“I am reserved for fortune to frown upon”

In 1736 Bennet Bard (1711–1757) of Burlington, New Jersey, was the sheriff of Hunterdon County.

Bard’s father Peter had been a Huguenot refugee arriving in America in 1706. He held important positions in the colony’s government, including colonel commandant, judge of the supreme court, and member of the governor’s council.

Two years after Peter Bard died in 1734, the council was presented with “sundry Affidavits containing Complaints of the Misbehaviour of Bennet Bard Esq Sherriff of Hunterdon as Also a Letter from some Merchants in Philadelphia to the same Purpose.”

On 23 Sept 1736 the council met to consider those complaints and the sheriff’s response. The official record says:

after hearing Several Petitions and Affidavits Read against the said Sherriff: and several Affidavits on his behalf and Examining diverse Witnesses upon Oath: They are unanimously of Opinion that the said Bennet Bard has been Guilty of divers notorious Barratrys Extortions and other malversations in his Office, and of Cruelly and unjustly Useing and Abusing the Prisoners in his Custody, And that he is not fit to be Continued any longer in that office

Bard remained wealthy, having inherited a mill and lots of real estate. He bought more land. He owned slaves and the labor of indentured servants. His 1743 house appears above, showing off its Flemish checker bond brickwork.

A few years after Bennet Bard stopped being sheriff, his son William was born. According to John McVickar’s A Domestic Narrative of the Life of Samuel Bard, M.D. (1822) and Abraham Ernest Helffenstein’s Pierre Fauconnier and His Descendants (1911), as a young man William fell in love with his cousin Mary Bard, born in 1746. But she didn’t return his affection.

William Bard reportedly moped off into the British army, enlisting in 1761. He was an ensign in the 80th Regiment when he co-signed this affidavit involving someone else’s dispute about rank.

Bard transferred into the 35th Regiment in 1765. He was still an ensign eight years later, which suggests he didn’t have the money and/or ambition to buy a higher rank.

The year after that, Ens. Bard wrote back from his station at Samford Hall in England to another cousin, Dr. Samuel Bard:

My Dear Sam,

You lay me under great obligations for the concern you express at my unhappiness; though, at the same time, it is a little ungenerous to torment me by that ironical speech, with regard to our dear cousin, telling me to live still in hopes of being happy with her.

Believe me, my dear Sam, I have long given that over. Some other person, (perhaps yourself,) is designed for that blessing, whilst I am reserved for fortune to frown upon. For my future ease, I must endeavour to forget her; how far I shall succeed in that, God only knows.

After mustering all my philosophy, I am still as discontented as ever. I am, indeed, very unhappy, and what is worse, believe I shall ever remain so.

Yours affectionately,
W. Bard.

Four years later, Dr. Samuel Bard married their mutual cousin Mary. That can’t have made Ens. William Bard any happier.

TOMORROW: This is supposed to be Bunker Hill week, right?

“The only one now living of those who acted as aids-de-camp to General Howe”

Thomas Hyde Page (1746–1821) graduated top in his class from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1769, winning a gold medal from the king.

Page became a lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers and arrived in Boston in the spring of 1775. During the Battle of Bunker Hill he served as one of Gen. William Howe’s aides.

Richard Frothingham quoted the 11 Jan 1776 London Chronicle as saying:

A few days ago arrived in town, from Boston, Lieutenant Page, of his majesty’s corps of engineers, on account of the wounds he received the 17th of June, in the action of Charlestown. This gentleman is the only one now living of those who acted as aids-de-camp to General Howe, so great was the slaughter of officers that day. He particularly distinguished himself in the storming of the redoubt, for which he received General Howe’s thanks.

Page was back in London because he had been wounded in the leg, badly enough to require some sort of amputation.

Capt. John Montresor wrote to Page from Philadelphia on 17 June 1778 noting the “disagreeable memory” of the date. “I hope you are able to saunter without a stick.”

In his journal, however, Montresor grumped about his lack of a pension and wrote, “Page served Eleven days and was then wounded and return’d home and had ten shillings per diem settled for life.” (Of course, Montresor still had both his legs.)

Page continued to work on various engineering projects for the British military. Promotion was slow in that branch of the service, but between 1781 and 1783 he became a captain. That summer he received a double honor: he was elected to the Royal Society and knighted. A couple of years later he shifted to the invalid corps.

