“The workmen all pack’d up their tools and left the barracks”

In late September 1774, as described by the Boston merchant John Andrews yesterday, towns neighboring Boston put pressure on their own citizens and on Bostonians to stop helping the British army build barracks.

As commander of all the British army in North American, Gov. Thomas Gage had faced that problem before back in 1768. Then the royal government had ended up renting buildings from willing owners and turning them into barracks. But in 1774 there were more regiments to house, and even more on the way.

Gage asked Boston’s selectmen to forestall what would amount to a labor strike. They replied that they actually wanted the troops grouped in barracks, but they had no power over rural towns’ policies.

The next day, 26 September, Andrews reported that Gage approached John Hancock directly. Since Hancock was one of the selectmen, he might already met with the general. Hancock was also the chair of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and thus might have had leverage with other towns, but Gage officially refused to recognize that extralegal body. Furthermore, at the start of August, the governor had dismissed Hancock as commander of the Company of Cadets, so coming to the man for a favor was quite a concession.

Andrews wrote:

Sometime this day the Governor had a conference with Col: Hancock, requesting him to use his influence with the Committee to re-consider their vote respecting the barracks.

The Colonel observ’d to him that he had taken every possible measure to distress us: that notwithstanding it was the Solicitor’s opinion that the [Boston Port] Act could be construed to prevent goods, &ca., being transported within ye. bounds of the harbour, yet he had not suffered it to he done, and the Ships of War had seiz’d whatever had been attempted to be transported in that manner.

He likewise told him that he had been threat’ned, and apprehended his person was in danger, as it had been gave out by some of his people that he deserv’d to he hang’d: upon which the Governor told him he might have a guard, if he chose it, to attend him night and day. You will naturally conclude that he declin’d accepting.

The work stoppage took hold the next day:

At four o’clock yesterday afternoon, the workmen all pack’d up their tools and left the barracks, frames, &ca.; so that I am apprehensive we in the town will feel ill effects of it, as it has been given out that the troops will force quarters next month, if barracks are not provided for ’em: neither should I blame them for so doing, as the nights are so cold already, that it’s impossible for ’em to sleep comfortable under their slight canvas tents. And as to empty houses, now since we have got so many [Loyalist] refugees among us, there is not half sufficient to hold what troops we have got already here.

After the carpenters had left off work, the General sent Col. Robinson [actually James Robertson] and Major [William] Sheriff to Mr. Hancock, to let him know if they would proceed with the barracks, he could suffer any thing to be transported within the limits of the harbour, under the sanction of King’s stores—but all would not avail; as they very justly suppos’d, that after the work was compleated he would withdraw the indulgence, as he deems it, though in justice it not be prevented at all.

They have got the Carpenters from the Ships of War, and have sent an arm’d Schooner to Halifax for all the Artificers they can procure from there. It’s possible they may be as averse to coming as the Yorkers.

New York’s Patriots had already voted not to cooperate with the British army in Boston, a move that reportedly inspired the rural towns’ decision.

On 29 September, the merchant reported:

In the course of a day or two past, the Roxbury people have burnt several load of straw that was bringing in here, which has enrag’d the soldiers to such a degree, that I am in continual apprehension we shall soon experience another fifth of March, which God forbid!

In those same days, Andrews described how the Royal Artillery, Boston’s Patriot leaders, and ordinary people were all maneuvering over the mortars, cannon, and other ordnance in the inventory of hardware merchant Joseph Scott. Meanwhile, other artillery pieces were being seized by one side or the other (the focus of my book, The Road to Concord). Andrews was not alone in fearing that violence could break out any day.

John Hancock’s Busy Spring and Silent Summer

On 5 Mar 1774, Bostonians applauded John Hancock as he delivered that year’s oration commemorating the Boston Massacre.

The next week, he led the Company of Cadets as an honor guard in the funeral procession of Lt. Gov. Andrew Oliver.

Later that month, the town reelected Hancock as a selectman, and another town meeting in May sent him to the Massachusetts General Court once more.

On 17 May, Hancock was once again at the head of the Cadets, welcoming the new governor, Gen. Thomas Gage. As with the Oliver funeral, not all of Hancock’s political allies liked that, but he insisted he was obliged to respect royal offices even if he opposed the men who held them.

Hancock was present when the legislature convened in Boston on 25 May. The next day, he was named to a committee to consider Gov. Gage’s speech stating he would move the General Court to Salem.

But Hancock doesn’t appear to have gone to Salem himself. His name is nowhere in the assembly’s official record of that short session, and usually he was quite active on committees and in carrying news from the house to the Council and governor.

Furthermore, Hancock also didn’t attend meetings of the Boston selectmen between 9 March, right after his oration, through 8 September. In that period town clerk William Cooper usually recorded which selectmen were at each meeting.

