“The victory was ruinous to our best soldiers”

In 1775 John Graves Simcoe was a lieutenant in the 35th Regiment of Foot, which had been sent to Boston.

Simcoe would go on to a notable career in the Crown forces and then in the government of Canada, but he missed the Battle of Bunker Hill, as he described in a letter written before the end of June 1775:

On the 17th of this month, the first act of civil commotion commenced. The ship, I was in, was at sea; but, at a distance, we heard the sound of cannon, and, at midnight, saw two distinct columns of fire ascending. In this horrid state, well knowing we were the last of the fleet, ignorant whether Boston or some hostile town was in flames, were we kept for two days.

When we anchored, we saw Charles-Town burnt to ashes, and found our army had been engaged; that our troops were victorious, but that the victory was ruinous to our best soldiers, and particularly so to our officers, ninety-two of whom were killed and wounded.

The loss fell heavy on the flank companies of our regiment. [Edward] Drewe commanded the light infantry; exerting himself, at the head of that fine company, he received three shots through him, one in the shoulder, one in the bend of the thigh, the other through his foot. He also received two contusions, and his shoulder was dislocated. [Hugh] Massey is shot through the thigh, but says it is as well to be merry as sad. Poor [William] Bard was the third officer of the company. He was killed, speaking to Drewe. His dying words were, “I wish success to the 35th; only say I behaved as became a soldier.”

The sergeants and corporals of this heroic company were wounded, when the eldest soldier led the remaining five, in pursuit of the routed rebels. The grenadiers equalled their brethren, and, I fear, were as unfortunate. The brave and noble spirited Captain [James] Lyon, is dangerously wounded; and, to aggravate the misfortune, his wife, now with child, a most amiable woman, is attending on him. Both his Lieutenants were wounded.

The loss we have sustained, in the most warm and desperate action America ever knew, draws tears from every eye interested for brave and unfortunate spirits. Had I time to enumerate to you the many instances which the soldiers of our companies, alone, afforded the most generous exertions of love, fidelity, and veneration for their officers, and of the glowing, yet temperate resolutions of these officers, your tears would be those of triumph, and you would confess that in war alone human nature is capable of the most godlike exertions. I think you will believe me abstracted from friendship, when I say, that I never heard of more courage and coolness than Drewe displayed on that day; and his spirits are, even now, superior to any thing you can conceive.

That extract was published in 1782. As we might guess, it was brought to the public’s attention by Edward Drewe, whom Simcoe had such high praise for.

“Crying most pitifully all exceeping one”

This is a portrait of Mary Hubbard (1734–1808) painted by John Singleton Copley about 1764 and now owned by the Art Institute of Chicago.

According to the institute, Hubbard’s “pose, gown, and background were precisely copied from a British engraving of a noblewoman, yet Copley distinguished the work as his own by capturing the figure’s individual features as well as the surfaces and colors of the luxurious fabrics.”

Mary Greene had married Daniel Hubbard (1736–1796) in 1757. Their mothers were first cousins. What’s more, her widowed father had married his widowed mother in 1744. That was one way mercantile families retained their money.

The Hubbards were Loyalists, particularly invested in importing sugar from the slave-labor plantations in Demarara. Daniel Hubbard signed the merchants’ addresses to the last royal governors, and the family remained in town during the siege. 

On 18 June 1775, Mary Hubbard wrote this description of the the Battle of Bunker Hill to her half-brother, David Greene (1749–1812):

once more at my Pen I can scarcely compose myself enough for any thing nor will you wonder when you know the situation we are in at present

Yesterday another Battle fought Charlestown the Scene of action they began early in the Morning & continued all day fighting. in the afternoon they set fire to the town & it is now wholy laid in ashes we could view this Melancholy sight from the top of our house

one poor Man went on the top of the meeting house to see the Battle was not able to git down again but perished in the flames.

about five in the afternoon they began to send home their wounded here my dear Brother was a Scene of woe indeed to see such numbers as pass’d by must have moved the hardest heart, judge then the fealings of your Sister, some without Noses some with but one Eye Broken legs & arms some limping along scarcely able to reach the Hospital, while others ware brought in Waggons, Chaise, Coaches, Sedans, & beds on mens Shoulders

the poor Women wringing their hands & crying most pitifully all exceeping one who on seeing her Husband in a cart badly wounded vou’d revenge went of but soon return’d compleatly Equip’t with her gun on her Shoulder her Knapsack at her back march’d down the street & left the poor Husband to try how many she could send along to tell he was comeing.

there is a vast Number of our Men killd & wound a great many Oficers two are sent to their long homes amongst the rest one fine looking Man much about your age who stopt against our windows to have his leg which was sliping moved a little he lived till this morning the poor fellow came a shore but yesterday or the day before, Perhaps his Mothers darling & his Fathers Joy cut of in the midst of his days his Sisters two if he had any must weep his untimely fate

hope it will never be my lot to have any of my near connections follow the Army.

Major [John] Pitcarn & Mr. Gore* both dead with many more that I dont know. we cannot yet learn how many of the enemy are kill’d, think it likely Mr. Hubbard who I supose will give you a particular account of the Battle will be able to write you word, to his Letter I refer you.

* have since heard Mr. Gore is a live

I don’t know who “Mr. Gore” is, not seeing such a British officer on the list of wounded. Hubbard wrote as if that man had been in the battle and thus not from the civilian family of Gores I’ve studied. (Samuel Gore was arrested after the battle for cracking a joke about the British deaths.)

The Hubbards didn’t evacuate Boston with the British military. Daniel kept at his business, and in 1792 was one of the founders of the Union Bank. He died on St. Croix during a voyage back from Demarara in 1796.

Mary Hubbard’s letter was first published by the Charlestown historian Richard Frothingham in 1876 and then as transcribed here in the D.A.R.’s American Monthly Magazine in 1894.

