Capt. Charles Conner: mariner, trader, letter of horses
Yesterday I quoted Charles Conner’s testimony about how Patrick Carr was shot during the Boston Massacre. Unless I’m combining two men of the same name, which is always possible, Conner seems to have been around Boston for quite a while, involved in several significant events, though never fully embraced by the town’s leaders nor coming fully into focus.
Charles Conner was born in Ireland in 1734, according to later statements about him. He pops up in my sources first in 1755, sailing along the coast of Maine under Captain Hector MacNeill, another Irish immigrant to New England. In his 1773 memoir, MacNeill wrote about how a sailor named Charles Conner proved reliable during an attack on his ship by native soldiers, an early skirmish in the Seven Years’ War.
On 1 April 1758, Conner married Hannah Davis in King’s Chapel. The couple had three children baptized there: Charles, Jr., in 1762; Hannah in 1768; and Mercy Thompson in 1770. (They also sponsored other families’ children for baptism.)
In 1760 the Conners were living on Mackrel Lane. Unfortunately, we know that because they were burned out in the last of Boston’s disastrous colonial fires. By then Charles had the title “Captain,” so he’d become a ship’s captain while still in his twenties. He also seems to have been trading or supplying ships since he lost far more than one small family would need: 13 barrels of rum, 50 barrels of cider, 60 bushels of potatoes, 6 barrels of pork, 7 barrels of beef, 600 pounds of Smoked Beef, 300 pounds of sugar, 3000 pounds of cheese, “12 doz Neats Tongues” [calves’ tongues—yum!], 200 pounds of spun yard, 12 pairs of new shoes, 11 dozen shirts of different kinds, 24 Guns and two Swords, a “Hanging Compass,” a mainsail for a sloop and most of a ship’s rigging, 96 “Wooden Cans & Dishes,” and so much more. In all, Capt. Conner lost £414 and fourpence worth of property.
Conner was apparently involved in the “coasting trade,” sailing up and down the North American coast instead of crossing the Atlantic. For example, the 11 Mar 1771 Boston Post-Boy announced:
Just arrived from Virginia, the Schooner Nancy, Charles Conner Master, with Bread and Flour, which is to be sold by Wholesale or Retail, on board the said Schooner lying at Minot’s T [a particular dock].John Adams’s legal notebooks include a model document taken from a trader’s complaint against Conner for not delivering goods; lawsuits were an ordinary part of New England business.
In 1761, Conner joined the Charitable Irish Society of Boston, a mutual-aid organization. He shows up in other sources connected to other Irish immigrants. Horse doctor Malachy Field arrived in Boston from Cork aboard the Freemason on 27 Dec 1764, and by the following August advertised that he spent two weeks each month at “Mr. Charles Connor’s, at the Queen’s Head Roxbury”—presumably an inn outside town, which the Conners might have taken on after the fire. Three years later Field reported that his base was “at Capt. Conner’s near the Mill-Bridge” in Boston. And of course in 1770 Conner was with Irish breeches-maker Patrick Carr when the younger man was shot. So the town’s Irish immigrants seem to have stuck together.
In May 1771, Conner bought a house on the corner of Salt Lane and Scott Alley, near Union Street in the North End, from widow Elinor Coley. In 1772 one Capt. Conner’s neighbors there was “Mr. Mc’Cluer,” another Scotch-Irish name.
Capt. Conner appears to have joined in the Boston Tea Party on 16 December 1773, and to have precipitously left. As I’ve quoted in the past, merchant John Andrews wrote to a friend in Philadelphia about
Captain Conner, a letter of horses in this place, not many years since remov’d from dear Ireland, who ript up the lining of his coat and waistcoat under the arms, and watching his opportunity had nearly fill’d ’em with tea, but being detected, was handled pretty roughly.Conner wasn’t totally persona non grata with the Patriots after that, however. On 20 Oct 1775, the Rev. Dr. Jeremy Belknap was visiting the provincial troops in Roxbury, and wrote in his diary:
They not only stripp’d him of his cloaths, but gave him a coat of mud, with a severe bruising into the bargain; and nothing but their utter aversion to make any disturbance prevented his being tar’d and feather’d.