The one possible exception was on 20 July, when Cooper’s notes say all seven selectmen had a special session on Deer Island. But those notes are strange, recording that the board approved paying certain men but leaving blanks for how much. So it’s conceivable that page isn’t accurate.

On 12 August, the Boston selectmen received “a Billet” from the governor, summoning them to the Province House the next day. Gen. Gage entered and, “without any ceremony of any kind,” told the men he’d just received the Massachusetts Government Act and Boston would need his approval before convening another town meeting.

The selectmen answered that “we had no need of calling a Town Meeting for we had two now alive by Adjournment, one of them to be some time this month, the other to be held in October.” This response made Gage look “serious” and say “he must think upon that.” The governor spoke, according to Cooper’s notes, “with some degree of temper.”

Hancock was the only selectmen not present for that important conversation.

TOMORROW: Where was John Hancock in the summer of 1774?

“Town Meeting. Nothing done but Harangue.”

As recounted yesterday, in May 1774 the Boston town meeting named merchant John Rowe to its committee to formulate responses to the Boston Port Bill.

Rowe attended committee meetings on 14 and 16 May. In his diary he noted who else came but nothing more.

In contrast, Rowe had a lot to say about what happened on 17 May:

This morning Genl. [Thomas] Gage Our New Governour landed from the Castle after having breakfasted with Admiral [John] Montague on board the Captain Man of Warr—he was saluted by the Castle & the Captain Man of Warr & Rec’d at the Long Wharf by Colo. [John] Hancock’s Company of Cadets.

The [militia] Regiment was under arms in King street. The Company of Grenadiers made a good appearance. Capt. [Adino] Paddock’s Company of Artillery & Colo. [David] Phipps Company of [horse] Guards were also under arms in King street.

He came to the Town House, had his Commission Read by the Secretary [Thomas Flucker] & took the Usual Oaths—from thence he was escorted to Faneuil Hall where a good Dinner by his Majesty’s Council. There were but very few Gentlemen of the Town asked to dine there.

That last remark was Rowe consoling himself that he wasn’t invited. But the next day Rowe got to write: “I waited on Genl. Gage this morning who Received me very Cordially.”

Rowe had already expressed hope that the new governor would soften the blow of the new law: “God Grant his Instructions be not severe as I think him to be a Very Good Man.”

Notably, on the same day Gage received Rowe, the merchant skipped the next session of the town meeting. “I was so Busy I could not attend.”

He never mentioned sitting down with the town committee again. We can see Rowe’s allegiance solidify by the end of the month.

• 24 May: “The Merchants met at the Town House on Business of Importance.”
• 30 May: “I paid the General a visit this morning. Town Meeting. Nothing done but Harangue.”
• 2 June: “I met the Gentlemen Merchts at the West Side of the Court House in Boston.”

TOMORROW: More merchants’ voices.

“A Well Regulated Militia” at Fort Ticonderoga

Fort Ticonderoga has just opened an exhibit titled “A Well Regulated Militia: Citizen, Soldier, and State.”

The museum’s description says:

The militia, one of the most important institutions of American life for centuries, is today almost totally absent from American life. Throughout colonial and early national America, the militia formed the largest and often only means of defense. Regular military forces did not appear regularly until British regulars arrived during the French and Indian War, and even after the creation of the Continental and late[r] US Army, militia forces greatly outnumbered them.

For much of American history, the militia was thought to be more useful and more virtuous. Formed of the people themselves the militia represented the power of citizens that underlay the creation of the American Republic. Obligatory participation in the militia provided citizens with a means of defense and a critical role in the institutions of the state.

At its peak, the militia may have comprised as much as 10% of the US population, compared to well under 1% of the population serving in the National Guard today (the descendant of the militia).

This new exhibit explores this often misunderstood institution from its formation in the colonial period through its decline in the early 19th century. Despite being central to debates over the Constitution and American identity, the militia never truly represented all of “the people” and had a mixed record in military campaigns throughout our history.

Learning about the development of the American militia allows us to go beyond battles and campaigns and reflect on what our nation values, the obligations and benefits of citizenship, and who participates in American society.

From the photographs on the exhibit webpage, it seems to include a lot of nineteenth-century militia uniforms. As handsome as those are, I think it’s crucial to recognize that the essence of the Revolutionary-era militia was that it did not require uniforms.

Officers and companies that drew from the upper class, such as the Company of Cadets in Boston, could afford special matched outfits, and they certainly provided a more showy and military experience at drills and parades. But the strength of the militia was how it drew on nearly every able man in society, meaning mostly farmers and artisans. They were expected to come dressed as they were.

Militia service also had a social function. As I discuss in The Road to Concord, the local company was a community institution and potentially a ladder of class mobility. In nineteenth-century cities, militia companies became increasingly like social clubs, with less connection to either military preparation or government control.

