“Boston is environed on all sides”

Having shared his version of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, as quoted over the last two days, the new Cambridge postmaster Jonathan Hastings, Jr., turned to the current situation.

His 11 June 1775 letter described the siege this way:

Boston is environed on all sides. 7000 Men at Camb. 6000 at Roxbury, exclusive of smaller Numbers wch. guard the Coasts both Eastward & Southward. [Thomas] Gage acknowleges our Superiority in Number, but says we have neither Government, Discipline nor Powder. The two first Charges are false; and I hope the other Colonies will not be backward to Supply us with the last, to let him see he is mistaken in that likewise.—

Indeed we are determined to defend ourselves in the best manner at all Events, rather than submit to Slavery.—Our Motto is the same which Caesar engraved on his Breast Plate—“Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum.”

That was a standard eighteenth-century British rendering of a line from Lucan’s Civil War, appearing in the Spectator and Lord Chesterfield’s letters. It translates more or less as “As long as there’s anything left to do, we don’t consider anything done.” Curiously, that Latin line appears differently in modern editions of Lucan. I can’t explain the discrepancy.

Should Massachusetts be conquered, your Halcyon Days will soon be at an end. God grant our union may be like that of a Band of Brothers, wch. can never be broken. The Light Troops in Boston we are informed have not done Duty for 4 Days. An Attack is expected soon, for every Delay on their part is a Strengthening to us.

It was not the Butler who fell in Battle, but a Samuel Cooke from Danvers the largest Man in the Colony, I suppose

A Danvers man named Samuel Cook, Jr., was indeed among the provincial casualties on 19 April, killed at the Jason Russell House. I haven’t found any other reference to his size. I’ll discuss why Hastings mentioned him tomorrow.

You must excuse my not being more particular, as John intends to write to your Brother, and my Business call me away: therefore would just acquaint you that an half a whole Sheet with your Name alone will afford a particular Pleasure to your sincere Friend & very humble Servant

Jonathan Hastings Junr.

P.S.—My Father & mother desire to be remembered to you & your Friends, & would inform you that our Papers are removed into the Country, & we know not where to look for any Receipts, therefore beg you will make yourself easy with regard to us—&c
JH

That looks like a very familiar closing for an eighteenth-century letter, begging more time to pay bills. Or maybe Hastings was replying to a correspondent who had begged more time.

Of course, there was a war on. The Hastings house had become the headquarters of both the Massachusetts committee of safety and Gen. Artemas Ward, so it’s understandable that the family had moved their records out.

TOMORROW: Clues to the crowd.

“As ever the two Armies met”

Yesterday we left schoolteacher Jonathan Hastings, Jr., and the rest of Col. Thomas Gardner’s Cambridge militia contingent caught near the Lexington meetinghouse on 19 Apr 1775.

Lt. Col. Francis Smith’s expedition to Concord (which Hastings called “the Detachment”) was headed back their way from the west, harried by other militia companies.

Col. Hugh Percy’s reinforcement column (“the Brigade”) was approaching from the east. Percy had more soldiers. And he had cannon.

We return to Hastings’s 11 June letter, now in the Thomas Gage Papers:

We were commanded to retreat into a thick Grove of Oaks over a Meadow, up to our Knees in water, wch. saved us. The Brigade turned their Artillery immediately upon us.—Their Cannon Balls cut down the Branches of the Trees merrily but none of us were killed.

As ever the two Armies met, it being about 3 Quarters after one OClock, they begun a precepitate Retreat for Bunkers Hill in Charlestown under the Protection of the navy. There were not above 400 that attacked them, being 1850 at once that day. Lord Peircy put the Cannon in Front, himself in the Centre, & the Marines were formed in the Rear. The Grenadiers & Marines were nobly peppered. Peircy had a Ball shot thro’ the Bosom of his shirt.

Two Officers were treppaned in the Red House leading to Charlestown. Quarters were offered them, they refused, replying their Orders were neither to give nor take any Favour. They met Death bravely.—

It is easier for you to imagine, than for me to describe the Horrid Barbarity & savage Cruelty of the British Troops in their Retreat. Houses plundered & burnt, wounded Men begging for mercy, had Bayonets struck into their Heads, & the Piece discharged, Women in Child Bed commanded into the Streets with a Gun at their Breasts, Old Men unarmed thrust thro’ their Bodies. Harmless young Fellows shot dead, such was the horrid Scene.

