“General Folsom proposes also to retire”

On 30 June 1775, Gen. Artemas Ward received word of his new commission as major general in the new Continental Army.

Ward immediately wrote back to John Hancock, chair of the Continental Congress, accepting the post. He also warned that “the Appointments in this Colony [Massachusetts]” might “create Uneasiness.”

They did, along with those for Connecticut generals, as I wrote last month.

And what about Nathaniel Folsom, who’d just solidified his authority over the New Hampshire colonels at the siege? His letter dated 1 July indicates no one had told him about the Continental Congress’s commissions yet.

As I’ve stated, the New Hampshire Provincial Congress had named Folsom as the colony’s general officer in April, and then reaffirmed that choice in May.

Yet New Hampshire’s delegates to the Continental Congress apparently didn’t pass on that news. Nor did those men, John Sullivan and John Langdon, suggest that the senior New Hampshire officer already at the siege, John Stark, be made a brigadier general.

Instead, they apparently looked around and told their colleagues in Philadelphia that the very best choice of a general from New Hampshire was…John Sullivan.

Sullivan (shown above, nominally) didn’t have any military experience from the last war, unlike Folsom, Stark, and the next two colonels, Enoch Poor and James Reed. He was younger than all those men. But Sullivan was in Philadelphia, and he was enthusiastic. So on 22 June he got the nod.

Gen. George Washington left Philadelphia the next day and arrived in Cambridge on 2 July, carrying commissions for his subordinates. His first general orders, issued the next morning, acknowledged the presence of “General Falsam.” But the conversations were probably awkward.

Sullivan arrived in Massachusetts a week later. So far as I know, there are no documents preserving his interactions with Folsom and the colonels.

On 20 July, Washington told Hancock and the Congress that “General Folsom proposes also to retire.” The older man returned to New Hampshire. On 24 August, its provincial congress “Voted That Nathaniel Folsom; Esqr. be the General Officer over the Militia in this Colony.” So he got to keep the rank of general.

Folsom remained active in New Hampshire politics, and he also served a second stint in the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1780. He presided over his state’s constitutional convention in 1783. And then, because that constitution forbade plural office-holding, he resigned his post as militia general in favor of being chief judge of his county.

Nathaniel Folsom exercised unchallenged command of New Hampshire’s army from 24 June to 3 July 1775, or a little over a week. He oversaw New Hampshire’s wartime militia for eight years.

“The harmony & willing obedience of the New Hampshire Troops”

As I quoted yesterday, on 23 June 1775 Gen. Nathaniel Folsom wrote to the New Hampshire Provincial Congress about Col. John Stark refusing to recognize his authority.

Around the same time, Col. Stark sent his own complaint to that rebel government.

On 29 June, that body’s records includes this line:

The Congress heard Colo. Stark’s Complaint & dismissed the same.

What exactly was that complaint? The scholar who published those records reported that he found no trace of it. Stark’s message and any correspondence about it were purged.

And a good thing, too, since back on the siege lines the colonel had reversed himself. Perhaps the other officers in his regiment had persuaded him, either by talking to him or by simply not joining his resistance.

On 25 June Gen. Folsom reported from his new headquarters in the “Camp on Winter Hill”:

In my letter of the 23d Instant I informed you that Col. Stark refused subordination to my orders. But yesterday he made such submission as induces me to desire you to pass over said Letter, so far as it relates to him, unnoticed.

Folsom then turned to other military matters: requesting heavy cannon, suggesting a protégé as a regimental surgeon, and so on.

Two days later, Folsom assured the New Hampshire legislature that all was well:

Since my arrival here the harmony & willing obedience of the New Hampshire Troops gives me the most sensible Pleasure. I have got them into tollerable regulation, & shall as far as in me lies, use my utmost exertions to get them into the greatest good order & discipline, which is so indispensably necessary in an army; & still promote and preserve unanimity and concord amongst them.

But to that end, you are very sensible that they must receive regular supplies. Such brave Troops as yours are, deserve the best of livings, or at least such as will conduce to the preservation of their Health, and render them capable of undergoing Fatigues & Hardships. . . .

On 30 June, the congress voted “That Genl. Folsom’s commission be dated ye 24th May & that he rank as a Majr. General.” The next day, its committee of safety told the general:

It gives us great Pleasure to find by yours of ye 26 last month that a reconciliation had taken place between you & Col. Stark: We doubt not you’ll use your utmost endeavours to keep up a good Harmony among the Troops, in order thereto, We agree with you that a due subordination must be observed; Maj [Samuel] Hobart who is appointed pay master, will have Commissions for Stark’s & [James] Reed’s Regiments & is to consult you on filling up the vacancies.

By the time that letter reached Folsom, however, his status had been thrown into doubt again.

TOMORROW: A new player.

“Stark repeatedly and at last absolutely refused to comply”

The New Hampshire general Nathaniel Folsom arrived on the siege lines around Boston on 20 June 1775.

However, Col. John Stark (shown here) had been in the action since April. The militia troops he had led into Massachusetts had become the 1st New Hampshire Regiment.

Col. James Reed had enlisted men into the 3rd New Hampshire Regiment in Fitzwilliam and joined Stark at the siege in early June.

Both regiments fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June, standing up against the British army’s right and taking casualties.

Stark didn’t respond happily to a new man appearing and declaring he was now in charge based on the vote of a quasi-legal congress and his war record from twenty years before.

On 23 June, Gen. Folsom wrote back to the New Hampshire government from Medford:

In my Letter to you yesterday I acquainted you that on my arrival here I Imediately waited on the Capt. General [Artemas Ward]; he then Order’d me to make return to him of the Two Regiments, viz. Colo. Stark’s & Colo. Reed’s, of their Situation and Circumstances; on my return here I sent orders to the Two Colos. to make return of their respective Regiments to me.

Colo. Reed Imediately obey’d the order but Colo. Stark repeatedly and at last absolutely refused to comply. I am well inform’d by Mr. Stark’s best friends that he does not Intend to be under any subordination to any Person appointed by the Congress of New Hampshire to the general command of the New Hampr. Troops. I have tried all conciliatory methods both by Personal Conversation and the mediation of Friends, but without effect.

In consequence whereof I this afternoon again waited on the Capt. General at Head Quarters to take his order on the matter; he requested me to advise with the Committee of Safety of New Hampr on the Business, as Colo. Stark has received no Commission yet from you, he thinks he does not properly come under his cognizance.

Gentlemen, it is I trust unnecessary to hint to you that without a Proper subordination it will be absolutely Impossible for me to Execute the Trust you have Reposed in me; in my last conversation with Mr. Stark, he told me he could take his Pack and return home (and meant as I suppose to Lead his men with him.) I represented to him the dishonorable part he would thereby act towards both Colonies.

I have since made Enquiry & find he would not be able to Lead off many more than the supernumerors of his Regiment, it still consisting of 13 Companys. I think a Regiment might be form’d of the men who have been under his command without his being appointed to the Command of ’em.

I must do the Justice to Letn. Col. [Isaac] Wyman to say he has behaved prudently, Courageously and very much like a Gentleman, and I think I could recommend him to the command as soon as any Person I know.

Wyman was Stark’s second-in-command and potential successor.

TOMORROW: Can this regiment be saved?

