“The affair of breaking Mr. Hulton’s Windows at Brookline”

Yesterday we left Henry Hulton under attack in his home in Brookline.

Hulton, one of the five Commissioners of Customs for North America appointed in London, had been woken on the night of 19 June 1770 by a man claiming to have a letter for him. He wrote later that he “slipt on my breeches and waistcoat,” grabbed his sword, and went to a window.

After a brief exchange, Hulton slammed down the window on the man’s hand. Then that man and others stationed all around the house beat in the first-floor windows with clubs.

Hulton wrote:

The family immediately rose in the greatest consternation, and Mrs. H opening the Window shutter in her room had a large stone thrown at her which happily missed her. Imagining the people would break into the house, and seek to murther me I ran to the Servants’ room at the head of the back Stairs with my sword in my hand, leaving two Servant Men at the bottom.

The commissioner’s servants included both white and black people, the latter almost certainly enslaved. And those were his ground-floor defense against the mob. Also in the household were Hulton’s wife Elizabeth; their two children, Thomas and Henry, Jr., both under the age of three; and his sister Ann.

Ann Hulton wrote the next month:

I could imagine nothing less than that the House was beating down, after many violent blows on the Walls and windows, most hideous Shouting, dreadful imprecations, and threats ensued. Struck with terror and astonishment, what to do I knew not, but got on some Clothes, and went to Mrs. H.’s room, where I found the Family collected, a Stone thrown in at her window narrowly missed her head. When the Ruffians were retreating with loud huzzas and one cryd he will fire—no says another, he darn’t fire, we will come again says a third—Mr. and Mrs H. left their House immediately and have not lodged a night since in it.

Her brother recalled the men outside “swearing, ‘dead or alive, we will have him.’” Eventually, though, that crowd left, and Henry and Elizabeth Hulton “retired to a Neighbour’s house till daylight, and passed the following day at Mr. John Apthorp’s at little Cambridge,” now Brighton. (That house may have survived into the early 1900s as one of the houses on the John Duncklee estate.)

Ann wrote:

The next day we were looking up all the Pockit Pistols in the house, some of which were put by, that nobody could find ’em and ignorant of any being charged, Kitty was very near shooting her Mistress, inadvertently lets it off. The bullets missed her within an inch and fixed in a Chest of Drawers.

A fellow Customs Commissioner, William Burch, learned of the attack and moved with his wife to Castle William (shown above). After hearing about that, Henry “came home the following morning, and carried the Children and part of the family from Brooklyn to the Castle,” arriving on 21 June. They squeezed into the quarters reserved for the governor with the other commissioners, lower Customs officers, and their relatives and servants.

Back in Brookline, locals discussed who had carried out the attack. Ann Hulton reported:

And for the honour of the Township we lived in, I must say, the principal People, have of their own accord taken up the affair very warmly, exerting their endeavors to find out the Authors, or perpetrators of the Villainy.

They have produced above twenty witnesses, Men in the Neighborhood who were out a Fishing that night, that prove they met upon the Road from Boston towards my Brother’s House, Parties of Men that appeared disguised, their faces blacked, with white Night caps and white Stockens on, one of ’em with Ruffles on and all, with great clubs in their hands. They did not know any of ’em, but one Fisherman spoke to ’em, to be satisfied whether they were Negroes or no, and found by their Speech they were not, and they answered him very insolently. Another person who mett them declares, that one of ’em asked him the way to Mr. H’s house, and another of ’em said he knew the way very well.

After all, you may judge how much any further discovery is likely to be made, or justice to be obtained in this Country, when I tell you that the persons who were thus active to bring the dark deed to light, were immediately stop’d and silenced, being given to understand (as I’m well informed) that if they made any further stir about the matter, they might expect to be treated in the same manner as Mr H. was. However, so much is proved as to clear Mr H. from the charge of doing himself the mischief, one would think.

On 21 June, acting governor Thomas Hutchinson issued a proclamation describing the assault on the Hultons’ house and offering a £50 reward for identifying the perpetrators. The 25 June Boston Post-Boy and 28 June Boston News-Letter printed that proclamation in full. The 25 June Boston Evening-Post reported on it. The Boston Gazette ran one sentence saying that Hulton’s windows had been “broke by Persons unknown” with no mention of the reward.

On 4 October, the News-Letter said, a sea captain returned from London with word that news of the violence on 19 June—the carting of Patrick McMaster and the mobbing of the Hulton house—“Causes great Uneasiness among our Friends at Home.” With the Boston Massacre trials coming up, the Massachusetts Whigs were under pressure to prove that their society was law-abiding. At the time, the Hultons were still living at the Castle for their own safety.

“The Militia…would never act against the Rioters”

In August 1765, eighteen years after Gov. William Shirley struggled to deal with anti-impressment riots, his successor Francis Bernard faced a similar challenge.

This time the people of Boston were upset about the Stamp Act. On 14 August, there was a full day of public protests under what was later dubbed Liberty Tree, followed by an attack on the office and fence of stamp agent (and province secretary) Andrew Oliver.

The next day, Gov. Bernard wrote to the Board of Trade from Castle William:

I sent a written order to the Colonel of the Regiment of Militia, to beat an Alarm; he answered that it would signify nothing, for as soon as the drum was heard, the drummer would be knocked down, & the drum broke; he added, that probably all the drummers of the Regiment were in the Mob. Nothing more being to be done, The Mob were left to disperse at their own Time, which they did about 12 o’clock.

The next day I called a Council, having summoned all the Members within 10 Miles of Boston. I asked their advice in general, & particularly recommended to them, the Protection of Mr Olivers House & Family from further Attacks. They lamented the Impotence of the Government, & said that it would be to no purpose to attempt to raise a Military Force; as the Militia, the only force we had, would never act against the Rioters, if they would assemble at all, which was much doubted.

This was the same lesson Gov. Shirley had to learn. Despite being commander-in-chief of the provincial defenses, a governor couldn’t call the militia out to suppress a large crowd when the men in that crowd were also the men in the militia.

In Britain, common men had few formal ways to express their political and social grievances, and such riots were common. Violent disturbances might have been less frequent in the strange corner of the empire called New England, with its mix of more democratic governance and stricter religious culture. But common enough that political thinkers and actors had to anticipate them.

In From Resistance to Revolution, the historian Pauline Maier wrote:

Eighteenth-century Americans accepted the existence of popular uprisings with remarkable ease. Riots and tumults, it was said, happened “in all governments at all times.” To seek a world completely free of them was vain; it was to pursue “a blessing denied to this life, and reserved to complete the felicity of the next.” Not that extra-legal uprisings were encouraged. They were not. But in certain circumstances, it was understood, the people would rise up almost as a natural force, much as night follows day, and the phenomenon often contributed to the public welfare.

The quoted phrases came from the political philosopher Algernon Sidney (1623-1683). John Adams quoted them in one of his “Novanglus” essays.

COMING UP: What the governors saw as solutions.

“I hear the Fury of the Mob subsided last Night”

On 19 Nov 1747, as I wrote yesterday, Gov. William Shirley was stuck at Castle William and not happy about it.

Only two years after his triumphant campaign to win Louisbourg for the British Empire, Gov. Shirley was seeing Bostonians rise up against the Royal Navy’s habit of impressment.

