“Mr. Brattle presents his Duty to Governor Gage.”

In August 1774, Gen. Thomas Gage asked William Brattle, general overseeing the Middlesex County militia, for an inventory of the gunpowder in the Charlestown powderhouse.

I’ve quoted Brattle’s reply before, but that was an astonishing seventeen years ago, so I’m running that text again, as it appeared in the 5 September Boston Gazette. Apologies to anyone who remembers it exactly from before.

On 27 August, Brattle wrote:

Mr. Brattle presents his Duty to Governor Gage. He apprehends it his Duty to acquaint his Excellency from Time to Time with every Thing he hears and knows to be true and is of Importance in these troublesome Times, which is the Apology Mr. Brattle makes for troubling the General with this Letter.

Capt. [Jonas] Minot of Concord, a very worthy Man, this Minute informed Mr. Brattle that there had been repeatedly made pressing Applications to him to warn his Company to meet at one Minute’s Warning, equipt with Arms and Ammunition, according to law, he had constantly denied them, adding, if he did not gratify them he should be constrained to quit his Farms and Town;

Mr. Brattle told him he had better do that than lose his Life and be hanged for a Rebel, he observed that many Captains had done it, though not in the Regiment to which he belonged, which was and is under Col. Elisha Jones, but in a neighbouring Regiment.

Mr. Brattle begs Leave humbly to quere, Whether it would not be best that there should not be one Commission Officer of the Militia in the Province.

This morning the Select Men of Medford, came and received their Town Stock of Powder, which was in the Arsenal on Quarry-Hill, so that there is now therein, the King’s Powder only, which shall remain there as a sacred Depositum till ordered out by the Capt. General.

To his Excellency General Gage, &c. &c. &c.

This time around, I’m struck by the phrase “warn his company to meet at one minute’s warning, equipt with arms and ammunition.” This was weeks before the Worcester County Convention issued a call for towns to prepare a third of their militia members ”to be ready to act at a minute’s warning.” When the Massachusetts Provincial Congress endorsed that call in October, it left out the reference to a minute. Nonetheless, the popular term for those units became “minute companies” and “minute men.”

This 27 August letter shows that the proposal to have fighting men ready in a minute was already in the air before it became a formal proposal and before it reached print.

Indeed, because Brattle’s letter was transcribed into a lot of newspapers that September, it might well have played a role in popularizing the “minute’s warning” metric. And of course, that letter set off the chain of events that produced the “Powder Alarm.”

For more about that “Powder Alarm” and its Sestercentennial significance, you can listen to my conversation with Tiziana Dearing on WBUR’s Radio Boston show. And come out to the commemorations this Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday.

Commemorating the Suffolk Resolves in Milton, 31 Aug.

On 6 July 1774, sixty men from towns in Berkshire County met in Stockbridge as a county convention.

On the colony’s western end, that gathering was far from the royal governor’s troops, and also beyond the powerful Loyalists of the Connecticut River valley.

I don’t think those men had been elected by their towns, so this might have been a self-appointed group of activists. They endorsed the Solemn League and Covenant boycott, and they provided a model for a new form of resistance.

County conventions thus became another way to protest Parliament’s Coercive Acts. Like court closings, they moved from west to east, moving closer to Boston and the redcoats.

The Massachusetts Government Act arrived during that time, putting new restrictions on town meetings. But that law said nothing about county meetings because there hadn’t been any before.

On 16 August 1774, men from “Every Town & District in the County of Suffolk, Except Weymouth, Cohasset, Needham & Chelsea” met at Thomas Doty’s tavern in Stoughton. (That part of town later became Canton.) At that time Suffolk County included not only Boston but also all of modern Norfolk County extending to the Rhode Island border.

However, those men decided not to proceed formally “as Several Towns Had not Appointed Delegates for the Special Purpose of a County Meeting.” Instead, they issued a call for all towns to send such delegates to a meeting “at the House of Mr. Woodward Innholder in Dedham on Tuesday the Sixth day of September.”

The owner and likely manager of that inn was actually Richard Woodward’s wife, formerly Mrs. Deborah Ames. She had run the place as a widow from 1764 to 1772, and would run it again after she and Woodward divorced in 1784.

On 6 September, the Suffolk County delegates convened and named a large committee headed by Dr. Joseph Warren, one of the several Boston delegates, to write its resolutions. Warren was a practiced newspaper essayist, and he could also build on the resolutions adopted by Berkshire, Worcester, and Middlesex Counties.

On 9 September, the Suffolk County Convention met in Milton “at the house of Mr. Daniel Vose”—another tavern. The delegates unanimously approved the resolutions Dr. Warren had drafted.

Warren then had Paul Revere carry Suffolk County Resolutions to Samuel Adams and his other colleagues in Philadelphia. There the Continental Congress had been startled by the “Powder Alarm” scare, and its members no doubt welcomed Revere’s confirmation that Boston wasn’t in ashes and was still resisting. They endorsed the resolutions, elevating that document above the other Massachusetts county declarations.

Of the three taverns associated with the Suffolk County Convention, only the Vose house survives, albeit in a different place. It’s now headquarters of the Milton Historical Society and is called the Suffolk Resolves House. 

On Sunday, 31 August, the Milton Historical Society, the Massachusetts Freemasons, and the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Suffolk Resolves with guided tours of the Vose house, speakers, and reenactors. This event is scheduled to run from 9:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Tickets are $10 per adult, $20 for a family of two adults and children under eighteen. Proceeds will benefit the Milton Historical Society.

“Humourously call’d the Little Pope”

Here’s one more detail from the merchant John Andrews’s 22 July 1774 letter about how over a hundred Boston merchants came to sign one of two protests against the Boston committee of correspondence.

Andrews wrote that the shorter, milder protest that he signed was “humourously call’d the Little Pope.”

That’s a Pope Night reference! Joshua Coffin’s 1845 Sketch of the History of Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury stated:

In the day time, companies of little boys might be seen, in various parts of the town, with their little popes, dressed up in the most grotesque and fantastic manner, which they carried about, some on boards, and some on little carriages, for their own and others’ amusement.

Pierre Eugène du Simitière drew a Boston boy with such a “little pope” on a board in 1767. It’s a miniature version of one of the big wagons rolled around on the night of 5 November with (from left) a horned devil holding a lantern, the papal effigy, and a big lantern.

The milder protest was thus like a miniature effigy carried by little boys while the larger, broader protest was like a full Pope Night wagon. That might not reflect well on Andrews and his cohort, but he had enough of a sense of humor to share the joke. 

“To sell according to the tenor of the Covenant”?

John Andrews’s 22 July 1774 letter to his relative in Philadelphia offers an inside look at why he and some other merchants who generally supported the Whigs ended up signing protests against the Boston committee of correspondence.

According to Andrews, he had “countermanded my orders [from Britain] by the first opportunity after the Port Bill arriv’d, and of consequence acquiesced with a non-importation agreement when propos’d about three or four weeks after.”