A Hero of Lake George

The Battle of Lake George on 8 Sept 1755 probably involved fewer than 3,500 men, a little more on the British side than the French. Each commander reported that his force had faced a much larger foe, however.

Each commander also reported inflicting more casualties than his force suffered, and more casualties than the rival commander reported. In fact, it seems impossible to pinpoint the number of dead and wounded.

Both sides lost leaders, however. On the French side, Baron Dieskau was wounded and captured, and Canadian commandant Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre was killed. The British lost Col. Ephraim Williams and Mohawk ally Hendrick Theyanoguin. Among the provincial officers who died of their wounds was Capt. William Maginnis of New York.

Gen. William Johnson was wounded early in the fighting near Lake George and had to sit out the rest of the battle. Not that he mentioned the last detail in his report to the Crown. Nor did he name Col. Phineas Lyman as the officer who took over and completed that part of the fight. But of course Johnson portrayed the battle as a great victory for Britain.

It probably was a British victory, though limited and costly. Crown forces could now move safely from Fort Lyman to Lake George, and the lakefront was clear enough to build another fort there.

But that clash was an even bigger win for William Johnson, Britain’s liaison to the Iroquois and new provincial general. He was made a baronet, thus Sir William Johnson. Eventually Benjamin West painted Johnson nobly sparing a French officer from attack by a Native warrior, as shown above.

The new baronet returned the king’s favor, renaming the nearby landmarks for the royal family: Lac du Saint-Sacrement became Lake George after George II, Fort Lyman became Fort Edward after one of the king’s grandsons (another slight for Phineas Lyman), and the new fort was dubbed Fort William Henry after the king’s younger son and another grandson. Since the territory remained in British hands, those names prevail.

As the senior (and surviving) British captain in the last part of this battle, Nathaniel Folsom enjoyed some of that glory. He rose within the New Hampshire military establishment, ranked as a colonel within a couple of years. Folsom’s businesses in Exeter prospered.

In 1774 the province chose Nathaniel Folsom as a representative to the First Continental Congress, alongside John Sullivan. His son, Nathaniel, Jr., participated in the first raid on Fort William and Mary that December. Decades later a veteran named Gideon Lamson stated (using military titles the men acquired later):

At nine, Colonel [John] Langdon came to Stoodley’s and acquainted General Folsom and company with the success of the enterprise,—that General Sullivan was then passing up the river with the loaded boats of powder and cannon.

Folsom took charge of one barrel of gunpowder removed from the fort.

Given Nathaniel Folsom’s success in the last war, his support for the Patriot resistance, and his activity in the New Hampshire Provincial Congress, it’s no surprise that that body voted to make him commander of the province’s troops on 21 Apr 1775. The legislators reaffirmed that decision on 23 May.

The problem was that no one had checked with the officer who was actually leading the New Hampshire troops around Boston.

TOMORROW: Stark divide.

“We march’d into the camp & told the army what we had done”

I’ve been quoting Capt. Nathaniel Folsom’s account of his New Hampshire troops’ fight against a French and Indian force south of Lake George in the late afternoon of 8 Aug 1755.

He continued with lively detail:

After being closely engaged for about three quarters of an hour, they kill’d two of our men & wounded several more on our left wing, where they had gain’d a great advantage of us.

Which, with our being very much tired and fatigued, ocсаsioned us to retreat a little way back; but finding by our retreat we were likely to give the enemy a greater advantage we rallied again in order to recover the ground we had lost, and thinking that if we quitted the ground we should loose our greatest advantage, about fifteen or twenty of us ran up the hill at all hazard. Which we had no sooner done but the enemy fired upon us vigorously; & then, seeing us coming upon them (we being charg’d & they discharg’d) they run & gave us the ground.

Whereupon we all shouted with one voice and were not a little encouraged. In this skirmish Ensign Jonathan Folsom [the writer’s brother] was shot through the shoulder & several others wounded. At every second or third discharge during the engagement we made huzzas as loud as we could but not to be compar’d to the yells of our enemies, which seem’d to be rather the yellings of devils than of men.

A little before sunsetting I was told that a party of the Yorkers were going to leave us, which surpris’d me. I look’d & saw them in the waggon road with packs on their backs. I went to them & asked where they were going. They said to Fort Edward. I told them they would sacrifice their own lives & ours too. They answer’d they would not stay there to be kill’d by the damn’d Indians after dark but would go off by daylight.

Capt. [John] Moore and Lieut. [Nathaniel] Abbott & myself try’d to perswade them to tarry, but to no purpose till I told them that the minit they attempted to march from us I would order our New Hampe. men to discharge upon them. Soon after which they throw’d off their packs & we went to our posts again.

Upon my return to my tree, where I had fought before, I found a neat’s tongue (as I tho’t) and a French loaf, which, happening in so good a season, I gave myself time to eat of; & seeing my lieut. at a little distance, much tired & beat out, I told him if he would venture to come to me, I would give him something to comfort him. He came to me & told me I was eating a horse’s tongue. I told him it was so good I tho’t he had never eat anything better in his life.

I presently saw some Yorkers handing about a cagg of brandy, which I took part of & distributed amongst the men. Which reviv’d us all to that degree that I imagin’d we fought better than ever we did before.

Between sunsett and the shutting in of daylight we call’d to our enemies: told them we had a thousand come to our assistance; that we should now have them imediately in our hands; and thereupon made a great shouting & beat our drums. Upon which they drew off upon the left wing, but stood it on the front & right wing till daylight was in & then retreated & run off.

Then we begun to get things ready to march to the lake, when Providence sent us three waggon horses upon which we carry’d in six wounded men; made a bier & carried one on, lead some & carry’d some on our backs. We found six of our men kill’d & mortally wounded so that they dyed in a few days, and fourteen others wounded & shot through their cloaths, hatts, &c. With much difficulty we persuaded the Yorkers to go with us to the lake.

In about an hour after the battle was over we march’d & sent two men forward to discover who were inhabitants at the lake. Who met us and told us all was well. Whereupon we march’d into the camp & told the army what we had done. As soon as they understood by us that we had drove the enemy off & made a clear passage for the English between forts, the whole army shouted for joy, like the shouting of a great host.

That was the third part of the Battle of Lake George. The French forces had won the first stage with their ambush of the British column heading south to Fort Lyman (Edward). But pressing that attack brought out the larger British force camped at Lake George, and the Crown won the second stage. Then Capt. Folsom, Capt. William Maginnis of New York, and other provincials came up behind the French fighters who had fallen back and started this third and smallest stage.

TOMORROW: Who won?

“Ye most vilolent Fire Perhaps yt Ever was heard of in this Country”

Yesterday we left Capt. Nathaniel Folsom of New Hampshire and Capt. William Maginnis of New York leading their provincial companies north from Fort Lyman (soon renamed Fort Edward) on the afternoon of 8 Sept 1755. They were headed to Gen. William Johnson’s camp at Lake George, a distance of at least fifteen miles.

That morning, French forces had successfully ambushed a British column that had tried to come the other way. The column’s commanders were killed, leaving Lt. Col. Nathan Whiting of Connecticut and Lt. Col. Seth Pomeroy of Massachusetts in charge.

