Marriages in the Mortimer Household

According to the story Charles Collard Adams told in Middletown Upper Houses (1908), young William Keith was supposed to marry his mentor’s niece Martha soon after she arrived from Ireland in the early 1770s.

That mentor, Philip Mortimer, sent Keith off to Boston with a coach to pick up Martha and bring her back Middletown, Connecticut.

But things didn’t go according to Mortimer’s plans. On 10 May 1775, William Keith (c. 1749–1811) married Mary Lions Callahan (c. 1748–1820) of Cork, remembered as the niece’s maid Polly.

Other records say that on 25 June 1775 Philip Mortimer’s Irish-born niece, Ann Catharine Carnall (c. 1745–1817), married another Middletown businessman, George Starr (1740–1820).

The Keiths had their first child, named John after his paternal grandfather, who had died suddenly in February, on 4 December. That was about eight months after the marriage. In his book, Adams pushed the wedding date back to a more respectable January.

I suspect the account in Middletown Upper Houses, delicious as it is, had been massaged into more dramatic shape over the decades. It looks like Adams had the wrong name for the niece, and that woman probably arrived in New England years before the marriages, perhaps as early as 1760.

But I also suspect there’s a seed of truth in this tradition. As a teenager William joined the Mortimer household, which might already have included Ann. People might have expected the two young people to marry.

Instead, William married Polly, and a few weeks later Ann married George.

Were those couples happy? William and Polly Keith had five more children between 1777 and 1786. They remained prosperous as William opened his own ropewalk in Middletown.

George and Ann Starr had two children, Martha Mortimer (1777–1848) and Philip Mortimer (1783–1857), named after her aunt and uncle. He also remained wealthy, and he also owned a ropewalk in Middletown.

TOMORROW: Back to Prince Mortimer.

Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage

In 1773, as recounted yesterday, Philip Mortimer of Middletown, Connecticut, lost his wife Martha and both the brothers he had left behind in Boston.

Philip and Martha had had no children, but he appears to have tried to create a family through informal adoptions.

Mortimer had some business ventures with a Scottish-born merchant in Hartford named John Kieth. This man had started as a ship captain, at one point carrying British troops to the Caribbean. Like Mortimer, he was an Anglican in a Congregational colony.

Both he and his wife were born around 1700, so by midcentury it was clear they weren’t going to have any more children (if they’d had any already). Capt. Kieth adopted a boy named William, born about 1749.

According to local lore, as a teenager William Keith moved in with Philip Mortimer to learn the ropemaking business.

On 10 Feb 1775, the Connecticut Courant reported this news from Hartford:

Last Wednesday, (being Fast Day [1 February]) as Capt. JOHN KIETH of this Town, was attending Public Worship in the North Meeting-House, he was seiz’d with an apoplectic Fit, and expired in a Moment. His Remains were carried to Middletown the Friday following, and decently deposited in Capt. Mortimer’s Tomb.

Mortimer became “Acting Executor” of Kieth’s estate.

That death was no doubt shocking, but Mortimer was already augmenting his household further. Charles Collard Adams’s Middletown Upper Houses (1908) stated: “Capt. Philip Mortimer, being childless, sent to Ireland for his neice, Martha, to become his adopted daughter.”

However, other sources say Mortimer’s favored niece was named Ann Catherine Carnall, born about 1745. As quoted back here, Mortimer had worked with a ship captain named Thomas Carnall to bring Irish youth into Boston in the 1740s; perhaps that man was a brother-in-law. I’m going with the name Ann.

According to Adams, people understood that Mortimer hoped that his niece would marry his protegé, William Keith. He sent the young man “to Boston with a coach and four” to meet Ann and bring her back to Middletown, presumably proposing along the way.

But Ann had come with a maid named Polly Lions Callahan, also in her mid-twenties.

TOMORROW: Can this marriage be saved?

“Departed this life deservedly lamented”

The year 1773 must have been a hard one for Philip Mortimer of Middletown, Connecticut.

He didn’t suffer business reverses, but he lost members of his family.

First Martha Mortimer, his wife of more than thirty ears, died. The 16 March Connecticut Courant reported:

On Saturday the 27th of February last, departed this life deservedly lamented, the amiable consort of Capt. Philip Mortimer, of Middletown, and on Tuesday following was decently inter’d in Mr. Henshaw’s tomb, attended by a numerous concourse of people of all ranks, from that and the neighbouring towns.

Benjamin Henshaw (1730–1793) was another merchant who had moved from Boston to Middletown. His grave is now marked with an obelisk. It’s possible that in 1773 he owned a tomb, and Martha Mortimer’s body was laid there in the middle of winter before being moved to a grave her husband owned.

That wasn’t the only loss Philip Mortimer suffered, however. The 31 August Connecticut Courant said:

Last Tuesday se’nnight departed this life at Boston, Mr. James Mortimer, aged 69:—

On Saturday following, his Relict, Mrs. Hannah Mortimer, aged 81:—

And on Sunday, under the same roof, their Brother, Mr. Peter Mortimer, aged 58.—

They were the only surviving brothers of Capt. Philip Mortimer, of Middletown, in this Colony.——

These industrious, peaceful, happy Citizens were sober, just, religious. As they had served God faithfully in the small Circle to which Providence had appointed them, and were tenderly united in their lives, he granted them the singular Favour not to be divided in their death.

The Boston newspapers noted the three quick deaths in one household but didn’t mention any epidemic disease or other cause for the public to worry about. 

All three Mortimers had funerals in Trinity Church and were buried in the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. The elaborate gravestone of James and Hannah Mortimer appears above.

TOMORROW: Building a new family.

Philip Mortimer, from Waterford to Boston to Middletown

The Mortimer brothers arrived in Boston from Waterford, Ireland, in the early 1700s. They appear to have come with a bit of money since they quickly set themselves up in businesses.

James Mortimer (c. 1704–1773) was a tallow chandler. On 16 Aug 1741 at King’s Chapel he married another arrival from Waterford: Hannah Alderchurch, twelve years his senior.

James Mortimer advertised “Good Dipp’d Tallow CANDLES” and “the best of IRISH BUTTER by the Firkin” from his shop near Clark’s Wharf, later Hancock’s Wharf. He prospered enough that by the 1760s he owned at least one enslaved worker, named Yarrow, and Apple Island in Boston harbor.

Peter Mortimer (c. 1715–1773) was a ship’s captain.

The middle of these three brothers, Philip Mortimer (c. 1710–1794), was a ropemaker. He married Martha Blin (1716–1773) on 14 Nov 1742, also at King’s Chapel. Though she was said to be “of Boston,” she came from a Wethersfield, Connecticut, family.

Philip Mortimer had a higher profile than his brothers. He was in Boston by 1735, when he witnessed a deed. Two years later, he was one of the founders of the Charitable Irish Society. On 17 Oct 1738 Philip Mortimer shared an advertisement with two other ropemakers, each seeking the return of a teen-aged indentured servant.

