“Others destined to inhabit the lower rungs of society as servants”

An extract from Daniel N. Gullotta’s review for Providence magazine of Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield by Sean McGever.

McGever highlights:

…the deeply hierarchical view of the world held by [Jonathan] Edwards, [John] Wesley, [George] Whitefield, and their evangelical contemporaries. From their perspective, just as God ordains some to be princes and governors, so too are others destined to inhabit the lower rungs of society as servants, laborers, and even slaves.

Slavery, therefore, was believed to be ordained by God and, in the words of Puritan clergyman William Gouge, such an understanding was “clearly and plentifully noted in the Scripture, that any one who is any whit acquainted therewith may know them to be so.”

While such views seem counterintuitive to our modern-day egalitarian norms, McGever adeptly explains why 18th-century evangelicals would have perceived our anti-hierarchical tendencies as nothing but a “hellish confusion” to borrow a description from the Puritan theologian John Owen.

Despite their divinely ordered view of the world, 18th-century evangelicals, following their theological ancestors, acknowledged that slavery was a sinful product of the fall. The question for most Christian thinkers was not whether slavery was biblical, but rather how it could be practiced biblically.

The book discusses how Whitefield promoted importing enslaved Africans as a solution for Georgia’s labor problems. Edwards wrote little on slavery for public consumption but defended and practiced it privately. As for the last of these prominent evangelists: 

Later in life, Wesley felt compelled to speak out as the abolitionist movement, driven primarily by Quakers in the 1770s, gained momentum. Readers might be surprised at how little Scripture he used in his shift to opposing slavery, favoring instead ideas drawn from natural law and reasoning. McGever…theorizes that Wesley would never have adopted his abolitionist stance had he been raised in America or even just spent more time there, arguing for the essential contingency of many deeply held beliefs.

Studying the Military Side of the Declaration

The Center for the Study of Tennesseans and War and the University of Tennessee Department of History have announced a one-day symposium on “the military history of the Declaration of Independence” to be held at the university on 1 March 2025.

Here is the call for papers:

As the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence approaches, it is important to remember that this foundational document was written during a war. The Seven Years’ War, the Proclamation of 1763, settlers’ westward expansion, and Native American resistance shaped the contours of the Declaration specifically in this line item pertaining to George III’s tyranny: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”

British naval impressment, an early modern cold war between Great Britain and France, nearby naval bases, and naval manning problems all influenced the writing of this additional reference to George III’s despotism: “He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.”

Hessian auxiliaries, British military occupation, naval bombardments, civilian casualties, “Quartering large bodies of armed troops,” and standing armies were all cited in the Declaration as evidence of “the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

The Declaration was, in large part, a Congressional war measure. It was meant to convince potential allies overseas and fence-sitters at home that the British government had devolved into a tyranny.

The conference organizers want proposals to fill eight 20-minute sessions and plan to publish the proceedings in an edited collection. Chosen speakers have their registration fee waived, but the event cannot cover travel and accommodation costs.

Scholars are invited to submit a 200-word abstract and a c.v. by email by 1 Oct 2024 to Dr. Chris Magra, director of the Center for the Study of Tennesseans and War. (Here’s the full call as a Google Doc.)

The Triumph of the Barnstable Crowd

As recounted yesterday, on 27 Sept 1774 a reported 1,500 people surrounded the courthouse in Barnstable, refusing to let the county court session begin.

The local justices kept assuring the crowd that they, too, were concerned about the Massachusetts Government Act and other Coercive Acts, but they felt they should sit to hear local cases.

The committee chosen by the crowd, led by Dr. Nathaniel Freeman, told the justices that wasn’t satisfactory. That day apparently ended in a stalemate with the courthouse still closed.

The committee drafted a promise for each justice to sign, promising not to act under the new laws, even if that meant losing their governmental appointment. Then the crowd decided that sheriffs, deputies, and anyone else holding a royal commission do the same.

Feeling even more expansive, the crowd went on to demand that a local who had threatened (jokingly, he said) to cut down Barnstable’s Liberty Pole promise never to do that. That man made himself scarce.

Finally, the crowd voted to ask James Otis, Sr., a longtime member of the Massachusetts Council under the previous constitution, to go to Salem in case Gov. Thomas Gage went through with his initial plan to convene the Massachusetts General Court there.

On 28 September, 250 years ago today, several justices and other royal appointees signed the crowd’s promises. Otis promised to go to Salem. The crowd marched back to the courthouse, drums sounding. There they resolved to provide arms for their defense, not to buy any imported goods, and “endeavor to suppress mobs and riots” (as well as “common peddlers”).

In 1830, Barnstable County built a new, larger courthouse. The 1763 building was eventually sold to a Baptist church that expanded and remodeled it, as shown above. Then in 1972 it became the headquarters of Tales of Cape Cod. But somewhere within that building is the courthouse at the center of a political protest in 1774. 

Around Barnstable County’s Courthouse

In 1763 Barnstable County commissioned a new courthouse. The sketch here shows one man’s memory of how it looked in the early 1800s.

The building wasn’t large. There was no separate jury room, for instance; juries deliberated in a nearby tavern.

The court records were stored in another building nearby, which burned down in 1827, leaving us records of only a handful of cases from colonial Barnstable County.

On 27 Sept 1774, 250 years ago today, there was supposed to be a court session in this building. 

However, back in August the men of Berkshire County had created a new meme for Massachusetts’s Patriot resistance: closing the courts as a protest against the Massachusetts Government Act. That law changed the constitution of the colony and the way juries were chosen.

Over the following weeks crowds shut down court sessions in one Massachusetts county after another, either by entering the building and refusing to let any judges enter, or by surrounding the building so no one dared to try.

On 26 September, men from the counties of Barnstable, Plymouth, and Bristol gathered in Rochester to plan the closing of the Barnstable Courthouse. 

On the morning of 27 September about 1,500 people assembled around that small building. They chose a committee to speak for them with Dr. Nathaniel Freeman of Sandwich as the leader.

Deputy sheriff Job Howland moved to ring the bell atop the building to signal the start of the court session. The crowd told him to stop.

Justices arrived to work. The crowd asked them to wait outside while they finished writing an address about the unconstitutionality of Parliament’s latest laws. After that document was read, some of the justices insisted that their own, older commissions were valid and that canceling the session would cause hardships.

Both sides spoke of adhering to whatever the upcoming Provincial Congress or the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia advised. But that didn’t resolve the question of what to do that day, 27 September.

TOMORROW: Signatures and James Otis. 

Copy of the Proposed New Constitution for Sale in North Carolina

Document dealer Seth Kaller alerted me to an unusual artifact up for sale through Brunk Auctions on Saturday, 28 September.

At the end of the Constitutional Convention, that body sent its report to the Confederation Congress, then meeting in New York. That report took the form of the draft constitution.

The Congress accepted that report and had 100 copies printed on 28 Sept 1787. Charles Thomson, the Congress’s secretary, sent official copies to the states with the invitation to convene ratification conventions.

