“The wider transatlantic workers’ struggle that helped make the American Revolution”?

Jacobin just published Tom Cutterham’s essay “Class Struggle Was a Crucial Part of the American Revolution,” reflecting his upcoming book, Empire Ablaze: The American Revolution and the Atlantic Working Class.

The article begins:

Late in 1776, with the War of Independence underway in the American colonies, a twenty-four-year-old housepainter named James Aitken walked into Britain’s most important naval dockyard and set it on fire. The damage was significant: estimates for repairs were twice the value of the tea destroyed at Boston harbor three years earlier.

The sense of threat experienced by Britain’s ruling elite was also profound. Few people today remember Aitken’s acts of sabotage against the British war machine. But they deserve recognition as part of the wider transatlantic workers’ struggle that helped make the American Revolution.

Aitken is the subject of one of my favorite books on the Revolution, Jessica Warner’s The Incendiary. But I’m not convinced he’s good evidence of a transatlantic political movement, even though he did start his life in working-class Scotland, was in Pennsylvania during the first years of the Continental Congress, and then returned to Britain to support the American cause. Aitken didn’t connect with other activists, except for Silas Deane in Paris. He seems to have been socially inept. Aitken was a movement of one.

Likewise, something seems to be missing from the article’s description of the Gordon Riots:

In London too, the long-standing collaboration between laborers, artisans, and the commercial middle class proved a point of fracture as the possibility of revolution grew too close for comfort. When huge crowds took to the streets in the summer of 1780, burning the home of the Lord Chief Justice, throwing open prison gates, and attacking centers of imperial power like the East India Company offices, it seemed as though the “general effort” [Catharine] Macaulay had called for might finally be at hand.

Those riots were spurred by support for a rather mad aristocrat’s protest against a new British law granting more political rights to Catholics. Though the violence threatened the political establishment, was it really for the benefit of the working class?

I expect Cutterham’s longer book addresses the details of these cases. And I don’t disagree that economic friction between the working class and their employers (still called “masters” in many fields) was part of the Revolutionary era. But so were a bunch of other factors that may have driven events more and certainly muddy the waters. Cutterham’s points are worth considering with care.

“I know that our way will bring us there”

Yesterday’s posting mentioned the Rev. Samuel Ashbow, a Baptist minister from the Mohegan community in Connecticut.

A lot of information about Ashbow comes from Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England by W. DeLoss Love (1899). Both Ashbow and Occom studied with the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock and worked on his conversion missions before breaking with him theologically and organizationally.

The Rev. David McClure (1748–1820, shown here) also left a glimpse of Ashbow in his diary. This passage comes from the summer of 1768 when McClure was an undergraduate at Yale College. He “took a ride to the Sea Shore & in company with Mr. Chester Bingham tarried a few days at Narraganset,” the Native community in what’s now Charlestown, Rhode Island.

Sabbath, attended the Indian meeting, at their meeting house, which was small & about the size of a common school house. About 50 Indians were present. They were mostly elderly people. They sung, prayed & exhorted. There were 4 or 5 who exhorted. The principal speaker was called Sam’l Ashpo.

They were all very earnest in voice & gesture, so much so that some of them foamed at the mouth & seemed transported with a kind of enthusiasm. When they prayed, all spake audibly, some in english & some in Indian. It was indeed a confused noise. . . .

I stood near to Ashpo, and noticed the following expressions in his prayer er in confession of sins. We must allow for grossness of the style, from his imperfect knowledge. “Lord, thou knowest what a poor vile sinner I have been; how I have been a vile drunkard, and like a beast have lain drunk in my own spue, all night at taverns and on the road; but O Lord, thou has forgiven me my sins, for the sake of our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, who can save the vilest sinner” &c.— . . .

As a sample of their ready wit even in serious things, among other instances, after meeting passing the house of one of the speakers, standing in his door, He said to me, “How do you like our way of worship?[”] I replied some things are very good; but would it not be more edifying, in prayer for one to pray & the congregation to join?—He replied “that will never do. Must make ’em all pray. Plaguy apt to cheat.”

When in the Meeting, one of the Exhorters addressed me & my companion, & said “this is the way that we Indians have to get to Heaven. You white people have another way. I don't know but your way will bring you there, but I know that our way will bring us there.”

Though McClure was contemptuous about the worshippers’ “simple and vulgar” way of expressing their understanding, I thought the metaphors he recorded them using were actually quite evocative.

One of the exhorters said, “I have been up the North ward in the french war, and when cold weather come on orders come—Go into winter quarters. This was dreadful news, to stay there all winter in cold & hunger; but soon word come again, strike your tents & home boys home. Then was all glad, and so it is with a christian going to Heaven.”

Another said, “I have been to New Port & down the wharf, & seen a ship just going to sea. There friends shake hands, and cry farewell, soon the sails are up & the wind comes & she goes, & all hands huzza, (hurraw) so it is with a christian going to Heaven.”

Three or four of Ashbow’s sons died fighting for the Continental cause, starting with Samuel, Jr., at Bunker Hill. He remained in Connecticut after the war while many other Christian Natives in the northeast, including Occom, were pushed to the Brotherton community in upstate New York and then on to Wisconsin. 

Up and Down the River Screening and Discussion in Charlestown, 11 June

On Thursday, 11 June, the National Parks of Boston and Bunker Hill Community College will host a screening and discussion of the new short film Up and Down the River, dramatizing the choices of Mohegan people during the American Revolution.

This movie was directed by Madeline Sayet and co-written by her and her mother, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, vice chair of the Mohegan Council of Elders. It stars several Native actors from the Mohegan and other communities.

The film description says:

Spanning the colonial and American Revolutionary eras, Up and Down the River delves into the difficult decisions made by members of the Mohegan Tribe at these pivotal periods in both tribal and U.S. history. Featured in this film is the Ashbow family, including Hannah and her son Samuel Ashbow, Jr. Choosing to fight alongside the American colonists, Samuel Ashbow, Jr., died at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, becoming one of the first Indigenous soldiers to die in the American Revolution.

Ashbow’s father was the Rev. Samuel Ashbow (1718–1795) of New London, Connecticut.

After the film showing, there will be a reflective conversation between Zobel and endawnis Spears, Practitioner in Residence for Tribal Engagement at Brown University and Co-Founder and Director of Programming and Outreach at the Akomawt Educational Initiative.

This program will begin at 6 P.M., with doors open half an hour before. It’s scheduled to last ninety minutes. The showing and discussion are free to the public, but registration is required.

