“By Doctor Church I send”

As recounted yesterday, after returning from besieged Boston on 23 Apr 1775, Dr. Benjamin Church told Paul Revere that he’d been detained by Gov. Thomas Gage’s troops and kept in a North End barrack for most of his time in town.

Church’s Patriot colleagues accepted that story, probably even admired his daring. They chose him to travel to Philadelphia and consult with the Continental Congress, and the Congress in turn made him Surgeon-General of its army.

However, the documentary record I explored earlier this week casts doubt on Church’s story. While in Boston he was clearly communicating with relatives of his colleagues and offering to deliver letters for them.

On 22 April, Edmund Quincy gave Church two letters to carry out of town: to his daughter Dorothy and to her fiancé, John Hancock. The letter to Dolly Quincy refers to the “opporty (unexpected) by Doctr. Church” to communicate. There’s no apparent worry about Church being under the royal authorities’ control.

In addition, Edmund’s son Henry Quincy wrote a letter to the elder Dr. John Sprague in Dedham, shown here. That too stated: “Dr. Church Arrived here this PM. from Concord on Business with the General is Allowed in the Morning to Return.”

In further addition, Rachel Revere (shown above) wrote a short, undated note to her husband Paul. That began “by Doctor Church I send a hundred & twenty five pounds”—probably devalued Old Tenor currency.

All those documents are in the files of Gen. Gage. Did soldiers seize them from Dr. Church as he left Boston? That wouldn’t explain how those same files contain Dr. John Homans’s note to Dr. Joseph Gardner asking for surgical knives, which Church carried into town. 

When Allen French explored Church’s activities in General Gage’s Informers (1932), the letter from Rachel Revere was one of the prime pieces of proof that the doctor was cooperating with the royal authorities. I wrote about the Homans letter in an article for New England Ancestors in 2006. The Quincy letters add more evidence to that pile.

I wonder what Dr. Church told his colleagues when he arrived back in Cambridge, knowing that their relatives inside Boston would eventually mention that they’d given him letters to deliver. Presumably to maintain his cover the doctor spoke ruefully of having the big, bad soldiers take all his papers away. No one appears to have spoken of those missing documents as evidence of Church’s treachery, even after Gen. George Washington put him under arrest in October.

All the documents I’m speaking of remain in the Thomas Gage Papers at the Clements Library in Michigan. The library has just released digital scans of Gage’s correspondence in the weeks after the start of the war (along with poor computerized transcriptions which I’ve largely ignored). I’m sure there are some surprises to be found, as well as more evidence for what we already know.

“Grant they may all hang together”

Was “We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately” (or the shorter form “We must all hang together, or separately”) an established saying by 1776?

Other phrases we often now attribute to a particular Founder, such as “Facts are stubborn things” and “A penny saved is a penny earned,” turn out to have been common aphorisms.

The hallmarks of such sayings seem to be:

• There’s a standard wording, with only slight variations.
• That wording shows up multiple times in the written record.

I haven’t found evidence of those things when it comes to the “hang together/separately” wordplay. As I noted yesterday, as early as 1681 two British playwrights penned lines that played off the double meaning of “hang”—but in different forms.

I couldn’t find further examples in a search of colonial American newspapers. Now I might not have hit on the right wording, but that suggests the wordplay hadn’t cemented itself in the language yet.

I did find jokes using the “hang together” phrase, but not in the context of a warning for unity. For example, on 14 Sept 1779 the Norwich Packet reprinted an essay from the Connecticut Courant that included this passage:

But that Congress should be ass-riden with a junto, is a matter that wants proof. This junto, by your account of it, is as full of wonders as the beast in the Revelations is of horns, and near as powerful. It consists, you say, mostly of New-England men; who we know are elected not without regard to their religion as well as their politics: Yet they are here combined to vote alike in all cases, let oath and conscience go where it will, and let the public interest go where it will. They are to take care of themselves and connections, and at all events hang together; and if all this is true they ought all to hang in one halter; and I should have no objection, Sir, if you crave the jobb, to your being hangman.

On 8 Sept 1785 the New-York Packet printed this “BON MOT.”:

A SCOTCH Parson in the Rump-time, in his prayer, said, Laird bless the grand council, the parliament, and grant they may all hang together.

A country fellow standing by, said, Yes, yes, with all my heart, and the sooner the better; and I am sure it is the prayers of all good people.

But friends, said Sawney, I don’t mean as that fellow means, but pray they may all hang together in accord and concord.

No matter what cord, replied the other, so it is but a strong cord.

That joke appears to blame the Scottish clergy, or Scotsmen in general, for supporting the ongoing Long Parliament of 1648–1653. In fact, Scotland was politically wary of that English Parliament and its policies, and Oliver Cromwell invaded the kingdom to keep the Scots from providing a haven for Charles II. However unfair, that joke was reprinted in other American newspapers for years afterward.

A variation appeared in The Paragon Jester; Or, The Polite Wit’s Museum, published in Southwark, London, in 1798:

Hugh Peters being to preach a sermon to one of the companies of London, and desired therein to exhort them to love and unity; he concluded his sermon with a wish that they might be all joined in concord, accord, or any cord, so that they might all hang together.

This version lampooned an English preacher who supported the Puritan Parliament, Cromwell, and the execution of Charles I. The Rev. Hugh Peter was himself executed for treason in 1660, making him a safe target for this joke a century later.

In sum, while eighteenth-century British and American writers did craft jokes using the double meaning of “hang together,” there doesn’t seem to have been a pithy saying with that phrase. In particular, we don’t have evidence of the phrase being used with the political alternative of hanging separately.

Two people who were in Philadelphia in 1774 and 1775 (Alexander Graydon and John Adams) later said Richard Penn came up with the resonant witticism, and Carter Braxton wrote it down (crediting “a Wit”) in 1776. So that looks like the origin of the joke, even if Benjamin Franklin ended up with most of the credit.

“It is a true saying of a Wit”

In 2014 and again in 2016, I noted that the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor Richard Penn was the first Revolutionary figure credited with this remark:

An evidence of this was the pleasantry ascribed to him, on occasion of a member of Congress, one day observing to his compatriots, that at all events “they must hang together:”

“If you do not, gentlemen,” said Mr. Penn, “I can tell you that you will be very apt to hang separately.”