To force the navy into returning some young men seized for wartime service, local crowds had grabbed naval officers and government officials as their own hostages. They broke windows in the Town House and surrounded Shirley’s home and workplace.

The governor had tried to call out the Boston militia companies, but, as then-speaker of the house Thomas Hutchinson later wrote, “the drummers were interrupted.” In other words, people made sure one way or another that the signal didn’t go out.

From Castle Island in Boston harbor, Shirley wrote to the secretary of Massachusetts, Josiah Willard, on 19 November:

…finding myself without a proper force for suppressing this Insurrection, and maintaining the King’s Authority in the Town; the soldiers of the Militia there having refus’d and neglected to obey my Orders given ’em by their Officers to appear in Arms for quelling the Tumult, and to keep a Military watch at night, and there being reason to apprehend, the Insurrection was secretly Countenanc’d and encourag’d by some ill minded Inhabitants and Persons of Influence in the Town:

But I have retir’d to his Majesty’s Castle William, ’till I can assemble a sufficient force of the Province Militia from the Neighbouring regiments in the Country, to quell the Rebellious Tumult; and restore his Majesty’s Government, and the Publick Tranquillity in the Town of Boston…

Shirley told Willard to tell the legislators they should support him for the sake of “retrieving their own Honour, and my good Opinion of ’em, and preventing an infamous reproach upon the Duty and Loyalty of the Town.” Many Boston merchants hadn’t been that upset to see people rise up against naval impressment. But in response to the governor’s insinuation, the Massachusetts General Court passed resolutions condemning the riots.

At the same time, speaker of the house Thomas Hutchinson prodded Gov. Shirley to negotiate with Adm. Charles Knowles. The admiral was angry enough to talk about shelling the town. One witness quoted him as saying, “by God I’ll now see if the Kings Government is not as good as a Mob.” But Shirley persuaded him to release the local men his fleet had impressed (while keeping all the sailors from other parts of the empire).

To “assemble a sufficient force of the Province Militia from the Neighbouring regiments,” Gov. Shirley had told Willard:

I would have you forthwith issue out Orders to the Colonels of the several Regiments of the Towns of Cambridge, Roxbury and Milton, and of the Regiment of Horse, to cause the Officers and Soldiers of their respective Regiments to hold themselves in readiness to march at an hour’s warning to such place of Rendez-vous, as I shall further Order; which I hope together with such Officers and Gentlemen of the Town of Boston, upon whose Duty and Attachmt to the King’s Government I can depend, will be sufficient strength to enable me to support the Magistrates of the Town of Boston…

The admiral released the impressed men before those militia companies could muster, however. And suddenly the crisis was over. The crowd let the naval officers go back to their ships. People stopped threatening government buildings and went home.

At first Shirley couldn’t believe it. He told Willard:

I hear the Fury of the Mob subsided last Night; but I shall by no means think the King’s Peace secur’d, or that the Militia of the town of Boston have done the least Part of their Duty, ’till I see a strong military Watch kept for some Nights, in the Town.

But there was a strong military watch already. As Hutchinson later recounted:

the next day there was an uncommon appearance of the militia of the town of Boston, many persons taking their muskets who never carried one upon any other occasion, and the governor was conducted to his house with as great parade as when he first assumed the government.

One element of the informal settlement was that subsequent official pronouncements about the unrest were careful to blame malcontent sailors and other outsiders for the rioting, not locals.

The people of Boston had risen up against what they considered an unjust practice by the navy. They had forced the highest authorities in the province to answer their demand. Once satisfied, they went back to their regular, peaceful activity. They were clearly the strongest force in town. No wonder elite appointees like Shirley resented the situation.

TOMORROW: History repeats.

“A number of Soldiers with their Baggage landed”

On Monday, 12 Mar 1770, Bostonians assembled for a town meeting to elect officers for the coming year and transact other business.

In fact, there was so much other business that that meeting kept going by adjournment for over two weeks, with sessions starting:

• Monday, 12 March, 3:00 P.M.
• Tuesday, 13 March, 9:00 P.M. [sic]
• Friday, 16 March, 9:00 A.M.
• Monday, 19 March, 9:00 A.M.
• Monday, 26 March, 9:00 A.M.
• [intervening meeting to tidy up some items]
• Tuesday, 27 March, 4:00 P.M.

At that last session there were only three agenda items: putting off all other concerns until May, thanking the moderators, and complaining about troops in Boston. Soldiers were back! Well, some of them:

The Town having been informed by several Persons that a number of Soldiers with their Baggage landed Yesterday at Wheelwrights Wharff—one Gentleman supposing that there was not less than Sixty Men—Voted, that
Mr. William Mollineux
Joshua Henshaw Esq.
Joseph Jackson Esq.
Mr. Jonathan Mason
Ezekiel Goldthwait Esq.
be a Committee to make enquiry from time to time, whether any more Troops came up from Castle Island than they think necessary, and if they shall find it to be otherwise, that they then immediately acquaint the Selectmen in order for their calling a Meeting of the Inhabitants

In fact, Henshaw, Jackson, and Mason were selectmen. Molineux was the Whigs’ leader on resistance to the troops, and also manager of properties on Wheelwright’s Wharf that the army had rented. Goldthwait (1710-1782) was Suffolk County registrar of deeds, having served Boston as town clerk, as selectman, and otherwise. (It’s striking I haven’t mentioned him before, only his young namesake who died from a fireworks injury. Here’s registrar Goldthwait as painted by John S. Copley.)

I rather doubt “Sixty Men” came over from Castle William all at once on 26 March, but there might well have been dozens. In her new book The Boston Massacre: A Family History, Serena Zabin discusses this moment in the context of the soldiers’ families who came to Boston and were left behind when the regiments were moved to the Castle.

The army soon stopped renting buildings for barracks, which meant some of those families would lose their homes, perhaps at the end of the month. In other cases, the wives and children were living in quarters they rented themselves. There appears to have been a scramble for new places to live. That might have been why so many soldiers came into town.

Some women ended up squatting in a building with no fireplaces. The wives of two of the soldiers jailed for the Massacre, Pvts. Edward Montgomery and James Hartigan, stayed behind in Boston while most of the 29th was sent south. We know about those vivid details because of Boston’s custom of “warning out” strangers so they wouldn’t become legal burdens. A few actually did end up in the poorhouse, but most managed to join their husbands or support themselves, which meant they didn’t reappear on town records.

To hear more about The Boston Massacre: A Family History, check out this video of Serena Zabin’s talk at the beginning of this month at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The Troops’ Schedule for “embarkation for the castle”

One of the great things about the Sestercentennial of the Boston Massacre earlier this month is that I got to hear questions and new perspectives I could investigate.

In the coming days I’ll go back over some of those points, starting with the question of when the 29th and 14th Regiments moved out to Castle Island.

As described here, after simultaneous meetings of the town and the Massachusetts Council on the afternoon of 6 March, Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson and Lt. Col. William Dalrymple acceded to Bostonians’ demand to send all the troops from central Boston to Castle William.

This season I saw tweets saying that the troops went to the Castle “before sunset” on 6 March, or “Less than a week after the Boston Massacre,” which would have been 12 March.