But then Andrews heard that merchants in Newport, New York, Philadelphia, and points south hadn’t agreed to such an agreement. He figured that boycott wouldn’t take hold, and he’d lose money if he continued to abstain. So he “embrac’d the first opportunity and re-ordered about one fourth part of such goods as I thought would be most in demand.”

But a month or so later, Andrews saw rural towns signing onto the Solemn League and Covenant, a non-consumption agreement—people were promising not to buy those goods he had ordered. That’s why he felt the covenant “has serv’d rather to create dissentions among ourselves than to answer any valuable purpose.” It would cost him money!

Likewise, Andrews wrote, the merchant Samuel Elliot (shown above in later life) was

expecting a large quantity of goods which, should they arrive, he can’t possibly qualify himself to sell according to the tenor of the Covenant, having countermanded ’em no other ways than to have ’em shipped, provided your place, with New York. Rhode Island, &c., should have their goods as usual: and from the determination of those places, he has all the reason in the world to expect them.

Elliot had committed to non-importation only if the merchants in other ports did the same, and he’d told his contacts in Britain to keep shipping him goods if they didn’t. Therefore, he was now expecting to receive lots of stuff that more and more folks in New England were swearing not to buy.

Andrews reported that at the 27 June town meeting in Old South

Eliot display’d his eloquence in a long speech upon the subject, deliver’d in so masterly a stile and manner as to gain ye. plaudits of perhaps the largest assembly ever conven’d here, by an almost universal clap: wherein he deliver’d his sentiments with that freedom and manliness peculiar only to himself.

However, the formal vote at that town meeting was shaped by another set of gentlemen: those who had signed the complimentary addresses to departing governor Thomas Hutchinson and incoming governor Thomas Gage. They were upset by “hearing the letters read that were sent to your place [Philadelphia] and New York (the latter in particular) in regard to that part of their conduct.” Resenting that criticism, those merchants and professional men demanded a vote “to censure and dismiss ye. Committee.” And they lost big.

Andrews said he had expected a motion “to suspend ye. Covenant till ye. [Continental] Congress should meet.” He insisted, “We don’t mean to oppose any general measure that maybe adopted by the Congress, but are well dispos’d in the cause of Freedom as any of our opponents, and would equally oppose and detest Tyranny exerciz’d either in England or America.”

Likewise, some towns considering the Solemn League and Covenant decided to take no action until seeing what the Congress would do, or added clauses reserving the leeway to adjust the terms based on that Congress’s recommendations. But that didn’t make merchants like Elliot and Andrews any happier.

TOMORROW: One last detail.

“An oath, certified by a magistrate to be by them taken”

Earlier this summer, I spent a few days discussing Albert Matthews’s 1915 analysis of two forms of the Solemn League and Covenant, and then laying out how I came to the opposite conclusion about which text came from Boston and which from Worcester.

Part of Matthews’s argument was that one of the texts was “more drastic.” But the main pledge of both texts is:

we will not buy, purchase or consume, or suffer any person, by, for or under us to purchase or consume, in any manner whatever, any goods, wares, or merchandize which shall arrive in America from Great Britain aforesaid, from and after the last day of August next ensuing.

In that regard, the two versions were equally strict.

One text had this additional promise:

That from and after the first day of October next ensuing, we will, not by ourselves, or any for, by, or under us, purchase or use any goods, wares, manufactures or merchandize, whensoever or howsoever imported from Great Britain, until the harbour of Boston shall be opened, and our charter rights restored.

That left the month of September to buy and use goods from Britain imported before 31 August. But nobody seems to have complained about that clause, or the lack of it.

Instead, the sticking point for some opponents was language that appeared in the other text (language which I believe was added to the Boston draft by Worcester’s committee of correspondence, and then endorsed by Boston and adopted by other towns):

That such persons may not have it in their power to impose upon us by any pretence whatever, we further agree to purchase no article of merchandize from them, or any of them, who shall not have signed this, or a similar covenant, or will not produce an oath, certified by a magistrate to be by them taken to the following purpose: viz.

I —————— of —————— in the county of —————— do solemnly swear that the goods I have now on hand, and propose for sale, have not, to the best of my knowledge, been imported from Great Britain, into any port of America since the last day of August, one thousand seven hundred and seventy four, and that I will not, contrary to the spirit of an agreement entering into through this province import or purchase of any person so importing any goods as aforesaid, until the port or harbour of Boston, shall be opened, and we are fully restored to the free use of our constitutional and charter rights.

The newspaper letter I quoted yesterday specifically complained about “The multiplication of Oaths.” Bringing sworn oaths into this boycott was a step too far for that writer (even though people who signed any form of the covenant didn’t need to swear separate oaths).

In a devout society like colonial New England, sworn oaths carried more weight than other sorts of public promises. Bringing up an oath therefore made this text stronger, thus more radical than the other.

The letter writer seems to have expected people to break their strict non-importation promises, offering excuses or seeking exceptions as many Boston merchants had done in 1769–70. Having people swear to strictly adhere to this boycott wouldn’t make them any more careful about its terms, that writer suggested—it would simply give them an incentive to “disregard” an oath. The letter concluded:

…Society cannot exist when Oaths shall cease to be religiously observed. When that dreadful Event happens among any People, their Lives, Liberties and Properties cannot be safe.

Evidently, society depends on us being able to shade the truth in front of our neighbors without worrying about the hereafter.

(The engraving above is “Woman Swearing a Child to a grave Citizen” by William Hogarth, courtesy of the New York Public Library.)

“May not great Heats and Animosities from hence be justly feared?”

In addition to the two protests against the Solemn League and Covenant boycott that I’ve quoted over the past two days, three Boston newspapers also published a letter laying out the argument against it at more length.

That letter is written in the first person singular: “I beg Leave to lay before them the following Facts and Observations…”

However, in a 22 July private letter, John Andrews, a signatory of the milder protest, wrote that “our reasons for a dissent are given [in that essay] in a more explicit manner than in the protest.”

So even if this letter had a singular voice, and may have come from a single hand, a larger community of merchants felt it spoke for them.

That letter was sent to the printers of the Boston Evening-Post, Boston Post-Boy, and Boston News-Letter addressed to “Messirs. Fleets,” “Messieurs MILLS and HICKS,” and “Messi’rs PRINTERS,” respectively. Editors still like a sign of individual attention.

(Management of the News-Letter was in flux that summer. On 9 June Margaret Draper announced that she was continuing her late husband Richard’s partnership with John Boyle. But on 11 August she announced that she was taking over the newspaper herself.)