On 11 Aug 1740, the Boston Gazette carried this notice:

Just Imported and to be Sold by Edward Alderchurch and Philip Mortimer, on board the Schooner Two Friends, Thomas Carnell Master, now lying at the Long Wharfe near the upper Crane, Choice Welch Coal, a Parcel of likely Boys and Girls; good Rice, Virginia Pork, good Cordage, Cod-Lines and Twine, all at a very reasonable Rate, for ready Money.

A year later a similar ad appeared in the Boston Evening-Post, this one adding that the “likely Boys and Girls” were “fit for Town or Country; the Girls can spin fine Thread, and do any sort of Houshold Work.” They were evidently more indentured youths from Ireland.

By 1749, according to the American-Irish Historical Society’s Recorder in 1901, Philip and Martha Mortimer had moved from Boston to Middletown, Connecticut. As the name implies, that was an inland town, halfway between the towns of Hartford and Wethersfield and the Connecticut River’s mouth at Saybrook. Nonetheless, Middletown had small shipyards, and Philip Mortimer saw the potential to build a ropewalk running perpendicular off the main street.

Mortimer quickly became a big fish in that small pond: town official, militia captain, Anglican church warden, Freemason. He owned the grandest house in town, shown above.

Eventually Philip Mortimer also owned an enslaved rope spinner named Prince. If the man later known as Prince Mortimer was indeed born in 1724, as calculated from his reported age when he died, and brought to Connecticut as a child, then he was in his late twenties and had been worked in Middletown for almost two decades before Philip Mortimer arrived. On the other hand, if Prince Mortimer was born later, then he could have arrived at the ropewalk as a child or teenager, fresh from being kidnapped and transported across the Atlantic, and immediately put into training to make rope.

COMING UP: Deaths and marriages.

Walking in Prince Mortimer’s Footsteps

Last week Connecticut Public reported how Middletown, Connecticut, renamed a street after Prince Mortimer, a man enslaved in that town before and after the Revolutionary War.

Prince Mortimer Avenue was once a walkway connecting the Irish-born trader Philip Mortimer’s mansion and his ropewalk, where he assigned his bondsman Prince to work as a spinner.

In 2006, Denis R. Caron published a book about the enslaved ropemaker: A Century in Captivity: The Life and Trials of Prince Mortimer, a Connecticut Slave.

More recently, John Mills has delved into Prince Mortimer’s life, sharing his work on his nonprofit website and at Enslaved.org. Mills led the push for memorializing Prince Mortimer, as the Middletown Press reported in 2023.

In a Commonplace review, Watson Dennison complained that Caron’s book about Prince Mortimer actually had very little to say about him, and a lot more about the Connecticut prison system in which he spent the last years of his life after being convicted of attempted murder. Dennison also felt that Caron mistakenly portrayed slavery in Connecticut as “a benign institution,” based on outdated analyses.

Studying the latest scholarship is something an author can control. Having detailed sources isn’t. For example, Caron found that no record of Prince Mortimer’s criminal trial survives. So unfortunately there’s no way to recount, much less assess, the evidence in that case.

The sources we do have can also be shaky. The earliest author to write about Prince Mortimer was Richard H. Phelps, who in 1844 published the first edition of his Newgate of Connecticut. Having grown up near that notorious prison made from the Simsbury copper mine, Phelps seems to have created this book for the edification of tourists.

Apparently Phelps conversed with Prince Mortimer himself before his death in 1834. He said the aged inmate was “supposed to be 110 years old,” having been born in Guinea and kidnapped to America as a child. But of course we don’t have records to corroborate that age.

Phelps also described Prince Mortimer as an a war veteran:

He was a servant to different officers in the Revolutionary War—had been sent on errands by General [George] Washington, and said he had “straddled many a cannon when fired by the Americans at the British troops.”

Again, there’s no other record of such service. (And that’s not a safe way to fire a cannon.)

On the one hand, we want to respect the personal statements of Prince Mortimer, wrenched away from his family and terribly victimized through life. On the other hand, exaggerating one’s age, military service, and proximity to the beloved Washington were common fibs for old men in the early 1800s, white or black. Such claims might be most understandable coming from an old man forced into prison after a lifetime of slave labor who needed all the sympathy he could get. 

The earliest contemporaneous evidence about Prince Mortimer appears to be Philip Mortimer’s will, signed in 1792. That document makes clear that “my Negro Prince” was a valuable asset. While the merchant bequeathed freedom to most of the people he enslaved on his death, he wanted Prince and another man, Peter, to “be kept at spinning” in the ropewalk for the benefit of his niece’s husband, George Starr, for another three years.

It might be a mistake to accept Phelps’s 1844 statements as facts and anchor all other evidence about Prince Mortimer’s life to them. Caron and Mills describe Philip Mortimer sending his enslaved man Prince to war in 1780. Even though that man’s skills would probably have made him more valuable, to both his owner and the American cause, in the ropewalk. And even though he was, in their analysis, in his fifties and in poor health. And even though there’s no record of such an action.

At the same time, there’s solid contemporaneous evidence that Philip Mortimer enslaved Prince Mortimer in Middleton, making him work in the ropewalk. He did walk the path now known as Prince Mortimer Avenue as an enforced laborer.

TOMORROW: The Mortimers of Boston.

“The Measles coming into the Town”

In 2015 the medical journal Emerging Infectious Diseases published David M. Morens’s article “The Past Is Never Dead—Measles Epidemic, Boston, Massachusetts, 1713.”

It quoted extensively from the diary of the Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather, and I’ll quote from those extracts.

[18 Oct] …The Measles coming into the Town, it is likely to be a Time of Sickness…

[24 Oct]… [in the past week] my Son Increase fell sick…

[27 Oct] My desirable Daughter Nibby, is now lying very sick of the Measles…

[30 Oct] This day, my Consort, for whom I was in much Distress, lest she should be arrested with the Measles which have proved fatal to Women that were with child, after too diligent an Attendance on her sick Family, was… surprized with her Travail [went into labor]… [and] graciously delivered her, of both a Son and a Daughter… wherein I receive numberless Favors of God. My dear Katy, is now also down with the Measles…

[1 Nov] Lord’s Day. This Day, I baptized my new-born twins… So I called them, ELEAZAR and MARTHA….

[4 Nov] In my poor Family, now, first, my Wife has the Measles appearing on her…

My Daughter Nancy is also full of them…

My Daughter Lizzy, is likewise full of them…

My Daughter Jerusha, droops and seems to have them appearing.

My Servant-maid, lies very full and ill of them.

[5 Nov] My little son Samuel is now full of the Measles….