The Boston Whigs would have welcomed such speed. But moving hundreds of men, their equipment, and their families took more than a few hours or even a week. In fact, the 14th dawdled so long that the town meeting complained, repeatedly.

Because soldiers of the 29th did the shooting on King Street, everyone agreed they should leave town—for their own safety as well as to calm the public. The diary of merchant John Rowe records their departure within a week:

March 10. – Yesterday two companies of the 29th went to the Castle, and four companies more went this day; still a military watch.

March 12. —The remainder of the 29th went to the Castle this day; still a military watch.

By “military watch,” Rowe meant that a Boston-based militia was patrolling the town in force to keep the peace.

Decades later, John Adams wrote to his old clerk, William Tudor, about the departure of some soldiers, probably from the 29th:

William Molineaux was obliged to march side by side with the commander of some of these troops: to protect them from the indignation of the people, in their progress to the wharf of embarkation for the castle—

Nor is it less amusing that lord north, as I was repeatedly & credibly informed in England, with his characteristic mixture of good humour & sarcasm ever afterwards call’d these troops by the title of “Sam Adams’s two regiments.”

I’d like another source for that last line, but at least Adams gives us some hint of how he supposedly came to be privy to Lord North’s remark.

The ongoing presence of the troops was an issue at the town meeting held on 12-13 March, summarized here. There was already a “Committee of the Town now sitting at the Representatives Chamber” in the Town House addressing that issue. It looks like that those men were Molineux, Adams, John Hancock, William Phillips, Dr. Joseph Warren, Joshua Henshaw, and Samuel Pemberton. They reported to the meeting as a whole:

That they had attended the Business alotted them by the Town, Night and Day, and done every thing in their power by their repeated applications to Collo. Dalrymple to expedite the removal of the Troops, that the 29 Regiment was already Gone, and the Collo. had assured them that the 14th. Regiment should begin to follow them this Day, and that no time should be lost in removing them

The meeting sent those same men back to the colonel with the message “that this Town have now waited Seven Days, for the removal of the 14 & 29th Regiments agreable to his express promise made in presence of the Lieut. Governor his Majesty’s Council and ye. Committee of the Town to remove the same with the utmost dispatch.”

The committee returned with Dalrymple’s promise “that between Thursday Night and Fryday Morning not one of the 14th. Regiment, except himself, would remain here.”

But when the town meeting reconvened on Friday morning, 16 March, there were still some troops in town. It looks like Dalrymple was dragging his feet, hoping to give his superior in New York, Gen. Thomas Gage, time to send explicit orders about what to do.

The men at Faneuil Hall “Voted, that a Committee be sent to the Committee of the Town meeting at the Town House, to know from them whether all the Troops had left us.” Yes, that was a committee to communicate to another committee.

Molineux came “and informed the Town that he had this Morning been with Collo. Dalrymple to know how far he had proceeded in sending away the Troops, when he had assured him that the whole of what remained would be embarqued in four Boats by One O’Clock, when they would immediately go down to Castle Island.”

Rowe’s diary confirms that Dalrymple fulfilled that promise by the end of that Friday: “All the 14th regiment are gone to the Castle, the last of them this day.”

So it took ten days from the royal officials’ agreement to remove all the troops from Boston until they were actually gone.

A Town Meeting for a Town in Turmoil

After the shooting on King Street on 5 Mar 1770, townspeople raced to take the wounded to doctors and to demand justice.

British army officers struggled to get from their lodgings to their companies’ barracks. They feared that locals would gather weapons and counterattack. There were rumors of a tar barrel being moved to Beacon Hill to summon militiamen from neighboring towns, though there’s little evidence those things actually happened.

At the Town House, acting governor Thomas Hutchinson assured the crowd that the civil government would investigate the event and pursue charges. Magistrates started to interview witnesses.

Whig leader William Molineux arrived and urged Hutchinson to order all the troops back to their barracks. Reluctant to be seen as controlling the army, the lieutenant governor merely asked Lt. Col. Maurice Carr to issue that order on his own authority.

In the early morning, Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf brought in Capt. Thomas Preston for questioning. About 3:00 A.M., the justices sent him to the town jail. The next morning, they visited the main guard, examined the eight soldiers’ firelocks (one bayonet still showing traces of blood), and arrested them as well.

At 11:00 on the morning of 6 March, 250 years ago today, hundreds of Bostonians thronged Faneuil Hall, demanding a special town meeting “occasioned by the Massacre made in King Street”—the event’s label was already being established. Only town clerk William Cooper was there, however. The selectmen were all over at the Town House, meeting with Hutchinson and his Council. So William Greenleaf, the sheriff’s brother and eventual successor, went to alert them.

Many townspeople wanted to testify about hostile encounters with soldiers. Eventually the meeting appointed a small committee to take that evidence. (I’ll address those testimonies in a separate posting.) The gathering then chose a larger committee filled with prominent men—Thomas Cushing, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, William Phillips, Molineux, and so on—to tell Lt. Gov. Hutchinson:

it is the unanimous Opinion of this Meeting, that the Inhabitants and Soldiery can no longer dwell together in safety; that nothing can be rationally expected to restore the peace of this Town, and prevent blood and Carnage, but the immediate removal of the Troops

That committee proceeded to the Council Chamber of the Town House, overlooking the site of the shooting. Hutchinson and Lt. Col. William Dalrymple were trying to balance the orders that Gen. Thomas Gage had issued on the authority of the Crown, the need to keep public order, and the need to calm the populace. But most of all, each man was trying to ensure that the other bore the main responsibility for whatever decision came out of the meeting.

Dalrymple suggested that since Gen. Gage has instructed him to station some troops at Castle William, he was willing to order the 29th Regiment there and await approval from New York. No soldiers of the 14th had been involved in the shooting, after all. Would that satisfy the people?

At 3:00 P.M. the town meeting resumed and immediately moved from Faneuil Hall to the larger Old South Meeting-House. That meant there had to be thousands of men attending. Cooper read Hutchinson’s message: “It is not in my power to countermand those Orders” from Gage, but Lt. Col. Dalrymple had offered to remove the 29th to the Castle.

The meeting voted to reject that compromise with “but one dissentient.” The people chose a smaller committee to return to the Town House. Back in the Council Chamber, Samuel Adams told Hutchinson and Dalrymple, “If you can remove the 29th regiment, you can also remove the 14th; and it is at your peril if you do not.” (That’s the wording from the Rev. William Gordon, writing just a few years later. Later accounts have other language.)

In 1771, Adams told James Warren about Hutchinson’s immediate reaction: “if Fancy deceived me not, I observ’d his Knees to tremble. I thought I saw his face grow pale (and I enjoyd the Sight) at the Appearance of the determined Citizens peremptorily demanding the Redress of Grievances.”

But Hutchinson still held out, asking his Council for support. Those gentlemen urged withdrawal. Councilor Royall Tyler went farther and warned:

The people will come in from the neighboring towns; there will be ten thousand men to effect the removal of the troops, who will probably be destroyed by the people, be it called a rebellion, or occasion the loss of our charter, or be the consequence what it may.

That was just the uprising the royal authorities feared.