By the late 1800s, for example, the organizational descendant of the Company of Cadets was known for its fundraising theatricals, and those theatricals were known for their cross-dressing men. (See Anne Alison Barnet’s Extravaganza King.) Even by the standards of nineteenth-century militia uniforms, that was showy.

“Upon his Interment a large Mob attended”

As I described yesterday, the funeral of Lt. Gov. Andrew Oliver on 8 Mar 1774 did not go smoothly.

Some of Oliver’s close friends and relatives, including his brother, Chief Justice Peter Oliver (shown here), and their in-law, Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, chose to stay away because they expected angry crowds.

Then a protocol mix-up caused the British army and navy officers to cut into the procession ahead of the Massachusetts legislators. Many of those politicians were already at odds with the Oliver–Hutchinson clan and grabbed the excuse to stay away completely.

Nonetheless, lots of people showed up—not to walk in the mournful procession but to watch it. “Such a Concourse or rather Multitude of Spectators I never saw at any Funeral here before,” the merchant John Rowe wrote.

The Cadets, the upper-class militia company that served as the governors’ honor guard, turned out for duty in the procession under their commander, John Hancock. That displeased some people, reportedly.

This is a story I see repeated in a lot of biographies without direct quotations or sourcing. The earliest version I’ve found appears in John Sanderson’s multi-volume Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence, published in the 1820s and thus possibly based on people around in 1774:

The last instance, during the British administration, of the parade of this guard [the Cadets] was at the funeral of the lieutenant governor Oliver, under the chief government of general Gage [sic]; on which occasion Mr. Samuel Adams, hearing that Hancock designed, with the company, to perform the usual military honours to the deceased, who had been one of the most obnoxious tories of the whole continent, hastened to dissuade him from his purpose. But Hancock, in observing to his friend that the honours were designed for the office, and not the man, persisted in his resolution.

Hancock and the Cadets marched with Oliver’s body to his grave at the Granary Burying Ground. Then the well-dressed militiamen fired three volleys over the grave.

The large crowd responded by shouting three cheers for the lieutenant governor’s death. Rowe reported: “There was after Colo. Hancock’s Company had fired & the Funerall over, as the Relations were Returning, Some Rude Behaviour.”

Hutchinson wrote:

Marks of disrespect were also shewn by the populace to the remains of a man, whose memory, if he had died before this violent spirit was raised, would have been revered by all orders and degrees of men in the province.

Andrew Oliver had been politically unpopular for several years, having been hanged in effigy in 1765 as the Massachusetts stamp agent.

Peter Oliver later wrote:

The Vengeance of the Faction was carried to, & beyond the grave—Upon his Interment a large Mob attended, & huzzaed at the intombing the Body; & at Night there was an Exhibition at a publick Window, of a Coffin & several Insignia of Infamy—& at this Exhibition some Members of the general Assembly attended—could Infernals do worse?

As I noted above, the chief justice stayed away from the funeral, and his memory was probably distorted by secondhand reports and the passage of time. The “Exhibition at a publick Window” that Peter Oliver mentioned was part of that year’s illumination in memory of the Boston Massacre. Ordinarily it would have gone up on the 5th of March, but that was right before the Sabbath, so the display was delayed until Money, 7 March, the evening before the funeral.

The descriptions of the 1774 illumination say nothing about pictures criticizing Andrew Oliver. Instead, one window targeted Thomas Hutchinson and Peter Oliver himself.

Some final details from John Rowe: “Then followed the Coaches & chariots amounting to Twenty, then the Chaises amounting to Ten.” And, “Minute Guns were fired from the So. Battery.”

“Lodged in part pay for the said Cannon”

In September and October 1774, as I describe in The Road to Concord, Gen. Thomas Gage’s royal government and the Patriots in and around Boston engaged in an “arms race”: racing to grab every cannon and mortar they could.

The Crown took two small cannon from the Cambridge militia, the guns on Governor’s Island, and the stock of hardware merchant Joseph Scott.

In the same weeks, Patriots emptied the Charlestown battery, removed a “great gun” from along the Dorchester shore, and spirited four brass cannon out of the two gunhouses of the Boston militia train.

The Royal Navy spiked all the guns in the town’s North Battery, but locals said they would clear those. Someone tried to float a boat loaded with guns up the Charles River, but it got stuck on the dam that formed the Mill Pond and the navy seized it.

That was the period when the Boston Patriot firebrand William Molineux sent his son John to take four iron cannon out of a stable in West Boston owned by Duncan Ingraham, who a couple of years before had moved out to Concord with his new wife.