In North Carolina, Gov. Samuel Johnston presided over a convention in Hillsborough from 21 July to 4 August 1788. In the end they voted 184 to 84 to…reach no decision. The Anti-Federalist contingent insisted on a Bill of Rights, among other things. But they weren’t ready to reject the document outright.

All of the other states but Rhode Island did approve the new Constitution, however—some linking that approval to a Bill of Rights (saying “yes as long as…” rather than “no unless…”). The new federal government formed with only eleven states participating.

On 10 May 1789, Gov. Johnston and the North Carolina Council approved an address to George Washington, congratulating him on becoming President. That letter expressed hope that Congress would start the process of adding to the Constitution to “remove the apprehensions of many of the good Citizens of this State for those liberties for which they have fought and suffered in common with others.”

Washington was too ill to reply right away, but on 19 June he wrote back that he was “impressed with an idea that the Citizens of your State are sincerely attached to the Interest, the Prosperity and the Glory of America.”

In a letter to Rep. James Madison, Johnston responded, “Every one is very much pleased with the President’s answer to our Address. I have agreeably to your Wishes published them…” The exchange appeared in the State Gazette of North Carolina and in a broadside.

On 25 September, Congress approved twelve amendments to the Constitution. In November, North Carolinians gathered for another discussion of ratification, once again under Gov. Johnston. Public opinion had swung in favor of the new form of government, or at least not being left out of it. This time the vote was 194 to 77 for the Constitution.

Johnston then resigned as governor to become one of North Carolina’s first two U.S. Senators. On leaving Congress in 1793, he moved to another plantation, leaving his Hayes Farm in the hands of his son, James Cathcart Johnston. While having children with an emancipated mistress, Johnston never married, and in 1865 he bequeathed the property to his friend Edward Wood.

In recent years the Wood descendants started the process of turning that estate into a public historic site. In 2022, people cleaning the house looked through a file cabinet and found:

• A copy of the printed Constitution signed by Thomson and evidently sent to North Carolina. This is one of only seven such copies known and the only one in private hands. The last time a copy was sold was in 1891.
• A 1776 printing of the proposed Articles of Confederation.
• A printing of the proceedings of the Hillsborough Convention, the one that rejected the Constitution. 
• A copy of the broadside promulgating North Carolina’s letter to Washington and the new President’s reply.

I happen to be in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, as I type this, so I could conceivably attend this auction on Saturday. But since I’m here for another event, and since the opening bid for the printed and signed Constitution is $1,000,000, I won’t be in the bidding.

Three Events on Saturday, 28 Sept.

This Saturday, 28 September, will see a number of local events linked to Revolutionary history.

10:00 to 11:00 A.M.
How We Remember
Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington

The Arlington Historical Society, Arlington 250, and Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area host a walking tour of Revolutionary sites in central Arlington, including a newly installed monument.

Historical references point to a mass grave of 40 British regulars who died on April 19, 1775 in the retreat from Lexington and Concord. A recent Ground Penetrating Radar study revealed disturbed soil in this location consistent with a mass grave. A permanent monument, dedicated September 7, 2024, now marks this historic site.

Our program will begin with a brief tour of the Jason Russell House where British bullet holes from April 19th, 1775 can still be seen. We will then walk a flat and easy 0.3 miles to the Old Burying Ground, passing Robbins Memorial Town Hall, a statue by Cyrus Dallin, the Winfield Robbins Memorial Gardens and the Whittemore-Robbins House.

Arriving at the Old Burying Ground, we will see the recently dedicated Monument to the Fallen Crown Soldiers who Died on April 19, 1775 and the 2023 Monument to Enslaved and Free Persons of Color in Menotomy who are buried in the same area. Before returning to the Jason Russell House, we will visit the 1848 Revolutionary War Monument that marks the burial site of Jason Russell and 11 of his fellow Patriots who fell on April 19th, 1775.

Space is limited to twelve people, so register in advance. 

10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
Sudbury Ancient Colonial Faire and Fife & Drum Muster
Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, Sudbury

The annual fair in Sudbury includes a colonial encampment, militia and crafts demonstrations, contradancing, and dozens of food and craft vendors. Twenty-five fife and drum corps from across the Northeast are scheduled to perform.

The Grand Parade of fifes and drums will begin at noon; this year there is a new route that starts in front of the camping area. After the groups reach the fair grounds, each performs in turn, providing music through the afternoon.

Admission is $3 cash at the gate. Nearby parking is free.

4:00 to 5:30 P.M.
Battle of Menotomy: Myth, Lore & History
Rebecca Nurse Homestead, Danvers

Prof. Donald Hayes, a longtime member of the Danvers Alarm List Company, will present his recent research on the role that the Danvers militias played in the fighting at Menotomy during the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Danvers lost seven men that day, second only to Lexington itself. He will highlight what is lore and what is documented fact. Reserve free tickets here.

“Brushes with the law reshaped rural time consciousness”

The topic of this seminar at the David Center for the American Revolution in Philadelphia caught my eye: “The Triumph of Bank Time in the Early Republic.”

The scholar sharing that paper, Dr. Justin Clark, is Senior Lecturer in the History Department at Cornell University and formerly an Associate Professor of History at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His current projects include the anthology A Cultural History of Time in the Age of Empire and Industry (1789–1914) and his own book A Clockwork Republic.

Here’s the abstract that Clark probably wrote for the seminar series, probably months back, so it may or may not reflect his work as it’s coming out:

Historians have long believed that Americans relinquished more “natural” forms of time consciousness only with the industrial developments of the antebellum period: mass-produced clocks and watches, railroad timetables, and growing reliance on factory wage labor. Yet as this paper argues, rural republicans had already developed a more modern and abstract understanding of time by the 1790s.

Throughout the eighteenth century, an intermediate network of coastal merchants, wholesalers, and village shopkeepers connected manufacturers in the British Isles with rural producers in the colonies. By quietly pricing interest—the time value of money—into the cost of goods, inland shopkeepers protected the rural customer who paid by the harvest with the Liverpool merchant who charged interest by the day. The accommodation between these two financial cultures collapsed with the Revolution, as an examination of account books, commercial correspondence, newspapers, and other sources shows.

After 1783, as a condition for renewing commerce with their newly independent American counterparts, British merchants demanded the swift repayment of old debts with interest. These demands quickly travelled down the chain of debt from coastal importer to villager, such that rural debtors found themselves dragged not only into court, learning in the process what Franklin’s urban artisans already knew: “Time is money.” As one agricultural journal urged in 1799, “every minute thou hast ever spent in consulting Almanacks for the weather, has been entirely lost, or very foolishly employed”; time was better spent watching the financial calendar.

Long before the appearance of the steamboat, train, village clock or factory, these brushes with the law reshaped rural time consciousness. Ultimately, this paper argues, impersonal and inflexible demands for punctuality played an overlooked but significant role in contemporary episodes of agrarian resistance such as Shays’ Rebellion.