Lt. Col. Dalrymple was already dangling another suggestion. The acting governor could “desire” him to remove both regiments, and he’d do so. Hutchinson could thus avoid giving orders to the army. Dalrymple could tell Gage that he was simply responding to the local civil authority.

The Council accepted that approach. The committee accepted it. Back in Faneuil Hall, the town meeting accepted it and then voted “to have a strong Watch of our own for the protection of the Inhabitants in the Night, untill the troops would remove.”

However, nobody had settled how soon the two regiments would actually leave Boston.

Amos Lincoln during and after the War

I’ve been discussing the story of nineteen-year-old Amos Lincoln at the Boston Tea Party.

That wasn’t the end of Lincoln’s participation in the American Revolution. He was at the prime age for military service when the war began, and the lore about him says that his master, carpenter Thomas Crafts, Sr., “released him from his obligation as an apprentice, in consequence of his ardent desire to enter the army of his country.”

According to the Annals of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, Lincoln “was in the battle of Bunker-Hill, attached to General [John] Stark’s regiment.” That raises questions since Stark commanded men from New Hampshire. With family in Hingham, Lincoln would most likely have gone to the southern side of the siege lines and served under Gen. John Thomas. It’s possible the young man simply “attached” himself to the most convenient unit, or it’s possible later storytellers did the attaching for him.

The M.C.M.A. Annals also stated that Lincoln “was in the actions at Bennington [16 Aug 1777], Brandywine [11 Sept 1777], and Monmouth [28 June 1778].” That claim makes no sense, and not just because that would put him in two different armies during the same season.

We know from Massachusetts records that Amos Lincoln served mostly close to home. He joined the state artillery regiment commanded by his master’s son, Thomas Crafts, Jr. On 10 May 1776, Col. Crafts submitted a list of officers to the state government, and Amos Lincoln was made a captain-lieutenant. He was promoted to captain in January 1778 and remained at that rank as command of the regiment passed to Lt. Col. Paul Revere in 1779.

Boston tour guide Ben Edwards displays a return of a company of matrosses (artillery privates) that Capt. Lincoln filed with the state on 1 Jan 1781, while he was helping to guard Boston harbor. In lore this became that he was “at one time in charge of the castle,” and that he “commanded the company at Fort Independence which fired the salute at the first celebration of Independence Day in Boston, July 4, 1777.”

In 1873, T. C. Amory told this story about one of Capt. Lincoln’s campaigns:

while reconnoitring on one occasion with Lafayette, the latter suggested the importance of an earthwork at an advantageous point near by, and requested him to have it forthwith constructed. The work was already approaching completion when Colonel [John] Crane,—his immediate superior, who was also of the tea-party, and indeed seriously injured in the affair by the fall of a chest upon him,—rode by, and expressed his surprise and displeasure, inquiring by whose order he had acted. Lincoln replied that it was in obedience simply to the colonel’s master and his own, and soon made his peace by giving the colonel’s name to the fort.

This may refer to the abortive campaign against the British in Rhode Island in late 1778. Crane and Lafayette were there. But I don’t see any mention in Massachusetts records of Capt. Lincoln being assigned to that campaign.

The early profiles of Lincoln state that after the war he participated in putting down the Shays Rebellion. He worked as a master carpenter in the building of the new Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill. He was also a member of the St. Andrew’s Lodge of Freemasons starting in 1777.

Amos Lincoln married Deborah Revere, daughter of his regimental commander, in January 1781. They had nine children, and Deborah died in January 1797. In May 1797, Amos married his sister-in-law Elizabeth Revere, and they had five more children, the first arriving at the end of December. Elizabeth died in April 1805, and in July Amos married the widow Martha Robb, and they had three more children.

Amos’s older brother Levi went into the law and was eventually U.S. Attorney General under Thomas Jefferson, lieutenant governor of Massachusetts under James Sullivan, and briefly acting governor. Levi’s sons Levi, Jr., and Enoch became governors of Massachusetts and Maine, respectively. One of Amos’s grandsons, Frederic W. Lincoln, was mayor of Boston for several years. Amos Lincoln’s obituary said he was “an undeviating disciple of Washington,” thus most likely a Federalist.

John Crane at the Tea Party

As shown yesterday, the Boston Whigs played down the crowd violence against Richard Clarke and other tea consignees in early November 1773.

That effort became easier when those merchants decided it was safer to be out of town, either in the countryside like Edward Winslow or at Castle William.

When the tea ships started to arrive late that month, town leaders deployed force to ensure no one could unload the tea. But that force was the most disciplined, quasi-official force possible: eventually the town’s militia companies took turns patrolling the dock at night. That system also guarded against unauthorized riots.

The destruction of the tea itself on 16 December was an authorized riot, carried off with a minimum of violence. Of course, there was always an implicit threat in numbers. The Customs officers and mariners on those ships knew the men pushing their way on board, some in disguise, could beat them up if they resisted. So no one did.

As a result, the only person actually kicked around that night was one of the tea destroyers: Charles Conner, detected stealing some of the tea for his own use. The Whig press proudly reported that the only property to be damaged besides East India Company tea was a lock on one ship’s hold, and that was promptly and anonymously replaced the next day.

However, people feared that a man died that night—at least according to a story that surfaced decades later. That man was the carpenter John Crane (1744-1805).

Now I’m skeptical about stories, especially good stories full of emotion and detail, that surface on paper only generations after the major events they describe. At best they’ve been passed from one narrator to another, risking distortion along the way. At worst they’re late bids for historic importance.

In the case of John Crane, we have good early evidence that he was involved in the Tea Party:

• On the hastily handwritten list of the first set of men who volunteered to patrol the docks on 29 November, one name has been traditionally transcribed as “John Crowe.” I’ve copied that portion of the page above. It could just as well say “John Crane,” especially when I can’t find any other reference to a John Crowe in Revolutionary Boston.
• Crane was a sergeant in the militia train of artillery before the war. According to Ebenezer Stevens, that company was on patrol at the dock on 16 December when the tea was destroyed.
• Crane’s name appears on the earliest and most reliable list of men who helped to destroy the tea, published in 1835 when survivors and their children were still around. 

Now it’s true that Stevens’s memoir of the event didn’t mention Crane even though they were both housewrights, they both moved to Providence shortly afterward, and they returned to Massachusetts together as Rhode Island artillery officers in 1775.  However, Stevens had a falling-out with Crane over command during the war, so he might not have cared to remember his old companion by name.

Thus, it seems safe to say that John Crane participated in the Boston Tea Party. As to the specific story about him, we’ll assess that on its details.

TOMORROW: He gets knocked down.

“A family mansion with a history of the stirring times”

Yesterday I quoted a letter that appeared in the Boston Evening Traveler on the day after the centenary of the Boston Tea Party. It described how a young woman named Sarah Bradlee helped prepare her four brothers and future husband to disguise themselves as they destroyed the tea and to conceal themselves afterward.

That letter offered no evidence for its story beyond the belief of a descendant, and there were discrepancies between its details and the historical record. Nonetheless, a young Bostonian named Samuel Bradlee Doggett picked up on the tale. He spent decades repeating, and perhaps improving, the account.

In his 1894 book A History of the Doggett-Daggett Family, Doggett described himself this way:

Born [29 May 1858] and always living in a family mansion with a history of the stirring times of the Revolution, and associated in early life with those who could tell of those times, he developed an interest in ancestry, which resulted first in a short account of the Bradlee family, printed in 1878, and since that time in the accumulation of material for the present work.

