No one’s done a transcription of these volumes yet, so their text isn’t searchable like the volumes on Google Books or other web-based resources. But you can identify what pages to study from other people’s footnotes (as I did) or from the downloadable unified index for all volumes. The series contains thousands of pages of colonial and Revolutionary records that remained in the state archives. Read free or die.
As early as July 1770, when there was some sort of embarrassing incident at John Taggart’s house (perhaps the incident recalled in yesterday’s post), the Peterborough Presbyterian church started to think they’d chosen the wrong minister in the Rev. John Morrison. On 18 June 1771 a Presbytery met in Peterborough to consider the congregation’s complaints. Extracts from the minutes of that meeting survive, which provide glimpses—but only glimpses—of the problem.
There were seven charges. Two involved intemperance, or sloppy drunkenness, at the homes of Taggart and Col. Stephen Holland. The committee of judges found Morrison guilty on both counts, though the first was “not so highly aggravated” as the second.
The next two charges involved “Profane swearing.” The committee felt Morrison was guilty in the first incident. As for the second, “a Single evidence [i.e., witness] appeard and for the Reasons offered the committee saw fit to indulge the evidence not to swear.” Perhaps the first charge was so clear that the committee didn’t need to consider the second. Perhaps they knew one witness wasn’t enough.
Another charge was “Buying a poor mans vote.” The committee decided, “Tho there was some inexpediency yet nothing unlawful and consequently nothing censurable.” This may have been a vote within the church rather than a civil vote.
Skipping ahead, the seventh charge was “Baptizing a Child contrary to our Constitution,” and the committee declared “there is nothing to support the sd. Charge.”
Now for the real controversy: the sixth charge was “Immodest conversation and Deportment” on fifteen separate occasions:
that in a Number of Articles tho not supported by such Proof as the Gospel requires yet some of them are attended with such Circumstances as to render the facts very suspicious—they would therefore in the bowels of Christ earnestly intreat the Revd. Mr. Morrison by every consideration that is weighty with impartial strictness to animadvert his Conduct...[and] to endeavour to humble himself in the dust before a Heart searching & holy God & to fly speedily to the Blood & righteousness of Jesus Christ for pardon & cleansing.The Presbytery then suspended Morrison for ten weeks. At another meeting on 29 August 1771, those elders restored Morrison to his pulpit.
And with respect to the agrieved the Committee would be free to advise them with like earnestness as it is a very critical Time in Peterburgh to take heed to their spirits & while they are justly offended at their Ministers Crimes to beware of a spirit of Bitterness or personal hatred
Though a Presbytery may Restore a Minister To his Standing yet they can by no means Reconcile the minds of a people to a profane Drunken & Debauched Minister nor Can they look upon themselves as Injoying their Religious Liberties while they are Compellable To Support Such a person.On 20 Dec the Council decided that “the Selectmen of Peterborough” should be brought in. The Assembly disagreed, and finally voted to dismiss the petition—apparently to let the parties work it out among themselves.
I knew if I whined enough, someone would help me with sources on what exactly caused the Presbyterians of Peterborough, New Hampshire, to dismiss John Morrison as their minister.
A kind Boston 1775 reader gave me a look at the Church History article that discusses this case among other New Hampshire dismissals. Its footnotes led to two more detailed sources, including Google Books’s copy of “An Address Delivered at the Centennial Celebration, in Peterborough, N.H., Oct. 24, 1839,” by John Hopkins Morison. He had this to say about the Rev. Mr. Morrison [whose last name he spelled like his own, just to confuse the search engines]:
From all that I can learn he was a man of decided talents; but it must be borne in mind, that the same ability will appear always more conspicuous in a bad than in a good man, just as a horse, or a building or perfect symmetry will always appear smaller than another of the same dimensions whose parts are out of proportion.TOMORROW: Primary sources—Peterborough petitions to be allowed to dismiss the minister.
But after making all due allowance, we must, I believe, conclude that Mr. Morison possessed more than common powers, for good or for evil. But soon he proved himself an intemperate, licentious man, dangerous alike as the companion of either sex.
A charitable construction was put upon the first symptoms of intemperance. At a party he was found unable to walk, and it was necessary to take him through the room where the young people were collected, in order to place him upon a bed. This was managed with so much adroitness, that no suspicion was raised, except with three or four church-members who were disposed to view it as an accident, at a time when similar casualties were not uncommon.
But soon, while his bad habits in this line became notorious, his evil passions in another direction flared out, to the general scandal of the town. A Presbytery was held; he was suspended from his office for two or three months, a thing probably to his taste, as his salary was not suspended.
At length, however, the people could no longer tolerate him; he relinquished his connection with the society in March, 1772; visited South Carolina, returned and joined the American army at Cambridge in ’75.
He was present at Bunker-hill, but excused himself from entering the battle on the ground that his gun-lock was not in order. The next day he joined the British, and continued in some capacity with them till his death, which took place at Charleston, S.C., December 10, 1782.