Time working as it does, I won’t be able to log into this seminar because I’ll be traveling. And since this seminar is a discussion of a work in progress, it won’t be recorded. We’ll have to wait until Clark publishes. But already the concepts are giving me something to think about on the plane.

For folks interested in the history of Boston, Justin Clark’s previous book is City of Second Sight: Nineteenth-Century Boston and the Making of American Visual Culture.

Duane on “The Hidden History of America’s Children,” 25 Sept.

On Wednesday, 25 September, Old North Illuminated will host an online talk by Anna Mae Duane titled “Cradle to Revolution: The Hidden History of America's Children.”

The event description says:

When we think about Americans who changed the course of history, we rarely think about children. In the popular imagination, young people usually stand on the sidelines of history, sheltered and coddled by the adults who really make things happen. In reality, however, children have played a vital part in American politics and culture since the colonial era.

In this online talk, Dr. Anna Mae Duane of the University of Connecticut will explore the often-overlooked role of children in shaping the course of early American history. From the Salem Witch Trials to the Revolutionary War and the fight against slavery, Dr. Duane will reveal how young voices and actions influenced pivotal moments in our nation's past, including revolutionary changes in social and political structures.

Duane is a professor of English and director of the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute. She is particularly interested in “how definitions of youth and childhood shape culture and policy in ways that require the abdication of rights in order to claim care.” Duane has written and edited six books, including Suffering Childhood in Early America.

To register for this virtual event, go to this page, press the Get Tickets button, and make a donation of any amount to Old North Illuminated. You’ll receive a Zoom link by email. Prof. Duane’s talk is scheduled to start at 7:00 P.M.

“Winning Independence” with General Washington

Here’s yet another video that’s interesting as a representation of the Revolution for modern Americans.

The modern Americans of 1932, that is.

That year, the U.S. of A. celebrated the 200th anniversary of George Washington’s birth, a division of Kodak called Eastman Classroom produced four fifteen-minute movies about him with the blanket title George Washington: His Life and Times.

The screenshots in this posting are from the installment “Winning Independence,” as put on YouTube by Periscope Films.

Though talking pictures had become standard entertainment by that time, schools still weren’t wired for sound, so these films were made as silent movies, with an emphasis on visuals.

Judging by the number of men shown, the battlefield scenes must have had high budgets. The image above shows grenadiers marching up Bunker Hill, looking very much like Howard Pyle’s painting of that scene. There are also animated maps.

The narrative is standard: Washington provides discipline for the army, loses New York, wins at Trenton and Princeton, loses Philadelphia the next year, learns enough at Valley Forge to win at Monmouth, and then there’s a jump over several years with just a quick mention of Charleston and Gen. Nathanael Greene before we arrive at Yorktown.

The credits thank William Randolph Hearst for the impressive scenes of Washington and his troops crossing the Delaware River on the night of 25–26 Dec 1776. Some of those shots match the 1924 feature Janice Meredith, starring Hearst’s inamorata Marion Davies.

The other movies in the series are “Conquering the Wilderness,” “United the Colonies,” and “Building the Nation.” 

Some Recent Videos

Here are some videos you might like.

From the American Battlefield Trust, footage from the 249th-anniversary reenactment of the Battle of Lexington and Concord at Minute Man National Historical Park in April.


From Fort Ticonderoga, here’s a link scenes from the site’s reenactment of the capture of British cannons atop Mount Defiance during Col. John Brown’s raid on the area in 1777.

Finally, from History Camp, with the help of Phil Lupsiewicz, here’s a link to my talk from last month’s gathering on “Beyond the Thirteen: The American Colonies that Stayed with Britain.”

Barbara Oberg and the Infrastructure of Early American Scholarship

Barbara Oberg, historian of early America, passed away this month. Though Oberg had the rank of professor in the Princeton History Department, she was known for a career of less visible work that benefited historical scholarship.

Primarily, Oberg was the lead editor of the Benjamin Franklin Papers and then the Thomas Jefferson Papers. Between the two series, she oversaw the publication of more than twenty volumes. In doing so, she both helped generations of scholars and readers access that correspondence and trained other documentary editors.

Dr. Oberg also edited collections of scholarly essays: Women in the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World, Federalists Reconsidered, and Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and the Representation of American Culture.

Oberg was also known within the profession for serving the non-university organizations that support scholars, research, and publication. The Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture just eulogized her this way:

Barbara was also an insightful and incisive leader. Keenly aware of the importance of institutions for scholarship, she was devoted to the organizations that support early American history, including the OI. From 2010 to 2023, she served on the OI’s Executive Board, presiding as Chair from 2014 onward. Her steady counsel, exceptional generosity, and subtle wit helped us flourish even as we navigated shifts in leadership and sponsorship and moved into our new home. We are profoundly grateful to her for her help.

The OI is not the only organization to have benefitted from Barbara’s keen intellect and energetic engagement. She helped steer the American Philosophical Society, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, and the Society of Documentary Editors.

Indeed, at “A Life in Letters: A Celebration of Dr. Barbara Oberg”—a 2023 symposium jointly organized by the OI and the American Philosophical Society—historians, editors, and cultural leaders gathered in Philadelphia to discuss the ongoing importance of Barbara’s work. At “Barbara Fest,” as we called it, speakers and audience members alike testified to her profound impact on the organizations they cared most about.

The sessions of that symposium can be viewed here on YouTube. Historians of early America discuss Franklin, Jefferson, women, the field of documentary editing, and what Barbara Oberg brought to each of those areas.

Kenneth Lockridge and the New Social History

Kenneth A. Lockridge died last month at the age of seventy-nine. He was Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Montana, having previously taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Lockridge’s first book, published in 1970, was A New England Town: The First Hundred Years: Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636–1736.

It was one of a bevy of studies of rural New England communities published in the 1970s, including John Demos’s A Little Commonwealth, Michael Zuckerman’s Peaceable Kingdoms, and Philip J. Greven’s Four Generations.

Robert A. Gross applied and extended that approach in The Minutemen and Their World, about Concord in the Revolutionary period.

This “new social history” focused on the lives of ordinary men and women rather than political elites, on long-term social and economic trends rather than individual narratives. Eventually it was no longer new, and younger historians developed other approaches, such as looking at the experiences of people who weren’t ordinary because of race, sex, or other factors.

Lockridge went on to write such books as Literacy in Colonial New England, Settlement and Unsettlement in Early America, and On the Sources of Patriarchal Rage: The Commonplace Books of William Byrd and Thomas Jefferson and the Gendering of Power in the Eighteenth Century.

He also published studies of Sweden, his wife’s home, and after retirement moved to that country to be with family.

The University of Montana has named its workshop for historical works in progress after Lockridge.

The Triumph of the Suffolk Resolves

Aside from rhetoric, the Suffolk County resolutions of 9 Sept 1774 differ from the Middlesex County resolutions of 31 August in some significant ways.