The letter ran through the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant, emphasizing the hardships and how signers were supposed to shun anyone who didn’t sign and continued to import goods from Britain. Then it argued:

Whoever attends to these Terms of the Covenant, wholly proscribing the Goods expected in the Fall and all those upon hand, unless an Oath is taken, must be greatly concerned lest from the Non-exception of Articles of necessity the people should be drawn into a dangerous Snare, and Perjury in many Cases fatally ensue. The multiplication of Oaths (tending to introduce a disregard of them) has been always carefully avoided by wise Legislators; it being well judged that Society cannot exist when Oaths shall cease to be religiously observed. When that dreadful Event happens among any People, their Lives, Liberties and Properties cannot be safe. . . .

It may also be observed, that if a Carpenter, a Taylor, or a Shoemaker shall refuse to sign, he is to be considered as a contumacious Importer.--Or should they sign the Covenant, they cannot serve those in the Way of their Occupation who shall not---What distress must this occasion at a Season when little or no Employ is to be procured among us without these Restrictions? . . . May not great Heats and Animosities from hence be justly feared?

Upon the whole, as I think this Covenant not adapted to procure that Relief we so greatly need, because I think it arbitrary and oppressive, subversive of our Rights and destructive of the Morals of the People, as also inconsistent with the true Spirit of Liberty and the Constitution, and not founded on the Principles of Honor and Honesty, I am led to offer these Observations to the Public, which appear to me to be founded on Reason.

Of course, the people promoting the boycott wanted it to be total. They wanted non-participants to be shunned. And one group, at least, wanted people to be bound to the movement by oath. That was the path to solidarity.

TOMORROW: The weight of an oath.

“A Committee exercising such extensive Powers as this”

In addition to the main protest against Boston’s committee of correspondence and Solemn League and Covenant boycott, quoted yesterday, there was also a shorter, milder protest signed by only eight merchants.

This was also dated 29 June 1774 and appeared in the same newspapers as the big one. In fact, the Boston Post-Boy printers ran it first, perhaps because it was easier to set in type.

That protest read:

WHEREAS at a Meeting of the Town of Boston, held at the Old-South Meeting-House on the 28th Instant, a Motion was made and seconded, That the Committee of Correspondence of said Town should be censured and dismissed, which being put to Vote passed in the Negative.

We the Subscribers, being Dissentients therefrom, do now enter our Protest, grounded on the following Reasons:

First, Because that notwithstanding we think that a Committee of Correspondence, constitutionally appointed, may at any Time be useful, provided it was under proper Restrictions, and that the Letters wrote by them previous to their being sent were duly considered and approbated by the Town; yet that a Committee exercising such extensive Powers as this has done, is of dangerous Tendency.

This Committee was appointed in November 1772, to state the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province in particular, with the Infringements and Violations thereof that have been, or from Time to Time may be made; and to publish the same to the World as the Sense of the Town; and likewise to request of the other Towns a free Communication of their Sentiments on this Subject; and to make Report of the same to this Town for their Approbation; and were not authorized to publish the same until it was approved, and the Letter accompanyed by the Town; and when this Business was done we apprehend the Committee was dissolved, or at furthest at the End of the Year; and as they have not been re-chosen, we are of Opinion they do not properly now subsist as a Committee.

Because the said Committee have lately, not only without the Knowledge and Approbation of the Town, but in a secret Manner, issued out to many Towns in the Province a Covenant for Non-Consumption of British Goods, accompanied by a Letter recommending the same, signed by their Clerk, which Covenant was of the highest Importance to the Town.

Because they have also, as a Committee of the Town, aspersed the Characters of many respectable Inhabitants of this Town, in Letters written by them to the Cities of New-York and Philadelphia.

Nothing less than a Sense of its being our Indispensable Duty, to defend the Characters of our Neighbours, when we think them injured, could have induced us to give this last Reason.——

We declare we have no private Pique against any one Gentleman of the Committee, but have an Esteem for some of them, and can readily do them Justice to say, that this Conduct is so far from being consonant to the Tenor of their Actions (as far as we have known them) in the common Occurrences of Life, that we were struck with the greatest Surprize at the Discovery.

The men who signed this protest were Edward Payne, Thomas Amory (shown above), John Amory, Samuel Elliot, Caleb Blanchard, Frederick William Geyer, John Andrews, and Samuel Bradstreet. Some were future Loyalists, others moderate Whigs. Payne was even a victim of the Boston Massacre.

This document notably didn’t criticize the Solemn League and Covenant itself, only how the committee had promulgated it without running it by a town meeting first.

In fact, on 30 May the town had instructed the committee to write a non-consumption agreement and communicate it to other Massachusetts towns. The committee members evidently felt they didn’t have to go back to another meeting for approval of the final text.

TOMORROW: Behind the protests.

“A solemn League and Covenant of a most dangerous Nature”

At the start of the month, I described the 28 June 1774 Boston town meeting that endorsed the committee of correspondence and the Solemn League and Covenant boycott it had promulgated.

Boston’s merchants, including men who usually supported the Whigs as well as those who leaned Loyalist, were far outvoted at that meeting. But they nonetheless lodged a protest.

Or actually two.

Those documents were dated 29 June. They appeared in the 4 July Boston Post-Boy, and three days later in the Boston News-Letter. Those newspapers had become the voice of the town’s Loyalists.

The 4 July Boston Evening-Post also published the protests, though trying to remain neutral. The Whig newspapers didn’t touch them.

The longer of those protests said:

WHEREAS at a Meeting of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of this Town, held at Faneuil-Hall, the 27th Instant [i.e., of this month], and from thence adjourned to the South Meeting-House, Copies of certain Circular Letters, wrote by the Committee of Correspondence, so called, for this Town, to the other Towns of this Province, and other Places on the Continent, and Answers thereto from the several Towns and Colonies were read, likewise a certain Circular Letter, accompanied with a solemn League and Covenant of a most dangerous Nature and Tendency, which hath been drawn up by the said Committee of Correspondence, Copies whereof have been by them clandestinely dispersed through the Province, without the Consent or Knowledge of the Town; and recommended to the People of the Country, to execute without Loss of Time, “least their Enemies should defeat its Purpose.”

These Points being fully spoke to, with Candour and Moderation, by Gentlemen of different Sentiments, it was at length motioned and seconded, That the Committee of Correspondence be censured by the Town, and dismissed from any further Service in that Capacity: after some Discussion on the Subject, and other Letters produced and read, the Question was put, and passed in the negative.

Wherefore we, the Dissentients, do now make this public and solemn Protest against the Doings of the said Committee, as such, against the solemn League and Covenant aforementioned, and against the Proceedings of the Town, so far as they have adopted the illegal Proceedings of the said Committee of Correspondence, for the following Reasons, viz.