He became a professed atheist. It is said that he spent his last days, when he was daily sinking to the grave, among profligate, abandoned associates, taking his part in every species of dissipation which his decaying strength would permit; and just before his death, gave a sum of money to his companions, requesting them to drink it out upon his coffin.
His wife, Sarah Ferguson, in every respect a true, exemplary women, never to the time of her death, (November, 1824, æt. 84,) lost either the interest or the confidence with which she had first joined her fortune to his.
It is refreshing to add, that their son, John Morison, who died more than forty years ago, was, by the uniform consent of all who knew him, one of the most pure-hearted and clear-headed men that our town has produced. I have never heard him mentioned by one who had known him except with strong affection and respect. He received his education at Exeter, where for a time he was also a teacher.
A year ago, Charles Swift at The City Record and Boston News-Letter and I exchanged posts about “Mount Whoredom,” the name documents and maps from around the Revolution gave to a hill that real-estate developers in the early republic renamed “Mount Vernon.” (Of course, saying “whoredom” over and over produced the first spike in Boston 1775’s page views.)
At this month’s Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife I met Christopher Lenney, author of Sightseeking: Clues to the Landscape History of New England. In that book he wrote:
Mount Whoredom, as the west summit of Beacon Hill was called until 1823, likely derives from a hill in London that bore the same name for the same reason. This designation...may have been military slang: the London Mount Whoredom (so mapped in 1745) was a place of soldiers’ resort near the Royal Artillery headquarters in Woolwich.Chris based that statement on a literary description of a London map, but hadn’t found the actual map.
Here’s another snatch of selectman Timothy Newell’s diary of the siege of Boston. These entries came a week after the Battle of Bunker Hill, as rumors flew that the British army would try to push back the provincial forces on the other side of the town as well.
24th [June]. About 12 oClock at noon began a Cannonade of Roxbury and set fire to one or two houses which was extinguished. Two Men killed at Brown’s house from a small party of Regulars. Great expectations from this day’s operations, as last night four Transports, Gondaloes &c. full of Troops, as was said, intended to land at Dorchester neck to attack the Provincials, but an alarm gun was said to be fired and fires kindled to alarm the Country—the great force said to be collected prevented this expedition. This account was given by one Morrison who deserted and came in this day from the Provincials. It is said he was in the Redoubt at Bunker Hill.“Brown’s house” was on Boston Neck, the narrow strip of dry land that then connected Boston to the rest of Massachusetts. “Dorchester Neck” was a peninsula off Dorchester. All that topography has changed greatly since 1775 because of landfills. As for Morrison, he was John Morrison of Peterborough, New Hampshire. The New Hampshire Churches (1856) says he was born in Pathfoot, Scotland, in 1739. Leonard Allison Morrison’s The History of the Morison or Morrison Family (1880) says he had graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1765. The next year, Morrison came to Peterborough, which was largely settled by people of Scottish origin or ancestry, several of them also named Morrison or Morison. In November 1766 he became the first official Presbyterian minister there. But the Rev. Mr. Morrison served only until March 1772, when the congregation dismissed him for cause. Now that’s the kind of gossip Boston 1775 enjoys! Unfortunately, the sources I can find aren’t very juicy. That Morrison family history says, “His abilities were good, but by disreputable practices he lost the respect of the people.” Too vague. George Abbot Morison’s 1876 History of Peterborough calls Morrison an “object of intemperance.” That’s more like it. But I believe that Albert Smith’s competing History of the Town of Peterborough would have more to say about “scandalous behavior.” Smith’s history, in the short extract downloadable from here, says Morrison was with the Peterborough militia company on the day of Bunker Hill, but “remained in camp, and excused himself from accompanying his friends, alleging that the lock of his gun was so injured as to be useless. Shortly after he passed over to Boston and joined the British.” So Morrison wasn’t in the redoubt on Breed’s Hill, and his remarks about the alarm in Dorchester might be suspect as well. By late 1776 he was a commissary with the British army, a position he held until his death in 1782. Newell would cross paths with Morrison in Boston months later. In the meantime, he had artillery fire to worry about.
26th [June] PM. Many cannon fired on both sides from the lines &c. 27th. Tolerable quiet; only a few cannon exchanged from the lines. 30th. Cannonade from Roxbury and the lines.Newell’s diary shows how the New England troops had cannons well before Col. Henry Knox brought guns from Fort Ticonderoga, and they weren’t shy about using them. ADDENDUM: This article by George B. Kirsch in Church History says that the John Morrison scandal also involved sex. But I can’t get to the good bits through Google. ADDENDUM #2: I have always relied on the kindness of Boston 1775 readers.
“Fun” may not be the right word for any document young John Quincy Adams created. He seems to have written very self-consciously, often apologetically, with his parents looking over his shoulders.
