“Perfectly Loyal, no one more so & very active”

As recounted yesterday, as of May 1777 John Cochran was on British-held Long Island in New York while his wife Sarah was still back home in Londonderry, New Hampshire.

(We know that because the Patriot authorities who intercepted a letter from John to Sarah were gracious enough to print it in the New-Hampshire Gazette that month for everyone to read.)

Documents published in the Parliamentary Papers show that John Cochran was continuing to collect ten shillings per day as captain of Fort William and Mary, plus “rations of provisions and fuel.”

In return, Cochran did various tasks for the king’s military. Sarah later told the Loyalists Commission:

He was occasionally employed in the Navy. Went on a Voyage as Pilot on Board the Lively. He Continued with the Army; always ready to give them his assistance by Land or Sea.

He was employed by Genl. [Richard] Prescot [shown above] on Rhode Island to attack an Enemies out Post, which he performed & took ye Picket. He was on a Cruise with Mr. [George] Leonard. Went with Dispatches from Rhode Island to New York, and was employed on various occasions.

Abijah Willard confirmed this service, telling the commission that Cochran “was very forward in giving Intelligence. Joined the Brit. very early.” The Loyalist colonel said he considered the man “perfectly Loyal, no one more so & very active.”

Cochran was also a lieutenant in a Loyalist militia company.

In June 1779, the state of New Hampshire moved to confiscate John Cochran’s property. If Sarah had been staying on the farm to forestall that move, it hadn’t worked. Maybe that’s what finally drove her away. By 1783, the whole Cochran family was in New York.

Sometime that year John suffered “a paralytic stroke.” Sarah described him as “not capable of doing any Business,” with “no more strength or understanding than a Child.”

When the order came to evacuate New York City, John’s militia company was assigned to the ship Bridgewater. Sarah got her husband and their four children aboard along with three dependents, including an eleven-year-old black boy named Adam who was indentured until he turned twenty-one, according to this article from Loyalist Trails.

That fleet left New York in June and arrived at Saint John, New Brunswick, on 5 July. John was still “not capable of doing any Business,” and then suffered another stroke about two months later.

TOMORROW: Life in a new province.

“Best to remove farther off in the country”

On 3 Feb 1787, Sarah Cochran appeared before the Loyalists Commission in Saint John, New Brunswick.

She described how her husband John “went to Boston with Govr. [John] Wentworth” in late August 1775, as recounted here.

At the time, she and at least some of her children were living on the family farm in Londonderry. According to the Loyalist leader Abijah Willard, another commission witness, the Cochrans’ “Land was in a very good part of the Town, near the meeting house.“

(The picture here shows the First Parish Meetinghouse in Derry, New Hampshire, which might be the building Willard referred to. The oldest part of this church dates to 1769. It’s been significantly enlarged, and the impressive tower went up in 1822.)

Sarah Cochran testified that around October:

about 2 months after he went, she was ordered to quit the Premises, which she did & was moving her goods, on which a Mob rose & took every thing she had, calling them ye goods of a Tory. She got part back, but lost to amount of £150 lawful.

Unfortunately for us, Sarah didn’t recount where she went. Possibly she took refuge with her own family, or even with other members of the Cochran clan who were siding with the rebels.

We know Sarah didn’t follow her husband into Boston that fall, or to Halifax and then New York the following year. Instead, the next sign of her appears in the 29 May 1777 Independent Chronicle of Boston, publishing an “Extract of a letter from John Cochran, on Long-Island, to his wife in New-Hampshire, intercepted with others sent by the late Governor Winthrop to his sister”:

My Dear,

I would willingly advise, but know not how or what to advise you to at this distance. I shall leave it intirely to your judgment what you think best to be done in these unhappy days, for I am so puzzled about giving my advice what to do, that I am almost crasy.

However, I think upon the whole, it would be best to remove farther off in the country, as I am afraid you will suffer where you are, before it will be in my power to protect you, as there will be nothing but destruction of property without any reserve. In that case, I would have you send off the most valuable effects you have left to some place, if you know of any.

I shall either hope to find you at the Isle Shoals, or up at Londonderry—If you intend to tarry where you are, I pray for God’s sake that there be no CLERGYMAN in the house; if their is, your life is not worth a farthing as the whole race of that tribe will be spilt.