The house Doggett referred to appears above in a photograph from the Digital Commonwealth collection. Nathaniel Bradlee built that home about 1770, and it stood on the corner of Hollis and what became Tremont Street until 1898.

The Traveler letter said Sarah Bradlee was active “at her father’s house,” which would have been difficult since he’d lived in Dorchester and died five years before. Doggett fixed that by stating that Bradlee had disguised the men in her brother’s house—the very house he lived in.

As a genealogist Doggett also corrected the timing of Sarah Bradlee’s marriage. She and her husband, John Fulton, married more than a decade before the Tea Party rather than afterward. In Doggett’s telling, the fact that she lived in Medford and had small children didn’t stop her from going to her brother-in-law’s house in Boston to help on the night of the Tea Party.

Doggett first printed his version of the lore as a single sentence in his History of the Bradley Family (1878), quoting from the Traveler letter (while leaving out the awkward incongruous bits). A few years later he communicated with Francis S. Drake, who retold the story in Tea Leaves (1884), incorporating detail that first appeared in the Traveler letter.

According to Drake, all four Bradlee brothers “lived in the house yet standing, on the southerly corner of Hollis and Tremont Streets.” (Nathaniel did, and Josiah, aged nineteen, might have. David and Thomas were married with families and homes of their own.) The Tea Leaves version:

Their sister, Sarah, assisted her husband, John Fulton, and her brothers, to disguise themselves, having made preparations for the emergency a day or two beforehand, and afterwards followed them to the wharf, and saw the tea thrown into the dock. Soon returning, she had hot water in readiness for them when they arrived, and assisted in removing the paint from their faces. As the story goes, before they could change their clothes, a British officer looked in to see if the young men were at home, having a suspicion that they were in the tea business. He found them in bed, and to all appearance asleep, they having slipped into bed without removing their “toggery,” and feigning sleep. The officer departed satisfied. Mrs. Fulton helped to dress the wounds of the soldiers who were in the battle of Bunker Hill. She died in Medford, Mass., in 1836, and is the authority for the above statement.

Since Doggett wasn’t born until 1858, there must have been some intervening transmission to him. There were direct descendants old enough to have heard from Sarah Bradlee Fulton herself, such as grandson John A. Fulton of Cambridge.

The most dramatic detail of this story—how “a British officer looked in” suspiciously—makes little sense since in 1773 the one British regiment in Massachusetts was stationed out on Castle Island. Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie provided a report on the tea destruction for the royal government from that perspective, but he wrote nothing about officers searching houses in Boston.

Other versions of the tale presented that detail in different ways. The 1873 Traveler version said, “a spy or officer…put his head within the door.” In an 1893 Boston Post article that referenced Doggett, “an indignant Britisher…insisted on doing a thorough search.” An 1897 article for the American Monthly magazine by Helen Tilden Wild, reprinted in the Medford Historical Society Papers, said, “a spy…peered in at the kitchen window.”

In 1896 a number of American newspapers, including the Omaha World-Herald, printed an article describing a conversation with Doggett, his father, and John A. Fulton at age 91. The writer presented Sarah Bradlee Fulton’s story in her voice, not saying whether her descendants supplied those words or the journalist came up with them. In this version, “some soldiers or spies” came into the kitchen of that old house on Hollis and Tremont. Again, there was no evidence offered to corroborate that detail beyond the belief of descendants and its dramatic power.

TOMORROW: The legends of Sarah Bradlee Fulton.

“The general Joy of this City”

On 31 July 1769 the Boston Gazette alerted its readers that Gov. Francis Bernard was leaving Massachusetts at last:

HIS EXCELLENCY sir FRANCIS BERNARD, BARONET OF NETTLEHAM IN LINCOLNSHIRE OLD ENGLAND, sails for London the first fair Wind.—NOTE, Nettleham is a poor obscure little Village, about as far from the City of London, as the Baronet’s Tom Trott of a Country House at Jamaica Pond is from Boston. The People at Nettleham subsist chiefly by carrying Garden Stuff to Lincoln; Here it may be presumed the Bart. learnt the little he knows of Gardening; but that he should set himself up for an Architect and Politician, is altogether unaccountable.

That gave the radical Gazette’s readers plenty of time to prepare for the news that the governor had indeed gone on aboard the navy ship Rippon, headed for London.

What’s more, the Gazette’s next issue noted, 1 August was also the anniversary of the Hanoverian succession back in 1714. That produced a lot to celebrate:

1. The Accession of the present Royal Family.
2. That the King has been graciously pleased to recall a very bad Governor.
3. The sure and certain Hopes that a very good one will be sent out, and placed in his Stead.
4. That a worse cannot be found on this Side ——, if there.

I suspect that blank meant “this side of Hell.”

That newspaper continued:

So soon as the Rippon was under Sail on Tuesday, the Cannon at the Castle were fired with Joy—The Union Flagg was displayed from LIBERTY-TREE, where it was kept flying ’till Friday.—Colours were also flung out from most of the Vessels in the Harbour—And from the Tops of the Houses in Town.—The Bells were rang, and Cannon fired incessantly ’till Sunset.—

In the Evening there was a Bonfire on Fort-Hill, and another in the Heights of Charlestown. The general Joy of this City was soon diffused through the neighbouring Towns, who gave similar Demonstrations of it. There was not the least Disorder committed, and the Night was the most quiet the Town has enjoyed since August, 1760, the Time of the Baronet’s Arrival here.

John Rowe’s diary indicates there was also “A Great Bonfire in King St.” That one was probably unauthorized and perhaps squelched by the authorities.

In the 3 August Boston News-Letter, Richard Draper acknowledged “the Ringing of Bells,—the displaying of Colours on Liberty-Tree, and on board several Vessels…& the Bonfire on Fort-Hill.” But he said he couldn’t print “any formal Account” of the celebration since “it could not be found upon Enquiry by whose Directions they were done; and it is said this Method of testifying their Joy was disapproved of by many Persons.”

The author of the Gazette account declared that he himself “was concerned, in promoting to his utmost, the Rejoicings on that Day.” Furthermore, if he’d known earlier “of the Endeavours of the Cabal, or the more dangerous Machinations of a few timid or trimming Whigs, to suppress every outward Token of Joy, he would have taken effectual Care that there should have been Bonfires on every Hill round Massachusetts-Bay.”

Because Bernard’s departure coincided with the Hanoverian anniversary, it’s impossible to say that all the patriotic celebration on 1 August was a response to the governor’s departure. The cannon fire from Castle William might have been a regular salute to a royal governor, but the Whigs certainly spun those shots as “fired with Joy.” And they left their British flag flying at Liberty Tree for days until the governor’s ship finally cleared the harbor.

Another way the Boston Whigs observed the importance of Bernard’s departure: the last dispatch of the Boston Whigs’ “Journal of Occurrences” or “Journal of the Times” was dated 1 Aug 1769. It began with a long excoriation of Gov. Bernard, then went on to describe his final confrontation with the General Court. The legislature, expecting him to leave, refused to vote him any more salary. The governor then prorogued the House until January, which the Whigs tried to spin as a sign of low confidence in his successor, Thomas Hutchinson.