I. Because with regard to the solemn League and Covenant aforementioned, we look on it to be a base, wicked, and illegal Measure, calculated to distress and ruin many Merchants, Shopkeepers, and others, in this Metropolis, and effect the whole commercial Interest of this Province; to put a Check at once to our Industry by stopping the Exportation of all the staple Articles of our Trade, such as Oil, Pot and Pearl-Ashes, Flax-Seed, Naval-Stores, Lumber of all Sorts, and likewise Cod Fish by way of Spain and Portugal, the proceeds of which go to Great-Britain as Remittance for Goods; also will put an End to a very valuable Branch of Trade to the Province, the Ship-Building; to create unhappy Divisions in Towns and in Families; to open a Door for the most wicked Perjuries, and to introduce almost every Species of Evil, that we have not yet felt, and cannot serve any good Purpose.

II. Because the Committee of Correspondence, in many of their Letters held forth Principles, which instead of extricating us from our Difficulties, serve in our Opinions still further to involve us, to which Principles we cannot accede.

III. Because the Committee of Correspondence, in some Letters that were read from them to New-York, Philadelphia, and other Places, particularly two to New-York, of the 28th and 30th of May, have falsely, maliciously and scandalously, vilified and abused the Characters of many of us, only for dissenting from them in Opinion, a Right which we shall claim, so long as we hold any Claim to Freedom or Liberty.

Both newspapers then printed three long columns of signatories—129 in all. They didn’t arrange those names in the same order, but provincial treasurer Harrison Gray (shown above) appeared in the top row in both papers, and he had also led the debate in the town meeting, so he’s taken to be this protest’s principal author.

It’s extremely rare to see so many men’s names attached to a document in the newspapers. Devoting that amount of space shows how much weight these men and their message carried for these printers. At the same time, 129 men was a decided minority in the town meeting. That test had already been run.

TOMORROW: The second protest.

“Powder Alarm” Commemorations in Somerville & Cambridge, 1–4 Sept.

I’m participating in a series of free events at the start of September to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the “Powder Alarm” and the start of Massachusetts’ political independence from Britain.

For the people of Massachusetts, that independence began to coalesce more than a year and a half before the Declaration of Independence.

On September 1, 1774, the royal governor sent soldiers to Somerville and Cambridge to seize gunpowder and other militia supplies.

In response, on September 2 thousands of Middlesex County farmers marched into Cambridge and demanded resignations from all royal appointees in town. By the end of that day, it was clear that the governor no longer commanded any authority in most of Massachusetts. In the fall, towns set up an independent legislature and started to prepare for war.

Sunday, 1 September, 9:30 A.M.
Spark of the Revolution
Nathan Tufts Park, Broadway and College Avenue, Somerville

The Somerville Museum is partnering with the City of Somerville to produce a reenactment of the 1774 events at the Powder House, with remarks by Gen. Thomas Gage and other royal appointees, followed by a living history fair. The fair will include docent tours of the Powder House, activity tables, and even a scavenger hunt of the park! More information to be posted here.

Monday, 2 September, 1:00–5:00 P.M.
Rebellion along Tory Row
Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge
History Cambridge, 159 Brattle Street, Cambridge

Two of the mansions where Loyalist families lived in 1774 are hosting a range of events, indoors and out, for different ages and interests. People could, for example, enjoy what’s happening on the Longfellow–Washington grounds, join the first leg of my walking tour, and then sit down for a talk or two at History Cambridge.

• 1:00–5:00: Family games and activities at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.
• 1:45: J. L. Bell leads a walking tour of the colonial estates along Brattle Street, starting at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.
• 2:30: Prof. Robert J. Allison lays out the political situation in Massachusetts in 1774 at History Cambridge.
• 3:30: Michele Gabrielson speaks on Revolutionary printers and 18th-century media literacy at History Cambridge.

One more enticing detail: Because this Monday is Labor Day, Cambridge parking rules will not be in force.
Wednesday, 4 September, 6:30 P.M.
The Powder Alarm and Political Change
Cambridge Public Library

In the library auditorium, four historians discuss the history and significance of the 1774 Powder Alarm, including its political context, how it affected Cambridge’s Loyalist families, and the most basic fight for liberty along Tory Row. Here are the panelists:

• Dan Breen is a professor of Legal Studies at Brandeis University. He received is Ph.D. in American History from Boston College, and is now putting the finishing touches on a book about the public monuments of Boston.
• Caitlin G. DeAngelis, Ph.D., served as the head Research Associate for the Harvard and Slavery Project and as a Lecturer in History and Literature at Harvard University. In addition to articles about individuals from eighteenth-century New England, she is the author of The Caretakers: War Graves Gardeners and the Secret Battle to Rescue Allied Airmen in World War II.
• MaryKate Smolenski is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at Boston University. She studies the memory of the American Revolution through print and material culture, and is particularly interested in how descendants of Revolutionary-era Loyalists remember their ancestors.
• myself. My book The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War recounts the Powder Alarm as the launch of a month of seizing and stealing artillery.

End the summer with the start of independence!

Picking at the Martha Washington Dress Quilt

In the Colonial Revival period, many Americans came forward with relics of the Revolution passed down in their families or discovered in attics.

And some of those were even authentic.

Others, however, were not. I retold the saga of a reputed Thomas Oliver portrait here, for example.

Among items donated to the Bostonian Society in its early decades, I’m skeptical about the machine-woven “Sons of Liberty flag.”

I worked with Dave Ingram on a report about a powder horn ascribed to Richard Gridley; we determined it was almost certainly a Colonial Revival–era creation.

The Old South Meeting House also became a public institution at that time and began receiving donations. In the 1890s one important supporter, Mary Hemenway, gave Old South “a quilt made from fragments of Martha Washington’s dresses,” as Lori Fidler, Associate Director of Collections at Revolutionary Spaces, recently described in this article.

That’s just the sort of object that Americans oohed and aahed over breathlessly during the Colonial Revival. From the Age of Homespun! Touched by the great Washingtons themselves! But how reliable is its lore?

We know the quilt came to Hemenway from Fannie Washington Finch, an actual great-grandniece of George Washington. Her story:

Fannie was born Frances Louisa Augusta Washington in Virginia in 1828. Her mother, Henrietta Spotswood, was the granddaughter of George Washington’s half-brother, Augustine, Jr., while her father, Bushrod, was the grandson of George’s brother, John Augustine. Fannie’s grandmother, Jane Washington, had made the quilt out of scraps she received directly from Martha.

We also know from Finch’s letters in 1884–1886 that she was selling heirlooms from Mount Vernon, including this quilt, because of her “pecuniary condition.” In other words, she needed money.

There are also intriguing details about the quilt itself:

In 1979, a textile curator at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts examined the quilt, finding the silk pieces to be expensive English-made loom-woven fabrics, consistent with textiles worn by wealthy women of the 1700s. He mentioned that the designs represented a range of time periods, with larger floral patterns from the mid-18th century and tiny blossoms from the late 1700s. . . .

In May 2024,…[Zara] Anishanslin noted that a fabric used in the quilt appeared to be an Anna Maria Garthwaite design. Garthwaite was a female silk designer who lived and worked in the Spitalfields area of London in the mid-1700s.