But here’s an interesting passage from his diary for 18 Dec 1779, put online by the Massachusetts Historical Society. On that date twelve-year-old John was in Spain with his father, who was on a diplomatic mission for the Continental Congress. Also in the party were John’s tutor; his younger brother Charles; an eleven-year-old boy from Boston; and some other American men. This journal entry starts on this page and continues here.
I look’d this morning out of our chamber window and saw a beautiful sight the waves all foaming upon the Beach & Breaking made a terrible noise and as beautiful a sight as I ever saw in my life.John wrote eight more lines, but later crossed them out more thoroughly than any other words in his journal. Did he write more about nuns and friars? A dirty joke? A prejudiced remark? Something his father or tutor corrected, or something his mother would dislike when word got back to her?
We expected to see a Nun made to day, but we were disappointed the Nuns are shut up in Convents & never see any menbutExcept the friars.
this afternoon the Gentlemen all went to see the armory but I was writing a Letter & therefore could not go.I wish I knew what letter was so important that it kept a twelve-year-old boy from going to the armory with the men. I suspect John was writing to Mama or one of her sisters back home in Massachusetts.
And don’t Lego people remind you of Davy on Davy and Goliath?
Zippy the Pinhead hops on the Bunker Hill bandwagon with today’s strip, which must mean the topic’s too cool for me. Something new tomorrow.
This picture shows a detail of a map I found in the New York Public Library’s Mid-Manhattan Picture Collection Online. I haven’t found the secret to linking directly to the image, but it’s number 808558, titled “A Plan of the Action at Bunker’s Hill, on the 17th of June 1775.” The map was published in the late 1800s by G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
The box in the upper left quadrant shows the redoubt on top of the rise known as Breed’s Hill. Provincial troops under Col. William Prescott started to fortify that area during the night of 16-17 June 1775, and it became the focus of the British military’s attack the next day. It’s where the Bunker Hill Monument now stands.
The inset in the lower right quadrant is labeled as the same redoubt. Even at this resolution, it’s easy to see that the two shapes don’t look anything alike.
The main map with the rectangular redoubt was copied from a plan of the battlefield created by Lt. Thomas Page of the Royal Artillery and published after he returned to London. Page was a trained surveyor who was actually on the field in 1775. He remained in Boston for months, continuing to help map and lay out fortifications without people shooting at him from nearby, which cartographers agree is a big help when it comes to concentrating on details.
The inset on the right was copied from an image published in The Gentleman’s Magazine in London in September 1775. The Dublin edition of that magazine published a similar image later that year. It shows an irregular shape between two lines of fortifications. So far as I know, the magazine gave no source or authority for that image.
In fact, I don’t think there is any reliable source for the Gentleman’s Magazine image. All the sources from both sides of the battle say that the provincials laid out a small, rectangular redoubt, not the strange, elaborate shape shown there. I think the magazine knew that its readers were eager for news of this shocking battle in the colonies, so it published or perhaps even created unreliable material to fill that demand. A British marine lieutenant named John Clarke also published a detailed account of the battle for Londoners; they didn’t know that he’d been court-martialed for drunkenness, collected secondhand information, and embellished freely.
The Gentleman’s Magazine image was rediscovered and reprinted in the mid-1800s by American historians. In the 1851 edition of his History of the Siege of Boston (and perhaps in the 1849 edition as well), Richard Frothingham copied the image on page 198, calling it a “curious memorial of the battle”; he gave more space to Page’s map, and his text described a square redoubt. Also in 1851, Benson J. Lossing’s Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution copied the image on page 540; Lossing wasn’t rigorous about sources if they stood in the way of a good story or a good picture, and he included none of Frothingham’s skepticism.
As a result, the strange picture of the redoubt was recopied into more American books and maps in the late 1800s, though no one seems to have tried to reconcile it with the sources showing and describing a square structure. I don’t think anyone who was in Charlestown in 1775 would have recognized the structure portrayed in The Gentleman’s Magazine.
Oddly enough, that strange shape does appear on a powderhorn displayed by a museum in Boston as an authentic artifact of the war. A powderhorn that has a number of other odd features, and can’t be traced back earlier than 1933.
Then British historian Thomas Carlyle (shown here, courtesy of NNDB.com) published his massive History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great from 1858 to 1865. And American readers couldn’t help noticing that Carlyle quoted Prussian documents about ordering soldiers not to shoot “till you see the whites of their eyes” decades before Bunker Hill.
That made authors change how they described the quotation. In Winsor’s Memorial History of Boston (1881), Edward Everett Hale wrote:
All along the American lines the order had been given which the officers remembered in the memoirs of Frederick’s wars: “Wait till you can see the whites of their eyes.”He added this explanatory footnote:
Prince Charles, when he cut through the Austrian army, in retiring from Jägendorf, gave this order to his infantry: “Silent, till you see the whites of their eyes.” This was on May 22, 1745; and this order, so sucessful that day, was remembered twelve years after at the battle of Prague, when the general Prussian order was, “By push of bayonets; no firing till you see the whites of their eyes.”Since then many reference books and websites attribute the “whites of their eyes” phrase to “Prince Charles of Prussia” at Jägendorf. He wasn’t using it in the same context as during Bunker Hill; he wanted his men to sneak through a larger Austrian force, so they shouldn’t attract attention by, say, shooting off their guns. But the clear implication is that he deserves credit for the coinage. Additionally, the citation reminds us not to simply accept our American tradition about Putnam or Prescott coining the phrase.
