Investigating Slaves at the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House

Last month the Cambridge Historical Society issued a report on the history of slavery at its headquarters, called the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House.

In particular, the society wanted to collect information about any enslaved people living in that farmhouse along the street between Cambridge and Watertown.

Among the “Tory Row” mansions, the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House is the oldest, built in 1684 and then remodeled inelegantly to look more like its newer Georgian neighbors. It in fact predates the arrival of the Vassalls family, who brought Caribbean slave-labor wealth to the neighborhood.

The elder John Vassall (1713-1747) married Elizabeth Phips (1716-1739), a daughter of Lt. Gov. Spencer Phips. Another daughter, Rebecca Phips, married Joseph Lee in 1755. The society’s report continues the story:

Three years after the marriage the couple bought the house to live among several of her socially prominent and wealthy relatives who resided on [what is now] Brattle Street.

Lee was thought to be a gentleman, respected by his peers, honorable, honest, and a good friend. He was a founder of the Loyalist Christ Church, Cambridge, gave parties for his neighbors and was an avid gardener on his extensive farm with its many outbuildings. About his outlook on slavery we have a glimpse from a letter a friend wrote to him from St. Johns, probably from a slave-worked plantation: “I remember an opinion you once sported – that Negros seems to be intended for Slaves, from their rank in the Scale of being – I combatted that Opinion then, but I adopt it now. I believe the Maker of all never intended Indians, Negroes or Monkeys, for Civilization.”

Lee was chosen…a special justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1764, a regular justice in 1769 and rose to be a special justice of the Superior Court of Judicature. He was elected to the General Court, or legislature, in 1764.

In 1774 Lee accepted a royal appointment to the much-hated Mandamus Council, a measure taken as one of the Intolerable Acts, which replaced a legislative and executive body elected by Massachusetts Bay Colony citizens. In response, a mob of Cambridge citizens rose against Lee and intended to invade his house, but relented after being offered liquor at a neighbor’s house if they did not. [This was the “Powder Alarm.”] Lee resigned from the Mandamus Council and fled to British-controlled Boston. Perhaps due to his resigning from the Mandamus Council, his house was neither seized nor occupied by the Cambridge Committee of Correspondence, as were others of the neighborhood’s Loyalists. When the British retreated from Cambridge in 1776, Lee returned to his Brattle Street house with its pleasant gardens and view of the Charles River.

Upon Judge Lee’s death in 1802, he left an annuity to Caesar, an enslaved man whom he inherited from his father. Lee also appears to have owned a man named Mark Lee, also known as Mark Lewis, who may have been freed when slavery was abolished in 1783. Mark married Juno and was able to regularly acquire, sell, and rent land. He purchased a house and farmed one-quarter of an acre near Sparks Street in 1786 on the top of the hill that distinguishes the street. Making three more land purchases by 1792, the couple sold nine acres to local landowner Andrew Craigie in 1792 and moved to a farm Judge Lee owned in Sherborn, Massachusetts. In 1798, the couple returned to Cambridge and were taxed for a house, barn, and a small amount of tillage: the following year they rented twenty-nine acres of mowing, tillage, and pasture from Craigie. Lewis continued to farm this Cambridge land until his death in 1808.

The society notes that the records of people like Caesar, Mark Lee/Lewis, and Juno Lewis are frustratingly sparse and sometimes contradictory. But they’re there.

Archeology Lectures Coming Up Next Week

October is Archeology Month in Massachusetts, and here are a couple of free lectures related to the archeology of the eighteenth century. (That state website lists several others as well, but these two caught me eye.)

On Tuesday, 16 October, at 7:00 P.M. Boston City Archaeologist Joe Bagley will speak at the Bunker Hill Museum in Charlestown on “The Archaeology of Charlestown: Boston’s Little Pompeii.”

The presentation will focus on the sites discovered at the Bunker Hill Monument, and Bunker Hill Community College, and the Central Artery Project. Several Native American sites, a Native American village, John Winthrop’s 1629 Great House, and numerous important structures burned in the Battle of Bunker Hill will all be discussed. Joe brings an expert knowledge of the entire human history of Boston to the City Archaeology Program based on a decade of archaeological fieldwork on Native American and Historic archaeological sites.

The Charlestown Historical Society, the Friends of City Square Park, and the city of Boston are sponsoring this event. I guess the “Pompeii” analogy is because Charlestown’s main settlement burned during the battle, which wasn’t great for preserving all sorts of artifacts but does provide a clear before-and-after date for anything found there.

Two days later, on Thursday, 18 October, at 6:00 P.M. Alicia Paresi, a Curator of Archeology Collections for the National Park Service, will speak at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters in Cambridge on “Did These Bottles Belong to George Washington?”