More recently, the Professor Buzzkill podcast called my attention to a letter the Virginia delegate Carter Braxton wrote on 14 Apr 1776:

Upon reviewing the secret movements of Men and things I am convinced the Assertion of Independence is far off. If it was to be now asserted, the Continent would be torn in pieces by Intestine Wars and Convulsions. Previous to Independence all disputes must be healed and Harmony prevail. A grand Continental league must be formed and a superintending Power also. When these necessary Steps are taken and I see a Coalition formed sufficient to withstand the Power of Britain, or any other, then am I for an independent State and all its Consequences, as then I think they will produce Happiness to America. It is a true saying of a Wit—We must hang together or separately.

Less than three months later, Braxton voted for independence.

Did Braxton have a particular “Wit” in mind? Alas, he didn’t say.

TOMORROW: Flemish roots?

“General Folsom proposes also to retire”

On 30 June 1775, Gen. Artemas Ward received word of his new commission as major general in the new Continental Army.

Ward immediately wrote back to John Hancock, chair of the Continental Congress, accepting the post. He also warned that “the Appointments in this Colony [Massachusetts]” might “create Uneasiness.”

They did, along with those for Connecticut generals, as I wrote last month.

And what about Nathaniel Folsom, who’d just solidified his authority over the New Hampshire colonels at the siege? His letter dated 1 July indicates no one had told him about the Continental Congress’s commissions yet.

As I’ve stated, the New Hampshire Provincial Congress had named Folsom as the colony’s general officer in April, and then reaffirmed that choice in May.

Yet New Hampshire’s delegates to the Continental Congress apparently didn’t pass on that news. Nor did those men, John Sullivan and John Langdon, suggest that the senior New Hampshire officer already at the siege, John Stark, be made a brigadier general.

Instead, they apparently looked around and told their colleagues in Philadelphia that the very best choice of a general from New Hampshire was…John Sullivan.

Sullivan (shown above, nominally) didn’t have any military experience from the last war, unlike Folsom, Stark, and the next two colonels, Enoch Poor and James Reed. He was younger than all those men. But Sullivan was in Philadelphia, and he was enthusiastic. So on 22 June he got the nod.

Gen. George Washington left Philadelphia the next day and arrived in Cambridge on 2 July, carrying commissions for his subordinates. His first general orders, issued the next morning, acknowledged the presence of “General Falsam.” But the conversations were probably awkward.

Sullivan arrived in Massachusetts a week later. So far as I know, there are no documents preserving his interactions with Folsom and the colonels.

On 20 July, Washington told Hancock and the Congress that “General Folsom proposes also to retire.” The older man returned to New Hampshire. On 24 August, its provincial congress “Voted That Nathaniel Folsom; Esqr. be the General Officer over the Militia in this Colony.” So he got to keep the rank of general.

Folsom remained active in New Hampshire politics, and he also served a second stint in the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1780. He presided over his state’s constitutional convention in 1783. And then, because that constitution forbade plural office-holding, he resigned his post as militia general in favor of being chief judge of his county.

Nathaniel Folsom exercised unchallenged command of New Hampshire’s army from 24 June to 3 July 1775, or a little over a week. He oversaw New Hampshire’s wartime militia for eight years.

A Hero of Lake George

The Battle of Lake George on 8 Sept 1755 probably involved fewer than 3,500 men, a little more on the British side than the French. Each commander reported that his force had faced a much larger foe, however.

Each commander also reported inflicting more casualties than his force suffered, and more casualties than the rival commander reported. In fact, it seems impossible to pinpoint the number of dead and wounded.

Both sides lost leaders, however. On the French side, Baron Dieskau was wounded and captured, and Canadian commandant Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre was killed. The British lost Col. Ephraim Williams and Mohawk ally Hendrick Theyanoguin. Among the provincial officers who died of their wounds was Capt. William Maginnis of New York.

Gen. William Johnson was wounded early in the fighting near Lake George and had to sit out the rest of the battle. Not that he mentioned the last detail in his report to the Crown. Nor did he name Col. Phineas Lyman as the officer who took over and completed that part of the fight. But of course Johnson portrayed the battle as a great victory for Britain.

It probably was a British victory, though limited and costly. Crown forces could now move safely from Fort Lyman to Lake George, and the lakefront was clear enough to build another fort there.

But that clash was an even bigger win for William Johnson, Britain’s liaison to the Iroquois and new provincial general. He was made a baronet, thus Sir William Johnson. Eventually Benjamin West painted Johnson nobly sparing a French officer from attack by a Native warrior, as shown above.

The new baronet returned the king’s favor, renaming the nearby landmarks for the royal family: Lac du Saint-Sacrement became Lake George after George II, Fort Lyman became Fort Edward after one of the king’s grandsons (another slight for Phineas Lyman), and the new fort was dubbed Fort William Henry after the king’s younger son and another grandson. Since the territory remained in British hands, those names prevail.

As the senior (and surviving) British captain in the last part of this battle, Nathaniel Folsom enjoyed some of that glory. He rose within the New Hampshire military establishment, ranked as a colonel within a couple of years. Folsom’s businesses in Exeter prospered.

In 1774 the province chose Nathaniel Folsom as a representative to the First Continental Congress, alongside John Sullivan. His son, Nathaniel, Jr., participated in the first raid on Fort William and Mary that December. Decades later a veteran named Gideon Lamson stated (using military titles the men acquired later):

At nine, Colonel [John] Langdon came to Stoodley’s and acquainted General Folsom and company with the success of the enterprise,—that General Sullivan was then passing up the river with the loaded boats of powder and cannon.

Folsom took charge of one barrel of gunpowder removed from the fort.

Given Nathaniel Folsom’s success in the last war, his support for the Patriot resistance, and his activity in the New Hampshire Provincial Congress, it’s no surprise that that body voted to make him commander of the province’s troops on 21 Apr 1775. The legislators reaffirmed that decision on 23 May.

The problem was that no one had checked with the officer who was actually leading the New Hampshire troops around Boston.

TOMORROW: Stark divide.