The Battle of Bunker Hill yielded one of those quotations that every American is supposed to know: “Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes!” Meaning, “Don’t use any of your gunpowder until they’re really, really close, so you won’t miss.” But it’s still debatable which American officer said this, if anyone. Some sources credit Gen. Israel Putnam of Connecticut, some Col. William Prescott of Massachusetts.
In 1788 David Humphreys published an Essay on the Life of the Honourable Major General Israel Putnam. I haven’t rustled up that edition, but I found an 1818 printing through Microsoft’s Live Search, and it did not contain the “whites of their eyes” quotation. That leads me to think the original didn’t have it, either.
Which means the first book attributing this quotation to Gen. Putnam might well be that great font of American myth, Mason Weems’s Life of George Washington, with curious anecdotes, equally honourable to himself and exemplary to his young countrymen. In the 1808 edition of that book (and perhaps earlier ones), Weems quoted Putnam saying:
Don’t throw away a single shot, my brave fellows; . . . don’t throw away a single shot, but take good aim; nor touch a trigger, till you can see the whites of their eyes.As with his legends of Washington and the cherry tree and Washington praying in the snow at Valley Forge, Weems gave no source for this anecdote. He wasn’t a scholarly writer, and (unlike Humphreys) he didn’t know his subjects personally. But Weems’s biography was immensely popular in the early republic, and helped form the public understanding of Bunker Hill.
Powder was scarce and must not be wasted. They should not fire at the enemy till they saw the white of their eyes, and then fire low, take aim at their waistbands. They were all marksmen, and could kill a squirrel at a hundred yards; reserve their fire, and the enemy were all destroyed. Aim at the handsome coats, pick off the commanders.This book then goes on to say, “The same orders were reiterated by Prescott at the redoubt, by Pomeroy, Stark, and all the veteran officers.” In other words, every top officer was giving the same orders, but Putnam gave them first.
Poor, harmless Shrimpton Hunt, standing by the door at the time of the engagement, was overheard saying he hoped our people would get the better of the others, was taken up and confined in gaol.Hunt was a shopkeeper in his fifties, not active in politics. And is it possible to have a more harmless-sounding name than “Shrimpton”?
Sam. Gore, for calling over to his sister to come and see a funeral pass, was taken up and confined some time; and a person who came out by water yesterday says Jemmy Lovell is in close gaol or in the dungeon, but nobody can tell for what.
Here’s another anecdote about the aftermath of the Battle of Bunker Hill, this one first published in William Tudor’s The Life of James Otis in 1823:
After the battle had continued for some time, a young person living in Boston, possessed of very keen and generous feelings, bordering a little perhaps on the romantic, as was natural to her age, sex, and lively imagination, finding that many of the wounded troops brought over from the field of action were carried by her residence, mixed a quantity of refreshing beverage, and with a female domestic by her side, stood at the door and offered it to the sufferers as they were borne along, burning with fever and parched with thirst.Tudor seems to be writing about am upper-class young woman he knew well, from whom he heard this anecdote but whose name was he was keeping confidential. Perhaps his mother, Delia Jarvis, who turned twenty-two in 1775, or another relative. (Here’s a love letter from Tudor’s father, also named William, to Miss Jarvis at the end of the following year.)
Several of them grateful for the kindness, gave her, as they thought, consolation, by assuring her of the destruction of her countrymen. One young officer said, “never mind it my brave young lady, we have peppered ’em well, depend upon it.” Her dearest feelings, deeply interested in the opposite camp, were thus unintentionally lacerated, while she was pouring oil and wine into their wounds.
After the Battle, the Kings wounded Troops were carried to Boston, & it was truly a Shocking Sight and Sound, to see the Carts loaded with those unfortunate Men, & to hear the piercing Groans of the dying & those whose painfull Wounds extorted the Sigh from the firmest Mind.Always be an England, what?
As I was a Witness to one Instance, in particular, of Stoicism, I will relate it. I was walking in one of the Streets of Boston, & saw a Man advancing towards me, his white Waistcoat, Breeches, & Stockings being very much dyed of a Scarlet Hue. I thus spake to him; “My friend, are you wounded?”
He replied, “Yes Sir! I have 3 Bullets through me.” He then told me the Places where; one of them being a mortal Wound; he then with a philosophical Calmness began to relate the History of the Battle; & in all Probability would have talked ’till he died, had I not begged him to walk off to the Hospital; which he did, in as sedate a Manner as if he had been walking for his Pleasure.