Recent excavations in the basement of this Georgian mansion resulted in the discovery of unusual deposits of historical artifacts and well-preserved biological material held together by a mortar and sand mixture. [A sample appears in the photo above.] Most of the artifacts are pieces of wine bottle glass, including several bottle necks retaining the original corks. When and how was that unusual feature formed, and what does it reveal about life in Cambridge at the end of the eighteenth century. See a slideshow of the artifacts and decide for yourself: Did Gen. George Washington drink from some of those wine bottles when he used the house in 1775-76?

Washington and his staff did buy a lot of wine, and two Caribbean French merchants sent some more in December 1775. On the other hand, the man who expanded and refurbished the house in the 1790s, apothecary and real-estate investor Andrew Craigie, was known for entertaining.

To reserve a seat for that lecture, please call 617-876-4491 or email Ranger Rob Velella. This event is sponsored by the National Park Service and the Friends of Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters.

A Profile of Andrew Craigie

Harvard’s alumni magazine recently ran Anthony J. Connors’s story about Andrew Craigie (1754-1821). He had no real connection to the college, but lived nearby and was crucial in developing the east part of Cambridge.

Connors describes the start of Craigie’s career supplying the Continental Army with medicines and medical supplies:

The son of a Scottish ship captain and his Nantucket wife, Craigie attended Boston Latin, and by April 1775 had gained sufficient pharmaceutical experience to be appointed apothecary of the Massachusetts army. After tending the wounded at Bunker Hill, he was introduced to Samuel Adams as “a very clever fellow,” and his name came to the attention of General George Washington; he was commissioned Apothecary General in 1777.

The Massachusetts Provincial Congress actually gave Craigie his first appointment in the spring of 1775. At the time he was only twenty-one years old, and I’d love to know what connections he had to get that important and lucrative post. Washington never met him during the siege of Boston, or at least didn’t remember him when he wrote a letter a few years later.

Craigie was on the job for Massachusetts when the Continental Congress decided to take over the colony’s hospitals. The Congress’s first Surgeon-General was Dr. Benjamin Church, who lasted less than two months before he was found to be corresponding with the enemy. The Congress then sent Dr. John Morgan from Philadelphia to take over. Morgan wanted to replace Craigie with his own protégé, but the young man from Boston outmaneuvered and outlasted his boss, enlisting support from the hospital’s young doctors—one of whom was Samuel Adams’s son. Talk about connections!

After the war, Craigie bought the house that Gen. Washington had used as his main headquarters in Cambridge. He expanded it, entertained lavishly, and started to invest in local real estate. Connors continues the story:

Craigie’s development of East Cambridge left an indelible mark. With partners, he secretly bought up 300 acres around Lechmere Point: farms and marshland became a vibrant residential and industrial area, especially after Craigie persuaded Middlesex County authorities to relocate the county court from Harvard Square to a new Charles Bulfinch building in East Cambridge. In 1809, he and his associates completed construction of Craigie Bridge, connecting Cambridge to Boston. His rerouting of roads to steer traffic toward his toll bridge did not enhance his popularity.

But then everything came crashing down. Read Connors’s story for the rest.

“The residence of his excellency General Washington”

The Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s records say that on 26 June 1775 the body voted

That the president’s house in Cambridge, excepting one room reserved by the president for his own use, be taken, cleared, prepared, and furnished, for the reception of General [George] Washington and General [Charles] Lee, and that a committee be chosen immediately to carry the same into execution.

Most of the time that congress used “the president” to refer to its presiding officer, who at that point was James Warren. However, Warren’s own house was in Plymouth, and he was staying somewhere in Watertown, so this must mean another “president’s house in Cambridge.”

The only president who lived in Cambridge was the Rev. Dr. Samuel Langdon of Harvard. And with the college closed, he didn’t need the whole building, right? That house still stands on the edge of Harvard Yard, and is officially called the Wadsworth House (shown above).

The generals arrived in Cambridge on 2 July. Four days later, the congress ordered its Committee of Safety “to desire General Washington to let them know if there is any house at Cambridge, that would be more agreeable to him and General Lee than that in which they now are.” That suggests its members had heard murmurs that the generals weren’t fully satisfied.

By the next day, it was clear that the two generals would be living separately, and on 8 July the Committee of Safety decided that “it is necessary the house of Mr. John Vassal, ordered by Congress for the residence of his excellency General Washington, should be immediately put in such condition as may make it convenient for that purpose.” It looks like he moved in a week later; at least his aide Thomas Mifflin paid the cleaning bill on 15 July.

John Vassall had left that mansion when he moved his family into army-occupied Boston in September 1774. In the 1790s Andrew Craigie, who back in 1775 had worked for the Provincial Congress as an apothecary, bought the house and expanded it. After his widow’s death it became the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and family, and it’s now Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.

Thus, Prof. Cornelius Conway Felton was correct in telling Washington Irving that what he called “the Cragie House” was Gen. Washington’s headquarters and residence for most of the siege of Boston. But Irving had been correct when he originally wrote that the Provincial Congress had first put Washington and Lee up in the Harvard president’s house.

COMING UP: Where did Gen. Charles Lee live?