“To raise immediately Two Thousand Effective Men in this Province”

I’ve now traced the establishment of the Massachusetts army, the Connecticut army, and the Rhode Island army, all signed up to fight until the end of 1775.

So let’s turn to look at the formation of the New Hampshire army.

Unlike Connecticut and Rhode Island, New Hampshire had a royal governor appointed by the Crown: John Wentworth. Starting in early 1774, the provincial legislature would meet for a few days before taking some resistance action. Gov. Wentworth would then dissolve the body or prorogue the session.

New Hampshire towns elected delegates to two provincial congresses beyond the governor’s control, on 21 July 1774 and 24 Feb 1775. Those gatherings had a simple brief: to choose representatives at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Local militia companies took over Fort William and Mary in December 1774—arguably the first military confrontation of the war. Gov. Wentworth remained in New Hampshire as events slipped well out of his control.

Then came the news of the fighting at Lexington. Some New Hampshire militia companies headed toward Boston. On 21 April, a third provincial congress met at Exeter, choosing John Wentworth (a different John Wentworth, naturally) to preside.

This congress was ready for much broader action. It voted to:

• ask Col. Nathaniel Folsom to take command of the New Hampshire troops who had gone into Massachusetts.
• send a committee to meet with the Massachusetts Provincial Congress about how many soldiers were needed.

Meanwhile, Gov. Wentworth convened an official assembly on 4 May. That legislature elected the other John Wentworth as speaker, as usual. But it was clear that power had shifted. The colony’s leaders wanted to address the war and no longer wanted to answer to the governor.

A fourth New Hampshire Provincial Congress assembled on 17 May. Three days later, those delegates resolved “to raise immediately Two Thousand Effective Men in this Province, including officers & those of this Province, already in the service.” The body chose to follow Massachusetts’s “Establishment of officers and soldiers” and to apply “to the Continental Congress for their advice & assistance respecting means & ways”—i.e., paying for all this.

On 22 May, the provincial congress appointed two “muster Masters for the present,” to “Regularly Muster all the men inlisted in the several Compys. in the Regiment commanded by Coll. [John] Stark.” These were the militia companies who had already joined the siege lines. The next day, the congress again named Col. Folsom “to take the general command.”

Together those acts in the middle of May 1775 are treated as the official establishment of New Hampshire’s army. Thus, by law the New England troops around Boston were no longer militia companies.

But there were still some wrinkles to iron out.

TOMORROW: Nathaniel Folsom at war.

“In full compensation of the damage he sustained”

For more than a week now I’ve traced Henry Howell Williams’s quest for compensation after the Battle of Chelsea Creek in May 1774 destroyed his estate on Noddle’s Island in Boston harbor.

In 1788, the Confederation Congress’s board of treasury sent him back to Massachusetts. After all, those commissioners said, his livestock had been taken and his farm burned before the Continental Army legally existed. This was a state matter.

I don’t have access to Massachusetts legislative journals from that period, but Williams must have submitted a petition during the session that started in May 1789.

On 23 June, Gov. John Hancock and state secretary John Avery signed off on this resolution passed by both houses of the General Court:

Resolved, that the Treasurer of this Commonwealth be and he hereby is directed to issue his note in behalf of the Commonwealth in favor of Henry Howell Williams, for the sum of two thousand pounds and interest thereon from date of the same in full compensation of the damage he sustained from having his stock and other property taken from him or destroyed in consequence of orders given by the commanding officer of the Massachusetts troops [Artemas Ward] in the month of May, 1775, and that the same be charged to the United States.

Williams would get £2,000. That wasn’t all he’d asked for, but it was more than half, and more than his own estimate of the value of the livestock he said the army had confiscated.

Massachusetts would supposedly try to get reimbursed for that payment from the federal government. I doubt it ever saw money back, but I don’t know how to track that now that Williams’s name was probably no longer attached to the request.

Williams had been seeking such compensation since the summer of 1775. He had asked each of these bodies for money:

• Massachusetts Provincial Congress.
• Massachusetts General Court under the provincial charter, seeking relief.
• Massachusetts General Court, seeking a loan.
• Congress of the U.S. of A. under the Articles of Confederation, through its agent.
• Congress of the U.S. of A. by direct petition.
• Massachusetts General Court under the constitution of 1780.

Some men might have been satisfied with £2,000. But not Williams.

Three years later he went back to Massachusetts legislators and asked if that “full compensation” from the state meant he couldn’t also ask the new federal government for money. Five members of the committees that had considered his claim in 1789 signed off on a document dated 14 Feb 1792 saying their resolution was

by no means and in no sense to preclude any further grant, Which The Federal Legislature, or any other government, May think proper to make said Williams.

So Williams sent yet another petition off to the new national capital of Philadelphia.

TOMORROW: In the room where it didn’t happen.

“The Memorialist should apply to that source for relief”

In 1787, the Confederation Congress was meeting in New York, at City Hall and the Fraunces Tavern (shown here).

When Henry Howell Williams asked for more than £3,600 in compensation for losses from Noddle’s Island twelve years earlier, the Congress referred his request to its Board of Treasury. (This must have happened after 10 Apr 1787, when Williams wrote to Secretary of War Henry Knox asking for his help with this petition.)

That treasury board consisted of three men, all recent Congress delegates:

• Samuel Osgood, a merchant from Andover and Continental Army veteran who had moved to New York. He would later be the first Postmaster General under the new Constitution.
• Walter Livingston of New York, like Osgood a former army commissary.
• Arthur Lee of Virginia, who had studied both medicine and law in Britain, helped John Dickinson to write “The Liberty Song,” and spent the 1770s in Europe as an American lobbyist and diplomat annoying other American lobbyists and diplomats.

These were the same three men who considered Richard Gridley’s request for payment for a horse killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill (fought 250 years ago today).

On 1 Aug 1788 that board told the Congress:

the damage done to the property of the Memorialist, and the articles stated to have been applied to the benefit of the United States, was previous to the formation of an Army, under the authority of the Union.

The Board are therefore of opinion, that if the evidence adduced in proof of the value and quantity of the articles stated to have been applied to the public use was more satisfactory than in fact it is, it would be improper to establish a Precedent, in the present instance, for an admission of numerous Claims, on the merits of which it would be impossible for the Officers of the Treasury to form any competent judgement.