In 1790, Lt. Col. John Small, who had been Gen. Robert Pigot’s brigade major, wrote to Page:

The interesting position we were placed in side by side at the memorable Battle of Bunker’s Hill will never be forgotten, and will ever excite the most anxious emotions in the breast of the fellow campaigner who has now the honor of addressing you; who witnessed in the most trying moments, your innate worth, your professional Intrepidity and skill, and was most seriously affected when at your side he saw you ffall from a very dangerous wound, receiv’d when displaying your exertions in the ffield, when your cool and manly example, and sound judicious advice, contributed much to acquire success and victory.

I wish I had more of that letter to understand who was asking what favor.

Using surveys by Montresor and others, Page published very good maps of Boston harbor and the town of Boston. His 1793 “Plan of the Action at Bunkers Hill” is still the most useful source on the topography of the Charlestown peninsula in 1775—though it’s also notable in switching the labels of Bunker’s Hill and Breed’s Hill.

Most of Page’s engineering work involved drainage, harbors, canals, and other civil projects rather than fortifications. James Northcote’s portrait of Page above shows him “holding a Plan of Fort Landguard and seen in the distance.” Page didn’t build that fort, but he engineered its tricky well. (Once apparently at Boston, that painting is now on display at the Tyntesfield estate in North Somerset.)

Sir Thomas Hyde Page remained active all around Great Britain for decades and finally retired to Boulogne, France, where he died.

“Major Pitcairn was a brave and good man”

Laying the ground for Tuesday’s online presentation for Old North Illuminated about the legends associated with Maj. John Pitcairn, here are some articles that appeared in the British press in the latter part of 1775 which were then reprinted in American newspapers.

Pennsylvania Packet, 2 Oct 1775:

Extract of a letter from Chatham, July 31.

“The chief topic in this town for several days past has been concerning the death of the unfortunate Major Pitcairn, who died of his wounds in the late engagement in America. He was late Major of his Majesty’s division of Marines at this place. He was a Gentleman of universal good character, and beloved by his officers and men, and much esteemed by all ranks of people here for his affability and genteel address. He was a tender husband, and an affectionate father.

[“]On the news being brought to his lady last Thursday evening, she immediately dropped down, and for several hours it was thought she was dead; she has not spoke since, and her life is not expected; their mutual happiness was beyond conception. The unfortunate Lady’s character is no ways deficient to that of the Major.”

Pitcairn had married Elizabeth Dalrymple, and she lived until 1809.

Pennsylvania Gazette, 4 Oct 1775:

A letter from Boston, dated July 18, says, “Lieutenant [William] Pitcairn, son to our Major of that name, was standing by his father when that noble officer fell, and expired without uttering a word; he looked very wishfully at the Lieutenant, who kneeled down, and cried out, “My father is killed: I have lost my father!”

This slackened the firing of our corps for some minutes, many of the men echoing the words, “We have all lost a father!”

When Frank Moore sampled this item as a footnote in his Diary of the American Revolution, he changed “our corps,” which seems to point to the marines, to “the regulars,” a larger group.

As an anecdote it’s quite touching, but the description of Pitcairn having “expired without uttering a word” is contradicted by many contemporaneous reports of the major lingering after being shot. For example, Gen. John Burgoyne wrote:

Major Pitcairn was a brave and good man. His son, an officer in the same corps, and near him when he fell, carried his expiring father upon his back to the boats, about a quarter of a mile, kissed him, and instantly returned to his duty. This circumstance in the hands of a good painter or historian, would equal most that can be found in antiquity.

Gen. Thomas Gage listed Pitcairn as mortally wounded, not immediately dead. There’s a story from Boston of the major’s long dying conversation with Dr. Thomas Kast.

Pennsylvania Mercury, 13 Oct 1775:

It is said that a pension of 200l. per annum is settled on the Widow of the late Major Pitcairn, who has eleven children.

New-York Gazette, 16 Oct 1775:

Extract of a letter from Plymouth, August 15.

“Lieut. Pitcairn, of the marines, (who brought his father, Major Pitcairn, when mortally wounded at Boston, off the field of action) is appointed a Captain Lieutenant and Captain in the said corps, (though not in his turn) as an acknowledgement of the services of his gallant father.”

Virginia Gazette, 19 Oct 1775:

July 28. Major Pitcairne, of the marines, who was killed in the late action in America, has left 7 children. Four balls were lodged in his body, and he was taken off the field upon his son’s shoulders.

The History of the Fife Pitcairns says John and Elizabeth had nine children, one of whom had been lost at sea in 1770.

A Closer Look at the Landscape of Bunker’s Hill

Back in 2017, I shared a map of the Battle of Bunker Hill that Gen. Henry Clinton had drawn himself on the back of some sheet music (permalink).

