“The last Words which ever passed between Mr. Dickinson and me”?

The discovery of John Dickinson’s 28 Oct 1775 letter to David Barclay, quoted yesterday, lets us assess his thoughts on John Adams’s private criticism of him in an intercepted letter earlier that year.

As Jane E. Calvert writes in the July 2026 William & Mary Quarterly, it should also make us reassess Adams’s recollection of how he came to make that criticism. We know that other passages from Adams’s nineteenth-century memoir contradict contemporaneous sources, or at least aren’t supported by them.

According to Adams writing in 1805, the two men fell out during the Continental Congress’s debate over the Olive Branch Petition in the spring or early summer of 1775:

I was opposed to it, of course; and made an Opposition to it, in as long a Speech as I commonly made, not having ever been remarkable for very long Harrangues, in Answer to all the Arguments which had been urged. . . .

At this moment I was called out to the State house Yard, very much to my regret, to some one who had business with me. I took my hat and went out of the Door of Congress Hall: Mr. Dickinson observed me and darted out after me. He broke out upon me in a most abrupt and extraordinary manner. In as violent a passion as he was capable of feeling, and with an Air, Countenance and Gestures as rough and haughty as if I had been a School Boy and he the Master, he vociferated out, “What is the Reason Mr. Adams, that you New Englandmen oppose our Measures of Reconciliation…[?]”

I answered him very coolly. “Mr. Dickenson, there are many Things that I can very chearfully sacrifice to Harmony and even to Unanimity: but I am not to be threatened into an express Adoption or Approbation of Measures which my Judgment reprobates. Congress must judge, and if they pronounce against me, I must submit, as if they determine against You, You ought to acquiesce.”—These were the last Words which ever passed between Mr. Dickinson and me in private.

If Adams had made a firm, direct speech against the Olive Branch Petition, and Dickinson had gotten so upset about it, why would Dickinson be surprised to read Adams criticizing him weeks later? Why did Dickinson write that before the intercepted letter the Adams cousins had always “behav’d to Me…with the…greatest Marks of friendly Respect,” expressing “the most silken softness of public pretensions”?

Of course, a big part of the problem was Adams’s rude language, calling Dickinson a “piddling Genius” whose measures made the Congress appear “silly.” That went beyond a collegial disagreement over policy. Dickinson recognized the two men “differed in Sentiments” but thought they were still friendly and recognized they were all trying to solve the same problem.

Dickinson’s surprise might have been the result of John Adams’s own actions up to that point. He probably didn’t speak out as strongly as he remembered decades later. Calvert points out how Adams signed the Olive Branch Petition in July. Of course, that’s consistent with his later statement “Congress must judge, and if they pronounce against me, I must submit.” 

At the same time, I see indications that Dickinson and Adams were talking past each other on “independence” and what that really meant.

TOMORROW: Cross-purposes.

“So severely & so meanly attack’d from that Quarter”

On 28 Oct 1775, John Dickinson finished writing a long letter to a Quaker banker in Britain, David Barclay—one of the documents just published in the William & Mary Quarterly.

Dickinson had written most of that letter in late September, starting with his comments on what he had filed in his papers as “Letter from John Adams of Massachusetts Bay, in which he abuses Me, for opposing the Violent Measures of himself & others in Congress.”

Dickinson told Barclay:

The inclos’d Letters written by John Adams one of the Delegates from Massachusetts, were intercepted, as the Boat was passing an Arm of the Sea, and have been publish’d by General [Thomas] Gage. These are now in every Body’s Hands, and indisputably prove the high projects that are in Agitation. . . .

I did not expect that my Reputation would be so soon so severely & so meanly attack’d from that Quarter. My Compassion for the unhappy Province of Massachusetts Bay was so sincere & tender, that I truly regarded her Delegates as my Brothers; and they ever behav’d to Me, especially the two, that, I am now convinc’d, are my Enemies, with the [illegible] greatest Marks of friendly Respect.

That second Massachusetts delegate was almost certainly Samuel Adams.

Tho We differed in Sentiments, yet I suppos’d without the least Hesitation, that as We had embarqued our Lives & Fortunes in the same Bottom, We should feel a manly & liberal Indulgence for each others particular Opinions.

I have been mistaken; for under the most silken softness of public pretensions, lurk the bitterest Resentments, which can only spring from the Disappointment of selfish Designs.

This Assault so far from hurting my Character, has, if I can form any true Judgment, been of Advantage to Me. It convinces those, who before doubted—that tho I am resolved, as is testified by my public Conduct, at every Hazard to act for the Wellfare of my Country, yet I am not hurried away by the Torrent of Passions, that has swept so many at this Time from their sure Footing: but still retain the heartiest wishes for a Reunion with G[reat] B[ritain].