But on our side no such Vestiges of Cruelty were seen or exercised on any who chose to live: the wounded taken the utmost Care of, & when exchanged for our Men who were taken Prisoners, & have been treated most inhumanly: they cryed like Children to tarry among us.—

Of course, the redcoats had their own tales of atrocities by the enemy, starting with the “scalping” at Concord’s North Bridge.

I can think of one example of a woman who had recently given birth ordered out of her house (Hannah Adams of Menotomy) and one of a young teenager shot when he peeked out a window (Edward Barber of Charlestown). But Hastings’s letter rendered those examples as plural. And I’m not sure what he referred to with the bayonets.

Likewise, Hastings’s numbers of the troops engaged—400 militiamen chasing off 1,850 regulars—are skewed to make his side look good. Many groups of 400 provincials attacked the British column in turn. The Massachusetts force had a clear advantage in numbers.

Hastings wrote of emergency surgeries in “the Red House leading to Charlestown” as if his correspondent knew that location. Indeed, there appears to have been a brick house fitting that description. I haven’t been able to identify who owned or lived there, but sources do refer to its appearance and location.

On 12 May the Massachusetts committee of safety mentioned “the red house at the head of the creek near the road from Cambridge to Charlestown.” Soon provincials built the “Red House Fort,” more commonly called Fort No. 3, to guard a nearby crossroads, as shown in the detail of Henry Pelham’s map above. Today the site is just south of Union Square in Somerville.

TOMORROW: Finishing the letter.

“At length we have had the Commencement of Hostilities begun”

Here’s an account of the start of the Revolutionary War that I don’t believe has been published before.

It’s a letter dated 11 June 1775 from Jonathan Hastings, Jr. (1751–1831), son of the steward of Harvard College, to a friend named Jacob.

Hastings graduated from Harvard in 1768 and a few years later become one of Cambridge’s school teachers. He was living in his father’s house beside the common, shown here. On 8 June, three days before writing this letter, the young man took the job of town postmaster.

Ironically, his letter appears to have been intercepted by the Crown forces because it’s filed among Gov. Thomas Gage’s papers at the Clements Library. The library offers scans and an imperfect transcription.

Hastings wrote:

Your Brother’s Letter of 18th. May we received the 9 of June. Notwithstanding my many Avocations (our House being made Head Quarters) I cannot miss an Opportunity of sending you a Letter. Am happy you had so safe a Passage & found your Friends well.

At length we have had the Commencement of Hostilities begun by Gage’s Troops, at the Battle of Lexington, where 8 of our Men were killed, there being about 50 assembled on a Green.—

The Evening preceeding the 19 of April, I was met by 11 Officers equipt with Pistols & Cutlasses; when I got Home I acquainted several Gentlemen therewith; but they thought it was like to prove nothing but a false Alarm. They were mistaken. About 2 OClock the next Morning, we were roused out of Bed to pursue 1100 Grendadiers & Light Infantry being a Detachment from all the Regiments in Boston.—

They made their way to our Magazines at Concord, but affected nothing more than destroying 80 Barrels Flour, knocking of [sic] the Ears of 3 twenty four pounders & burning the Carriages. A Quantity of Bullets they threw into a pond, but have been got out since.

Coll. [Thomas] Gardner ordered our Regiment to parade at Watertown, not knowing but that Gage’s Reinforcement would take that Course. He was mistataken [sic], they marched thro’ Cambridge, wch. being known our Regiment took the nearest Way to meet the Detachment. Unluckily for us we had no sooner placed ourselves in an advantageous Post near Lexington Meeting House to give Battle to the Detachment, than we perceived the Brigade in the other Side of us. Our Situation was bad, being between both Armies.

Well, that seems like an exciting place to break, doesn’t it?

TOMORROW: Under fire.

“Henry Knox’s Trek from Ticonderoga” in Acton, 26 Feb.

On Thursday, 26 February, I’ll return to the Acton 250 lecture series to speak about “Henry Knox’s Trek from Ticonderoga: Myths, Realities, and Results for Boston.”

Our event description says:

In early 1776, the young Continental Army colonel Henry Knox moved dozens of heavy cannons and mortars from Lake Champlain to the siege lines around Boston; one of the most famous stories from the Revolutionary War. And like many famous stories, it embodies a fair amount of legend and lore.

