Abraham Fuller and “the exact records of the military stores”

Yesterday I quoted a description of the Rev. Jonathan Homer of Newton late in life, by the poet and doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Homer’s writings include a “Description and History of Newton, in the County of Middlesex,” published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1798. And that article includes an anecdote related to the British army expedition to Concord 250 years ago next month.

In writing about the local politician Abraham Fuller (1720–1794), Homer said:

To him, as principal of a committee of the Provincial Congress at Concord, were committed the papers containing the exact records of the military stores in Massachusetts at the beginning of 1775. Upon the recess of the Congress, he first lodged these papers in a cabinet of the room which the committee occupied.

But thinking afterwards, that the British troops might attempt to seize Concord in the absence of the Congress, and that these papers, discovering the public deficiency in every article of military apparatus, might fall into their hands, he withdrew them, and brought them to his house at Newton.

That foresight and judgment, for which he was ever distinguished, and which he displayed in the present instance, was extremely fortunate for the country. The cabinet was broken open by a British officer on the day of the entrance of the troops into Concord, April 19, 1775, and great disappointment expressed at missing its expected contents.

Had they fallen into their hands, it was his opinion, that the knowledge of the public deficiency might have encouraged the enemy, at this early period, to have made such a use of their military force, as could not have been resisted by the small stock of powder and other articles of war which the province then contained. He considered the impulse upon his mind to secure these papers, as one among many providential interpositions for the support of the American cause.

Fuller was indeed a member of a Massachusetts Provincial Congress committee appointed on 22 Mar 1775 “to receive the returns of the several officers of militia, of their numbers and equipments,” plus inventories of the towns’ “stock of ammunition.”

He wasn’t the senior member, named first and thus by tradition the chair. All the others—Timothy Danielson of Brimfield; Joseph Henshaw of Leicester, Spencer, and Paxton; James Prescott of Groton; and Michael Farley of Ipswich—were colonels in the Massachusetts militia while Fuller was still a major. But he lived the closest to Concord, so it makes sense he felt responsible for securing the committee’s sensitive records.

(I should note that at this time, the congress included both Abraham Fuller from Newton and Archelaus Fuller from Middleton, and that spring both men held the militia rank of major. Sometimes clerk Benjamin Lincoln remembered to identify which “Major Fuller” the congress meant, and sometimes not. In this case, the official record dovetails with Homer’s story.)

Another version of this anecdote appears in the family genealogy Records of Some of the Descendants of John Fuller, Newton, 1644–1698, published in 1869 by Samuel C. Clarke:

Judge Fuller was a very earnest patriot before the Revolution, and it is told that previous to the fight at Concord, fearing that the British might destroy the County Records at that place, he rode over from Newton the day before the fight, and carried away the most valuable of the papers in his saddlebags to his house in Newton.

Interestingly, in a footnote Clarke quoted Homer’s text, which says Fuller hid sensitive records for the whole province, making his action more important. Yet Clarke stuck to what seems to be the family’s idea that those were only “County Records.” In a way they were, since the militia regiments were organized at the county level.

Clarke’s version also said that Fuller wanted to prevent the British regulars from destroying those records rather then to prevent those soldiers from reading them. That seems more in keeping with the Patriot mindset in early April 1775. They thought they were preparing well for war, not woefully deficient, and feared the army might destroy their means of self-governance.

All that said, I’ve never come across evidence that the British troops in Concord were looking for Provincial Congress records. Gen. Thomas Gage didn’t gather any intelligence about where those documents were kept or put them on his list of what the regulars should look for. No British officers on the march described such a search.

I therefore think that everything Homer wrote about “a British officer” breaking into the cabinet because he “expected” to find records inside is probably imaginary.

Fuller took care to keep those papers away from the army, just as Paul Revere and John Lowell took care to move John Hancock’s trunk into the woods at Lexington, and just as Azor Orne, Elbridge Gerry, and Jeremiah Lee took care to hide from the troops passing by their tavern in west Cambridge. But that doesn’t mean those careful actions thwarted the British mission in any way. We like to think our actions have an effect on the world.

(The photo above, courtesy of Find a Grave, shows the Fuller family tomb in Newton’s east burying-ground. It’s about half a mile from my house.)

“The procession of the old clergymen who filled our pulpit”

Back in January I quoted Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes on one of the impressive clergymen who came to preach in his father’s pulpit in Cambridge while he was a boy.

Young Oliver was born in 1809 in the house that had belonged to the Harvard College steward Jonathan Hastings. In 1775 the Massachusetts committee of safety and Gen. Artemas Ward took it over as the first rebel headquarters of the war.

In The Poet at the Breakfast Table, Holmes described some ministers whose names I know because they wrote recollections about the Revolutionary period when they themselves were boys.

Holmes recalled the Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris (1768–1842) of Dorchester this way: “already in decadence as I remember him, with head slanting forward and downward as if looking for a place to rest in after his learned labors.”

The Rev. David Osgood (1747–1822) has made only one appearance in Boston 1775, guarding his privilege to perform all marriages in his town. Holmes recalled him as “the most venerable David Osgood, the majestic minister of Medford, with massive front and shaggy over-shadowing eyebrows.”

Holmes’s longest profile limned the “attenuated but vivacious little Jonathan Homer of Newton, who was, to look upon, a kind of expurgated, reduced and Americanized copy of Voltaire, but very unlike him in wickedness or wit.”

Homer (1759–1843) was minister of the first congregation in Newton, where Homer Street preserves his name. Holmes went on:

The good-humored junior member of our family [Holmes himself?] always loved to make him happy by setting him chirruping about Miles Coverdale’s Version, and the Bishop’s Bible, and how he wrote to his friend Sir Isaac (Coffin) about something or other, and how Sir Isaac wrote back that he was very much pleased with the contents of his letter, and so on about Sir Isaac, ad libitum,—for the admiral was his old friend, and he was proud of him.

Homer and Coffin had been classmates at the South Latin School, one becoming an American clergyman and the other a British admiral. Coffin’s recollections of life in that school were invaluable to me in writing about its culture.

The kindly little old gentleman was a collector of Bibles, and made himself believe he thought he should publish a learned Commentary some day or other; but his friends looked for it only in the Greek Calends,—say on the 31st of April, when that should come round, if you would modernize the phrase.