As I’ve been quoting, in 1791 Ingraham petitioned the Massachusetts General Court, of which he’d recently been a member, to compensate him for those cannon. He specified the amount this way:

Your Memorialist prays that he may be allowed for the aforesaid Cannon the aforesaid Sum of ninety six pounds, after deducting therefrom thirteen pounds six shillings & Eight pence which was lodged in part pay for the said Cannon at the Store of Duncan Ingraham Junr. as your memorialist has since been informed by said Mollineux

So William Molineux didn’t just take the guns; he left a down payment for them equal to a sixth of £80. (Where Molineux got his money and how much was actually his is a whole other question, linked to his sudden death on 22 October.) It’s not clear how Patriots slipped these weapons out of town, but they used various ways to smuggle military goods past the army guards on the Neck.

Ingraham wrote that he hadn’t known about Molineux’s payment at the time, and perhaps not until shortly before his petition. That hints at a rift between the merchant captain and his namesake son. In 1774 they were on different political sides: Duncan, Jr., spoke for the Cadets in their dispute with Gen. Gage over having John Hancock as their colonel while Duncan, Sr., was considered a Tory by his Concord neighbors. The older man’s new wife might also have been an issue. Whatever the reason, his son didn’t tell him about making a deal with Molineux, perhaps for years.

Even after deducting that first payment, Ingraham asked Massachusetts for more than £82. In March 1792, the General Court voted to grant him only £58.13s.4d. Do the math, and the legislature’s committee decided that Ingraham’s four cannon were worth only £72.

“A particular Account of all the Plans of Operation”

In 1772, Gov. Thomas Hutchinson entertained thoughts of peeling John Hancock away from the Boston Whigs, thus depriving that party of major financial support.

With troops no longer stationed in town and no new taxes coming from London, the populace wasn’t feeling so many irritants. Samuel Adams had a hard time finding issues to rally people around. Hancock, his political instincts flowering, recognized that reality and stopped supporting militant actions.

I don’t think Hutchinson ever had a real chance of winning the young merchant to the side of the royal government—Hancock was too eager for popular acclaim. But the governor did throw out some favors.

One was giving Hancock the command of the Company of Cadets. Hancock loved the title “Colonel” and the chance to design new uniforms for that militia unit.

Hutchinson’s tactic seemed to bear fruit after a confrontation in May 1773. Hutchinson hosted a public dinner with the Customs Commissioners among the guests and the Cadets as his honor guard. Two of those young men, Moses Grant and James Foster Condy, left the ranks and joined the crowd yelling at the Commissioners. Hancock publicly took the position that military discipline had to overrule political positions and expelled Grant and Condy from the company.

Later that same month, at the start of the legislative term, the Massachusetts General Court elected a new Council. Hancock made the list, as he had before. This time, Gov. Hutchinson approved his name. He probably hoped the grateful merchant would become a more sedate member of the upper house.

On the day before the Council election, however, Hancock had visited Edmund Quincy’s house. Abigail Adams was there, and she reported to her husband John that Hancock “gave before a large Company of both Sexes…a particular Account of all the Plans of Operation for tomorrow, which he and many others had been concerting.” By that point the letters from London had been circulating among top Whigs and were no doubt part of those plans.

On 27 May, Secretary Thomas Flucker came to the house chamber with Gov. Hutchinson’s invitation for Hancock and select other members to move across to the Council.

Hancock declined.

A week later, on 2 June, Samuel Adams revealed the “Hutchinson letters” to the house. Hancock took the job of chairing the committee of the whole that discussed those documents. He apparently drafted the committee’s conclusion that they had been designed to “introduce arbitrary Power into the Province.”

When the Massachusetts Spy ran the first report on that ominous closed-door session, it also stated:

We are desired to inform the public, that the Hon. John Hancock, Esq; commander of the Cadet company, and ten of the members, then present, were against the late vote for expelling two of their members.

Hancock thus signaled that he was on the side of the popular protest, free from the governor’s influence.

Going through the Motions on Election Day

On 25 May 1768, 250 years ago today, Election Day finally arrived in Boston.

At 9:00 A.M. the towns’ representatives to the Massachusetts General Court gathered in the Town House and took their oaths of office. They unanimously reelected Thomas Cushing as the assembly’s speaker and Samuel Adams as the clerk.

At 11:00, Gov. Francis Bernard walked over from his official residence, the Province House, escorted by two upper-class militia units: the Horse Guards under Col. David Phips and the Cadets under Lt. Col. Joseph Scott. Bernard received Cushing and approved the assembly’s choice, and then everyone walked a block to the Old Brick Meeting-House to hear a sermon by the Rev. Daniel Shute (1722-1802) of Hingham.