(The correspondent who sent the text to the magazine was Anita Newcomb McGee, a military doctor in the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese Wars.)

“The only one now living of those who acted as aids-de-camp to General Howe”

Thomas Hyde Page (1746–1821) graduated top in his class from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1769, winning a gold medal from the king.

Page became a lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers and arrived in Boston in the spring of 1775. During the Battle of Bunker Hill he served as one of Gen. William Howe’s aides.

Richard Frothingham quoted the 11 Jan 1776 London Chronicle as saying:

A few days ago arrived in town, from Boston, Lieutenant Page, of his majesty’s corps of engineers, on account of the wounds he received the 17th of June, in the action of Charlestown. This gentleman is the only one now living of those who acted as aids-de-camp to General Howe, so great was the slaughter of officers that day. He particularly distinguished himself in the storming of the redoubt, for which he received General Howe’s thanks.

Page was back in London because he had been wounded in the leg, badly enough to require some sort of amputation.

Capt. John Montresor wrote to Page from Philadelphia on 17 June 1778 noting the “disagreeable memory” of the date. “I hope you are able to saunter without a stick.”

In his journal, however, Montresor grumped about his lack of a pension and wrote, “Page served Eleven days and was then wounded and return’d home and had ten shillings per diem settled for life.” (Of course, Montresor still had both his legs.)

Page continued to work on various engineering projects for the British military. Promotion was slow in that branch of the service, but between 1781 and 1783 he became a captain. That summer he received a double honor: he was elected to the Royal Society and knighted. A couple of years later he shifted to the invalid corps.

In 1790, Lt. Col. John Small, who had been Gen. Robert Pigot’s brigade major, wrote to Page:

The interesting position we were placed in side by side at the memorable Battle of Bunker’s Hill will never be forgotten, and will ever excite the most anxious emotions in the breast of the fellow campaigner who has now the honor of addressing you; who witnessed in the most trying moments, your innate worth, your professional Intrepidity and skill, and was most seriously affected when at your side he saw you ffall from a very dangerous wound, receiv’d when displaying your exertions in the ffield, when your cool and manly example, and sound judicious advice, contributed much to acquire success and victory.

I wish I had more of that letter to understand who was asking what favor.

Using surveys by Montresor and others, Page published very good maps of Boston harbor and the town of Boston. His 1793 “Plan of the Action at Bunkers Hill” is still the most useful source on the topography of the Charlestown peninsula in 1775—though it’s also notable in switching the labels of Bunker’s Hill and Breed’s Hill.

Most of Page’s engineering work involved drainage, harbors, canals, and other civil projects rather than fortifications. James Northcote’s portrait of Page above shows him “holding a Plan of Fort Landguard and seen in the distance.” Page didn’t build that fort, but he engineered its tricky well. (Once apparently at Boston, that painting is now on display at the Tyntesfield estate in North Somerset.)

Sir Thomas Hyde Page remained active all around Great Britain for decades and finally retired to Boulogne, France, where he died.

Panel on Bunker Hill Memory in Charlestown, 5 June

On Thursday, 5 June, Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown will host a panel discussion on the topic “Two Nations, One Battle: Bunker Hill in British and American Memory.”

Representing New England will be Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution, winner of the 2013 New England Book Award for Non-Fiction, and other books.

Sharing the British perspective will be Oxford graduate Emma Hart, now professor of American History and director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

The moderator will be Brooke Barbier, author of King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father.

The event description says: “Through thoughtful dialogue and historical insight, the panel will explore how the Battle of Bunker Hill has been remembered, interpreted, and understood on both sides of the Atlantic over the past 250 years.”

The audience will have the chance to ask questions and “take part in a broader community conversation.”

This event is free with registration. Doors to the campus’s A300 auditorium will open at 6:00 P.M., and the discussion will start after half an hour of music. For directions, see Eventbrite page.

Partners in this event include the college, the Bunker Hill Monument Association, the Friends of the Charlestown Branch Library, the British Consulate-General in Boston, and the National Parks of Boston.

Another event looking ahead to the Sestercentennial of the battle will take place on Wednesday, 11 June, from 11:30 A.M. to 1:30 P.M. The intersection of Chelsea and Warren Streets in Charlestown will be dedicated as Joseph Warren Square after the physician and political activist who died in the battle.

This ceremony is co-sponsored by the American Legion Bunker Hill Post 26 and Abraham Lincoln Post 11 veterans organizations in partnership with the City of Boston and City of Boston Veterans Affairs. Plans include speakers and the unveiling of a plaque. Attendees can then repair to the Warren Tavern for an annual toast to Dr. Warren.

Heading into June 1775 with Confidence

One consequence of the Battle of Chelsea Creek is that by the end of May 1775 the provincial troops started to feel pretty powerful.

The militia mobilization of the Lexington Alarm had done significant damage to the Crown forces. Fortifications were keeping the king’s troops inside Boston.

The Royal Navy was seizing some ships and raiding coasts and islands for food. But three times now the provincial defenses had pushed back. Fairhaven men had recaptured two ships from Capt. John Linzee of H.M.S. Falcon. Hingham and other South Shore companies had forced troops off Grape Island with only a fraction of the hay they wanted.

And the fight over Hog Island and Noddle’s Island was even more impressive. The provincials came away with some livestock, reducing the food supply for besieged Boston. They set fire to hay being grown to feed the army’s horses.

In the fighting that followed, the provincials had deployed artillery for the first time and withstood return fire. They hadn’t lost any men, with four wounded and expected to recover, and reports out of Boston suggested some of the enemy had died. (Two seamen were killed, in fact, but some early reports put the number of Crown casualties as high as thirty.)

From H.M.S. Diana the provincial troops had pulled useful supplies: four four-pounder cannon, twelve swivel guns, the mast, and various bits of fresh rigging—the ship had been launched only the previous year.