In other words, that magnum opus’s day of publication would never arrive.

William Browne, John Glover, and a Farmhouse in Swampscott

Save the Glover is a campaign by several historic organizations in Swampscott and neighboring towns to preserve an eighteenth-century farmhouse.

The house was originally built in the third quarter of the 1700s by William Browne (1737–1802), a wealthy and respected lawyer. It was his country estate since he already owned a mansion in Salem, as well as part of a family seat in what’s now Danvers.

Browne was elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1762. Though he joined the Customs service in 1762 as collector for the port of Salem, he favored local merchants enough to keep getting reelected—until he voted to rescind the Circular Letter of 1768.

After that, Browne was firmly on the side of the royal government. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson rewarded him with appointments: as colonel of the Essex County militia, as judge in the county court, and eventually as the last royal appointment to the Massachusetts superior court in 1774. That same year, the London government named him to the mandamus Council.

Refusing to resign from the Council made Browne unpopular locally. Dozens of militia officers refused to serve under him. He moved to Boston late in 1774, to Britain in 1776, and to Bermuda as royal governor in 1781. The state of Massachusetts confiscated Browne’s real estate, including that country house and land.

Gen. John Glover (1732–1797) of the Continental Army bought the property and moved in with his second wife in 1782. He lived there for the rest of his life, welcoming fellow veterans and serving in local offices.

In 1793 the Rev. William Bentley recorded how “the general received us with Great Hospitality” when a committee came through to settle the boundaries of Marblehead, Salem, and Lynn. Glover evidently felt he still lived in Marblehead, but surveyors determined that his house stood in a narrow splinter of Salem which later became part of Swampscott.

The property remained a farm through the nineteenth century. The photo above shows how it looked about 1910. In the twentieth century, the original house became the core of a larger inn and then restaurant, both named, in fine Colonial Revival fashion, for Gen. Glover. For the last thirty years or so, however, that complex has been abandoned.

Originally the Save the Glover campaign sought to preserve the house from being taken down for a new residential development (to be called Glover Residences, naturally). However, the developer has scrapped that project. Now weather and decay are the biggest dangers to the Glover house.

The Plain Language of the Alien Enemies Act

In 1798 the U.S. Congress, caught up in the possibility of war against France (then under the Directory government), passed a series of controversial laws.

The Naturalization Law made it harder for immigrants to become citizens of the U.S. of A. by increasing the number of years a person had to live in the country before applying. This was repealed in 1802.

The Act Concerning Aliens (distinguished as the Alien Friends Act) empowered the President to jail or deport any non-citizen who he determined was “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” This expired after two years.

The Sedition Act criminalized combining to oppose government measures and criticizing the U.S. government, House, Senate, or President. The John Adams administration deployed this law against Jeffersonian politicians and printers. It expired in 1800.

The Alien and Sedition Acts were strongly opposed at the time. They led to Jeffersonian victories over Federalists. Since then, historians and legal scholars have almost universally treated these laws as a Bad Thing.

The fourth of those laws from 1798 remained on the books, however: the Act Respecting Alien Enemies. It didn’t have an expiration date. Instead, its language limits the circumstances under which a President can invoke it.

The Alien Enemies Act empowers a President to act only

whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government

If “any foreign nation or government” is in a “declared war” with the U.S. of A. or has made a “predatory incursion,” then the federal government can jail and deport that country’s male citizens aged fourteen or older. The U.S. Constitution further vests the power to declare war in Congress, not the executive branch.

Last week the White House illegally invoked the Alien Enemies Act to justify deporting hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador even though there’s no declared war against Venezuela nor any invasion by Venezuela.

In place of the law’s actual conditions, the White House claimed that the Tren de Aragua criminal gang and Venezuela amount to something it calls “a hybrid criminal state.” (It didn’t address how in 2023 the Venezuelan government deployed 11,000 soldiers to break up a Tren de Aragua stronghold.) The White House also claims that illegal migration by individuals, in unspecified numbers, is the equivalent of a government-led invasion.

In some ways, the President is an expert on criminal states. He’s a convicted felon, facing additional federal and state charges, adjudicated as liable for sexual assault, and bound by multiple legal settlements for fraud. But that experience in crime doesn’t give this President the legal power to invoke a statute contrary to its provisions.

The executive branch then further demonstrated its lawlessness by ignoring a judicial order to stop flying people out of the country until the legal issues can be decided.

The Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela shows the danger of allowing a coup plotter—in this case, Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez after 1992—to take political office. Coup plotters by definition don’t respect elections and the rule of law. Venezuela is now only nominally republican, actually authoritarian (as is El Salvador). But Venezuela isn’t in declared war against or invading the U.S. of A., as the Alien Enemies Act stipulates. It’s not the only criminal state in this story.

“Phebe Oliphant (a Black woman)”

At the Eleven Names Project, Wayne William Tucker shared a long essay about the preferred names of the black woman who helped to raise Abigail Adams and was part of her household later in life.

As Abigail grew up and married, that woman was enslaved to her father, the Rev. William Smith, probably coming from the family of her mother, formerly Elizabeth Quincy. The Quincy and Smith families referred to her by her first name only: Phoebe.

After becoming free in 1783, Phoebe married a man whom Abigail referred to as “Mr. Abdee.” Seeking to treat her in the same way as white women, the Adams Papers editors therefore referred to her as Phoebe Abdee.

Following that lead, I’ve tagged her under the name Phoebe Abdee. So did Woody Holton in one of the few articles written about her.

Tucker has found a more complex story in local records, however, indicating that Phoebe did adopt her husbands’ surnames—but Abdee wasn’t one of them.

First, Tucker brings up the possibility that Phoebe married and had children while enslaved to the Smiths, based on mentions of other people in the accounts settling the minister’s estate in 1784. That’s just a possibility, though.

In 1777, the Rev. Mr. Smith read out an intention to marry for his “Phebe” and “Brester Sternzey of Boston.” There’s no confirmation this union went through. (Boston’s town records don’t mention this intention. They state that the Rev. Joseph Eckley married Bristol Stenser and Deborah Foster on 16 Dec 1784.)