Newell probably wrote this diary entry on 18 June or later, given its comment on “the night following.” There are a lot of other problematic details in this diary entry as well, showing his limited perspective inside the besieged town and his political preferences.
The Provincials last night began an Entrenchment upon Charlestown (say Bunker’s Hill) before sunrise.From Newell’s Boston perspective, the provincials fortified Bunker’s Hill. He didn’t see Breed’s Hill as different.
The Tartar Man of War and the battery from Corps hill began a cannonade about 2 oClock AM.
Genl. [William] Howe with [blank] pieces of Cannon and three thousand Men landed on Charlestown point and marched up to the Redoubt after a great slaughter of Thirteen-hundred and twenty five of the Regulars killed and wounded—one hundred and twelve officers included—and of Provincials fifty killed and one hundred and eighty wounded and missing—among whom were Dr. [Joseph] Warren and Colonel Robinson killed—the Garrison gave way—a constant fire from the Men of War &c. all the night following—only three from one company and fourteen from another of the Regulars brought off.
18th. Skirmishes most of the day—divers killed and wounded.
EXT. COPP’S HILL IN THE NORTH END - DAY
GEN. THOMAS GAGE, his officers, and some well-dressed Loyalist Councilors climb the east side of the hill, the sounds of cannon growing louder. They reach the top and gaze at the scene below.
On the far side of the hill, the Royal Artillery in dark blue coats are firing cannon across the Charles River onto Charlestown. Warships in the bay fire shot and shells as well. Flames are rising from the small town opposite. A large body of men can be seen moving around the rise behind the town.
A couple of the gentlemen, including ABIJAH WILLARD, pull out small spyglasses. An aide hands GAGE a long brass telescope, which he peers through. A masking shot and handheld camera simulate GAGE’s view through the lens. On the far hill, men are piling up dirt with shovels, building a redoubt. A man in a long coat and broad-brimmed hat, PRESCOTT, strides back and forth along the new wall.WILLARD
(looking through a smaller spyglass)Good lord, that’s Captain Prescott!GAGEWhat’s that, Mr. Willard? What can you see?GAGE hands WILLARD his telescope. WILLARD puts it to his eye. Another POV shot of PRESCOTT walking along the parapet as WILLARD speaks. A younger officer starts to walk the same way. The provincials keep digging. Cannons keep booming.
WILLARDThat man in command of the little redoubt, Your Excellency -- he’s Mr. William Prescott, a gentleman of Groton. My late wife, my first late wife, was his sister. He was promoted captain in the last French war, on Cape Breton. I suppose they call him “colonel” now -- last autumn, as I heard, the rebels chose him to command a regiment --GAGEYes, yes. The only question is, Will they fight?WILLARDAs to his men, I cannot answer for them.(lowers the telescope to look at GAGE)But Prescott will fight you to the gates of Hell.
But in one way the distinction between Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill may have really mattered.
In the immediate aftermath of the battle, many New Englanders thought it had been a debacle for their side. The British military had driven provincial troops from a fortified position and moved closer to Cambridge headquarters. Hundreds of men had been killed, wounded, or captured, including the head of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, Dr. Joseph Warren. The artillery had lost five of the six cannons it took into the battle. All those artillery companies’ officers and a few other officers were in various shades of disgrace.
Provincials consoled themselves with news of the heavy British losses. Only as time went on did it become clear that the battle had discouraged the British army from trying to break the siege again. Then the Battle of Bunker Hill gradually turned into an American success story.
In the meantime, the Provincial Congress formed a committee of inquiry to look into what happened. This committee’s report was mainly supposed to put the American cause in the best possible light for London readers, but there was also the question of what had gone wrong. The committee delivered their report on 25 July. Before getting down to the business of lambasting Crown policies, it said:
...commanders of the New England army had, about the 14th ult. [i.e., of last month], received advice that General [Thomas] Gage had issued orders for a party of the troops under his command to post themselves on Bunker’s Hill. . . .However, exactly a month later Col. William Prescott wrote to John Adams in Philadelphia:
Accordingly, on the 16th ult., orders were issued, that a detachment of 1000 men should that evening march to Charlestown, and intrench upon that hill. Just before nine o’clock they left Cambridge, and proceeded to Breed’s Hill, situated on the further part of the peninsula next to Boston, for, by some mistake, this hill was marked out for the intrenchment instead of the other.