And then those troops had actually destroyed the Diana—a Royal Navy warship! True, it was a relatively small vessel that had run aground, but that was obviously a provincial victory and a royalist loss.

Even the most cautious New England commanders and soldiers must have felt they were on a roll when they made the move onto the Charlestown peninsula on the night of 16 June. But the scale of the battle that followed was far beyond any other fight in the Boston campaign.

The Sestercentennial of the Battle of Bunker Hill will be observed on two successive weekends in June:

• Parade, concert, speeches, and other ceremonies in Charlestown on 13–17 June.
• Battle reenactment over similar terrain in Gloucester on 21–22 June.

Make your plans now!

“He engages in the fight which was the beginning of the end”

The printer Isaiah Thomas’s family understood him to have been very active on the first day of the Revolutionary War.

As stated in the preface to the 1874 edition of Thomas’s History of Printing in America:

He went out on the night of the 18th of April, to assist in giving notice that the troops were crossing the Charles river. He returned, but was out again by daylight. Crossing the ferry with Dr. [Joseph] Warren he went into a public meeting at Charlestown and urged the arming of the people, and was opposed by one Mr. [James?] Russell “on principles of prudence.”

Gen. Thomas Gage ordered his forces to stop anyone trying to leave Boston via the Neck or the ferry on the night of 18 April, so as to prevent the sort of “notice” Thomas supposedly spread.

Not only did the printer get out of town, this family lore said, but he then got back in. Even though one of the main points of this passage was that Thomas was on the royal authorities’ enemies list.

We know Dr. Warren did get out of Boston early on the morning of 19 April. Richard Frothingham’s 1865 biography of the doctor quoted witnesses saying he rode the ferry to Charlestown, then headed west on horseback.

We also know there was debate in Charlestown about whether to oppose the British army by force. Ultimately most of the townspeople decided to hunker down because they were too vulnerable to counterattack from the army and navy.

As to what Isaiah Thomas did in those busy hours, I’m not sure. He definitely did thrust himself into events at other times, so I’m sure he would have spread the alarm and urged opposition to the troops if he could. I’m just not sure the opportunities were available.

For a couple of paragraphs, the 1874 account slips into a breathless present tense.

As one of the minute men, he [Thomas] engages in the fight which was the beginning of the end. At night he goes to Medford. On the morning of the 20th, he makes a flying visit to his family at Watertown, and then starts on foot for Worcester.

He is constantly met on his journey by bodies of armed men on their way to Cambridge, anxious to learn even the minutest details of yesterday’s fight. After traveling on foot some miles, he meets with a friend who procures him the loan of a horse. Late at night, weary and travel worn, he arrives at Worcester to begin life anew; a good head and stout heart his only capital. . . .

The presses and types sent before him were all that were left as the fruit of five years’ toil and peril. A sum exceeding three thousand dollars (and a dollar meant something then, though soon to lose its meaning) was due him from subscribers, scattered over the continent.

The printer may well have had debts due him, but he was also being sued for debt he owed. The war, a new government, and a new town offered the possibility of a new start.

Isaiah Thomas struggled through the war years but prospered in the new republic. He settled in Worcester, publishing the Massachusetts Spy and many books from that town, and also invested in other print shops and newspapers. Ultimately his estate was solid enough that he set up the American Antiquarian Society to maintain his printing archive and tell his story his way.

TOMORROW: How another printer left Boston.

Earl Percy’s Map of the Route to Safety

American Heritage just shared a scoop in Edwin S. Grosvenor‘s article “Discovered: First Maps of the American Revolution.”

It’s based on a return visit to the seat of the Dukes of Northumberland, a title bestowed on Earl Percy’s father and inherited by him after his return from the American war.

Grosvenor writes about one document:

On the newly found map, Percy had drawn his route from Lexington to Menotomy and back to Boston. “He's sketching the line of march,” observed local historian Michael Ruderman, studying the new Percy map. “It's the theatre of battle, the hostile territory he had to travel during the afternoon. And he's sketching the landmarks that were significant to him like the Old Powder House tower that he passed on his left."

The Percy map provides many details about the landscape, roads, taverns, and houses that existed in 1775.

Percy averted an even greater disaster by marching his 1,700 men by an unexpected route. Rather than continuing straight to Cambridge, he took a left turn to head to the Charlestown neck, where the ships of the Royal Navy could protect his force with their guns and ferry him across the Charles River, back to Boston.

For nearly 250 years, the maps lay forgotten in a box with dozens of other maps of Revolutionary war battles and encampments brought back by Gen. Percy.

The caption explains: “When rotated with north facing up, the town of Medford is in the upper left, with the home of ‘Col. [Isaac] Royal’ marked outside the town.” At the center, looking like rude high-school graffiti, is the Charlestown powderhouse.

In the lower right corner is Cambridge. Along the bottom is the road from Menotomy village into central Cambridge with several landmarks labeled: “Menotomy mill:g House,” “Adams’s Tavern,” “Brook,” “Grove of Locust Trees,” and “Tavern.”

The last stands at the crucial corner where Col. Percy turned his column onto “Kent’s Lane through which the Troops return’d from Concord” to Charlestown.”

Counterfactual 1: If Revere Had Never Reached Lexington

For the Journal of the American Revolution, Jim Piecuch just reviewed The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night that Saved America by Kostya Kennedy.

Piecuch writes:

Kennedy begins his book by posing an intriguing question: What might have happened if Massachusetts militia had not been present at either Lexington or Concord when British troops arrived on April 19? He speculates that John Hancock and Samuel Adams could have been captured or killed, that the munitions at Concord could have been seized, and that such events might have put the American Revolution on a completely different, perhaps even unsuccessful, course.

In Kennedy’s view, the question that gives rise to this hypothetical scenario can also be stated as: What might have happened had Paul Revere not made his ride to warn the inhabitants of towns outside Boston that British regulars were coming? While it is impossible to answer such a question, Kennedy uses it to underscore the importance of Revere’s ride, declaring that “Perhaps no night was more critical to [America’s] fate” (page 4).