Thus, Finch might have had a motive to concoct a connection between this quilt and Martha Washington—but the artifact itself really does contain the fabrics a wealthy British-American woman in the mid- to late 1700s would have owned.

Furthermore, Fidler reports, “In her writings, Martha Washington mentions cutting up her garments and distributing pieces to family members and friends as mementos.” Finch couldn’t have inserted that into the historical record.

So on this item, I’m inclined to accept the lore.

Looking at Local Officials in Early America

The Summer 2024 issue of the Journal of the Early Republic includes a forum of several scholars discussing local governance.

As the introduction to that forum says, “Local governments shaped the lives of early republic Americans more profoundly than national or state-level government did. And yet, we historians of the early republic talk about local government the least.”

But that journal is behind a paywall. So the Society for the History of the Early American Republic’s Panorama blog shared some teaser essays by contributors to that forum. Here are samples.

Sung Yup Kim, “The Jack-of-all-trades Magistrate: Grappling with the Expansive Governing Role of Justices of the Peace in Early America”:

What would have happened in the early United States if one day, every justice of the peace was suddenly removed from office? Without anyone to assess rates and enforce their collection with due authority and local knowledge, maintaining the poor and building and repairing roads would become all but impossible. State and municipal governments would have a tough time getting local communities to comply with any peacetime or wartime statutory orders.

Shorn of local magistrates handling the preliminary examination of evidence and issuing of warrants on a daily basis, county courts would be overburdened, and criminal justice would grind to a standstill. And with no one entrusted to mediate and adjudicate upon petty civil disputes among local inhabitants, everyday socioeconomic interactions would be seriously hampered.

Gabriel J. Loiacono, “Let’s Give Hog Reeves Their Due!”:

Few towns [in the early republic] still elected [hog reeves] by that name, but might elect field drivers or haywards, whose remit would include regulating hogs and other animals, as well as the fences used to confine them all. Those that did specify hog reeves, according to a 1793 Boston newspaper editor, chose newly married men by custom. This seems to have been a mild form of hazing. Election to the post was often intended as a snub, as this 1790s vignette makes clear:

A certain Priest, being informed that he had been nominated in a public meeting to the office of a Hog-Reeve–replied, “I have hitherto supposed myself to be a shepherd among my flock; but some of my people, it seems, perceiving themselves to be hogs, wish me to be in a more proper relation to them, than the one I now sustain.”

That the joke was reprinted in largely Congregationalist New England, and describes a “priest,” suggests that readers appreciated both the insult of a hog reeve nomination aimed at a Church of England clergyman, as well as the witty comeback that he flung at members of his own congregation.

Nicole Breault, “When Did the Police Become a ‘Machine’?”:

Boston’s watch was not a professional police force, nor would the men who served in the watch have seen the modern police officer as a kindred official. They did not practice preventive policing; in other words, they did not patrol in an effort to prevent crimes before they happened, nor did they seek out individuals and populations suspected of criminal behavior. . . .

The role of local policing entities as agents of state has changed so dramatically over time, from a patchwork of actions performed by non-professional watches to a highly visible form of regulation by armed, uniformed law enforcement. As I suggest in the forum, Boston’s watch, officers of the “police of the town” were the most common ways in which ordinary people interacted with the state, and arguably, this remains true to the present. And, of course, one that must be held accountable for its potential for “abuses and evils.”

More Detail about William Costin

Back in 2016 I wrote about William Costin, then believed to be the son of John Parke Custis, Martha Washington’s son, and Ann Dandridge, her half-sister.

A couple of years ago Mount Vernon created an entry in its Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington on “The Ancestry of William Costin,” which I came across last week.

That in turn led me to David O. Stewart’s Journal of the American Revolution article “The Mount Vernon Slave Who Made Good: The Mystery of William Costin” from 2020.

The Mount Vernon page still identifies John Parke Custis as most likely to be William Costin’s father, based on a range of contemporaneous behavior and later statements.

The Custis family said nothing about that publicly at the time, of course, but they not only freed Costin and his relatives, they kept ties with them. Costin himself followed that family’s custom in giving his own children the middle name Parke.

The newer articles point out that there are no contemporaneous sources on a woman named Ann Dandridge, particularly from Mount Vernon, where the surviving records are unusually full. The earliest mentions of William Costin’s mother appear around the turn of the century when she was known as Nancy or Ann Holmes, formerly Costin.

It’s impossible to reconcile two statements about “Ann Dandridge” published in 1871—that she was a daughter of John Dandridge, Martha Washington’s father, and that she grew up as Martha’s playmate. Nancy/Ann (Costin) Holmes had children as late as 1801. It’s therefore just possible that her father was John Dandridge, who died in 1756. But she couldn’t have been about the same age as Martha Washington, born in 1731.

The Mount Vernon article posits that this Nancy/Ann had children by three men:

• William by John Parke Custis in or around 1780. Custis died in 1781.
• Four children between 1788 and 1795 by a man named Costin, possibly an overseer documented as working on a Custis plantation on Smith’s Island. William took this stepfather’s surname.
• Two children by Joseph Holmes in 1799 and 1801.

Eventually Nancy/Ann Holmes and all her children became the property of Eliza Parke Custis Law, and her husband Thomas Law manumitted the extended family in the early 1800s.

“Claimed to be Burgoyne in order to get better quarters”?

Sherman Lohnes left a helpful comment on these lines in yesterday’s posting about Elisha Porter:

He later served in the Saratoga campaign as a militia colonel and escorted Gen. John Burgoyne east. According to the Porter family, Burgoyne left his host a dress sword.

Since December 2022 Lohnes has shared a blog on The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army, the prisoners of war in Continental custody after the Saratoga battles.

Using sources and reminiscences of that journey, the blog reexamines a lot of the lore and local traditions about it.

Lohnes commented:

It's highly unlikely that General Burgoyne gave Elisha Porter his sword - or even that Porter accompanied Burgoyne from Saratoga to Cambridge.

Burgoyne offered his sword in surrender to General Horatio Gates on October 17th at Saratoga, who graciously allowed him to keep it. Prior to the surrender, Burgoyne took pains to negotiate terms with Gates that allowed all of his officers to not only keep their swords, but wear them while they were being held in Massachusetts.

Finally, Burgoyne didn't stay with Porter in Hadley. New Hampshire Militia Brigadier-General William Whipple, who did travel with Burgoyne and kept a journal of their trip, indicates that they crossed the Connecticut River south of Hadley, from West Springfield into Springfield, before continuing on through Palmer to Brookfield, and eventually Cambridge…

In this blog post, Lohnes wrote:

Though Porter was a colonel, and commanded the 4th Hampshire County Regiment of the Massachusetts Militia, which marched on September 24, 1777, to reinforce the Northern Army and served until October 17, 1777, Brigadier-General William Whipple’s Journal indicates Burgoyne did not pass through Hadley.