I wrote:

One eye-catching detail is that Clinton sketched a small fortification on top of Bunker’s Hill . . . There are even lines indicating that one of the warships in the Charles River fired at that site. . . .

evidently on 17 June, Clinton perceived the provincials as having fortified themselves there

This spring Boston 1775 reader Adam Derenne sent an email shedding some light on that mystery:

I believe that Clinton misinterpreted the site — it wasn’t a partial fortification but a gravel pit operated by Charlestown resident Peter Edes.

As Mr. Derenne pointed out, Edes’s gravel pit is mentioned in Charlestown’s 1767 land survey:

Then we measurd a Gravel Pitt Enclos’d & Improv’d by Mr. Peter Edes with his land lying Bounded on the way leading over Bunker’s Hill just opposite to Temple’s Barn. We began about 8 Feet below the easterly part of his Mr. Edes’s Stone Wall, said Wall being on the Way from Temples leading over Bunker’s Hill…

This owner was probably the Peter Edes (1705–1787) whose son Benjamin became a printer of the Boston Gazette (and had a son named Peter).

Mr. Derenne also noted that the City of Boston’s G.I.S. website shows what properties Peter Edes owned in 1775, covering the odd spot in Clinton’s map. Thomas Hyde Page’s map of the battle, published in 1793, showed a blob where Clinton drew that second fortification, presumably the gravel pit.

I then went looking for a mention of this pit in accounts of the battle. Did provincials use it to shelter themselves from the Royal Navy shelling that side of Charlestown? Did British engineers incorporate it into their fortifications on Bunker’s Hill, either the quick barriers made on the evening of 19 April or the sturdy fort built over time after 17 June? But I couldn’t find any account mentioning the gravel pit. So there’s still a mystery to solve.

“The Ghost of Major John Pitcairn,” 24 June

Sticking with the saga of Henry Howell Williams and his quest for (over?)compensation meant I mustered only a brief mention of the Battle of Bunker Hill on its Sestercentennial.

But today I’m watching the reenactment of that battle in Gloucester, and I’ll discuss some aspects of the event in the coming days, both on this site and live.

On Tuesday, 24 June, I’ll speak on “The Ghost of Major John Pitcairn” for Old North Illuminated’s digital speaker series.

Our event description:

After Major John Pitcairn was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill, he was remembered in Britain as “a Gentleman of universal good character.” In Massachusetts, however, people still accused Pitcairn of having ordered redcoats to fire at the Lexington militia two months earlier. The major’s body was laid in the crypt of the Old North Church, but his memory haunted American history through stories, rumors, and artifacts linked to his name.

In this talk, J. L. Bell, proprietor of the history blog Boston 1775, sifts through the evidence behind those legends before digging into how a church warden with a shaky reputation sent Maj. Pitcairn’s body back to Britain—or did he?

I suppose I should make clear that I know of no stories about Pitcairn’s spirit haunting people or places. Rather, his memory and Americans’ hunger to make meaning of that memory have produced several oft-repeated narratives.

I’ll talk about several legends of Maj. Pitcairn: his pistols and horse, who shot him at Bunker Hill, how Bostonians remembered him, and what happened to his body in the decades after his death. Some of those stories might even be true.

Register to hear this talk online with a donation through this Eventbrite page. It’s scheduled to begin at 7:00 P.M., and there will be time for questions afterward. Assuming the recording goes well, a video will appear online afterward.

The Last Years of Henry Howell Williams

I’ve written before about how Henry Howell Williams came from a wealthy, well-connected Roxbury family.

Close relatives married members of the Crafts, Dawes, Heath, and May families, all prominent in republican Boston.

Though in 1787 he told Henry Knox that he’d been “reduced to beggary” by his losses in the spring of 1775, Williams actually appears to have maintained a genteel lifestyle.

By 1784, as I wrote back here, Williams was once again living on Noddle’s Island, employing enough laborers that they needed their own building. An 1801 survey of the island labeled his rebuilt home as a “Mansion House.”

Williams also had the resources to keep petitioning one level of government after another, cajoling supportive letters from various officials. In 1789, the state of Massachusetts granted him £2,000.

Four years later, Williams bought the Winnisimmet ferry from the family that had run that concession for decades. He upgraded it and made good money for a decade crossing the Mystic River.

In 1797, Williams’s eldest daughter Elizabeth (1765–1843, shown here in a portrait by Gilbert Stuart) married Andrew Sigourney, who became the treasurer of Boston. His daughter Harriet married a son of John Avery, the state secretary. Other Williams siblings married another Sigourney, another Avery, and a couple of Williams cousins.