If you see any prospect of the affairs being given up without bloodshed, I had rather find you at Hampton than any where else…

I don’t know why Cochran was so anxious about his wife giving refuge to a minister. It’s possible that the family was Presbyterian and feared their ministers would be suspected of disloyalty by New England Congregationalists.

In June 1779 the New Hampshire legislature moved to confiscate the property of men away from the state and “residing with the enemys thereof.” Its new law listed individual names starting with former governor Wentworth, Surveyor General Samuel Holland, and one-time Stamp Act administrator George Meserve. The fourth name was John Cochran.

TOMORROW: Serving the Crown.

“The infamous Capt. Beeman”

The Rev. Jeremy Belknap’s account of how Gen. Thomas Gage’s plan for the march to Concord leaked out to the Patriots, quoted yesterday, mentions four men by name.

Three of those people were well known Patriot leaders: Dr. Joseph Warren, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock.

The fourth was a Loyalist scout for the British troops identified as “the infamous Capt. Beeman.” Is there any more evidence about such a figure, especially evidence not publicized by October 1775? If so, that would suggest that Belknap truly heard some inside information.

And indeed we can identify “Capt. Beeman.” That must be Thomas Beaman (1729–1780), a Loyalist refugee from Petersham, Massachusetts.

Beaman was born in Lancaster. He joined Gov. William Shirley’s 1755 expedition against Acadia as a sergeant under Capt. Abijah Willard, and before the end of that war he was a captain under Col. Willard at the capture of Montréal. From then on people called him “Captain Beaman” even in peacetime.

In the 1760s Beaman was married and settled in Petersham. The first and so far only minister of that town was the Rev. Aaron Whitney (1714–1779). Unlike most of his Congregationalist colleagues in New England, Whitney strongly supported the royal government in the political disputes of the 1760s and 1770s.

So did Beaman. There was an argument and lawsuit over a schoolhouse around 1770 that I’ll save for later. Instead, let’s skip ahead to late 1774 after royal authority outside Boston broke down. According to Petersham town records, Beaman was among fourteen local men who banded together and agreed:

That we will not acknowledge or submit to the pretended Authority of any Congresses, Committees of Correspondence or other unconstitutional Assemblies of Men, but will at the Risque of our Lives, and if need be, oppose the forceable Exercise of all such Authority.

A 2 January Petersham town meeting summoned those men by name to explain themselves or repent. Only two showed up, defiantly maintaining their position. The meeting then determined:

Therefore as it appears that those persons still remain the incorrigable enemies of America and have a disposition to fling their influences into the scale against us in order to enslave their brethren and posterity forever, and after all the friendly expostulations and entreaties which we have been able to make use of, we are with great reluctance constrained to pronounce those, some of which have heretofore been our agreeable neighbors, traitorous paricides to the cause of freedom in general and the United Provinces of North America in particular…

The meeting urged townspeople not to have any commercial dealings with those men, even planning to print up 300 handbills at town expense. The Boston newspapers reported on that resolution.

Customs Commissioner Henry Hulton left this version of what happened next, starting in February 1775:

A number of Inhabitants in the town of Petersham, who had entered into an association for their mutual defence, finding the spirit of persecution very strong against them, assembled together in an house, resolving to defend themselves to the utmost.

The house was soon surrounded by many hundreds of the people, and they were obliged after some days to capitulate and submit. The people, after disarming them, ordered them to remain each at his own house, not to depart from thence, or any two of them to be seen together upon pain of death.

Petersham’s local historian says that siege concluded on 2 March.

Beaman then probably moved his family into Boston, as many other prominent Loyalists did. [ADDENDUM: Further research cited in the comments below shows that Beaman’s wife and children remained in Petersham until early 1779, when the Massachusetts legislature permitted them to travel through Newport to join him in New York City.] But according to the account his heirs later gave the Loyalists Commission, paraphrased in E. Alfred Jones’s The Loyalists of Massachusetts, “he, at the request of General Gage, frequently traveled the country to discover the real designs of the leaders of the rebellion.”

The Beaman family’s claim also stated that “he was a volunteer (as a guide to Lord Percy) with the military detachment to Concord.” Percy got only as far as Lexington, however. According to Belknap’s informant, Beaman was actually a scout for the first British column under Lt. Col. Francis Smith; those soldiers “landed on Phips’s Farm, where they were met by the infamous Capt. Beeman, and conducted to Concord.”

