m not afraid to show my face,” said the apprentice, and walked up. White clonked the boy on the side of the head with the butt of his musket.
Edward staggered back and burst into tears. Bartholomew yelled at White, demanding “what he meant by thus abusing the people”—elevating an individual attack into tyranny. A sergeant chased the apprentices away with his sword, but they found another young wigmaker, Richard Ward. Soon several teenagers were running around the center of town, telling people about the sentry’s assault. One witness recalled them yelling, “you Centinel, damned rascally Scoundrel Lobster Son of a Bitch”!
It had been only a week since Boston’s huge funeral for Christopher Seider, a boy about eleven years old shot dead by a Customs officer. Now folks heard about the man guarding the Customs office abusing another boy. Naturally, this upset people. While some passersby told the boys to disperse, others joined them or at least stopped to watch. (Among the men who eventually joined the throng was Robert Paterson, a sailor whose trousers had been cut by the same shot that killed Seider.)
A town watchman named Edward Langford arrived. He told the apprentices “to let the Sentry alone” and told that soldier “not to be afraid, they were only boys, and would not hurt him.” But around the same time, some of the boys had gotten into the First Meeting and started ringing its bell—the town’s fire alarm.
The crowd swelled quickly as people arrived with their fire buckets. Some private fire companies rolled their engines toward the center of town. It soon became clear that there was no fire, but people spread the news about the big fight at Murray’s barracks, about the sentry at the Customs House. The crowd grew larger and angrier—at least 200 people.
Pvt. White sent two messengers from the Customs House to the Main Guard on the other side of the Town House, asking for reinforcements. Eventually the senior officer there, forty-year-old Capt. Thomas Preston, sent a squad of seven privates under Cpl. William Wemms. After a few more minutes, Preston followed.
All those reinforcements were grenadiers of the 29th. Two of the privates—Edward Montgomery and James Hartigan—had wives in Boston. Three—Mathew Kilroy, William Warren, and John Carroll—had been involved in the fights between soldiers and ropemakers at the end of the previous week. They pushed through the crowd to White’s side, poking men with their bayonets and shouting, “Damn your blood, stand out of the way.”
The soldiers ranged themselves in an arc around the Customs House door. By this time the barber’s boys all seem to have gone home. Among the people toward the front of the crowd were Samuel Gray, one of the brawling ropemakers, watching happily. Bookseller Henry Knox, young and burly, buttonholed Capt. Preston and warned him, “For God’s sake, take care of your men.” Richard Palmes and other gentlemen reminded Preston that without a magistrate he had no legal authority to order his men to fire.
Then twenty or thirty sailors and dock workers arrived from Dock Square. A gentleman had told them that the Customs service was behind all of Boston’s troubles—a common political position. On their way from the docks these men had picked up stout sticks from a pile of firewood. They moved through the crowd to the front, close enough for one sailor, a man of African and Native American ancestry over six feet tall, to grab a bayonet and jerk it back and forth. Benjamin Burdick, Constable of the Town House Watch, arrived, carrying a broadsword at his wife’s insistence. He yelled at the locals to stand back for their own good.
Someone in the crowd threw a stick. It hit Pvt. Montgomery, on the right side of the line of soldiers, and knocked him down. He scrambled back to his feet, fired his musket, and yelled, “Fire!” His comrades responded by shooting, not together but in a ragged sequence. One man didn’t fire—probably Cpl. William Wemms, on the far side of the line.
At first many in the crowd didn’t believe the soldiers’ guns were loaded. But the tall sailor collapsed in the gutter, two balls through his chest. Samuel Gray fell dead on watchman Langford’s foot. Other men and teenagers were also struck, some in the front of the crowd, some in the back, one on his doorstep across the street. Each musket had probably contained two balls, so the seven shots produced a dozen wounds.
