tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post241207362014452970..comments2024-03-28T04:26:30.557-05:00Comments on Boston 1775: Samuel “Rat-trap” Adams’s Revolution Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-52472316127402885232014-09-08T09:30:05.045-05:002014-09-08T09:30:05.045-05:00That's a good point. I've resigned myself ...That's a good point. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll likely never know about his early life. The thing that's been consuming a lot of my time has been trying to research a portrait he sat for around the start of the war, which has turned up very little. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-80227087625392178012014-09-03T12:30:12.132-05:002014-09-03T12:30:12.132-05:00One factor for Samuel Treat was his youth. In his ...One factor for Samuel Treat was his youth. In his early twenties in the last years before the war, he might have had other priorities besides keeping papers. And his work as a journeyman or sailor or other common profession for young men might not have seemed worth keeping a record of for many years. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-89464199920758075372014-09-03T08:51:07.105-05:002014-09-03T08:51:07.105-05:00Yep, that's him. I have a lot of information a...Yep, that's him. I have a lot of information about him after he joined the militia, but nothing prior to that. Some of his papers, along with papers of the de St. Pry family mentioned in the link are in the Houghton Library at Harvard, but I'm unable to travel there to see them. <br /><br />It's also noteworthy that Treat's stepfather, the above-mentioned Edward Gyles, signed the 1767 Non-Importation Agreement along with a lot of prominent North Enders.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-90586310798786290552014-09-02T15:18:15.921-05:002014-09-02T15:18:15.921-05:00Is this your man?Is <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=QBRYAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA149" rel="nofollow">this</a> your man?J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-43769042657420860422014-09-02T15:13:41.746-05:002014-09-02T15:13:41.746-05:00I think the real problem is that most working-clas...I think the real problem is that most working-class people didn't keep journals or personal letters in the first place. Most of the documents we have come from genteel families, not ordinary mechanics. Sometimes a family that achieved gentility saved some documents from the preceding generations, but usually those documents are practical, not personal accounts. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-69661253707433654812014-09-02T14:54:51.140-05:002014-09-02T14:54:51.140-05:00I certainly share your frustration in finding firs...I certainly share your frustration in finding first-hand accounts of life in Boston before the war. I'm tracing an ancestor from the North End who was almost ten years older than "Rat Trap" Adams, and I've found practically nothing prior to his military service other than that his father was killed in the second siege of Louisbourg, and that his mother remarried to a painter named Edward Gyles a few years later.<br /><br />I wonder if a lot of personal writings - journals, diaries, etc. - were lost or destroyed during the siege? Perhaps people who left town during that time didn't consider those things important enough to take with them. Just a theory.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-55478116934366422902014-08-31T15:43:28.784-05:002014-08-31T15:43:28.784-05:00Adams's cloth was very visible in the late 180...Adams's cloth was very visible in the late 1800s as flag histories were written, and that seems to have been a credulous time. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-69343488970930341552014-08-31T08:49:23.312-05:002014-08-31T08:49:23.312-05:00As we've discussed before, the provenance of A...As we've discussed before, the provenance of Adams's striped flag has implications beyond his own story. There's a well-established popular myth that the Sons of Liberty used striped flags, and (as far as I can determine) it pretty much all traces back to Adams and the relic that's now in the Bostonian Society. The raising of the Continental Colors in Philadelphia in Fall 1775 seems to be the first actual documented use of red and white stripes as an American symbol.Peter Ansoffnoreply@blogger.com