“Mr. Irving was led into a slight mistake”

In 1855, Washington Irving published the volume of his long biography of George Washington that brought the general to Cambridge on 2 July 1775. The beloved American author wrote:

In the mean time the provincial Congress of Massachusetts, then in session at Watertown, had made arrangements for the expected arrival of Washington. The students of Harvard College having returned home on the breaking out of hostilities, the house of the president of that institution, at Cambridge, had been fitted up as head-quarters for the commander-in-chief and a temporary residence of [Charles] Lee.

A Harvard professor of Greek literature named Cornelius Conway Felton (shown above) immediately wrote to Irving. Felton, who became president of the university in 1860, later described the exchange:

In the second volume there is an account of Washington’s residence at Cambridge, as Commander-in-chief of the American Army. Mr. Irving was led into a slight mistake in reference to the General’s head-quarters. The records state that the President’s house was assigned him for this purpose; meaning the President of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts: but Mr. Irving understood it to be the President of the University, and so stated.

Feeling a great interest in the historical fame of the Cragie House,—the real head-quarters of the General, and at that time one of the most stately mansions in Massachusetts, having been built for a Tory family of great wealth,—I took the liberty of calling Mr. Irving’s attention to the error, and of stating to him the leading facts in the subsequent history of the house; its occupancy by Mr. [Andrew] Cragie, from whom it derives its present name; more recently by Mr. Everett, Mr. Sparks, Judge Phillips, Mr. Worcester, and now—and, I trust, for many years to come—by the poet Longfellow.

Mr. Irving immediately wrote me a most cordial letter, and, in a pleasant note to the next volume, made the correction.

The next edition of Irving’s biography changed the passage above to:

In the meantime the provincial Congress of Massachusetts, then in session at Watertown, had made arrangements for the expected arrival of Washington. According to a resolve of that body, “the president’s house in Cambridge, excepting one room reserved by the president for his own use, was to be taken, cleared, prepared, and furnished for the reception of the Commander-in-chief and General Lee.

There was no closed-quotation mark.

Irving also added a note:

We are obliged to Professor Felton, of Cambridge, for correcting an error in our first volume in regard to Washington’s bead-quarters, and for some particulars concerning a house, associated with the history and literature of our country.

The house assigned to Washington for head-quarters, was that of the president of the Provincial Congress, not of the University. It had been one of those tory mansions noticed by the Baroness Reidesel, in her mention of Cambridge. . . .

The note went on to discuss the history of the house through its current occupant, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The only problem: Irving’s original passage had been right all along.

TOMORROW: The generals move house.

Washington’s Wine Bottles?

The Northeast Museum Services Center of the National Park Service has an Archeology Lab, and that lab has a blog. Back in February it posted, “Did These Bottles Belong to George Washington?” as the hook for an article about finds at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge.

The posting says:

Between 1759 and 1791 the house was home to several families. Both families were interested in botany and horticulture and purchased many plants for the yard. Evidence of fruit bearing trees, rye grass, cactus, and butterfly wings all speak to both the indigenous and exotic plants on the property.

The Longfellow house served as headquarters for George Washington and his officers from July 1775 to April 1776. During Washington’s 9 month occupation of the house, his steward, Ebenezer [actually, I believe, Timothy] Austin kept meticulous account books of expenses for food, drink and household goods. The account books list orders for mutton, fowl, butter, eggs, fish, smoking pipes, a sugar pot, and an earthen platter. . . .

The well-preserved biological material adds some additional clues. Seeds, eggshell fragments, and oyster shells, and animal bones were well-preserved in the feature. Fish, goat, chicken, rabbit, and rock dove are all represented. Seeds from a muskmelon or cucumber, apple or pear were also recovered from the basement and are listed as being purchased during Washington’s time in the home. Three cherry stones were also recovered and Ebenezer Austin entered payment for cherries in at least two different days in August 1775. One half of an olive pit was also recovered. Austin does not list any purchases for olives, but records from 1772 and again in 1783 document that George Washington ordered olives for his household in Mount Vernon. . . .

So how can we be certain that this trash deposit dates from the mere 9 months that George Washington occupied the house? We simply aren’t sure yet. The detailed accounts by Ebenezer Austin are extremely helpful and remind us that Historical Archaeology is a combination of historic research, architectural analysis, and archeological excavation.

That last paragraph acknowledges that it’s nearly impossible to tie artifacts to a particular nine months out of the house’s first thirty-two years. I suspect that Washington’s name comes up only because:

• We have his household accounts because he submitted them to the Continental Congress for reimbursement, and we don’t have such detail for the people who lived in the mansion the rest of the time.
• Gen. Washington’s a much bigger celebrity than John Vassall, Nathaniel Tracy, and Andrew Craigie, the other men known to have headed that household in the late 1700s.

But I suspect the archeologists know that very well. This is really a study of the garbage of an upper-class household in late-eighteenth-century New England. All the families, personal or military, who lived in that house probably shared a similar lifestyle when it came to the dinner table.