The crowd fell back. Constable Burdick tried to take charge for the town, fetching a doctor and another man to carry away the bodies and then trying to memorize the soldiers’ faces. People carried dead and wounded men to taverns, doctors’ offices, or their homes. Capt. Preston swatted up his men’s muskets to stop them from firing again, then marched them back to the Main Guard. Hearing the shots from blocks away, Capt. Goldfinch said, “I thought it would come to this.” His wigmaker’s receipt was still in his pocket.
Though soldiers and locals had brawled in Boston on the 2nd and 3rd of March, the town was quiet on the 4th. After all, it was the Sabbath.
That evening, three young wigmakers went to visit a co-worker—but not just any co-worker. One of those fellows, Richard Ward, recalled:
on the Lord’s day evening preceding the fifth day of March instant, about dusk, he went to see one Mr. Dines (who is a soldier of the 29th regiment, and work worked, when he was not upon duty, in Mr. John Piemont, peruke maker’s shop, with the deponent, a journeyman to said Piemont); the said Dines lives near the barracks at New Boston [i.e., the western wing of the peninsula]; when your deponent was there, he heard one of the officers of the said 29th regiment say to the sergeants, “Don’t let any of your people go out unless there be eight or ten together.”I’m not sure Ward was a journeyman, as he described himself, since his co-worker Bartholomew Broaders later called him a “fellow-apprentice.” Here is Broaders’s recollection of the same visit:
he went up to see Patrick Dines, a soldier of the 29th regiment, who worked with Mr. Piemont, and in Dawson’s room heard Sergeant Daniels say, that the officers said, since patience would not do, force must. And the soldiers must not bear the affronts of the inhabitants any longer, but resent them, and make them know their distance; and further, that the inhabitants would never be easy, and that he should desire to make the plumbs fly about their ears, and set the town on fire around them, and then they would know who and who were of a side—I interpret young Garrick’s reply to mean, “If you want a club, that’s your problem; leave me out of it.”
said Daniels asked Edward Garrick, fellow-apprentice to the deponent, if he knew where he could get a stick that would bear a good stroke?
Garrick replied, you must look for one.
Mr. [George R. T.] Hewes states...there was a barber at the head of the street [King Street], on the north side, named Piemont, a Frenchman, who usually kept several apprentices; that some of the British officers were in the habit of resorting there; that one of them had come there some months previous, to dress by the quarter, whose bill Piemont promised to allow to the boy who shaved him, if he behaved well; that the quarter had expired, but the money could not be got, though frequent applications had been made for it...The custom of the time was to give people three months (“the quarter”) to pay their bills; if Goldfinch’s bill became overdue in early March, then he’d had his head shaved in early December. Piemont’s promise may therefore have been a version of the other small bits of money apprentices collected toward the end of the year: at Pope Night, through tip boxes, through New Year’s verses. In any event, in early March those apprentices were getting impatient.
Benjamin Burdick, Jr., was born on 23 May 1742, son of a shoemaker. He trained as a barber, advertised his services as a “peruke-maker and hair-cutter” in the Boston News-Letter in June 1765, and under the legal conventions of the time was legally identified with that profession.
But the month he turned twenty-one, Burdick took a different job: he became one of Boston’s town watchmen. After a few years, he became the head of his four-man squad, with the title “Constable of the Watch” for the center of town. He stayed in that job at least until the outbreak of the war in April 1775.
Here are the duties of a Constable of the Watch, as spelled out by Boston’s town clerk in 1767:
1st:— That you with the Watchmen under you attend at said Watch house at the hours of 9 oClock every Night from the 20th: of September to the 20th: of March and continue till clear daylight & at the hour of ten oClock from the 20th: of March to the 20th: of September & that you & each of your [men] continue upon duty untill Sun rise, and if any of your division should misbehave you must inform the Selectmen of it.Watchmen carried staffs and lanterns as they patrolled, and also had long bill-hooks in their watch-houses for more difficult jobs, but the town didn’t supply them with swords, guns, or rattles to summon help.