Archeological Investigation on Breed’s Hill This Month

For the next couple of weeks, the Boston City Archaeology Department will be conducting a dig on Breed’s Hill in Charlestown. The public can watch the investigation proceed while visiting the battle monument.

The program’s website explains:

There have been multiple archaeological surveys surrounding the Bunker Hill Monument, the site of the redoubt on Breed’s Hill and currently a National Park. These surveys have revealed the likelihood that the 1775 redoubt structure may still be identifiable under the current surface of the grassy hill.

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) and other non-invasive remote sensing techniques have been useful for finding earthworks, and a previous GPR survey on the monument hill in the 1990s had promising results suggesting an oval-shaped trench present on the hill.

Technology has significantly improved since this original survey and the City Archaeology Program is actively working with the National Park Service and other partners on a plan to re-survey the top of the hill to provide an even better underground snapshot of the location and condition of the 1775 redoubt.

A goal of the project is to accurately document the presence and location of the 1775 redoubt, including the potential for an archaeological trench across the original redoubt to reveal a section of the surviving fortification as part of the 250th celebrations in the summer of 2025.

In addition to the redoubt, the team is also actively working to use remote sensing techniques to identify areas of potential burials for the more than 300 individuals who lost their lives during the battle, including both colonial and British forces. The colonial forces included people of color and Native individuals from multiple Native nations. No burials will be disturbed as part of this work, but radar and documentary surveys may help to better protect these locations.

The department is working working with the National Park Service and American Veterans Archaeological Recovery with support from the Friends of Boston Archaeology.

The department shares lots of information from previous archival and geographical investigations of Revolutionary Charlestown on its webpage.

Cutting Remarks

Here’s another data point on the phrase “Tarleton’s quarter(s)” in the early American republic.

This item that appeared in the Centinel of Freedom newspaper, published in Newark, New Jersey, on 4 Dec 1798.

Original and True.

AFTER the battle of Cowpens, in which [Banastre] Tarleton’s dragoons were so roughly handled by the Americans, he drew up his men, and riding in front of the line, communicated to them strict order to give no quarter thereafter.

A short time after, in an action where the American militia threw down their arms and begged for their lives, one of them answered, “aye, aye! we’ll give you quarter; but as we are in something of a hurry, we’ll only halve you now, and quarter you as we come back:” and so hewed them down with their sabres.

“This naivete passed from mouth to mouth, and excited laughter in the midst of carnage! Were these men or fiends?”

This anecdote reflected the American memory of Tarleton and his men as monsters. There’s no evidence from the British side that the lieutenant colonel gave such an order, nor any evidence from wartime for this remark by one dragoon.

Notably, this tale was set after the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781. David Ramsay’s history, quoted yesterday, stated that the phrase “Tarleton’s quarters” arose after the Battle of Waxhaws more than six months earlier.

This article used an older sense of “naïveté,” meaning not the quality of being naïve but an action or remark arising from that quality. Not that I picture those dragoons as naïve.

When Did People Start Talking about “Tarleton’s Quarter”?

Last week saw the anniversary of the Battle of Waxhaws in South Carolina on 29 May 1780. That was a lopsided bloody victory for the British.

Todd Braisted, the historian of Loyalists, noted that many anniversary descriptions of that battle were stating that it gave rise to the sarcastic term “Tarleton’s quarter” for attacking foes trying to surrender, and that that phrase became a rallying-cry for Americans later in the war.

He asked on Facebook whether there is any contemporaneous evidence for that claim. The phrase doesn’t appear in American newspapers of the 1780s. No one was able to point to a letter using the term. If a phrase was really so widespread, why doesn’t it appear more often?

Steve Rayner found what might be the earliest print use of the phrase in Charleston author David Ramsay’s History of the Revolution of South-Carolina, vol. 2 (Trenton: 1785):

Lord Cornwallis bestowed on lieutenant colonel [Banastre] Tarleton the highest encomiums for this enterprize, and recommended him in a special manner to royal favour. This barbarous massacre gave a more sanguinary turn to the war. Tarleton’s quarters became proverbial, and in the subsequent battles a spirit of revenge gave a keener edge to military resentments.

At that time Ramsay was representing his state at the Confederation Congress, which was meeting in Trenton. That’s why this history of South Carolina wasn’t published in Charleston.

Three years later, the Rev. William Gordon (or his ghostwriter) lifted Ramsay’s sentences with minimal rewriting into The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America, vol. 3 (London: 1788):

Lord Cornwallis bestowed on Tarleton the highest encomiums for this enterprise, and recommended him in a special manner to royal favor. Tarleton’s quarters is become proverbial; and in subsequent battles a spirit of revenge will give a keener edge to military resentments.

British supporters of the American republic picked up the phrase. The Scottish pamphleteer James Thomson Callender issued The Political Progress of Britain anonymously in Edinburgh in 1792. He started to revise and expand that text for a second edition but was arrested on 2 Jan 1793.

Callendar “with some difficulty made his escape” first to Ireland, then to America. Encouraged by Thomas Jefferson, he reprinted The Political Progress of Britain in Philadelphia in 1795. Later that year Callendar published a much expanded third edition, which on page 119 reels off a list of British government atrocities:

The peninsula within the Ganges, is the grand scene, where the genius of British supremacy displays its meridian splendour. Culloden, Glencoe, and Darien, the British famine of four years, Burgoyne’s tomahawks, Tarleton’s quarters, the Jersey prison-ship, and the extirpation of six hundred and fifteen thousand Irish men, women and children, dwindle from a comparison.

Callender evidently expected his readers (now primarily Americans) to recognize all those events without needing explanations. “Tarleton’s quarters” had indeed become proverbial, he believed.

That same year, back in London, William Belsham published his Memoirs of the Reign of George III, discussing the fight at Waxhaws in vol. 2:

This movement caused an immediate retreat of such corps as had been there collected for the relief of Charlestown. One of these was unexpectedly attacked and surrounded by Tarleton’s legion, which had marched one hundred and five miles in fifty-four hours. A very feeble resistance was made, and by far the greater part immediately threw down their arms, and begged for quarter: but a few continuing to fire, the British cavalry were ordered to charge, and a terrible slaughter was made amongst the unarmed and unresisting Americans; and from this time Tarleton’s quarter became proverbial.

That seems to be the first appearance of the phrase in a singular form, which became standard in American books in the next century.

The way Gordon and Belcham echoed Ramsay’s “became proverbial” wording shows that those authors, who had no ties to South Carolina, relied on Ramsay’s book. All traces of the phrase lead back to him.