The Suffolk convention included the Quebec Act among its complaints:

the late act of parliament for establishing the Roman Catholic religion and the French laws in that extensive country, now called Canada, is dangerous in an extreme degree to the Protestant religion and to the civil rights and liberties of all America.

In Philadelphia Samuel Adams was taking steps to dispel his image as a religious zealot, but it was still quite acceptable to be anti-Catholic. Indeed, fighting “popery” was an element of British patriotism.

New grievances arose in just the few days between the two conventions. The Suffolk Resolves complained about how “it has been recommended to take away all commissions from the officers of the militia”—a suggestion from William Brattle that became public on 1 September. Also about “the fortifications begun and now carrying on upon Boston Neck”—Gen. Thomas Gage’s response to the militia mobilization on 2 September.

The Middlesex convention urged people not to cooperate with the court system under the Massachusetts Government Act. The Suffolk convention went further to endorse non-consumption of goods from Britain, as the Solemn League and Covenant promoted:

That until our rights are fully restored to us, we will, to the utmost of our power, and we recommend the same to the other counties, to withhold all commercial intercourse with Great-Britain, Ireland, and the West-Indies, and abstain from the consumption of British merchandise and manufactures, and especially of East-Indies, and piece goods, with such additions, alterations, and exceptions only, as the General Congress of the colonies may agree to.

Probably the most important difference between the Suffolk Resolves and the output of all the other Massachusetts county conventions, before and after, was the connection with that “General Congress,” or First Continental Congress.

The Massachusetts delegates to the Congress presented the Middlesex Resolves to the Congress on 14 September. The Congress’s bare-bones record says simply that they “were read.”

Dr. Joseph Warren, the man who drafted the Suffolk resolutions, had Paul Revere carry a copy to the Massachusetts delegates in Philadelphia. Revere left Boston on 11 September and arrived on the 16th, also bringing more solid news about the state of the province after the “Powder Alarm.”

On 17 September, the Congress heard the Suffolk Resolves and then unanimously voted to endorse them. Rumors of British military action had alarmed delegates the week before. They could have criticized the Massachusetts Patriots for overreacting and heightening the tension further. But instead in this resolution they praised the province’s “firm and temperate conduct.”

The Congress had the entire text of the Suffolk Resolves and the Suffolk convention’s message to Gov. Gage entered into its records, and had secretary Charles Thomson send the text to the Pennsylvania Packet to the reprinted.

John Adams called the 17th “one of the happiest Days of my Life.” Thomas Cushing wrote home to Dr. Warren:

They highly applaud the wise, temperate and spirited Conduct of our People. . . . These Resolves will, we trust, support and comfort our Friends, and confound our Enemies.

Warren in turn had that letter printed in the 26 September Boston Gazette. The message was clear: This Congress was adopting Massachusetts’s cause.

“These are Sentiments, which we are obliged to express”

Yesterday I quoted the opening paragraphs of the Middlesex County Convention’s resolutions, adopted 31 Aug 1774.

I was struck hard by one trait of that declaration, evidently drafted for the convention by Jonathan Williams Austin.

That trait is clear in the closing paragraphs:

These are Sentiments, which we are obliged to express, as these Acts are intended immediately to take Place. We must now either oppose them, or tamely give up all we have been struggling for. It is this that has forced us so soon on these very important Resolves. However we do it with humble Deference to the Provincial and Continental Congress, by whose Resolutions we are determined to abide; to whom, and the World, we cheerfully appeal for the Uprightness of our Conduct.

On the whole, these are “great and profound Questions.” We are grieved to find ourselves reduced to the Necessity of entering into the Discussion of them. But we deprecate a State of Slavery. Our Fathers left a fair Inheritance to us, purchased by a Waste of Blood and Treasure. This we are resolved to transmit equally fair to our Children after us. No Danger shall affright, no Difficulties intimidate us. And if in support of our Rights we are called to encounter even Death, we are yet undaunted, sensible that HE can never die too soon, who lays down his Life in support of the Laws and Liberties of his Country.

For comparison, here’s the opening paragraph of the Suffolk County resolutions drafted by Dr. Joseph Warren and adopted on 9 September:

Whereas the power but not the justice, the vengeance but not the wisdom, of Great Britain, which of old persecuted, scourged and exiled our fugitive parents from their native shores, now pursues us, their guiltless children, with unrelenting severity; and whereas, this then savage and uncultivated desert was purchased by the toil and treasure, or acquired by the valor and blood, of those our venerable progenitors, who bequeathed to us the dear-bought inheritance, who consigned it to our care and protection,—the most sacred obligations are upon us to transmit the glorious purchase, unfettered by power, unclogged with shackles, to our innocent and beloved offspring. On the fortitude, on the wisdom, and on the exertions of this important day is suspended the fate of this New World, and of unborn millions. If a boundless extent of continent, swarming with millions, will tamely submit to live, move, and have their being at the arbitrary will of a licentious minister, they basely yield to voluntary slavery; and future generations shall load their memories with incessant execrations. On the other hand, if we arrest the hand which would ransack our pockets; if we disarm the parricide who points the dagger to our bosoms; if we nobly defeat that fatal edict which proclaims a power to frame laws for us in all cases whatsoever, thereby entailing the endless and numberless curses of slavery upon us, our heirs and their heirs for ever; if we successfully resist that unparelleled usurpation of unconstitutional power, whereby our capital is robbed of the means of life; whereby the streets of Boston are thronged with military executioners; whereby our coasts are lined, and harbors crowded with ships of war; whereby the charter of the colony, that sacred barrier against the encroachments of tyranny, is mutilated, and in effect annihilated; whereby a murderous law is framed to shelter villains from the hands of justice; whereby that unalienable and inestimable inheritance, which we derived from nature, the constitution of Britain, which was covenanted to us in the charter of the province, is totally wrecked, annulled and vacated,—posterity will acknowledge that virtue which preserved them free and happy; and, while we enjoy the rewards and blessings of the faithful, the torrent of panegyric will roll down our reputations to that latest period, when the streams of time shall be absorbed in the abyss of eternity.

That 402-word paragraph consists of only four sentences, with an average of 101 words each.

Long sentences are a hallmark of eighteenth-century prose—clauses piling up on top of each other, linked with colons and semicolons and dashes, building up to a final burst of eloquence (“when the streams of time shall be absorbed in the abyss of eternity”).

In contrast, the introductory and concluding paragraphs of the Middlesex County resolutions total to 473 words. Those fall into 19 sentences, about 25 words each. That’s practically modern in its sentence structure.

The two documents make a lot of the same arguments. It might be much easier for today’s students to grasp those points as expressed by the Middlesex County convention—but that text is not as widely available.

TOMORROW: At the Congress.

Reading the Middlesex Resolves

On 30–31 Aug 1774 delegates from “every town and district in the county of Middlesex” met at Concord to discuss the political situation in Massachusetts.