Shute had chosen to speak on Ezra 10:4: “Arise: for this Matter belongeth unto thee; we also will be with thee: be of good Courage; and do it.” While hearing that exhortation to action, the gentlemen got to sit for a long time. According to merchant John Rowe, “This was a very long sermon, being one hour & forty minutes.”

Then came the midday dinner. Boston’s town meeting had barred the use of Faneuil Hall as long as the governor invited the Commissioners of Customs to dine. Many of the Cadets had said they wouldn’t participate in any such event, either. But Gov. Bernard was not about to back down on an issue of respecting the royal prerogative.

Therefore, there were two dinners on that Election Day. As the 26 May 1768 Boston News-Letter reported, Bernard and Cushing “together with the Council, and several other Gentlemen, went in Procession to the Province House, (preceded by the Militia Officers, and escorted by the Cadets,) where an elegant Dinner was provided by His Excellency…”

Meanwhile, “A public entertainment was provided at the British Coffee-House, where the militia Officers, Troop of Guards, and Company of Cadets dined, & where also many loyal Toasts were drank.” There were also traditional cannon salutes from the North and South Batteries and Castle William.

The week before, most of the Cadets were refusing to promise to participate in the Election Day pageantry. Maj. John Hancock had reportedly torn up his commission, and company members talked about replacing Lt. Col. Scott as their commander. But, most likely because of an after-hours meeting that Thomas Flucker facilitated between Hancock and Gov. Bernard, the Cadets did escort the governor after all. The separate dinners meant they didn’t have to sit down with the Customs Commissioners.

There may have been another part of the deal. On 2 June, the News-Letter reported:

His Excellency the GOVERNOR hath appointed JOHN HANCOCK, Esq; to be first Major of the Independant Company of Cadets, and WILLIAM COFFIN, jun. Esq; to be second Major of the said Company.

Hancock already held the rank of major; I don’t know if becoming “first Major” was a promotion. Nor can I tell if he participated in the Cadets’ procession on Election Day or sat that one out. But, even after his vocal protest, Bernard restored Hancock’s high rank.

Hancock may have come around to the position that the Cadets should respect the office of the governor even when they disagreed with his actions. In May 1773 there was another controversy over the presence of the Customs Commissioners at an Election Day gathering. Two Cadets, Moses Grant and James Foster Condy, clubbed their muskets and participated in the raucous protest outside. By then Hancock had become the colonel in charge of the company, and he booted Grant and Condy out.

In the end, the public dispute about the Customs Commissioners and the dinner was symbolic. But Election Day was also about allocating real political power.

TOMORROW: Electing the governor’s Council.

“One of the leaders of the Disaffected in this town”

In May 1768, as I quoted yesterday, Boston’s town meeting took a stand against letting the Commissioners of Customs dine in Faneuil Hall on Election Day. If Gov. Francis Bernard wanted to invite those tariff-collecting officials to the day’s traditional dinner, he’d have to find somewhere else to dine.

One Bostonian was in an even sharper feud with the Customs service that spring: John Hancock. I’ll save the meat of their dispute for an anniversary next month. For now, I’ll simply say that Hancock had declared that he wouldn’t participate in any dinner that involved the Customs Commissioners. That meant not joining the usual military escort for the governor as an officer in the Company of Cadets, the province’s most prestigious militia company.

On 12 May the Commissioners complained about the situation in a letter to London, as Neal Nusholtz quoted in this article at the Journal of the American Revolution:

We cannot omit mentioning to your Lordships that Mr. Hancock before named is one of the leaders of the Disaffected in this town, that early in the Winter he declared in the General Assembly that he would not suffer our officers to go even on board any of his London Ships and now he carries his opposition to Government to even a higher pitch.

Being Major of his company of Cadets which distinguished itself in the year 1766 [actually September 1765] by putting a stop to the riots, and it being usual for the Governor to invite all the servants of the Crown to Dine with him on the Day of their general election, which happens on the 25th instant, a Majority of his Corps met together a few days ago and came to a resolution to acquaint the Governor, that they would not attend him on that occasion as usual if he invited the Commissioners of the Customs to dine with him, and this being signified to His Excellency, he answered that he would enter into no stipulation with them, and positively required their attendance.

Gov. Bernard liked the Cadets because they had helped keep the peace after the worst Stamp Act riot. He had given the company commander, Leonard Jarvis, some very good introductions before he sailed to London in late 1767. Now the governor summoned the acting commander, Lt. Col. Joseph Scott. (Scott took over formally in 1769. He makes a notable appearance in The Road to Concord because he was an ironmonger who sold artillery ordnance.)

According to a detailed account signed “Marmaduke Myrmidon” and published in the 9 May Boston Gazette, Gov. Bernard told Scott that the Cadets’ disrespect for his office “would tend to anarchy and confusion, and erase the very shadow of military discipline.” He ordered Scott to summon the entire company and ask each man in turn if he would report on Election Day. If anyone said no, the lieutenant colonel should respond that “the G[overnor] thank’d him for his past services, and dismiss’d him from any further employment.”