[7 Nov]… my Consort is in a dangerous Condition, and can gett no rest... Death… is much feared for her… So, I humbled myself before the Lord, for my own Sins... that His wrath may be turned away…

[8 Nov] …this Day we are astonished, at the surprising Symptomes of death upon [my wife]… Oh! The sad Cup, which my Father has appointed me!... God enabled her to Committ herself into the Hands of a great and good Savior; yea, and to cast her Orphans there too…

I pray’d with her many Times, and left nothing undone…

[9 Nov] between three and four in the Afternoon, my dear, dear, dear Friend expired…. [I] cried to Heaven…

[10 Nov] …I am grievously tried, with the threatening Sickness of my discreet, pious, lovely Daughter Katharin.

And a Feavour which gives a violent Shock to the very Life of my dear pretty Jerusha.

[11 Nov] This day, I interr’d the earthly part of my dear consort…

[14 Nov] This Morning… the death of my Maid-servant, whose Measles passed into a malignant Feaver…

Oh! The trial, which I am this Day called unto in… the dying Circumstances of my dear little Jerusha!

The two Newborns, are languishing in the Arms of Death…

[15 Nov] … my little Jerusha. The dear little Creature lies in dying Circumstances. Tho’ I pray and cry to the Lord… Lord she is thine! Thy will be done!...

[18 Nov] …About Midnight, little Eleazar died.

[20 Nov] Little Martha died, about ten a clock, A.M.

I begg’d, I begg’d, that such a bitter Cup, as the Death of that lovely [Jerusha], might pass from me…

[21 Nov] …Betwixt 9 h. and 10 h. at night, my lovely Jerusha Expired. She was 2 years, and about 7 months old. Just before she died, she asked me to pray with her; which I did… and I gave her up unto the Lord. [Just as she died] she said, That she would go to Jesus Christ…

[23 Nov] …My poor Family is now left without any Infant in it, or any under seven Years of Age…

In 1757 Dr. Francis Home of Edinburgh determined that measles was caused by a pathogen. Unfortunately, he did this by using blood from one person with measles to infect others. He then tried to inoculate against the disease using the same technique as with smallpox, but measles doesn’t work the same way.

Not until 1963 did scientists develop an effective measles vaccine. In the first twenty years after the U.S. government tested and licensed that technique, it was estimated to have prevented 52,000,000 cases of the disease in this country. I was among the American children to benefit from the vaccine and never catch measles.

The World Health Organization reported that between 2000 and 2022, measles vaccination averted 57,000,000 deaths worldwide. That’s a huge number of people, about the population of Italy. But through a quirk of our brains, it can be more affecting to read about the series of small deaths, one after another, in Cotton Mather’s house in 1713.

Zannieri and Martello on Paul Revere in Concord, 25 Feb.

On Tuesday, 25 February, the Concord Museum will host a lecture on “Paul Revere: The Man, the Myth, the Legacy.”

This presentation will be delivered jointly by:

• Nina Zannieri, Executive Director of the Paul Revere Memorial Association, which operates the Paul Revere House in the North End of Boston.
• Robert Martello, Professor of the History of Science and Technology at Olin College of Engineering and author of Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn: Paul Revere and the Growth of American Enterprise.

Revere is, of course, best known for his ride on 18–19 Apr 1775, spreading word of the British army march. He did indeed do that, but his prominence in American culture derives from Henry W. Longfellow turning him into a legend in 1861. The Paul Revere House has to help visitors sort out the history from the myth.

Because the history is even more interesting, if not as poetic. Before the war Revere was a political activist, among the most prominent from the mechanics class. Afterwards, he was a leader in Massachusetts’s business community and an early factory owner, the portion of his life that Prof. Martello studies.

This situation produces a paradox: Revere deserves to be remembered and studied in American history. But he’s a household name for actions that he did only part of, and which may not have been that crucial in history.

For an example on a smaller scale, generations of American schoolchildren have heard Longfellow’s lines:

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.

But Revere never made it to Concord on 19 April, much less to the North Bridge. He did, however, visit the town in the preceding week, carrying news that helped James Barrett decide to move the cannon and other ordnance on his farm farther away from Boston, and that stymied the British operation.

This event is scheduled to start at 7 P.M. It is free for Concord Museum members (though those seats might be sold out) and $10 for others. But it’s free to anyone who wants to tune in online.

Believing in “No More Kings”

In September 1975, as America was celebrating its Bicentennial, ABC launched a new season of Schoolhouse Rock interstitials titled “America Rock.”

The first of those ten cartoons was “No More Kings,” featuring a song by Lynn Ahrens that moved rapidly from the Pilgrims at Plymouth to American independence.

It made enough of an impact that a 1990s pop band called itself No More Kings.

The last cartoon in that series, also with a Lynn Ahrens song, was “Three-Ring Government,” about the division between legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

Looking back, historians’ big criticism of “America Rock” was how it presented a simple narrative of constant progress, elevating the perspective of propertied white men and largely ignoring Americans who dissented or lost out.

Seeking to avoid criticism, the producers had avoided current controversies and also tamed the controversies of the past. They reflected a version of national history that the overwhelming majority of Americans in that era could agree on.

Such as “No More Kings” and “Three-Ring Government.”

“The Only Method to secure peace in the Town”?

At the end of his 23 Apr 1775 letter to George Rogers, and in a second, undated letter preserved in the same archive, Lt. John Bourmaster, R.N., turned from reporting stories he’d heard from army officers back to a topic he was experiencing first-hand: what it was like inside besieged Boston.

Bourmaster wrote:

The number of the Country People who fired on our Troops might be about 5 Thousand ranged along from Concord to Charlstown but not less than 20 Thousand were that day under Arms and on the March to join the Others. their loss we find to be nearly on a footing with our own

This count of militiamen who had turned out was reasonably accurate. However, the Crown had lost about three times as many men killed, wounded, or missing as the provincials.

three Days have now pass’d without communication with the Country; three more will reduce this Town to a most unpleasent situation; for there dependence for provision was from day to day on supply from the Country that ceasing you may conceive the consequences.

preparations are now making on both sides the Neck for attacking and defending the Hampshire and Connecticut Militia have join’d so that Rebel Army are now numerous. Collins is well and stationed between Charls Town and the end of this Town to assist in the defence. The General [Thomas Gage] and Earl Percy shall have the perusal of your Letter.

John Collins and Bourmaster had both been lieutenants on HMS Valiant years earlier. Collins had become commander of HMS Nautilus, which arrived in Boston harbor in early April.

Under the date of 20 April, Adm. Samuel Graves wrote in his Narrative:

The Captain of the Nautilus off the Magazine point, was directed to arm a flat bottomed Boat, and with the assistance of Boats from other Ships to take care that Guard should be rowed every night as high up the [Charles] River as possible.