TOMORROW: A Whig victory?

The Departure of Sir Francis Bernard

On 2 Aug 1769, two hundred fifty years ago today, the leadership of the royal government of Massachusetts changed hands.

That leadership had also changed hands exactly nine years before, on 2 Aug 1760. That was when Francis Bernard (shown here) rode in from his previous posting in New Jersey with his new commission to be royal governor of Massachusetts.

Officially, Bernard remained governor after August 1769, but he was no longer in Massachusetts exercising that authority. He had no credibility after the publication of his letters to his superiors in London, described back here. The Massachusetts General Court had requested his removal.

The royal government in London had thought Bernard did a good enough job to warrant making him a baronet (a hereditary knight) in April. But he asked for leave to come home to England, both to contest the legislature’s charges and to seek a more lucrative post in colonial administration, possibly on one of the Caribbean islands.

On Monday, 31 July, the next week’s Boston Evening-Post reported, Gov. Bernard “left his Seat at Roxbury and went to Castle William. The next Morning about Nine o’Clock he embarked on board His Majesty’s Ship Rippon, then lying in King-Road.” That route allowed him to depart without traveling through Boston.

The next day, the Massachusetts Council witnessed the formal transfer of authority, as reported in its records:

His Excellency Sir Francis Bernard Bart Governor of this Province having embarked for Great Britain, His Honor the Lieutenant Governor came into the Council Chamber, and in the presence of the Council took the Oaths appointed by Act of Parliament to be taken, instead of the Oaths of Allegiance & Supremacy, repeated and subscribed the Test or Declaration therein contained, together with the Oath of Abjuration, as also an Oath that he would do his utmost that all clauses matters and things contained in the Acts of Parliament passed as well since as before the enacting of the Act of the 7th and 8th of William the Third and at this time in force, relating to the Colonies and Plantations, and that all and every the clauses contained in the said Act intitled “An Act for preventing Frauds and regulating Abuses in the Plantation Trade” be punctually and bona fide observed, according to the true intent and meaning thereof: And that he would faithfully perform the duties of his Office of Commander in chief of said Province, according to the best of his judgment and skill. After which His Honor took the chair.

Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson was formally only the acting governor, the same role he had played a decade earlier before Bernard arrived. He felt bound to carry out the orders and policies of the London government.

Meanwhile, the Rippon had run into unfavorable winds and had come to stop after traveling only a mile or two.

TOMORROW: The grand send-off.

“The people of the town had grown very uneasy“

The 3 June 1773 issue of the Massachusetts Spy broke the news that the Massachusetts General Court was considering “some extraordinary discoveries” and how “some men in power would appear infamous to the highest degree.”

In the same issue, printer Isaiah Thomas ran this item:

A report is propagated in town, which we are well informed had its birth in his Majesty’s Castle-William, that a formidable mob will make an appearance to-morrow evening. However the enemies to our rights and privileges may wish this to be the case, yet let them be told, that a people who are blessed with such a Legislature as the present, have no need to take the punishment of traitors into their own hands.

The allusion to Castle William pointed to the army regiment stationed on that fortified island, or the Customs officials who occasionally took refuge there. If there had indeed been a rumor, the newspaper was blaming the royal government instead of the Whigs. And if there hadn’t been, it was starting the rumor and blaming the royal government anyway.

At the same time, however, the Spy was trying to keep public anger from turning violent, assuring readers to keep their faith in the legislature.

Behind closed doors that legislature was forming a response to the bundle of letters that speaker Thomas Cushing had received from Benjamin Franklin in London. One step was publication—on 10 June the house contracted with Edes and Gill to print over 300 copies of the letters. Another was a formal resolution, adopted on 16 June and also sent to the printers.

According to Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, the most prominent writer of those letters, the General Court was actually dragging its feet in order to keep the public on edge and riled up. In his persona of disinterested historian Hutchinson would later write that already

…the people of the town had grown very uneasy at being so long alarmed with a declaration of measures of so dangerous, as well as criminal tendency and design, without an opportunity of forming any judgment upon them.

Hutchinson’s history of Massachusetts complained that the legislature “adjourned for three days…and kept the publick in suspense from Thursday to Tuesday, every day producing a new report of passages in the letters, more and more criminal.” In fact, the legislature met six days out of every week in June with the single exception of Monday, 7 June.

Nevertheless, Hutchinson was correct in discerning that “the principal design of this whole proceeding was to make the governor obnoxious to the people of the province.” And it was working.

TOMORROW: How Mr. Hancock made his move.

Lt. Col. Leslie’s Report on the Tea Party

Five years ago Don Hagist at the Journal of the American Revolution shared another early report on the Boston Tea Party, penned on 17 Dec 1773.

The writer was Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie of the 64th Regiment of Foot, the British army unit then stationed at Castle William in Boston harbor. He had watched the crisis develop since the arrival of the Dartmouth at the end of November.

Lt. Col. Leslie told Gov. Thomas Hutchinson that his troops were available if the provincial government wanted to back up his policies with force. But Hutchinson felt he needed his Council’s approval to take that step, and the Council wouldn’t back such a move. Despite all the Whig complaints about “tyranny,” most Crown officials tried hard to adhere to the traditional British understanding of the rule of law, subordinating the military to the civil power and preserving some say for elected bodies.

Meanwhile, the merchants who had won the licenses to import East India Company tea and the Customs Commissioners in charge of administering the tax on it all joined Leslie on Castle William, seeking protection from the Boston crowd.

Leslie made sure to tell the Secretary at War in London, Viscount Barrington, about his offer to the governor, meaning he had done all he could. He also reported how Boston militia companies were guarding the tea ships to make sure they weren’t unloaded (as volunteers, not on the governor’s orders).

And then the locals destroyed the tea. The next day, Leslie wrote:

I did myself the honor to write your Lordship last Saturday, since then the Sons of Liberty have destroy’d 340 Chests of Tea on board three ships, that lay all together at one of the Wharfs.

The fourth vessel that brought the Tea [the William] is strand’d near to Cape Cod, but the Tea was got safe on Shore, and it’s expected by this time it has fared the same fate as the rest.

I had the regiment ready to take their Arms, had they been called upon.

I am informed the Council would not agree to the Troops going to town, however it must end in that at last. Lenity won’t do now with the People here. The Gentlemen that took refuge here still continue, and likely to remain, for the mob threatens them much if they go to town, in short they rule every thing at present.

The Governor who is now on the Island has wrote to My Lord Dartmouth on this late Affair.

So even Gov. Hutchinson had left his country home in Milton for the protection of the army.

Leslie is most remembered in Massachusetts for his unsuccessful February 1775 mission to seize cannon that David Mason was preparing for the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in north Salem. But he had more successful days later in the conflict, particularly in the campaigns for New York City and Charleston. He became a major general by the end of the war.

“Landed and quartered in town”

On 18 Nov 1768, 250 years ago today, the Boston Whigs’ “Journal of Occurrences” alerted their readers in other North American ports to this news:

The 64th Regiment of those troops Col. [John] Pomeroy, are landed and quartered in town, the 65th Regiment Col. [Alexander] Mackay, at Castle Island; they consist of 500 men each.—The battalion-men of the detachment of the 59th are to return to Halifax.