Pomeroy’s diary, published by the Society of Colonial Wars in New York in 1926, offers a vivid description of what happened:

we this Morning Sent out about 1200 men near 200 of them our Indians went Down ye Rhode toward ye Carrying pla[ce] got about 3 miles they ware ambush’d & Fir’d upon By ye Franch and Indians a number of ours yt war Forward Return’d ye Fre & fought bravely but many of our men toward hind Part Fled

ye others being over match’t ware oblig’d to fight upon a Retreet & a very hansom retreet they made by Continuing there fire & then retreeting a little & then rise and give them a brisk Fire So Continued till they Came within about 3/4 of a mile of our Camp

there was ye Last Fire our men gave our Enenies which kill’d grate numbers of them Sean to Drop as Pigons yt put ye Ennemy to a Little Stop

they very Soon Drove on with udanted Corage Doun to our Camp

ye Regulars Came rank & File about 6 abrest So reach’d near 20 rods In Length Close order the Canadans & Indians Took ye Left wing Hilter Scilter down along Toward the Camp

they had ye advantage of the ground Passing over a hollow & rising a note within gun Shot then took Trees & Logs & Places to hide them Selves-we made ye best Shift we Could for battrys to get behind but had but a few minuts to do It in

Soon they all Came within Shot ye regulars rank & file they Came towards yt Part of ye Camp whare we had Drew 3 or 4 Field Peaces ye others towards the west Part of ye Camp there I Placed my Self Part of Coll. [Timothy] Ruggles & of our Rigement a long togater

the Fire begun between 11 & 12 of ye Clock and Continued till near 5 afternoon ye most vilolent Fire Perhaps yt Ever was heard of in this Country In any Battle then we beat ’em of ye ground

we Took ye French General wounded

That general was Jean-Ardman, Baron Dieskau. He’d been shot four times and declared that the last wound was mortal. But in fact he survived as a prisoner of war in Britain until 1763 and then at home another four years.

Meanwhile, Folsom and Maginnis were moving north. According to Folsom’s March 1756 letter to the Rev. Samuel Langdon, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1904, Capt. Maginnis neglected to send out “advance guards” to prevent an ambush and moved too slow besides.

(Maginnis might have countered that for all of Folsom’s claim that he and his officers were hungry to enter the fight, they’d managed to beat the Yorkers back to Fort Lyman and then lagged them in returning to face the enemy.)

Toward the late afternoon:

Captain McGennes and company started nine Indians, who run up the wagon road from us, upon which Captain McGennes stopt. I, seeing them halt (being on a plain) ordered our men to move forward and pass by them. As soon as I came up with McGennes, I asked the reason of his stopping, which he told me was the starting of the Indians.

I then moved forward and we ran about 80 rods and discovered a Frenchman running from us on the left. Some of us chased him about a gunshot, fired at him, but, fearing ambushments, we turned into the wagon road again and traveled a few rods, when we discovered a number of French and Indians about two or three gunshots from us.

Then we made a loud huzza and followed them up a rising ground and then met a large body of French and Indians, on whom we discharged our guns briskly, till we had exchanged shots about four or five times.

When I was called upon to bring up the Yorkers, who I thought had been up with us before but finding them two or three gunshots back, I ordered them up to our assistance. And though but a small number of them came up, we still continued the engagement and soon caught a French lieutenant and an Indian, who informed us that we had engaged upward of 800.

Folsom said his force consisted of “but 143 men”—leaving out the 90 Yorkers, of course.

TOMORROW: Endgame.

“We should go to the assistance of our friends at the lake”

Nathaniel Folsom (1726-1790) came from an old and prominent New Hampshire family. He was a merchant and owner of a sawmill and shipyard.

Early in the French and Indian War, Folsom became a captain in the New Hampshire provincial regiment. His company was stationed at Fort Lyman, soon to be renamed Fort Edward, on the Hudson River.

On the morning of 8 Sept 1755, having heard shots in the night, Col. Joseph Blanchard told Folsom to send out a scouting party. Folsom dispatched Lt. Jeremiah Gilman, a relative, with some troops. According to a letter the captain wrote in March 1756, those men “marched up between Hudson’s River & the waggon road that leads to Lake George about two miles and a half, where they discovered one [Jacob] Adams lying by the waggon road, dead & scalp’d, & several waggons almost burnt up.”

After hearing this news, Col. Blanchard sent out Capt. Folsom with fifty men. They found signs of a large force of Natives and French in the area. Furthermore, “while we were tying up the dead man to carry him into the fort we heard the discharge of a great gun at the lake & soon after the continual report of others.”

This was the start of the Battle of Lake George, specifically the attack by that French force later called the “Bloody Morning Scout.” Gen. William Johnson had sent troops and supplies from his camp at the lake south toward Fort Lyman with a warning about the enemy being in the area, but that enemy had set up an ambush. The Crown commanders, Col. Ephraim Williams of Stockbridge and Mohawk leader Hendrick Theyanoguin, were both killed. Their remaining men withdrew toward their camp, with the French forces in pursuit.

As William R. Griffith recreated events in The Battle of Lake George (2021), Capt. Folsom returned to Fort Lyman with news that a battle was under way to the north. Shortly after noon, Col. Blanchard sent him back out with a larger force of New Hampshire men, augmented by a company of New Yorkers under Capt. William Maginnis.

Folsom’s own account from 1756 presents himself and his men as acting more aggressively and independently than that:

I call’d together our officers to advise whether we should go to the assistance of our friends at the lake whom we suppos’d to be engaged in battle; upon which officers & souldiers unanimously manifested their willingness to go. At that instant I was told that there were more men coming, who were presently with us. They were a company of the York regiment, who, when detached at Fort Edward, were commanded by Capt. McGennes.

I told him our army was attack’d at the lake, that we had determined to go to their assistance & ask’d him to go with us. Upon which he answer’d that his orders were to come to that spot, make what discoveries he could, return & make report. I told him that was my orders, but that this being an extraordinary case I was not afraid of being blamed by our superr. officers for helping our friends in distress. Whereupon he turn’d & ordered his company to march back again.

I then told our officers that as our number was so small—but, as it were, a handfull—I tho’t it most adviseable to return to the fort and add to our number & then proceed to the lake. We march’d, soon overtook the Yorkers & ran by them a little distance, where we met near fifty of our own regiment running towards us.

I ask’d, “What tidings?” They said they tho’t we had been engag’d & that Coll. Blanchard had sent them to our assistance.

Whereupon we imediately concluded to go to the lake; but not having orders therefor, as before hinted, I despatch’d Lieut. [Richard] Emery with some few men with orders to go to the fort and to acquaint Coll. Blanchard with what we had discover’d and of our design to go to the lake.

Meanwhile Capt. McGennes marched forward. We followed for about two miles but as I tho’t they marched too slow & kept out no advance guard (by means of which we might be enclos’d in the ambushments of the Canadeans) I propos’d to our New Hampshire men to go by them. But one of our officers told me he tho’t it not best to go before the Yorkers for that he was more afraid of them than of the enemy.

We might presume that officer was afraid of being accidentally shot from behind, but clearly there was a rivalry between the two colonies’ forces.

TOMORROW: Engaging the enemy.