Furthermore, the New-England Chronicle newspaper of 12 Sept 1776 referred to “Capt Beeman, of Petersham (who piloted the ministerial butchers to Lexington).” And Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 history of Concord, published before many Loyalist sources became available, stated: “It is also intimated that tories were active in guiding the regulars. Captain Beeman of Petersham was one.” Those sources suggest that locals recognized Beaman among the redcoats, as Belknap’s information implies.

Back in Boston, Gen. Gage rewarded Thomas Beaman in May by appointing him wagon-master to the army. Later in 1775 Beaman became a first lieutenant in the Loyal American Association, a militia company led by his old commander Abijah Willard, which never saw combat.

Beaman kept the position of wagon-master under Gen. William Howe. He traveled with the king's army, working in and around British-occupied New York until he died in November 1780. By then the state of Massachusetts had banished him and confiscated his property. Beaman's widow and children settled in Digby, Nova Scotia.

We thus have our first indication that Belknap’s October 1775 account of the march to Concord came from someone who had at least some reliable, little-known information.

Q. & A. on Bunker Hill with Nathaniel Philbrick, part 1

Here’s the first part of my blog interview with Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the new book Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution.

Q. Your new book is titled Bunker Hill, but it describes the years before that battle on 17 June 1775 and continues to the end of the siege of Boston in 1776. How did you decide on the boundaries of your story? Did you start with the battle and expand, or did you set out to tell a story of the American Revolution and narrow in on that battle?

A. All of my books seem to be about communities under incredible stress and trauma, and from the first I wanted Bunker Hill to be about what the Revolution did to the inhabitants of Boston. I knew it had to end with the evacuation of the British, and it seemed natural that it begin after the Tea Party with the Boston Port Act and the arrival of General Gage and his army. Within those time constraints the Battle of Bunker Hill was the pivotal event—when a rebellion turned into a war.

Q. What aspect of the Battle of Bunker Hill did you find most surprising, or feel isn’t as well known as it should be? What misconceptions do you think people have about the battle, then or now?

A. I don’t think it’s generally understood what a confused and confusing event it was.

The Americans’ original plan was to postpone, if not stop altogether, an impending British attack by building a fort on Bunker Hill, which is on the north end of the Charlestown peninsula and would have commanded the approaches to Cambridge without directly threatening the British in Boston. But for reasons that are still not clear, William Prescott built his redoubt about a half mile to the south on Breed’s Hill, less than a cannon shot away from Boston. Instead of delaying a British attack, Prescott ended up provoking the bloodiest battle of the Revolution.

The amazing thing is that the battle went as well as it did for the Americans, and that’s led to another misconception. The British, not the Americans, actually won the battle, but they suffered casualties of almost fifty percent. As General Howe admitted, “The success is too dearly bought.”

So there you have it, a battle named for the wrong hill that was won by the war’s ultimate losers. No wonder people are confused.

Q. My favorite anecdote about the Battle of Bunker Hill revolves around Abijah Willard recognizing his in-law William Prescott on the edge of the redoubt. In The Whites of Their Eyes, Paul Lockhart raised doubts about that story, but you find it plausible. Would you please summarize the anecdote and the issues involved in judging its authenticity?

A. Early on in the battle a cannon ball decapitated one of Prescott’s men. Prescott could see that the rest of his soldiers, most of whom had no previous war experience, were badly shaken. In order to inspire them, he jumped up onto the fort’s parapet and began to strut back and forth, waving his sword and shouting at the British. Apparently Prescott was wearing a banyan—a long loose-fitting coat that must have been swirling about him like a cape.

Meanwhile, at that moment in Boston, General Thomas Gage was examining the American stronghold through his spyglass when he saw this maniac dressed in a banyan making a spectacle of himself. Standing beside Gage was a loyalist named Abijah Willard. Gage handed his spyglass over to Willard and asked if he knew who that crazy guy was. According to tradition, Willard recognized that it was none other than his brother-in-law William Prescott.

“Will he fight?” Gage asked.

“Yes, sir,” Willard replied. “He is an old soldier and will fight as long as a drop of blood remains in his veins.”