The Whigs also counted eleven Royal Navy ships, not counting the chartered transport ships, in the harbor.

With four regiments (the 14th, 29th, 64th, and 65th) in town, plus part of the 59th and a contingent of Royal Artillery, this was the largest number of soldiers stationed in Boston before late 1774.

The 64th and 65th were fresh from recruiting in Ireland, so they were at full strength. The Whigs’ estimate of “500 men each” is probably a little high and doesn’t necessarily apply to the two regiments that had arrived earlier from Nova Scotia.

Nonetheless, there were probably around 2,000 soldiers in Boston for a couple of weeks that fall. The 1765 census counted 2,941 white men above age sixteen (i.e., eligible for militia duty). Thus, in that stretch two out of every five white men in Boston belonged to the British army.

[The photograph above comes from Revolution250’s recent “Boston Occupied” reenactment, photographed by Chris Christo for this gallery at the Boston Herald.]

“Compleat Quarters were provided for all the troops”

Yesterday we left Gov. Francis Bernard stymied by both Boston’s justices of the peace and the Massachusetts Council in his effort to secure barracks for the king’s troops in Boston closer than Castle William.

By his own account, Bernard told his Councilors:

I said that I was now at the End of my tether: for as they had declared before, that they would adhere to the Act of parliament, and had refused to act in that liberal Way which I thought was their duty when the King’s Necessary Service was obstructed, I could propose nothing farther to them.

For I foresaw that if I proposed to hire [i.e., rent] & fit up houses &c for the troops, they would answer that did not become their business till the public houses were full. But if any Gentleman thought it was to Any purpose to put such a question I was ready to do it: this was declined by Silence.

According to the Boston Whigs, Bernard

recommended their appointing one or more persons, to join with General [Thomas] Gage, in hiring barracks for the troops in this town; the G——r apprehending it best that those who it is likely will finally be saddled with the expence, should be assisting or at least advising in this matter. The Council were utterly against this proposal, as the barracks at Castle-Island still remained empty, and it would have countenanced the quartering of troops in this town; and as the barrack-masters had before taken upon themselves to hire barracks at their own direction and risque.

Would any local citizen take the financial risk of paying for those barracks and waiting to be reimbursed? If providing barracks was the colony’s responsibility, as the Quartering Act said, then the Massachusetts General Court would have to authorize that expenditure. And leaders of that legislature had already warned that they were in no hurry to do that.

But Gov. Bernard was taking a different path: the army would put up the initial money to rent barracks. He wrote:

I then informed them that by reason of this general refusal of quarters the General found himself obliged to hire & fit up houses at the expence of the Crown for the reception of the troops, who now (Oct 26) especially they who were encamped, began to feel the Want of Warm quarters; and as he thought the Expence would ultimately fall upon the province; He desired that I would appoint a Commissary to join with & assist his officers in providing such houses, especially with regard to the Œconomy of the Expences. I therefore desired their Advice & Assistance in making such appointment.

This after a long debate was refused, they saying that if they should join in such appointment, it would be admitting that the province ought to be charged with the Expence; and I could appoint Auditors to examine the Accounts without them.

I thereupon put an End to this Business, having been employed in it from Sep 19 to Oct 26 in all 38 days, without any prospect of doing Any thing to purpose, but under an Obligation of trying evry Effort, before I gave it up.

The army was already implementing Gen. Gage’s plan. According to Bernard, “the General, who foresaw how this Negotiation would end, had employed his Officers to hire & fit up houses for the Troops: so that by the time I had received the definitive refusal, Compleat Quarters were provided for all the troops.”

The question of who would ultimately pay those rents was unresolved. There was also the issue of how the Quartering Act required colonies to supply certain provisions for the barracks, such as firewood. The Council had ordered Massachusetts’s commissary to supply the barracks at Castle William, but not any buildings in the center of town. Bernard concluded, “therefore it is not done, nor like to be done.”

But at least by the end of October all the troops had somewhere in town to sleep.

COMING UP: The regiments’ new landlords.

“The whole was a Scene of perversion”

On 17 Oct 1768, 250 years ago today, Gov. Francis Bernard and Gen. Thomas Gage teamed up in the Town House to force the issue of where the king’s troops in Boston would live.

The governor later sent this report on their effort to the Secretary of State in London, Lord Hillsborough:

On Monday I called a Council in the Morning & introduced the General. He told them that He was resolved to quarter the two regiments now here in the Town & demanded quarters; and that he should reserve the barracks at the Castle for the Irish Regiments or such part of them as they would contain…

There were two more regiments on their way from Ireland. Bostonians called those units the “Irish Regiments,” but legally they were no different from other regiments of the British army. Most of their soldiers probably were ethnically Irish, but so were most of the soldiers and officers of the 29th Regiment, already in town.

After the General left the board I sat at it untill 8 o’clock at night, 2 hours at dinner time excepted. The whole was a Scene of perversion, to avoid their doing any thing towards quartering the troops, unworthy of such a body.

In the Course of the questions I put to them, they denied that they knew of any building belonging to the province in the Town of Boston that was proper to be fitted up for Barracks; and they denied that the Manufactory-House was such a building. This was so notoriously contrary to truth, that some Gentlemen expressed their concern that it should remain upon the minutes. And to induce me to consent to its being expunged, a Motion was made in writing that the Governor be desired to order the Manufactory-house to be cleared of its present inhabitants that it might be fitted up for the reception of such part of the two Irish Regiments as could not be accommodated in the Castle Barracks. This was Violently Opposed but was carried in the affirmative by 6 to 5: upon this I allowed the former Answers to be expunged.

This Resolution amounting to an Assignment of the Castle Barracks for the Irish Regiments effectually put an End to the Objection before made that no Quarters were due in Town untill the Castle Barracks were filled.

The Council thus narrowly agreed to the governor’s demands to turn over the Manufactory to the army. Its members were under pressure of several sorts:

• The demand to support the troops with barracks was coming not just from Bernard but from Gen. Gage, commander-in-chief for North America.
• The 14th Regiment had taken over the Town House and Faneuil Hall and, despite promises, showed no signs of leaving.
• Winter was approaching, making the 29th Regiment’s tents on the Common less tenable.
• Boston would soon be required to house four regiments plus a couple of additional companies.

Legally the Manufactory belonged to the province of Massachusetts. Legally the governor and Council together controlled that property (with the lower house of the legislature, which the governor had conveniently sent home back in June), so they had the aurhority to turn it into barracks.

But just because those men said the army could go into the Manufactory didn’t mean that everyone in Boston agreed.

“A general disposition to desert from the regiments here”

When the Boston Whigs wrote their “Journal of Occurrences” dispatches for newspapers in other American ports, their main theme was how badly the presence of the British troops was damaging the fabric of Boston society.

But an important secondary theme was how stationing those regiments in Boston was also harming the British army, constitution, and state.

In the report dated 12 Oct 1768, 250 years ago today, the Whigs highlighted the desertions by British sailors and soldiers:

The rumor of Castle William being delivered up by the G——r to the King’s troops, arose from his having permitted a number of mariners from the ships of war, to land at Castle Island, six of whom it is said went off in a boat the last night.