After breakfast, came into General [Artemas] Ward’s quarters several persons who had the preceding night made their escape from Boston; viz., Captain Mackay, Captain Conner, and Mr. Benjamin Hitchborn.Conner had brought out copies of the Loyalists’ complimentary addresses to Gen. Thomas Gage, then sailing for England. (Hitchborn had escaped from British custody after being captured with letters that embarrassed John Adams, but that’s another story.)
By 1775, Hannah had probably died and Conner remarried, to Abigail Davis. They had a child named Juliana around the end of that year. On 17 Oct 1776, the Conners had her baptized in Trinity Church, back in Boston, and four days later she was buried. In June 1779 the couple had a son named Daniel.
In Dec 1776, Conner was drafted for the Continental Army from Boston’s ward 5, but he paid a fine to get out of that duty. He cooperated with the Revolutionary government a different way. In Sept 1779, the Boston selectmen “Agreed with Capt. Conner to improve a Building belonging to him as a Slaughter house, & to allow him a reasonable rent therefor.” That month the Continental Journal ran this ad:
Our Brethren in the Country are informed, That SLAUGHTER HOUSES are provided for the Reception of CATTLE and SHEEP, by the Country, viz.——At Mr. Robert Hewes’s, in Pleasant-Street; at Capt. Conner’s, by the Mill Creek; and at Capt. John Ballard’s Wharf, North End.In 1784, Capt. Conner put his “House and Land, Situated in Boston, near Union-Street,” on the market. He might be the “Mr. Connor” living in Boston with two white females in the 1790 U.S. census, but by then the town had other notable inhabitants named Conner or Connor.
Trinity Church records state that “Mr. Charles Connor” died on 3 Nov 1793 at age 59.
17 comments:
Charles connor should not be tainted by lecture of a British spy and his propaganda. Noone legitimately there confirmed it. And no way would the business owner right at the heart of hanover and mill bridge been able to keep doing business. Clearly noone believed hewes then and shouldn't now. because they were there or would be record of it by more then one source. How did he have such a food relationship with everyone involved before during and after??????
Where is the charles conner Parque at revere mall that sits on top of Conners property. The revere statue sits right where Conners stables were and his prized horses. I willing to bet revere even got his horse from conner.
Whoever wrote this. Please help me correct this. This really passes me off. My great ancestor is rolling hlin his grave. How many Irish were on the north side. From the sounds very few were respected enough to be allowed ownership of anything let alone has mass business relationships with the communities. Providing jobs and food. The irish were constantly persecuted. Yet conner had a respected establishment in the heart of slaveholding English men. Conner was open outspoken abolitionists. Whose family left to georgia. And as they saw the plantations moved to gibson indiana and later fought in the civil war for the north. refused to have slaves in his shipping inventory. They even try and claim John adams didn't have slaves yet slaves are listed in his household. John adams and hewes conspired against him. And even reveres brother in law benjamin hitchborn had his back. Only one claim was ever made against him where he was sued for stolen inventory where he had even greater loss. and then ask why did John adams sign as a witness for the reviept of land in geogia from Daniel conner and his wife Martha? The son of Charles Conner. For his role in the revolution.
And in 1775 the Coward Hewes fled while Conner sent away most of his family. And stayed to see it thru.
You’re obviously protective of your ancestor Charles Conner’s reputation, but making false statements is a poor defense.
There was no “British spy” in this story. John Adams never owned slaves. George R. T. Hewes was not a coward. Both Hewes and Conner left Boston during the siege. Paul Revere obtained the horse for his famous ride from Deacon John Larkin of Charlestown.