Back in early 1780, Ramsay had been a military surgeon serving with the South Carolina militia. He was captured in the fall of Charleston and then held as a prisoner of war in Florida for nearly a year. Ramsay therefore didn’t have first-hand experience of how Patriots in the countryside reacted to the Battle of Waxhaws, but he undoubtedly knew people who were there.

It would be nice if we could find examples of people referring to “Tarleton’s quarter(s)” during the war, especially if we claim that phrase spread widely and inspired American fighters. It’s possible that Ramsay coined or refined the phrase to express how people had felt a few years before, or that he overstated how many people repeated it at that time. But we can be sure this phrase didn’t arise in the 1800s, unlike other oft-repeated tropes of the Revolution. 

“Declaring Independence: Declaration to Constitution” in Boston, 1 June

On Monday, 1 June, the Massachusetts Historical Society will host a panel discussion titled “Declaring Independence: Declaration to Constitution.” The guiding question will be whether the promises of the Declaration of Independence shaped the Constitution.

The event description says:

America’s founding documents have echoed throughout global history and culture for more than two centuries. Join us to learn more about how these two documents are related—and how they differ. Why did revolutionaries like John Adams and his peers draw on the past as they drafted the Declaration and crafted the Constitution? What ideas shaped the United States’ working definition of liberty, and how did that translate to audiences abroad? Explore how “we the people” imagined a new political vocabulary to interpret the American experiment, which we continue today.

The panelists will be:

• Emily Sneff, author of When the Declaration of Independence Was News
• Mary Sarah Bilder, professor at Boston College Law School and author of Madison’s Hand
• Sara Georgini, series editor at the Adams Papers, moderator

For in-person attendees, the evening will start with a chance to view the exhibit “1776: Declaring Independence” and a reception starting at 5:30 P.M. The conversation and its livestream will begin at 6 P.M.

Register from this page. Attending in person costs $10, free for M.H.S. members and Card to Culture participants. Listening in online will be free, and the society usually posts recordings of its events on YouTube a few days afterward.

“How the Shooting Began in 1774” in Hampstead, N.H., on 2 June

On Tuesday, 2 June, I’ll be at the Hampstead, New Hampshire, public library, speaking to the Hampstead Historical Society about “How the Shooting Began in 1774: The Start of the Revolutionary War in New Hampshire.”

Here’s our event description:

Officially the Revolutionary War began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, but the first exchange of fire between the king’s government and the Patriots came the previous December in New Hampshire. The bloodless fight over Fort William & Mary in Portsmouth harbor was one stage of a months-long “arms race” as New England’s royal governors and political resistance vied to seize cannon and other artillery supplies in preparation for a war. This talk explores the mass demonstrations, armory break-ins, shadow governments, and espionage that brought on the war.

I’ll be drawing on The Road to Concord and more recent research to pander to the local audience speak bold truths about the start of the Revolutionary War—a story that starts months before the 19th of April and involves events hundreds of miles apart.

This free event is scheduled to take place from 6:30 to 8 P.M. at the library.

This talk is made possible by New Hampshire Humanities, N.H.P.B.S., and the Cogswell Benevolent Trust. It’s part of the “By the People: Conversations Beyond 250” series of community events developed by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

Meeting the Real Samuel McClellan

Yesterday’s post introduced Samuel McClellan (1730–1807) of Woodstock, Connecticut, the captain of a militia troop of horse in 1774.

McClellan was a shopkeeper and landowner in his small town. After the Revolutionary War he became a brigadier general in the state militia.

The McClellans remained locally important, and one of his great-grandsons was Gen. George B. McClellan of the Union Army and the 1864 Presidential race.

As often happens in that situation, Samuel McClellan’s descendants were influential enough to get their understanding of his role in the Revolution into local histories and biographical profiles when primary sources were hard to consult. For example, the 1902 National Cyclopedia of American Biography said:

On Oct. 13, 1773, he was commissioned captain of a fine troop of horse, raised in the towns of Pomfret, Woodstock, and Killingly, and led it Boston on receipt of the news of the battle of Lexington. He passed through the battle of Bunker hill uninjured, and in commemoration of that his wife planted three elm trees in front of residence, which attained great size and were standing when Gen. George B. McClellan visited Woodstock in 1884.

Ellen Douglas Larned’s History of Windham County, Connecticut: 1760–1880 says there were originally four elms.

The latest version of that lore is Samuel McClellan’s Wikipedia page, which as of this week says:

In 1775 Major Samuel McClellan led 184 men at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. He played a prominent role in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and after achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1776, colonel in 1777, and brigadier general of the 5th Brigade in 1779, his regiment of the Connecticut Militia was stationed near New Jersey. McClellan was solicited by General George Washington to join the Continental Army and was offered a commission, but his domestic and business affairs compelled him to refuse.

That overstates the facts in multiple ways, starting with how McClellan wasn’t commissioned a major in the militia until October 1775.

News of the outbreak of war in Massachusetts didn’t reach Woodstock until 20 April, after the fighting was over, so there was no way men from that town were “at the Battles of Lexington and Concord.” Col. Israel Putnam was one of the first men from Connecticut to respond. On 21 April he wrote from Concord to say that the Massachusetts Provincial Congress hoped that Connecticut would send 6,000 men for “a standing Army.”

Putnam added as a postscript: “The Troops of Horse are not expected to come until further notice.” But Capt. McClellan had already led his 184 mounted men north into Massachusetts. That’s shown by Connecticut records of militia service, as tabulated here.

However, those same records also show that McClellan was paid for only eight days of service. Like most of his neighbors, he went home when it was clear the emergency had passed. Some men stayed or returned and enlisted in what became the New England army. McClellan didn’t.

There’s no evidence putting McClellan at the Battle of Bunker Hill or on the siege lines around Boston at the time. That undercuts the claim he “played a prominent role” in the battle, but it does explain how he remained “uninjured.”

Later in the war McClellan did mobilize with his militia regiment for short assignments in the Northern Department. He also served in the Connecticut assembly and as a commissary. In that last capacity his name comes up in Washington’s papers, but there’s no direct written solicitation from the commander for McClellan to join the Continental Army.

McClellan apparently left a fowling-piece, made by the Massachusetts gunsmith Joel White, equipped with a bayonet mount and bearing the initials “SMC.” That’s been displayed as a weapon from the Battle of Bunker Hill. McClellan may well have carried it during the Revolutionary War, but not at that fight.

“Specimens of Indian Insult”

I’ve quoted a couple of accounts of mock battles on Boston Common during militia musters, as reported proudly in the local newspapers. On those occasions, half the local unit provided an enemy by portraying the French.