But another Effect of vastly more Consequence, will be deriv’d, from the Publication of those intercepted Letters. It will prove, that a total Independence, & the Establishment of a Commonwealth, are seriously thought of, and that hitherto they have been successfully oppos’d…

You will observe, no Doubt, how…the Writer of the intercepted Letters, & his party…abhorr any prospect of Accommodation, before they have got “the whole legislative, executive, and judicial of the whole Continent in their Hands, have completely modell’d a Constitution, have rais’d a naval Power, opended all Ports wide” &c that is, before they have established an independent Commonwealth.

Dickinson was repeating phrases directly from Adams’s letter, using it to show that his August warning that some Americans actually wanted independence had been well founded.

TOMORROW: Up until then…

“He passed without moving his Hat, or Head or Hand”

The part of the newly released documents from John Dickinson getting the most attention, including a news story in the New York Times, is his detailed proposal to reconcile the British government and the colonies at the Continental Congress before they reached a permanent breaking point.

But of course I’m drawn to the juicy interpersonal gossip. Dickinson wrote the second of those letters after John Adams’s nasty private comment about him had leaked. That letter reveals Dickinson’s feelings about that slight as well as his perspective on what led up to it.

The July 2026 issue of the William & Mary Quarterly contains an essay by Dr. Jane E. Calvert about this episode. She points out that historians have relied on Adams’s recounting of the event in his memoir, even while acknowledging those recollections can’t be confirmed and flatter Adams in consistent ways. (Calvert and Jonathan Gienapp’s article about the Dickinson documents offers an accessible précis of her essay.)

I wrote about Adams’s indiscreet remark back in 2014. In short, Adams gave the young lawyer Benjamin Hichborn two letters to carry home to Massachusetts. Hichborn let those papers fall into British hands. Gen. Thomas Gage had the texts published in Margaret Draper’s Boston News-Letter on 17 Aug 1775.

Adams’s 24 July letter to James Warren included these lines:

In Confidence,—I am determined to write freely to you this Time.—A certain great Fortune and piddling Genius whose Fame has been trumpeted so loudly, has given a silly Cast to our whole Doings…

Those lines made their way back to Philadelphia. No delegate to the Congress had more money and fame combined than Dickinson. (Benjamin Franklin was more famous but not as wealthy; a few men may have commanded bigger estates, but none had gained more respect as a political writer than Dickinson the “Farmer.”) So everyone knew who Adams was referring to.

On 16 September, Adams wrote in his diary:

Walking to the Statehouse this Morning, I met Mr. Dickinson, on Foot in Chesnut Street. We met, and passed near enough to touch Elbows. He passed without moving his Hat, or Head or Hand. I bowed and pulled off my Hat. He passed hautily by. The Cause of his Offence, is the Letter no doubt which Gage has printed in Drapers Paper.

That was a “cut direct.” It showed Dickinson was upset, but he was making that clear by not saying anything.

Forty years later, Adams insisted:

• He wrote his 24 July letter only after Dickinson had tried to browbeat him and other “New Englandmen” into not arguing against the Congress’s Olive Branch Petition, and
• He didn’t write that letter anyway. Or “not exactly.” The royal authorities had altered his words before publication.

Adams’s letter doesn’t survive, as far as anyone knows, so we can’t say for sure whether the newspaper text was edited. But we do know Adams expressed some similar sentiments in other private letters at the time. And he never specified which of the published words he hadn’t penned.

Thanks to the new documents, we now have John Dickinson’s view of the dispute, written in the year that it happened rather than decades later.

TOMORROW: The other side.

Dickinson Seeking “a happy & permanent Reconciliation”

The William & Mary Quarterly had a big Sestercentennial scoop in its July 2026 issue—so big that it made those newly discovered documents available online for a limited time ahead of publication. 

The documents are two long 1775 letters and an enclosure from Pennsylvania politician John Dickinson to David Barclay, a British merchant and banker (shown here).

In 1775 the Continental Congress assigned Dickinson the task of drafting the Olive Branch Petition. He also reworked Thomas Jefferson’s prose in the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. The first text sought a reconciliation with the Crown in traditional fashion, the second explained publicly why the young war was justified.

Together those texts show the balancing act Dickinson was trying to pull off. He believed in the American resistance to Parliament’s new measures, in which he had played a leading role, and he also believed in the danger of splitting completely from Britain.

Dickinson dated the first of the newly surfaced letters on 5 Aug 1775. It shared his (not always accurate) description of the war so far, emphasizing how the Crown was unlikely to prevail without both sides suffering great harm. Then came his draft bill for reworking the constitutional relationship between Britain and its colonies and calming people’s “Fears & Jealousies.”