The body chose a committee headed by Jonathan Williams Austin of Chelmsford to draft its response to Parliament’s recent Coercive Acts. Austin was a young lawyer, raised in Boston, educated at Harvard, and trained by John Adams.

At the end of that convention, the body voted 146 to 4 to adopt the Austin committee’s report offering nineteen resolutions. Here’s the preface, as printed in a broadside:

IT is evident to every attentive Mind, that this Province is in a very dangerous and alarming Situation. We are obliged to say, however painful it may be to us, that the Question now is, Whether by a Submission to some late Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain, we are contented to be the most abject Slaves, and entail that Slavery on Posterity after us, or by a manly, joint and virtuous Opposition assert & support our Freedom.

There is a Mode of Conduct, which in our very critical Circumstances we wou’d wish to adopt, a Conduct, on the one Hand, never tamely submissive to Tyranny and Oppression, on the other, never degenerating into Rage, Passion and Confusion. This is a Spirit, which, we revere as we find it exhibited in former Ages, and will command Applause to latest Posterity.

The late Acts of Parliament pervade the whole System of Jurisprudence, by which Means, we think, the Fountains of Justice are fatally corrupted. Our Defence must therefore be immediate in Proportion to the Suddenness of the Attack, and vigorous in Proportion to the Danger.

We must NOW exert ourselves, or all those Efforts, which for ten Years past, have brightened the Annals of this Country, will be totally frustrated. LIFE & DEATH, or what is more, FREEDOM & SLAVERY are in a peculiar Sense now before us, and the Choice and Success, under God, depend greatly upon ourselves. We are therefore bound, as struggling not only for ourselves, but future Generations, to express our Sentiments in the following Resolves; Sentiments, which we think, are founded in Truth and Justice, and therefore Sentiments we are determined to abide by.

The Middlesex County resolutions complained about three acts of Parliament: the Boston Port Bill, the Massachusetts Government Act (in detail), and the Administration of Justice Act. This convention said nothing about the revised Quartering Act or the Quebec Act, often grouped with those others.

Resolution 17 called out Samuel Danforth and Joseph Lee by name as “judges of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for this county, [who] have accepted commissions under the new act by being sworn members of his Majesty’s Council.” It’s no surprise, therefore, that those two men were the first targets of the “Powder Alarm” two days after the convention ended. They indeed had enough warning to write out their resignations from the Council.

TOMORROW: A question of style.

Where Was the Charlestown Powderhouse?

Before departing from the “Powder Alarm” entirely, I’ll draw on guest blogger Charles Bahne to address a pertinent question: Where was the powderhouse?

That may seem like a silly question since it’s a stone building that has stood atop the same hill since it was built shortly after 1700.

But some of our sources from 1774 refer to that location in different ways:

• William Brattle: “This morning the Select Men of Medford, came and received their Town Stock of Powder, which was in the Arsenal on Quarry-Hill.”
• Boston Gazette: “the powder house on quarry hill in Charleston bounds”
• Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper: “You have heard of the taking ye. Windmill, at Cambridg with the Province Powder.”
• Rev. Ebenezer Parkman: “The Contents Magazine of Powder at Winter Hill had been carryed off.”
• John Adams: “the Provincial Powder from the Magazine at Cambridge”

Charles Bahne wrote in an email:

Legally, the powder house was in Charlestown. But it was closer (both crow-flies distance, and actual roads) to the populated centers of either Medford or Cambridge, or even Menotomy, than it was to Charlestown.

• Powder House Sq. to Medford Sq. = 1.23 miles airline, 1.47 miles by road, according to Google Maps
• Powder House Sq. to Harvard Sq. = 1.90 miles airline, 2.14 miles by road
• Powder House Sq. to Menotomy [Arlington Center] = 2.13 miles airline, 2.17 miles by road
• Powder House Sq. to Charlestown Neck [Sullivan Sq.] = 2.47 miles airline, 2.49 miles by road

Once you got "beyond the Neck", Charlestown got long and skinny. And hardly anyone lived there. . . . While the powder house itself was in the town of Charlestown, the property just across the street was in Medford. The town/city boundaries in that area were adjusted at some point in the 1800s.

I suspect that one reason for choosing that site for a powder house—besides the fact that the old windmill was available—was that the area was unpopulated. If by chance it blew up, there was no one nearby to be killed or injured, no other property that might be destroyed.

But it was conveniently at a crossroads. Broadway was a straight line road between Charlestown Neck and Menotomy, although I suspect that it was a lightly used, poorly maintained thoroughfare, and not a highway. . . . The other crossroad was more important, the road from Medford to Cambridge, present day Harvard St., Warner St., and College Ave.

The picture above is a detail from an 1833 map, before the western arm of Charlestown became Somerville. The arrow points to the powderhouse. The circles show the population centers of Medford, Cambridge, and (at the lower right) Charlestown.

Proximity helps to explain why the man who “for a Number of Years had the Care of [the gunpowder] as to sunning and turning it,” William Gamage, lived in Cambridge. Proximity might explain why the Medford selectmen were the last to remove their town’s powder from the tower in August 1774; it was, after all, quite convenient where it was.

As for Winter Hill, that was fairly nearby and large. But the powderhouse stood atop its own drumlin, called Quarry Hill for decades because locals had taken stone from it, including the stone used to build the tower itself. That spot is now known as Powder House Hill.

Norton on the Year 1774 in Hingham and Concord

Mary Beth Norton was one of the first modern historians of the Loyalists, then a pioneer in exploring how the American Revolution affected women in several books.

She wrote In the Devil’s Snare about the Salem witchcraft crisis of 1692 and most recently 1774: The Long Year of Revolution, which won the 2021 George Washington Book Prize.

Norton joined the history faculty at Cornell University and is now the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History Emerita. Ithaca, New York, though a gorgeous place, is in no way a transportation hub. Therefore, she can’t just pop in for guest lectures elsewhere.

In the coming week, however, Prof. Norton will be speaking to two local historical organizations about how the Revolution developed in 1774.

Sunday, 15 September, 3:00 P.M.
1774: The Long Year of Revolution
Hingham Heritage Museum and online

Inaugurating the Hingham Historical Society’s Revisiting the American Revolution series, Norton analyzes the crucial, but often overlooked, year of 1774 and the pivotal events of that year which would help to forge a new nation. Her book 1774 has become an essential text on the American Revolution.

The society is the whole series of lectures as a package, and since I’m the November speaker I simply must recommend that.

Thursday, 19 September, 7:00 P.M.
1774 and All That: Reflections on a Long Year of Revolution
Concord Museum and online

One of the most acclaimed and original colonial historians of our time, Mary Beth Norton, shares her landmark text 1774: The Long Year of Revolution chronicling the revolutionary changes that occurred from December 1773 to April 1775—from the Boston Tea Party to the Battles of Lexington and Concord. In those 16 months, colonists loyal to King George III began discordant “discussions” that led to their acceptance of the inevitability of war. Professor Norton will be joined in conversation to bring to life this foundational moment in American history.