If Burgoyne didn't stop in Hadley (or Northampton), what may have led its residents think that he did? Perhaps the source of these tales is explained by British Ensign (and author) Thomas Anburey. According to Anburey, at some point along the march one of the officers with the British column went on ahead, and claimed to be Burgoyne in order to get better quarters. Being the first to reach "a small village, he personated General Burgoyne, and with such an air of confidence..." that his hosts being "compleatly outwitted, they assigned him the best quarters."

Another possibility is simply that the Porter family’s understanding of what happened grew in the telling from one generation of children to another. Marching out to Saratoga and back again in parallel with some prisoners from Burgoyne’s army could have become escorting the British general himself. A British officer’s dress sword acquired in any sort of way could have become connected to the most famous officer in that army.

Family and local historians writing in the 1890s and 1900s described seeing that sword, and they didn’t use the same language, indicating they observed independently. That strongly suggests the Porter family did own such an artifact. But evidently not an accurate knowledge of where it came from.

The Life of “an exceeding active Man”

As I recounted this past week, in the summer of 1774 Elisha Porter of Hadley traveled to New York, Providence, and at least some way to New London seeking military supplies for the Continental Army besieging Boston.

In late September, the Patriot authorities called on Porter for another sensitive job: deciphering the letter that Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr., had given to his mistress Mary Butler, and which she unwisely asked her ex-husband, Godfrey Wenwood, to send into Boston.

Elbridge Gerry gave Porter a copy of that letter to work on. Porter’s deciphering exactly matched one by the Rev. Samuel West. Gerry then spread around news of the results.

During those months Porter was also busy on many committees of the Massachusetts General Court, and in August 1775 he became sheriff of Hampshire County.

In January 1776, Porter volunteered to raise a Massachusetts regiment to go into Canada and shore up the effort to win over that territory by force. Gen. George Washington introduced him by letter to Gen. Philip Schuyler as ”Colo. Porter, said to be an exceeding active Man.” I think that praise is a little faint for someone who had worked directly for the general.

Washington also gave Porter instructions urging him to act quickly, and the Massachusetts government supplied him with money.

Col. Porter started to keep a diary in January 1776, published in 1893. It describes how he got as close as the Plains of Abraham outside Québec City on 27 April, and how a week later the American forces started to withdraw.

Porter took a leave in August because of illness but returned in time to help with the Trenton campaign. He later served in the Saratoga campaign as a militia colonel and escorted Gen. John Burgoyne east. According to the Porter family, Burgoyne left his host a dress sword.

In 1778 Porter married a second time, to Abigail Phillips of Boston, first cousin of his first wife. That couple had no children, and I have no clue who brought up the young children of his first marriage while he was away from home.

After the war, Porter continued to serve as sheriff and militia officer and occasionally a town representative. He argued for Massachusetts to ratify the new U.S. Constitution. In 1796 he died unexpectedly at the age of fifty-four.

As for the other man involved in Gen. Washington’s plan to obtain gunpowder from Bermuda, sea captain William Harris appears to have gone back to sailing out of New London, Connecticut. He may have been the captain named Harris who spread word of a British fleet approaching New York in August 1776.

The 15 Mar 1809 Connecticut Gazette of New London reported the death of “Capt. WILLIAM HARRIS, aged 66 years.”

“One hundred barrels of gun-powder has been taken out”

On 2 Sept 1774, Gov. Nicholas Cooke reported that the Rhode Island government had finally acquiesced to Gen. George Washington’s wish for the colony to send an armed ship to Bermuda to pick up some gunpowder that island’s inhabitants were reportedly ready to sell to the American rebels.

The man for the job, Cooke said, was Abraham Whipple (1733–1819, shown here). He had commanded a privateer in the last war and had already taken one Royal Navy vessel: the Gaspee in 1772. Rhode Island had made him commodore of its fleet, which at that time consisted of two ships.

Rising from his sickbed, Whipple had one request:

He requests your Excellency to give him a Line under your Hand assuring the People of Bermuda that, in Case of their Assistance, you will recommend it to the Continental Congress to permit them to fetch Provisions for the Use of the Island. He does not purpose to make any Use of it unless he shall find it utterly impracticable to obtain the Powder without their Assistance.

Washington’s military secretary Joseph Reed drafted that document:

In the great Conflict which agitates this Continent I cannot doubt but the Assertors of Freedom & the Rights of the Constitution are possessed of your most favourable Regards & Wishes for Success. As the Descendants of Freemen & Heirs with us of the same glorious Inheritance we flatter ourselves that tho. divided by our Situation we are firmly united in Sentiment. The Cause of Virtue & Liberty is confined to no Continent or Climate it comprehends within its capacious Limits the wise & the good however dispersed & separated in Space or Distance. . . .

On 9 September, Cooke sent more news: “Zealous to do every Thing in our Power to serve the common Cause of America, the Committee have determined, instead of the small armed Sloop, to send the large Vessel with Fifty Men upon the Bermuda Enterprize.”

Whipple sailed on 12 September. Gov. Cooke probably thought the general would finally be satisfied. Then he noticed an item in the 14 September New-England Chronicle under a Philadelphia dateline:

Extract of a letter from Bermuda, dated August 21.

“Upwards of one hundred barrels of gun-powder has been taken out of our magazine: supposed by a sloop from Philadelphia, and a schooner from South Carolina: It was very easily accomplished, from the magazine being situated far distant from town, and no dwelling house near it.”

In fact, this gunpowder heist was an inside job. A Bermuda gentleman named Henry Tucker had made arrangements with the Continental Congress to trade that gunpowder for regular shipments of food. He had arranged for men to break into the storehouse on 14 August and load the 1,182 pounds of powder inside onto the two American vessels. Tucker even sent the Congress a bill for around £162. Read all about that in Hugh T. Harrington’s article for the Journal of the American Revolution.

Back in early August, Gov. Cooke had told Gen. Washington that there was no need for a special voyage since the Bermudans might very well move the gunpowder on their own. Now that turned out to be true. In fact, Tucker’s team had acted even as Cooke was maneuvering his legislature to fund Rhode Island’s effort for Washington’s sake. By the time Cdre. Whipple had sailed, the gunpowder in question had arrived at Philadelphia. Unfortunately, Cooke was unable to get Whipple and his armed ship back to Narragansett Bay.

Remarkably, the governor managed not to write to the general ‘I told you so.’

TOMORROW: Whatever happened to…

“The only Chance of Success is by a Sudden Stroke”

On 11 Aug 1775, Elisha Porter returned to Gen. George Washington’s headquarters with a letter from Rhode Island governor Nicholas Cooke, the second Cooke had sent within four days.

Both letters said the same thing about the general’s proposal to send an armed ship to Bermuda to collect gunpowder: Rhode Island couldn’t spare the resources to do it, and the Bermudans might deliver the gunpowder on their own.