In 1784, Phoebe married a man Abigail Adams identified as “Mr. Abdee whom you know.” His name appears in town records as Abdi and Abda, elsewhere as Abdy. Tucker connects this man to “Abde Deacon Savil’s negro man,” who had married a woman enslaved to a Braintree minister back in 1754. It appears that Abdee (however spelled) was his given name, and that after emancipation (if not before) he used Savil as his surname. This man died in the first week of 1798, according to Abigail’s sister Mary Cranch.

On 19 Sept 1799, Quincy vital records show a woman named Phebe Savil marrying William Olifant. A month later, John Adams mentioned that Phoebe had remarried. In 1800, Abigail referred to Phoebe’s husband as William for the first time.

Finally, on 7 Oct 1812, weeks after Abigail referred to Phoebe as “sick and dying,” the Quincy records state that “Phebe Oliphant (a Black woman”) died at age eighty-three.

As Tucker says, the coincidences of the dates strongly suggest that the Adamses were referring to Phebe Savil/Oliphant, the woman Abigail had known all her life, without using her surnames.

Thus, it appears that “Phoebe Abdee” went by:

• Phebe as an enslaved woman, not by choice—her choice of surname, if any, unknown.
• Phebe Savil from 1784 to 1799, after her husband Abdee.
• Phebe Oliphant from 1799 to 1812, after her husband William.

This is a nice piece of research, supported by clips of the documents themselves, which helps to fill out a life we’ve known only through the Adams family.

“Spies Among Us” in Concord, 22 Mar.

On Saturday, 22 March, Minute Man National Historical Park and local partners will present a day of presentations and activities on the topic “‘Spies Among Us’: Intelligence Gathering by the British Army and Provincial Congress.”

This event will take place at the Wright Tavern in the center of Concord, a building that Massachusetts Provincial Congress committees and Lt. Col. Francis Smith both used at different times in April 1775.

National Park Service Rangers and volunteer living historians are preparing to welcome visitors to an open house from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M., when they can see the newly refurbished tavern interior and learn about life in Middlesex County as the spring of 1775 began.

According to the current schedule, at 11 A.M. and 2 P.M. former Ranger Thompson Dasher will speak on “‘For the Information of Gen. Gage’: The British Spy Mission to Concord.” This interactive program will put visitors in the position of Concord citizens in March 1775 when Capt. William Brown and Ens. Henry DeBerniere of the British army came to town in disguise, gathering intelligence about hidden weapons.

Plans for this event had to be changed last month when the White House fired one Minute Man Park interpretive ranger, among several hundred more “probationary” employees across the agency—mainly public servants who had been in their current jobs for less than a year. For a short time it appeared that “Spies Among Us” would even be canceled.

Congress just funded the federal government through the end of its fiscal year in September, providing a little more stability. However, the executive branch continues to hold back legally authorized funds and initiatives, acting like a developer stiffing contractors after they’ve finished their work. It continues to break contracts and policies. Therefore, I doubt we’ve seen the end of trouble for public servants doing the jobs they were hired to do.

Five weeks from now, on Saturday, 19 April, Minute Man Park will host the Battle Road Tactical Demonstration—the largest, most authentic Revolutionary War reenactment yet planned. That event depends on on the expertise, authority, and coordination of the Park Service. It would be a damn shame if it’s made more difficult by monarchical impulses out of Washington.

N.P.S. personnel have been told to assure the public all is well. Propublica reported, “If asked about limited offerings, one park’s rangers were instructed to say ‘we are not able to address park or program-level impacts at this time.’” So we can only hope for the best.

On a less galling note, the Wright Tavern is also the home base for the Pursuit of History weekend on “The Outbreak of War,” scheduled for 3–6 April. We’ve planned that event to include visits to historic sites both in Minute Man Park and outside, and we have contingency plans for different situations. I understand a couple of slots have opened up, so it’s still possible to join us in exploring the start of the Revolutionary War.

“1775: A Society on the Brink” Conference in Concord, 11–12 Apr.

On 10–11 April, the Concord Museum will host a conference, organized with the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society, on the topic “1775: A Society on the Brink of War and Revolution.”

The full schedule is available here.

The conference will start with a reception on Thursday evening, followed by a keynote discussion at 7 P.M.:

From Boycotts to Bullets: Was the Outbreak of the American Revolution Inevitable?

• Serena Zabin, Carleton College
• Robert A. Gross, University of Connecticut, Emeritus
• Katherine Grandjean, Wellesley College

On Friday, 11 April, the day will be devoted to five paper sessions, each seventy-five minutes long and featuring three papers by scholars ranging from graduate school to emeritus rank. A panel moderator will offer commentary and coordinate questions from the floor. One of those panels stands out for me—I’m sure you’ll see why.

9 A.M.: Faith and Ideas

10:30 A.M.: Communities in Crisis

• Donald Johnson, North Dakota State University, “From Observers to Generals: The Transformation of Local Committees at the Outset of the Revolutionary War”
• Sarah Pearlman Shapiro, Brown University, “Care Work Vulnerabilities and Sexual Assault in 1775 Boston”
• Kevin M. Sweeney, Amherst College, Emeritus, “The Guns of April: Kinds and Quantities of Firearms Kept and Borne in 1775”
• Comment: J. L. Bell, Boston1775.net

1:30 P.M.: The Coming of War

3:00 P.M.: Myth, Material, and Memory

4:15 P.M.: Concluding Remarks

The conference registration is only $20 and includes the Thursday evening reception and a boxed lunch on Friday. All attendees must register in advance. I hope to see some of you there!

Chatting with Some Revolutionary Figures

Here are a couple of first-person interpretations of Revolutionary figures to enjoy next week.

Wednesday, 19 March, 7 to 8 P.M.
Affectionate Friends and Humble Servants: Martha Washington and Mercy Otis Warren in Conversation
Concord Museum

Set in the late 18th century, this forum presents a fictional dialogue featuring Martha Washington (portrayed by Sandy Spector), the First Lady, and Mercy Otis Warren (portrayed by Michele Gabrielson), a prominent playwright and activist. In a cozy parlor setting, they discuss their friendship, their respective roles during the revolutionary era, and the challenges they encountered.