The in-person seats for this event have sold out, but you can still register for online access.

“Boston was quiet & no hurt done”

On 8 Sept 1774, two days after the men at the First Continental Congress heard dire reports about the Crown military attacking Boston, accurate information arrived in Philadelphia.

The army had not killed half a dozen civilians. The navy had not bombarded the town. In fact, over two tense days nobody had been hurt at all.

Robert Treat Paine recorded the new news in his diary:

By the Post came advice from N. York that a person had arrived from Boston & Newport since the time Supposed in [Israel] Putnams Letters & that Boston was quiet & no hurt done.

John Adams did likewise, characteristically with more emotion:

The happy News was bro’t us, from Boston, that no Blood had been spill’d but that Gen. [Thomas] Gage had taken away the Provincial Powder from the Magazine at Cambridge [sic]. This last was a disagreable Circumstance.

Roger Sherman of Connecticut wrote the next day:

We were Alarmed a few Days ago with a report that Boston was fired upon by the Land and Sea forces, but it has been Since Contradicted.

Also on 9 September, Caesar Rodney of Delaware wrote about news from Massachusetts: ”A letter to Mr. [Thomas] Cushing by Express from Boston informs that all is Quiet as Yet…” He went on to discuss other forms of resistance snarling up the Suffolk County court sessions and mandamus Council.

People in the eighteenth century were used to hearing false reports and contradictory information to sort out. They knew that news could take days and weeks to travel, and be garbled along the way. They must have been used to rethinking how they understood distant events based on new facts.

Nonetheless, those reports of the British military attacking Boston must have tinged how the delegates at this Continental Congress viewed the ongoing dispute with the Crown. The news arrived just as those men were getting acquainted and setting out the rules for their body.

On 6 September, the same day that the false rumors prompted the Congress to adjourn early, Samuel Adams was proposing that the Rev. Jacob Duché, an Anglican, lead the body in prayer. As I wrote way back here, that “masterly stroke of policy” helped allay worries that the New Englanders were all religious bigots who would drag the whole continent into an unnecessary fight. And now Adams’s home town was under attack?

Philadelphians began to ring their church bells “muffled” in mourning for the Boston dead. According to Silas Deane, Christopher Gadsden (shown above) of South Carolina was “for taking up his Firelock, & marching direct to Boston.” John Adams wrote, “Every Gentleman seems to consider the Bombardment of Boston, as the Bombardment, of the Capital of his own Province.”

Then came the better news. Deane reported, “The Bells of the City are now ringing a peal of Joy on Acct. of the News of Boston’s having been destroy’d being contradicted.” The Congress didn’t have to consider military matters after all. At least, not right away. But for a couple of days, the delegates had faced the possibility of a war against the imperial government. Could their actions keep that from happening, or did they need to prepare for it—or was it possible to do both?

“In what Scenes of Distress and Terror”?

On the afternoon of 6 September, news of the “Powder Alarm” reached Philadelphia, where the First Continental Congress had just started meeting in Carpenter’s Hall.

Of course, that news consisted of the dreadfully exaggerated rumors that had spread through New England after British soldiers had seized gunpowder on the morning of 1 September.

James Duane of New York kept private notes on each day’s session, and he wrote:

N B. During the meeting of the Congress an Express arriv’d to the Jersey Members giving Intelligence that the soldiers had seized the powder in one of the Towns near Boston. That a party was sent to take this; & that six of the Inhabitants had been killd in the Skirmish. That all the Country was in arms down to [blank] in Conneticut. That the Cannon fired upon the Town the whole Night.

Naturally, the Massachusetts delegates were most concerned. Robert Treat Paine wrote in his diary:

About 2 o Clock a Letter came from Israel Putnam into Town forwarded by Expresses in about 70 hours from Boston, by which we were informed that the Soldiers had fired on the People and Town at Boston, this news occasioned the Congress to adjourn to 8 o Clock pm. The City of Phila. in great Concern, Bells muffled rang all pm.

According to Samuel Ward of Rhode Island, the news of “the Troops & Fleets cannonading the Town of Boston &c occasioned an Adjournment to 5 o’Clock P.M.”

John Adams held out hope for better news:

Received by an express an Intimation of the Bombardment of Boston—a confused account, but an alarming one indeed.—God grant it may not be found true.

The next day, Silas Deane (shown above) of Connecticut wrote home to his wife:

An express arrived from N York confirming the Acct. of a rupture at Boston. All is in Confusion. I can not say, that all Faces, gather paleness, but they all gather indignation, & every Tongue pronounces Revenge. The Bells Toll muffled & the people run as in a Case of extremity they know not where, nor why.

As of the morning of 8 September, the Congress was still anxious for news. Adams wrote to his wife Abigail:

When or where this Letter will find you, I know not. In what Scenes of Distress and Terror, I cannot foresee.—We have received a confused Account from Boston, of a dreadfull Catastrophy. The Particulars, We have not heard. We are waiting with the Utmost Anxiety and Impatience, for further Intelligence.

The Effect of the News We have both upon the Congress and the Inhabitants of this City, was very great—great indeed! Every Gentleman seems to consider the Bombardment of Boston, as the Bombardment, of the Capital of his own Province. Our Deliberations are grave and serious indeed.

And Deane wrote:

We are all in the greatest anxiety, that of a most cruel suspence as to the certainty of the Boston rupture, as No fresh intelligence has as yet arrived.

TOMORROW: Fresh intelligence at last.

“The purport was, Boston was in action…”

One important element of the “Powder Alarm” of 1774 was that although the British army operation ended peacefully on the morning of 1 September, reports of what happened kept spreading for days.

And as those reports spread, they grew more dire.

Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles recorded from an eyewitness that in Shrewsbury in the early morning hours of 2 September the rumor was “six men killed.”

Exaggerations like that brought thousands of Middlesex County militiamen into Cambridge that day. That event produced fear about more British military action, which apparently produced more rumors.

At noon on 3 September, Israel Putnam tried to rouse the militia around Pomfret, Connecticut, because of and with this news:

I have this minute had an express from Boston that the fight between Boston and Regulars [began] last night at sunset, the cannon began to and continued playing all night, and they beg for help

Early on 4 September, Titus Hosmer (shown above) in Middletown, Connecticut, was woken by the sheriff, who had received a letter from Putnam. Hosmer wrote:

The purport was, Boston was in action by the “troops sending out to seize all the powder in the country, especially at Framingham [sic] about 20 miles from Boston; which when discovered occasion’d the country people to collect and offer to rescue the powder [i.e., grab it back]. Six of the country people were shot dead at the very time, and many wounded—an Artillery planted at the Neck—the Ships were heard to fire all night of a Friday.

By noon that day, Hosmer heard a less drastic report via Hartford:

[William] Brattle at Cambridge, a high tory, had petitioned [Gen. Thomas] Gage for troops to protect him at his house, which Gage granted; a mob gathered and demand of Brattle to renounce his toryism or whatever you may term it; but after a short parley the troop fired, kill’d some right out, a large numr. wounded. No news from the town itself.