I’ve been cogitating along similar lines but not coming to the same firm conclusions.

Let’s start with the question of what would have happened if Paul Revere had been satisfied with arranging for the signals from the North Church steeple to his colleagues in Charlestown. The rider they sent west toward Lexington never made it, probably stopped by a British mounted patrol. We don’t even know who that man was. But let’s imagine Revere went to bed thinking he’d sent the warning as Dr. Joseph Warren had asked.

Or we can imagine Revere heading out of Boston as he did but being stopped by the H.M.S. Somerset, or by that same mounted patrol in west Charlestown. If Revere had never made it past Medford, how would that have affected events the following day?

In that case, Dr. Warren’s warning would have reached Lexington about half an hour later than it did, as soon as William Dawes arrived in town. Since it took hours for Adams and others to persuade Hancock to leave Lexington, and since the regulars didn’t arrive until hours after that, those thirty minutes probably wouldn’t have made a big difference.

TOMORROW: But what if neither Revere nor Dawes had reached Lexington? 

Sestercentennial Talks in Boston on the 18th of April

Friday, 18 April, will be the 250th anniversary of the day when Maj. Edward Mitchell led over a dozen British army officers on horseback out into Middlesex County to tamp down alarms (and thus caused alarms).

The 250th anniversary of the day when William Dawes and Paul Revere rode out into the same countryside to do all they could to spread the alarm as far as Lexington, at least.

And finally the 250th anniversary of the day when more than 700 British light infantrymen and grenadiers embarked across the Charles River to begin their alarming march to Concord.

Some of those events will be reenacted that evening in various places, and there will also be talks in the city of Boston on both sides of the Charles River.

The U.S.S. Constitution Museum and Paul Revere House are sponsoring “The Messenger and the Maker,” a free evening of activities at the Constitution Museum in the Charlestown Navy Yard. From 5 to 9 P.M. families can explore the galleries and make their own lanterns to help escort Revere on his journey from the Navy Yard through Charlestown.

At 8:00 P.M. I’ll speak in the museum on “The Reasons for Revere’s Ride.” The organizers asked me to lay out the background for the events on 18 Apr 1775, and they said I had twenty minutes. Later they revised that to thirty. I’m preparing a whirlwind tour through history up to that fateful evening. And I can’t speak too long because the audience will go out to meet Mr. Revere.

At City Square Park in Charlestown, two events are scheduled at 8:45 P.M. Revere will arrive at Deacon John Larkin’s House and emerge to mount his borrowed horse. Around that event Joe Bagley, Boston’s Chief Archaeologist, will speak on “Unearthing the Untold Stories of Charlestown’s Sacrifice.” Drawing on recent discoveries and study, he will introduce the inhabitants of Charlestown, enduring the frightening end of one battle and the destruction caused by another.

Meanwhile, over in Boston’s North End, the Old North Church will offer a free costumed reading of Revolution’s Edge from 6:30 to 8 P.M. on Paul Revere Mall (or, in case of rain, inside St. Stephen’s Church). This play by Patrick Gabridge dramatizes the choices that the Rev. Mather Byles, Jr.; Capt. John Pulling; and Cato, the minister’s enslaved servant, faced in April 1775.

Starting at 7 P.M., the church will also host its traditional Lantern Service. This year’s keynote address will be offered by Heather Cox Richardson, professor of American history at Boston College and author of Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. This commemoration will also include inspirational music, Revere’s recollection of his ride, prayers for the nation, and the lighting of the lanterns in the belfry at about 8:15 P.M. (This event is currently at capacity.)

“The fire then commenced and fell heavy on our Troops”

The rest of Lt. John Bourmaster’s April 1775 account of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which I started to quote yesterday, didn’t relate his personal experiences as a Royal Navy officer.

He didn’t, for example, write anything about the operation to evacuate regulars from Charlestown back to Boston on the night of 19–20 April. He didn’t mention Maj. John Pitcairn of the marines.

Instead, Bourmaster’s letter passed on what he‘d heard from British army officers. And of course the big message that those officers, up to Gen. Thomas Gage, wanted to put out was that the rebels had started it.

Bourmaster’s very first statement about the fighting was that locals shot first.

A firelock was snapt over a Wall by one of the Country people but did not go off, the next who pulld his triger wounded one of the light Infantry company of General [Studholme] Hodgsons or the Kings own.

Other sources, including Pitcairn, Ens. Jeremy Lister of the 10th, and Capt. John Barker of the 4th (King’s Own), said that a soldier in the 10th Regiment was wounded in the morning at Lexington. In this case, Bourmaster had false information.

The lieutenant never actually got around to describing the search in Concord or the shooting there. Instead, his letter continued:

the fire then commenced and fell heavy on our Troops, the Militia having posted them selves behind Walls, in houses, and Woods and had possession of almost every eminence or rising ground which Commanded the long Vale through which the King’s Troops were under the disagreeable necessity of passing in their return.

Colonel [Francis] Smith was wounded early in the Action and must have been cut Off with all those he commanded had not Earl Percy come to his relief with the first Brigade; on the Appearance of it our Almost conquer’d Granadiers and light Infantry gave three cheers and renew’d the defence with more spirits.

Lord Percys courage and good conduct on this occasion must do him immortal honour, upon taking the Command he Ordered the King’s own to flank on the right, and the 27th [actually the 47th] on the left, the R Welsh Fuseliers to defend the Rear and in this manner retreated for at least 11 Miles before he reached Charlestown—for they could not cross at Cambridge where the Bridge is, they haveing tore it Up, and fill’d the Town and houses with Arm’d Men to prevent his passage;

our loss in this small essay ammounts to 250 Kill’d wounded and Missing. and we are at present cept up in Boston they being in possession of Roxbury a little Village just befor our lines with the Royal and Rebel centinels within Musquet shot of each other. The fatigue which our people pass’d through the Day which I have described can hardly be belived, having march’d at least 45 Miles and the Light Companys perhaps 60,

In fact, even the regulars who went all the way out to James Barrett’s farm in Concord and back traveled less than forty miles that day.