On the 16th of June, in the evening, I received orders to march to Breed’s Hill in Charlestown, with a party of about one thousand men. . . .And then there’s a 12 July letter from a man named Samuel Dyer (perhaps a Boston officeholder of that name), passing on secondhand news:
We arrived at the spot, the lines were drawn by the engineer, and we began the intrenchment about twelve o’clock; and plying this work with all possible expedition till just before sun-rising, when the enemy began a very heavy cannonading and bombardment.
that the engineer and two generals went on to the hill at night and reconnoitred the ground; that one general and the engineer were of opinion we ought not to intrench on Charlestown Hill [apparently meaning Breed’s Hill] till we had thrown up some works on the north and south ends of Bunker Hill, to cover our men in their retreat, if that should happen, but on the pressing importunity of the other general officer, it was consented to begin as was done.So which account is correct? We don’t have a written record of the orders issued on 16 June, if they were ever written down. All of these accounts come from after the battle, and are thus tinged by that oldest and deepest of human motivations, the desire to cover your own arse.
It’s common in discussions of the Battle of Bunker Hill for someone to add, “Actually, it was fought on Breed’s Hill.” This is often said with the slightly smug, know-it-all tone associated with history blogs like this one. (See examples here.)
The Breed’s Hill label is arguably true (and arguably false—as I’ll get to in a moment). But why does the different name matter, besides offering the pleasure of showing you know more than the average bear? After all, names are conventions, and our standard names for historical events aren’t necessarily the most accurate.
For instance, Bostonians were calling the shootings on King Street on 5 Mar 1770 a “Horrid Massacre” within weeks after the event; that phrase is in the title of the town’s official report on the incident. Friends of the royal government avoided such language; their response to the Boston report referred to the “Unhappy Disturbance.” Clearly the word “massacre” had political ramifications, but it’s nonetheless become our standard term for the event.
What about the night of 16 Dec 1773, when Bostonians dumped tea into their harbor? For decades locals referred to that as “the destruction of the tea.” Then in 1826 Josiah Wyeth of Cincinnati started to speak of the “Boston Tea Party.” Prof. Ben Carp of Tufts made me notice how New Englanders first adopted that term to refer to the actors, not the action, as in “Nicholas Campbell...made one of the celebrated Tea Party in Boston harbor” (Connecticut Courant, 31 July 1826). After two books based on the memories of George R. T. Hewes used “Tea Party” in their titles, the new name stuck and became our standard term for the event.
There are similar quibbles possible with the names of other Revolutionary events:
For over a century the main interpretive site at the monument has been the 1902 classically-styled lodge, and the main visual tool was a rather nice scale model of the battle—low-tech but effective. The new visitor center is a two-story building across the street from the park. That building, formerly a branch library, displays a new “cyclorama” mural of the battle by Arlington painter John S. Coles. The monument itself has a new exterior lighting scheme.
(The Globe article is off on the battle’s casualty count when it says, “The redcoats lost more than 1,000 troops, compared to about 400 dead among the colonists.” Those are the approximate figures for the dead and wounded. The British suffered 226 dead, the provincials about 160 by the end of the summer. The Battle of Bunker Hill was a victory for the British military, but more costly than any battlefield loss during the rest of the war.)
For a few days I’ll post items about the Battle of Bunker Hill, at least when I can get to a computer. As for tomorrow’s ceremony, the Boston National Historical Park events calendar says it starts at 10:00 A.M. and runs through noon. (Which is, alas, in conflict with Harmonious Blacksmith.)
Vanessa Harbin, editor of Smithsonian Focus, has emailed me an alert about its “Inspiring Americans Contest.” The institution invites legal residents of the United States over the age of eighteen to “Describe for us in an essay using approximately 250 words or less an American individual who inspires you.”
A panel of Smithsonian Institution judges will pick five finalists, whose work will be posted on a webpage where folks can vote for their favorites later this month. The winner will receive a free year of Contributing Membership in the Smithsonian at the Partner Level ($225-$349), including Smithsonian monthly magazine.
The deadline for this contest is noon, Eastern time, on Friday, 15 June—that’s this week!
ADDENDUM: The page for voting on one’s choice of Inspiring American is up now.
Ned tells a story tolerably well. He told of [smudge]. He was a better Prophet than Elijah for he stretched himself on her but once to bring her to Life whereas Elijah did 3 times. He breathed into her the Breath of Life.Here’s a more dignified portrait of silversmith and engraver Nathaniel Hurd from about a decade later.
Ned told the Duke of Whartons Character and Life, &c. Ned was sociable, told the stories he had read pretty well, &c. Billy was sociable too, but awed, afraid.
They told of the wickedest jokes that had been put upon Nat Hurd, by some fellows in Boston, who found out that he had such a Girl at his shop, at such a time. One went to him and pretended to make a confidant of him.
Oh god, what shall I do? That Girl, [smudge] her, has given me the Clap. [smudge]
That scared him and made him cry, Oh damn her, what shall I do? I saw her such a Night. I am [peppered?].
He went to the Dr. [smudge] and was salivated for the Clap. Then they sent him before justice Phillips, then before justice Tyler, in short they played upon him till they provoked him so that he swore, he would beat the Brains out of the first man that came into his shop, to plague him with his [smudge].