Those two documents were written out by a secretary for Dickinson’s edits and signature. The second letter, finished 28 October, is in Dickinson’s own messy, reconsidered writing. By then, though he didn’t know it, George III and the government had dismissed the Olive Branch Petition without looking at it, declared all the colonies at the Congress to be in rebellion, and promised a forceful response. Dickinson’s proposal had arrived too late to do any good.

According to the New York Times, these letters remained in the Barclay family, coming into the hands of his great-great-great-great-great-nephew, Humphrey Barclay. In 2024 he showed them to book and manuscript specialist Donovan Rees, who realized their importance. Dickinson’s initiative isn’t mentioned in any other source—both he and Barclay were working backchannels, so they kept their correspondence quiet. Dickinson even put a postscript on the first letter asking Barclay not to print it or give anyone a copy.

On behalf of the Barclay family, Rees offered to sell the three documents to the U.S. Library of Congress, but it didn’t meet the asking price. (It’s unclear when that discussion took place, but the Library of Congress has been under dire pressure at times in the last couple of years. There’s an ongoing legal dispute over whether the President’s criminal-defense lawyer and current acting U.S. Attorney General is also the acting Librarian of Congress.)

The documents were then purchased by Harvard professor Eric Nelson, author of The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding among other books. Nelson generously makes manuscripts in his collection available to researchers.

Prof. Jonathan Gienapp of Stanford and Dr. Jane E. Calvert of the John Dickinson Writings Project prepared transcripts of the documents for analysis and publication. The William & Mary Quarterly organized a forum of scholars to discuss their implications in short essays appearing in that July issue.

For a good primer on these Dickinson letters, see Calvert and Gienapp’s article “The Secret Effort to Prevent the Revolution.”

TOMORROW: Hurt feelings.

“Praying for an Act of Assembly to hang the Memorialist”

At the end of August 1771, Richard Steele finished a very busy year.

Since the start of September 1770, the young man had been:

• convicted of theft, whipped, cropped, and branded twice
• locked up seven times, twice in irons
• escaped three times
• acquitted of theft twice

All those events were reported in Connecticut’s newspapers. And then we don’t hear about Steele’s activity for three years.

That said, on 15 October the Connecticut Courant in Hartford ran a long essay, filling most of a newspaper page and headed:

A MEMORIAL, praying for an Act of Assembly to hang the Memorialist.

To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Colony of Connecticut, to be conven’d at New-Haven, on the second Thursday of October, 1771.

The MEMORIAL of Richard Steele Burglarian, now confin’d in Fairfield Goal, in behalf of himself and the rest of the Housebreakers who now, or hereafter may, practice their calling and profession, within said colony

In this context the word “memorial” meant a memorandum, not a remembrance of the dead (yet).

The author was not Richard Steele but someone (ironically) stealing his persona to complain, for himself and fellow criminals, about the state of legal justice in the colony. The essay was dated September, and its writer was apparently unaware that in late August a court acquitted Steele of the charges that had landed him in the Fairfield jail. Not that such knowledge would have made the author happy.

The essay argued that under Connecticut’s legal system “the reformation of the punished—has…never been to any degree effected.” Yet “the confining of us to hard labour” was “utterly inconsistent with the privileges and liberties of Englishmen.”

That left only one course of action: “That your honors would order, decree and enact that the first offence be punished with death.”

It’s a weird use of sarcasm. I suspect that the real target was talk of establishing a prison to lock up convicted criminals for long terms. The essayist expressed hope

That the proposal for confining us to hard labour may (as we are confident it will) be treated with the contempt it deserves.

The Connecticut assembly didn’t approve converting the Simsbury copper mine into a prison until October 1773, but this looks like an attempt to quash that proposal early. It didn’t work.

Indeed, Richard Steele probably was the sort of criminal the New-Gate Prison was designed for. The traditional corporal punishments hadn’t deterred him, and by the end of 1770 he had no more ears to crop. Yet juries may have been reluctant to send the young man to the gallows for property crimes—hence the two acquittals in 1771.

An underground prison might have looked like the best way to keep Richard Steele off the streets.

COMING UP: Steele goes to New-Gate.

“Steel made a most vigorous Resistance”

The 7 May 1771 Connecticut Courant newspaper of Hartford repeated Sheriff Ezekiel Williams’s wanted notice for Richard Steele that I quoted yesterday.

Folks up in Hartford Country didn’t know that Steele was once again in jail.

Four days earlier, on 3 May, the Connecticut Journal of New Haven reported:

Last Monday [29 April], the notorious Burglar, Richard Steel, was taken up at Milford, and conveyed to Fairfield Goal, (charged with several Burglaries and Thefts, since his late Escape from Hartford Goal, the last of which was committed in Stratford) also one Evens, an occasional Landlord of Steel’s, and as whose House he was taken; Steel made a most vigorous Resistance, and wounded the Person in the Head, with a Cutlass who took him.