Here’s a report from the 12 May 1774 Norwich Packet, describing a different scenario in Woodstock, Connecticut, a town on the border with Massachusetts:

NORWICH, May, 12.

A Correspondent from Woodstock informs us, that on Monday the 2d. Inst. the Three Military Companies of that Town met upon the Parade, in the First Society, where they performed the Manual Exercise with a Spirit and Activity that did Honour to their Officers and themselves.

At Eleven o’Clock a Troop of Horse, under the Command of Capt. Samuel McClellan, came upon the Parade; which, for elegance of Dress, goodness of the Horses, and suitable Furniture, were judged, by the numerous Spectators present, to be inferior to no Troop in America.

At Three o’Clock the Foot and Troop feigned a Skirmish with each other, which they conducted with Propriety and Order: Suddenly a Company of Aborigines appeared, who made Captives of some of the Children present, and gave other Specimens of Indian Insult to the Foot and Horse: Their Depredations roused the New-England Spirit in the Troop, who, with seem Fury, attacked and drove them yelling off the Field, to the great Joy of the Spectators.

The good Order that was observed, not only by the Troop and Foot Companies, but also by the Spectators, was remarkable.----No Injury was sustained by any One present. The Day and Evening Entertainments, were concluded with strict Sobriety and Decency.

The Captain of the Troop gave an elegant Dinner to his Company and a Number of Gentlemen, as also did Capt. [Benjamin?] Lyon, and the Colonel of the Regiment honoured the Day with his Presence.

I’ve found this event mentioned in a local history but not quoted in full. It offers an example of what Philip J. Deloria called “playing Indian” in American culture. This moment was a few months after the Boston Tea Party, a few months before the Patriot press began to share fearful speculations that the Crown government might recruit Natives and French Canadians to attack resistant colonies.

Ironically, the town of Woodstock contains the site of Wabaquasset, a Native American “praying town” from the mid-1600s. That community was split and depopulated by the King Philip’s War. Englishmen from Roxbury then settled the land. The town’s seal now depicts Native and English men standing on either side of a heraldic shield.

Uncovering Boston Jersey

Earlier this month the Guardian reported on how researchers had unearthed new information about a figure in this portrait.

For hundreds of years, he was known only as “Jersey”, an enslaved boy of about 11 rendered in oil on canvas by the great 18th-century portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. . . .

The painting, thought to have been completed around 1748, shows the boy and his “master”, the naval officer and MP Paul Henry Ourry. While Ourry looks out into the distance authoritatively, the enslaved child gazes up at the officer tentatively. . . .

Scouring admiralty records, letters, muster books (ships’ registers) and captains’ logs, [Mark] Brayshay and Katherine Gazzard, a curator at Royal Museums Greenwich, found him named as “Boston Jersey” on ships that Ourry was attached to.

They believe he may have been given the surname Jersey because Ourry was born in the Channel Islands. It is possible he had his first name because he once lived in Boston, Massachusetts.

The researchers discovered Jersey was baptised as George Walker (possibly a name he had been known by earlier in his life) on 30 July 1752, probably in a chapel in Westminster.

The article has a little more to say about George Walker and much more about the restoration of the painting.

This discovery led to the quick creation of a Wikipedia page about Boston Jersey/George Walker.

“Environmental History & the War of Independence” in Boston, 27 May

David Hsiung is the Dr. Charles R. and Shirley A. Knox Professor of History at Juniata College in Pennsylvania.

For several years he’s been working on the problem of how the enviroment affected the American Revolution, how the Revolution affected the environment, and how it’s possible to study those interactions with the data we have.

That is, of course, a huge topic, so part of the historiographical challenge is, I’m sure, to narrow down and define the questions in a manageable way. In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying his articles and lectures, which always open my eyes to new ways of seeing this history.

On Wednesday, 27 May, David Hsiung will be at the Massachusetts Historical Society for a conversation with Joyce A. Chaplin of Harvard, author most recently of The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution.

The description of “Curious & Complex Connections: Environmental History & the War of Independence” says:

Many of us give only a moment’s thought about the environment when considering the War of Independence: the slope of Breed’s Hill, the ice-choked Delaware River, and diseases such as smallpox. But what might we gain by connecting biology, ecology, and geology to the thinking and actions of soldiers and civilians? Rebels and British soldiers acquired and used energy in the form of food, fuel, and work animals, which shaped people’s lives, the course of the war, and the direction of environmental change.

This is a hybrid event starting at 6 P.M., with a reception in the preceding half-hour for people attending in person. Attendance costs $10, but is free to M.H.S. members and Card to Culture participants. Listening in online is free. Register for either form of access through this page.

Folks can also take in these talks from Prof. Hsiung:

• Via the Charles River Museum and GBH, “A Revolutionary Problem: Making Saltpeter During the War of Independence.”
• Via Fort Ticonderoga and C-Span, “Energy, Geography, and Geology in the Saratoga Campaign – 1777.”
• At the American Revolution Institute in Washington, “Environmental Legacies: How the War of Independence Affected the Natural World in Predictable and Surprising Ways.” (Another version of this lecture is available through the Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York.)

“The services of their father in repairing certain cannon”

Preserved Clap was born in Hadley, lived in the part of that town which became Amherst, and ultimately died at age eighty up the Connecticut River in Claremont, New Hampshire.

His headstone appears here courtesy of Find a Grave. His wife Eunice’s stone is nearby.

Clapp probably had earlier ties to that region. The Preserved Clap listed as serving in 1775 in a provincial company recruited largely from Bolton was said to come from Charlestown, New Hampshire, next to Claremont.

There’s also this curious anecdote related by Jaazaniah Crosby in his History of Charlestown in New Hampshire (1833):

On the 18th of June, 1756, while Lieut. Moses Willard was endeavoring to extinguish the fire, which had been kindled in his fence, he was attacked by the Indians, and killed behind the barn of the late Capt. John Willard, and near the academy. At the same time, his son Moses was wounded in the hip by a spear, which is said to have remained in the wound till after his retreat into the fort. It is further said that a Mr. Preserved Clap carried the same spear into the revolutionary war.

Preserved and Eunice Clap’s son Roswell was living in Claremont by 1790, per the first U.S. Census.

Dr. Clap’s children followed in his footsteps in at least one way: asking to be paid for his inventions during the Revolutionary War.

In 1837, the U.S. Senate took up “the petition of Roswell Clapp and Charlotte Reed, children and heirs of Preserved Clapp, praying compensation for the services of their father in repairing certain cannon belonging to the United States.” That referred to work sixty-one years before, just after the siege of Boston.

And the Clap family kept up that plea until 1841, thirty years after the doctor had died.