The first paper to be delivered on Friday evening will be my own: “The Revolutionary-Era Boy and ‘His Joyrnal’: Diary-Keeping as a Step Toward Manhood.” To get in the right mood, today I’ll share John Quincy Adams’s thoughts on keeping a journal and letterbook from a letter to his mother, 27 Sept 1778:
My Pappa enjoins it on me to keep a journal, or a diary, of the Events that happen to me, and of objects that I See, and of Characters that I converse with from day, to day, and altho I am Convinced of the utility, importance, & necessity, of this Exercise, yet I have not patience, & perseverance, enough to do it so Constantly as I ought.If John Quincy had taken all the effort that went into this letter and just kept a diary from the start, then he wouldn’t have felt such guilt and anxiety about disappointing his parents on that score. But I get the feeling he would have suffered a lot of guilt and anxiety about disappointing them anyway.
My Pappa who takes a great deal of Pains to put me in the right way, has also advised me to Preserve Copies of all my letters, & has given me a Convenient Blank Book for this end; and although I shall have the mortification a few years hence, to read a great deal of my Childish nonsense, yet I shall have the Pleasure, & advantage, of Remarking the several steps, by which I shall have advanced, in taste, judgment, & knowledge.
a journal book & a letter Book of a Lad of Eleven years old, Cannot be expected to Contain much of Science, Litterature, arts, wisdom, or wit, yet it may Serve to perpetuate many observations that I may make, & may hereafter help me to recolect both persons, & things, that would other ways escape my memory.
I have been to see [various sites]…in & about Paris, which if I had written down in a diary, or a Letter Book, would give me at this time much Pleasure to revise, & would enable me hereafter to Entertain my Freinds, but I have neglected it & therefore, can now only resolve to be more thoughtful, & Industrious, for the Future & to encourage me in this resolution & enable me to keep it with more ease & advantage my father has given me hopes of a Present of a Pencil & Pencil Book in which I can make notes upon the spot to be Transfered afterewards in my Diary & my Letters this will give me great Pleasure both because it will be a sure means of improvement to myself & enable me to be more entertaing to you.
Last night several Gundaloes went to Noddle’s Island for hay—two hundred and thirty Regulars went off soon after sunrise to support them. Upon the appearance of our people they tho’t proper to retire and arrived safe back here.Here’s another document from that spring showing the fight to control natural resources early in the siege:
Malden, May 8th, 1775. The joint Committee of Malden and Chelsea, Voted, Capt. John Dexter, Thomas Hills, and Jonathan Williams be a Committee to wait on Gen. [Artemas] Ward, and inform him that Doct. Sam: Danforth, of Boston, passes backwards and forwards to that place, and from his well-known Conduct and Behaviour, we have reason to suspect his Attachment to our most Righteous Cause, likewise his securing Hay and moving it down to Winnisimmet ferry in order to be removed to Boston: and that the Committee has taken care that said Hay shall be removed to some more secure place.Dr. Samuel Danforth (1740-1827) owned farmland in Chelsea. His brother Thomas was a lawyer in Charlestown. And both Danforth brothers were known to favor the royal government. It looks like they went into Boston in June and stayed there, though Dr. Danforth’s wife and family remained with her father in Chelsea.
On Wednesday I shared some reports of a prisoner exchange between the British and provincial armies, 232 years earlier. The Essex Gazette reported the provincials’ prisoners as:
Major Dunbar, and Lieut. Hamilton of the 64th on horse-back; Lieut. Potter, of the marines, in a chaise; John Hilton of the 47th, Alexander Campbell of the 4th, John Tyne, Samuel Marcy, Thomas Parry, and Thomas Sharp, of the marines, wounded men, in two cartsFew sources on the siege of Boston say anything more about those men, so here’s what I’ve been able to gather.
Lieutenant Isaac Potter, of the marines, was taken prisoner, and confined some time at Reuben Brown’s. Colonel [James] Barrett was directed, April 22d, to give him liberty to walk round the house, but to keep a constant guard of three men, day and night, to present his being insulted or making his escape.Maj. David Mason of the Massachusetts artillery regiment wrote “Lieut Potter of the Marines” in a notebook he was keeping in 1774-75, so their paths must have crossed.
Earlier in the week I promised to discuss the mysterious marriage of William Molineux’s eldest daughter, Ann. I want to thank Boston 1775 reader Donald Campbell for pushing me on this topic last month. I’d read the following material before, but I hadn’t followed up on it or tried to put it together.
Ann Molineux, as I described earlier, was the first child of the marriage between William Molineux and Ann or Marianne Guionneau. She was baptized on 24 Aug 1748.
Ward Hallowell was born on 22 Nov 1747 to merchant captain Benjamin Hallowell (1725-1799) and his wife Mary Boylston (1723-1795). In 1757 the captain commanded a small warship called King George, commissioned by the province of Massachusetts. After the fighting with France he sought a lucrative post within Britain’s Customs service, rising in 1770 to be one of the five Customs Commissioners overseeing all the ports of North America. In the early 1770s the Hallowells bought a mansion in Jamaica Plain, just outside Boston.