The story may seem too good to be true, but it comes from Prescott’s son, which is a pretty trustworthy source, I think. Paul Lockhart is justifiably skeptical of the anecdote, pointing out that given the distance and the fact that eighteenth-century spyglasses were pretty primitive compared to what we have today it would have been impossible for Willard to recognize any face that far away, especially with smoke in the air.

My theory is that given Prescott’s much-commented-on coat, a facial recognition was not required. I’ve played around a bit with eighteenth-century telescopes here on Nantucket and have come to believe that Willard recognized the coat, not the face, and said, “Aha, that’s my madman brother-in-law Bill.”

TOMORROW: More of this interview. And have you entered the contest for a copy of Bunker Hill?

“Hardcore guys—90% of them emanate from a one-square-mile neighborhood called Charlestown”

This week Deadline.com broke the news that Warner Bros. paid a fairly hefty sum for a movie option on Nathaniel Philbrick’s upcoming book, Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution.

The article said:

The project was acquired for Pearl Street Films as a potential directing vehicle for Argo helmer Ben Affleck, who partners in the company with Matt Damon. Word is that Affleck (who is busy adapting the Dennis Lehane novel Live By Night to direct, star in and produce) will turn the book over to his Argo scribe Chris Terrio, making this a major project.

But not Affleck’s next project, and of course there’s a possibility that it might never be filmed. But if Affleck wanted to combine his fondness for Boston with what he learned from Argo about staging historical fiction, Bunker Hill offers a terrific combo.

Back in 2007 I was part of a discussion of the movie potential for that battle and offered this scene of Abijah Willard recognizing hardcore guy William Prescott on the provincial redoubt.

In The Whites of Their Eyes, Paul Lockhart was skeptical that ever happened. I’m pleased to say that Philbrick’s Bunker Hill makes the case that it was possible. But just because we can’t rule out the story doesn’t mean it really happened.

I’m still not totally convinced about the details, given the multiple versions of the tale that have come down to us. The tale must have been juiced for drama before it was first written down. But it’s documented enough for Hollywood.

“You will have bloody work to-day”

Yet another version of the Abijah Willard–William Prescott anecdote I’ve been discussing appeared in The Prescott Memorial, a genealogy published in 1870 by William Prescott, M.D.

That book quoted manuscript material from “Dr. Oliver Prescott, Jr., who was a nephew of Colonel William Prescott, and intimate in his family”; he had heard Col. Prescott often “relate a variety of anecdotes and incidents in his experience while in the army,” which he subsequently wrote down. In 1870, those pages were owned by “Miss Harriet Prescott of Cambridge, Mass.”

This version of the tale goes:

On the morning of the battle [of Bunker Hill], Governor [Thomas] Gage, the British commander, viewed the American works from an elevated position in Boston (Copp’s Hill), and called upon the tory refugees to see if they knew the commanding officer.

Abijah Willard, a mandamus counsellor, whose wife was a sister to Colonel Prescott, having viewed the works with the glass, informed Gage that he knew the commander well, “It is my brother-in-law, Prescott.”

“Will he fight?” asked Gage.

“Yes,” replied Willard, “that man will fight h—l, and if his men are like him you will have bloody work to-day.”

Each version of the story quotes Willard’s reply differently, though all three replies convey the same warning about Prescott’s bellicosity.

So what can we conclude? It seems certain that young men in the Prescott family heard this story as they grew up. They had no written source, and consequently the stories diverged before the mid-1800s. Nevertheless, all three versions contain the same core elements: Uncle Abijah Willard, Gen. Gage, Col. Prescott in the redoubt, the question “Will he fight?”

But there’s a question I’ve learned to ask about all early stories of British officials during the siege of Boston: How could Americans have known? Given that there was a, you know, war going on, how could the Prescott family have learned about Willard’s conversation with Gage?

Paul Lockhart describes the difficulty of Willard recognizing Prescott at the distance from Charlestown to Boston, and it would be even harder for Prescott to have heard Willard. Furthermore, as described in his entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Willard evacuated in 1776, worked as a commissary for the British army, and settled in New Brunswick after the war. So even if he had remained friends with Prescott up until the war began, he wasn’t around to pass on this story.

