Talk on the Shays Rebellion in Lincoln, 16 Mar.

On Sunday, 16 March, the Friends of Minute Man National Park will host a lecture by Gary Shattuck on “Shays’ Rebellion: The Trials for Job Shattuck.”

It looks like this lecture will be based on Gary Shattuck’s recent book, which the publisher describes like this:

It is not often that descriptions of historical events can be rewritten absent compelling evidence that those past accounts were somehow in error. But that is precisely the result when new-found court documents, presumed to not even exist, shed surprising new light on the involvement of Capt. Job Shattuck, one of the principal leaders in the event history has come to call “Shays’s Rebellion.”

In Artful and Designing Men: The Trials of Job Shattuck and the Regulation of 1786-1787, Gary Shattuck (half-nephew, seven generations removed) delves deeply into the significant contributions made by this charismatic and well-respected veteran of the Seven Years’ War, the Revolutionary War, and community member as he transitioned from peaceful town father to protest leader. Tried and sentenced to death for high treason, shocking new information provided during his trial now forces a reassessment of this honorable man’s actions, resulting in the deserved rehabilitation of a reputation that history has denied until now.

Here’s a woodcut of Job Shattuck and his fellow resistance leader/scapegoat Daniel Shays from an almanac in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Last fall Marian Pierre-Louis interviewed Gary Shattuck about his book for the Fieldstone Common podcast.

This talk will begin at 3:00 P.M. at Bemis Hall in Lincoln. It’s free and open to the public.