The general fact, of a very valuable property belonging to the Memoralist, having been either destroyed or used for the benefit of the Army assembled at Boston in the month of May 1775, by order of a Board of General Officers, appears by the Certificate of the late Commissioner of Accounts for the State of Massachusets, marked A, to have been well established:

Inasmuch however as the aforesaid property appears to have been applied for the immediate benefit of the State, and as the merits of the Claim can be best ascertained under their authority, The Board are of opinion, that the Memorialist should apply to that source for relief; and should Claims of a similar description be hereafter allowed by the general Board of Commissioners, the State will obtain reimbursement for such sums as shall appear an equitable compensation for the real damage sustained by the Memorialist.

In short, the Congress sent Williams back to Massachusetts since the Battle of Chelsea Creek happened before any Continental Army legally existed.

It’s probably also significant that the Confederation Congress was on its last legs. It didn’t have enough money to pay all its bills. So few delegates were coming to New York that the body often lacked a quorum—hence the use of commissioners for day-to-day administration, and the long delay in actions. By the time this board submitted its report, a new Constitution was being publicly debated.

TOMORROW: Back to Massachusetts.

“Satisfied that he was intitled to a large allowance”

After listing more than £3,600 of property lost on Noddle’s Island in May and June of 1775, Henry Howell Williams presented that document to the Continental Congress’s agent in Boston and asked to be paid back.

That agent was Royal Flint (1754–1797), from Windham, Connecticut. A Yale graduate, he became a Connecticut paymaster in 1776 and eventually a Continental assistant commissary-general under Jeremiah Wadsworth. He had accompanied the army command to Valley Forge and Morristown, New Jersey. Flint was thus used to dealing with paperwork and property.

In 1786 the Congress appointed Flint to settle Continental accounts in New England, laying out procedures for him to follow. (In a possible conflict of interest, he was also starting to speculate in western lands, an enterprise that took up all of his time after 1790 and soon broke him.)

It appears that Williams approached Flint in 1786. Flint explained that his job was to settle outstanding bills with military contractors. Even if Williams’s livestock did ultimately benefit the army, he didn’t qualify. Instead, Flint advised Williams to ask for special consideration from the small Confederation bureaucracy.

On 1 Apr 1787 Williams got Flint to write that out in a certificate now shared by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Flint told the Congress, then meeting in New York:

soon after I entered upon the duties of my office as Commissioner for Settling public accounts in this State, the annexed claim was presented to me for allowance by Mr. Henry H. Williams.

As some part of it was for articles that were destroyed & which were productive of no advantage to the United States; and as none of it was Supported by regular vouchers, I suspended my determination upon it ’till I had obtained the best evidence that could be found.

The charges for the loss of Household furniture and whatever was received merely as damage could not be admitted at this Office; therefore I did not so critically investigate the proofs which were to establish that part of the Account. But that part of the claim which related to supplies of provision, or any other articles which were applied for the benefit of the United States, could be admitted, if the evidence of the fact was Satisfactory.

Under this idea, I suggested to Mr. Williams the propriety of stating in a Separate account such articles as were applied for the use of the Army; and to produce his evidence both with respect to the value & appropriation of them. From a great concurrence of testimony, he established the general fact, that his property was taken at the time & in the manner set forth in his memorial.

We also made it evident that the horses taken were turned into public Service; whether for this State or the United States, some of the witnisses were at a loss. The Honorable Moses Gill Esqr. & the late Major Genl. [Israel] Putnam informed me, they were actually applied for the United States. The number & value of the horses was not ascertained with any precision, but it was well proved that the horses were valuable & the number considerable.

It was proved to me that some Cattle & Sheep were slaughtered for the use of the Army, but the quantity was altogether uncertain.

Upon the whole, as this claim was for so large an amount, & the evidence in support of it not precise, I recommended to Mr. Williams to lay the affair before the Commissioners of the Treasury. I was however Satisfied that he was intitled to a large allowance & should have admitted that part of the account which related to articles appropriated to public use, with some deductions.

But the claimant preferred laying a memorial before the Honorable Congress under the expectation that the whole claim will be admitted. It must be Settled by general estimation. The nature of the transaction was Such as to exclude all possibility of accurate testimony. The evidence is satisfactory as far as it goes. It is perhaps as good as the nature of the case will admit.

That wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but Flint did say that Williams deserved some compensation.

That was enough for Henry Howell Williams, who submitted his request for the whole £3,600+ to the Congress.

TOMORROW: A confederated response.

(Israel Putnam was still alive in 1787, so “the late Major Genl. Putnam” must refer to his having retired from the army.)

Henry Howell Williams as a Quartermaster?

In his 1858 History of East Boston, William H. Sumner wrote, “I think [Henry Howell Williams] was a quartermaster-sergeant in the army” during the siege.

To research that book, Sumner relied on Williams family sources. He wrote favorably of Williams and included the portrait of the man shown here. So that impression probably came from descendants.

In fact, the Continental Congress didn’t establish the rank of quartermaster sergeant until July 1776.

As for the possibility that Williams helped in supplying the Continental Army around Boston less formally, I’ve found no contemporaneous documentation for that. Unless, of course, we count how the Massachusetts government commandeered his livestock for the public benefit.

Adm. Samuel Graves did claim that the destroyed property on Noddle’s Island belonged to “a notorious Rebel then in Arms.” But there’s no evidence for Williams joining the Massachusetts or Continental army. We shouldn’t rely on Graves’s self-justifying account for what was happening on the other side of the siege lines.

Sumner linked Williams’s alleged work for the army to how he obtained some property from the Continental authorities after the siege:

In partial compensation for this destruction of private property was the gift of the barracks at Cambridge, after the army quitted it, by General [George] Washington, to Mr. Williams. . . . The barracks were removed to the Island, and part of them used for a house, which Mr. Williams erected over the old cellar, to be used as tenements for his workmen, and for barns and sheds for the sheep and cattle, at the westerly slope of Camp hill.

Again, I’d like to see contemporaneous evidence for such a gift. Gen. Washington was careful to work with the Continental Congress and local governments in managing public assets, so such a grant should have left a paper trail. The documents I’ve found suggest another story.