Bourmaster also wrote:

A most amiable young man of General Hodgson’s fell that Day his name Knight brother to Knight of the 43 who was with us at Jamiaca.

This was Lt. Joseph Knight, killed and buried in Menotomy. Ezekiel Russell’s Salem Gazette agreed that Knight was “esteemed one of the best officers among the Kings troops.”

TOMORROW: Those crazy provincials.

Hiring Freeze in National Parks May Curb 250th Events

Yesterday National Parks Traveler reported that the new administration has ordered the National Park Service to rescind seasonal job offers made to up to 1,400 people.

Per the Washington Post, the new administration’s hiring freeze was explicitly not supposed to include “seasonal employees and short-term temporary employees necessary to meet traditionally recurring seasonal workloads.”

The Park Service has long depended on seasonals and interns, as everyone in the federal government knows. Every year the agency hires more people to cover the busiest months. Even so, its staffing level is pretty skeletal.

The Post story, filed by an environmental reporter, focuses on the big nature parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite. But a hiring freeze will also affect the historic parks, which get less attention.

Here in Massachusetts, we have several Sestercentennial anniversaries coming up. Local governments and organizations are planning events for their communities and expecting large influxes of tourists. In most cases, those events involve or require fully staffed national parks.

The Salem Maritime National Historic Site will have an exhibit on “Leslie’s Retreat,” due to open on 15 February, to complement events around the city.

Minute Man National Historic Park offers a full slate of events about the Battle of Lexington and Concord, running from presentations on spies on 22 March through a Battle Road Anniversary Hike on 21 April—with the big military reenactment in between on 19 April, of course.

The weeklong series of events in Charlestown to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June will of course be centered around the Monument, under the care of the National Parks of Boston. Even before then, the parks are sharing events like this 27 February talk on how Boston harbor helped to shape that battle.

Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge is preparing to commemorate the anniversary of the arrival of Gen. George Washington in July.

Looking further ahead, we’re all eagerly awaiting the reopening of the Dorchester Heights Monument to people visiting that crucial site in the siege of Boston.

I don’t know how much each of those initiatives depends on seasonal hires. But I know some parks absolutely need augmented staffing to handle their ordinary schedules, much less special events for larger crowds in an anniversary year.

Nobody in Washington is saying how long this hiring freeze will last. Hopeful N.P.S. managers have told people who’d received offers for seasonal jobs only to see those yanked away that the positions might open up again. But of course those managers thought they’d finally gotten through the federal hiring process and found qualified and eager staffers, only to have to pull back. As of this evening, the only N.P.S. job openings at USAJobs.gov are in security, firefighting, and other public-safety departments.

“The Siege of Boston” Tour for Social-Studies Educators, 21 Nov.

The National Council for Social Studies, the largest professional association devoted to social studies education, will meet in Boston on 19–24 November. Over 3,000 classroom teachers and other educators from around the country are expected to come.

Attendees arriving before Thursday, 21 November, have a choice of two all-day tours, among other offerings. One is a trip to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The other, which I’m involved in, is an exploration of “The Siege of Boston” in preparation for the Sestercentennial of that campaign.

This tour has been organized by Dr. Gorman Lee through Revolution 250, and he describes it this way:

The Siege of Boston refers to a significant period in colonial history when militias from the American colonies surrounded the British-occupied city of Boston. Teachers will visit five historical sites to explore how the Siege unfolded through the lenses of enslaved and free African Americans, Loyalists, women, and rank-and-file rebels.

The five significant historic sites are:

• The Royall House & Slave Quarters in Medford, used by Gen. Charles Lee and Col. John Stark during the siege.
• The Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown, site of the biggest, bloodiest, and ultimately decisive battle of the siege.
• Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site and nearby Cambridge common, from which Gen. George Washington and the Massachusetts committee of safety directed the siege.
• The Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury, a former governor’s mansion used as a hospital.
• The Dillaway-Thomas House in Roxbury, from which Gen. John Thomas spearheaded the final move onto Dorchester Heights.

Prof. Robert J. Allison of Suffolk University will be the expert guide on the first leg of the tour. I’ll hop on in Cambridge, and gents from the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati will be awaiting us in Roxbury. Of course, the docents and curators at each site will share their knowledge.

That’s a packed itinerary, and I expect we’ll adjust the times spent at each site on the day based on time spent in traffic. I’ll try to bring along a store of stories to fill those moments.

This tour has a fee of $50 above the conference registration cost. Conference attendees can sign up for it through this webpage. (At least I think so. I can’t figure out the registration pages myself, but I expect educators have experience navigating that sort of complex bureaucratic system.) 

Where Was the Charlestown Powderhouse?

Before departing from the “Powder Alarm” entirely, I’ll draw on guest blogger Charles Bahne to address a pertinent question: Where was the powderhouse?

That may seem like a silly question since it’s a stone building that has stood atop the same hill since it was built shortly after 1700.

But some of our sources from 1774 refer to that location in different ways:

• William Brattle: “This morning the Select Men of Medford, came and received their Town Stock of Powder, which was in the Arsenal on Quarry-Hill.”
• Boston Gazette: “the powder house on quarry hill in Charleston bounds”
• Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper: “You have heard of the taking ye. Windmill, at Cambridg with the Province Powder.”
• Rev. Ebenezer Parkman: “The Contents Magazine of Powder at Winter Hill had been carryed off.”
• John Adams: “the Provincial Powder from the Magazine at Cambridge”

Charles Bahne wrote in an email:

Legally, the powder house was in Charlestown. But it was closer (both crow-flies distance, and actual roads) to the populated centers of either Medford or Cambridge, or even Menotomy, than it was to Charlestown.