In that decade, Henry Howell Williams moved his family off of Noddle’s Island to mainland Chelsea. One of his last public acts, in January 1802, was to petition the state legislature to compensate him for the income he’d lose after a consortium built a bridge across the Mystic.

Williams didn’t live to see that bridge. He died in December 1802 after “three months confinement.” Lengthy death notices appeared in the Columbian Centinel and Massachusetts Mercury, obviously written by relatives and friends. They praised him as a generous host, a vigorous farmer, and a beloved family patriarch. (Notably, they make no mention of any service to the republic during the war.)

As I mentioned above, Williams’s daughter Harriet married John Avery’s son, John, Jr. In 1800, the next year, they had a son, also named John. And then in October those parents were lost at sea. Little John was raised by relatives, perhaps maiden aunts. He wouldn’t have remembered his grandfather, but he would have grown up on stories about him.

In particular, young John probably heard about the building on the Noddle’s Island farm that had once been a barrack for the Continental Army in Cambridge, and about how his grandfather’s livestock had gone to feed those troops. Putting those facts together in the most complimentary way probably gave rise to what Avery told William H. Sumner later in life: that his grandfather had been some sort of quartermaster supplying the army, and that the barrack had been a reward from the Continental commander, George Washington himself. Contemporaneous records tell a different story.

The third John Avery showed Sumner the file of documents his grandfather had collected to make his case for compensation. In 1911 another heir, Henry Howell Williams Sigourney, donated those papers to the Massachusetts Historical Society. They’re what got me started on this series about one long-extended outcome of the Battle of Chelsea Creek.

“A bar to the object of his petition”

On 25 Feb 1792, the U.S. House of Representatives recorded receiving:

A petition of Henry Howell Williams, praying compensation for injuries sustained in his property by the army of the United States, during the late war.

The House forwarded that and other petitions “to the Secretary of the Treasury, with instruction to examine the same, and report his opinion thereupon.”

Alexander Hamilton replied on 22 November with two reports, a long one on several petitions for such compensation and a short one on Williams’s particular request.

In general, Hamilton wrote, during and after the war the Congress had provided good procedures for handling such claims. Not perfect, but good enough that opening the door for special requests now would be “both difficult and dangerous.”

As to Williams’s case:

The Secretary begs leave to add, that it appears by the petitioner’s own shewing, that the State of Massachusetts has considered his case, and granted him a compensation: And that it further appears, from a document, which was produced by the petitioner, that the compensation allowed by the State was meant to be in full.

The State of Massachusetts having decided upon a matter respecting one of its own citizens, having made him a considerable compensation, for the loss which he sustained; that compensation having been made, as in full, and having been accepted by the petitioner, it would be, as far as the information of the Secretary goes, without precedent, in any similar case, to revise the compensation made, on the suggestion of its being inadequate; nor, considering the various incidents of the war, would comparative justice be promoted by doing it.

Though duly sensible of the respectability of the petitioner, and of the extent of the losses, which he originally sustained, the Secretary cannot but regard the considerations, which have been stated, as a bar to the object of his petition.

In sum, Williams was not going to get any money from the new federal government. And as far as I can tell, that was his last attempt at compensation from the Battle of Chelsea Creek seventeen years before.

TOMORROW: What happened to Henry Howell Williams?

“In full compensation of the damage he sustained”

For more than a week now I’ve traced Henry Howell Williams’s quest for compensation after the Battle of Chelsea Creek in May 1774 destroyed his estate on Noddle’s Island in Boston harbor.

In 1788, the Confederation Congress’s board of treasury sent him back to Massachusetts. After all, those commissioners said, his livestock had been taken and his farm burned before the Continental Army legally existed. This was a state matter.

I don’t have access to Massachusetts legislative journals from that period, but Williams must have submitted a petition during the session that started in May 1789.

On 23 June, Gov. John Hancock and state secretary John Avery signed off on this resolution passed by both houses of the General Court:

Resolved, that the Treasurer of this Commonwealth be and he hereby is directed to issue his note in behalf of the Commonwealth in favor of Henry Howell Williams, for the sum of two thousand pounds and interest thereon from date of the same in full compensation of the damage he sustained from having his stock and other property taken from him or destroyed in consequence of orders given by the commanding officer of the Massachusetts troops [Artemas Ward] in the month of May, 1775, and that the same be charged to the United States.