After Willard died in 1789, his third wife, the former Mary McKown, came back to Massachusetts until her own death in 1807. As for Willard’s surviving children:

• daughter Elizabeth Wales also returned and died in Lancaster in 1822. Family historian Joseph Willard described her as “a very bright, intelligent lady, full of vivacity and conversation.”
• daughter Anna Goodhue became the wife of a U.S. senator (shown above) and died in Lancaster in 1858. Joseph Willard also had nice things to say about her, though he didn’t describe her as a conversationalist.
• son Samuel might never have left Lancaster, and lived there well into the 1800s.

That leaves the possibility that Abijah Willard’s widow or children heard the story from him and later passed it on to Col. Prescott or his family. Or maybe they took some statement Willard made about Prescott always being ready to fight and attached it to a very dramatic moment. It seems significant that the Prescott boys grew up believing that the tale involved Willard, not just any Loyalist.

Nevertheless, if Willard couldn’t have recognized Prescott at that distance, then the tale is a myth. Alas.

“He will fight as long as a drop of blood remains in his veins”

Yesterday I quoted what I think is the earliest printed version of the story of Abijah Willard recognizing his relative William Prescott on the redoubt before the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Richard Frothingham included a slightly different version of the story in his History of the Siege of Boston, first published in 1849:

To inspire confidence, Colonel Prescott mounted the parapet and walked leisurely around it, inspecting the works, giving directions to the officers, and encouraging the men by approbation, or amusing them with humor. One of his captains, understanding his motive, followed his example while superintending the labors of his company. This had the intended effect. The men became indifferent to the cannonade, or received the balls with repeated cheers.

The tall, commanding form of Prescott was observed by General [Thomas] Gage, as he was reconnoitring the Americans through his glass, who inquired of Councillor Willard, near him, “Who the person was who appeared to command?”

Willard recognized his brother-in-law.

“Will he fight?” again inquired Gage.

“Yes, sir; he is an old soldier, and will fight as long as a drop of blood remains in his veins!”

“The works must be carried,” was the reply.

Frothingham cited a handwritten memoir of Col. Prescott by his namesake son. (As usual, I’ve broken up the single long paragraph in Frothingham’s book to make the text easier to read online.)

In 1875, Frothingham submitted that manuscript to the Massachusetts Historical Society, and it was published in the society’s Proceedings and in a booklet called The Battle-field of Bunker Hill. The anecdote is nearly the same:

As Governor Gage and his staff, with some other officers, were watching the progress of the battle from Copp’s Hill in Boston, he handed his glass to Colonel Willard, one of his council, and asked him to look and see if he knew the person who appeared to have the command of the rebels. He looked, and told the governor he knew him well; it was Colonel Prescott, his brother-in-law, and that he was sorry to see him there. “Will he fight?” inquires the governor. “Yes,” replied Colonel W., “he is an old soldier; he will fight as long as a drop of blood remains in his veins; it will be a bloody day, you may depend on it.” “The works must be carried,” was the reply.

The manuscript included another anecdote about Prescott and Willard:

Colonel Prescott had determined never to be taken alive. A few months before the battle, while he commanded a regiment of minutemen, his brother-in-law, Colonel Willard, was at his house; and, endeavoring to dissuade him from the active part he was taking against the king’s government, among other things, suggested that, if he should be found in arms against it, his life and estate would be forfeited for treason. He replied: “I have made up my mind on that subject; I think it probable I may be found in arms, but I will never be taken alive. The Tories shall never have the satisfaction of seeing me hanged.”

As for the relationship between the two men, Willard’s first wife, Elizabeth, was Prescott’s older sister. She had died in 1751. By the Battle of Bunker Hill, Willard was on his third wife. The two men also shared the experience of serving as officers during the wars against the French. They didn’t live in the same town, however, or even the same county, and I’m not sure if there’s any evidence independent of these anecdotes that the men kept in close touch.

TOMORROW: Yet another version.

(Photo of the Prescott statue at the Bunker Hill Monument above by rjones0586, via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.)

“Colonel Prescott will fight you to the gates of Hell!”

In The Whites of Their Eyes, his new book on the Battle of Bunker Hill, Paul Lockhart treats the story (dramatized here) of Abijah Willard recognizing Col. William Prescott on the redoubt on Breed’s Hill dismissively. In fact, he relegates the tale to a footnote. (Well, at least it’s not an endnote.)