• Powder House Sq. to Medford Sq. = 1.23 miles airline, 1.47 miles by road, according to Google Maps
• Powder House Sq. to Harvard Sq. = 1.90 miles airline, 2.14 miles by road
• Powder House Sq. to Menotomy [Arlington Center] = 2.13 miles airline, 2.17 miles by road
• Powder House Sq. to Charlestown Neck [Sullivan Sq.] = 2.47 miles airline, 2.49 miles by road

Once you got "beyond the Neck", Charlestown got long and skinny. And hardly anyone lived there. . . . While the powder house itself was in the town of Charlestown, the property just across the street was in Medford. The town/city boundaries in that area were adjusted at some point in the 1800s.

I suspect that one reason for choosing that site for a powder house—besides the fact that the old windmill was available—was that the area was unpopulated. If by chance it blew up, there was no one nearby to be killed or injured, no other property that might be destroyed.

But it was conveniently at a crossroads. Broadway was a straight line road between Charlestown Neck and Menotomy, although I suspect that it was a lightly used, poorly maintained thoroughfare, and not a highway. . . . The other crossroad was more important, the road from Medford to Cambridge, present day Harvard St., Warner St., and College Ave.

The picture above is a detail from an 1833 map, before the western arm of Charlestown became Somerville. The arrow points to the powderhouse. The circles show the population centers of Medford, Cambridge, and (at the lower right) Charlestown.

Proximity helps to explain why the man who “for a Number of Years had the Care of [the gunpowder] as to sunning and turning it,” William Gamage, lived in Cambridge. Proximity might explain why the Medford selectmen were the last to remove their town’s powder from the tower in August 1774; it was, after all, quite convenient where it was.

As for Winter Hill, that was fairly nearby and large. But the powderhouse stood atop its own drumlin, called Quarry Hill for decades because locals had taken stone from it, including the stone used to build the tower itself. That spot is now known as Powder House Hill.

Gunshots in the Countryside

On 7 Sept 1774, 250 years ago today, Henry Vassall was riding in Lincoln when he heard a gunshot.

The only Henry Vassall I was able to find on the family tree at this time was a nineteen-year-old son of William Vassall, discussed yesterday.

Henry was either visiting or staying with his cousin Elizabeth, wife of Dr. Charles Russell (1739–1780, shown here). I wonder if he was studying medicine.

Later that month Henry Vassall told the Charlestown committee of correspondence about his experience. He then wrote out an account for two Middlesex County magistrates, Henry Gardner of Stow and Dr. John Cuming of Concord:

Passing between the House of Mrs. Rebecca Barons [?] & Doct. Russell’s between the Hours of 7 & 9 in the Evening of the 7 instant [i.e., this month] & to the best of my Knowledge as I rose [?] a little Hill a little a past the first Canopy [?] I heard the report of a Gun saw the light and a Ball Enter’d the Carriage which I was in being Doct. Russells.

I immediately step’d out of the Carriage & stood about five or six Minutes & then stepp’d into the Carriage Again & road in haste to the Doctor when I had gone a small Distance from the Place where the Gun was discharged I met a person on Horse back

when I had past a small Distance further I met several Persons riding on two Horses,

whether the Ball was aim’d at the Carriage I can’t say I further declare I do not know or even suspect who the Person was that Discharg’d the Gun as above mentioned . . .

NB. The above affair I declar’d to no person in Lincoln but the Revd. Mr. [William] Lawrence & desired him to keep it secret—Till the Friday Following.

Gardner and Cuming also gathered statements from a local man named Joseph Peirce and Luck, enslaved to Dr. Russell. Both declared that they had been traveling near young Vassall and had heard no gunshot.

Three members of the Lincoln committee of correspondence then wrote back to Charlestown agreeing that they detested “the Crime of Assassination” but casting doubt on Vassall’s complaint:

We shall only add that as the evening on which this event was said to have happened was very calm it is the general opinion here that it is very improbable if not utterly impossible that a gun should be Discharged at that time & place without being heard by many persons, you have Doubtless seen the impression in the Carriage & are able to judge & Declare whether it is the efect of a Bullet Discharged from a Gun or Not as well as any person in this town

This incident provided yet another reason for members of the Vassall family to seek safety surrounded by the king’s soldiers. (And on the same day that the magistrates wrapped up their investigation, people in Bristol, Rhode Island, threw stones at the chaise of Henry’s father and stepmother, William and Margaret Vassall. Newspapers reported that “next morning [they] set out for Boston.”)

This shot in Lincoln is only the second example I’ve found of someone in Massachusetts firing a gun at a supporter of the royal government. The first had occurred a couple of weeks earlier in Taunton.

According to Daniel Leonard, a veteran of the last war named Job Williams came to his house with a warning that “the People were to assemble” to protest how he had joined the mandamus Council. Leonard left, thinking that would head off the problem. Instead, on 22 August , or perhaps make it clear he wouldn’t be welcomed back. That crowd did arrive. Leonard wrote:

about five hundred persons assembled, many of them Freeholders and some of them Officers in the Militia, and formed themselves into a Battalion before my house; they had then no Fire-arms, but generally had clubs. . . .

My Family supposing all would remain quiet, went to bed at their usual hour; at 11 o’Clock in the evening a Party fixed upon the house with small arms and run off; how many they consisted of is uncertain, I suppose not many; four bullets and some Swan-shot entered the house at the windows, part in a lower room and part in the chamber above, where one Capt. Job Williams lodged. The balls that were fired into the lower room were in a direction to his bed, but were obstructed by the Chamber floor. . . . I conclude it possible that the attack upon the house was principally designed for him.