In his later letter, Bourmaster discussed Gage’s quandary of how to deal with Boston’s civilian population. Was it safer to let them leave or to keep them in town to forestall a provincial attack, knowing most were hostile to the occupying army and had militia training?

Propositions have been made on the part of the General to the Select Men for disarming the Inhabitants but this I find they are unwilling to comply with; so that if we begin at the Lines we shall have it on both sides of our Ears they being at least 3000 strong in Town, with Arms in their possession; a pretty pass we are come to, Ah poor Old England how my heart feels for her present dishonourable situation—

Ultimately Gage and the selectmen reached a deal: once Bostonians had stored their firearms in Faneuil Hall, they could leave. Later Gage curtailed the departures, prompting complaints. Later still, Gen. George Washington grew suspicious of people leaving the town, worrying they were meant to spread smallpox or collect information.

Bourmaster shared his own idea for how to deal with this set of zealous civilians:

The following I have proposed as the Only Method to secure peace in the Town there are Churches and meetings sufficient to contain all those before mentiond, they with the Select Men, and Preachers, should be put in their at daylight in the Morning, their doors well secured, a strong guard round each, with Bagonets fixt; and then would I begine the Attack on Roxbury and Open a way again for us besieged Britons, but this is only a little presumption in an Old Valiant who becaus he has seen great things don expects to see such days again.

That plan was never implemented, of course.

Again, the surviving text of Bourmaster’s letters, as copied for the Marquess of Rockingham, was published in the William & Mary Quarterly in 1953.

“The Enthuseastic zeal with which those people have behaved”

Many British officers like Lt. John Bourmaster, R.N., shared an image of New Englanders as a bunch of religious zealots, eager to pick up Oliver Cromwell’s fight against the Crown.

I’m not saying he was all wrong in that, but it certainly tinged his reporting on the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which I’ve been quoting.

Again, Bourmaster was responsible for ferrying Lt. Col. Francis Smith’s troops across the Charles River at the start of their march but didn’t go with them. So these are stories Bourmaster had heard from army officers, not events he had personally seen:

The Enthuseastic zeal with which those people have behaved must convince every reasonable man what a difficult and unpleasent task General [Thomas] Gage has before him, even Weamin had firelocks one was seen to fire a Blunder bus between her Father, and Husband, from their Windows; there they three with an Infant Child soon suffered the fury of the day.

In another House which was long defended by 8 resolute fellows the Granadiers at last got possession when after having run their Bagonets into 7, the 8th continued to abuse them with all the moat like roge of a true Cromwellian. and but a moment before he quited this world apply’d such epethets as I must leave unmentioned

God of his Infinite mercy be pleased to restore peace and unanimity to those Countrys again for I never did nor can think that Arms will enforce obedience.

In publishing this document in the William & Mary Quarterly, J. E. Tyler guessed that “moat like roge” might mean “beast-like rage,” or be a transcription error. The sentiment seems clear.

The second anecdote looks like a description of the fight at the Jason Russell House in Arlington. The first doesn’t match any incident I can think of.

TOMORROW: Conditions inside Boston.

“The fire then commenced and fell heavy on our Troops”

The rest of Lt. John Bourmaster’s April 1775 account of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which I started to quote yesterday, didn’t relate his personal experiences as a Royal Navy officer.

He didn’t, for example, write anything about the operation to evacuate regulars from Charlestown back to Boston on the night of 19–20 April. He didn’t mention Maj. John Pitcairn of the marines.

Instead, Bourmaster’s letter passed on what he‘d heard from British army officers. And of course the big message that those officers, up to Gen. Thomas Gage, wanted to put out was that the rebels had started it.

Bourmaster’s very first statement about the fighting was that locals shot first.

A firelock was snapt over a Wall by one of the Country people but did not go off, the next who pulld his triger wounded one of the light Infantry company of General [Studholme] Hodgsons or the Kings own.

Other sources, including Pitcairn, Ens. Jeremy Lister of the 10th, and Capt. John Barker of the 4th (King’s Own), said that a soldier in the 10th Regiment was wounded in the morning at Lexington. In this case, Bourmaster had false information.

The lieutenant never actually got around to describing the search in Concord or the shooting there. Instead, his letter continued:

the fire then commenced and fell heavy on our Troops, the Militia having posted them selves behind Walls, in houses, and Woods and had possession of almost every eminence or rising ground which Commanded the long Vale through which the King’s Troops were under the disagreeable necessity of passing in their return.

Colonel [Francis] Smith was wounded early in the Action and must have been cut Off with all those he commanded had not Earl Percy come to his relief with the first Brigade; on the Appearance of it our Almost conquer’d Granadiers and light Infantry gave three cheers and renew’d the defence with more spirits.

Lord Percys courage and good conduct on this occasion must do him immortal honour, upon taking the Command he Ordered the King’s own to flank on the right, and the 27th [actually the 47th] on the left, the R Welsh Fuseliers to defend the Rear and in this manner retreated for at least 11 Miles before he reached Charlestown—for they could not cross at Cambridge where the Bridge is, they haveing tore it Up, and fill’d the Town and houses with Arm’d Men to prevent his passage;

our loss in this small essay ammounts to 250 Kill’d wounded and Missing. and we are at present cept up in Boston they being in possession of Roxbury a little Village just befor our lines with the Royal and Rebel centinels within Musquet shot of each other. The fatigue which our people pass’d through the Day which I have described can hardly be belived, having march’d at least 45 Miles and the Light Companys perhaps 60,

In fact, even the regulars who went all the way out to James Barrett’s farm in Concord and back traveled less than forty miles that day.

Bourmaster also wrote:

A most amiable young man of General Hodgson’s fell that Day his name Knight brother to Knight of the 43 who was with us at Jamiaca.

This was Lt. Joseph Knight, killed and buried in Menotomy. Ezekiel Russell’s Salem Gazette agreed that Knight was “esteemed one of the best officers among the Kings troops.”

TOMORROW: Those crazy provincials.

“Landed them on a point of Marsh or Mudland”

Lt. John Bourmaster of the Royal Navy, introduced yesterday, played a crucial role in Gen. Thomas Gage’s expedition to Concord on 18–19 Apr 1775.

Bourmaster’s commander, Adm. Samuel Graves, wrote in his self-serving Narrative report about the navy’s role in that operation:

The Boats of the Squadron, by desire of the General were ordered to assemble along side the Boyne by 8 o’Clock in the Evening, and their Officers were instructed to follow Lieut. Bourmasters Direction. These Boats were to take in the Troops and land them in the Night at Phipps Farm; which being done they marched up the Country.

Bourmaster’s own account appears in his 23 Apr 1775 letter to George Rogers, secretary to Adm. Augustus Keppel. J. E. Tyler published the text of that letter in the William and Mary Quarterly in 1953, and I pointed out the connections to Bourmaster yesterday.