The Cadets balked at the governor’s demand. The Gazette article said “a very few” promised to attend, “some” said they wouldn’t, and most refused to answer either way. The Customs Commissioners said, “Mr. Hancock thereupon tore the seal off his Commission, and all the rest of the Company except nine Declared they would not continue any longer in the service.”

On 12 May, the same day as the Commissioners’ letter, the bulk of the Cadets met without Scott. They talked about replacing him with a commander they preferred. The next day those men sent a committee out to Gov. Bernard’s home in Jamaica Plain to tell him of their preference. The day after that, the governor’s secretary, John Cotton, replied that the ex-Cadets were just piling one affront on top of another. (“Marmaduke Myrmidon” would publish Cotton’s note in the 23 May Gazette.)

However, at the end of that week, with Election Day coming closer, men moved to patch things up. On 18 May, Cotton wrote to Hancock “conveying the Governor's displeasure at the unlawful assembly of the Cadets and Hancock after the latter’s dismissal” but opening the door to a dialogue. (That description comes from the catalogue of the Cadets’ papers at Boston University.) Bernard was willing to meet and clear up misunderstandings—as long as there was a witness present. At noon on Sunday, 22 May, Council member Thomas Flucker invited Hancock to come to his house “immediately after sunset” to meet with the governor.

On 23 May, the Boston town meeting confirmed their vote against letting Gov. Bernard use Faneuil Hall for any dinner involving the Customs Commissioners. Later that day, the Boston Evening-Post carried a two-paragraph announcement from Joseph Scott, desiring “The Gentlemen of the Cadet Company under my Command” to report that evening and the next at Faneuil Hall, presumably for drill and inspection, and then to gather “at the usual Place of Parade” at 9:00 A.M. on Wednesday—Election Day.

TOMORROW: Election Day at last.

How the Boston Gazette Spun a Riot

Just as the Boston News-Letter was already a reliable supporter of the royal government in Massachusetts in 1765, as discussed yesterday, Benjamin Edes and John Gill’s Boston Gazette was already the voice of the Boston’s government, merchants, and Whigs.

After the riot that destroyed Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s house, the 2 September Gazette did its best to portray Boston in a positive light. Its report started, “Such horrid Scenes of Villainy as were perpetrated last Monday Night it is certain were never seen before in this Town, and it is hop’d never will again.”

Having swiftly described the destruction, the Gazette insisted:

The true Causes of this notorious Riot are not known, possibly they may be explored hereafter.——Most People seem dispos’d to differentiate between the Assembly on the 14th of the Month, and their Transactions, and the unbridled Licentiousness of this Mob; Judging them to proceed from very different Motives, and their Conduct was most evidently different

No matter that the crowd on 14 August damaged stamp agent Andrew Oliver’s house almost as thoroughly as the mob on 26 August damaged Hutchinson’s. The paper moved swiftly on to how Boston and its respectable citizens had reacted to the disorder:

[“]The Town having an utter Detestation of the extraordinary and violent Proceedings of a Number of Persons unknown, against some of the Inhabitants of the same the last Night;

VOTED UNANIMOUSLY That the Selectmen and Magistrates of the Town be desired to use their utmost Endeavours, agreeable to Law, to suppress the like Disorders for the future, and that the Freeholders and other Inhabitants will do every Thing in their Power to assist them therein.”

Altho’ not above two Hours Notice was given, there was as full a Meeting at Faneuil Hall as has been ever known.

In Consequence of the above Resolve the Selectmen Magistrates, and other Gentlemen of the Town, together with the Cadet Company several Companies of the Militia, and the Company of the Train of Artillery, have kept Night Watch, to prevent any such further Proceedings.

It is hoped that the Goldsmiths, and other Persons to whom Plate may be offered for Sale, will be at this Time exceeding careful of whom they purchase.

Likewise, the Gazette offered a different take on the day when Boston’s Whigs named Liberty Tree.

TOMORROW: A respectful ceremony honoring a respectable riot.

“An attempt was made against Mr. S. Adams”

I already described one story behind Boston’s vote for representatives to the Massachusetts General Court in 1772: the replacement of James Otis, Jr., after too many episodes of insanity.

The other story appeared in a posthumous volume of Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

Hutchinson had convinced himself that a rift was opening between Samuel Adams and John Hancock that year. He even fancied that he could peel Hancock away from the local Whigs with favors like appointing him colonel of the province’s most prestigious militia company, the Cadets, and approving his election to the Council.