The same item was reprinted in the 18 May Providence Gazette with the landlord’s name spelled “Evans.”

As far as I can tell, this was the first time Steele was accused of a violent act, as opposed to stealing clothing, jewelry, or horses.

Steele had a record of breaking out of jails, but Fairfield County managed to hold onto him. On 30 July, the Connecticut Courant ran this item:

NEW-HAVEN, July 26.

A few Days ago a Letter from the notorious Richard Steel (now in Fairfield Goal, and who is to be tried for his Life for Burglary at the next Superior Court) directed to a Woman belonging to Milford, named Alling was intercepted, the Contents of which was to desire her to be out of the Way at the Time of his Tryal, she being the principal Witness against him;——but to prevent her escape she was last Evening committed to the Goal in this Town; not being able to procure Bail.

Steele thus stayed in custody until his case came up in August. Furthermore, Connecticut authorities had detained two possible accomplices or witnesses against him. Surely he wouldn’t get away with his crimes again!

On 27 August, the Connecticut Courant reported:

The notorious Richard Steel, so well known in this Town and County, and who was tried for his Life for Burglary last March Term, in this Place and acquitted, was again tried for his Life last Week at Fairfield for a like Offence, and again acquitted.

TOMORROW: The “Memorial of Richard Steele.”

“The notorious Burglarian, that called himself Richard Steel”

Yesterday we left young Richard Steele back in the custody of Hartford County law enforcement in February 1771.

According to the 27 August Connecticut Courant, Steele “was tried for his Life for Burglary last March Term, in this Place and acquitted.”

Acquitted! The man was already being labeled “notorious.” But the evidence must not have been strong enough this time.

Nonetheless, the Connecticut authorities detained Steele on the grounds that he hadn’t paid the costs of his last case. That kept him off the streets for a few weeks, but the 2 April Connecticut Courant reported:

A few Days since the noted Richard Steel was dismissed from Goal in this Place, where he had been confined for Costs on his last Trial for Burglary——and on Tuesday Night last Week [26 March] he broke open the House of Mr. —— Kibbe, of Enfield, and rob’d it of sundry Articles and a small Sum in Money; from thence he went to the Barn of Mr. Terry of Enfield, and stole a Horse, and made off; but he was pursued and taken the next Day at Weston, and on Saturday returned to his former Lodgings in this Place, where it is hoped he will be confined till he shall receive a full Reward for all his past Offences.

Those hopes were soon dashed, though. This advertisement appeared in the 23 April Connecticut Courant and ran in that newspaper through early May:

Hartford, April 16, 1771

BROKE out of the county Gaol in this town, last Night and escaped, the following persons viz.

The notorious Burglarian, that called himself Richard Steel, that has been twice crop’d and branded, and was at March Court, in Hartford, again tried for the third Offence, but found not guilty, pursuing his old Trade, was again taken up and closely confined in Irons, but has found Means to get them off.

His appearance is that of a likely young Man of about 21 year of Age, about middling for Height somewha [sic] slender, has a lively, keen, dark colour’d Eye and is finely pitted with the Small Pox, wears his Hair, pretty dark Colour’d, but not unlikely he may soon get a wig to cover his Ears; he is pretty quick and lively in speaking, and has a little different Manner from persons born among us.

After descriptions of two other escapees, the same ad listed:

Also a woman called Rosanna Blanchard, who had been convicted of harbouring and entertaining the above named Steel and punished, and was held for the Cost.

Whoever shall take up either of the first mentioned notorious Criminals, and secure them that they may be brought to Justice, shall have a Reward of Forty Shillings; Lawful Money, and all necessary Charges paid;…and for the woman, Ten Shillings.

Ezekiel Williams, Sheriff.

The same newspaper carried this notice:

Ten Dollars Reward.

STOLEN from the Subscriber, out of his Stable in Hartford, on the Evening of the 17th Inst. a dark brown, or black colour’d MARE, with white on her near hind Foot, had on her Breast, the Mark or Print of a Collar, about fourteen Hands High, five years old; said Mare is well shaped, very high Liv’d, and good Carriage, both Paces and Trots. ALSO a plain Russett SADDLE, with a Saddle Cloth, and Bridle.—

Said Mare, &c. is supposed to be Stolen by that notorious Burglarian, who calls himself by the Name of Richard Steel, he hath been twice Crop’d and Branded within 12 Months past. Said Steel, broke out of Hartford Goal but two Nights before said Mare was Stolen, is about 21 Years old, of a middling Stature, somewhat slender, of a genteel Shape and Appearance, hath lively Dark coloured Eyes, and is very finely pitted with the Small Pox, Dark coloured Hair, European Born.

Whoever shall Apprehend and Secure said Thief, so that he may be brought to Justice, or shall secure said Mare, Saddle and Bridle, so that the Owner may have them again, shall have a Reward of TEN DOLLARS, Paid by me,
WILLIAM HOOKER.