Williams would get £2,000. That wasn’t all he’d asked for, but it was more than half, and more than his own estimate of the value of the livestock he said the army had confiscated.

Massachusetts would supposedly try to get reimbursed for that payment from the federal government. I doubt it ever saw money back, but I don’t know how to track that now that Williams’s name was probably no longer attached to the request.

Williams had been seeking such compensation since the summer of 1775. He had asked each of these bodies for money:

• Massachusetts Provincial Congress.
• Massachusetts General Court under the provincial charter, seeking relief.
• Massachusetts General Court, seeking a loan.
• Congress of the U.S. of A. under the Articles of Confederation, through its agent.
• Congress of the U.S. of A. by direct petition.
• Massachusetts General Court under the constitution of 1780.

Some men might have been satisfied with £2,000. But not Williams.

Three years later he went back to Massachusetts legislators and asked if that “full compensation” from the state meant he couldn’t also ask the new federal government for money. Five members of the committees that had considered his claim in 1789 signed off on a document dated 14 Feb 1792 saying their resolution was

by no means and in no sense to preclude any further grant, Which The Federal Legislature, or any other government, May think proper to make said Williams.

So Williams sent yet another petition off to the new national capital of Philadelphia.

TOMORROW: In the room where it didn’t happen.

“The Memorialist should apply to that source for relief”

In 1787, the Confederation Congress was meeting in New York, at City Hall and the Fraunces Tavern (shown here).

When Henry Howell Williams asked for more than £3,600 in compensation for losses from Noddle’s Island twelve years earlier, the Congress referred his request to its Board of Treasury. (This must have happened after 10 Apr 1787, when Williams wrote to Secretary of War Henry Knox asking for his help with this petition.)

That treasury board consisted of three men, all recent Congress delegates:

• Samuel Osgood, a merchant from Andover and Continental Army veteran who had moved to New York. He would later be the first Postmaster General under the new Constitution.
• Walter Livingston of New York, like Osgood a former army commissary.
• Arthur Lee of Virginia, who had studied both medicine and law in Britain, helped John Dickinson to write “The Liberty Song,” and spent the 1770s in Europe as an American lobbyist and diplomat annoying other American lobbyists and diplomats.

These were the same three men who considered Richard Gridley’s request for payment for a horse killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill (fought 250 years ago today).

On 1 Aug 1788 that board told the Congress:

the damage done to the property of the Memorialist, and the articles stated to have been applied to the benefit of the United States, was previous to the formation of an Army, under the authority of the Union.

The Board are therefore of opinion, that if the evidence adduced in proof of the value and quantity of the articles stated to have been applied to the public use was more satisfactory than in fact it is, it would be improper to establish a Precedent, in the present instance, for an admission of numerous Claims, on the merits of which it would be impossible for the Officers of the Treasury to form any competent judgement.

The general fact, of a very valuable property belonging to the Memoralist, having been either destroyed or used for the benefit of the Army assembled at Boston in the month of May 1775, by order of a Board of General Officers, appears by the Certificate of the late Commissioner of Accounts for the State of Massachusets, marked A, to have been well established:

Inasmuch however as the aforesaid property appears to have been applied for the immediate benefit of the State, and as the merits of the Claim can be best ascertained under their authority, The Board are of opinion, that the Memorialist should apply to that source for relief; and should Claims of a similar description be hereafter allowed by the general Board of Commissioners, the State will obtain reimbursement for such sums as shall appear an equitable compensation for the real damage sustained by the Memorialist.

In short, the Congress sent Williams back to Massachusetts since the Battle of Chelsea Creek happened before any Continental Army legally existed.

It’s probably also significant that the Confederation Congress was on its last legs. It didn’t have enough money to pay all its bills. So few delegates were coming to New York that the body often lacked a quorum—hence the use of commissioners for day-to-day administration, and the long delay in actions. By the time this board submitted its report, a new Constitution was being publicly debated.

TOMORROW: Back to Massachusetts.

“Satisfied that he was intitled to a large allowance”

After listing more than £3,600 of property lost on Noddle’s Island in May and June of 1775, Henry Howell Williams presented that document to the Continental Congress’s agent in Boston and asked to be paid back.

That agent was Royal Flint (1754–1797), from Windham, Connecticut. A Yale graduate, he became a Connecticut paymaster in 1776 and eventually a Continental assistant commissary-general under Jeremiah Wadsworth. He had accompanied the army command to Valley Forge and Morristown, New Jersey. Flint was thus used to dealing with paperwork and property.