“To raise immediately Two Thousand Effective Men in this Province”

I’ve now traced the establishment of the Massachusetts army, the Connecticut army, and the Rhode Island army, all signed up to fight until the end of 1775.

So let’s turn to look at the formation of the New Hampshire army.

Unlike Connecticut and Rhode Island, New Hampshire had a royal governor appointed by the Crown: John Wentworth. Starting in early 1774, the provincial legislature would meet for a few days before taking some resistance action. Gov. Wentworth would then dissolve the body or prorogue the session.

New Hampshire towns elected delegates to two provincial congresses beyond the governor’s control, on 21 July 1774 and 24 Feb 1775. Those gatherings had a simple brief: to choose representatives at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Local militia companies took over Fort William and Mary in December 1774—arguably the first military confrontation of the war. Gov. Wentworth remained in New Hampshire as events slipped well out of his control.

Then came the news of the fighting at Lexington. Some New Hampshire militia companies headed toward Boston. On 21 April, a third provincial congress met at Exeter, choosing John Wentworth (a different John Wentworth, naturally) to preside.

This congress was ready for much broader action. It voted to:

• ask Col. Nathaniel Folsom to take command of the New Hampshire troops who had gone into Massachusetts.
• send a committee to meet with the Massachusetts Provincial Congress about how many soldiers were needed.

Meanwhile, Gov. Wentworth convened an official assembly on 4 May. That legislature elected the other John Wentworth as speaker, as usual. But it was clear that power had shifted. The colony’s leaders wanted to address the war and no longer wanted to answer to the governor.

A fourth New Hampshire Provincial Congress assembled on 17 May. Three days later, those delegates resolved “to raise immediately Two Thousand Effective Men in this Province, including officers & those of this Province, already in the service.” The body chose to follow Massachusetts’s “Establishment of officers and soldiers” and to apply “to the Continental Congress for their advice & assistance respecting means & ways”—i.e., paying for all this.

On 22 May, the provincial congress appointed two “muster Masters for the present,” to “Regularly Muster all the men inlisted in the several Compys. in the Regiment commanded by Coll. [John] Stark.” These were the militia companies who had already joined the siege lines. The next day, the congress again named Col. Folsom “to take the general command.”

Together those acts in the middle of May 1775 are treated as the official establishment of New Hampshire’s army. Thus, by law the New England troops around Boston were no longer militia companies.

But there were still some wrinkles to iron out.

TOMORROW: The chain of command.

Call for Papers on “Freedom, Slavery, and Race in the American Revolution”

The Sons of the American Revolution is sponsoring a scholarly conference at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on 29–31 May 2026 on the topic “Freedom, Slavery, and Race in the American Revolution.”

Here’s the call for papers:

The conference will examine the experiences of African American people and the ideologies of freedom, slavery, and race in the War for American Independence and the founding of the United States.

In his 1776 essay Liberty Further Extended, Lemuel Haynes denied that “Liberty is so contracted a principle as to be Confin’d to any nation under Heaven; nay, I think it not hyperbolical to affirm, that Even an African, has Equally as good a right to his Liberty in common with Englishmen.” This Black patriot and soldier connected freedom, citizenship, and nation. How actors in the American Revolution experienced, articulated, or contested these ideas is the question that drives this conference.

The conference intends to examine perspectives from Black and White men and women aligned with the Patriots or Loyalists. We also invite comparisons between the young United States and the broader revolutionary Atlantic World.

The S.A.R. invites proposals based on new research from graduate students, established scholars, and public history practitioners. Proposals should include a 250-word abstract introducing the author’s research and how their topic advances the field, and a two-page vita.

Submit proposals by October 1, 2025, to John Ruddiman, Department of History, Wake Forest University at Ruddimja@wfu.edu with the subject line “2026 SAR Conference.” Acceptances will be sent by early December 2025.

The S.A.R. anticipates publication of the accepted, revised papers in an edited volume. To facilitate that, participants will submit their papers (approximately 5,000–6,000 words) for pre-circulation by May 1, 2026.

The society will offer cover presenters’ travel and lodging expenses and pay each a $500 honorarium.

Anishanslin on The Painter’s Fire in Boston, 23 June

On Wednesday, 23 June, Zara Anishanslin will speak at the Massachusetts Historical Society on her new book, The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution.

Zara Anishanslin is a professor at the University of Delaware. Her last book was Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World, winner of The Library Company of Philadelphia’s first Biennial Book Prize.

I got to hear Prof. Anishanslin speak about The Painter’s Fire at the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife last month. Previous studies of American-born painters in the Revolutionary world have focused on men like John Singleton Copley, Benjamin West, and Ralph Earl—all important artists but also Loyalist in that conflict.

In contrast, Anishanslin looks at three artists who actively supported the new American republic in one way or another: Robert Edge Pine, Prince Demah, and Patience Wright. Pine was a British native, Demah was born enslaved, and Wright was a woman working in wax rather than portraiture, so their lives expand the traditional scope of artists’ studies in other ways as well. Their careers also intersected in interesting ways.

When I first wrote about Prince Demah back in 2006, all that I knew was his first name, that he was enslaved to Christian Barnes in Marlborough, and that she wanted to get him some training as a painter. Research by Paula Bagger and others revealed Demah’s transatlantic career, service in the Continental Army, and more. It’s exciting to see those facts come into the light.

The talk is the society’s Annual Jack Grinold Lecture in American Art and Architecture. It will begin with a reception for in-person attendees at 5:30 P.M. Prof. Anishanslin’s talk (and the online stream) will begin at 6:00. The event is free to society members and online attendees, $10 for others. Register here.

“The Past and Present Here Unite” and “Who Are My Ancestors?”

If you’re interested in seeing and hearing me as a talking head in a documentary film, check out “The Past and Present Here Unite,” a video introducing the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site created by Argentine Productions.

A decade ago, I wrote a study for the National Park Service about Gen. George Washington’s use of that house in 1775–76, and most of my commentary for this movie pertains to that period. But I also shared some observations on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and how he shaped American memory.

Alongside that video, the same filmmakers produced “Who Are My Ancestors?: The Descendants of Cuba Vassall,” which you can watch at this page. It explores the family of Cuba Vassall, a woman enslaved by the Royall and Vassall families until the Revolutionary War. She had a longer connection to that site than Washington did, and her son Darby was prominent in Boston’s antebellum campaigns for human rights.

“There are always joys while going through manuscripts”

Last month, Commonplace published Jayne Ptolemy’s “The Record Scratch: Uncovering Documents Relating to William Ansah Sessarakoo,” and I recommend reading the whole article.

Ptolemy, who’s on the staff of the William L. Clements Library in Ann Arbor, wrote:

The Clements holds the papers of Charles Townshend (1725-1767), who served as Secretary of War during the Seven Years’ War and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the decades leading up to the American Revolution. These days, he is mostly known as the straw man for incendiary British taxation policies due to his role in sponsoring the infamous Townshend Acts.

Internally at the library, however, we mostly grumbled about him under our breath because his papers were in a complicated arrangement, the finding aid was difficult to navigate, and the boxes even harder to pull for researchers. It needed someone to puzzle out what was in each box and add descriptive information to the finding aid to make it more manageable. Unfortunately, I don’t have a penchant for economic history, so figuring out how to describe the contents of “Miscellaneous Treasury Papers” meant trying to disambiguate a great many reports on tariffs, duties, and excises.