Through a mix of dialogue and historical anecdotes, their conversation highlights their personal reflections and the broader political context, emphasizing the bond that contributed to their influence on the emerging nation.

Admission is $10, or free to museum members. This event will not be livestreamed. Click here to reserve seats.

Thursday, 20 March, 6 to 8 P.M.
Fireside Chat with Paul Revere
Wayside Inn, Sudbury

Join Paul Revere by the fireside at this historic tavern for a spirited review of the notoriously inaccurate Longfellow poem that immortalized his “Midnight Ride.” Heavy hors d’oeuvres included with the price of a ticket, and drinks will be available for purchase at the bar. For the last thirty minutes of this event, interpreter Michael Lepage will step out of character to answer questions about the work that goes into representing historical figures.

Tickets are $20 for members of the Wayside Inn Foundation or the Paul Revere House, $25 for nonmembers. Phone 978-443-1776×1 to reserve tickets at the member price. For general-admission tickets without the member discount, click here.

Upcoming Events from American Ancestors

American Ancestors (née the New England Historic Genealogical Society) is offering two free online presentations this week about the Revolution.

Thursday, 13 March, 3 to 4 P.M.
Friend or Foe: Researching Colonial Ancestors During the American Revolution
David Allen Lambert

Nearly 250 years ago, America declared its independence from the British Empire, changing the course of history. While many took up the cause and supported revolution, others remained loyal to the British government—turning friends into foes and pitting neighbor against neighbor. In this online lecture, Chief Genealogist Lambert will discuss how to research your colonial ancestors and determine if—and how—they may have served the cause of the American Revolution.

Sign up here.

Friday, 15 March, 4 to 5:15 P.M.
Eyewitness to Revolution
David Wood

This illustrated talk will focus on the stories told by objects in the Concord Museum collection about the lead-up to April 19, 1775, and the epochal day itself. In the aggregate, these stories contribute forcefully to an understanding that the Revolution, the great turn from a monarchy to a republic, was already over well before the day the Revolutionary War began.

Wood, Curator of the Concord Museum, has served at the Museum since 1985 and provides deep knowledge of the collection and Concord history. He has overseen the development of over 40 temporary exhibitions and galleries.

Sign up here.

Next month, American Ancestors has some more events on its schedule.

Wednesdays in April, 6 P.M.
Revolutionary War Research: Tracing Patriot and Loyalist Ancestors
Sheilagh Doerfler, David Allen Lambert, Melanie McComb

This is a more advanced online course in researching different types of genealogical records. The tuition is $125. For more information, look here.

Finally, after a multi-year renovation project, American Ancestors is reopening its headquarters with expanded space at 97 Newbury Street on Thursday, 24 April. Congratulations to all!

Sconyers on Boston’s Street Lamps, 18 Mar.

Old North Illuminated is living up to its name by hosting an online presentation by Jake Sconyers on the topic “They Burnt Tolerable Well: The Tea Party & Boston’s First Street Lamps” on Tuesday, 18 March.

The event description says:

In the 1770s, Boston was in a state of transformation and upheaval. While we mostly think of the American Revolution as the driver of this whirlwind of change, a technological revolution was happening at the same time. The introduction of street lamps in Boston had a profound effect on how people behaved at night.

The political revolution and the technological revolution were intertwined, with the effects of one impacting the other—including at pivotal moments like the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party.

Sconyers will touch on these “burning” questions:

• How did Boston’s very first street lamps survive a shipwreck and the Boston Tea Party?
• Why did Boston decide to buy English oil lamps for the streets but fuel them with American whale oil?
• Why did Boston vote to let its new street lamps sit dark after just a few months of illumination?
• How did the Boston Port Act affect the cost of street lighting?

Not to mention how the events of April 1775 might have been different if Boston’s main streets had been lit up at night.

Jake Sconyers is the host of the HUB History podcast, formerly cohosted by Nikki Stewart, executive director of Old North. The podcast has discussed these lamps, but I don’t recall it addressing all these details.

Register for this online event with a donation of any amount to Old North Illuminated through this webpage.

“Having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny”

Last week Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer reported in The Atlantic Monthly about one of the current President’s many desires.

Trump jokingly declared himself a sovereign last month, while his advisers distributed AI-generated photos of him wearing a crown and an ermine robe to celebrate his order to end congestion pricing in New York City. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he’d decreed a few days earlier, using a phrase sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of the French.

But the president has also asked advisers in recent days about moving the Declaration of Independence into the Oval Office, according to people familiar with the conversations who requested anonymity to describe the planning.

Trump’s request alarmed some of his aides, who immediately recognized both the implausibility and the expense of moving the original document. Displayed in the rotunda at the National Archives Building, in Washington, D.C., it is perhaps the most treasured historical document in the U.S. government’s possession. The original is behind heavy glass in an oxygen-free, argon-filled case that can retract into the wall at night for security. Because of light damage to the faded animal-skin parchment, the room is kept dimly lit; restrictions have been placed on how often the doors can even be opened.

But to the relief of aides, subsequent discussions appear to have focused on the possibility of moving one of the historical copies of the document, not the original. “President Trump strongly believes that significant and historic documents that celebrate American history should be shared and put on display,” White House communications director Steven Cheung told us in an email.

The handwritten Declaration is already “shared and put on display.” It’s kept in a sort of national shrine, one of the most protected documents in the world, in order to allow all Americans to view it and to preserve it for future generations as well. Removing the Declaration to a place that only a hand-picked, privileged few people can enter would be the opposite of sharing and displaying it.

Much the same goes for any of the rare early printed copies of the Declaration in museums or archives. Donald Trump doesn’t want the Declaration in his office to honor that text or its values. He wants a rare, beloved national asset brought to him to glorify himself.

“Choosing a Commander” at the Longfellow–Washington Site, 13 Mar.

On Thursday, 13 March, I’ll speak at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site on “Choosing a Commander: Myths & Realities Behind the Continental Congress’s Decision to Make George Washington the General.”

Two hundred fifty years ago this spring, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress invited the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to take over the direction (and funding) of the army besieging Boston. A big part of that direction was choosing who would command those troops.