Back in 1769–1770, there had been three increasingly notorious incidents of government supporters shooting at crowds of protestors: the “Neck Riot,” Ebenezer Richardson killing Christopher Seider, and of course the Boston Massacre. But even in that period Massachusetts protestors had never shot at royal officials or their supporters.

These untraceable gunshots in the late summer of 1774 show that some people in Massachusetts were starting to think it was acceptable to use that level of violence against Loyalists.

“Mr. Brattle presents his Duty to Governor Gage.”

In August 1774, Gen. Thomas Gage asked William Brattle, general overseeing the Middlesex County militia, for an inventory of the gunpowder in the Charlestown powderhouse.

I’ve quoted Brattle’s reply before, but that was an astonishing seventeen years ago, so I’m running that text again, as it appeared in the 5 September Boston Gazette. Apologies to anyone who remembers it exactly from before.

On 27 August, Brattle wrote:

Mr. Brattle presents his Duty to Governor Gage. He apprehends it his Duty to acquaint his Excellency from Time to Time with every Thing he hears and knows to be true and is of Importance in these troublesome Times, which is the Apology Mr. Brattle makes for troubling the General with this Letter.

Capt. [Jonas] Minot of Concord, a very worthy Man, this Minute informed Mr. Brattle that there had been repeatedly made pressing Applications to him to warn his Company to meet at one Minute’s Warning, equipt with Arms and Ammunition, according to law, he had constantly denied them, adding, if he did not gratify them he should be constrained to quit his Farms and Town;

Mr. Brattle told him he had better do that than lose his Life and be hanged for a Rebel, he observed that many Captains had done it, though not in the Regiment to which he belonged, which was and is under Col. Elisha Jones, but in a neighbouring Regiment.

Mr. Brattle begs Leave humbly to quere, Whether it would not be best that there should not be one Commission Officer of the Militia in the Province.

This morning the Select Men of Medford, came and received their Town Stock of Powder, which was in the Arsenal on Quarry-Hill, so that there is now therein, the King’s Powder only, which shall remain there as a sacred Depositum till ordered out by the Capt. General.

To his Excellency General Gage, &c. &c. &c.

This time around, I’m struck by the phrase “warn his company to meet at one minute’s warning, equipt with arms and ammunition.” This was weeks before the Worcester County Convention issued a call for towns to prepare a third of their militia members ”to be ready to act at a minute’s warning.” When the Massachusetts Provincial Congress endorsed that call in October, it left out the reference to a minute. Nonetheless, the popular term for those units became “minute companies” and “minute men.”

This 27 August letter shows that the proposal to have fighting men ready in a minute was already in the air before it became a formal proposal and before it reached print.

Indeed, because Brattle’s letter was transcribed into a lot of newspapers that September, it might well have played a role in popularizing the “minute’s warning” metric. And of course, that letter set off the chain of events that produced the “Powder Alarm.”

For more about that “Powder Alarm” and its Sestercentennial significance, you can listen to my conversation with Tiziana Dearing on WBUR’s Radio Boston show. And come out to the commemorations this Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday.

A City Project to Reconstruct Charlestown in June 1775

Last month, on the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Boston’s Archaeology Program announced the release of research on the people who lived in Charlestown at that time.

During the battle, most of the town burned to the ground. That event provided a physical marker in the ground, and also a documentary milestone as inhabitants filed claims for their losses. However, the department notes, “Despite multiple attempts over half a century, no funds were ever granted.”

Using real estate records compiled by Thomas Bellows Wyman in The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown (two volumes, 1879), the City Archaeology Team produced a map of property ownership in June 1775 that can be viewed here. The announcement says, “Each property is clickable, with details including a direct link to the property deed (via free familysearch.org account).”

The next step: “property descriptions based on deeds and claims documents to better understand the layout of buildings, structures, wharves, agricultural spaces, fences, and other landscape features for a future 3D landscape reconstruction of 1775 Charlestown.”

Another product of this effort is a reconstructed “census” for Charlestown in 1775, here in spreadsheet form.

Finally, there are multiple databases about the claims themselves, now housed in the Boston Public Library. Those documents have been scanned and are being transcribed, but the index is already available.

One name that stood out for researchers and myself was Margaret Thomas, filing for the loss of a house and furnishings worth £68.9, as shown here.

Wyman listed Margaret Thomas as “Spinster,” house owner, and “negro of Bartholomew Trow,” a Charlestown militia officer. Perhaps she had been enslaved in the Trow family, and anxious authorities still recorded that link even after she was buying real estate of her own.

Was this the same Margaret Thomas who worked at Gen. George Washington’s Cambridge headquarters by February 1776, joined the general’s traveling domestic staff, and married William Lee before the end of the war? We know that other people who came to work at the commander’s headquarters in 1775–76 had been burned out of Charlestown.

The handwriting on the “Summary Accompt.” filed with the town doesn’t match the signature on a receipt Margaret Thomas signed in Valley Forge in April 1778. But it’s possible that the claim was filed by someone else on Thomas’s behalf, or that this summary was copied by someone else. It’s definitely a lead worth following up.

Preview of “The Promise of Liberty” in Charlestown

From now till Monday, coinciding with the battle anniversary, the Bunker Hill Museum is playing host to a pop-up exhibit of historic documents showing the expansion of American constitutional freedom, organized by Seth Kaller.

Pictured above are:

• 18 July 1776 New-England Chronicle printing of the Declaration of Independence.
• Newspaper printing of the proposed new U.S. Constitution, followed by George Washington’s letter to the Congress as convention chairman explaining the benefits of the new government framework.
• Newspaper reporting the first twelve proposed amendments to that constitution.
• Statement autographed by Frederick Douglass.
• Newspaper report on Abraham Lincoln’s speech in Independence Hall on his way to Washington, D.C., in 1861.
• Poster from 1913 showing the progress of woman suffrage.
• Prepared text of Martin Luther King’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial, to which he improvised the “Dream” passage.

