“I then went up stairs into the lower west chamber”

As I described yesterday, in late March 1770 the Boston Whigs threw themselves behind Charles Bourgate’s story of shooters in the Customs House during the Boston Massacre.

Though one of the most respected magistrates in Boston refused to proceed with that case, the grand jury decided to investigate. According to an anonymous Crown informant:

the Grand Jury had the people who were in the Custom House, Vizt. [Bartholomew] Green’s Son [Hammond] & Daughter [Ann], and Thomas [Greenwood] & Molly [Rogers] two Servants, before them, once and sometimes twice a day for several days, but they continued uniform in one story Vizt. that there was no other person in the house that Night but themselves that at the time the soldiers fired, they were in the Room, where the supposed fireing was, and were certain there was no such thing.

Every method was made use of by threatning to make them fix it on some person but to no effect—

On 24 Mar 1770, 250 years ago today, Justices John Ruddock and John Hill took down the testimony of three of the people who looked after the Customs House: John Green, his brother Hammond Green, and Thomas Greenwood.

I’ve quoted two of those men in detail before, so here’s what Hammond Green had to say about the evening of 5 March, as printed in the Short Narrative report:

between the hours of eight and nine o’clock, I went to the Custom-house; when I came to the front-door of the said house, there were standing two young women belonging to said house [Elizabeth Avery and Mary Rogers], and two boys belonging to Mr. [John] Piemont the barber [Bartholomew Broaders and Edward Garrick];

I went into the house, and they all followed me, after that Mr. Sawny Irving came into the kitchen where we were, and afterwards I lighted him out at the front-door; I then went back into the kitchen again, and the boys above-mentioned went out; after that two other boys, belonging to Mr. Plemont [one probably Richard Ward], came into the kitchen, also my brother John, who had been in a little while before;

he went to the back door and opened it, saying that something was the matter in the street, upon which, with the other three, I went to the corner of Royal Exchange-lane in King-street, and heard an huzzaing, as I thought, towards Dr. [Samuel] Cooper’s meeting, and then saw one of the first-mentioned boys, who said the centry had struck him; at which time there were not above eight or nine men and boys in King-street;

after that I went to the steps of the custom-house door, and Mary Rogers, Eliza. Avery, and Ann Green, came to the door, at the same time heard a bell ring, upon the people’s crying fire, we all went into the house and I lock’d the door, saying, we shall know if any body comes;

after that, Thomas Greenwood came to the door and I let him in, he said, that there was a number of people in the street; I told him if he wanted to see any thing to go up stairs, but to take no candle with him; he went up stairs, and the three women aforementioned went with him, and I went and fastened the windows, doors, and gate;

I left the light in the kitchen, and was going up stairs, but met Greenwood in the room next to the kitchen, and he said, that he would not stay in the house, for he was afraid it would be pulled down, but I was not afraid of any such thing;

I then went up stairs into the lower west chamber, next to Royal Exchange-lane, and saw several guns fired in King-street, which killed three persons, which I saw lay on the snow in the street, supposing the snow to be near a foot deep;

after that, I let Eliza. Avery out of the front door, and shut it after her, and went up the chamber again;

then my father, Mr. Bartholomew Green, came and knock’d at the door, and I let him in; we both went into the kitchen and he asked me what was the matter; I told him that there were three persons shot by the soldiers who stood at the door of the Customhouse; he then asked me where the girls were, I told him they were up stairs, and we went up together, and he opened the window, and I shut it again directly; he then opened it again, and we both looked out;

at which time Mr. Thomas Jackson, jun. knock’d at the door,

I…asked who was there?

Mr. Jackson said, it is I, Hammond let me in;

I told if him my father was out, or any of the commissioners came, I would not let them in.

Jackson had already testified on 16 March that “when I knocked at the Custom-house door, all the persons I saw at the window over the centry box at the Customhouse (which window was then opened) was Mr. Hammond Green and some women.”

In sum, Hammond Green swore that he’d been in the Customs House the whole night, and he hadn’t seen Charles Bourgate, Edward Manwaring, John Munro, or a “tall man” with a musket. Furthermore, five other people in or around the building corroborated Green’s story. Four had even been in the room where the gunmen supposedly stood. And the local authorities had sworn testimony from at least four of those witnesses.

Nevertheless, the legal case against Edward Manwaring rolled on.

“They grew noisy and clamorous”

Yesterday left us inside the 25 Jan 1769 musical assembly at Boston’s first Concert Hall (shown here in a photo almost a century later, after the building had been expanded).

Following the concert, some army officers wanted to dance. Organizers told them that Gov. Francis Bernard had asked military gentlemen to refrain from that activity out of deference to local manners and political feelings. The officers didn’t like that.