The lieutenant offered details about the first leg of the redcoats’ journey—across the Charles River:

On the 18th Instant between 11 and 12 0 Clock at Night I conducted all the Boats of the Fleet (as well Men a War as Transports) to the back part of Boston where I received the Granadiers and light Infantry amounting to 850 Officers and Men and Landed them on a point of Marsh or Mudland which is overflowed with the last quarter flood;

this Service I presume to say was performed with secrecy and quietness having Oars muffled and every necessary precaution taken, but the watchful Inhabitants whose houses are intermixed with the Soldiers Barracks heard the Troops Arms and from thence concluded that somthing was going on tho they could not conceive how or where directed

in consequence of this conception a light was shown at the top of a Church Stiple directing those in the Country to be on their guard.

The intention of this Expedition was to distroy some Guns and provision which were collected near Concord a Town 20 miles from where the Troops were landed, Colonel [Francis] Smith a Gallant Old Officer commanded this detachment and performd the above service.

Bourmaster’s contemporaries wrote of him as not having wealth or genteel education when he joined the navy. That’s reflected in his writing, which has non-standard spellings (“Men a War,” “Stiple”) and punctuation. To be sure, we’ve got a copy of the original, if not a copy of the copy.

Bourmaster’s account confirms the struggle between the British military and the Boston Patriots over control of information. Just as the lieutenant’s sailors rowed with “Oars muffled,” so did the two men conveying Paul Revere across the same river a little downstream. British officers recognized how the lights from the Christ Church steeple signaled the countryside. They didn’t know the man cued to ride by that signal would play little or no part in raising the alarm.

It’s not clear if Bourmaster knew the objective of the regulars’ march on 18 April or heard about it later, but this is yet another British source saying that goal was the “Guns and provision” in Concord and not Patriot leaders in Lexington.

TOMORROW: Who was to blame.

Who Wrote the “Account of Lexington”?

In 1953 J. E. Tyler published an article in the William and Mary Quarterly titled “An Account of Lexington in the Rockingham Mss. at Sheffield.” 

This account appeared in two letters, the first dated 23 Apr 1775 and the second written a short time later. They were addressed to a friend named “Rogers,” with whom the writer had served “at Jamaica,” and offered news and good wishes for “the Admiral.”

That appears to have been Adm. Augustus Keppel (1725–1786, shown here), who brought the letters (or copies of them) to the Marquess of Rockingham’s cottage in Wimbledon. Ultimately the marchioness filed those copies or further copies.

Tyler wrote: “it is the more unfortunate that the signatures, though copied along with the main text of the letters, have been heavily cancelled, since it is now virtually impossible to establish the identity of the writer.” The clues that remain show that that person:

• wrote from “Empress of Russia Boston April 23th.”
• signed “what appears to be the initial letter ‘J’” at the start of his name.
• described himself as “an Old Valiant.”
• planned also to write “to my precious Girls.”
• promised to show Rogers’s letter to “The General [Thomas Gage] and Earl Percy.”

Tyler then hazards a guess that the letter writer was the master of the troop transport Empress of Russia, listed in an Admiralty Office record from 1776 as John Crozier.

However, as reported yesterday, Crozier died in November 1774. He had been in command of the Empress of Russia, and his name might have lingered in some naval records, but he didn’t see the start of the war.

Documents in Gage’s papers confirm that the Empress of Russia was in Boston harbor from April 1775 to the end of the year, when it sailed to the Caribbean for supplies. The commander of the vessel in those months was Lt. John Bourmaster (1736–1807), agent for all the transports to Boston and thus a liaison between navy and army.

Bourmaster was a merchant seaman for most of the 1750s, passing the exam to become a Royal Navy lieutenant in late 1759. His first assignment was H.M.S. Valiant, commanded by Adm. Keppel from 1759 to 1764. Starting in late 1762, Keppel was in command of the Jamaica station. Keppel’s secretary was George Rogers, who would be on the Admiralty Board by the end of the war.

After a slow start, Bourmaster’s Royal Navy career also took off. He became a captain in 1777, a rear admiral in 1794, and a full admiral in 1804. The year 1797 saw the marriage of “Harriet, youngest daughter of Admiral John Bourmaster, of Titchfield”—meaning he had more than one daughter.

Thus, all the clues in those letters are consistent with the writer being Lt. John Bourmaster. 

The Barber and the Ship Captain

As I said yesterday, I searched for more information from American sources about the conflict between a New York barber and a British ship captain reported and illustrated in Britain in early 1775.

I couldn’t find any mention of that dispute in the New York press. I spotted no trace in American newspapers of a captain named “Crozer.” 

The British newspaper article claimed that “the worthy sons of liberty in solemn Congress assembled…voted and unanimously” to praise the barber. There was no New York Provincial Congress yet, so that could only mean the Continental Congress, which did no such thing.

For a while I wondered if this anecdote was completely fictional, made up to make the Americans look petty and hateful but then assumed to be true by some British readers. Slowly, however, I was able to nail down some surrounding details.

The barber in the print did exist. On 9 Feb 1769 “Jacob Vredenburgh, Peruke-maker,” was registered as a freeman of the city of New York.

Later that year, on 23 October, the banns were published for “Jacob Vredenburg” to marry Jannetje Brouwer at the Reformed Dutch Church. There were no surviving children from that marriage.

Vredenburgh shows up in records related to his wife’s family: at the baptism of a niece in 1771, as a co-executor with John Brower in November 1798, and in his own will proved in September 1800, with his wife (now called Jane) and John Brower among the executors.

There’s also a 1788 will of “John Vredenburgh, hairdresser, of New York City,” that names one heir as that man’s brother “Jacob Vredenburgh, of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, hairdresser,” so he may have moved out of the state for a while.

Furthermore, the captain in the print did exist. Or rather, had existed.

On 30 June 1774, the Massachusetts Spy printed this item:

Last Saturday arrived at Marblehead, the Schooner Dove, Ebenezer Parker from Newfoundland, who spoke with the ship Empress of Russia, John Crosier master, from Ireland, out six weeks bound to Boston with the 38th regiment on board.

The next day, that regiment arrived, along with the 5th and Adm. Samuel Graves’s flagship.

After the “Powder Alarm” on 2 September, Gen. Thomas Gage began moving all his troops in New York City up to Boston, too. The Empress of Russia might well have been part of that operation, putting Capt. John Crozier in New York in late September or early October, when he reportedly had his dispute with Vredenburgh. But then he would have headed back to Boston.

The Boston Evening-Post for 21 Nov 1774 listed among the people who had died in town:

Capt. Crozier, Commander of the Empress of Russia Transport Ship.

The records of King’s Chapel include the burial on 19 November of:

John Crozier / Captain of the King of Prussia Transport / [age] 51

(Empress of Russia—King of Prussia—all the same, right?)