It’s important to recognize that Hewes’s 1830s memoirs aren’t our earliest source about Conner taking tea in 1773. The Boston merchant John Andrews identified Conner by name in a letter written immediately after the event, relaying to a relative what Bostonians were talking about, and published in the 1860s. Those two sources are independent and corroborate each other.
The Boston Whigs would have preferred for none of the men who went on board the tea ships to take any for himself. Once a man was detected doing so, however, they made an example of him for local society to underscore the idea that the tea destruction was a purely public-minded act. I’m sure Conner didn’t like the experience, but in that respect he served the Whig cause.
What I find interesting about Conner, and the reason I assembled so much research about him, is that he was well established in Boston both before and after the Tea Party. The December crowd punished him that night, but Conner wasn’t ostracized and driven to the Loyalist side as happened to some men who did other unpopular things. People must have seen Conner’s action as a momentary lapse in judgment, given how they continued doing business with him.
Conner’s Irish roots were significant in his professional and social network, and Andrews made a point of them in his letter. It’s possible Hewes remembering the man’s name as “O’Connor” also revealed some prejudice. But Conner wasn’t the only Irish business and property owner in Boston. There was a whole mutual-aid society, as I described. Hector MacNeill, the captain whom Conner sailed under as a young man, described how prejudice against people from Ireland lessened over his lifetime.
If there’s evidence of Charles Conner being “open outspoken abolitionists,” I’m interested in seeing it. I don’t see how Daniel Conner could relocate to Georgia around 1800 and be surprised to find the economy there depended on slavery, but he could indeed have found that society more distasteful than he’d imagined.
It’s important to examine family history, like all other history, through hard evidence, consideration of all possibilities, and sympathetic understanding of the range of human behavior.
Hewes was conveniently captured after begging to be allowed to take the letters. And was convenienty released. He was constantly causing problems and getting others to fight for him. And a history of reporting to officials. and was not even invited to the event. A respected well off businessman with properties and ships. And his own boxes of tea. That became a captain in his twenties. Stole a few tea leaves of tea Is extremely far fetched. I can get into why more tomorrow and respond more thoroughly. Thank you for your time. Oh and nancy arrived in Savannah with Daniel and other family members along with farming supplies and horses. And was granted land on the ogeechee river and grant was signed by John Adams to Daniel's father Charles and then passed to Daniel.
John adams household is listed as having two slaves. Which are claimed to be deeded to his wife not him. Thus he claimed not to own any.
Based on the history of George Hewes as an individual he Spent time in debtors prison. Owed debts to multiple people and fled with unpaid debt. Saw conner and followed him. Recognized him from the stables. Where conner rented horses. Hewes lived in another area with his family and came to the area to do his failed apprenticeship across from Conners stable. Leads me to believe he had unpaid debts to him as well. And made up the story to avoid debt. Hewes is not listed on any rosters and sought a pension after the war claiming to have worked with the militias. None of his stories add up and has a history of dishonesty. Whereas Conner does not.
Ok found the hewes story. It is slightly different. But to that effect. It also doesn't line up. Here is what he said'and then I'll respond.
One Captain O'Connor, whom I well knew, came on board for that purpose, and when he supposed he was not noticed, filled his pockets, and also the lining of his coat. But I had detected him and gave information to the captain of what he was doing. We were ordered to take him into custody, and just as he was stepping from the vessel, I seized him by the skirt of his coat, and in attempting to pull him back, I tore it off; but, springing forward, by a rapid effort he made his escape. He had, however, to run a gauntlet through the crowd upon the wharf nine each one, as he passed, giving him a kick or a stroke.
4 points. Again Hewes says he rats on connor to the "captain"? what captain. The only captain there was conner besides the ship captain. And from the stories I was told as a child was that conner was one of the three leaders and it was his boats that were used.
2)3 boats left the wharf to raid the ships anchored out in the harbor. Yet hewes claims connor stepped of ship onto the wharf and had to run thru people.