Hutchinson also felt that Adams was losing popularity with voters. His take on the election of May 1772 was:

It was apparent that, even in Boston, a considerable proportion of the people were still in favour of government [i.e., the Crown]. No opposition had been made for several years past to the election of members in that town; but in May, 1772, an attempt was made against Mr. S. Adams, and it appeared, upon trial, that near one-third of the votes were against him.

Although this attempt shewed that a strong party was still left which disapproved the measures of opposition, it proved a disservice to government. It caused an alarm, and a more vigorous exertion; and no endeavours were spared to heal all breaches in the opposition, and to guard against a renewal of them. The friends both of Mr. Hancock and Mr. Adams never ceased, until they had brought about a reconciliation.

By “near one-third of the votes,” a footnote showed, Hutchinson meant “218 in 723.” (His total differed from the official count in William Cooper’s minutes, which was 728.)

Over 150 people cast votes for Adams’s colleagues without voting for him. In previous years, Adams’s percentage had come much closer to all votes cast. Without troops in town, new taxes, or other irritants, he was having trouble convincing Bostonians they needed to push hard against the royal government.

Still, Adams won 70% of the vote at that town meeting, obviously enough to remain in office. It’s not clear who was next runner-up, or even if there was a candidate that the friends of the royal government put their weight behind. But obviously, if every voter could list four names, he didn’t come close to matching Adams’s 505 votes.

I can’t help but think that Hutchinson was fooling himself about his strength in the colony’s popular politics. Royal appointees were always too convinced that “a considerable proportion of the people” was really on their side.

Peirce Family Anecdotes about Henry Knox

In 1849 Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine and Commercial Review published an obituary of a descendant of Joseph and Ann Peirce, apparently based on information from the family or even written by a member of the family. That article turns out to contain interesting information about Henry Knox that I’d never seen before and that doesn’t appear in any Knox biography I know of. Whether it’s reliable information is another question.

Joseph Peirce founded Boston’s militia grenadier company in 1772 with Henry Knox as his lieutenant. The two men kept up a correspondence after the war when both invested heavily in Maine land. And some traditions about Knox came down in the Peirce family and made their way into that magazine:

Mr. Joseph Peirce, although a merchant of Boston, had, prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, organized a company of grenadiers, which he continued to command with Henry Knox, afterward Gen. Knox, as lieutenant, down to the day on which the tea was cast into Boston harbor. The grenadier corps was one of the finest in the colonies, and being drawn up in State, then King-street, to receive the new Governor [Thomas] Gage, on his arrival from England, elicited from that officer the remark that “he did not know his Majesty had any troops in America”—a compliment to the soldierly appearance of the corps long cherished by its officers even when patriotism had led them to oppose the king’s troops. Capt. Peirce was in charge of the tea ships as guard on the night previous to the appearance of those world-renowned “Indians,” of whom his brother John was one. That event brought about the dissolution of the corps; but the friendship then formed between Gen. Knox and Mr. Peirce existed uninterruptedly to the death of the former, in 1806.

There are two interesting anecdotes in that passage, and unfortunately they’re contradictory. If the grenadier company had dissolved soon after the Tea Party in December 1773, it could not have greeted Gen. Gage when he arrived in Boston in May 1774. Furthermore, Gage was commander-in-chief of the British army in North America and knew exactly how many troops his Majesty had there.

Gage’s alleged praise for the grenadiers echoes a story that evidently circulated in Maine about a British officer seeing the grenadiers and saying, “that “a country that produced such boy soldiers, cannot long be held in subjection.” I doubt either version of the story is wholly reliable, but they might have had a common source in a real event.

I haven’t seen any contemporaneous mention of the grenadier company dissolving shortly after the Tea Party. Rather, Boston’s specialized militia companies appear to have broken up in late 1774 as the political divide widened: the Company of Cadets in August after Gage dismissed their commander, John Hancock, and the artillery train in mid-September after its cannon vanished. The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, not officially part of the militia, went into abeyance late in the year. It would make sense for the grenadiers to do so as well.

The obituary went on to provide this anecdote about Henry and Lucy Knox’s departure from Boston:

When Lieut. Knox, impelled by his glowing patriotism, sought to join the army of Washington, then at Cambridge, preparatory to the fight at Bunker’s Hill, he had some difficulty in escaping from Boston, but he was enabled to do so through a permit obtained by Mr. Peirce for a chaise to pass the lines on Boston Neck. As he took leave of the future general, the latter remarked, “My sword-blade is thrust through the cushions on which we sit, and Lucy (his wife) has the hilt in her pocket.”

Again, whoever wrote this story had difficulty with chronology. The Knoxes appear to have been out of Boston by 14 May 1775. Gen. George Washington didn’t arrive in Cambridge until July.