Decades later, John Adams left detailed accounts of those discussions. He described himself as the man who advocated for George Washington of Virginia when no one else would.

According to letters Adams wrote in 1815 (and possibly in 1816 but never sent), most Congress delegates preferred either leaving the army in the hands of Gen. Artemas Ward of Massachusetts or hiring former British army lieutenant colonel Charles Lee.

Adams stated:

The Nominations were made, Ward I believe by Mr [Thomas] Cushing, Lee by Mr [Thomas] Mifflin, and Washington by Mr [Thomas] Johnson of Maryland. The opposition to a change was not So warm, as it had been before, but Still each Candidate had his Advocates.

Nevertheless all agreed in the great importance of Unanimity. This point was urged from all quarters of the House with great force of Reason and Eloquence and Pathos that never has been exceeded in the Counsells of this Nation. It was unanimously agreed to postpone in Election to a future day in hopes that Gentlemen by a deliberate Consideration, laying aside all private feelings, local Attachments, and partial motives, might agree in one, and unanimously determine to Support him with all their Influence. The Choice was accordingly postponed.

By this time all the Friends of Ward, among whom there was not one more Sincere than John Adams who had known him at School within two doors of his Fathers house, and who had known him in Worcester in his riper Years, were fully convinced that Washington Should be preferred to Lee; and they had reason to fear that Delegates from the Southern and Middle States would vote for Lee rather than for any New Englandman. And all the Sober Members would have preferred Either Ward or Washington to Lee.

When the day of Election arrived, after some Observations on the necessity of Concord, Harmony and unanimity in the present portentous moment, Congress proceeded to the Choice and the Suffrages were all found to be for George Washington.

In this talk I’ll explore how much the contemporaneous record from 1775, including Adams’s own private letters, supports this recollection.

This event is scheduled to start at 6:00 P.M., and will include questions and answers afterward. It is free, but seating in the Longfellow carriage house is limited. There’s an option to watch the livestream, and a recording will be put on the site’s YouTube channel when ready.

“Westminster Massacre” Sestercentennial Commemorations, 13–15 Mar.

This month, the town of Westminster, Vermont, is celebrating the Sestercentennial of the “Westminster Massacre,” a clash that began over land titles and ended in the death of two men.

In the 1760s both New York and New Hampshire claimed the land between Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River. Gov. Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire granted lots of real estate in six-mile-square town lots between 1749 and 1764. Meanwhile, the New York government issued larger, irregular land patents to wealthy landlords. Each set of claimants complained about the other.

In July 1764 the British government declared all that territory belonged to New York. By this time, a fair number of farmers from New England, particularly Connecticut, had moved into the region. The New York patentees demanded those settlers buy that land, pay rent, or leave. In 1770 the top court in New York confirmed that the New Hampshire land titles were invalid.

For the next few years, there were lots of disputes between settlers with New Hampshire titles and “Yorkers,” rent collectors or farmers arriving from New York with solid legal claims. The Green Mountain Boys formed as an unofficial militia to intimidate Yorkers. Settlers held conventions modeled after those in the rebellious colonies, but they focused their ire on New York, not the imperial government.

On 14 Mar 1775 a court session was scheduled to take place in the town of Westminster. Judge Thomas Chandler held a commission from New York, and his docket included evictions of men with old titles from New Hampshire as well as a murder. Probably inspired by the shutdown of courts in Massachusetts in late 1774, about a hundred local men surrounded the courthouse on the evening of 13 March.

Sheriff William Patterson declared that assembly a riot and ordered the men to disperse. When they refused, the sheriff went to Brattleboro, where New York law had more support, and recruited a posse of 60 to 70 men.

By the time Patterson and his force returned, the protesters were holding the Westminster courthouse and jail. Once again, the sheriff ordered them to leave. Night fell, and the courthouse was still occupied. Patterson told his Yorker posse to open fire on the courthouse. Some men inside fired back, wounding a magistrate.

Sheriff Patterson and his men stormed the building, shooting and clubbing those inside when they resisted. During that melee, twenty-two-year-old William French was shot five times; he died before dawn. Another man, Daniel Houghton, was beaten and died from his injuries nine days later. Seven rioters were arrested and locked into the jail.

On 14 March, a crowd of “upwards of 500” men came into Westminster from nearby towns. They freed the seven prisoners and locked up Patterson and his Yorkers. This mob then proceeded to Brattleboro, breaking into other Yorkers’ homes to arrest more men and bring them to the Westminster jail.

Benjamin Bellows, a militia captain from Walpole, New Hampshire, arrived with his company to restore order, but for local authorities, not New York. The Yorker leaders accused of killing French were taken to Northampton, Massachusetts.

Ultimately, the outbreak of the Revolutionary War overshadowed all these events. Between the overlapping jurisdictions, the end of royal rule, and more immediately pressing matters, no one was ever tried for the actions in Westminster.

Some local historians cast the “Westminster Massacre” as the first fatal battle of the Revolutionary War. I view it, like the 1766–1771 Regulator movement in North Carolina, as a parallel conflict, but not one that involved the core dispute of the Revolution between the royal government and colonists resisting new taxes. The lines weren’t tightly drawn: while Patterson became a Loyalist, Chandler and Bellows supported American independence.

The Westminster Historical Society has created an exhibit on the conflict 250 years ago in the Town Hall museum, and it will host three commemorative gatherings.

Thursday, 13 March, 3:30 P.M.
Walk from the Azariah Wright house site (corner of Sand Hill Road and Route 5) to the town cemetery. Wright’s house was one of the gathering-places for the men who closed the court. This walk is about fifteen minutes. The event is all outdoors with no bathroom.

Friday, 14 March, about 4:00 P.M.
Gathering at the D.A.R. Courthouse Marker on Shattuck Road, celebrating how the crowd took back the courthouse. Ray Boas of the Walpole Historical Society will deliver remarks about Col. Bellows and his militia company preventing further bloodshed.

Saturday, 15 March, 6 P.M.
The museum will open to share the exhibit, remarks by public officials, refreshments, and bathrooms. At 7:00 there will be a twilight vigil at William French’s grave site on the anniversary of his burial. This is the event designed for visitors from outside the region. There will be parking behind the Post Office on the other side of the road.