There are always joys while going through manuscripts—an unexpected doodle, a funny quote, beautiful papers—but most of what I was encountering was financial document after financial document–Until one stopped me right in my tracks. It referred to expenses “for the two African Gentlemen at Barbadoes.” Written in 1747, the use of “Gentlemen” to describe African peoples was eye-catching enough, but glancing down at the accounts, the entries for making waistcoats, providing pocket money, buying ruffled shirts, and more signaled something extraordinary. . . .

And then, a document written from Bridgetown, Barbados, laid it all out:

Whereas John Corrantee and the Caboceers of Annamabo are at present exceedingly well disposed towards the British Nation, and beg the resettlement of that place by the English, and the fort to be rebuilt

And whereas a Son of John Corrantee’s Named Ansah was sold here by Captain Hamilton who he (Corrantee) is very anxious to have redeemed

We hereby give it as our Opinion that the Redemption of the said Ansah will be very acceptable to John Corrantee (who is the leading man at Annamabo) . . . and will be a means to conciliate Corrantee to, and rivet him in the Interest of the British Nation in opposition to the French, who have been aiming for some Years past at the aforesaid settlement.

OH.

OH NO.

“The Record Scratch” is a fine metaphor for that moment, though I don’t think it gives a good sense of the rest of this article.

Nominees for the 2025 George Washington Book Prize

The finalists for the 2025 George Washington Book Prize, all history titles published last year, have been announced.

In alphabetical order of the author’s surname, they are:

• Jane E. Calvert, Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson (Oxford University Press)
• Francis D. Cogliano, A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic (Harvard University Press)
• Michael D. Hattem, The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History (Yale University Press)
• Tyson Reeder, Serpent in Eden: Foreign Meddling and Partisan Politics in James Madison’s America (Oxford University Press)
• Cara Rogers Stevens, Thomas Jefferson and the Fight against Slavery (University Press of Kansas)

The sponsors of this prize are Mount Vernon, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Washington College. Mount Vernon will host an event featuring all the authors on 12 August, and the winner will be announced at a gala dinner in New York on 8 October.

“Altho’ he made his living by crying, he was always in a most jovial mood”

Last week History.com published Elizabeth Yuko’s article “Town Criers Were the Original Social Media.”

The scope of this survey ranges from medieval period to the early nineteenth century, in Europe and various parts of America. Yuko quoted my observations on the town criers of Boston.

The 1796 Boston directory listed only John Weare as a crier, a post that Laurie Halse Anderson found he’d held since 1782. But Weare died in 1800. The 1809 Boston directory listed James Wilson as the town crier, living “over 23 Cornhill” near the center of town.

In Old Boston Town: Early in This Century (1883), James Hale wrote:

The steps of the Exchange Coffee House were much used by James Wilson, the town crier, to announce the auction sales of Whitwell & Bond, Thomas K. Jones & Co., David Hale (afterwards of N. Y. Journal Commerce), and other auctioneers, who did chiefly congregate in Kilby street, near State.

Jimmy was a great humorist, and altho’ he made his living by crying, he was always in a most jovial mood. He generally closed the formal announcement of an auction by some quizzical remark to a bystander, for he knew everybody, and was on familiar terms with all sorts and conditions of men.

Jimmy Wilson was often at his post about nine o’clock in the evening, ringing his bell loudly for several minutes to collect a large crowd, and then announcing a lost child, or a lost pocket-book. His account of the agony of bereaved parents would be heart-rending, when he would suddenly explode a joke which would start the crowd off, roaring.

In Rambles in Old Boston (1886), Edward Griffin Porter added:

James Wilson…for nearly half a century was better known probably among men, women, and children than any other person in the town. He was a short, thick-set, red-faced man, with keen eyes and a powerful voice. Although commonly known as the crier, he was a brush-maker by trade, and a good one too. The writer has seen a pair of clothes-brushes made by him, which have been in constant use in Boston for over seventy years, and are as good apparently as ever.

Wilson’s shop was in the basement of the Exchange Coffee-House, fronting upon what is now Congress Square. At one period he sold ale, after the English fashion, in pewter mugs, and had a foaming “toby” painted on his door to indicate it; but his chief sign was this bell in hand, said to be a correct copy of the bell he carried so many years.

Wilson’s retailing establishment eventually developed into today’s Bell in Hand tavern.

Skinner on “Paul Revere’s Ride” in Boston, 19 July

On Saturday, 19 July, the Paul Revere House will host the launch of Paul Revere’s Ride: An Illustrated History, by Cortney Skinner.

There have been many illustrated editions of Henry W. Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride,” the artists wrestling to different degrees with its historical inaccuracies.

Skinner took a different path. He’s illustrated Revere’s own account of his ride, our most detailed source on it. And he’s gone to great effort to paint its scenes with as much historical accuracy as possible.

Opposite each painting is a page discussing the historic details, mysteries, and artistic choices Skinner made. Like a good historian, he shares his sources and explains how he decided on visual details, from the household furniture to the angle of the moonlight.

At this event, Skinner will discuss the process of creating Paul Revere’s Ride: An Illustrated History and sign books. It’s scheduled from 1:00 to 3:00 P.M. The book can also be ordered from the Paul Revere House gift shop.

Also at the Paul Revere House that afternoon will be reenactors of Captain Amasa Soper’s Company, a unit that volunteered to defend Boston from attack by sea after the siege of the city ended in March 1776.

Who Wants to Be a General Anyway?

Here are a couple more wrinkles in how the Rhode Island legislature commissioned Nathanael Greene to lead its troops in 1775 which I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere.

First, the colony named Greene its brigadier general. That was one rung lower than the rank still held by Simeon Potter, major general.

At the same time the legislature commissioned Greene, it also promoted Potter into its upper house, the Assistants.

Those actions might have kept the hot-tempered man content that he was still being respected. The colony still wanted his cooperation (and his cannon).

At the siege of Boston, Greene was the youngest general and had the least seniority. But he was still lumped in with the other generals. In June, Nathaniel Folsom reported back to New Hampshire: “Mr. [Artemas] Ward is Capt. General, Mr. [John] Thomas Lieut. General, and the other Generals are Major Generals.” That was their practical pecking order, not their formal ranks.

In July, the Continental Congress listed Greene as a brigadier general, alongside Thomas, William Heath, Joseph Spencer, John Sullivan, and others. In the summer of 1776 Greene became a Continental major general, and that remained his official rank throughout the war.

Here’s another possible factor in Rhode Island’s choice of Greene to command its army in 1775: Nobody else wanted the job.

The army of observation was designated as 1,500 soldiers, smaller than the other three New England colonies. Whoever commanded that contingent was bound to be low man on the totem pole around Boston. And in practice Greene was able to collect only about a thousand men.

For a Rhode Island man of military ambition, it might have seemed more promising to stay home and organize the coastal defense against British naval raids. At least you’d be the biggest fish in the pond.

What’s more, prospects might have looked even more promising at sea. Rhode Island was a maritime society. Many of its leading men were merchant captains who in wartime commanded or invested in privateers. As the example of Simeon Potter showed, that form of warfare could be the path to a life-changing windfall. Even naval captains had a chance at wealthy prizes.