[The search function for Founders Online has slowed down considerably in the past month. On 19 May the U.S. government issued an acknowledgment of “periodic degraded performance owing to extreme spikes in traffic caused by excessive website crawling, associated with content scooping from AI platforms and other indexers.” This slowdown coincided with the D.O.G.E. takeover of federal government computer networks. Given that new agency’s faith in A.I. programs, that could be related to the “scooping.”]

TOMORROW: The barracks on Noddle’s Island.

“To turn his back sullenly on his General”?

As discussed yesterday, on 19 July 1775 Gen. Joseph Spencer arrived back in the camps of what was now the Continental Army, bringing a letter from the governor of his home colony of Connecticut, Jonathan Trumbull.

Trumbull asked Gen. George Washington to understand how Spencer was miffed at seeing Israel Putnam promoted to major general over him. And merely because Putnam had led troops in the Battle of Chelsea Creek.

Delivering that letter was probably the first time Spencer had met Washington. And I imagine the discussion was as stiff and cold as the new commander-in-chief could be. As Maj. Samuel Blachley Webb (shown here) wrote on 11 July, Spencer’s departure “without leave or license from Gen. Washington,…displeased him much.”

Indeed, Spencer’s hissy fit had damaged his standing even among his own officers. He’d asked his subordinates to sign a protest on his behalf, and Webb reported:

I have since been to Roxbury, and find the officers, many of them, heartily sick of what they have done, in particular, Maj. [Return Jonathan] Meiggs,—who says he was forced to sign what the others did—to keep peace; and says he had rather serve under Putnam than Spencer.

You’ll find Generals Washington and [Charles] Lee, are vastly more fond, and think higher of Putnam, than any man in the army; and he truly is the Hero of the day. . . . Better is it for us to lose four Spencers than half a Putnam.

News of Putnam’s higher rank “gave universal satisfaction,” Webb added.

Webb was sending these observations to his stepfather, Silas Deane. On 20 July, Deane told his wife how the Continental Congress was responding to Spencer’s behavior:

You can be at no loss to infer what opinion is formed of him from this conduct, in doors and out. Suffice it to say, the voice here is, that he acted a part inconsistent with the character either of a soldier, a patriot, or even of a common gentleman. To desert his post in an hour of danger,—to sacrifice his Country, which he certainly did as far as was in his power,—and to turn his back sullenly on his General, a General, too, of such exalted worth and character,—will, I can assure you, unless he take the most speedy and effectual measures to atone, draw upon him the resentment of the whole Continent.

Neither Deane nor fellow Connecticut delegate Eliphalet Dyer ever pushed Spencer for promotion again. (He was made a major general in the fall of 1776 as part of a general wave of promotions.)

On 21 July, Gen. Washington reported to the Congress that Spencer had agreed to “serve under Puttnam, rather than leave the Army intirely.” The men’s relative ranks would not change.

The next day, Gen. Washington announced a new organization for the Continental Army around Boston. With three major generals under him, he put Artemas Ward in charge of a brigade on the southern side of the siege lines, Lee in charge of the northern wing, and Putnam in charge of the center.

Among the brigadier generals, he assigned Spencer to the southern wing under Ward. Thus, Spencer would answer to a general he’d already acknowledged as senior, not to Putnam. Gov. Trumbull had suggested a similar way of keeping the two Connecticut officers apart. Which wasn’t the sort of issue Washington wanted to face.

Spencer served the rest of the siege, making no distinct contribution at all. He never gained Washington’s trust, and after an unsuccessful Rhode Island campaign he left the army.

“General Spencer’s uneasiness, &c., at being overlooked, &c.”

According to the young Connecticut officer Samuel Blachley Webb, when Gen. Joseph Spencer learned the Continental Congress had ranked Israel Putnam over him, “He began to speak very freely; and finally, persuaded the officers, to remonstrate to the Assembly of Connecticut; and he set off immediately for home.”

Spencer was older than Putnam. He had raised a company for King George’s War in the 1740s while Putnam’s vaunted military career began in 1755. The Connecticut legislature had granted Spencer seniority, and he wanted to keep that status.

Forty-nine Connecticut officers signed a letter to their legislature that praised Spencer’s “exemplary life, good conduct, prudence, and courage.” It said:

You are sensible it will be with great reluctance our Troops at Roxbury could see their General superseded by an officer in previous lower command. We have no objection to the appointment of Generals [George] Washington and [Charles] Lee, and shall endeavour to preserve the good order and submission to their government as hath before distinguished this part of the Connecticut Troops whilst under General Spencer’s command; but the late arrangement so far removes General Spencer from his former command, that he cannot and will not continue in the service under this arrangement.

In his home colony, Spencer seemed to get the support he was after. In Lebanon on 13 July, Gov. Jonathan Trumbull showed his Council a draft letter to Gen. Washington about the issue. The official record of that meeting says the letter was

hinting at General Spencer’s uneasiness, &c., at being overlooked, &c., and that it was beside our expectations, &c., and proposing, &c., that said General Spencer may remain stationed at Roxbury with the body of Connecticut Troops now there, &c.; which are approved, though a small alteration was made in the Letter to gratify Gen. Spencer after he came in, &c.

Two politicians, Samuel Huntington and William Williams (the governor’s son-in-law and speaker of the assembly), went to the tavern where Spencer was staying to hear him out about “his dissatisfaction, &c.” They tried to “reconcile him cheerfully to pursue the service.”

That afternoon, Gov. Trumbull and the Council invited Spencer to join their meeting. They

had a long conference with him on the subject matter of his being superseded by the General Congress, in putting Gen. Putnam above him &c., which he thinks very hard of and resents &c., and is at length persuaded to return to the army and not at present quit the service as he proposed; and Genl. Spencer set out on his return to camp with the letters to Genl. Washington.

Trumbull’s letter to Gen. Washington said that “Generals [David] Wooster and Spencer will think they have reason to complain” about their ranking relative to Putnam and suggested a “Method to obviate the difficulties that are apprehended”:

The Army before Boston is necessarily thrown into two Grand Divisions. General Spencer with a Number of Our Troops hath hitherto been at Roxbury, and General Putnam at Cambridge —That Destination continued and Observed, may prevent uneasy Competition; preserve good order, and promote the public Service.