Thus, less than two months after Jacob Vredenburgh allegedly kicked John Crozier out of his barber shop in New York, the captain died in Boston. By the time a satirical print was made to illustrate that story, he had been dead for nearly three months.

TOMORROW: A letter from a dead man?

A Print of a “Patriotick Barber”

On 14 Feb 1775, 250 years ago today, Robert Sayer and John Bennett published a satirical print, probably created by Philip Dawe, titled “The Patriotick Barber of New York.”

As I discussed back here, that was one of several images Sayer, Bennett, and probably Dawe produced for British customers interested in American affairs.

The artist appears to have taken inspiration from news stories printed in British newspapers. In this case, the article appeared in the 7 January Kentish Gazette, the 13 January Edinburgh Advertiser, and perhaps elsewhere.

As quoted by R. T. H. Haley in The Boston Port Bill as Pictured by a Contemporary London Cartoonist, it said:

The following card, copies of which were circulated at New York, is too singular not to merit insertion:

“A Card,
“New York, Oct. 3rd.

“The thanks of the worthy sons of liberty in solemn Congress assembled, were this night voted and unanimously allowed to be justly due to Mr. Jacob Vredenburgh, Barber, for his firm spirited and patriotic conduct, in refusing to complete an operation, vulgarly called Shaving, which he had begun on the face of Captain John Crozer, Commander of the Empress of Russia, one of his Majesty’s [troop] transports, now lying in the river, but most fortunately and providentially was informed of the identity of the gentleman’s person, when he had about half finished the job.

“It is most devoutly to be wished that all Gentlemen of the Razor will follow this wise, prudent, interesting and praiseworthy example, so steadily, that every person who pays due allegiance to his Majesty, and wishes Peace, Happiness, and Unanimity to the Colonies, may have his beard grow as long as ever was King Nebuchadnezzar’s.”

The picture showed the barber, well wigged but ugly and sneering, pushing the handsome but half-shaved captain out of his chair. “Orders of Government” poke from the captain’s pocket while another man tries to hand him a letter marked “To Capt. Crozer.”

The print carried the subtitle “The Captain in the Suds,” and underneath it was the verse:

Then Patriot grand, maintain thy Stand,
And whilst thou sav’st Americ’s Land,
Preserve the Golden Rule;

Forbid the Captains there to roam,
Half shave them first, then send ’em home,
Objects of ridicule.

On the barbershop wall are engraved portraits of the Earls of Camden and Chatham, British politicians who spoke up for the colonies’ cause, plus Chatham’s recent speech. Beside them hangs the Continental Congress’s Articles of Association, a boycott that hadn’t actually been announced when this incident took place.

In the top and bottom of the picture are wig boxes with the names of local Whigs: “Alexander McDugell,” John Lamb, Isaac Sears, and so on. One says, “Welle Franklin.” Was that the royal governor of New Jersey?

Perhaps the most striking detail of this print is that I can’t find any mention of the incident in the American press, nor of the men involved. The event appears to have been recorded only in the British newspaper reports, and those would have been long forgotten if not for this picture.

But because the print was so dramatic, 200 years after publication it inspired Ashley Vernon and Greta Hartwig to create a one-act opera, The Barber of New York.

TOMORROW: More about the barber.

“Leslie’s Retreat” Commemorations in Salem and Marblehead

Essex County is gearing up to commemorate the Sestercentennial of “Leslie’s Retreat,” the frustrated British army expedition on 26 Feb 1775 to seize cannon that Patriot rebels were collecting in north Salem.

Redcoat troops landed in Marblehead and marched through town to Salem. The militia companies of other nearby towns mobilized in response. That confrontation could have led to serious violence in the midst of Massachusetts’s second-largest settlement, but fortunately it was resolved peacefully.

Here are all the commemorations that I’ve learned about through Salem 400, the Marblehead Museum, and partner organizations.

Saturday, 15 February, 10 A.M.
Leslie’s Retreat: Salem on the Brink of Revolution
Salem Armory Visitor Center, 2 New Liberty Street, Salem

The National Park Service opens its exhibit on why Crown soldiers under Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie came to Salem on February 26, 1775, who were the major players in the event, and how this event has been remembered and celebrated in Salem in the last 250 years. This free exhibit wlll be on display through 27 April.

Saturday, 15 February, 11:30 A.M.
250th Anniversary of Leslie’s Retreat Forum and Discussion
Pickering House, 18 Broad Street, Salem

Local historians David Moffatt, Benjamin Shallop, Jeff Swartz, and Vijay Joyce discuss the British army expedition and the local reaction. $25 admission, $20 for Pickering House members. (Currently listed as sold out.)

Sunday, 16 February, noon to 3 P.M.
Tours of the Pickering House
18 Broad Street, Salem

The caretaker of the oldest house in Salem will introduce eleven generations of Salem history, including the Patriot activist Timothy Pickering, later a Continental Army general and U.S. Secretary of War and Secretary of State. The tour will cover the oldest parts of the house and end with tea and coffee. Order tickets here.

Friday, 21 February, 6:30 P.M.
Leslie’s Retreat exhibit opening reception and lecture
Salem Armory Visitor Center, 2 New Liberty Street, Salem

Emily Murphy, Ph.D., curator of this exhibit and for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site and Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site, will speak about the history and its interpretation at this free event.

Saturday, 22 February
Commemorative March and Tours
Salem

• 9:30 A.M.: Presentation at St. Peter’s San Pedro’s Episcopal Church, 24 St. Peter’s Street, Salem.
• 11 A.M.: Redcoat March to North Bridge. The public will view the reenactors from the site of the bridge. Spectaors should plan to be at the North Bridge at 11 A.M. sharp.
• Noon to 4 P.M.: Self-guided tours of St. Peter’s San Pedro Episcopal Church.
• 12:30 P.M. and 2:30 P.M.: Salem-Marblehead Trolley Tour lead by local architectural historian Judy Anderson. Reservations encouraged. The trolley starts boarding fifteen minutes before the tour, and everyone with a reservation must be aboard by 12:20 or 2:20. Then the remaining seats will be made available on a first-come first-served basis.
• 2:30 P.M.: Fashion in the Season of Revolution: A Panel Discussion & Revolutionary Reenactor Promenade, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex Street, Salem, free with museum admission.
• 7:30 P.M.: Revolution Ball, Hamilton Hall, 9 Chestnut Street, Salem. An evening of live music, dancing, food, and drinks, with attendees in colonial dress or black-tie fashion. General admission $150.