According to the Boston Whigs:

they then called out to the band to play the Yankee Doodle tune, or the Wild Irishman, and not being gratified they grew noisy and clamorous; the candles were then extinquished, which, instead of checking, completed the confusion; to the no small terror of those of the weaker sex, who made part of the company.—

The old honest music master, Mr. [Stephen] D[e]bl[oi]s, was roughly handled by one of those sons of Mars; he was actually in danger of being throatled, but timously rescued by one who soon threw the officer on lower ground than he at first stood upon;

the inoffensive Bartholomew Gr[ee]n, who keeps the house for the [Customs] Commissioners, presuming to hint a disapprobation of such proceedings, was, by an officer, with a drawn sword, dragged about the floor, by the hair of his head, and his honest Abigail, who in a fright, made her appearance without an head dress, was very lucky in escaping her poor husband’s fate.

Whether our G[overno]r will so resent this behaviour of the military, as to collect affidavits, and make it a subject of representation to Lord H[il]ls[borou]gh, cannot as yet be determined;

be this as it may, Mr. D[ebloi]s has acted in character, having delivered up the room, which he held from the Commissioners, returned the subscription money, and wisely determined not to give another concert, until he should again have it in his power to preserve order and decency in such an assembly.

The Whigs resented how Gov. Bernard had sent reports on the Liberty riot and other disorder to his superiors in London. They therefore delighted in any chance to portray the men of the British military as the real source of lawless violence.

TOMORROW: Will there ever be another concert in Boston again?

“Three persons which I saw lay on the snow in the street”

I’ve been tracking the experience of Ann Green on the night of 5 Mar 1770 through the testimony of people with her. Yesterday I left Ann in an upper room of the Boston Customs House where she lived, looking down on the increasingly violent crowd on King Street.

Customs employee Thomas Greenwood described the sight:

I went into the back room and got the key of the little drawing-room, being the lower west corner chamber, and went up
stairs, and Elizabeth Avery, Mary Rogers and Ann Green followed me into the room; we all looked thro’ the glass, I saw some persons standing by the centry-box striking with sticks, but did not see them hit any body, tho’ a number of persons were close by them; I told the women above mentioned that I would not stay, for I was afraid that the house would be pulled down, there being about forty or fifty persons consisting of men and boys…

So Greenwood left. He went to the army’s main guard for help, but I can’t help but think that the three women felt he was deserting them just after saying the situation looked dangerous.

Ann’s brother Hammond finished locking all the doors and windows below and then joined the young women in that “lower west chamber, next to Royal Exchange lane,” he testified. Elizabeth Avery later told the court:

I lived with Mr. Bartholomew Green at the Custom-house on the 5th of March last, and when the noise was in the street, before the house I went with [Hammond Green,] Nancy Green and Mary Rogers up into that chamber of the house, which is next to Royal-exchange-lane and right over the Sentry-box as it then stood, and from the west window in that room saw the party of soldiers come down from the Main-guard to the Sentry…

The merchant Edward Davis (1718-1784) later described seeing “two women standing in the chamber of the Custom-house, which is next to Royal-Exchange-lane, with their hands under their aprons, in the posture of spectators.”

Hammond stated, “I…saw several guns fired in King-street, which killed three persons which I saw lay on the snow in the street, supposing the snow to be near a foot deep.” Avery said she “tarried in this room till the firing was all over, and the soldiers had returned from whence they came.” Then Hammond “let Eliza Avery out of the front door, and shut it after her.” The record doesn’t say why she was leaving the house where she lived.

Ann and Hammond’s father Bartholomew Green then came home. Hammond said they spoke in the kitchen:

he asked me what was the matter, I told him that there were three persons shot by the soldiers who stood at the door of the Custom-house; he then asked me where the girls were, I told him they were up stairs, and we went up together…

Unfortunately, we don’t have any description from Ann Green of what she had experienced. She testified at one of the trials that followed, but the surviving record says only that she “confirmed in every particular the testimony of Elizabeth Avery, the preceeding witness.” So we have to guess what it was like to be in that room—watching the fight develop outside, wondering if the crowd would attack the house, not knowing where her brother John or others were.

And then the authorities came for her brother.

TOMORROW: The third murder trial to follow the Boston Massacre.

Bartholomew Green, “inoffensive” Customs Employee

Over the next couple of days I’ll highlight some folks caught up in the Boston Massacre who don’t get a lot of attention: the employees of the Customs service who were in the building behind the shooting.

As I quoted back here, the father of that family was Bartholomew Green, trained by his own father as a printer but making his living spotting ships as they came into Boston harbor. The source of that information, Isaiah Thomas, also reported, “he had some office in the custom house.”

The Customs service rented a house on King Street near the Town House from the widow Grizzell Apthorp. The Green family lived in the building, apparently supplying housekeeping and meals for the Customs staff working there. Green might also have been a tide-waiter or some other low-level employee during the day; Treasury Department records could preserve more detail.