This talk sorts out what we know, what we only think we know, and what we should know about how Knox brought this “noble train of artillery” that helped to make all of Massachusetts independent.

The day on which I’ll speak will be the 250th anniversary of when Gen. George Washington informed the Massachusetts Council and the Continental Congress about the plan to fortify Dorchester Heights. On that same day the Boston official Ezekiel Price, then living as a refugee in Milton, wrote in his diary:

It is said that the heavy cannon which were left at Framingham are brought down to Cambridge;…every thing getting in readiness to make a push by our army.

For a month the fifty-eight artillery pieces which Col. Knox had managed to bring from Fort Ticonderoga had stayed in Framingham, being equipped with the necessary carriages and tools. Now they were moving forward to the siege lines. How would the Continentals use them?

This talk is scheduled to start at 7 P.M. in Room 204 of the Town Hall, 472 Main Street in Acton. It will also be shown live and recorded on Acton cable television.

(The photo above shows a cannon carriage being completed at the Hartwell Tavern in Lincoln. I took this photo during yesterday’s Minute Man Park/Fort Ti event.)

An Update from the President’s House in Philadelphia

Last month I noted the news reports that White House policy had pushed the National Park Service into removing signage in Independence National Historical Park which discussed people enslaved there in the 1790s.

Earlier this week the signs were restored under a court order while a lawsuit over them proceeds. The Trump administration is appealing that order and contesting the suit.

The lawsuit was filed by the city of Philadelphia, which participated in the creation of the President’s House Site and the signs, spending money on them. The city is therefore in the position to argue that it had a contract with the federal government. (The head of this administration is, of course, notorious for disregarding contracts.)

The administration has likewise pushed the removal of signage, books, photographs, flags, inconvenient scientific information, and other material from other national parks, as the press has documented. There’s even a grass-roots effort called “Save Our Signs,” aimed at collecting photographs of signage that might be affected by such trumpery. The legal situation in Philadelphia probably doesn’t apply in all those cases, meaning the damage will be harder to fix. 

The restoration at the President’s House was also made possible by the National Park Service’s careful storage of the signs. While they were gone, someone used a marker to improvise a replacement, as shown in the photo above. The cartoon President says:

I cannot tell a lie.
I, George Washington, “owned” human slaves on this very spot.
President Trump doesn’t want you to think about that.
Isn’t that great?!

A FURTHER UPDATE: On Friday another judge, acting on an appeal from the Trump administration, stayed the first judge’s order requiring all the signage to be restored. However, that order also stated that all the signage that had been restored so far must stay. So the site now has some of its dozens of signs visible and others back in storage.

The J.A.R.’s Books of the Year

The Journal of the American Revolution has announced its 2025 Book of the Year Award.

The winner is The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell (no relation, for the record).

The citation says:

The American Revolution undoubtedly changed world history. Many nations seeking their own independence tried to emulate the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, a document whose words still influence national and world events. What many people do not realize was that, at the time, the Revolution directly affected places all over the world. It was truly a global happening, reaching not only Europe, but also Latin America, India, China, and even Australia.

This is a book of synthesis, bringing together recent scholarship by many people to provide a global look at.

One of the runners-up took the opposite approach, looking at one community within one Massachusetts port: Enemies to Their Country: The Marblehead Addressers and Consensus in the American Revolution by Nicholas W. Gentile.

Gentile demonstrates how, even before a single shot was fired, the Revolution lived in the minds of this town’s residents as they harshly reacted to thirty-three signers of a letter of support to the departing governor Thomas Hutchinson. What follows is an interesting look at dynamics in this town—heavily influenced by Puritan theology—and the ways in which residents exerted social pressure to essentially coerce the signers back to the Patriot cause, placing ultimate importance on maintaining unity. Signers (“Addressers,” as they were called) ended up recanting through written and published statements, showcasing the growing importance of print culture during this period and the role that it played in creating a uniform identity going into the conflict. Gentile traces the fate of each of the thirty-three as they recanted and either rejoined the Patriot cause or, in the case of several, led lives in exile.

The other runner-up, The Course of Human Events by Steven Sarson, is a study of the intellectual roots and immediate impetuses behind the Declararion of Independence.

The “Noble Train” at Hartwell Tavern, 21 Feb.