Sunday, 23 February
Indoor Commemorations
Salem

• 10:30 A.M.: “A Revolutionary Reckoning,” a joint religious service led by First Church in Salem, Unitarian Universalist, and Tabernacle Congregational Church. All ages and denominations welcome. Attendees can stay for a special Fellowship Hour of coffee, tea, and refreshments.
• Noon to 3 P.M.: Tours of the Pickering House, 18 Broad Street, Salem (see above).
• 12:30 to 1:30 P.M.: Norumbega Harmony concert, First Church, 316 Essex Street, Salem. Norumbega Harmony is a choral ensemble founded in 1976 and dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and performance of New England psalm singing from the colonial and early American periods.
• 3 to 5 P.M.: “In Open Rebellion,” Old Town Hall, 32 Derby Square, Salem. World premiere of a drama written by Kristina Wacome Stevick, directed by Samantha Searles, and produced by History Alive. In the fall of 1774, Salem’s Patriots, Loyalists, and enslaved Africans debate the meanings of liberty and loyalty. Free, but attendees must reserve tickets.

Thursday, 27 February, 7 P.M.
When Redcoats Marched in Marblehead
Marblehead Museum, 170 Washington Street, Marblehead, and online

I’ll speak about both the history and the mythology of “Leslie’s Retreat,” drawing on eyewitness accounts and primary sources to illuminate a day the Revolutionary War might have begun, but didn’t. This talk will put the event in the context of the maneuvering between Gov. Thomas Gage and the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and cut away some of the myths that have stuck to it. $15 admission, $10 for museum members.

Protecting “a government of laws, not of men”

This week William R. Bay, president of the American Bar Association, issued a statement that says in part:

Most Americans recognize that newly elected leaders bring change. That is expected. But most Americans also expect that changes will take place in accordance with the rule of law and in an orderly manner that respects the lives of affected individuals and the work they have been asked to perform.

Instead, we see wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself, such as attacks on constitutionally protected birthright citizenship, the dismantling of USAID and the attempts to criminalize those who support lawful programs to eliminate bias and enhance diversity.

We have seen attempts at wholesale dismantling of departments and entities created by Congress without seeking the required congressional approval to change the law. There are efforts to dismiss employees with little regard for the law and protections they merit, and social media announcements that disparage and appear to be motivated by a desire to inflame without any stated factual basis. This is chaotic. It may appeal to a few. But it is wrong. And most Americans recognize it is wrong. It is also contrary to the rule of law.

The American Bar Association supports the rule of law. That means holding governments, including our own, accountable under law. We stand for a legal process that is orderly and fair. We have consistently urged the administrations of both parties to adhere to the rule of law. We stand in that familiar place again today. And we do not stand alone. Our courts stand for the rule of law as well. . . . We support our courts who are treating these cases with the urgency they require. Americans know there is a right way and a wrong way to proceed. What is being done is not the right way to pursue the change that is sought in our system of government.

These actions do not make America stronger. They make us weaker. . . .

Moreover, refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress under the euphemism of a pause is a violation of the rule of law and suggests that the executive branch can overrule the other two co-equal branches of government. This is contrary to the constitutional framework and not the way our democracy works. The money appropriated by Congress must be spent in accordance with what Congress has said. It cannot be changed or paused because a newly elected administration desires it. Our elected representatives know this. The lawyers of this country know this. It must stop.

There is much that Americans disagree on, but all of us expect our government to follow the rule of law, protect due process and treat individuals in a way that we would treat others in our homes and workplaces. The ABA does not oppose any administration. Instead, we remain steadfast in our support for the rule of law.

John Adams was fond of defining a republic as “a government of laws, not of men.” He was echoing the British political writer James Harrington, who criticized the opposite situation: “some man, or some few men, subject a city or a nation, and rule it according to his or their private interest: which, because the laws in such cases are made according to the interest of a man, or of some few families, may be said to be the empire of men, and not of laws.”

After Richard Nixon and Robert Bork dismissed Archibald Cox because the Watergate prosecution was closing in on Nixon’s crimes, Cox issued a statement that drew on that tradition: “Whether we shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people.”

More about the Prayer Attributed to Jefferson—or Was That Washington?

The February 2025 issue of Church & State has an article by Brian Kaylor about the prayer that House Speaker Mike Johnson falsely attributed to Thomas Jefferson last month.

Kaylor also wrote about the prayer at his website, Word&Way.

To provide a more complete account of the prayer than I could offer in January, I’ll summarize Kaylor’s articles.

The Rev. George Lyman Locke of Bristol, Rhode Island, composed the text in 1882, calling it a prayer “for our country.” Colleagues in the Episcopal church pushed to have it included in the American Book of Common Prayer, particularly at the 1916 general convention.

At that same convention, another delegate suggested that the church should instead use or adapt part of George Washington’s circular letter to the state governors on 8 June 1783:

I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination & obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field—and finally that he would most graciously be pleas’d to dispose us all to do Justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves, with that Charity, humility & pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion & without an humble immitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.

After a delay of three years (there was a war, after all), the Episcopal bishops recommended adopting Locke’s prayer “for our country” instead of Washington’s. Locke’s words were finally added to the American Book of Common Prayer in 1928, after his death.

However, Kaylor found that in 1921 three newspapers in Louisiana printed Locke’s text while attributing it to Washington—evidently conflating the two proposals. And that attribution spread for years. Not everyone repeating the lines invoked Washington’s name—Franklin D. Roosevelt called it only “an old prayer” in 1940—but many did.

The next chapter of the story began during the Cold War, a period of increased public piety as the U.S. of A. sought to draw a distinction between itself and the Communist bloc. In 1956 an Episcopal pastor in Virginia, the Rev. Herbert Donovan, credited the prayer to Thomas Jefferson. The Jefferson Foundation picked that up. Within a couple of decades Jefferson got credit more often than Washington.

Furthermore, people started to say that Jefferson read or recited that prayer every day. Kaylor theorizes that idea started because Jefferson owned a 1796 edition of the Book of Common Prayer which was stolen from a vault at the University of Virginia in 1973. Since the prayer appears in the modern Book of Common Prayer, some people decided Jefferson read it, too. Those people didn’t realize how the Episcopal church changes with the times, like all institutions.

Kaylor also notes that while people in or playing to the religious right have been most vocal about attributing the prayer to Jefferson, religious people in the center and left have repeated that credit, too. There’s broad appeal in believing that the most famous Founders thought just like us.

Identifying John Adams’s Mystery Correspondent

Sometime in 1778, John Adams, on his first diplomatic mission for the U.S. of A., passed on a bunch of reading material to Edmé Jacques Genet, director of the French Foreign Ministry’s bureau for translation.

Genet was assembling items for Affaires de l’Angleterre et de l’Amérique (Affairs of England and America), a surreptitious propaganda effort by the French government. (This Genet was the father of Edmond-Charles Genet, the French diplomat whose activities in America irked George Washington while Adams was Vice President.)