Reports of great desertions and a general disposition to desert from the regiments here, which it is said left Halifax under great dejection of spirits; about 21 of the soldiers absconded the last night, and parties from the troops with other clothing, instead of their regimentals, are sent after them.—

Some of the consequences of bringing the troops into this town, in direct violation of the act of Parliament, and disregard to the advice of his Majesty’s Council, instead of quartering them in the barracks on Castle Island, are like to be the scattering proper tutors through the country, to instruct the inhabitants in the modern way of handling the firelock and exercising the men, and also in the various manufactures which the ingenuity and industry of the people of Great Britain have hitherto furnished us with.—

According to Don Hagist of British Soldiers, American Revolution, army records consistently show a rise in desertions just before and just after regiments made a major move. Soldiers may have been reluctant to leave a post where they had forged ties, so they maneuvered to stay behind or to return. Alternatively, they may have noticed that it was easier to desert when commanders were preoccupied, didn’t know the local ground, or couldn’t send anyone back to the old station to hunt men down.

It’s therefore not surprising to see sailors and soldiers releasing themselves from the royal military on their own recognizance in these weeks. It’s startling to see American Whigs talking about how army deserters would make “proper tutors” for the local militia, with an unstated threat underneath. In 1774 and 1775 New England Patriots did indeed recruit soldiers for that purpose and boasted of their militia’s strength. But in 1768 political leaders were trying to tamp down calls for resistance by force.

As this additional item shows:

This night a surgeon of one of the ships of war being guilty of very disorderly behaviour was committed to gaol by Mr. Justice [Edmund] Quincy, as was also a person not belonging to this province, by Mr. Justice [Foster] Hutchinson, on complaint of a soldier, that he had been enticing him to desert; said stranger was first taken and confined by Captain [John] Willson, in the Town House for some time, without warrant or authority from any magistrate—If the oaths of soldiers who are promised 10 guineas for such discoveries, are to be taken as sufficient proof, we know not what proscriptions may take place.

The Boston Whigs thus made a point of blaming “a person not belonging to this province” for encouraging desertion, not a local.

Of course, those Whigs also complained that an army captain had confined that suspect outside of civil authority based on questionable evidence. Worse yet, that confinement happened inside the building that normally housed the provincial legislature, still occupied by troops!

We’ll have to keep a watch on Capt. Willson.

“There are no Barracks in the Town”

Thursday, 22 Sept 1768, was not only the first day of the extralegal Massachusetts Convention of Towns. It was also the anniversary of the coronation of George III.

That royal holiday was accordingly observed in Boston, as the Boston Evening-Post described:

by the firing of the Cannon at Castle William and at the Batteries in this Town, and three Vollies by the Regiment of Militia, which, with the Train of Artillery, were mustered on the Occasion.——

At the Invitation of his Excellency the Governor, his Majesty’s Health was drank at the Council-Chamber at Noon.

So much for ceremonial harmony. At that same meeting in the Old State House, Gov. Francis Bernard and the Council were in a major dispute.

Three days before, the governor had formally told the Council the news that he’d leaked earlier—that British army regiments were on the way to Boston. Under the Quartering Act, the local authorities were required to provide housing and firewood for them. As John G. McCurdy argued at a Colonial Society of Massachusetts session last February, we can think of the Quartering Act as one of Parliament’s taxes on the colonies, requiring resources from local communities without their vote.

Gov. Bernard wanted the Council to start arranging to house four regiments, two on their way from Halifax and two more to arrive later from Ireland. But the Council was determined not to cooperate. In a report to London, Bernard claimed James Otis, Jr., had laid out this strategy for the Whigs:

There are no Barracks in the Town; and therefore by Act of parliament they [the soldiers] must be quartered in the public houses. But no one will keep a public house upon such terms, & there will be no public houses. Then the Governor and Council must hire Barnes Outhouses &c for them; but no body is obliged to let them; no body will let them; no body will dare to let them.

The Troops are forbid to quarter themselves in Any other manner than according to the Act of parliament, under severe penalties. But they can’t quarter themselves according to the Act: and therefore they must leave the Town or seize on quarters contrary to the Act. When they do this, when they invade property contrary to an Act of parliament We may resist them with the Law on our side.

Bernard was anxious to head off such trouble. He wrote:

I answered, that they must be sensible that this Act of parliament (which seemed to be made only with a View to marching troops) could not be carried into execution in this Case. For if these troops were to be quartered in public houses & thereby mixt with the people their intercourse would be a perpetual Source of affrays and bloodsheds; and I was sure that no Commanding officer would consent to having his troops separated into small parties in a town where there was so public & professed a disaffection to his Majesty’s British Government.

And as to hiring barnes outhouses &c it was mere trifling to apply that clause to Winter quarters in this Country; where the Men could not live but in buildings with tight walls & plenty of fireplaces. Therefore the only thing to be done was to provide barracks; and to say that there were none was only true, that there was no building built for that purpose; but there were many public buildings that might be fitted up for that purpose with no great inconvenience.

Bernard proposed that the province make the Manufactory House available for the troops. This building had been put up in 1753 to house spinners and weavers. The province had loaned money to build it, expecting to be paid back from the profits of the cloth-manufacturing enterprise. The scheme never made money, the businessmen behind it defaulted on the loan, and Massachusetts was left with ownership of this big building near the center of town.

The Council formed a committee led by James Bowdoin to consult with Boston’s selectmen about the troops. On 22 September, the day of the toasts to the king, that committee reported that the selectmen “gave it for their Opinion that it would be most for the peace of the Town that the two regiments expected from Halifax should be quartered at the Castle.”

That was a new strategy, avoiding confrontations with the soldiers by housing them in the barracks on Castle William—which was on an island in the harbor. Of course, that meant those troops couldn’t patrol Boston and protect Customs officers, which was the whole point of sending them into town. Bernard wrote, “I observed that they confounded the Words Town & Township; that the Castle was indeed in the Township of Boston but was so far from being in the Town that it was distant from it by water 3 miles & by land 7.”

The governor reproached his Council: “I did not see how they could clear themselves from being charged with a design to embarras the quartering the Kings troops.” Bernard thus hinted that the body was being disloyal to the king—and on the anniversary of his coronation! “I spoke this so forcibly,” he wrote, “that some of them were stagger’d, & desired further time to consider of it.” But one member warned the governor not to expect any progress, “pleasantly” adding, “what can you expect from a Council who are more affraid of the people than they are of the King?”

On 23 September, 250 years ago today, a smaller committee, also led by Bowdoin, was ready to present a formal report on the matter to Gov. Bernard.

Who was now at his country house out in Jamaica Plain. This of course kept him distant from the Convention going on in Faneuil Hall. Province secretary Andrew Oliver told the Council “that the Weather being so stormy the Governor will not be in Town to-day, and desires they will meet him at the Province-House to-morrow ten o’Clock, A.M.”

The next morning was stormy, too. Bernard finally came into town that Saturday afternoon to hear what the Council had to say. Which was the same thing as before, except longer: the only place for the troops was out at Castle William. After cleaning up some errors in their report, the Council had it published in the newspapers on 26 September, making the dispute a public matter.

COMING UP: Meanwhile, back in Faneuil Hall.