On Sunday, 4 September, the worst rumors reached Longmeadow, Massachusetts. The Rev. Stephen Williams heard that the Royal Navy was involved:

the Ships in ye Harbour—of Boston, & ye Army on ye Land Side were allso fireing upon ye Town so yt. it was like ye Town was Demolishd.

In Milford, Connecticut, young Joseph Plumb Martin heard the talk at church that Sunday afternoon and went to bed fearing redcoats would attack his family’s home before morning.

Of course, none of that happened. But it took a while for the real news to catch up.

TOMORROW: How the news reached the Continental Congress.

“Behold, the Guns Were Gone” Commemoration at Minute Man Park, 14 Sept.

On Saturday, 14 September, Minute Man National Historical Park will host a special event called “‘Behold, The Guns Were Gone’: 250th commemoration of stolen cannon and political turmoil in September 1774.”

This has been in my calendar for a long time as “cannon fun day.” But the formal event description is:

Enjoy a day of lectures, artillery firing demonstrations, and interactive ranger programs focused around cannons and the politics of 1774. Today, Minute Man National Historical Park proudly displays the original “Hancock” 3pdr cannon in our North Bridge Visitor Center. This cannon was one of four recovered by Patriots from British-controlled Boston in September 1774 and smuggled to Concord in early 1775.

And here’s the schedule of events.

10:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.
Informal Living History
North Bridge Visitor Center, parking at 174 Liberty Street, Concord

10:30 A.M.
A September to Remember: The Powder Alarm and Court Closures
Park Ranger Jim Hollister explores how the events of September 1774 put Massachusetts on the path to war in 1775.
North Bridge Visitor Center

11:00 A.M., 2:30 P.M., and 3:30 P.M.
Artillery Firing Demonstration
Park Living Historians demonstrate the safe firing of a 3pdr artillery piece. (30 Minutes)
North Bridge Visitor Center

11:30 A.M., 3:00 P.M., and 4:00 P.M.
Join the Artillery!
See if you have what it takes to be an 18th-century artillerist in this non-firing hands-on experience. Join a Park Ranger for an interactive program about 18th century cannons and their use on the battlefield. (30 minutes)
North Bridge Visitor Center

1:00 P.M.
The Gunhouse Heists and the New England Arms Race
Join historian J. L. Bell at Minute Man Visitor Center for a lecture about September 1774 and how patriot forces managed to steal cannon from their safehouses guarded by British soldiers in Boston. (60 minutes)
Lexington Visitor Center, parking at 210 North Great Road in Lincoln (allow five minutes to walk to the visitor center)

My talk will of course draw from The Road to Concord—and from what I’ve learned since writing that book.

Reardon on Benedict Arnold’s New London Raid, 10 Sept.

Matthew Reardon will speak at the Ledyard, Connecticut, Public Library on 10 September about his new book, The Traitor’s Homecoming: Benedict Arnold’s Raid on New London, Connecticut, September 4-13, 1781.

The background:

By 1781, the war in North America had reached a stalemate. Throughout the summer the combined Franco-American armies of Generals George Washington and Jean-Baptiste comte de Rochambeau deceived British General Sir Henry Clinton into believing they were about to lay siege to New York City. When in fact, they were moving south toward Yorktown, Virginia, in a bid to trap Lord Cornwallis’ army against the sea.

Clinton, falling for the deception, dispatched former American General Benedict Arnold to attack New London, hoping the move would derail militia reinforcements and supplies headed from Connecticut to the allied armies outside New York City, as well as destroy the privateers which operated out of its harbor.

Situated in southeastern Connecticut, New London was the center of the state’s wartime naval activities. State and Continental naval vessels operated out of its harbor, which doubled as a haven for American privateers. Arnold landed on September 6 and, in a textbook operation, defeated local militia, took possession of the town, harbor, and forts, and set New London's waterfront ablaze.

But that is not how it is remembered. The Connecticut governor’s vicious propaganda campaign against the British and Arnold, who was already infamous for his treachery, created a narrative of partial truths and embellishments that persist to this day. As such, most of the attention remains on the bloody fighting and supposed “massacre” at Fort Griswold. There is much more to the story.

Based on years of research, this book dismantles myths that have cemented around Arnold’s raid and offers a major reinterpretation of what’s significant about it.

Matthew Reardon is a native of northeastern Connecticut with degrees from Sacred Heart University. He served as executive director of the New England Civil War Museum & Research Center for more than fifteen years. He currently works as a middle school teacher in Vernon and serves as a command historian for the Connecticut Military Department.

Raphael on “The Massachusetts Revolution of 1774,” 10 Sept.

On Tuesday, 10 September, the Paul Revere House will host an online talk by Ray Raphael on “The Massachusetts Revolution of 1774.”

Ray is based in California and doesn’t come to Massachusetts as often as he once did [I’ve asked him twice this year!], so this is the best opportunity to hear him speak about the momentous events 250 years ago this month.

The event description says:

In response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament not only shut down the port of Boston but also revoked the Massachusetts Charter of 1691, which guaranteed the people considerable say in their government. Their sacred rights withdrawn, the people rose up as a body and rebelled. They forced all crown-appointed officers to resign. Everywhere except Boston, where British troops were stationed, they shut down county courts, which administered British authority, executive as well as judicial, on the local level. To fill the vacuum, they formed a Provincial Congress that levied taxes, gathered arms, and raised an army.

When British soldiers marched on Lexington and Concord the following spring, they were trying to take back a province they had just lost. That’s when other colonies joined in, broadening the Massachusetts Revolution of 1774 into the American Revolution of 1775.

Ray wrote about these events in The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord and with his wife Marie in The Spirit of ’74: How the American Revolution Began. He’s written many other books on the Revolutionary period, including A People’s History of the American Revolution, Founding Myths, and Founders.

The Paul Revere House says its lectures this season will focus on the silversmith’s lesser-known express assignments. Speakers will share the importance of Revere’s courier work not only as an individual act of patriotism but also as part of communications systems.

Ray Raphael’s lecture will be livestreamed by the GBH forum network here on YouTube. Though not every webpage agrees, this event will start at 6:30 P.M. Anyone can log on.

Gunshots in the Countryside

On 7 Sept 1774, 250 years ago today, Henry Vassall was riding in Lincoln when he heard a gunshot.

The only Henry Vassall I was able to find on the family tree at this time was a nineteen-year-old son of William Vassall, discussed yesterday.

Henry was either visiting or staying with his cousin Elizabeth, wife of Dr. Charles Russell (1739–1780, shown here). I wonder if he was studying medicine.