On 12 June, Rhode Island became the first rebellious colony to commission its own navy, making Abraham Whipple the commander over two armed vessels. Whipple seized the Diana, a tender of H.M.S. Rose, off Newport three days later.

In October, Rhode Island’s delegates to the Continental Congress pushed for the creation of a Continental Navy. Ultimately delegate Stephen Hopkins’s brother Esek was appointed the first commander in chief of that branch.

That fall, the Rhode Island assembly (having given up on Simeon Potter) had appointed Esek Hopkins a brigadier general for defense of the colony. But the man jumped at the opportunity to go to war at sea. Because that was probably where he and his neighbors saw the real prestige and money.

In sum, Nathanael Greene might have become a general because senior men in Rhode Island didn’t view that job as important. Nobody foresaw what Greene would make of it.

COMING UP: The New Hampshire army.

“I have pleased myself with the thought of serving under you”

As discussed yesterday, sometime in the first week of May 1775 the Rhode Island legislature appointed Nathanael Greene to be the brigadier general of its army of observation.

In his biography of his grandfather, George Washington Greene wrote:

There is a tradition, but I will not vouch for it, that the first choice fell upon an Episcopalian, who declined; the second, on a Congregationalist, who also declined; and that, when the third vote was announced as having fallen on Greene, he rose in his place, and said: “Since the Episcopalian and Congregationalist won’t, I suppose the Quaker must.”

That’s about as tepid an endorsement for a “tradition” as a nineteenth-century biographer could provide. And the religious terms “Episcopalian” and “Congregationalist” weren’t standard in 1775, suggesting it wasn’t exact.

One recent biographer of Nathanael Greene has suggested that those first two candidates for command declined on religious grounds. I think that’s a misreading of the tradition. The first two faiths mentioned weren’t pacifist. That was the point of the anecdote—the irony of a (lapsed) Quaker leading an army instead of men from sects that didn’t object to military action. And the story might have some validity, though I doubt it happened in a legislative session.

The legislature’s first choice probably was Simeon Potter, already major general of the colony militia. At least, the body couldn’t ignore him. And Potter was an Anglican, even if he’d punched his minister in the face back in 1761. (Incidentally, the Rev. John Usher died on 30 Apr 1775, just as these discussions about the Rhode Island army were under way.)

Another candidate for command whom G. W. Greene and later biographers mentioned is James Mitchell Varnum (shown here), captain of the Kentish Guards. He’d grown up in Dracut, Massachusetts, as what people would later term a Congregationalist. That said, there were many others of that faith in Rhode Island as well, some probably quite senior to the twenty-six-year-old Varnum.

Varnum and Greene had worked together in the fall of 1774 to form the Guards, an independent militia company based in East Greenwich. Varnum, a rising young attorney, was chosen as the first captain. Encouraged by a cousin, Greene put his name forward to be a lieutenant, only to learn that some members thought his limp meant he didn’t look good marching in an elite company at all.

Sometime in October, it appears, Greene wrote to Varnum:

If I conceive right of the force of the objection of the gentlemen of the town, it was not as an officer, but as a soldier for that my halting was a blemish to the rest. I confess it is my misfortune to limp a little, but I did not conceive it to be so great; but we are not apt to discover our own defects. . . .

I have pleased myself with the thought of serving under you, but as it is the general opinion that I am unfit for such an undertaking, I shall desist. I feel not the less inclination to promote the good of the company, because I am not to be one of its members. I will do anything that's in my power to procure the charter.

Apparently Varnum had spoken of leaving the company himself if Greene was forced out because the letter continued:

Let me entreat you, Sir, if you have any regard for me, not to forsake the company at this critical season for I fear the consequences—if you mean to oblige me by it, I assure you it will not, I would not have the company break and disband for fifty Dollars

Varnum stayed with the company and apparently convinced Greene to do the same.

On 29 October, the legislature, with Greene as a delegate, issued a charter for the Kentish Guards. Its act listed the dozens of men who had petitioned for that charter, starting with Varnum and the other three designated as officers, including Christopher Greene. The fifth name on that list was Nathanael Greene. So officially he was a leading member.

It’s conceivable that some fallout from that affair influenced the choice of Greene as general in May 1775. If the legislature did approach Varnum, he may have thought it was Greene’s turn to lead. Or perhaps, with a real war looming, organizational skills seemed a lot more important than a slight limp.

TOMORROW: Hidden factors in the decision.

The Mysterious Rise of Nathanael Greene

In Massachusetts, the lower house of the General Court published annual detailed journals of what it (officially) discussed each day.

The clerk of the Provincial Congress kept similarly detailed notes, and that record was published in 1838.

Rhode Island’s assembly, in contrast, issued a bare-bones record of each legislative session: lists of elected and appointed officials, texts of resolutions and new laws. No specific dates between the day the assembly convened and when the session ended. No mention of failed petitions, disagreements with the upper house, committee reports, or the like.

As a result, Rhode Island’s legislative process is opaque. We know a session started on 22 April to wrap up the fiscal year and, in response to news from Massachusetts, to form a 1,500-man “army of observation.” But the only official clue to the date of that crucial resolution was how Gov. Joseph Wanton and Lt. Gov. Darius Sessions’s protest against it was dated 25 April.

Among the last actions of that legislature was:

IT is Voted and Resolved, That Mr. Nathaniel Greene be, and he is hereby, appointed in the Room of the Honorable Samuel Ward, Esq; (who is going to the Continental Congress) to wait on the General Assembly of the Colony of Connecticut, to consult upon Measures for the common Defence of the Four New-England Governments.

A new assembly convened on “the First Wednesday in May,” or 3 May. The legislature continued to build up the army. With Gov. Wanton staying home, lawmakers established a committee of safety to oversee that process.

Nathanael Greene and fellow delegate William Bradford were reimbursed for “their Service, Horse-Hire and Expences” on that Connecticut trip. Simeon Potter, Greene, and Daniel Owen were made a committee to audit the accounts of a man making “Six Gun-Carriages” for the colony. There was more activity.

And then suddenly the records shows a long list of new appointments. Simeon Potter was elevated to the upper house. William Bradford went onto the committee of safety. And atop the first list of “Officers of the Army of Observation” was:

Nathaniel Greene, jun. Esq; Brigadier-General.

Greene’s commission was dated 8 May, so the discussion that led to the creation of that handsome formal document must have taken place over the preceding week. But we know next to nothing about it.

We know Greene had represented the town of Coventry in the assembly for a few years. (For a while historians thought this was a different man, and indeed there were other Nathaniel Greenes active in Rhode Island affairs, but documents came to light to confirm his service.) The Greene family was enmeshed in the colony‘s politics.

We know Greene was particularly involved in the formation and training of the Kentish Guards, in Rhode Islanders’ initial response to the Lexington Alarm, and on the military committees listed above.

On the other hand, Nathanael Greene didn’t have a high rank in the colony militia. Indeed, he was only a private in the Kentish Guards, as I’ll discuss tomorrow.

Nonetheless, when the time came to go to war, the legislature promoted Greene above that unit’s captain, James Mitchell Varnum, and all other militia colonels to command its army. How that happened is an enduring mystery.

TOMORROW: Other candidates.