“Acquainted with the conduct of Doctor Preserved Clap”

I lose track of Dr. Preserved Clap after 1776 until 5 Feb 1781, when the Continental Congress referred a petition from him to its board of war.

On 20 February, board members Richard Peters of Pennsylvania and Ezekiel Cornell of Rhode Island met and formulated a response to that petition:

The Board having considered the reference with which they were honored on the memorial of Preserved Clap, beg leave to observe, That it appears from his memorial and General [Henry] Knox’s letter that he hath been with the Army as a volunteer for eighteen months without pay or any emolument.

That it farther appears by General [Benjamin] Lincolns and Knox’s letters that Mr Clap was sole inventor of stocking the Cannon that were supposed to be rendered useless by the enemy at Boston, and in the vicinity, in the spring of 1776; from which the Continent at large received a real benefit; for which he received no emolument but barely day wages.

From the foregoing state of facts it may be proper for Congress to resolve,

Resolved, That the supreme executive of the State of Massachusetts examine into the merit and services of Preserved Clap, and order payment on the account of the United States, for such sum as they think he may justly deserve; provided it shall not exceed one thousand dollars in bills of the new emissions:

That Preserved Clap be informed, that Congress cannot employ him in public service, consistent with their arrangements.

The Congress approved that response the next day. Clap’s petition, which might include the letters from Knox and Lincoln, is preserved in the Congress’s files but not published.

There is, however, a second published letter from Henry Knox on the doctor. On 13 March, Gen. John Sullivan wrote to Knox about him, and on 22 March the artillery commander replied:

I received your favor of the 13th instant, requesting a certificate from me, & such of my officers who were best acquainted with the conduct of Doctor Preserved Clap, & how he employed himself in the Army.

The result of my knowledge & information is that the said Preserved has great mechanical abilities, & that he joined himself to the Army in ’79, as a volunteer, ready to do any kind of work in his power, either for officers or soldiers, sometimes with & sometimes without pay.

When the Continental troops were principally withdrawn from West Point last August, the Doctor attached himself to the Post, but he declined to the best of my remembrance to be enrolled as an artificer, & apply himself to public work entirely.

Sometime in November he applied to me for a letter to Mr. Hodgson [Samuel Hodgdon, shown above], D[eputy].C[ommissary].G[eneral].M[ilitary]. Stores, the intent of which he informed was to procure assistance or permission to work with the artificers’ tools at Philadelphia to execute some design of a machine to destroy shipping, which he intended to present to Congress or the Board of War.

But I had not the least idea of his intending to claim pay for the time he had been with the army.

This looks like the second time Dr. Clap threw himself into devising equipment for the army without arranging an official rank or contract, and without discussing pay. Not the wisest way to operate, especially when good money was scarce.

The Congress referred Clap’s case to Massachusetts, where the “supreme executive” was now Gov. John Hancock. The state archives might therefore contain more sources on Dr. Clap. However, I’ve found no evidence of pay for him on either state or national level.

TOMORROW: Last traces.

“The consideration of the Petition of Preserved Clap”

In the spring of 1776, Dr. Preserved Clap was forty-five years old. He had a wife and young children back in Amherst. And in Boston he was being hailed as a “Genius” for his idea of how to put damaged cannon back to work. So he stayed.

Though he used the title ”Doctor” and was identified by the Rev. Samuel Cooper as “a Country Surgeon,” I haven’t come across any example of Clap performing medicine. But he threw himself into mechanical tasks.

The authorities put Clap in charge of a team to salvage as many of the artillery pieces the British left behind as they could. Those men appear to have worked into the summer, and then Clap petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for pay.

On 16 September that legislature put into its record:

MEMORIAL of PRESERVED CLAP Overseer. of the Men employed in opening, and stocking the Cannon at Boston, and Castle William.
setting forth
That he and the Men attended that service, for the term of Time specified, for which he, nor they have received any pay therefore the memorialist prays, that the Honorable Court would give him an Order upon the Treasurer for the State aforesaid for the Amount of his Account. or otherwise relieve him as shall seem meet.

The Committee to whom was referr’d the consideration of the Petition of Preserved Clap, have attended that Service, and beg leave to Report by way of Resolve.

several other Accounts exclusive of said Clap’s accompanying this petition, the Committee did not take into consideration as said Clap had no orders to receive the amount of the same,

said Committee do not know of any further service for said Clap.

Resolved that there be paid out of the Publick Treasury of this state to Preserved Clap Forty Three Pound one shilling & Tenpence in full for his within account

and whereas Said Clap Says that he has envented a machine for Boreing Cannon, which may be improved to the grate advantage of this State, therefore

Resolved, That if Said Clap will exhibet a Plan, or Modle of Said Machine, to Hugh orr Esqr and others, a Comtee. for Casting Large Cannon So as to Satisfy them of its Superior utility, upon their report thereof to this Court there Shall then be granted to him Such a Sum for his envention as may appear to be adequate to its Superior usefulness.

Hugh Orr (1715–1798) had come to Massachusetts from Scotland in 1737, settling in Bridgewater after a couple of years. There he built a forge and the first known trip-hammer in British America. Though Orr’s main product was farming implements, at times of war he shifted his works toward making weapons, including muskets in 1748.

In 1776, Orr was representing Bridgewater in the General Court and working to set up a cannon manufactory. Naturally, the legislature set Dr. Clap to him. However, there’s no evidence anything came of that.

Two months later, on 14 November, the Independent Chronicle newspaper ran this notice:

BOSTON, November 11, 1776.

THIS may certify, that Doctor Preserved Clap, has opened the cannon at Castle-William that were spiked up by the enemy; and is the real inventor of a carriage, whereby the cannon that had their trunnions broken off, by this new invented carriage the guns are rendered serviceable, which otherwise would have been useless.

Attest, RICH. GRIDLEY, Chief Engineer.

I looked to see if there was any competing claim to have invented that method of mounting guns in 1776, but I couldn’t find one. Dr. Clap really wanted public credit for his ideas.

TOMORROW: Making a national case.

A Long Line of Preserved Claps

Dr. Preserved Clap, the man who stepped forward to render Boston’s broken cannon useful again in the spring of 1776, came from a long line of Preserved Claps.

According to The Clapp Memorial (1876), the doctor’s ancestors Roger Clapp and Joanna Ford arrived in Massachusetts in 1630, settling in Dorchester.

(This genealogy preferred the spelling “Clapp,” even changing how the name appeared in the period sources it quoted.)

Those Clapps named their first children Samuel, William, and Elizabeth, but then went full Puritan for most of the rest: Experience, Waitstill, Preserved, Hopestill, Thanks, Desire, Thomas, Unite, and Supply.