2d:— That you keep a fair journal of your doing every Night how you find the State of the Town, and who of the Watchmen are on duty and Report to the Selectmen every Wednesday.
3d:— That two at least of your Division taking their Staves with them walk the Rounds within your Ward to the Westward of your Watch house twice every Night, and oftner if necessary & that other two of your Division walk the rounds in the same manner to ye Eastward of the Watch house...
4th:— In going the rounds care must be taken that the Watchmen are not noisy but behave themselves with strict decorum, that they frequently give the Time of the Night & what the Wheather is with a distinct but moderate Voice; excepting at Times when it is necessary to pass in Silence in order to detect & secure Persons that are out on unlawful Actions.
5 You & your division must endeavour to suppress all Routs Riots & other disorders that may be committed in the Night and secure such Persons as may be guilty; that proper Step’s may be taken the next Morning for a Prosecution as the Law directs we absolutely forbid your taking private satisfaction or any bribe that may be offered you to let such go free or to conceale their Offence from the Selectmen.
6:— You are to take up all Negroes Indian & Molattoe Slaves that may be absent from their Masters houses after 9 oClock at Night & passing the Streets unless they are carrying Lanthorns with light Candles and can give a good & satisfactory Account of their Business that such Offenders may be proceeded with according to Law.
Two Persons who were passing were challenged by one of us, when they come to the Watch House & demanded what authority we had for challenging the Kings Soldier. . . . we took [them] to be Officers with their Swords under their Arms; they then forbid us to give the time of Night saying if we did they would put us all in Irons for we had not orders so to do only what the Selectmen gave us which they had no power to do, and also forbid our giving the time of Night any more or keeping any more in the Watch House—they called us damned Scoundrels, threatning that they would bring four Regiments & blow us all to Hell; and likewise threatned to give us a drubbing; they also said they were Kings Soldiers & Gentlemen, that they had Orders from his Majesty, and they were above the Selectmen.Well-born officers no doubt objected to having to answer to working-class men like Burdick. In return, Whig newspapers complained about army sentinels demanding that locals identify themselves.
The town watch is appointed for our security in the night; to them and not to the military are the inhabitants legally obliged to give an answer, when properly hailed.It’s hard to imagine a clearer example of conflict between the authority of the London government and the authority of the local government.
I had seen two soldiers about my house, I saw one of them hearkening at the window, I saw him again near the house, and asked him what he was after;
he said he was pumping ship: [An allusion to William Green’s insult to Pvt. Patrick Walker?]
Was it not you, says I, that was hearkening at my window last night?
what if it was, he said,
I told him to march off, and he damned me, and I beat him till he had enough of it, and he then went off.
On 2 March 1770, Pvt. Patrick Walker of the 29th regiment passed John Gray’s ropewalks in Boston on an errand. Months later, he left a blunt and unhelpful description of what he experienced there:
That about the latter end of February Last, Deponant having Occasion to go by the Ropewalkes in Boston, he was assaulted, knocked Down, trod under feet, Cut in several places, and Very much bruised, without any Provocation Given, by about twelve of the Inhabitants of Boston, (supposed Rope makers) and Left in Danger of his LifePvt. Walker had to sign his deposition with his mark, didn’t recall the exact date of this assault, and didn’t accurately describe the details of what led up to his beating. But Walker was correct about minding his own business, fetching water, as he passed the ropewalks. Ropemaker William Green called out a question: did he want work? (Soldiers were allowed to moonlight, which lowered the wages for locals.) Walker asked Green what the work was. For three descriptions of Green’s insulting reply, see my posting on the term “little-house.”
about half past 11 o’clock, A.M., a soldier of the 29th Regiment came to Mr. John Gray’s ropewalks, and looking into one of the windows, said, by God I’ll have satisfaction! with many other oaths; at the last he said he was not afraid of any one in the ropewalks. I stept out of the window and speedily knock’d up his heels. On falling, his coat flew open, and a naked sword appearedAnother ropemaker, Samuel Bostwick, insisted that “Green...took no further notice of” Walker after getting off his clever line, but the soldier came back “with a party of thirty or forty soldiers, headed by a tall negro drummer.” That drummer was Thomas Walker, quoted above; since 1759, the 29th had used black men as its regimental drummers.