Later that month Henry Vassall told the Charlestown committee of correspondence about his experience. He then wrote out an account for two Middlesex County magistrates, Henry Gardner of Stow and Dr. John Cuming of Concord:

Passing between the House of Mrs. Rebecca Barons [?] & Doct. Russell’s between the Hours of 7 & 9 in the Evening of the 7 instant [i.e., this month] & to the best of my Knowledge as I rose [?] a little Hill a little a past the first Canopy [?] I heard the report of a Gun saw the light and a Ball Enter’d the Carriage which I was in being Doct. Russells.

I immediately step’d out of the Carriage & stood about five or six Minutes & then stepp’d into the Carriage Again & road in haste to the Doctor when I had gone a small Distance from the Place where the Gun was discharged I met a person on Horse back

when I had past a small Distance further I met several Persons riding on two Horses,

whether the Ball was aim’d at the Carriage I can’t say I further declare I do not know or even suspect who the Person was that Discharg’d the Gun as above mentioned . . .

NB. The above affair I declar’d to no person in Lincoln but the Revd. Mr. [William] Lawrence & desired him to keep it secret—Till the Friday Following.

Gardner and Cuming also gathered statements from a local man named Joseph Peirce and Luck, enslaved to Dr. Russell. Both declared that they had been traveling near young Vassall and had heard no gunshot.

Three members of the Lincoln committee of correspondence then wrote back to Charlestown agreeing that they detested “the Crime of Assassination” but casting doubt on Vassall’s complaint:

We shall only add that as the evening on which this event was said to have happened was very calm it is the general opinion here that it is very improbable if not utterly impossible that a gun should be Discharged at that time & place without being heard by many persons, you have Doubtless seen the impression in the Carriage & are able to judge & Declare whether it is the efect of a Bullet Discharged from a Gun or Not as well as any person in this town

This incident provided yet another reason for members of the Vassall family to seek safety surrounded by the king’s soldiers. (And on the same day that the magistrates wrapped up their investigation, people in Bristol, Rhode Island, threw stones at the chaise of Henry’s father and stepmother, William and Margaret Vassall. Newspapers reported that “next morning [they] set out for Boston.”)

This shot in Lincoln is only the second example I’ve found of someone in Massachusetts firing a gun at a supporter of the royal government. The first had occurred a couple of weeks earlier in Taunton.

According to Daniel Leonard, a veteran of the last war named Job Williams came to his house with a warning that “the People were to assemble” to protest how he had joined the mandamus Council. Leonard left, thinking that would head off the problem. Instead, on 22 August , or perhaps make it clear he wouldn’t be welcomed back. That crowd did arrive. Leonard wrote:

about five hundred persons assembled, many of them Freeholders and some of them Officers in the Militia, and formed themselves into a Battalion before my house; they had then no Fire-arms, but generally had clubs. . . .

My Family supposing all would remain quiet, went to bed at their usual hour; at 11 o’Clock in the evening a Party fixed upon the house with small arms and run off; how many they consisted of is uncertain, I suppose not many; four bullets and some Swan-shot entered the house at the windows, part in a lower room and part in the chamber above, where one Capt. Job Williams lodged. The balls that were fired into the lower room were in a direction to his bed, but were obstructed by the Chamber floor. . . . I conclude it possible that the attack upon the house was principally designed for him.

Back in 1769–1770, there had been three increasingly notorious incidents of government supporters shooting at crowds of protestors: the “Neck Riot,” Ebenezer Richardson killing Christopher Seider, and of course the Boston Massacre. But even in that period Massachusetts protestors had never shot at royal officials or their supporters.

These untraceable gunshots in the late summer of 1774 show that some people in Massachusetts were starting to think it was acceptable to use that level of violence against Loyalists.

The Flight of the Cambridge Loyalists, part 3

When the ministry in London chose supportive gentlemen for the Council under the Massachusetts Government Act, one was William Vassall (1715–1800, shown here with his son Leonard wanting help with homework).

William was the last male in his generation of Vassalls, thus the head of a wealthy Anglican family that generally supported the Crown.

However, he wasn’t a politician, and former governor Thomas Hutchinson called him “naturally timid.” And since marrying Margaret Hubbard, he was living on her very nice estate in Bristol, Rhode Island.

On 25 August, Gov. Thomas Gage wrote to Secretary of State Dartmouth that William Vassall was among three men who “plead age and infirmities, but I believe choose to avoid the present disputes.” Those disputes were taking the form of angry rural crowds pressuring the new-fangled mandamus Councilors to resign or leave town.

Some of William’s relatives witnessed the even bigger crowds in Cambridge on 2 Sept 1774, later dubbed the “Powder Alarm.” His niece Elizabeth was married to Lt. Gov. Thomas Oliver, and his sisters Susanna and Anna were the wives of George Ruggles and John Borland, respectively.

And then there was William’s nephew John Vassall, owner of the richest estate in Cambridge—now the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.

As a rich country gentleman, John Vassall had the usual appointments of justice of the peace and militia colonel. But he’d never sought to serve in a political office.

Until that week. On the morning of 2 September, Gov. Gage wrote to Dartmouth:

I have given Your Lordship in my letter of this date, the names of several of the New Council who desire to resign their Seats; and I have now the honour to transmit you the names of Three Gentlemen who desire to be of the Council, vizt.—Mr. John Vassall of Cambridge, Mr. Eliakim Hutchinson, and Mr. Nathaniel Hatch.

John Vassall probably thought that by joining the Council he would not only be supporting his king but also stepping up act as head of the family.

When he wrote, Gage didn’t know that thousands of men with sticks were marching along the road in front of John Vassall’s house. Nor did those men know that John Vassall had volunteered to be on the Council.

At that moment only John Vassall knew how close he was to receiving a summons from those thousands of men, as Joseph Lee and Samuel Danforth did. By the end of the day, he and his wife must have heard from their siblings, Elizabeth and Thomas Oliver, about the threatening crowd that surrounded the lieutenant governor’s house and demanded he resign.

In 1784, John Vassall told the British government’s Loyalists Commission: “He was afraid of the Mob who knew his principles & he went to Boston a Day or two after Govr. Oliver’s House was attacked.” 

On 23 Feb 1775, the Boston News-Letter published a long article about how various Loyalists had been driven from their homes. It said: “Col. Vassall, of Cambridge, from intolerable threats, and insolent treatment to his friends and himself, has left his elegant seat there, and retired to Boston, with his amiable family, for protection.”

The lack of specific examples of “insolent treatment” and Vassall’s report of leaving Cambridge within a couple of days after the “Powder Alarm” suggest that there may not have been many real confrontations. But there was a lot of real fear.

In the fall of 1774 the London government sent a writ of mandamus appointing John Vassall and others to the Council. On 15 December, Gov. Gage wrote back: “Messrs. Erving, Vassal and Hatch have accepted the honour conferred upon them, but desire that it may be kept secret for a time, and that they may not be called upon till they are prepared.”

The next Council meeting Gage convened was on 17 July. But Vassall didn’t participate. In 1784 he told the Loyalists Commission that “he was never sworn in owing to an Accident which made him lame.” Natural timidity might have run in the family.