Spencer arrived back on the siege lines around Boston on 19 July.

TOMORROW: A triumphant return?

“Genl. Putnams fame ran so high”

Another consequence of the Battle of Chelsea Creek was that it raised the profile of Israel Putnam (1718—1790).

Putnam was already well known in North America. He’d fought for several years in past wars. He served in Maj. Robert Rogers’s rangers, on the Crown’s naval expedition against Havana in 1762, and even in Pontiac’s War.

People also passed around a story of Putnam crawling into the den of a wolf on his farm, so his personal bravery and strength were beyond doubt.

Around the start of 1775, a Pennsylvanian wrote to London to refute the idea that the Americans would need Charles Lee to command an army. That letter said:

the colonies are not so wrapped up in Gen. Lee’s military accomplishments as to give him the preference to Col. Putnam and Col. [George] Washington,—men whose military talents and achievements have placed them at the head of American heroes. There are several hundred thousand Americans who would face any danger with these illustrious heroes to lead them.

Then in early June 1775 reports of the fighting on and off Noddle’s Island reached Philadelphia. Those reports noted that Putnam, now a Connecticut general, had led the New England troops in the field. And successfully! (In fact, this was the only time Putnam would be present at a significant American victory for the rest of the war.)

Noddle’s Island was the latest news when the Continental Congress decided to adopt the New England army as the Continental Army in mid-June, appointing Washington commander-in-chief and commissioning more generals to serve under him. The Congress chose these men as major generals, in order: Artemas Ward, Lee, Philip Schuyler, and Putnam. Nine more men were given the rank of brigadier general.

As Connecticut delegate Eliphalet Dyer wrote, “Genl. Putnams fame ran so high as Induced the Congress to give him the Preference” over other candidates for the higher rank. Indeed, Putnam was the only general besides Washington whom the Congress elected unanimously.

Unfortunately, the Connecticut legislature had appointed its generals in this order: David Wooster, Joseph Spencer, and then Putnam. Spencer was on the lines in Massachusetts, thinking he had seniority over Putnam.

On 23 June, Roger Sherman told Wooster that he’d tried to convince his fellow delegates in Philadelphia to stick to the Connecticut ranking:

I informed them, of the arrangement made by our Assembly which I thought would be satisfactory, to have them continue in the same order; but as General Putnam’s fame was spread abroad, and especially his successful enterprise at Noddle’s Island, the account of which had just arrived, it gave him the preference in the opinion of the Delegates in general, so that his appointment was unanimous among the colonies.

Wooster was assigned to the Canada campaign under Schuyler, so he wouldn’t be serving under Putnam. Spencer, on the other hand, faced the prospect of taking orders from a man he’d just outranked. On 10 July, Washington wrote to the Congress:

General Spencer was so much disgusted at the Preference given to General Puttnam, that he left the Army without visiting me, or making known his Intentions in any Respect.

TOMORROW: Rank feelings.

“Choosing a Commander” at the Longfellow–Washington Site, 13 Mar.

On Thursday, 13 March, I’ll speak at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site on “Choosing a Commander: Myths & Realities Behind the Continental Congress’s Decision to Make George Washington the General.”

Two hundred fifty years ago this spring, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress invited the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to take over the direction (and funding) of the army besieging Boston. A big part of that direction was choosing who would command those troops.

Decades later, John Adams left detailed accounts of those discussions. He described himself as the man who advocated for George Washington of Virginia when no one else would.

According to letters Adams wrote in 1815 (and possibly in 1816 but never sent), most Congress delegates preferred either leaving the army in the hands of Gen. Artemas Ward of Massachusetts or hiring former British army lieutenant colonel Charles Lee.

Adams stated:

The Nominations were made, Ward I believe by Mr [Thomas] Cushing, Lee by Mr [Thomas] Mifflin, and Washington by Mr [Thomas] Johnson of Maryland. The opposition to a change was not So warm, as it had been before, but Still each Candidate had his Advocates.

Nevertheless all agreed in the great importance of Unanimity. This point was urged from all quarters of the House with great force of Reason and Eloquence and Pathos that never has been exceeded in the Counsells of this Nation. It was unanimously agreed to postpone in Election to a future day in hopes that Gentlemen by a deliberate Consideration, laying aside all private feelings, local Attachments, and partial motives, might agree in one, and unanimously determine to Support him with all their Influence. The Choice was accordingly postponed.

By this time all the Friends of Ward, among whom there was not one more Sincere than John Adams who had known him at School within two doors of his Fathers house, and who had known him in Worcester in his riper Years, were fully convinced that Washington Should be preferred to Lee; and they had reason to fear that Delegates from the Southern and Middle States would vote for Lee rather than for any New Englandman. And all the Sober Members would have preferred Either Ward or Washington to Lee.

When the day of Election arrived, after some Observations on the necessity of Concord, Harmony and unanimity in the present portentous moment, Congress proceeded to the Choice and the Suffrages were all found to be for George Washington.

In this talk I’ll explore how much the contemporaneous record from 1775, including Adams’s own private letters, supports this recollection.

This event is scheduled to start at 6:00 P.M., and will include questions and answers afterward. It is free, but seating in the Longfellow carriage house is limited. There’s an option to watch the livestream, and a recording will be put on the site’s YouTube channel when ready.

“He will do every Thing any Man can do towards a full Supply”

Philip Mortimer was not from an old New England family and he was Anglican, two traits that might have made him more likely to support the Crown in the pre-war political conflict.

Instead, Mortimer served on the Middletown, Connecticut, committee of correspondence. On 6 Mar 1775, the Connecticut Courant announced that he and George Philips would oversee the public sale of molasses and coffee brought in from Jamaica “agreeable to the 10th Article of said Association.”

That part of the Continental Congress’s boycott agreement said that goods landed between 1 Dec 1774 and 1 Feb 1775 could “be sold under the direction of the committee” covering that region, with “the profit, if any, to be applied towards relieving and employing such poor inhabitants of the town of Boston, as are immediate sufferers by the Boston port-bill.”