Hartford, April 20th, 1771.

The description of Steele as “European Born” and the statement that “has a little different Manner from persons born among us” suggests that he had grown up somewhere in the British Isles.

By this time Steele was so infamous that people were assuming he was responsible for thefts simply because he was in the vicinity. Those accusations may well have been accurate, but the authorities would need better evidence if they wanted to convict him.

TOMORROW: A summer in jail.

“When at liberty very sociable and familiar”

Yesterday’s posting left Richard Steele in New Haven, Connecticut, in December 1770, being branded and cropped on his ear the second time in a few months.

(I presume his right ear was cropped first, then his left, but the newspaper accounts don’t specify that.)

You might think that punishment would have taught Steele the error of his ways, or at least made it harder for him to keep committing crimes.

But no, Steele managed to get in one more theft before the end of the year, according to the Connecticut Journal of 4 Jan 1771:

----Stop the Felons!----

A Goldsmith’s Shop, belonging to the Subscriber in Waterbury, was broken up, on the Night of the 27th Instant, and sundry Pair of Stone Ear Rings, one Pair Stone Buttons, one Pair Gold ditto, and one Gold Ring, with some Shillings in Coppers, and some other Money, and likely some other Articles of Goldsmith’s Ware, was taken away, supposed by one Richard Steele, (and his Partner unknown) who was lately punished for breaking open Mr. Marks’s House in Derby.

Said Steele is of middling Stature, about 21 Years of Age, has dark brown Hair, not much curl’d, black Eyes, and beautiful Complection, but much Pockbroken, both Ears crop’d, branded twice in the Forehead, wears a brownish Coat, check’d woollen Shirt, old leather Breeches, and Hat slop’d.

Whoever will take up said Steele, or his Accomplice, and secure him or them, and notify me, shall have Three Dollars Reward, and necessary Charges paid, by
JOSEPH HOPKINS.
Dec. 31, 1770.

The 8 January Connecticut Courant, published in Steele’s usual haunt of Hartford, summarized the news about him for local readers.

Then on 5 February the Connecticut Courant had good news:

The Thief is Caught!

And was last thursday bro’t to this town and again committed to goal. He is perhaps the most notorious one that ever infested this colony, was last September before the hon. Superior Court, held in this place, convicted of Burglary by the name of Richard Steele, and in consequence thereof crop’d and branded, not long after which he broke goal, and escaped but pursuing his trade, was again taken for Burglary committed in Derby, and indicted at New-Haven before the adjourn’d Superior Court in December last, for the second offence, and again crop’d and branded, and very soon after escaped from that goal, and has since (perhaps) committed more Burglary’s than ever the notorious [Isaac] Frasier who was hanged at Fairfield ever did in so short a time.

He is now put in irons in very close confinement but least he should again escape, would that the world might know him, observe that he is a young man of about 20 years old, rather of a slender make, and about or little more than middling for stature, his facce [sic] finely pitted with the small pox, has a keen black eye, wears his own hair, of a very dark colour, pretty well down on his forehead in order no doubt to hide his scars, is a very lively active man and I believe when at liberty very sociable and familiar.

He had on him now when taken a light coloured surtout, of a cloth call’d bearskin or coating, most probably stolen from Mr. Ingersol of Westfield; a strait bodyed coat, stolen from Dr. Hooker of this town, trim’d with silver buttons, one each of which was wrote at large Sept. 2d, Daniel Hooker 1764; also 2 summer jackets stolen out of Mr. Mattock’s shop a barber in this place from whom also it is supposed, he took at the same time 2 wiggs, not yet found; had also with him, two silver watches; one of which stolen from Mr. Jonah Gillot of Wintonbury, the other with a China face, seems to answer the description of one advertized to be stolen from somebody in Stratford; also 5 pair silver shoe buckles; 2 gold necklaces; 2 pair stone jewels set in gold; 2 small Rings with 3 stones set in each; 3 watch seals set in silver; one pair gold sleeve buttons; one chain ditto, marked within side B W; one worsted purse with a mill’d dollar, marked G R and sundry other pieces of silver money; 4 very good black Barcelona handkerchiefs, with a paper pin’d on one of them marked 9s; a hatt crape; one brass inker with penknife and case, marked D, a scale for a womans finger; a bodkin, and a small gimblet; said to be owned by Jonathan Burney of Union, where he has disposed of a considerable quantity of valuable goods—

The foregoing articles are now lodged with the Sheriff of this County, and may be seen by any claimers this week at the Court House in Hartford, and any time afterwards before the setting of the superior court, in March next at his own house in Weathersfield.

If the Printers should generally insert the foregoing in their papers, it might perhaps be of public service.