Ward was his parents’ oldest surviving child, but he was not destined to carry on the family name. [It’s so rare to be able to write a sentence like that these days.] Instead, Ward’s maternal uncle Nicholas Boylston of London, having no children of his own, offered to make Ward his heir if he agreed to change his surname. Since Uncle Nicholas was immensely rich, this was not a hard decision. In his late teens Ward Hallowell sailed to London to start learning the business. In 1770 he became Ward Nicholas Boylston by royal decree, and in 1771 he became, yes, immensely rich.
[The Nicholas Boylston in London was not the same as the Nicholas Boylston whom John S. Copley painted in Boston, though he, too, was immensely rich.]
The following appears in the first volume of Mary Caroline Crawford’s Famous Families of Massachusetts, published in 1930.
He [Ward Nicholas Boylston] chose for a wife—probably about 1770...—Ann Molineux, daughter of William Molineux, Boston merchant and friend of Samuel Adams. The union of this son of a supporter of the king with the daughter of a Boston patriot apparently was clandestinely planned, as the ceremony was performed under a permit issued by Governor John Wentworth of New Hampshire. The marriage probably occurred at Portsmouth.Unfortunately, Crawford didn’t say where her information came from. It may have been from Nellie Zada Rice’s Molyneux Genealogy, published in 1904; I haven’t seen that book, but I understand from an online description that it doesn’t cite original sources either. The implication of the passage above is that someone in the twentieth century saw a marriage document issued by Gov. Wentworth for Ward Nicholas Boylston (or Ward Hallowell) and Ann Molineux. Everything else could be based on family traditions—probably the Boylston family.
Not long after becoming a benedict, Boylston went abroad for an extended tour. Then the Revolution broke out and he was obliged to seek refuge in London. Apparently he did not bother much about his wife’s comfort or welfare and that lady’s troubles so preyed on her mind that she long hovered on the verge of insanity. Finally she lived apart from her husband. But in 1779, after having been deserted by him in London, she started for America,—and died on shipboard. The funds for her support, during the last part of her life, seem to have been furnished by her brother William...
Yesterday I had a chat with Cambridge historical tour guide Donna “Mistress Elizabeth” La Rue about which Boston steeple Paul Revere used to send his lantern signal to Patriots in Charlestown. He told the founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society that he’d arranged “if the British went out by Water, we would shew two Lanthorns in the North Church Steeple; and if by Land, one, as a Signal.”
Did “the North Church” mean the Old North Meeting-House in North Square, near Revere’s home, or Christ Church on Salem Street, a couple of blocks away and now called Old North Church? Congregationalist meeting-houses weren’t usually called “churches”—though sometimes they were. Anglican churches weren’t usually designated by geographic location—though sometimes they were. (Earlier discussion on that nomenclature here.)
Revere named the building in 1798, so he probably used the term that prevailed in that decade. If he meant the Old North Meeting-House, it’s notable that he didn’t mention that the British military had pulled it down more than twenty years before. But would Bostonians of that decade have understood the term “North Church” to mean Christ Church? That’s what Donna and I discussed yesterday.
Here’s an advertisement in the 20 May 1794 Salem Gazette:
John Wilson,And a passage from the diary of the Rev. William Bentley of Salem, 3 Nov 1797:
NEXT door to the Rev. Doctor Stillman, opposite to the North Church, Salem Street, Boston—respectfully informs the Ladies of Salem and its vicinity, that he has erected a machine for the Glazing of Linen and Calico Gowns...
We took leave of Mr. Freeman & then passed to the North End. At the head of Hancock’s Wharf we saw the Frigate & received the kind attentions of Col. Claghorn. We then left the town, passing the North Church in Salem Street & over Charlestown & Malden Bridges continued our route towards Salem.Quotes like these show that in the 1790s people were using the term “North Church” to refer to a building on Salem Street—which could only be Christ Church. Old North Meeting-House was not only gone, but it had been a couple of blocks away.
Soon afterward, the signal agreed upon was given; this was a lanthorn hung out in the upper window of the tower of the N. Ch., towards Charlestown.Below is part of a northwest-looking image of Boston’s 1768 skyline engraved by none other than Paul Revere from a drawing by Christian Remick. It’s not an exact picture—it’s more like one of those tourist maps that enlarges all the businesses that have sponsored the map and shrinks all the rest. In this case, the town’s places of worship stand out, not just because they were the tallest buildings in town but also because Remick and Revere were making a point about Boston being a godly town.
We do have to ask why Revere and his confederates would signal from an Anglican church, one whose minister and congregants (by and large) supported the Crown. Again, the picture hints at a likely answer. Christ Church was high on Copp’s Hill and had the tallest spire in Boston. A signal from its tower would be more visible than the same signal from the Old North Meeting-House. Furthermore, once the military authorities spotted those lanterns, it would take a longer time for men to climb up there and snuff them out.