On Saturday, 21 February, Minute Man National Historical Park and Fort Ticonderoga will present a special event titled “To Win The Siege: The Noble Train Arrives.”

The park says:

We invite you to join us…at the Hartwell Tavern to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Knox’s Noble Train of Artillery arriving and outfitting for battle. Witness history come to life as the artillerists of Washington's army haul cannon via oxen, prepare supplies, and conduct artillery firing demonstrations.

Inside Hartwell Tavern we welcome you to enjoy the warmth and learn about the ways everyday people confronted the immense difficulties of surviving a siege of their own.

The living history encampment at the Hartwell Tavern site will be open from 10 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. During that time there will be demonstrations of:

• Moving cannon with oxen, 11 A.M. and 3 P.M.
• Firing artillery, 2 and 4 P.M.

A Last Word on Basile Boudrot

Whenever I recount a story at length, I like to add some new sources, connections, or interpretations. I don’t want to just repeat what other writers have said.

But when I started researching suspected murderer Basile Boudrot, I couldn’t find that sort of material. I felt so stymied that I thought I’d have to confine the story to my Ko-fi updates, where I’ve started to share loose ends and research in progress. 

Ultimately, I spotted enough sources to fill the past several postings. But like everyone else who’s written about this case, I hit a brick wall in August 1776, when the Continental Congress voted to send Boudrot to Massachusetts.

As my closing thoughts, I’ll offer this scenario for how the sources fit together. Bear in mind that this is only one possible reconstruction, perhaps tinged by a fiction writer’s search for plot twists, liable to be upended with a single new document. But here goes.

February 1772: Capt. Thomas Parsons and his eight-man crew sail a schooner (name unknown) out of Newburyport, headed for the Caribbean.

March 1772: Parsons’s ship founders in a storm that blows a lot of vessels north. Meanwhile, Basile Boudrot boards a ship in France, heading to Nova Scotia. Along the way he opens a letter from his relative Marguerite Landry to the D’Entremont family, describing where their relatives hid money as the British expelled Acadians almost twenty years before.

April 1772: Boudrot reaches Nova Scotia and registers for his land grant on St. Marys Bay. But first he follows the directions in the Landry letter and unearths “1004 pieces of money.” Meanwhile, people in Newburyport worry about Thomas Parsons’s ship; no one reports seeing it in the Caribbean.

May 1772: Boudrot visits the D’Entremonts in Pubnico, assuring them that Marguerite Landry and her family are in good circumstances in France. Then he takes off for the province of Canada, abandoning his land since he’s already found a fortune with much less work. Benoni d’Entremont gets suspicious and writes to Landry in Cherbourg.

Summer 1772: The D’Entremonts ask questions in Nova Scotia about Boudrot. Passing ship captains from Massachusetts, including Hector McNeill, ask questions about the missing schooner. Locals talk about Basile Boudrot suddenly having a lot of money and no good explanation for it.

Fall 1772: Folks in Newburyport piece together information and conclude that Basile Boudrot was behind the disappearance of Parsons’s schooner, that he got suddenly rich from plundering that ship after killing all its crew.

Spring 1773: Marguerite Landry writes to the D’Entremonts from Cherbourg, describing the buried money and reporting that French sea captains have spotted Basile Boudrot in North America. In Massachusetts, the Parsons family presses for an inquiry into the alleged attack on the schooner.

Late 1773: Basile Boudrot has spent through most of his windfall. He picks up whispers that the D’Entremonts and Yankee mariners are all hunting him. He adopts the alias “Dugan” to work on ships around Montréal, Lake Champlain, and points west.

Fall 1775: Americans invade Canada, besieging Québec. Massachusetts mariners Hector McNeill and William Farris leave the city and go to work for the Continental Army.

Spring 1776: As the Continentals withdraw to Montréal, McNeill spots “Dugan” working on another supply ship. McNeill identifies this man as Basile Boudrot and demands his arrest.

Summer 1776: The Continental Army holds Boudrot prisoner in New York City until the Congress endorses Gen. Samuel Holden Parsons’s plan to send him to Massachusetts to stand trial.

Fall 1776: Soon after Boudrot reaches Massachusetts, the authorities realize the accusation against him doesn’t hold water: he wasn’t even in North America when Thomas Parsons’s ship disappeared. Out of embarrassment, they drop the case and never mention it again. People in Newburyport persist in believing that Nova Scotians plundered the schooner. Basile Boudrot disappears once more.