This was, by my count, the fourth time Sheriff Ezekiel Williams had Steele in his custody.

And it looks like this time Steele stayed in jail for nearly two months.

TOMORROW: A busy April.

“Punished at Hartford, for Burglary, by the Name of Richard Steele”

On 17 Sept 1770, the Connecticut Courant of Hartford reported on recent cases from “the Superior Court of Assize and General Goal Delivery.”

After trials on bestiality (acquitted) and rape (acquitted), the newspaper told readers:

Also, Richard Steele and John Galloway, both transient Persons, were convicted of Burglary, and sentenced to be whip’d 15 Stripes each, and to be crop’d and branded with the Letter B on their Forehead, which Punishments they accordingly received on Friday last.

That corporal punishment took place on 14 September. Then the felons were set free.

Several weeks later, the Connecticut Courant for 6 November advertised Steele, Galloway, and Charles Livingston as wanted men. They had evidently been arrested again and escaped because the paper said:

The two first are shrewdly suspected to be the same that on the next evening, broke open a shoe makers shop, in said Hartford, and stole a greatcoat suit of cloaths, and two pair of shoes, and also last night Mr. [Peter] Verstille’s shop at Weathersfield, carried off considerable money, and sundry goods, were poorly clad when they went away, but probably by this time are well cloathed.

Whoever shall take up either of the two first mentioned persons, and convey the said Galloway to New-Haven Goal or to this, and the said Steel to this, shall have 20s. lawful money reward for each, and, for the said Livingston, a reward of 10s.

per Ezekiel Williams, Sheriff.

N.B. The Thief stole from Mr. Verstille two dollars, the one a Cobb, the other a Mill’d Dollar, which were both counterfeit, & about a Doz. black Barcelona handkerchiefs, several pieces of ribbon, &c.

That advertisement included a physical description of Steele, but unfortunately the page is ripped in the newspaper database I use, so I can’t offer a word picture of him yet.

On 4 December, the Connecticut Courant offered some good news, datelined New Haven on 30 November:

Last Tuesday was committed to the Goal in this Town, a Person Charged with breaking open and robbing the Shop of Mr. Marks of Derby: he says his Name is Richard James, but by the Mark on his Forehead, and some other Circumstances, it appears he is the Person who was lately punished at Hartford, for Burglary, by the Name of Richard Steele.

The authorities in New Haven sent the man back to Sheriff Williams in Hartford County. (The sheriff’s house in Wethersfield appears above, courtesy of Daniel Sterner’s Historic Buildings of Connecticut.)

On 24 December, the Boston Evening-Post ran this item from New London, dated 14 December:

Last Monday, one Richard Steele, was punished at Hartford, for the second offence of Burglary, by being whipt & branded, and having his left Ear cropt. He has since escaped from goal, but was yesterday taken and re-committed.

Thus, in the course of four months Richard Steele had been accused of burglary in Hartford, Wethersfield, and Derby; had been whipped, branded, and cropped on his ears twice; and had escaped jail twice—but was once again back in custody.

TOMORROW: On into 1771!

Back to the Old New-Gate Prison

In January I broke off a series of postings about the first years of Connecticut’s New-Gate Prison because of the press of other matters.

As awful as we might think of being imprisoned underground in an old, dank copper mine, the colony actually opened that prison as a reform measure. It was an alternative to corporal and capital punishment. And enforced labor might even make that mine profitable.

From December 1773 to April 1774, Connecticut courts sent six convicted criminals to the prison in Simsbury, to be locked down under the eye of keeper John Viets.

By that April, all six had disappeared, either to parts unknown or under the rubble of a collapsed tunnel.

In a comment on my last posting Mike asked:

Did it occur to the people of Connecticut that Mr. Viet may have been a less than adequate overseer?

That’s a good question, and here are some thoughts grappling for an answer.

First, the official “overseers” of the prison were three members of the Connecticut legislature who supervised Viets. They had the responsibility to hire the keeper, but they were also responsible for securing him the resources necessary to do that job.

Second, long-term incarceration was still an experiment. If the Connecticut legislature wanted its prison to work (and the government had already sunk a fair amount of money into converting the old mine), it needed to get the budget and rules right. The legislators might have expected (or accepted) a period of adjustment.

Finally, the overseers had probably hired John Viets because he was convenient. He owned a tavern right next to the mine. That was the infrastructure for feeding the prisoners, housing the guards, and keeping someone on site watching for disturbances and escapes. Hiring a new keeper and setting him up in Simsbury would have been a big expense.

Viets knew that an unfortunate pattern was developing. His 26 April advertisement began “New Gate Prison was again broke open…” But he remained on the job.

TOMORROW: A hardened criminal appears.