Another version of the Peirce lore appeared in print the year before, in a review of J. T. Headley’s Washington and His Generals in the United States Democratic Review. The reviewer identified himself (or herself) as someone who had Joseph Peirce as a “maternal grandfather,” and told readers, “we have often listened with delight to the anecdotes of Knox, told by his octogenarian commander.” About the Knoxes’ departure:

[Headley’s] memoir remarks that Knox had some difficulty in escaping from Boston when the war broke out, and that his wife accompanied him, concealing his sword beneath her dress. This is not strictly correct. The lines as they were called, were on “the Neck,” and Knox’s former commander in the grenadiers having been to the lines to procure the passage of a chaise containing a nurse and child that had been in the country for its health, on his return, met Knox riding out of town. The future General remarked, “I have at last got clear, I think. My sword blade is thrust through the cushions on which we sat, and Lucy has the hilt in her pocket.”

In this version, Peirce didn’t secure the pass that the Knoxes used; he simply met Henry after he’d exited the gates. But the quotation is the same.

The Peirce story overlaps with one recorded by Knox’s first biographer, Francis S. Drake, in 1873: that Lucy smuggled out Henry’s sword “quilted into the lining of her cloak.” Hiding it in the cushions seems more effective. But really, swords weren’t what the provincial army needed.

Samuel Adams Has a Message for John Wilkes

In the early 1770s, John Hancock—who I think had the best political instincts of any Bostonian, including Samuel Adams—backed away a little from the radical Whigs. At least he didn’t seem inclined to push so hard against the royal government. A lot of the issues that had galvanized the public were gone: Gov. Francis Bernard had left, British troops were no longer patrolling central Boston, only the tea tax remained of the Townshend duties, and the economy was improving. Plus, the Crown had dropped its weak attempt to prosecute Hancock for smuggling.

For a while, Gov. Thomas Hutchinson entertained the thought that he could win Hancock over to the side of the Crown. That was probably always a vain hope—Hancock loved being popular more than he loved honors from the elite. Meanwhile, Samuel Adams was eager to keep Hancock, his money, and his popularity linked to the Whig cause.

On 10 Apr 1773, Adams wrote to Arthur Lee, a Virginian representing Massachusetts’s interests to Parliament as a sort of lobbyist:

Mr. [John] Wilkes was certainly greatly misinformed when he was told that Mr. H[ancock]. had deserted the Cause of Liberty. Great pains had been taken to have it thought to be so; and by a scurvy Trick of lying the Adversaries effected a Coolness between that Gent[lema]n. & some others who were zealous in that Cause. But it was of short Continuance, for their falshood was soon detected.

Lord Hillsbro [the Secretary of State for the colonies] I suppose was early informd of this imaginary Conquest; for I have it upon such Grounds as I can rely upon, that he wrote to the Govr. telling him that he had it in Command from the highest Authority to enjoyn him to promote Mr. H. upon every Occasion. . . . But he [Hancock] had Spirit enough to refuse a Seat at the Board [i.e., the Council], & continue a Member of the House.

And then on 22 April Adams had a thought:

When I mentioned Mr. Hancock in my last, I forgot to tell you that he is colonel of a [militia] company, called the governor’s company of cadets. Perhaps in this view only he was held up to Mr. Wilkes, when he was informed that he had deserted the cause. But it should be known it is not in the power of the governor to give a commission for that company to whom he pleases as their officers are chosen by themselves. Mr. Hancock was elected by the unanimous vote; and a reluctance at the idea of giving offence to an hundred gentlemen, might very well account for the governor giving the commission to Mr. H.

In 1774 Gov. Thomas Gage removed Hancock as colonel of the Cadets, and the company voted to disband in protest. That post was Hancock’s sole military experience before the war began. Which didn’t stop him from talking a big game.

Friary on Punch Drinking, 29 Sept 2008

Here’s a lecture announcement from the New England Historic Genealogical Society that caught my eye—and my tastebuds:

One Bowl More and Then: Punch Drinking in Colonial America
Monday, September 29, 2008, 6:00 PM
Donald Friary, president of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts and director emeritus of Historic Deerfield, will present an entertaining and informative talk on the history of punch drinking in Colonial America.

This talk will take place at the N.E.H.G.S.’s headquarters at 101 Newbury Street in Boston, and is free to the public.

The punch bowl above belonged to Ebenezer Stevens and is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Read about it here.

I’ll close with a quote from David Hansen’s article on “The First Corps of Cadets of Boston,” published by the Bostonian Society in 1944. The Cadets were an upper-class militia unit that reconstituted itself in the mid-1780s.

Parading on the unpaved streets of those days meant clouds of dust and the white uniforms worn by the Cadets required cleaning. This was usually done with bread crumbs by lady friends, and as kid gloves were scarce, a pair of gloves was the usual reward. One lady remarked that after cleaning a uniform she usually smelled of brandy punch.