The exhibit also includes a display dedicated to religious liberty and inclusion with a reproduction of President George Washington’s letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, a speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and more.

This is a prototype of a larger traveling exhibit (or series of exhibits) that Kaller envisions called The Promise of Liberty. Its website explains:

The Exhibit aims to inspire a sense of unity and pride that cuts across political divides, while encouraging gratitude for the liberties we have and igniting a collective determination to defend and expand upon the liberties promised 250 years ago.

The organization is now talking to potential sponsors, partners, and hosts in the Sestercentennial years. In the meantime, folks can get a preview in Charlestown this weekend. 

The British March to the 1/88th of a Mile

So far this month I’ve been looking at the publishing history of Lt. Col. Robert Donkin’s Historical Collections and Remarks, particularly the removal of an incendiary footnote and how that might have affected the publishing schedule.

There are other significant blanks in the book, not made by a knife but left by the author.

On page 170, Donkin discussed the British troops’ march to Concord on 18–19 Apr 1775.

Donkin’s praise for the redcoats’ endurance would have been more impressive if he’d actually stated how long they marched. Instead, he left blanks: “the space of     hours,” “about     miles,” “less than     hours!”

Did Donkin just forget, and Hugh Gaine’s print shop never told him? Did he expect to write those figures in after printing, only to be caught up in the footnote brouhaha and capturing Philadelphia?

However it came about, Donkin didn’t tell readers how long the march to Concord was, in space or time. Just that it was impressive, believe him.

Frank Warren Coburn undertook the measurement in his 1912 study, The Battle of April 19, 1775. He had the advantage of bicycle with a cyclometer that measured distance to the 88th of a mile, or 60 feet. Coburn calculated that the companies who went all the way to James Barrett’s house and back to Bunker’s Hill traveled 39 and 71/88 miles. That’s over five miles more than the troops who stopped in central Concord.

As to time, which was measured less exactly in the eighteenth century, David Hackett Fischer rounded up all the reports and estimates of when things happened in Appendix L of Paul Revere’s Ride (1995), and Derek W. Beck further analyzed those in Appendix 7 of Igniting the American Revolution (2015).

Based on those analyses, the figures Donkin was looking for were:

• the troops were under fire for eight hours, from leaving Concord at noon to reaching Charlestown around 8 P.M.
• on average, the soldiers who went to Concord marched about 36 miles.
• if we time that march as starting in Cambridge at 2 A.M. and ending in Charlestown, then the whole mission took 18 hours.

However, if we start the clock when the troops got into boats to cross the Charles River and end it with those troops coming back across the river from Charlestown, that was about 24 hours.

Ending the Year by Burning Tea

In my write-up of the Charlestown tea burning, I mixed up the date of the town meeting when everyone agreed to stop selling tea (28 Dec 1773) with the date the townspeople burned their stocks of tea (31 December, or 250 years ago today).

That in turn led to misdating when a crowd from Boston confiscated Ebenezer Withington’s tea in Dorchester.

I’ve corrected those postings.

To my chagrin, I found that I’d actually flagged a source to discuss on this date, but while traveling during this holiday season I overlooked that draft.

So here is a timely account of the events of 31 Dec 1773 from our old friend, merchant John Rowe:

The People of Charlestown collected what Tea they could find in The Town & burnt it in the View of a thousand Spectators.

There was found in the House of One Withington of Dorchester About half a Chest of Tea

the People gathered together & took the Tea Brought it into the Common of Boston & Burnt it this Night about Eleven of Clock—

This is Supposed to be part of the Tea that was taken out of the Ships and floated over to Dorchester—

Rowe’s recounting (probably second-hand) adds a couple of details to the newspaper report: the large crowd in Charlestown and a more precise timing of the tea-burning on Boston Common.

Overall, these incidents show that, despite fears of how the London government would react to the destruction of East India Company property, Bostonians were closing out the year by getting more strict about enforcing their tea boycott on everyone.

“A Number of the Cape or Narragansett-Indians” in Dorchester

On 31 Dec 1773, as recounted yesterday, Charlestown burned its tea at high noon. Everyone could see that happen, but of course bonfires are even more visible at night.

As that action took place across the Charles River north of Boston, another drama was playing out to the south in Dorchester.

Last year I quoted sources about the search for tea that survived destruction in the harbor, floated across to the Dorchester shore, and was reportedly being sold by a man named Withington.

After searching two houses (with the assent of two homeowners named Withington), a crowd said by local Samuel Pierce to be “from Boston” found the rumored tea at the home of Ebenezer Withington.

Leaving Dorchester to deal with the man through its town meeting, the Bostonians carried that tea back to Boston and used it to fuel their own bonfire after dark on Boston Common.

When the Boston Gazette reported on this event on 3 Jan 1774, it said the search had been carried about by “a Number of the Cape or Narragansett-Indians.” This was, I believe, the first time the press had referred to the men destroying tea not merely as dressed like Indians but actually as Indians (wink, wink).

When Edes & Gill first reported on the destruction of the East India Company tea, their 20 December Boston Gazette printed two accounts which described the actors quite differently.

The story on Page 3 said the raiders were “A number of brave & resolute men, determined to do all in their power to save their country from the ruin which their enemies had plotted.” That account treated those men as respectable members of Massachusetts society, taking collective civic action.

However, “An Impartial Observer” on page 2 described “a number of persons, supposed to be the Aboriginal Natives from their complexion,” and later referred to those people as “Savages.” These destroyers came from outside civilized society, so Boston couldn’t be held responsible for their action. That approach prevailed in the following months.

The Boston Gazette’s account of events on 31 December showed that dichotomy. North of Boston, the people of Charlestown acted through their town meeting, through collective boycotts, and at high noon. South of Boston, “the Cape or Narragansett-Indians” carried out intimidating actions, destroyed imperial property, and acted in the dark.