In 1786 the Congress appointed Flint to settle Continental accounts in New England, laying out procedures for him to follow. (In a possible conflict of interest, he was also starting to speculate in western lands, an enterprise that took up all of his time after 1790 and soon broke him.)

It appears that Williams approached Flint in 1786. Flint explained that his job was to settle outstanding bills with military contractors. Even if Williams’s livestock did ultimately benefit the army, he didn’t qualify. Instead, Flint advised Williams to ask for special consideration from the small Confederation bureaucracy.

On 1 Apr 1787 Williams got Flint to write that out in a certificate now shared by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Flint told the Congress, then meeting in New York:

soon after I entered upon the duties of my office as Commissioner for Settling public accounts in this State, the annexed claim was presented to me for allowance by Mr. Henry H. Williams.

As some part of it was for articles that were destroyed & which were productive of no advantage to the United States; and as none of it was Supported by regular vouchers, I suspended my determination upon it ’till I had obtained the best evidence that could be found.

The charges for the loss of Household furniture and whatever was received merely as damage could not be admitted at this Office; therefore I did not so critically investigate the proofs which were to establish that part of the Account. But that part of the claim which related to supplies of provision, or any other articles which were applied for the benefit of the United States, could be admitted, if the evidence of the fact was Satisfactory.

Under this idea, I suggested to Mr. Williams the propriety of stating in a Separate account such articles as were applied for the use of the Army; and to produce his evidence both with respect to the value & appropriation of them. From a great concurrence of testimony, he established the general fact, that his property was taken at the time & in the manner set forth in his memorial.

We also made it evident that the horses taken were turned into public Service; whether for this State or the United States, some of the witnisses were at a loss. The Honorable Moses Gill Esqr. & the late Major Genl. [Israel] Putnam informed me, they were actually applied for the United States. The number & value of the horses was not ascertained with any precision, but it was well proved that the horses were valuable & the number considerable.

It was proved to me that some Cattle & Sheep were slaughtered for the use of the Army, but the quantity was altogether uncertain.

Upon the whole, as this claim was for so large an amount, & the evidence in support of it not precise, I recommended to Mr. Williams to lay the affair before the Commissioners of the Treasury. I was however Satisfied that he was intitled to a large allowance & should have admitted that part of the account which related to articles appropriated to public use, with some deductions.

But the claimant preferred laying a memorial before the Honorable Congress under the expectation that the whole claim will be admitted. It must be Settled by general estimation. The nature of the transaction was Such as to exclude all possibility of accurate testimony. The evidence is satisfactory as far as it goes. It is perhaps as good as the nature of the case will admit.

That wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but Flint did say that Williams deserved some compensation.

That was enough for Henry Howell Williams, who submitted his request for the whole £3,600+ to the Congress.

TOMORROW: A confederated response.

(Israel Putnam was still alive in 1787, so “the late Major Genl. Putnam” must refer to his having retired from the army.)

“Ought to be paid by the United States”

To bolster his request for compensation after the Battle of Chelsea Creek, Noddle’s Island estate owner Henry Howell Williams assembled several documents, shared by the Massachusetts Historical Society.

One came from William Burbeck, who before the war had a job managing munitions in Castle William as well as helping to lead Boston’s militia artillery train.

I quoted Burbeck’s account last month. Because Williams took the risk of helping him get out of town, Burbeck was able to become second-in-command of Massachusetts’s artillery regiment.

As for Williams’s loyalty, Burbeck wrote:

it was Done at ye Risque of Every thing that is Dear And [he] informd. me that he was ready to save me or his Country in any thing that he Could

I know of but few men if Any in America that would have taken such Risques they being in his then situation (on an Island Surounded by men of war)—

Mr. Williams Complaynd. to me of the Ill treatment he Recd. from the Enemy that his family had been abused And his Interest taken from him & Recd. nothing therefor and that his situation was Dredfull, That he wished his Interest was off the Island and himself in the Country.

Burbeck signed that account (it’s not written in his handwriting) on 17 Apr 1776, just after the siege, as the Massachusetts legislature was moving to fortify Noddle’s Island. Obviously that document was meant to answer suspicions about Williams’s loyalty and willingness to provide provisions, even passively, to the British military the previous spring.