Preserved Clapp (1643–1720) moved to Northampton and had a son named Preserved Clapp (1675–1757), who likewise had a son named Preserved Clapp (1705–1758). That last man moved to Hadley. He married Sarah West in August 1730, and they had their first son the following May: Preserved Clap (1731–1811).

Histories of Northfield and Deerfield say that in the fall of 1754 our Preserved Clap was in charge of a small force—nine or ten men—guarding the settlement of Huntstown, now Ashfield.

The genealogy above didn’t have this information, but more recent researchers have found that in 1756 this Preserved Clapp married Eunice Atherton of Lancaster, and they started having children by 1760. His name appears a couple of times in the Amherst town records in the following decade.

On 1 Jan 1770 the Connecticut Courant of Hartford ran this notice:

CLOCKS and Watches made in the best Manner, by
PRESERVED CLAP
of Amherst.

Likewise all Kinds of Instruments in Surgery.

That’s the first surviving sign that the latest Preserved Clap had ambitions to be more than a country farmer.

The Colonial Society of Massachusetts published the image of a clockface above in an article about the engraver Thomas Johnston (1708–1767). At the top it says: “Preserved Clapp / New England.”

Did Clap order this plate from Johnston for a clock he planned to build, or for one he planned to own? And did he pay for it? Johnston kept that sheet of copper and used the other side to engrave a musical score for his publication of Daniel Bayley’s A New and Compleat Introduction to the Grounds and Rules of Musick (Boston, 1766).

Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War records that in 1775 a man named Preserved Clap served a few months as a private in the company of Capt. Benjamin Hastings of Bolton. I haven’t found anyone else named Preserved Clap of military age at the time. But it seems unusual for a forty-three-year-old man with military experience, social ambition, and some connection to medicine to serve in the ranks. In any event, Hastings’s company saw action at Bunker Hill.

The next time Preserved Clap surfaces in the records I’ve found is the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper’s 29 Apr 1776 letter to Samuel Adams, which refers to him as “a Country Surgeon in our Army.” By this time he was evidently using those “Instruments in Surgery,” not just making them. However, I haven’t found any record of Clap being surgeon for a Continental regiment. Perhaps he had taken that role in one of the militia regiments that Massachusetts raised in early 1776.

TOMORROW: Claiming credit.

“A Genius has appear’d lately”

In his 29 Apr 1776 letter to Samuel Adams, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper described the man who came forward with a solution for cannon with damaged trunnions:

It was judg’d by…all here, at first, that they could never again be made useful: But a Genius has appear’d lately, a Country Surgeon in our Army, an obscure Man till now, who has hit upon a Method of mounting them, without Trunnions, so as to render them it is tho’t, serviceable as ever.

I can only give you some general imperfect Idea of this Method. He first sinks the Cannon to its Centre, in a strong wooden Sock, like the Barrell of a Musket in it’s Stock: He braces it with three iron Clasps to prevent it’s leaping out of this Stock; and yet so as not to obstruct any Movement necessary to it’s use.

The Cannon in this wooden Bed, is mounted on a Carriage, and by rounding the lower side of the latter like the Foot of a rocking Cradle, Provision is made for the Elivation & Depression of the Cannon.

He has compleated one or two already in this Manner; and if Experience proves it, to be, what some good Judges have already pronounc’d it, the Invention will do Honor to our Country & ought to be immortalise the Name of the Man, which is Clap.

It will give us an hundred fine Cannon for the Defence of our Harbor, which a few Days ago were given up as entirely useless.

To my surprise, I find that this is the first time in more than twenty years that Boston 1775 has mentioned Dr. Preserved Clap.

Dr. Clap did make a short appearance in The Road to Concord, in which I posited that his method was how the New Englanders mounted damaged artillery pieces in 1775.

In Old Landmarks and Historic Fields of Middlesex (1895), Samuel A. Drake included this picture, saying it showed Dr. Clap’s carriage as drawn “by an officer of artillery present at the siege.” I haven’t located that original drawing or the officer’s name.

Cooper’s letter is the earliest mention of Dr. Clap and his invention that I’ve found, as well as the most detailed description of it. The wording suggests that Clap came forward with his method only in the spring of  1776, not during the siege. And Cooper’s description really doesn’t match the drawing. So I have questions.

TOMORROW: Who was Preserved Clap?

“Entirely useless by breaking off the Trunnions”

Yesterday I started quoting a 29 Apr 1776 letter from the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper to Samuel Adams about Boston’s defenses soon after the British military left.

That letter goes on to say:

The Enemy employ’d no little Time in…destroying the Guns: The Trunnions of all of which, except 8 or so, they entirely knock’d off, besides spiking up the Touch holes in the most effectual Manner.

“Trunnions” was a term technical enough not to appear in Dr. Samuel Johnson’s dictionary. Merriam-Webster now defines them as the pivots on which something can be rotated or tilted, particularly the “two opposite gudgeons on which a cannon is swiveled.” (And it defines “gudgeons” as pivots.)

This overhead view of a cannon might convey the information better.

A gun carriage held a cannon by the two horizontal trunnions. They provided the fulcrum that allowed gunners to point the cannon up or down. A cannon without its trunnions was a heavy metal tube, very hard to mount and impossible to aim. Or, as Gen. George Washington deemed the broken guns left behind in Boston, “entirely useless.”

British artillerists broke trunnions to keep the rebels from having useful weapons. In Concord on 19 Apr 1775, Ens. Henry DeBerniere reported, “Capt. [Mundy] Pole of 10th regiment…knock’d the trunnions off three iron 24 pound cannon and burnt their carriages.”

With little other choice, the Continental Army still tried to use such damaged artillery pieces. Dr. James Thacher reported that the army started out with “a few old honey-comb iron pieces, with their trunnions broken off.” The doctor was pleased when Capt. John Manley and Col. Henry Knox brought in some intact guns.

Given that expertise, and necessity, on 24 March Washington expressed hope that Boston’s broken and spiked cannon “may be made serviceable again.” But how?

TOMORROW: A genius appears.

“They talk of sinking Hulks by the Castle”

On 29 Apr 1776, one week after writing the letter to John Adams that I quoted yesterday, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper wrote to Samuel Adams:

this Town…is now in some better Posture of Defence, but the Works proceed slowly. I must repeat what I said to you in my last, There is an absolute Necessity of some able active Commander here, such as [Nathanael] Green, [John] Sullivan, [Israel] Putnam &c upon other Accounts besides fortifying, tho this is of extreme Importance in our Situation— . . .