Mortimer was also a selectman for the first two years of the war and a justice of the peace.

In 1781, French troops on their way to Yorktown camped on Mortimer’s land in Middletown, according to an article by Allen Forbes for the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The young merchant who married Mortimer’s niece Ann Catharine Carnall, George Starr, was even more active in supporting the American cause. In 1778 Starr, who had the militia rank of captain, became a deputy commissary of hides for the Continental Army. On 26 October Gen. Samuel Holden Parsons wrote to the commander-in-chief from Middletown:

I find Capt. George Starr of this Town is appointed by the Board of War to take Charge of the Leather belonging to the Continent, purchase Shoes, Cartouch Bozes & other Military Accoutrements, by the inclosd Order you will find the Board have impowerd him to contract for those Articles in Exchange for raw Hides; I am fully Satisfied he will do all that any Man can do in that Department;

he informs me he Shall be able to send on about Twelve Hundred pair of Shoes within four Weeks about Seven Hundred of which are now On Hand & will be forwarded as soon as he can procure Buckles for about 300 or 400 Cartouch Bozes which are made and with the Shoes will compleat A Load for One Waggon; he Says he will take every Measure in his Power to procure a large Quantity of Shoes & thinks tis probable he Shall be able to furnish about 1000 or 1500 Pair a Month if the Leather can now be had in exchange for Hides as he is a Man very assiduous in his Business I have no Doubt he will do every Thing any Man can do towards a full Supply—

As to Caps he Says tis impossible to make an Estimate of the Quantity of Leather on Hand suitable for that Business which is not fit for Shoes or to be Usd for Accoutrements or in the Quarter Master’s Department as ’tis not in whole Sides, but part of most of the Leather in working is found unsuitable for other Business which will well Answer for this.

Starr did that job for three years. Even after stepping down he sent George Washington two pairs of boots for his personal use in 1783, though the general was unsatisfied.

TOMORROW: The new postwar order.

(The photo above shows Samuel Holden Parsons’s house in Middletown, now gone, from Damien Cregeau’s article “Top Ten Demolished Houses of Revolutionary War-Era Connecticut” for the Journal of the American Revolution.)

The Barber and the Ship Captain

As I said yesterday, I searched for more information from American sources about the conflict between a New York barber and a British ship captain reported and illustrated in Britain in early 1775.

I couldn’t find any mention of that dispute in the New York press. I spotted no trace in American newspapers of a captain named “Crozer.” 

The British newspaper article claimed that “the worthy sons of liberty in solemn Congress assembled…voted and unanimously” to praise the barber. There was no New York Provincial Congress yet, so that could only mean the Continental Congress, which did no such thing.

For a while I wondered if this anecdote was completely fictional, made up to make the Americans look petty and hateful but then assumed to be true by some British readers. Slowly, however, I was able to nail down some surrounding details.

The barber in the print did exist. On 9 Feb 1769 “Jacob Vredenburgh, Peruke-maker,” was registered as a freeman of the city of New York.

Later that year, on 23 October, the banns were published for “Jacob Vredenburg” to marry Jannetje Brouwer at the Reformed Dutch Church. There were no surviving children from that marriage.

Vredenburgh shows up in records related to his wife’s family: at the baptism of a niece in 1771, as a co-executor with John Brower in November 1798, and in his own will proved in September 1800, with his wife (now called Jane) and John Brower among the executors.

There’s also a 1788 will of “John Vredenburgh, hairdresser, of New York City,” that names one heir as that man’s brother “Jacob Vredenburgh, of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, hairdresser,” so he may have moved out of the state for a while.

Furthermore, the captain in the print did exist. Or rather, had existed.

On 30 June 1774, the Massachusetts Spy printed this item:

Last Saturday arrived at Marblehead, the Schooner Dove, Ebenezer Parker from Newfoundland, who spoke with the ship Empress of Russia, John Crosier master, from Ireland, out six weeks bound to Boston with the 38th regiment on board.

The next day, that regiment arrived, along with the 5th and Adm. Samuel Graves’s flagship.

After the “Powder Alarm” on 2 September, Gen. Thomas Gage began moving all his troops in New York City up to Boston, too. The Empress of Russia might well have been part of that operation, putting Capt. John Crozier in New York in late September or early October, when he reportedly had his dispute with Vredenburgh. But then he would have headed back to Boston.

The Boston Evening-Post for 21 Nov 1774 listed among the people who had died in town:

Capt. Crozier, Commander of the Empress of Russia Transport Ship.

The records of King’s Chapel include the burial on 19 November of:

John Crozier / Captain of the King of Prussia Transport / [age] 51

(Empress of Russia—King of Prussia—all the same, right?)

Thus, less than two months after Jacob Vredenburgh allegedly kicked John Crozier out of his barber shop in New York, the captain died in Boston. By the time a satirical print was made to illustrate that story, he had been dead for nearly three months.

TOMORROW: A letter from a dead man?

“Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises”

The U.S. Constitution, in Article I, Section 7, states:

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

The next section begins:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,…but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;…

Under that Constitution, men elected to the U.S. House of Representatives met for the first time on 4 Mar 1789. They quickly saw they didn’t have a quorum. Those men gathered six days a week until 1 April, when finally enough Representatives arrived.

For the next couple of weeks, the House got itself organized: electing a speaker (Frederick Muhlenberg), choosing a clerk and other staff, establishing an oath of office, and composing rules. On 6 April members participated in counting the electoral votes. (Spoiler: George Washington won.)

On Wednesday, 8 April, the House “resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union.” That bland language meant the legislators were taking themselves off the official record in order to discuss something that could be controversial—in this case, those import duties that the Constitution empowered them to enact. This was the first substantial issue the House took up, the first potential law that affected more than the workings of the government itself.

According to Debates in Congress, compiled decades later, Rep. James Madison of Virginia was first to speak on this subject “of the greatest magnitude.” He suggested starting with the “propositions made on this subject by Congress in 1783,” at least as “the temporary system.”

Madison read off the list of imported goods that the Continental Congress proposed should be taxed. Elias Boudinot of New Jersey endorsed that proposal. The next day, John Laurance of New York argued that an across-the-board duty would be easier and quicker than enumerating what to tax and how much. But there was general agreement that the federal government should start collecting import duties.