[The photograph above shows Smuggler’s Cove park on St. Marys Bay, Nova Scotia. Nothing says “law-abiding maritime community” like naming a place Smuggler’s Cove.]

“A Difficult Case” in Late 1776

As recounted yesterday, in August 1776 the Continental Congress voted to send Basile Boudrot to Massachusetts to be tried for murdering Thomas Parsons and his crew or, failing that, to send him to Nova Scotia for trial.

There were some problems with that plan. As John Adams said, “It is a difficult Case.”

Yet the Congress had little choice. Just that month, its members had signed the Declaration of Independence, which complained about the king (among other things) “depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.” So the new American union had to provide Boudrot with a jury trial.

Was Essex County the right venue, even if Capt. Parsons had sailed from Newburyport? One fundament of British law was that the accused should be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was allegedly committed. And the accusation against Boudrot was that he’d attacked Parsons’s ship up at St. Marys Bay.

Again, the Declaration might come into play. Another of its grievances was that the king was “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.” The Continental Army had transported Boudrot out of Canada down to New York, and now was sending him to Massachusetts. But really he should be tried in Nova Scotia.

That of course raised practical problems. Would Nova Scotia authorities share the Continental leaders’ wish to try Basile Boudrot, pushed by the desire of the victim’s brother, Gen. Samuel Holden Parsons of the Continental Army? How would that conversation go?

“So you want us to take this man and put him on trial for plundering a ship from Massachusetts four years ago?

“Yes!”

“Will you also send us Captains Nicholasson Broughton and John Selman, who plundered our Charlottetown just last year?”

“Oh, no, no, no.”

“Ah.”

“That happened during the war, you see.”

“The war that’s still going on.”

“Yes. But our commander-in-chief didn’t let those two men back into our army!”

“So you have them in jail, awaiting trial?”

“Er, no. They’re officers in the Essex County militia.”

And speaking of practical matters, even as the Congress in Philadelphia laid out this plan for dealing with Boudrot, the Continental commanders in New York were seeing the harbor fill up with Royal Navy ships and army transports. On 27 August, the British and American armies clashed in the Battle of Brooklyn. About a month later, the redcoats were on Manhattan Island, and New York City was burning.

Given all that, it’s not so surprising that Basile Boudrot’s paper trail ends. American Patriots felt obliged to try him in the proper legal venue, but preserving the paperwork to get him there might not have been the highest priority.

I hold out hope that an archive in Massachusetts, or in Nova Scotia, contains more clues to Boudrot’s fate. Perhaps as “Boudreau,” or “Dugan” (his reported alias), or “the Acadian” (as American generals referred to him). But given the murky case, his use of aliases, the fog of war, and the passage of time, I don’t hold out much hope.

TOMORROW: One scenario.

“An Order to try one Basil Bouderot, Accused of Murther”

According to the New-York Journal article I quoted yesterday, on 10 July 1776 Basile Boudrot was sent from New York to Newburyport to stand trial for murdering Thomas Parsons and his crew in Nova Scotia four years earlier.

But it appears that rendition wasn’t official; it may never have happened at all. Although newspapers in Massachusetts reprinted the New York article, none confirmed that Boudrot actually arrived in the commonwealth.

Instead, the next document in this case is a letter from Thomas Parsons’s brother, Samuel Holden Parsons, to John Adams. The two men had been at Harvard College together. Parsons was now a respected colonel in the Connecticut Line of the Continental Army.

On 24 July, Col. Parsons wrote to Adams from New York:

The Unhappy Fate of my Brother about 4 Years ago occasioned my prefering a Memorial to Congress for an Order to try one Basil Bouderot, Accused of Murther and Robbery, in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay; The Propriety of the Application I am in some Doubt of; whither it should be to Congress or to your Provincial Legislature. I beg you Sir to take the Memorial, make such Alterations as you think proper, or if not proper to be Preferd to Congress advise me in what Way to proceed to Avenge my Brother’s Death.

That memorandum has been lost, alas. All we have in the Continental Congress’s records is that the file was referred to a committee of Thomas Jefferson, James Wilson, and Roger Sherman the next day.