Williams also collected two statements signed by Moses Gill (shown above), prominent Patriot politician from the town of Princeton. One is dated 20 Mar 1786 and written in what looks like the same hand as the Burbeck statement. That document was composed for multiple people to sign, but only Gill did. It said:

in the year 1775 we were appointed by the Government A Committee of Supplies for the Army that when Genrl. [Israel] Putnam Removed the Stocks from Noddles Island, Among which were a Number of Horses which were Committed to our Care, And Upon Genrl. [George] Washington taken the Command of the Army they were with other Stores turnd. over to Colo. [Joseph] Trumbell the Continental Commissary Genrel at Cambridge

The other document signed by Gill isn’t dated, but it responds to an “account above”—probably meaning Williams’s inventory of lost property. As quoted yesterday, that accounting included “43 Elegant Horses...@ 30£.” The statement said:

I cannot with precision recollect the number, yet I believe the above amount is too high charged either with respect to the number or value of the horses.

And then the scribe inserted “not” in front of “too high.” I think that was the intended meaning all along, given the rest of the sentence, but that particular edit does raise eyebrows.

Williams also claimed to have lost “3 Cattle” and “220 Sheep.” Gill responded:

As to the Cattle & Sheep charged above, I have no personal knowledge in what manner they were applied, but I have no doubt they were used for the benefit of the American Army. as I was informed so by officers & others at that time

The bottom line for Gill:

Upon the whole, the account above charged is in my opinion just & ought to be paid by the United States.

Williams was already in discussions with a representative of the national government.

TOMORROW: A federal agent.

“The said Inventory (A Very few Articles excepted)”

By 1787, Henry Howell Williams had been reestablished on Noddle’s Island for about three years.

Having stayed in Massachusetts throughout the war, Williams had also established his loyalty to the republic, which might have been in doubt back in 1774 and 1775.

Williams then decided to revive his effort to be compensated for the loss of his animals and the destruction of his farm and house back in May and June 1775.

Williams assembled a long list of the property he had lost twelve years before, including furniture, clothing, and food. A sampling of the items:

• “24 very Eloquent Gilt Pictures, 1 small Carpet”
• “1 Coat of Arms work'd on Satting with Silver & Gold thread”
• “40 lb. of flax 2 Barrls Hops & 3 Quntal salt fish”
• “3 Large Jarr’s Sweet meats never opened”
• “1 Mahogy. Clock cost in England 25 £ Sterl. New”
• “1 Silver Nipple & Bottle”
• “60 bullets 30 lb. Lead. 6 Powdr horns. 2 Powdr flasks”
• “1 Barrl. best hard Bread a large Quanty of Loaf Sugar”
• “1 Large Bible & Several Other Books”
• “3 Hogsheads New Rum Just got home from the W. Indies Quanty. 234 Gallons a 3/4–”
• “6 Chissells 3 dung forks. Squares &c.”
• “1 large Boat £32– 1 Moses do £14. 1 yall £10–”
• “A New Black-Smiths Shop”
• “333 Young Locust tree’s Cut down which were Set out by Mr. Williams & were to have been paid for by the Owners of the Island at 3/ Each”

As to livestock, Williams stated he had lost:

43 Elegant Horses...@ 30£ Each put into the Publick Stables … £1290:11:—
3 Cattle taken & used as Provisions for the Army … 30:11:—
220 Sheep used as Provisions as above @12/- … 132:11:—
4 fine Swine … 12:11:—
5 Dozn Fowls Turkys & Ducks … 6:11:—

The bottom line was £3645:6:2. That might or might not have been in debased local currency, but pound for pound that total was more than a third of what the East India Company had calculated as its loss in Boston harbor back in 1773.

On 10 Mar 1787, Williams and his wife Elizabeth went before magistrate William Tudor (shown above) and swore

That the said Inventory (A Very few Articles excepted) was taken in the month of July following [the raids] & that according to my best Judgment and Recollection the Same is just and true

The whole document can be studied on the Massachusetts Historical Society’s website.

In addition, Williams had collected some evidence supporting his claim, or perhaps answering critics who had said back in 1775 and 1776 that he didn’t deserve financial support.

TOMORROW: Supporting documents.

Going Back onto Noddle’s Island

The message from Thomas Chase quoted yesterday makes clear that in 1780 Henry Howell Williams still felt he had a claim to “the Soil” of Noddle’s Island.

Williams had leased and farmed the harbor island for years before the Revolutionary War—as his father-in-law had done before him.

But that letter doesn’t indicate Williams was living on that island again. Williams’s appearances in the Boston newspapers during the previous half-decade also suggest he wasn’t.

On 7 Sept 1775, during the siege, Thomas Bumstead put a notice in the New-England Chronicle about “a likely, well built black Mare, and a Colt by her Side,” that were “STRAYED or stolen from Mr. Henry Williams, of Roxbury.” Henry Howell Williams did raise horses on Noddle’s Island, and he may well have gone back to his father’s family in Roxbury during the siege. On the other hand, the lack of a middle name or initial might suggest this was one of his relatives with a similar name, also raising horses.