That was not what Gen. Washington wanted to read. During the siege of Boston, he constantly sought to do something about the king’s troops in Boston. He felt the Continental Congress had sent him to drive that force out of Boston, not just to prod them until its commanders decided to leave.

The lack of gunpowder seemed like the biggest obstacle to any plan, so Washington was eager to take any action to fix that problem. Then he could get on to other schemes, like sending Col. Benedict Arnold up through Maine, launching armed schooners, or eventually proposing an attack across the frozen Charles River.

On 14 August, therefore, the general wrote back to the governor that the Bermuda plan was really good, and it depended on not quibbling and acting fast:

Having conversed with Collo. Porter and farther considered the Matter, I am of Opinion it ought to be prosecuted on the single Footing of procuring what is in the Magazine. The Voyage is short, our Necessity is great: The Expectation of being supplied by the Inhabitants of the Island under such Hazards as they must run, is slender: so that the only Chance of Success is by a Sudden Stroke. . . .

I should suppose the Captain who is to have the Direction of the Enterprize, would rather chuse to have Men whom he knew, and in whom he could confide in Preference to Strangers. From what Collo. Porter informs me, I do not see that [William] Harris’s Presence is absolutely necessary, and as his Terms would add considerably to the Expence, after obtaining from him all the Intelligence he could give, his Attendance might be dispens’d with.

Sea captain William Harris of New London, Connecticut, had come to Massachusetts proposing the voyage to Bermuda and obviously hoped to profit from it. Now Washington and Porter planned to milk him for information and cut him out of the deal.

Cooke didn’t write back until the end of the month. He hadn’t even proposed to the Rhode Island assembly that the colony undertake this mission, choosing instead to maneuver until he could work with a select committee. But he was still pessimistic: “At present the Undertaking appears to me extremely difficult. The most suitable Man we have for the Purpose is confined to his Bed by Sickness.”

Washington would not have been pleased to hear that.

TOMORROW: A mission from Rhode Island.

“The General would be glad to confer with you”

Yesterday I started to profile Elisha Porter, as of July 1775 Hadley’s representative in the Massachusetts General Court and militia colonel.

Porter helped fellow lawyer Joseph Hawley of Northampton write this letter to the Continental Congress waxing eloquent on the need for more gunpowder:

Were you now in the Continental Army which invests Boston, it would beget unutterable vexation and torment in your hearts, to behold so large a body of so active brave men as that army consists of, insulted by the fire and blaze of the enemy’s cannon and mortars from their lines, ships, and floating batteries; and the same brave men, although possessed of divers good pieces of great ordnance, and willing, at any hazard, to improve them, yet wholly restrained from returning any fire of the kind, lest, by so doing, their little stock of gunpowder should soon be exhausted, and they reduced to the fatal necessity of laying down their arms or flying into the woods, leaving their houses to be burnt, their fields wasted; in short to give up and abandon the just claims of all America, and in effect to resign themselves and the lives of all the children of liberty in this whole Continent, to the arbitrary pleasure of a haughty Administration, instigated and influenced by enraged tories of our own breeding.

I couldn’t resist quoting that sentence, as transcribed by Peter Force.

In mid-July, Porter made a trip to New York, seeking “2 hhds Flints & 10 Tons Lead,” as the general wrote. He returned on 2 August, having succeeded in arranging for ”80,000 Flints & eight Tons of Lead.”

The next day, a council of war disclosed how little gunpowder the army had. Joseph Reed (shown above), Gen. George Washington’s military secretary, sent Porter a quick note:

If you could spare Time to ride down to Head Quarters this Afternoon the General would be glad to confer with you on a Matter of some Importance which you mentioned to him on your Return from New York

Porter made the short trip from Watertown to Cambridge. Later that day Washington wrote to Rhode Island governor Nicholas Cooke about the urgent need for gunpowder and the possibility of obtaining it from Bermuda, as quoted here. He concluded:

Col: Porter has undertaken to assist in the Matter or to provide some suitable Person to accompany [William] Harris to you who will communicate all Circumstances to you.

Porter personally carried that letter to Cooke. There was a brief glitch when they lost track of Harris, a sea captain who was continuing to shuttle among American ports. On 11 August, Cooke sent Porter back to Washington with a letter.

Gov. Cooke had already expressed his position: reports suggested that Bermudans were inclined to sell that powder to Continental forces, so there was no need to send a ship to the island, and besides Rhode Island didn’t have the resources for such a mission, anyway.

TOMORROW: The general’s response.

Elisha Porter: Widower, Militia Officer, Legislator

I’ve been writing about Gen. George Washington’s wish to obtain gunpowder from Bermuda in August 1775.

Today I’ll focus on one man involved in that effort: Elisha Porter (1742–1796) of Hadley.

Son of a member of the Council, Porter graduated from Harvard College in 1761 before going home to establish himself as a lawyer. In 1773 he became a captain in the Hampshire County militia.

Because of his college degree, there’s an entry for Porter in Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, but it says little about his personal life, blaming how “the collection of his manuscripts at the Massachusetts Historical Society consists chiefly of commissions and like documents.” Even so, I think that profile omitted some important events.

In 1762 Porter married Sarah Jewett, daughter of the minister in Rowley, and they had six children together. Then Sarah Porter died on 5 Apr 1775. Thus, Porter was a single father of six, still grieving, when news of the Concord battle arrived.

Porter marched east with the men of Hampshire County as a colonel, arriving in Cambridge on 25 April. Then came the transition from militia force to a Massachusetts army enlisted for the rest of the year. Still in his early thirties, Porter was probably one of the more junior of the provincial colonels. According to committee of safety records, Porter raised some men for the army, but as of 10 June they had still not arrived. “Col. Porter said he was willing to resign, rather than the public service should be hindered.”

Hadley showed its continued support for Porter by electing him to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress for the session starting on 31 May. In Watertown, colleagues addressed him by his militia rank, and he served on several committees on army matters, including trying to sort out issues for the artillery regiment.

Then on 8 June, according to Sylvester Judd’s History of Hadley, Porter’s son David drowned at the age of seven. We have no accounts of how he took this news, but he had “leave of absence” by the next day. Losing two members of his family in a little over two months must have been profound.

Porter soon returned east to throw himself into the war. Among the anecdotes of the Battle of Bunker Hill that the Rev. Jeremy Belknap wrote down in 1787 was: “Col Porter…conveyed 2 Hhd of Liquor to ye. Men in ye. works thro’ showers of shot from ye. floating batteries.” Porter also lost a gun on that battlefield.

On 24 June, after the congress learned that Gen. Washington was on his way, Porter was one of six members delegated to organize a reception “with proper respect, and to provide a house for him.” Later that same day the congress authorized him “to procure a scythe, and carry it to a blacksmith, to be fitted for a spear, in such a manner as he thinks fit, and bring it before this Congress, when fixed.” Porter was evidently a man of ideas.