Among the material that Adams turned over was the 1775 volume of The Remembrancer, a round-up of the year’s news published in London by John Almon. And in that book Adams discovered a couple of letters he had written himself:

Looking over the Remembrancer, for the Year 1775, found to my Surprize, having never seen this Remembrancer before, two Letters from a Gentleman in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, to his Friend in London, one dated Feb. 10 1775 and the other Jany 21. 1775. They are found in Pages 10.11 and 12 of the Remembrancer for that Year.

Genet never had those letters translated, but many American authors have reprinted the two letters from The Remembrancer, not knowing who wrote them.

Accepting Adams’s claim, the editors of the John Adams Papers included those two letters from early 1775 in their 1977 volume of his correspondence. At the time they lamented, “he failed to mention the intended recipient.”

One clue might be that the letters were published as sent “to his Friend in London” as opposed to “to a Gentleman in London.”

The answer started to become clear when scholars spotted the second of those letters in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. Adams’s correspondent was the British historian Catharine Macaulay. His exchange with her went on longer than previously recognized.

There appear to be some unanswered questions still. The letter published with the date of 10 Feb 1775 (250 years ago today) was actually dated 28 Dec 1774. Did Almon assign the February date from when that text was published in a British newspaper?

That full letter was published in 2020 in The Correspondence of Catharine Macaulay. The part that appeared in The Remembrancer was just part of the complete text.

Finally, the letter that Almon dated to 21 Jan 1775 isn’t part of the Macaulay Papers, at the Gilder Lehrman Institute or published. It’s possible that Adams sent it to someone else in London. But he knew hardly anyone there, and there’s no hint in The Remembrancer or Adams’s letter to Genet that the two letters went to different people. So probably the missing letter went to Macaulay but just hasn’t been found.

Judging by the 10 February/28 December letter, that 21 January letter probably:

• contained more material than Almon printed.
• wasn’t dated 21 January.

“The narrator of our most powerful stories, told authentically”

This is an extract of a statement from Jonathan B. Jarvis, director of the National Park Service from October 2009 to January 2017:

The NPS is the steward of America’s most important places and the narrator of our most powerful stories, told authentically, accurately, and built upon scientific and scholarly research. The Park Ranger is a trusted interpreter of our complex natural and cultural history and a voice that cannot be suppressed.

Edicts from on-high have directed the NPS to not talk about “national policy”, but permission is granted to use social media for visitor center hours and safety. The ridiculousness of such a directive was immediately resisted and I am not the least bit surprised.

So at Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta should we not talk about his actions to secure the rights to vote for African Americans in the south, or is that too “national policy”? At Stonewall National Monument in New York City, shall we only talk about the hours you can visit the Inn or is it “national policy” to interpret the events there in 1969 that gave rise to the LGBT movement?

Shall we only talk about the historic architecture of the Washington, DC home of Alice Paul and Alva Belmont or is it too “national policy” to suggest their decades of effort to secure the rights of women can be linked directly to the women’s marches in hundreds of cities last weekend? And as we scientifically monitor the rapid decline of glaciers in Glacier National Park, a clear and troubling indicator of a warming planet, shall we refrain from telling this story to the public because the administration views climate change as “national policy”?

These are not “policy” issues, they are facts about our nation, it is how we learn and strive to achieve the ideals of our founding documents. To talk about these facts is core to the mission of the NPS. During the Centennial of the National Park Service, we hosted over 300 million visitors (now that is huge) to the National Parks and most came away inspired, patriotic and ready to speak on behalf of the values we hold most dear. The new Administration would be wise to figure out how to support the National Park Service, its extraordinary employees and their millions of fans.

As I noted before, the new administration’s hiring freeze meant offers for N.P.S. seasonal jobs were yanked back from successful applicants and new hires are on hold. Since the agency saves money by hiring lots of people only for its busy seasons, and since the federal employment process has a lot of steps to protect the public interest, that freeze is harming normal operations. And around here, many historical parks were planning more than normal operations to commemorate and interpret the Sestercentennial of the start of the Revolutionary War.

In addition, Politico reports, “The Trump administration ordered NPS to report all of its employees currently within a standard one-year probationary period, as well as those hired with money from the Inflation Reduction Act and those employed in programs related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. Interior last week gave itself 30 days to end those programs, and Trump has ordered a layoff of people working in those programs across the federal government.” As in other policy areas, this administration is taking a position in favor of homogeneity, inequity, exclusion, and inaccessibility.

The first Trump administration never appointed a permanent director for the N.P.S., producing the longest stretch the agency ever went without steady leadership. It repeatedly proposed large cuts to the N.P.S. budget. I don’t believe the recurrent administration is acting for the benefit of the agency or the American people as a whole.

Telling the Truth about Teaching History

Earlier this week, the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians released a joint statement joined by dozens of other historical and educational organizations.

Here’s an extract:

The presidential executive order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K–12 Schooling,” signed on January 29, 2025, grossly mischaracterizes history education across the United States, alleging educational malpractice—teachers supposedly “[i]mprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children.” The order uses this caricature to justify sweeping and unprecedented federal interventions in public education.

This inflammatory rhetoric is not new. For the past four years, the same largely fabricated accusations have provided justification for efforts by some state legislatures to prohibit “divisive concepts” in history and social studies education, along with other extreme restrictions that the Organization of American Historians (OAH) and American Historical Association (AHA) have separately and jointly opposed.

Taken together, this state legislation and executive order not only disregard the training, ethics, and lifelong work of history teachers; they also demean American students by assuming that patriotism can be ignited only by triumphal stories and that our students are incapable of forming complex opinions about their nation’s past. . . .

The executive order’s narrow conception of patriotism and patriotic education does more than deny the actual history of American democracy; it also undermines its own goals of a rigorous education and merit-based society.

This is neither history nor patriotism. An uncomplicated celebration of American greatness flattens the past into a parade of platitudes devoid of the context, conflict, contingency, and change over time that are central to historical thinking. We instead support our nation’s educators as they help students learn how past generations fought to make the United States a “more perfect union,” in the words of our Constitution. As they teach the history of how people in the past chose to devote, risk, and in some cases even lose their lives challenging our nation’s most glaring imperfections, they teach our youth resilience, courage, and pride. They also teach them history.

We reject the premise that it is “anti-American” or “subversive” to learn the full history of the United States with its rich and dramatic contradictions, challenges, and conflicts alongside its achievements, innovations, and opportunities. History education that is rooted in professional expertise and integrity can inspire patriotism in American students through deep and honest engagement with our nation’s past and prepare them for informed civic engagement. Teachers want students to grapple with complex history.

This history includes the rich legacy of freedom and democracy built into the nation’s foundation. It also includes legacies of contradictions to those principles present at the nation’s founding and beyond. It includes the struggles of Americans across nearly 250 years to enlarge that legacy—to end slavery, to end prejudice against immigrants from across the world, to end poverty, to build a nation where everyone has the freedom to pursue their dreams.

You can read the entire statement here.