More telling, on 24 Mar 1777 James Bell advertised in the Boston Gazette for the return of a stout 28-year-old black man named Dick, who had freed himself from slavery. Bell was from Colrain, and he told readers they could deliver Dick “to Mr. Henry Howell Williams in Boston.”

On 7 Sept 1778, Henry Howell Williams himself advertised in the same newspaper for the return of an enslaved 23-year-old woman named Phillis. That notice was datelined in Boston.

Thus, in those two years Williams could be found living in Boston, not in Chelsea, as Noddle’s Island was designated. Meanwhile, the island was occupied by provincial troops and then sick French soldiers.

Then the war ended. On 11 June 1784, the Massachusetts house received “A petition from the Rev. Charles Chauncey [shown above] and others, owners of Noddle’s island, in Boston harbour, stating that said island had been greatly damaged by the troops stationed there, and praying for some compensation.” Chauncy’s third wife had inherited an interest in Noddle’s Island which passed to him on her death in 1783, and then to his heirs.

Williams and his family returned to Noddle’s Island around that time. Back in the early 1770s he had run regular ads complaining about hunters and other trespassers. He did so again in the 15 Aug 1784 Independent Ledger, saying that “Gunners” were endangering his livestock, his mowers, and his family. That notice was signed from “Noddle’s-Island.” Obviously, the farm was back in operation.

As Williams rebuilt his estate, he probably commandeered the barracks originally constructed for Continental troops in Cambridge and then moved to the island by the state in 1776. After all, no one was using that building anymore.

TOMORROW: Renewing the quest for compensation.

“The Continental Barracks on Noddle’s Island”

As soon as the siege of Boston ended, the Massachusetts government moved to fortify Noddle’s Island and other spots in Boston harbor.

On 6 Apr 1776, the lower house of the General Court formed a “Committee for fortifying the Harbour of Boston” and told those members

immediately to take a View of Noddle’s-Island, and report to this Court what Time it will probably take a Regiment, consisting of Seven Hundred and Twenty-eight Men, to perform the Business of Fortifying said Harbour.

Twelve days later the house empowered that committee

To purchase on the best Terms they may be had, eight Hundred Feet of the Continental Barracks (provided their Cost, with the Expence of removing and rebuilding them, shall in the Opinion of the Committee, be less than the Value of new ones) and cause them to be removed to, and re-built on Noddle’s-Island

The Council approved that plan the next day. Until John Hancock took office as an elected governor in 1780, the Council would serve as both the upper house of the legislature and the executive branch of the state government, carrying out legislative policies.

The barracks were assembled on Jeffries’s Point, the southwestern corner of the island. It looks like that building housed provincial soldiers while they built the harbor fortifications, but not year-round.

Those barracks were put to another use in 1780, after French warships started arriving in Boston harbor. That summer Thomas Chase, the state’s deputy quartermaster general, wrote to the Council:

The Commanding Officer of the French Troops has applyed to me for a Hospital for the sick, and as there is Continental Barrack on Noddles Island, suitable for that purpose, and as Mr. [Henry Howell] Williams owns the Soil, and I suppose he will make Objection to their going into Barracks, I pray your Honors would be pleased to give Orders that they shall not be molested in said Barracks.

Chase’s colleague from the “Loyall Nine” fifteen years earlier, John Avery (shown above), had become the state secretary. He reported this action by the Council on 15 July:

Read & Ordered — that Col. Thomas Chace, D.Q.M.G., be, and hereby is directed to take Possession of the Continental Barracks on Noddle’s Island for the Use of the sick Soldiers on Board the Ship Le isle de France, arrived this morning from France, belonging to his most Christian Majesty.

The local historian William H. Sumner, having accepted family lore that Gen. George Washington had given Henry H. Williams barracks from Cambridge before leaving New England in April 1776, concluded that these barracks converted into a hospital must have been a second building. But, as I wrote yesterday, there’s no evidence for such a grant. Nor any mention of multiple barracks on Noddle’s Island.

Furthermore, Chase didn’t write about Williams as having a home on the island, only as protective of his “Soil” there. Chase clearly expected Williams to interfere with turning the barracks into a hospital for the French, so the state explicitly approved his plan. That action suggests the Patriot government still didn’t trust Williams to cooperate with the war effort.

TOMORROW: Where was Henry Howell Williams during the war?