On 3 August, Adams wrote back: “Your Memorial has been duely attended to, and is under Consideration of a Committee. It is a difficult Case.” But for several days, nothing happened except that Parsons was promoted to brigadier general.

On 16 August, Adams got himself “added to the Committee to whom were referred the Letters and Papers respecting the murder of Mr. Parsons.” Five days later, that committee offered its recommendation, which the Congress adopted:

Resolved, That Bazil Bouderot…be sent to the state of Massachusetts bay, and there delivered to the council of the said state, and that it be recommended to the said council to proceed against the said Bazil Bouderot according to the laws of their state; but, if they have no law by which crimes committed out of their state may be tried within the same, that then they confine the said Bazil Bouderot, until the situation of public affairs will admit his being removed to Nova Scotia, where the crime is alleged to have been committed, and there submitted to a fair trial, according to the ancient laws of that province.

That wording suggests that Boudrot had not actually been sent from New York in July, but would be now. Or maybe this resolve made an earlier action official, legally turning over the case, and the prisoner, to one of the new states. The Congress record thus offers another place to look for more documents, in the archive of the Massachusetts Council.

Because that’s where the trail ends. The Congress never took up the case again. The editors of the Washington Papers found no more traces. The editors of the Adams Papers wrote:

This episode remains a mystery. . . . The full story was in a memorial Parsons sent to Congress, but this has not been found, and the ponderous Life and Letters of Samuel Holden Parsons by Charles S. Hall, Binghamton, 1905, does not even mention the matter.

TOMORROW: A change of venue?

“The Villain that murdered Colo: Parsons Brother is here”

Back here I described the family of the Rev. Jonathan Parsons of Newburyport, including his fourth son, Thomas Parsons, who disappeared in 1772.

The third son, Samuel Holden Parsons, became an attorney in Lyme, Connecticut. He prospered, getting elected to the colonial assembly, and then moved to New London. At the start of the Revolutionary War Parsons raised a regiment and marched north.

Parsons served through the siege of Boston and in the spring of 1776 led his troops south through Connecticut to defend New York.

Soon after Continental officers detained Basile Boudrot (alias Dugan) on suspicion of murdering Thomas Parsons and his crew, someone sent the news to Col. Parsons.

The next trace of Boudrot that we have is therefore Gen. Philip Schuyler’s 12 June letter from Albany to Gen. George Washington:

The Villain that murdered Colo: Parsons Brother is here. The Colo: desired Me to send him to New York I wait Your Excellency’s Directions.

Washington replied on 24 June:

As Colonel Parsons has requested you to send the Person who is supposed to have murdered his Brother, I have no objection to your doing it, if you judge it necessary. He, from what I have been told, designs to apply to Congress, for instituting some Mode of Trial for the Offence.

Schuyler (shown here) proceeded on that course. On 11 July, John Holt’s New-York Journal reported:

Last Sunday [7 July] one Bazel Bonderot, a native of Nova-Scotia, was brought to this city from Canada, charged with being a principal in the murder of Captain Thomas Parsons, and eight other persons, in Nova-Scotia, in February 1772.

Soon after this murder was perpetrated, he fled his country, and has been wandering from place to place ever since, till last April, when he was providentially detected by Captain Hector McNeil, properly secured, and sent forward to receive the just reward of his crimes.

He was yesterday sent on from this city to Newbury Port, the place where Captain Parsons last lived, for examination and trial.

That article was reprinted in several newspapers, and eventually in the 19 July Essex Journal of Newburyport.

That same issue of the Essex Journal reported:

This Morning, between 6 and 7 o’clock, departed this life after a long tedious illness, the Rev. JONATHAN PARSONS, in the 71st year of his age, and in the 31st of his MINISTRY in the PRESBYTERIAN Church, in this Town—His remains to be interred on Tuesday next, at three o’clock in the afternoon.

It’s not clear whether the minister heard about the capture of his son’s alleged killer before he died.

TOMORROW: Deliberations in the Congress.

“Appointed to the command of the Schooner Isabella”

In the April 1776 letter from Capt. Hector McNeill to Col. Benedict Arnold (shown here) that I quoted yesterday is the line, “My William Farris is Saild for you I hope you will be kind to him.”

William Farris was twenty-three years old that year, having been born in Belfast in 1753. He came to Newburyport at the age of twelve. Then he went to sea.