Simeon Potter and Rhode Island’s Army of Observation

Capt. Simeon Potter’s appeal to Rhode Island’s top court to overturn the verdict against him for assaulting the Rev. John Usher in 1761 didn’t work, despite having Robert Treat Paine to represent him.

So Potter appealed to an even higher court: the Privy Council in London.

According to Bruce Campbell MacGunnigle, who published the surviving record of this case in the Rhode Island Historical Society’s journal in 2006:

Usher won again, but under the condition that [he] come to England to collect [the judgement]. As Usher couldn’t afford the voyage, Potter never paid a cent.

Clifford K. Shipton likewise reported that Usher never collected any damages.

Capt. Potter continued to command respect in his home town of Bristol because of his wealth. He continued to serve in public offices. Usher continued to be the minister of St. Michael’s Church in the same neighborhood.

In 1772 Potter personally helped to attack H.M.S. Gaspee. When the Crown started an inquiry and found some witnesses, the captain apparently leaned on people to ensure he wasn’t identified. That whole affair seems to have made him only more popular.

At the end of 1774, Rhode Island made Potter the first major general of its militia forces. He looked like the right man to stand up to the Crown. By then people knew he was violent, possessive, and extremely stubborn—but those were pluses. Nobody could make Simeon Potter do what he didn’t want to do.

Come spring, Simeon Potter didn’t want to fight in the Revolutionary War.

On the evening of 19 April, according to American newspapers, Continental Congress delegate Stephen Hopkins wrote to Potter, calling on him to report to Providence in his capacity as major general; “The King’s troops are actually engaged butchering and destroying our brethren in the most inhuman manner, the inhabitants oppose them with great zeal and courage.”

Potter stayed home. In Beggarman, Spy: The Secret Life and Times of Israel Potter, David Chacko and Alexander Kulcsar wrote that Potter “claimed to have received a letter from the commanding general of the Massachusetts Militia telling him that no troops were needed,” but I can’t trace that reference and don’t trust the claim.

By 22 April Rhode Island’s legislature, having sidelined Gov. Joseph Wanton, was voting to form an “army of observation” which might march into Massachusetts. But the government had no one to lead those men.

TOMORROW: Finding a general.

“The said Potter, said it was not worth a Cussing”

At the civil trial of the Rev. John Usher v. Capt. Simeon Potter in November 1761, eight witnesses from Bristol, Rhode Island, testified through sworn depositions followed by questioning in court.

Those witnesses for the plaintiff agreed that both Usher and Potter were angry. They described Usher gesticulating with his cane. They all said Potter struck the first blow. One even said that about ten days later he’d asked Potter “if he thought Mr. Usher struck him,” and Potter said no.

Capt. Potter participated in part of that trial, cross-examining Usher’s witnesses. But he appears not to have tried to mount a defense with his own evidence. The court found him in default and awarded Usher £1,000 plus costs.

Potter actually had three witnesses lined up on his side. Jeremiah Bosworth claimed in a deposition, “once I plainly see said Usher strike sd. Potter over the head with his Cane.” Bosworth also accused the minister’s son Hezekiah of hitting and knocking down the captain’s father, Hopestill Potter—the same sort of assault that Capt. Potter was accused of.

A second witness testified to seeing Usher hit Potter. However, that witness was Capt. Potter’s father, obviously an interested party. The third witness said Usher was “aiming as I thought at striking sd. Potter,” but because of a tree he didn’t see any blow before Potter hit Usher. (Potter actually had a fourth deposition, but it came from someone whom Usher’s lawyer had already called.)

Instead of putting up an argument in the county court, Capt. Potter appealed the verdict to Rhode Island’s highest court. The case was scheduled for September 1762. In preparation, Potter collected more testimony. Now his sister Hope claimed, “I saw Mr. John Usher Clerk Strike att Capt. Simeon Potter with his Cane several times.”

Another new witness was Jonathan Fales, who owned the house on the corner where the fracas occurred. Several months after the fight, Fales signed off on this account:

Usher run from off the Causeway up to said Potter with his Cane lifted up as tho’ he was going to strike at him, said Potter not having before said Usher run up to him taken any notice of said Usher nor so much as turned towards him,

Upon said Usher’s coming up to said Potter I saw him shake his Cane over said Potter several times aiming as I thought at striking him

Interestingly, Jemima Gorham and William Lindsey signed depositions describing how they’d seen the same thing in almost exactly the same language.

What’s more, Richard Smith, a witness at the original trial, came forward to say Gorham had told a grand jury in January that she’d gone “into hur hous” and hadn’t seen anyone hit anybody.

And the Bristol justice of the peace who recorded those three new depositions, Daniel Bradford, also took the stand to say he’d asked Fales why he hadn’t testified back in November 1761. Bradford said that Fales

Answered that he went out of the way for fear of being called upon, as an Evidence. . . . Fales further said that a few days before ye Court said Potter asked him for his evidence and that he was in his Calm hours Wrote One and Shend ye same to said Potter, and that the said Potter, said it was not worth a Cussing and then Went and Sent ye Said Fales one already wrote, which said [Fales] Refused to sign.

In sum, it looks like Simeon Potter had leaned on or rewarded some of his neighbors to sign off on testimony he or his lawyer had prepared. I suspect if we knew more about employment and trade in Bristol, we’d see the levers of power that the captain was pulling.

TOMORROW: And did all that effort succeed?  

[The photo above shows a fist-headed walking stick owned by Thomas Hancock and displayed at the Massachusetts Historical Society several years back. It has no link to this case, but I thought the design was appropriate.]

“Success in this troublesome affair”?

When I broke off yesterday, Capt. Simeon Potter of Bristol, Rhode Island, had just hit the Rev. John Usher in the face.

And then he did it again.

According to the minister’s son, Hezekiah Usher, that “made the blood fly out of his Mouth.”

The younger Usher described rushing out from his doorway:

I run and catch him [Potter] by the collar & took him off from my Father and received two blows in my Face from sd. Potter.

The captain’s father, Hopestill Potter, aged about seventy-one, also joined the fray. Eventually the minister and captain were pulled apart.

In the fall of 1761, the Rev. John Usher sued Capt. Simeon Potter for the punches “…And also the left Thumb of the Plaintiff at said Time & Place did Sprain by all which the Plaintiffs Life was despaired of.” He asked for “Fifty Thousand Pounds current Money of New England” in damages.

Capt. Potter threw up every roadblock. He argued that he’d been an unarmed man acting in self-defense. That Usher shouldn’t have sued in Newport. That “this Cause might be continued to next Court as he is not provided with an Attorney and his principal Evidence is at Sea.” Ultimately Potter put up no defense and defaulted, and the county court awarded Usher £1,000 plus costs.

Both parties appealed to the Rhode Island Superior Court of Judicature, Usher “because the Damages given were not adequate to the Injury recd.” and Potter because the verdict was “wrong and erroneous and ought to be reversed.”

Meanwhile in January 1762 a grand jury in Bristol County considered criminal assault charges against Capt. Potter. I can’t tell how far that process got.