The Graphic Side of The British Are Coming

Speaking of comics, this Sestercentennial summer has also brought us The British Are Coming: The Graphic Edition, Volume 1, adapted from the first half of the first volume of Rick Atkinson’s ongoing history of the Revolutionary War.

The comic is credited to Atkinson, Nora Neus as adapter, and Federico Pietrobon as artist. This Altoona Mirror article on the project in progress and this WGBH interview with Atkinson on publication show how he approved work as it came along.

Yet it’s clear that Neus, a journalist and oral historian, made the creative choices in adapting hundreds of pages of dense, fact-filled narration into comics form for Pietrobon to illustrate.

As a CNN producer, Neus picked up the video dispatches of young Muhammad Najem from the midst of the Syrian Civil War and later worked with him to script the graphic memoir Muhammad Najem, War Reporter. She also scripted Renegade Girls, historical graphic fiction, for the same artist, Julie Robine.

The strategy Neus followed for this book, no doubt with Atkinson’s and Ten Speed Press’s approval, was to minimize the words. There are short captions to set the scenes and occasional labels to identify some individuals. All the speech balloons appear to be quotations from actual participants in the events. There are also sound effects, particularly the “BANG” of muskets. But there are an uncommonly large number of panels with no words at all.

The result doesn’t work. Almost all those quotations come perforce from written sources created after the fact, so they don’t read like speech in the moment. The speakers are rarely identified, though I’m sure the sources could all be searched out in the prose edition. The captions don’t provide enough background to understand most events, though military strategy gets a little more analysis than political developments.

In addition, because the siege of Boston was largely static from July 1775 to March 1776, with not much changing despite all the activity, the book devotes proportionally more pages to smaller campaigns: Gen. Richard Montgomery and Col. Benedict Arnold’s thrusts in Canada, Gov. Dunmore’s struggle in Virginia, and the Royal Navy attack on Falmouth.

The spare verbiage puts more burden on the art to convey the history to readers. Occasional infographics, including maps, take advantage of the visual format to impart useful information. But most of the art consists of straightforward, rather slow-paced depictions of events. And those depictions aren’t visually accurate. Pietrobon, working in Italy, didn’t get the guidance, visual references, and time that task would need.

One of my litmus tests of the right look for the late-1700s British Empire is whether a comic shows men with beards, mustaches, and sideburns, which that society shunned. In this book we see men with facial hair on just about every other page spread. Other tests: Does the art render the British flag of the 1770s correctly? No. Does it depict newspapers and shop signs in eighteenth-century style? No. Do all the women have their hair up? Not on page 208.

Except for George Washington, few individuals are recognizable, even when we know what they looked like from good portraits. Likewise, known settings such as King Street in Boston and the Lexington common appear strange. Other places, like Washington’s Cambridge headquarters and Yale College, are all too recognizable because Pietrobon relied on photographs of their present forms.

To assess panel breakdowns, I looked at an episode I’ve studied to death, the Battle of Lexington and Concord (shown on pages 21–49). This rendering starts by showing Lord Dartmouth’s strong suggestion to arrest Patriot leaders and Gen. Thomas Gage’s order to destroy armaments; we see those men’s own words, but the book doesn’t note or explain the difference for readers.

The commander of the British expedition reads his orders before leaving Boston, not after. Paul Revere and William Dawes are shown spotting the redcoats on the march in Cambridge and then setting out west together, not dispatched separately by Dr. Joseph Warren. Then comes the lantern signal from Old North Church, which is placed out in an open field, not on a hill in a dense neighborhood. We never see anyone receiving that signal (and in fact it didn’t matter to how events turned out).

The few seconds of confrontation in Lexington fill seven pages—perhaps proportionate to the importance of that event, but also an indication of how strung out the action is.

At Concord, the British enter in ranks over a hillside rather than along the road. The coloring on page 38 inexplicably changes from day to twilight. The terse description the troops’ search suggests they found nothing in town and all proceeded west. The fight at the North Bridge is portrayed as “a motley crew of farmers and part-time militiamen” stopping the British from crossing. In fact, four companies of regulars had already passed that point without opposition, and most of the British soldiers were still searching the center of town. Only three companies of redcoats were at the bridge, so the provincials were the larger force trying to take control of that chokepoint.

Much of that history is counterintuitive, calling out for explanation. But by choosing to use only historic quotations and minimizing the word count, the creators of this graphic recounting hobbled their ability to explain.

In its verbal approach and pacing, The British Are Coming: The Graphic Edition, Volume 1 might have worked as a visual teaser or accompaniment for Atkinson’s full prose volume—a way to give readers images of its complete, detailed, and explicated narration of events. But the many inaccuracies in the art undercut that value.

Steve Donoghue assessed the volume at Open Letters Review as a reader of history and comics rather than a historian plowing the same field. He came away disappointed as well.