In an 1832 pension application, quoted in John J. Currier’s History of Newburyport, Mass.: 1764-1905, Farris described what he did at the start of the war:

he was at Quebec as first officer of the Ship Mary Ann, belonging to Boston, in the summer of the year 1775, and there made arrangements with Captain Hector McNiel, and was under further engagement with him for a voyage and as first Officer of a vessel, in the Merchants service with him, and while thus engaged, and before the lading of the vessel, information was received of an expedition undertaken by General Arnold, in the service of the United States, who was then on his way through the woods.

To the best of his remembrance, General Arnold appeared with his Army in the month of November of that year [14 Nov 1775], and immediately thereupon a proclamation was issued by Lieutenant Governor Crambries [Hector Theophilus Cramahé] requiring every Individual in the City to take arms in its defence, or depart therefrom within three days, and declaring all who did not thus manifest their allegiance Rebels and Spies.

Your petitioner did not hesitate to make his election, but immediately procured a passport, leaving all his effects behind him, excepting only such few articles as were necessary for a change, and those contained in a single handkerchief, left the City, and proceeded to join the standard of his country, under General Arnold, who was then at about thirteen miles distance; he was favorably received by the General, and was immediately stationed by him at a place called Point aux Trembles, and there given in charge the care of several vessels, which had been captured from the British, and placed in a small creek at that place; from these vessels various articles which were considered useful and necessary for the American Army were selected and sent down from thence by land.

At this place he was stationed during the whole of the following Winter, having with him an officer from General Arnold’s Army, and a few soldiers, for the protection of this property. On the breaking up of the ice in the spring following, he was sent across the river to direct some Canadians, who were employed for that purpose, in making a number of sweeps, or large bars, for the use of gondolas, which were to be employed in transporting heavy cannon, and as soon as the Ice was sufficiently cleared away he was appointed to the command of the Schooner Isabella, one of the prises which had been captured from the British, mounting four carriage guns, and with this vessel was ordered for Montreal, as a transport, with supplies for the American army.

On arriving at said Montreal, it was found that General Arnold had been superceded in the command at Quebec [by Gen. David Wooster], and that information had been received of the arrival of a British fleet, upon which General Arnold immediately ordered all the materials which were considered useful and proper for the American Army to be selected, and these were laden and put on board the said Schooner, which was then under the command of your petitioner, and General Arnold, Colonel [Aaron] Burr, and several other officers of the American Army took passage in said Schooner with him and went down to the River Sorcel, where reinforcements for the Army were arriving, and at that place said Schooner was hauled in near the banks, and the General and all his officers continued on board several days, having no convenient place on shore for their accommodation.

When it became necessary to leave the said Schooner, there appearing no further use for her, or for the services of your petitioner at that place, he procured a passport from Colonel Burr, with which about the middle of June, 1776, he proceeded for the United States, with a view of entering the Navy, having been employed in the service of the United States, having the charge of said prises, and in the command of said Schooner, the full term of seven months.

I quote that at length because it offers a picture of the environment in which Capt. McNeill spotted the man he identified as Basile Boudrot.

In addition, Farris offers a link between McNeill, his mentor in Québec, and Newburyport, the port that Thomas Parsons had sailed from on his last voyage.

TOMORROW: Transporting the prisoner.

“He Now Passes by the Name of Dugan”

On 29 Aug 1775, Capt. Hector McNeill arrived in Québec on board another captain’s ship from Dominica. He brought false news of a battle at Roxbury where “most of the light horse were killed.”

Having been born in Ireland and raised in Boston, McNeill was then living in Québec with his daughters while carrying on trade with New England. His son Hector, Jr., based in Marblehead, had enrolled in Col. John Glover’s regiment.

A few months later, Col. Benedict Arnold and Gen. Richard Montgomery arrived at the walls of Québec with Continental troops. Lt. Gov. Hector Theophilus Cramahé ordered all able-bodied men to help defend the city or leave. The captain made his way to Arnold and started to carry supplies for the Continentals.

Though we usually tell the story of the American invasion of Canada with a climax and swift end in December 1775, the campaign went on for several more months, so McNeill had lots of work to do.