We have some good Lines, excellent Cannon at Fort Hill; this is all our Defence at present, except the Works thrown up at Dorchester Point which are said to be good—We are now going to erect Works at the Castle, & hope to have a Line of Guns well defended, on the Eastern Point; & are preparing to sink Hulks, between the Rocks of Castle Island, & the lower middle Ground.

The Enemy employ’d no little Time in ruining all the old Works there, and destroying the Guns…

Cooper still wanted someone besides Gen. Artemas Ward to supervise the defense of Boston, but his description of the town’s defenses was a little advanced from the previous week.

A 22 April letter from Boston quoted in the Connecticut Gazette of New London also said: “Tomorrow they talk of sinking Hulks by the Castle.” Those hulks were the keels of old ships, meant to impede Royal Navy warships from sailing easily into the inner harbor.

Of course, those same obstacles would also be a problem for merchant vessels, or American warships. On 30 April James Warren told John Adams: “No hulks as yet sunk; the people of Boston seem much against it; and whether it will be done or not I can’t say.” After all, Warren was merely the speaker of the Massachusetts house.

On 9 May that legislature directed its harbor defense committee “without delay to sink the Hulks.” But on 23 May the Boston town meeting voted (unanimously, it was later said) against that measure. The General Court on 5 June suspended the operation, though empowering the committee to proceed “upon any sudden Alarm or appearance of danger.”

Soon enough, fear of British warships invading Boston waned. No hulks were sunk in the harbor.

“In what a defenceless State we still remain”

I was preparing to write about a document from the Samuel Adams Papers at the New York Public Library, digitized as “Letter from John Scollay” dated 22 Apr 1776.

But after taking a closer look, I realized that only the first two four pages at that link come from a letter by selectman John Scollay. And the first two pages of Scollay’s letter are at this link, called “Letter from William Davis”—which is indeed accurate for the first two of four pages there.

The file called “Letter from John Scollay” also contains a two-page letter from the Rev. Samuel Cooper, dated 29 Apr 1776. His signature is abbreviated, but the handwriting matches Cooper’s other letters in this collection.

The Cooper letter closes by saying he’d recently written to John Hancock and John Adams. The letter to Hancock isn’t listed in the John Hancock Papers project, so it probably hasn’t survived. But the Adams Papers does offer a 22 April letter from Cooper matching the style and concerns as the letter to Samuel Adams.

In particular, Cooper told John Adams he was worried about Boston’s defenses:

After so many Weeks Possession of this Town you would be surpriz’d to see in what a defenceless State we still remain. The Business of Fortifying has lain between Genl. [Artemas] Ward and a Committee of the General Court: Between them both, little or nothing has yet been done. We have but 7 or 8 Guns mounted on Fort Hill. Nothing yet done on any Island in the Harbor.

A British Ship of 40 or 50 Guns with two or three small arm’d Vessells are in Possession of King Road and Nantasket. They take or drive away almost all supplies coming to us by Water; and (would you believe it!) with this inconsiderable Force the Harbor has been, and is now effectually block’d up. Two or three Ships of War have had it in their Pow’r ever since the Evacuation of the Town to come up and cannonade it.

That warship’s primary mission was to stop other British ships from going into the harbor unaware that it waw now in rebel hands. But of course Cooper and other Bostonians couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t attack.

Ward complains that too small a Force, but 5 Regiments not full, were left him. The Court blame him for Inactivity, and He them. I was pleas’d to see your Letters and others from Gentlemen of the Congress mentioning the Importance of putting this Harbor into the best State of Defence. Pray write again and again to press this Matter.

There is a Report here that Ward has desir’d to resign. I wish from my Heart He would do it. He is a good Man, a thoro N. England man, and dispos’d to do us ev’ry Service in his Power. But He certainly wants Decision and Activity. It is of absolute Necessity that some General Officer of the best Qualities be sent to this Department immediately. Pray let [Nathanael] Green or some other be plac’d here.

We are in the utmost Hazard, should the Enemy return, of loosing in this Quarter much more than we have gain’d, by the Departure of the British Forces. Had there been a Man here, at the Head of the Military who would have discern’d at once what was proper to be done; and stated it to the Court, we might have been in a good Posture of Defence Weeks ago.

Ward had indeed put in his resignation on the grounds of ill health, then asked to remain so he could help Massachusetts rebuild. Cooper wasn’t the only local to say Ward moved too slowly. When the minister wrote this letter, however, it had been less than three weeks since Gen. George Washington had departed and left Ward in charge. It therefore doesn’t seem fair to suggest Boston could have been fortified against ocean attack “Weeks ago.”

“There is something off about this sword”

Earlier this year the Sandwich Enterprise shared a story by Cearra O’Hern about the identification of an artifact at the Pilgrim Hall Museum.

The article focuses on Michael L. Welch, Jr., who uses first-person interpretation of Revolutionary figures in teaching history at the Sandwich Middle School.

The article explains:

Welch primarily portrays Major General James Warren, a leading revolutionary in Massachusetts who also served as president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress during the American Revolution. Welch heard that the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth had Warren’s sword…

“I connected with the curator, who was very helpful in lining up a time to go in and look at the sword,” Welch said. “I was given the attribution of the sword, how the sword was passed down through the Warren family and donated. I photographed it extensively, I scanned it, I made a 3D rendering of it, and the whole time I am looking at this sword, I am like, ‘There is something off about this sword.’”

Welch had seen a sword like Warren’s before, which was believed to date back to 1764-1765. As he continued to examine its pommel, guard and counter-guard, Welch determined the sword was not a general’s sword; it was a mass-produced sword made much later, after the American Revolution.

Welch identified the sword as a Model 1796 Hanger carried by British sergeants, a discovery that “broke his heart,” as he did not want to say anything to the Pilgrim Hall Museum.

The photo above, which the museum shared on social media a few weeks before this article appeared, may show one of those awkward moments when Welch looked at the sword and wondered about sharing doubts with curator Anne Mason.

After confirming his assessment with an expert, Welch did indeed discuss those findings with Mason and her colleagues. The museum will add that information to its files and assess how it displays the hanger. As Welch points out in the article, the fact that this sword was made in 1796 doesn’t mean it wasn’t owned by James Warren; his son James, Jr. (1757–1821), a Continental Marine officer who lost a limb in 1781; or another member of the family. It just doesn’t go back as far as the Revolution.