For more about Westminster history, see Jessie Haas’s books Revolutionary Westminster and Westminster, Vermont, 1735–2000: Township Number One.

“Alarmed in Lexington” and More

The Lexington Historical Society is now the Lexington History Museums.

As the Sestercentennial of the start of the Revolutionary War approaches, the organization’s Buckman Tavern museum is open to visitors every day of the week but Wednesday, 10am–4pm.

Another of the museums, the Hancock-Clarke House, is about to host this special program.

Saturday, 8 March, 7 to 9 P.M.
Alarmed in Lexington
Hancock-Clarke House, 36 Hancock Street

Step back in time to experience the anxious hours before the start of the American Revolution. It’s past midnight on April 19th, 1775, and Paul Revere has just left the home of Lexington’s minister, Jonas Clarke, with news of an impending British attack. This leaves the home’s occupants to take in the news and prepare for what is to come.

In a series of three short plays by Debbie Wiess, see how John Hancock and Samuel Adams, leaders of the Revolution; Dorothy Quincy and Lydia Hancock, John’s family; and Jonas and Lucy Clarke, town leaders, process the impending crisis as they prepare for war in the very rooms in which these conversations took place 250 years ago.

Admission is $25, or $20 for museum members. This program has received funding from Kirkland and Shaw Plumbing and Heating and by a grant from the Lexington Council for the Arts, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which in turn receives funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

[I hope those funds were received last year since the current administration has stopped many payments for work already done and contracts already awarded. The White House has also ordered future N.E.A. grants to conform to criteria not established by Congress; arts organizations just filed a lawsuit about the unconstitutionality of that order. Events like “Alarmed in Lexington” show how White House edicts can affect local endeavors that don’t have direct federal involvement.]

Next month, the Lexington History Museums will also reopen its Munroe Tavern for the season, and debut its new Depot museum covering all of Lexington history.

Starr and Starr vers. Starr and Phillips, executors of Philip Mortimer

In the Connecticut Superior Court’s December 1795 court term, George and Ann Starr sued Elihu Starr and George Phillips as executors of Philip Mortimer’s estate, seeking to overturn the validity of the man’s will.

George and Ann’s young son, Philip Mortimer Starr, was in fact the main beneficiary of that will. But to inherit his great-uncle’s property, he’d have to change his surname to Mortimer on coming of age.

Before then, the will required the estate to grant land and £1,000 to the city of Middletown, Connecticut, to expand a cemetery and build and stock a granary. Maybe the Starrs opposed those plans.

The Starrs’ arguments that the will of Ann’s uncle was invalid were:

• Philip Mortimer was “not of sound disposing mind and memory” when he set up the will and codicils.
• The codicils weren’t completely signed and witnessed.
• Elihu Starr was too entangled in the situation as an heir, a witness, and an executor, not to mention the man who wrote out one of those codicils for Mortimer.
• The other witnesses to the will, Timothy Starr and Joseph Sage, were also heirs inasmuch as they were citizens of Middletown and therefore stood to benefit from that granary.

The court decided that Philip Mortimer was mentally capable of composing the will and codicils. Implicitly, the judges therefore agreed that Mortimer wanted to give the town a granary, to leave most of his money to his great-nephew with the name-change stipulation, and to free his enslaved workers.

However, the majority of the court found that the technical violations of the law invalidated the will. Apparently someone should have told Philip Mortimer that he needed out-of-town witnesses, that he shouldn’t have made even small bequests to his witnesses and executors. Though I have a sense that telling Philip Mortimer what to do wasn’t easy.

Judge Jesse Root (1736–1822, shown above), a veteran of both the Continental Army and the Continental Congress, dissented from the court’s ruling. In fact, Root’s dissent took up most of the official report on the case. But his argument that the court should respect Philip Mortimer’s clear desires and overlook legalities didn’t carry the day.

In January 1796 the court negated the Mortimer will, ruling that he had died intestate. It appointed the husband of his nearest relative to administer the estate. The 12 February Middlesex Gazette carried this notice:

THE Subscriber, being appointed Administrator on the Estate of PHILIP MORTIMER, Esq. late of Middletown, deceased, hereby gives public Notice to the several Creditors, That the hon. Court of Probate for the District of Middletown has limited Twelve Months from the 30th Day of January, 1796, as the Time for exhibiting their respective Claims against said Estate. Those who neglect to exhibit the same to the Subscriber within that Time will be legally debarred of their Demands. All Persons indebted to the Estate are requested to make Payment, to
GEORGE STARR, Administrator.
Middletown, Feb. 5, 1796.

COMING UP: The fallout.

Valuing the Philip Mortimer Estate’s Human Property

After Philip Mortimer’s death, his executors began to work through his substantial estate in Middletown, Connecticut.

As quoted yesterday, executors Elihu Starr and George Phillips advertised for creditors and debtors to come settle their accounts with George Starr, acting as their attorney. And also for people to bring back any borrowed books.

In August 1795 the executors submitted Mortimer’s will and codicil to the probate court. The man’s estate was appraised at almost £5,000.

That legal paperwork included another list of the people Mortimer had enslaved, most of whom his will freed according to one schedule or another:

• Briston, aged 60, called Bristol in the will
• Jack
• Dublin, not mentioned in the will
• Prince, “sick with the yaws”
• Peter, “on board man of war and likely dead”
• Sophy, labeled a “girl” like the following two but old enough to have three sons; the Barbour collection says she was born in 1752 
• Silvy, born 1773 
• Peg, born 1777 as Margaret—though other documents estimate her to have been about 20 years old in 1794
• Lester, born 1787, first of three sons of Jack and Sophy
• Dick, born 1789 as Richard 
• John, born 1790
• Rachel, a “girl child,” born 1793, perhaps the daughter of Hagar, mentioned in the will, or Amarillas, born 1770

As property, all these people were assigned a monetary value. But those low values reflected how Connecticut was turning away from slavery. Mortimer was the state’s biggest single slaveholder in 1790, but his human property comprised less than .1% of his estate.

