“Ye pasture where ye fight was in June”

On this anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, I’m taking note of a document the City of Boston Archaeology Department recently highlighted which touches on the term “Breed’s Hill.”

The department’s social media stated:

Samuel Swan, who owned the pasture where the battle took place, wrote in his claim for damages, “the Pasture where the fight was in June & pasture on Bunker’s Hill, breastwork on it & the ground almost all cut up within the breastwork.” The actual owner of the hill calls it Bunker’s Hill.

I was excited by this finding and was planning to simply pass on the news. But on digging down to the documents I’m not convinced.

The problem is that Samuel Swan owned three pastures on the Charlestown peninsula, according to his claim in March 1776. One was on the hill where the provincials built their redoubt, the focus of the 17 June battle. Swan’s larger tracts were to the west, near the neck. We can see all three on the map of 1775 Charlestown real estate that the department has created.

The department has shared a scan of Samuel Swan’s document about his pastures. I wish the wording, punctuation, and difference between “ye” and “&” were clearer, but I think it says:

Swans Act. of Trees Apple, Loacust, Button wood Pair [pear] in my 3 pastures. 250 at Least my son sett 200 Loacust & Aple trees—

Stone Walls [of ye?] 3 pastures Great part took away. all ye Rales Gone. ye Ground Cutt Great part of it ye pasture where ye fight was in June. ye pasture on Bunker hill Brest work on it & ye Ground almost all Cutt up within ye Brest work ye Loer part ye other Pasture Cutt up not much ye Well wholly Filled up—

It looks to me like Swan was distinguishing between “ye pasture where ye fight was in June” and “ye pasture on Bunker hill Brest work on it.” I think the latter phrase referred to the large fortification that the Royal Engineers built on Bunker’s Hill rather than to the provincials’ redoubt.

(As for Swan’s “other Pasture,” that sustained less damage because it was on lower ground, so neither the provincials nor the regulars built works there.)

By my reading of his claim, Swan referred to the promontory near the neck as “Bunker hill” and didn’t name the hill where the monument now stands at all.

TOMORROW: Words, not deeds.