I was at a house the corner of a passage way leading from Atkinson’s street to Mr. John Gray’s rope-walks, near Green’s barracks so called, when I saw eight or ten soldiers pass the window with clubs. I immediately got up and went to the door, and found them returning from the rope-walks to the barracks; whence they again very speedily re-appeared, now increased to the number of thirty or forty, armed with clubs and other weapons.Though it’s clear Green’s gratuitous insult had started this conflict, I think it probably escalated in a tit-for-tat pattern, each side bringing in more fighters and thus prompting the other side to do the same. Among the ropemakers involved was a young man named Samuel Gray—no relation to the ropewalks owner. Among the soldiers were Pvts. William Warren and Mathew Kilroy and (during follow-up brawls the next day) John Carroll, all grenadiers in the 29th.
In this latter company was a tall negro drummer, to whom I called, you black rascal, what have you to do with white people’s quarrels?
He answered, I suppose I may look on, and went forward.
I went out directly and commanded the peace, telling them I was in commission [i.e., was a magistrate]; but they not regarding me, knocked down a rope-maker in my presence, and two or three of them beating him with clubs, I endeavoured to relieve him; but on approaching the fellows who were mauling him, one of them with a great club struck at me with such violence, that had I not happily avoided it might have been fatal to me.
The party last mentioned rushed in towards the rope-walks, and attacked the rope-makers nigh the tar-kettle, but were soon beat off, drove out of the passage-way by which they entered
Pvt. Edward Montgomery arrived in Boston in 1768 along with the rest of Capt. John Corrance’s grenadier company in His Majesty’s 28th Regiment of Foot. Like many of his fellow soldiers, he was ethnically Irish and most likely Catholic. This background made them very unpopular in pre-Revolutionary Boston, which had a whole holiday devoted to defaming the Pope.
But Bostonians didn’t really need their anti-Catholicism to resent the arrival of the 29th and three other regiments, probably about 1,200 soldiers in all, in late 1768. The town then had fewer than 3,000 white men—i.e., potential voters and militia fighters. The equivalent military presence in Boston today, with approximately 470,000 adults of both sexes and all ethnicities, would be 188,000, or far more than the entire U.S. troop strength in Iraq, all concentrated in a single city. (Even if we compared the men in the regiments to Boston’s total population in 1770, more than half of which was under age 16, the equivalent number of soldiers today would be nearly 50,000.)
Boston felt like a town under military occupation, with sentries at the gates and various corners challenging people as they walked by. Even after the royal authorities removed two regiments in late 1769, the locals still resented their presence.
Montgomery was unusual in his company, though probably not unique, because he brought his family with him. His wife Isabela and their children Mary, Esther, and William took lodgings near the North Battery in the North End, in a building owned by Royall Tyler, a wealthy and Whiggish politician. (He was the father of the Royall Tyler who became America’s first homegrown playwright and Chief Justice of Vermont.)
The family’s relationship with their neighbors might be summed up by this testimony from Caleb Swan:
at the time of the bells ringing for fire [on 5 Mar 1770], he heard a woman’s voice, whom he knew to be the supposed wife of one Montgomery, a grenadier of the 29th regiment, standing at her door, and heard her say it was not fire; the town was too haughty and too proud; that many of their arses would be laid low before the morning.(I especially admire the term “supposed,” with the implication that the Montgomerys might not really be married.)
Upon which Susanna Cathcart said to her, I hope your husband will be killed.
On which the woman replied, my husband is able and will stand his ground.