Jack was valued at £10, Sophy and the three boys at £5 each. The women Silvy and Peg were each valued at £1. The other four men and the little girl were assigned a market value of zero. That makes sense for Peter, who was out of reach in at least one way, but those prices suggest the appraisers thought any purchaser would have a hard time compelling most of the other people to work, or getting more value out of them than the cost of maintaining them.

In contrast, back in 1740 the inventory of Daniel Jones of Colchester valued a “young man” and a “negro wench” at £150 each, “an old negro man” at £40, and a boy at £25. Two years later, Samuel Allyn of Windsor priced his “servants, Cyrus and William,” at £100 apiece.

Almost all of the people listed in Philip Mortimer’s inventory appear to have still been living on his estate or nearby, continuing their work in his ropewalk or fields or house. Indeed, Jack and Sophy had another baby, Charles, in 1795; the local vital records assigned him to the Mortimer household even though the patriarch was dead.

The one exception among those workers was Peter. Mortimer mentioned him in the 1792 will and 1794 codicil, meaning he was still in Middletown then. Had he left for the sea after the old man’s death? If so, he was exercising the freedom Mortimer promised, but the appraisers didn’t think that had turned out well for him.

The probate court accepted Philip Mortimer’s will. It even accepted his codicils, one unsigned and the other unwitnessed. Though he was in his tomb, the man’s wishes still carried some authority in Middlesex County, Connecticut.

But there was one wrinkle: George Starr asked the court to relieve him of his job as executor.

TOMORROW: That freed Starr to contest the will.

The Last Last Will of Philip Mortimer

After Philip Mortimer completed his six-page handwritten will, he signed it in front of three witnesses, all neighbors in Middletown, Connecticut: Timothy Starr, Joseph Sage, and Elihu Starr.

Elihu Starr was also one of the three men Mortimer designated as his coexecutors, along with George Phillips and George Starr, the husband of his niece. At least two of those men would need to agree on any action regarding the estate.

As noted yesterday, the will also granted Elihu Starr the labor of Peg, an enslaved young woman, until she turned twenty-six.

In October 1793 Mortimer wrote a codicil to that will, micromanaging his estate a bit more. At the top of his list of people to be freed were the couple Jack and Sophy. He added two provisions for their benefit:

• Sophy should receive “my chest which I had made at the beginning of the late War, also my wash kettle who contains about four or five gallons, also one small kettle which contains about eight gallons, also so much of the furniture as either two of my coexecutors shall see fitt to give her.”
• Jack and Sophy could “use and enjoy the Interest I have in a Fishing Place in Chatham…during their Natural Lives,” with their three sons inheriting that right.

Then in March 1794 Mortimer, now in his mid-eighties, started to copy the entire will. Unable to complete the task himself, he called in Elihu Starr. Mortimer made only one revision: to grant the two ropemakers Prince and Peter their freedom on his death rather than three years later.

Mortimer signed the papers that Elihu Starr had written for him. Starr didn’t add his own signature, however, nor did anyone else.

The old man died just a few days later on 15 Mar 1794. One week later the Middlesex Gazette reported:

Died, on Saturday last, Capt. PHILIP MORTIMER, of this City, aged 84.—His Funeral was attended, on Tuesday last, with all the honors becoming his most worthy and respectable Character.

On 30 August this notice appeared in the same newspaper:

TWELVE Months from the Date being allowed, by the hon. Court of Probate for the Creditors to the Estate of PHILIP MORTIMER, Esq. deceased, to being in their Claims; those who neglect to exhibit them within the Time will be debarred Recovery. All indebted to said Estate are requested to make immediate Payment, to GEORGE STARR, Attorney to the Executors.

ELIHU STARR, GEORGE PHILLIPS, Executors.
Middletown, August 25, 1794.

ANY Person who may have borrowed BOOKS of the Deceased, in his Life, are desired to return them to George Starr.

TOMORROW: Tied up in court.

“Verging fast towards its Last Period in this Stage of Existence”

In 1792, Philip Mortimer, having turned eighty, drew up his will.

In doing so, Mortimer appears to have aimed to preserve his good name in Middletown, Connecticut, in three ways:

• He bequeathed land and money to the city to build a granary and to stock it with two thousand pounds of grains. He also left land for a cemetery; Middletown still has a Mortimer cemetery.
• He promised freedom to all the people he held in bondage, under various conditions, in tune with Connecticut’s general turn against slavery (but not yet).
• He left his mansion, ropewalk, and other property to Philip Mortimer Starr on the condition that that boy—then nine years old—legally take the surname of Mortimer when he came of age.

Little Philip was Mortimer’s great-nephew, son of his niece Ann and her husband George Starr. Mortimer and his wife had had no children of their own, so he had brought that niece over from Ireland. The Starrs had named their children Martha Mortimer Starr and Philip Mortimer Starr after her benefactors.

In the will Mortimer wrote of having adopted both Ann and young Philip. In his study of Prince Mortimer, A Century in Captivity, Denis R. Caron made much of how Mortimer had never formally adopted those relatives. But such arrangements weren’t so formal in the eighteenth century as more recent law demands.

Caron also interpreted Philip Mortimer’s will as expressing hostility toward George Starr since it didn’t leave his estate to Ann (and thus to her husband as well) but merely let them use it until their son was old enough to inherit. But to me it looks like Philip Mortimer’s driving motivation was to give that boy the maximum incentive to carry on the Mortimer name. And there were plenty of precedents for that sort of bequest.

According to the legal analysis of the will, if young Philip didn’t take steps to become a Mortimer, then the estate would go to a son of his older sister (then only fifteen) as long as that youth would change his surname. And if the family still didn’t come up with a boy willing to carry on the name Mortimer, then everything would go to the Episcopal church.

As for the enslaved workers, Mortimer tailored his grants to each family unit:

• Bristol and Tamer: freedom for Bristol (no emancipation mentioned for Tamer, so she might already have been free) and the use of their “Garden Spot and House thereon as it is now fenced” for the rest of their lives, after which the land would revert to the estate.
• Hagar and her daughter: freedom plus £5 to “buy her Mourning” for his funeral.
• Jack and Sophy, and their three sons: freedom and use of “one and three-quarters Acres Land” during their lives, after which that land would be divided equally among their sons Lester, Dick, and John, all still under age fourteen. Those boys were to be “kept to School until they arrive at the age of Fourteen Years then put to Apprentice by my Executors, the two Eldest to be put to House Joiners until they arrive to the Age of Twenty-one Years and then give them their Freedom.”
• Amarillas and her children: freedom and “one Rood Land,” probably a quarter-acre.
• Silvy: freedom.
• Peg: freedom when she turned twenty-six; until then she was supposed to work for Elihu Starr, one of the executors.
• Peter and Prince, ropemakers: freedom in three years, but until then “both be kept at spinning” and “to live with and serve Capt. George Starr.”

