“You have heard of the taking ye. Windmill”

In The Road to Concord I quoted a lot from accounts of the “Powder Alarm” that Dr. Joseph Warren and Dr. Thomas Young sent to Samuel Adams on 4 Sept 1774. (Warren’s letter is undated, so that date is a guess based on context.)

Both those physicians had gone out to Cambridge common on 2 September along with other genteel Boston Whig leaders, hoping to calm the crowd and prevent violence. They could therefore share eyewitness details with Adams.

(In fact, the crowd was already calm, though determined. It didn’t verge on violence until later in the afternoon when Customs Commissioner Benjamin Hallowell, Jr., happened to roll by. And the inland farmers wouldn’t have recognized Hallowell if Bostonians like printer Isaiah Thomas hadn’t pointed him out, calling, “Dam you how doe you like us now, you Tory Son of a Bitch[?]” Needless to say, Thomas wasn’t part of the Boston committee.)

Adams also received a 5 September letter from the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper describing the “Powder Alarm.” That minister was not an eyewitness, so all his information was second-hand at best and inaccurate in some details. But that letter offers a look at what the Whigs were telling each other about the event.

You have heard of the taking ye. Windmill, at Cambridg [sic—Charlestown] with the Province Powder there by a Detachment.

The next Morning three thousand assembled at Cambridg. They conducted with Order & great Firmness. [Samuel] Danforth & [Joseph] Lee, expecting a Storm had resign’d the Day before. Sheriff [David] Phips has promis’d not to act upon ye. new Laws. Even the Lt. Governor [Thomas Oliver] resign’d his Seat at ye. Board [i.e., the Council].

The Assembly having done their Business, retir’d.

Hallowell pass’d on that Day thro Cambridg from Salem. When he had got a little Way fro the Assembly, one or two Horsemen follow’d him. He gallop’d with all the Speed he could make thro the blazing Heat to Boston.

When he got upon ye. Neck, as if all the Sons of Liberty in the Province had been at his Heels, He scream’d for the Guard: They ran from their Station to meet him. The Alarm was soon given to the Camp—and an apprehension instantly propagated of a Visit from Cambridg. The Soldiers lay on their arms thro the Night.

They have since doubled their Guard at the Fortification, and planted four Pieces of Cannon there.

Dr. Cooper had other things to say about the mandamus Councilors and what Gen. Thomas Gage was writing to his superiors in London. (How could the minister know?)

Cooper signed this letter “Amicus,” adding, “If you are at a Loss, Mr. [Thomas] Cushing will explain my Signature—conceal my name.”