3)/they didn't want to cause a scene but yet they are going to attack someone amd try and arrest them? Who they going to turn him over to and how they going to explain that? Um we went on one of your ships and destroyed stuff. But ey thus guy was stealing so. Ya that's no good. Take him but not us.
4) why would they have a useless nobody who is tiny go and threaten the captain of the ship?
Rumors are dangerous and they do know justice. The spreading of a rumor like that would be done to try and undermine their actions. Loose lips sink ships. And that Coward rat hewes even said so himself that it is his character to rat on people.
I was told that they sold the land in Georgia because of an auction and slave holdings nearby that was quickly being surrounded by plantations. Savanah was becoming a hub for the slave trade in the region Not the entire economy but clear and out in the open in the center of it all. As a ship captain. He was constantly exposed to it. Charles was meant to join them again when he was done selling assets in boston and roxbury. But the ship wrecked off the coast of Virginia and he had to deal with that also and while back in Boston. He died. Daniel then married Martha and had at 3 sons and a daughter. Alexander, Daniel and John and Sarah. They also had an infant that died named Charles. And Hannah stayed with them untill they all packed up and headed for indiana. Where Daniel started another livery, stable and horse ranch. And worked on breeding again. They had brought with them all the way from Ireland. Alexander had a knack for it like his grandpa charles he never got to meet. And started a race track. Near Princeton. Where people would come from Louisville and cincinati to try and beat his horses.
“Hewes was conveniently captured after begging to be allowed to take the letters.” This statement is false. It appears to be the result of mixing up George R. T. Hewes with Benjamin Hichborn, whose story of being captured I discussed starting here.
“John adams household is listed as having two slaves.” This statement is false. It may be the result of mixing up John Adams and his second cousin Samuel Adams, who was the legal owner of a woman named Surry Adams, given to his wife. I discussed what we know about her. It may be a misreading of the life of John Adams’s wife Abigail, who was raised in a household with at least one slave. She came to dislike the practice and never owned slaves herself. In middle age she employed and housed a former slave of her father named Phoebe Abdee. Without a stated source, it’s hard to say where the error arose.
“Hewes lived in another area with his family and came to the area to do his failed apprenticeship across from Conners stable.” This statement is false. Hewes was born in 1742, so he entered his apprenticeship in the late 1750s. Conner was working at sea at that time. The earliest mention of Conner running a livery stable was in 1768, and by then Hewes had his own little shop at the head of Griffin’s Wharf in another part of town.
Assuming that Hewes was in debt to Conner and made up a false story about him is a far-fetched story that requires a lot of evidence. No evidence at all has been put forward.
The quoted description from George R. T. Hewes about Conner (“Captain O’Conner”) at the Tea Party appeared in A Retrospect of the Tea-Party, published in 1834. It’s important to read that chapter fully to analyze it well. It’s also important to read the corresponding passage in Traits of the Tea-Party, also based on interviews with Hewes and published the next year.
In Retrospect, Hewes described “several attempts” by different people to make off with tea. He didn’t just single out Conner. Both books mention an older man caught with tea the same way.
Hewes started his description of the tea destruction by saying three men in the crowd assumed command of three groups, one for each ship, and he recalled his commander first as “Leonard Pitt.” This was Lendell Pitts, documented at other events of the time. Retrospect described Hewes telling “the captain” about Conner; Traits said, “He informed Pitts.” There were multiple former and current sea and militia captains on the waterfront that night, but the one that mattered was the man commanding Hewes’s group. No mystery or contradiction there.
In Traits, Hewes’s story about “a man named Charles O’Connor” is a little more detailed and dramatic, and seems less reliable. It claims that the two men had been apprentices together under the cordwainer Downing, which doesn’t fit Conner’s history. Nonetheless, the fact that Hewes recalled the man’s first name is significant.