Lockhart writes:

It’s a stirring anecdote, to be sure, but undoubtedly apocryphal. The closest [Gen. Thomas] Gage could have been to the fighting was Copp’s Hill—and if he was there, neither [Gen. Henry] Clinton nor [Gen. John] Burgoyne remarked upon it. And at that distance—over one thousand yards lay between Copp’s Hill and the summit of Breed’s—the idea that Willard could have seen and recognized Prescott, given the primitive optics of the day and the amount of gunsmoke that must have hung in the air, seems implausible at best.

Since I’m rather fond of that anecdote, I decided to check into when it appeared on the scene. The earliest version I’ve found appeared in the back of Memoirs of His Own Time, by Alexander Graydon, published in 1846. That book was edited by John Stockton Littell, who added appendixes about Revolutionary events and figures. In one of those, Littell wrote:

Gage, with his officers and others in whom he had confidence, went up to Beacon Hill to reconnoitre; after having looked through his telescope for some time, he handed it to a Mr. Willard, a mandamus counsellor, and describing the leader of the American troops as head and shoulders above the works, asked him who it was, and if the rebels would fight. Willard told him, that it was his brother-in-law, Prescott; “as to his men,” said he, “I cannot answer for them; but Colonel Prescott will fight you to the gates of Hell!”

Littell stated that his source for those facts was “a MS. of his friend, the late estimable and Reverend Edward G. Prescott, a grandson of Colonel Prescott.”

TOMORROW: But I found other versions as well.

Setting the Scene for Bunker Hill

After one session of the Boston Early American History Seminar this year, someone—perhaps Brendan McConville or Alan Rogers—suggested that the Battle of Bunker Hill would make a good movie. I responded by describing this scene from the morning of 17 June 1775, before the battle began in earnest.

EXT. COPP’S HILL IN THE NORTH END - DAY

GEN. THOMAS GAGE, his officers, and some well-dressed Loyalist Councilors climb the east side of the hill, the sounds of cannon growing louder. They reach the top and gaze at the scene below.

On the far side of the hill, the Royal Artillery in dark blue coats are firing cannon across the Charles River onto Charlestown. Warships in the bay fire shot and shells as well. Flames are rising from the small town opposite. A large body of men can be seen moving around the rise behind the town.

A couple of the gentlemen, including ABIJAH WILLARD, pull out small spyglasses. An aide hands GAGE a long brass telescope, which he peers through. A masking shot and handheld camera simulate GAGE’s view through the lens. On the far hill, men are piling up dirt with shovels, building a redoubt. A man in a long coat and broad-brimmed hat, PRESCOTT, strides back and forth along the new wall.

WILLARD
(looking through a smaller spyglass)

Good lord, that’s Captain Prescott!

GAGE

What’s that, Mr. Willard? What can you see?

GAGE hands WILLARD his telescope. WILLARD puts it to his eye. Another POV shot of PRESCOTT walking along the parapet as WILLARD speaks. A younger officer starts to walk the same way. The provincials keep digging. Cannons keep booming.

WILLARD

That man in command of the little redoubt, Your Excellency -- he’s Mr. William Prescott, a gentleman of Groton. My late wife, my first late wife, was his sister. He was promoted captain in the last French war, on Cape Breton. I suppose they call him “colonel” now -- last autumn, as I heard, the rebels chose him to command a regiment --

GAGE

Yes, yes. The only question is, Will they fight?

WILLARD

As to his men, I cannot answer for them.

(lowers the telescope to look at GAGE)

But Prescott will fight you to the gates of Hell.

This anecdote appears in John Stockton Littell’s notes for Alexander Graydon’s Memoirs of His Own Time (1846 edition), credited to a manuscript supplied by Col. Prescott’s grandson, the Rev. Edward G. Prescott. Interestingly, Richard Frothingham’s History of the Siege of Boston (1849) cites the same manuscript but says Willard’s answer was, “Yes, sir; he is an old soldier, and will fight as long as a drop of blood remains in his veins!” Caleb Butler’s History of the Town of Groton (1848) mentions that manuscript as well, but not the Willard anecdote. It’s not clear how, if this anecdote happened as described, word of the conversation came back to the Prescotts. But it’s just too good to toss out.