Back in February 1790, George Starr had advertised in the local Middlesex Gazette asking people to settle their debts since he “purposes to carry on the Rope-Making Business one Year more.” But he decided to stay in the business. Receiving three years of free labor from two experienced ropemakers would be a windfall.

TOMORROW: Legalities.

Independence and Enslavement in Middletown

At the end of the Revolutionary War, lots of things changed in Middletown, Connecticut.

In 1784, Hugh White left that town to start surveying an area of upstate New York that would become Whitestown. Relatives and neighbors would follow. The central part of that area would take the name Whitesboro and for a long time have an unfortunate town seal.

Other Middletown residents also moved west to lands made available by the U.S. victory over Britain and its Native allies. Retired general Samuel Holden Parsons became a director of the Ohio Land Company. He traveled to western Pennsylvania in November 1789 and drowned while canoeing.

There were also legal changes at home. The area around the Connecticut River port, where the merchants and ship-builders lived, incorporated itself as a city in 1784. Instead of a town meeting with nearly every farmer eligible to vote, the city of Middletown had a mayor, four aldermen, and ten “common-council-men” chosen from the upper class.

The first set of aldermen included two former generals—Comfort Sage and the ill-fated Parsons—plus Col. Matthew Talcott and, for old times’ sake, former militia captain Philip Mortimer.

Among the first common-council-men was the husband of Mortimer’s favored niece, George Starr, as well as Col. Return Jonathan Meigs.

Also in 1784, the state of Connecticut passed a Gradual Emancipation Act—so gradual that it didn’t actually emancipate anybody for another twenty-five years. Children born into slavery after 1 Mar 1784 would become free on their twenty-fifth birthdays.

The 1790 U.S. Census counted 2,648 people enslaved in Connecticut, alongside 2,771 free blacks. The person who owned the most other people in the state—eleven by official count—was Philip Mortimer.

Back in Boston, as we know from newspaper advertisements, Mortimer employed at least one Irish teenager at ropemaking in 1738, and he imported young indentured servants from Ireland in 1740 and 1741. Maybe he enslaved Africans then, too, but he was doing so in a big way (by New England standards) in 1790.

That number grew to seventeen by July 1792. Mortimer then listed the people working for him for free as:

• Bristol, married to Tamer
• Hagar and her daughter
• Jack, Sophy, and Sophy’s sons Lester, Dick, and John, all under age fourteen
• Amarillas and her children
• Silvy
• Peg, still under the age of twenty-six
• Peter and Prince

That first census also found that Mortimer was the only white person on his estate, the biggest in Middletown. Most of the people he claimed as property must have been his household and farm help. But Peter and Prince worked at his ropewalk as spinners.

TOMORROW: Freedom, but not yet.

“He will do every Thing any Man can do towards a full Supply”

Philip Mortimer was not from an old New England family and he was Anglican, two traits that might have made him more likely to support the Crown in the pre-war political conflict.

Instead, Mortimer served on the Middletown, Connecticut, committee of correspondence. On 6 Mar 1775, the Connecticut Courant announced that he and George Philips would oversee the public sale of molasses and coffee brought in from Jamaica “agreeable to the 10th Article of said Association.”

That part of the Continental Congress’s boycott agreement said that goods landed between 1 Dec 1774 and 1 Feb 1775 could “be sold under the direction of the committee” covering that region, with “the profit, if any, to be applied towards relieving and employing such poor inhabitants of the town of Boston, as are immediate sufferers by the Boston port-bill.”

Mortimer was also a selectman for the first two years of the war and a justice of the peace.

In 1781, French troops on their way to Yorktown camped on Mortimer’s land in Middletown, according to an article by Allen Forbes for the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The young merchant who married Mortimer’s niece Ann Catharine Carnall, George Starr, was even more active in supporting the American cause. In 1778 Starr, who had the militia rank of captain, became a deputy commissary of hides for the Continental Army. On 26 October Gen. Samuel Holden Parsons wrote to the commander-in-chief from Middletown:

I find Capt. George Starr of this Town is appointed by the Board of War to take Charge of the Leather belonging to the Continent, purchase Shoes, Cartouch Bozes & other Military Accoutrements, by the inclosd Order you will find the Board have impowerd him to contract for those Articles in Exchange for raw Hides; I am fully Satisfied he will do all that any Man can do in that Department;

he informs me he Shall be able to send on about Twelve Hundred pair of Shoes within four Weeks about Seven Hundred of which are now On Hand & will be forwarded as soon as he can procure Buckles for about 300 or 400 Cartouch Bozes which are made and with the Shoes will compleat A Load for One Waggon; he Says he will take every Measure in his Power to procure a large Quantity of Shoes & thinks tis probable he Shall be able to furnish about 1000 or 1500 Pair a Month if the Leather can now be had in exchange for Hides as he is a Man very assiduous in his Business I have no Doubt he will do every Thing any Man can do towards a full Supply—

As to Caps he Says tis impossible to make an Estimate of the Quantity of Leather on Hand suitable for that Business which is not fit for Shoes or to be Usd for Accoutrements or in the Quarter Master’s Department as ’tis not in whole Sides, but part of most of the Leather in working is found unsuitable for other Business which will well Answer for this.

Starr did that job for three years. Even after stepping down he sent George Washington two pairs of boots for his personal use in 1783, though the general was unsatisfied.

TOMORROW: The new postwar order.

(The photo above shows Samuel Holden Parsons’s house in Middletown, now gone, from Damien Cregeau’s article “Top Ten Demolished Houses of Revolutionary War-Era Connecticut” for the Journal of the American Revolution.)

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: What they did in the war.

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?