And from the stories I was told as a child was that conner was one of the three leaders and it was his boats that were used.
This is a very significant statement, but not strong historical evidence about the Tea Party. Rather, it shows us the foundation of your understanding of that event. The family stories we grow up with have emotional importance and are hard to get around. Like all oral histories, they have some evidentiary weight. But they have to be probed and assessed like all other oral traditions, especially since they’re almost always told to make children proud of their ancestors and we naturally cling to them.
What other evidence is there that Charles Conner was a leader of the tea destruction? What evidence is there that he owned boats near Griffin's Wharf? (By then he was running an inn and livery stable.) What evidence is there that Conner was part of the core group of tea destroyers and not someone who, like Hewes, joined in spontaneously? We need good evidence of those details to corroborate any family traditions.
We also have to sift the evidence fairly. You try to make a big deal of how Hewes as a poor man had trouble with debts, trying to impeach everything he said based on that. But you dismiss the documented lawsuit against Conner by saying, “Only one claim was ever made against him where he was sued for stolen inventory where he had even greater loss.” The records from the lawsuit mentioned in the John Adams Papers have disappeared, leaving only a model writ. So what’s the basis of that description of the case? What’s the basis of saying that was the only lawsuit ever filed against Conner? Lawsuits over debts were common in eighteenth-century New England, so why should Conner be different from most other men?
I hope you get down your family’s oral histories on paper if they’re not already documented. And I hope you look for contemporaneous evidence to confirm those stories—or to refute or correct those stories as necessary. All of us—Hewes, Conner, Adams, Hichborn, you and me—are prone to tell stories that put us in a good light or satisfy our needs. All of us naturally believe the stories we hear from our families as we grow up. But studying history requires collecting and weighing the evidence behind such stories.
Precisely I see you got the point. Anyone can make a story out of anything like you clearly did here. . He said he knew him well. So you are confirming that he likely didn't even know conner? So you see how it Doesn't add up. your going to make such a statement based on gossip. And someone who likely wasn't even there. Against all reasonable logic?
No, I didn’t confirm anything of the sort. Please be more careful in your interpretations. (And it would help to be more precise in your writing; I can’t tell who “someone who likely wasn’t even there” refers to.)
As far as I can tell, your claim is that Charles Conner supplied boats and led a third of the men at the Boston Tea Party despite no evidence for that besides your family’s oral tradition. George R. T. Hewes accused Conner of stealing tea merely because of an undocumented debt (not sure how that accusation would help with the debt). Supposedly Conner had no tea on his person and commanded the respect of the town while Hewes, according to you, was a notorious liar and coward. Yet the merchant John Andrews believed Hewes’s accusation against Conner and put it in a letter he wrote in 1773.
I don’t see “reasonable logic” in that interpretation of the evidence. Just a lot of wishful thinking.
My belief is that a handful of men tried to make off with some of the valuable tea during the destruction. Conner was one of them, and circumstances—his business in the center of town, his height, his Irish accent, perhaps his reputation as a captain, Hewes knowing him—meant he’s the only one whose name got preserved. Conner stood out from the crowd too much for his own good. Hewes and perhaps other men spotted and reported him. The crowd grabbed back the tea and sent Conner packing.
But Charles Conner was too much part of Boston society to ostracize completely, and he stayed with the Patriots. In late 1775 he escaped from besieged Boston, bringing a document about the Loyalists. Later in the war he cooperated with the town and state governments. (Notably, Hewes’s uncle Robert did the same.)
I wrote the postings about Charles Conner (including what I think is a clearly false accusation that he supplied horses for British soldiers who wanted to desert) because I hoped to explore his whole life as it was documented. Not just that moment on Griffin’s Wharf, which was far from a high point, but his earlier maritime service, the great fire, his presence at the Boston Massacre, and so on.
If there are more sources to study, I’d be happy to see pointers to them. But I’m not interested in claims without evidence.
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