In the summer of 1762 Potter called in a big legal gun from Massachusetts: Robert Treat Paine (shown above, later in life). Paine’s 6 August letter assured Potter that he could appeal both criminal and civil cases with “the Deposition you have of the Jurys dissatisfaction in their Verdict.” Paine called Usher “a Crafty powerfull Antagonist” and closed “wishing you success in this troublesome affair & that you may finally prevail against Ecclesiastical or Political Tyranny.”

On 10 September, Paine traveled to Newport to argue for Potter. The captain was presenting testimony from several witnesses not heard at the original civil trial.

TOMORROW: Examining the evidence. 

“You shake it within an Inch of my Nose”

Some years back, I mentioned Simeon Potter’s dispute with John Usher, but I was relying on a secondary source that I’ve come to see as unreliable.

I’m therefore retelling that story in more detail using the court documents published by the Rhode Island Historical Society in 2006 (available as a P.D.F. from Family Search) and other sources.

In 1761 Potter was a wealthy gentleman in Bristol, Rhode Island. He’d been born in that town forty-one years earlier to a poor or middling family. He’d therefore grown up without much schooling, trained to be a cooper. But because of a privateering windfall at the start of King George’s War, Potter had made himself into one of the richest men in the whole colony.

Reflecting his new genteel status, Capt. Potter took on prestigious positions in politics and the church. He became a warden of the local Anglican church, St. Michael’s. Few New England towns of Bristol’s size—about 1,200 people in 1774—had an Anglican church, but this was at the coast and therefore served mariners.

The minister of St. Michael’s was the Rev. John Usher. He was the son of a wealthy bookseller who had risen to be lieutenant governor of New Hampshire. After graduating from Harvard College, Usher had joined the Church of England, defying the New England orthodoxy. The missionary Society for the Propagation of the Gospel paid part of his salary, and his congregants sometimes paid the rest.

In 1761 Usher was over sixty years old. His exact age is unclear since his tombstone says he was seventy-five when he died in 1775, but a memorial plaque later installed in his church says he was eighty. Either way, he’d been the minister at St. Michael’s since 1724, when Simeon Potter was still a little boy.

According to Usher’s report back to the S.P.G., the trouble started because

Notwithstanding he [Potter] has an agreeable wife, he has by report for some years back kept a criminal conversation with a young woman, one of my parish. . . . After many general hints from the Pulpit…I told her what reason I had to suggest she was guilty of the notorious sin of Adultery. . . . Upon this she told the man immediately what I had said

Frankly the minister shouldn’t have been surprised by that.

On the morning of 14 August, Charles Munro said, “the Rev. Mr. John Usher and Capt. Simeon Potter…engaged in warm words or Differing” on the street. Richard Smith added that Usher told Potter, “wherever he went there was whoring carried on.” Smith also quoted the men as saying:

[Potter:] if it wont for your Age and Gown I would not have your Cane shook over my head

[Usher:] I don’t shake it over your head nor mean to shake it over

[Potter:] you shake it within an Inch of my Nose

Simeon Potter, despite his fearsome reputation, was “small in stature,” according to Father Elzear Fauque. Also, in the manners of the time clubbing another man with a cane implied that the caner was a gentleman and the canee was not; given Potter’s background, his class status might have been a sensitive spot.

The minister’s son, Hezekiah Usher, called this “Ill treatment” of his father. Potter may also have said something about the minister’s daughter, but I can’t find another trace of her.

On 18 August, Usher and Potter met yet again on Church Lane. They picked up where they had left off. Hezekiah Usher stated:

I heard my Father say to sd. Potter if ever he cast any more reflections on his Family especially on his daughter twould cause him to reflect on his family and upon that the said Potter came up to my Father who was then on the edge of the Gravell’d Walk and said who of my Family and my Father said Your Father

Potter’s father, Hopestill Potter, was in fact sitting in a chair at his own front door nearby.

The quarrel caught the ears of several neighbors, though trees along the street blocked some people’s views. Witnesses agreed that Usher was holding his walking-stick in the middle, waving it around as he spoke. Some said this was “Usher’s naturall way of Shaking his Cane at any Person when he is earnest in talk.” One said the cane was “up as if he was agoing to strike.” But all the trial witnesses agreed they never saw the minister actually touch the captain.

According to Hezekiah Usher, after his father mentioned the captain’s father, Capt. Potter “rusht close up to my Father and said what reflections can you cast on him”? Usher replied, “I’ll blow him up.”

The captain then punched his sexagenarian minister in the face.

TOMORROW: In court.

“Capt. Potter answered that he would share none”

Rhode Island actually began its military build-up back in December 1774, as detailed in a letter from former governor Samuel Ward that I quoted back here.

At that time the colony appointed its first ever major general: Simeon Potter (1720–1806).

Potter was a militia colonel, representative of the town of Bristol in the colonial assembly, and veteran privateer captain.

Indeed, Potter had already helped to lead one attack on the British military: while several fellow merchants supported the assault on H.M.S. Gaspee in 1772, he actually commanded one of the boats.

Now in fact, Potter’s most successful privateering haul came in 1744 not from attacking enemy ships but from raiding a poorly defended settlement in French Guyana that hadn’t even heard the empires were at war.

According to one of his captives, he sailed away with:

seven Indians and three negroes [none previously enslaved], twenty large spoons or ladles, nine large ladles, one gold and one silver hilted sword, one gold and one silver watch, two bags of money, quantity uncertain; chests and trunks of goods, etc., gold rings, buckles and buttons, silver candlesticks, church plate both gold and silver, swords, four cannon, sixty small arms, ammunition, provisions, etc.

Father Elzéar Fauque reported that the looting included “tearing off the locks and the hinges of the doors, particularly those which were made of brass,” before burning everything to the ground.

Potter’s lieutenant Daniel Vaughan testified in 1746 that at Suriname

Capt. Potter put a Quantity of sd. Merchandize up at Vendue on board a Vessel in the Harbour and purchased the most of them himself and ship’t them to Rhode Island on his own account; then said Sloop Sailed for Barbadoes on wch. passage the men demanded that Capt. Potter would Share the Money taken, according to the Articles, to which Capt. Potter answered that he would share none until his Return for all the Men were indebted to the Owners more than that amounted to and Swore at and Damn’d them threatning them with his drawn sword at their Breasts, which Treatment Obliged the Men to hold their Peace and when said Sloop arrived at Barbadoes Capt. Potter without consulting the Men put part of the afore mentioned Effects into the Hands of Mr. Charles Bolton and kept the other part in his own Hands and Supply’d the Men only with Rum and Sugar for their own drinking, and further this Deponent saith that Capt. Potter refusing to let the men have their Shares and his Ill Treatment of them by beating them occasioned about twenty-four to leave the Vessel whose Shares Capt. Potter retained in his Hands

Simeon Potter came home to Bristol a rich man. A few years later, in 1747, the peninsula that contained that town was shifted from Massachusetts to Rhode Island, making Potter one of the richest men in the small colony.

Potter launched various maritime businesses: a ropewalk, a distillery, a wharf, a store, and so on. He invested in slaving voyages to Africa. By the 1770s he owned more enslaved people than anyone else in Bristol. According to a nephew, Potter declared, “I would plow the ocean into pea-porridge to make money.”

In those years, Potter’s neighbors recognized his status by electing him to the legislature and to militia commands, and he was happy with the power.

TOMORROW: A fighting man.