When four British army regiments arrived in town in the fall of 1768, Boston’s Whigs began to send a series of reports about how horrible they were to newspapers in other American ports. Oliver M. Dickerson collected these heavily slanted dispatches in a 1936 book titled Boston Under Military Rule. One item dated 26 Jan 1769 described a concert the night before that British army officers had attended:

Some officers of the army were for a little dancing after the music, and being told that G[overno]r B[ernar]d did not approve of their proposal, they were for sending him home to eat his bread and cheese, and otherwise treated him as if he had been a mimick G[overno]r; they then called out to the band to play the Yankee Doodle tune, or the Wild Irishman, and not being gratified they grew noisy and clamorous; the candles were then extinguished, which, instead of checking, completed the confusion; to the no small terror of those of the weaker sex, who made part of the company.—

The old honest music master, Mr. [Stephen] D[e]bl[oi]s, was roughly handled by one of those sons of Mars; he was actually in danger of being throatled, but timously rescued by one who soon threw the officer on lower ground than he at first stood upon; the inoffensive Bartholomew Gr—n, who keeps the house for the Commissioners, presuming to hint a disapprobation of such proceedings, was, by an officer, with a drawn sword, dragged about the floor, by the hair of his head, and his honest Abigail, who in a fright, made her appearance without an head dress, was very lucky in escaping her poor husband’s fate.

Thus, as of January 1769 the Boston Whigs considered Green “inoffensive,” despite his work for the hated Customs Commissioners. Or at least they were ready to portray him that way if it made rowdy army officers look bad.

[The picture above is said to show Concert-Hall as it appeared in the mid-1800s; it might have been expanded since 1769.]

John Green’s View of the Massacre

On 24 Mar 1770, five days after a draft of Boston’s report on the Massacre was submitted to the town meeting, justices of the peace John Ruddock and John Hill quizzed John Green about what he’d seen on the night of the 5th.

I spent some time earlier this week trying to figure out who John Green was, and this is my best guess. He was descended from a line of three Bartholomew Greens. His great-grandfather and grandfather were both newspaper printers, and his uncle John (1731-87) was still in that business as co-publisher of the Boston Post-Boy until 1773. But, as Isaiah Thomas described, John Green’s father had carved out his own niche:

Bartholomew, the eldest [son]…, never had a press of his own. The following peculiarity in his character introduced him to a particular intercourse with the merchants of the town; he made himself so well acquainted with every vessel which sailed out of the port of Boston, as to know each at sight. Perpetually on the watch, as soon as a vessel could be discovered with a spyglass in the harbor, he knew it, and gave immediate information to the owner; and, by the small fees for this kind of information, he principally maintained himself for several years. Afterwards he had some office in the custom house.

John’s ship-spotting father Bartholomew looked after the Customs office on King Street, with his unmarried daughter Ann helping out. The printer John Green also had ties to the Customs service; its officials granted him printing contracts, and his newspaper tended to support the royal government.

The younger John and his brother Hammond, who had been given their grandmother’s maiden name and was legally a “boat-builder,” both went to the Customs office on the evening of 5 Mar 1770, probably to make sure their relatives were all right. This is how John later described his experience to the magistrates in a deposition:

I, John Green, of lawful age, testify and say, that on Monday evening the 5th instant [i.e., of this month], just after nine o’clock, I went into the Custom-house, and saw in the kitchen of said house two boys [Edward Garrick and Bartholomew Broaders] belonging to Mr. [John] Piemont the barber, and also my brother Hammond Green;

upon hearing an huzzaing and the bell ring, I went out, and there were but four or five boys in King street near the sentinel [Pvt. Hugh White], who was muttering and growling, and seemed very mad. I saw Edward Garrick who was crying, and told his fellow-apprentice that the sentinel had struck him.

I then went as far as the Brazen-Head [importer William Jackson’s shop sign], and heard the people huzzaing by Murray’s barrack [rented to the army by James Murray on behalf of his sister Elizabeth Smith], I went down King-street again, as far as the corner of Royal Exchange lane, by the sentry, there being about forty or fifty people, chiefly boys, near the Custom-house, but saw no person insult, or say anything to the sentry; I then said to Bartholomew Broaders, these words, viz.: the sentry (then standing on the steps and loading his gun), is going to fire;

upon which I went to the Custom-house gate and tried to get over the gate, but could not; whilst standing there, I saw [Customs tide waiter] Thomas Greenwood upon the fence, to whom I said, open the gate; he said that he would not let his [own] father in, and then jumped down into the lane and said to the deponent, follow me; upon which I went down the lane with him, and round by the Post-office, to the main-guard;

he went into the guard-house and said, turn out the guard, but the guard was out before, and I heard that a party was gone to the Custom-house; I then heard the guns go off, one after another, and saw three persons fall;

immediately after, a negro drummer [of the 29th regiment] beat to arms, upon that the soldiers drew up in a rank (and I did not see Greenwood again, until the next morning), after that I saw the 29th regiment drawn up in a square, at the south-west corner of the Town-house; soon after I went home; and further I say not

When John Green testified, Boston officials suspected that Customs service employees had killed people in the crowd by firing guns from an upper window of the building. Green’s brother Hammond and Thomas Greenwood were indicted for murder—despite Green putting Greenwood at the guard-house when the shooting started.

At the end of the year those two men stood trial alongside Customs official Edward Manwaring and notary John Munro, all accused on the basis of dubious testimony from a teen-aged servant named Charles Bourgate. They were quickly acquitted.

The statements of John Green, his relatives, and Thomas Greenwood fit well together and also match testimony from other witnesses, unrelated and unindicted. Those accounts helped to inform the script of tonight’s reenactment of the Boston Massacre outside the Old State House.