Three days later, the congress added Porter to the committee on supplies, meeting in the Edmund Fowle house, shown above. He was also put on a committee to write to the Continental Congress and to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut, “requesting their aid in furnishing us with gunpowder.” On 10 July, Porter was the first man named to a committee to confer with Gen. Washington about adding to what was now the Continental Army.

Massachusetts held elections for a new General Court to meet on 19 July. Hadley must have elected Porter to this official legislature, but his name doesn’t appear in its records until late August. Evidently he was traveling out of the province on special assignments for some of that time.

TOMORROW: Working with the general.

“They gave Information of the Powder”

As I quoted back here, on 3 Aug 1775 Gen. George Washington wrote to Gov. Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island asking him to send all available gunpowder and lead.

Washington also urged the governor to dispatch one of the colony’s armed ships with a man named Harris to Bermuda to seize more gunpowder.

As I wrote yesterday, I think Harris was a Connecticut-based sea captain named William Harris.

Cooke wrote back promptly on 8 August. His responses were:

• Rhode Island didn’t have that much gunpowder and lead left, and needed all it had.
• The colony couldn’t spare either of its armed sloops.
• There wasn’t enough money available to buy the gunpowder in Bermuda.
• Washington’s agent, Elisha Porter, “can hear nothing of Harris…but is greatly apprehensive that he is fallen into the Hands of the Enemy.”

But aside from those details, Cooke was eager to cooperate with the general’s plans.

I believe Capt. Harris had gone on to New York. The 10 August issue of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer reported that the Customs office had just cleared “Bittern, Harris,” to sail for “Rhode-Island.”

On 11 August, Cooke told Washington that Harris was back in Providence. And he had news to share about that powder in Bermuda:

Since my last to you Mr [Samuel] Ward One of the Delegates hath returned from the Congress. He informs me that some of the Bermudians had been at Philadelphia soliciting for Liberty to import Provisions for the Use of the Island. They gave Information of the Powder mentioned in your Letter to me, and were of Opinion it might be easily obtained. They were told by the Delegates that every Vessel they should send to the Northward with Powder should be permitted to carry Provisions to the Island. Whether their Situation will not probably prevent them from bringing the Powder I submit to your Excellency.

Gov. Cooke sent that letter back to Cambridge with Porter.

TOMORROW: The general’s operative.

“Rebel Town” in Lenox through 18 Aug.

This week John Alan Segalla’s musical Rebel Town is being performed at the Duffin Theater in Lenox.

The ticket page says:

Rebel Town plunges you into the heart of Boston's political crisis in 1773. The story begins on the bustling wharfs, three days before the Boston Tea Party as Parliament’s Tea Act & the unlawful [sic] tax on tea ignites a firestorm of resistance led by charismatic Sam Adams, who rallies a town meeting to confront tyranny with three tea ships anchored in Boston Harbor.

Amidst the chaos, a 13-year-old apprentice Peter Slater Jr. dreams of joining the Sons of Liberty as carpenter William Grey and his comrades guard the ships, preventing customs officials from unloading the pernicious tea. With days to spare until the ships must be unloaded by law, the men and women of Boston make plans to deal with the tea in a manner that King George would never expect.

From lively gatherings and dance numbers at Liberty Tree to secretive schemes at the Bunches [sic] of Grapes Tavern, these passionate rebels—including John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Mercy Otis Warren—grapple with the weight of their defiance, knowing they risk being branded traitors or worse, being hanged for treason if caught. Daughters of Liberty including Sarah Grey, Abigail Slater and the women of the town play their own unique role in considering the consequences, their own rights, and aspirations for the future.

Segalla directed this production, as well as writing the whole show starting during the pandemic. It was supposed to be performed in May in the theater at Berkshire Community College, but those performances had to be canceled.

This week’s run through Sunday, 18 August, therefore appears to be the show’s debut. Naturally, Segalla hopes to bring Rebel Town to Boston.

“Arrived here a Sloop from Bermuda”

As I quoted yesterday, on 4 Aug 1775 Gen. George Washington wrote to the governor of Rhode Island about what he’d heard about Bermuda from a man he called “One Harris.”

The editors of The Revolutionary Correspondence of Governor Nicholas Cooke identified Harris as “Captain Benjamin Harris,” but I don’t see what they based that on. I can’t find other mentions of Benjamin Harris in connection with Rhode Island or Bermuda.

I found clues in newspapers pointing in another direction. Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer for 15 June reported: “sloop Bittern, Harris, [cleared for] Bermuda.” And on 27 July: “Bittren, Harris, Bermuda” was among the inward entries, the only one from that island. The 31 July New-York Gazette reported that sloop as “Brittain, W. Harris.”

In addition, the 24 July New-York Gazette reported:

Friday Night last [i.e., 21 July] arrived here a Sloop from Bermuda: By Letters from thence we learn, that the Inhabitants of that Island are greatly alarmed at the present Situation of publick Affairs, being under the most dismal Apprehensions of Starving; to prevent which they have passed a Law, that no Provisions should be sent off the Island at any Rate whatsoever; and were about dispatching a Vessel to Philadelphia, to request the Honourable the Continental Congress to take their Case into their most serious Consideration.

That was reprinted in the 27 July New-York Journal and from thence in the 2 August Massachusetts Spy and the 3 August New-England Chronicle.

Thus, we have a ship’s captain named “W. Harris” arriving from Bermuda on a ship named something like the Bittern, probably bringing political news, in time to make his way to Gen. Washington’s headquarters in Cambridge with an offer.

Another clue about Harris appears in Gov. Cooke’s 8 August response to Washington saying that he didn’t know where the man was. Washington’s agent Elisha Porter was “bound as far as New-London to endeavour to meet with him,” indicating that people perceived Harris as most likely to surface in New London, Connecticut.

That took me to my favorite smuggling merchant, Nathaniel Shaw of New London. His letter book shows he employed two captains named William Harris in the early 1770s. He wrote sometimes of William Harris, sometimes William Harris, Jr., and most often simply ”Harris.”

The 10 May 1771 New-London Gazette reported among the ships cleared out of that harbor “Sloop Bittren, Harris [to] New York.” On that same say Shaw sent a letter to Peter Vandervoort in New York with a shipload of molasses overseen by “Wm. Harris Junr.” The 6 Dec 1770 Pennsylvania Journal likewise links a “W. Harris” with the “Sloop Bittern” traveling between New York, Philadelphia, and New London. Several newspapers in 1770 render Harris’s ship as the “Bittren.”

Two years later, the 23 Apr 1773 New-London Gazette shows “Capt. William Harris, late of New-London,” had died and one of the estate administrators was “William Harris”—no doubt formerly Jr.

Thus, I propose that the “One Harris” who visited Gen. Washington in August 1775 with a proposition regarding gunpowder was William Harris of New London, Connecticut, a ship captain recently returned from Bermuda on a sloop called something like the Bittern.

COMING UP: Mission to Bermuda.