“To Vax or Not to Vax” walking tour in Boston, 17 May

On Sunday, 17 May, the Partnership of Historic Bostons is offering a walking tour titled “To Vax or Not to Vax: Smallpox in Early Boston.”
The organization says:

The subject of our newly revised walking tour is smallpox, one of the great killers of the 17th century. This European disease found fertile ground in the growing colonies in New England, with the most devastating effects suffered by Native Americans who had no immunity. Up to 90% of the Massachusett Tribe, whose land included Boston and Charlestown, perished, their villages lying empty and providing English colonists with unoccupied land for reasons that Puritans saw as providential.

English colonists had some immunity but, even so, successive generations suffered wave after wave of deadly smallpox outbreaks. . . .

During the tour, we will investigate how the colonists saw smallpox and tried to contain it, and how smallpox roiled their society in a number of ways. Had God handed the Shawmut peninsula over to them by clearing out the Native population, or was he punishing them with the same pestilence for not sufficiently following His word? Could smallpox be successfully treated by medical methods practiced since the time of the Romans, or would new, more radical methods (some employed by Africans, including Cotton Mather’s enslaved African Onesimus, and Turks) prove more effective?

This tour is led by Michael Prochilo. It will start outside of Park Street Station at 2:30 P.M. and is scheduled to last 90 ninety minutes. Because of construction projects, the route is not wheelchair-friendly. Participants are reminded to bring water [Sunday might bring our first 80°F. days this year] and wear comfortable shoes.

“Revolutionary Narratives” Panel in Boston, 18 May

On Monday, 18 May, the Massachusetts Historical Society will host a panel discussion on the timely topic “Revolutionary Narratives: From Broadsides to Hollywood.”

The event description says:

The American Revolution has been contested since its very beginning. During the Revolution, contemporaries looking to understand what independence meant had to sift through disinformation and journalism rife with as many opinions as today.

In the war's aftermath, narratives of the Revolution went through continuous reinterpretations in response to political and social changes. From the Civil War to the Cold War and newsrooms to Hollywood, Americans looked to the Revolutionary era to debate and define what it meant to be an American, with often divisive results.

Now, during the 250th anniversary of the Revolution, Jordan E. Taylor and Michael D. Hattem will examine commentary in Revolutionary-era newspapers and broadsides, consider how understanding of American independence has changed over time, and reflect on how the public sees the nation’s founding today.

Taylor is Digital Content Manager for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. In Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America he argues that the American Revolution was based largely on false premises and misperception.

Hattem is the author of Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution and The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History. He is assistant director at the Yale-New Haven Institute.

The conversation will be moderated by Debra Adams Simmons from GBH.

The in-person reception at the M.H.S. will start at 5:30 P.M., and the program will begin 6. Register to attend in person for $10, free to M.H.S. members and Card to Culture participants. Register to attend virtually for free.

Twenty Years of Boston 1775

Twenty years ago today, on 14 May 2006, I posted my first item on this blog.

That post was a link to an article I’d written for the magazine then called New England Ancestors, now American Ancestors, published by the New England Historical and Genealogical Society.

The original link broke. A subsequent link from 2012 broke. But Boston 1775 is still here.

That article described how a message from Dr. John Homans to his mentor, Dr. Joseph Gardner, in the first days of the Revolutionary War was detoured by the duplicitous Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr.

Last August I revealed other messages that Dr. Church diverted into the files of Gen. Thomas Gage, from Boston magistrate Edmund Quincy to his daughter Dorothy and her fiancé, John Hancock.

Tonight I’m speaking in Stoneham about how Dr. Church managed to infiltrate Gen. George Washington’s network for sneaking intelligence out of besieged Boston before the Continentals realized their surgeon-general as a spy.

One way to look at this situation is that after twenty years of daily blogging I’m still working the same ground.

Another is that Dr. Benjamin Church’s treachery is an endless source of revelations and fun.

“Stimuli to induce him to be useful to this Country”

One of the questions asked after yesterday’s talk on young Benjamin Thompson’s life in America was whether he interacted with any representatives of the U.S. of A. during his European career.

For example, did the former Woburn farmboy, royal government undersecretary, and British cavalry officer cross paths with John Adams, minister to Britain in the 1780s?

It appears that the two men never met since the first letters they exchanged, in 1796, show no personal acquaintance. By then Thompson had become the celebrated Count Rumford, and he was sending Adams a volume of his scientific papers and a large sum to endow a prize through the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Rumford continued sending volumes to Adams through the Rev. William Walter.

In 1799, Abigail Adams wrote of “Rumfording our Chimney’s, which I shall be for trying. I am persuaded half the expence of fuel may be saved, and Rooms kept equally warm.” The Woburn native had become famous enough to be a verb.

In 1820, John Adams sent off multiple letters pursuing the theory that “the late learned ingenious scientific public Spirited and benevolent Count Rumford” was a descendant of “the well known Rev. William Tompson of Braintree.” (He was not.)

But the most striking intersection between Rumford and Adams arose in June 1799, when Adams’s secretary of war, James McHenry, wrote about inducing the count to offer his talents to the U.S. Army:

I think it was mentioned to you, some time last winter, by the Secretary of State [Timothy Pickering], in consequence of a letter he had just received from Mr. [Rufus] King [minister to Britain 1796–1803 and 1825–26], that Count Rumford intended to visit his native country, at which you seemed pleased, and expressed yourself favourably of his talents.

Mr. King has renewed the subject to the Secretary of State, and in a letter to me, which I have the honour to inclose. As the reference of the subject to me, can only be meant so far as it respects the military department, I beg leave to submit for your consideration, whether it would not be to the advantage of the United States to make such a proposal to the Count, which if accepted, would ensure to the army the full benefits of his skill and experience.

There is still a vacancy of Lt. Colonel, to be filled for one of the Regiments of Artillerists & Engineers. . . .

1. He may be offered the vacant commission of Lt. Colonel and be made also Inspector of Artillery. Or if he prefers it. 2d. He may be invited to accept of the office of Engineer…

As I consider him to be less of an Engineer than an Artillerist, altho in this I may be mistaken I should think it most adviseable to give a preference to the first proposition. If he accepts of it, he can also superintend the establishment of a military academy which the laws so far contemplate, as to have made provision for books, instruments, and teachers.

At any rate, if the Count should refuse himself to either office, the offer cannot be otherwise than grateful, and if he wanted any stimuli to induce him to be useful to this Country, to the extent of his talents, it might have its effect.

Adams had no idea that back in 1775 Thompson had been slipping secret intelligence to Gen. Thomas Gage—a fact that would probably have changed his admiration for the man.

As for Rumford, it’s hard to imagine that a man who had administered an entire country in Europe could be swayed by the prospect of being a lieutenant colonel in America. He never did come back.