America250’s Christian Comics

When Boston 1775 last looked in on America250, the commemorative campaign of the Congressionally-established Semiquincentennial commission, the Trump White House was trying to replace it with its own Freedom250 campaign.

And, of course, its own merchandise for sale.

America250 continues to issue material, though. Among the products bearing its brand and sold through its website is a series of comic books about American history.

That line has included fifteen comics about 36 pages long, a collection of ten of those comics which cover the settlement and founding periods, and a graphic novel on the U.S. Constitution.

The America250 website doesn’t offer clear info on contents and credits, and not all the titles are available there anymore. Its publishing partner, Kingstone, offers all the titles, and at lower prices.

Journalist and historian Colin Woodard recently looked at those comics for Talking Points Memo and reported:

The comics — beautifully executed and bearing the America250 logo — were produced by Kingstone, a Christian publisher best known for its 2000-page, 10,000 panel graphic interpretation of the Bible. . . .

The series — drawn by a world-class Brazilian artist [Joe Bennett] who lost his gig with Marvel comics over antisemitic imagery in cartoons championing Jair Bolsonaro — devotes five volumes to the colonial era, its characters, themes and settings carefully curated to depict the eventual creation of the United States as an outgrowth of divine will and intervention. They all take place north of the Mason-Dixon line, with the action rarely leaving the confines of New England, the only part of colonial North America where Calvinists were the dominant political and cultural force. . . . More glaring is the omission of the origin stories of all of the colonies south of New England — home to most of colonial America’s inhabitants — which don’t fit so well into Kingstone’s narrative. . . .

Miracles abound in the story. Among those explicitly called out in the comics: a young George Washington surviving a rain of French bullets in a 1755 raid; Jefferson writing “all men are created equal” even though he was a slaveowner; the dense fog that fell to protect Washington’s army’s retreat across the East River during the Battle of Long Island; the reversal of fortune allowing Washington’s [sic] victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777; the early start to the 1781 hurricane season and the bad decisions made by British generals that facilitated the final British defeat at Yorktown; Franklin’s suggestion that delegates pray to find a compromise solution on legislative representation at the Constitutional Convention; and the Constitution itself, because of its alleged brilliance.

Woodard also detailed many ways the Constitution graphic novel promotes particular positions on today’s political issues, from a historically unfounded reading of the Fourteenth Amendment to opposition to gun regulations, reforming the Electoral College, and expanding the Supreme Court.

“At the French lines on Prospect Hill”

In 2019 Ric Detwiller published an excellent article at the Journal of the American Revolution about a Frenchman recruited as a provincial engineer early in the siege of Boston.

Though “Monsieur Dubuque” (Jean-Baptiste du Buq?) lasted only a short time before defecting to the British, he left behind a fortification near Prospect Hill labeled “French Redoubt” on Henry Pelham’s map of the siege, as shown in this posting.

In a comment to the Detwiller article, Les Haskell added a pertinent entry from the diary of his relative, Caleb Haskell, on 26 July 1775:

This morning our regiment was ordered out of the great Fort [on Prospect Hill] to man the French lines — where we are for the future to repair in an alarm. A grenadier, belonging to the enemy’s side when on sentry, quitted his post, came over to us and delivered himself a prisoner to our guards.

In addition, the Massachusetts archives has a return of Capt. Edward Crafts’s artillery company dated 12 Oct 1775 from the “French lines.”

While preparing yesterday’s talk on the Convention Army, the prisoners of war held at Prospect and Winter Hills in 1777–78, I spotted how the label “French lines” lasted past the siege of Boston.

In 1894 the Maine Historical Society published the “Military Journal of Col. Ichabod Goodwin,” an orderly book for a militia contingent detailed to help guard those prisoners. That document shows that the three main positions where the Continental forces posted guards included “french lines.”

The editor of this volume guessed that term “probably refers to Hessians, no French troops having been present.”

However, the German-speaking prisoners (actually Brunswickers) were housed on Winter Hill. Pelham’s map locates the “French Redoubt” much closer to Prospect Hill. And the transcript of the early 1778 inquiry into Col. David Henley’s treatment of the British prisoners shows Col. Jacob Gerrish speaking of “the guard at the French lines on Prospect Hill.”

Thus, nearly three years after “Monsieur Dubuque” slipped away from his job with the Americans, military men in New England still referred to the fortifications he oversaw as the “French lines.”

Looking Back on a Chat with Medford’s Laura Duggan

Earlier this month I visited Medford Community Media to chat with Laura Duggan of Looking Back at Medford History about The Road to Concord and the history surrounding it.

We got into some deep mysteries, such as why the Thomas Gage Papers are in Ann Arbor, the Samuel Adams Papers are in New York, and a lot of the Thomas Jefferson Papers are in Boston.

The conversation runs for an hour and twenty minutes. You can watch the whole thing here.