In the spring of 1776, the captain recognized a man aboard another ship, presumably also working for the Americans. On 25 April, McNeill at Pointe-aux-Trembles sent an urgent message to Col. Arnold, who was on the same island at Montréal:

This will be handed you by Major [Zachariah] Dubois, and is to Request the favour of you to Arrest, & Confine in Jail a certain acadian Whose proper Name is Basiell Boudrott, he Now Passes by the Name of Dugan and is the Mate of the Schooner Providence Commanded by Capt. Palmer,

I am bold to charge this fellow above named with the Murder of Capt. Thomas Parsons of Newbury Port, & his whole Crew at or near Cape St Mary’s in the Bay of Funda in the Month of March 177[2], I have been upon the look out for this chap ever Since & Now Providentially have found him, I am Sure he is the Principall of that gang of Villians who murderd Capt Parsons, & his crew, 9 in Number, & plundered first, afterwards burnt his Vessell—

I hope I need not urge you to Confine, & keep him close untill he can be Sent to New England, as Piracy, & Murder are Crimes which all good Men Should Endeavour to Prosecute & punish, I inclose you a Letter for the Owners of Capt Parsons his Vessell Which I beg you will read, Seal, & forward to the place of its distination—

My William Farris is Saild for you I hope you will be kind to him—as for your Capt Palmer—he has Sickened Me; of all Men to dispatch or manage affairs I Never Mett with worse hands then himself & his Lieut,—

I hear your wound is broke loose Which gives Me real Sorrow—you Must be Carefull of it or it may yet cost you dear

For heavens Sake do not Neglect to Secure the aforementioned Basiell Boudrot, for he is a Vile Murderer

May heavens preserve you in that Nest of Tory Scoundrels & grant you Wisdom & Fortitude to mannage them as they deserve

McNeill sent the same request to Gen. David Wooster. On 26 April, Wooster assured him: “I shall write Genl Arnold concerning the Acadien & also to arrest Palmer.”

TOMORROW: Sailing for Arnold’s army.

“Cast away upon the Isle of Sable”

There are a lot of unanswered questions about the disappearance of Capt. Thomas Parsons, his ship, and his crew in early 1772.

As colonial newspapers show, shipwrecks happened all the time. The rocky shores of Nova Scotia were notorious for their dangers.

For example, on 16 Sept 1773, the Massachusetts Spy ran this report from John Callahan, just arrived from London:

Capt. Callahan, last Thursday se’nnight, went on shore at Cape Sable, where he saw the Wreck of a Snow, New-England built, Pink Stern, called the Kitty, loaded with Lumber, had all her Cargo on board, but her Sails, Rigging and Crew gone.

That might seem mysterious, even suspicious. But back on 10 May the Boston Post-Boy had reported:

A Fisherman, who arrived here last Week, informs, that the Snow Katy, Capt. Major, from this Port for Newfoundland, is cast away upon the Isle of Sable: The Vessel and Cargo is entirely lost; the Captain and Mate, with great Difficulty saved their Lives, and the Remainder of the Crew, (five in Number) perished.

In the case of Capt. Parsons’s schooner, within a year New Englanders suspected he’d met with foul play. What led them to that conclusion? Unfortunately, our sources don’t say.

Those sources do raise some geographic questions about this voyage. One is why, if Capt. Parsons was heading from Newburyport to the Caribbean, he’d ended up far north. Perhaps that was a way of catching trade winds. Perhaps a storm had pushed his ship off course. Perhaps people didn’t remember his destination accurately. Or perhaps Parsons’s ship was returning from the islands and overshot Cape Cod because of weather.

The March 1773 news item quoted here said a schooner had been lost “near Cape-Sable,” which is the southernmost corner of the Nova Scotia peninsula. In Newburyport people came to believe Parsons had met his fate at “St. Mary’s,” which must mean St. Mary Bay’s at the westernmost corner. Was that close enough to count as “near Cape-Sable” to a New Englander?

Yet another mystery: Near the mouth of St. Mary’s Bay sits the village of Comeauville, where Basile Boudrot was granted 300 acres in May 1772. That was three months after Capt. Parsons reportedly left Newburyport, and in that season Boudrot was supposedly busy digging up buried money. Yet somehow the people of New England came to believe that Basile Boudrot was responsible for the death of Capt. Parsons and his crew.

TOMORROW: Spotting the culprit?

[The picture above is Bonaventura Peeters’s “Shipwreck,” ca. 1652, courtesy of the Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art.]