Meanwhile, messages started to come in from interest groups: manufacturers in Baltimore, shipwrights in Charleston, and so on. Domestic manufacturers wanted higher tariffs to help their businesses. Merchants wanted lower tariffs to keep down their costs. Ship builders and owners wanted preferential treatment for American vessels. As for consumers, who would ultimately pay higher prices, they weren’t really organized.

On 28 April, a House committee proposed a series of duties on various imported commodities and goods, from Jamaica rum and cheese to millinery and walking-sticks. There were higher tariffs on distilled spirits from “any State or Kingdom not in alliance with the United States” and on teas brought in on ships owned by foreigners. On 5 May, the committee presented the text of a law to enact those duties.

Tariffs have thus been part of American legislation from the beginning of the federal government—even before, considering how Madison was calling on a precedent from the preceding Congress. Those taxes were in fact the main source of revenue for the national government for many decades. But the first Congress understood two things:

• As revenue measures, those tariffs had to originate in the House, not be imposed by the executive.
• Imposing tariffs required discussion and careful balancing of the benefits and costs.

TOMORROW: Making law.

How Lincoln Impressed Washington

In June 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress commissioned its president, Dr. Joseph Warren, as a major general in the provincial army.

Under the tacit hierarchy of the New England generals, that would have put Warren under Artemas Ward (considered a captain general) and John Thomas (a lieutenant general), and by seniority at the bottom of all the other major generals in the New England forces.

Of course, Dr. Warren never took up that commission. He went onto the battlefield in Charlestown, fought as a volunteer, and died.

Despite that precedent, the clerk of the provincial congress, Benjamin Lincoln of Hingham, also wanted to be a general.

Lincoln had been a lieutenant colonel in the Suffolk County militia before the war. In January 1776, the General Court promoted him to militia major general. His main mission was coastal defense, and he reported on that situation to John Adams in August.

At the same time, Lincoln was positioning himself for a commission in the Continental Army. Gen. Ward wasn’t in the best of health and had lost the support of Gen. George Washington and other important figures. Even Joseph Ward, a relative and aide, told Adams that Gen. Ward was “under the great disadvantage of bad health” and couldn’t show his men that he was “superior to difficulties dangers or misfortunes” as the best generals did.

Joseph Ward wrote:

If a few old Colonels should resign it might be no disadvantage to the Service; very few of them take much pains to qualify themselves for higher command; they want education, knowledge of the World and genuine ambition to make them shine as Generals. I apprehend that Benjamin Lincoln Esqr. (now a Major General in the militia) is a good man for a Brigadire General; he has never been a Continental Officer nor had much experience, but he is a man of abilities and appears to me to have a good mind. I am well informed that he would like to engage in the Service.

That fall, the Massachusetts General Court raised short-term troops to defend New York. After James Warren declined command, Lincoln became the state major general in charge of that force. They weren’t involved in the big battles and came home in November.

That service was enough to impress Gen. Washington, however. When Massachusetts raised more troops for the winter of 1777 and put Lincoln in charge of them, the commander-in-chief wrote to him:

Give me leave Sir to assure you that this Appointment gives me the highest Satisfaction as the proofs you exhibited of your Zeal for the Service, in the preceding part of this Campaign convinces me, that the command could not have devolved upon a more deserving Officer.

Lincoln served under Gen. William Heath in that winter, besieging a British position near Kingsbridge. Heath’s push fizzled out, further lowering him in Washington’s eyes.

Back in July 1775, when Washington had arrived in Massachusetts, the province’s generals were Ward, Thomas, and Heath. Now Ward was about to resign, Thomas was dead, and Heath was doomed never to have a combat command again. Instead, Washington recommended the Continental Congress consider Benjamin Lincoln as “worthy of your Notice in the Continental Line.”

Lincoln thus became the newest major general in the Continental Army in March 1777. And he retained Washington’s esteem even after having to surrender Charleston to the Crown in May 1780. He also became the U.S. of A.’s first Secretary of War under the Confederation Congress.

On the afternoon of Sunday, 8 December, Robert J. Allison will speak to the Hingham Historical Society on “From Hingham to Yorktown: The Military Campaigns of General Benjamin Lincoln.” You can purchase tickets to attend that talk or view online through this page.

“Now resolve themselves into a Provincial Congress”

The ninety men assembled in Salem on Wednesday, 5 Oct 1774, as described yesterday, waited for Gen. Thomas Gage or another royal official to appear.

No one did.

So the next day they met under their own authority, and the day after that they approved their first resolves. These said, in part:

The members aforesaid so attending, having considered the measures which his excellency [the governor] has been pleased to take by his said proclamation, and finding them to be unconstitutional, unjust, and disrespectful to the province, think it their duty to pass the following resolves: . . .

2dly. That the constitutional government of the inhabitants of this province, being, by a considerable military force at this time attempted to be superseded and annulled: and the people, under the most alarming and just apprehensions of slavery, having, in their laudable endeavors to preserve themselves therefrom, discovered, upon all occasions, the greatest aversion to disorder and tumult, it must be evident to all attending to his excellency’s said proclamation, that his representations of the province as being in a tumultuous and disordered state, are reflections the inhabitants have by no means merited; and, therefore, that they are highly injurious and unkind. . . .

4thly. That some of the causes assigned as aforesaid for this unconstitutional and wanton prevention of the general court, have, in all good governments, been considered among the greatest reasons for convening a parliament or assembly; and, therefore, the proclamation is considered as a further proof, not only of his excellency’s disaffection towards the province, but of the necessity of its most vigorous and immediate exertions for preserving the freedom and constitution thereof.

Upon a motion made and seconded,

Voted, That the members aforesaid do now resolve themselves into a Provincial Congress, to be joined by such other persons as have been or shall be chosen for that purpose, to take into consideration the dangerous and alarming situation of public affairs in this province, and to consult and determine on such measures as they shall judge will tend to promote the true interest of his majesty, and the peace, welfare and prosperity of the province.

Back at the start of August, Virginian politicians had gathered as an unofficial legislature in defiance of Gov. Dunmore, who was conveniently off prosecuting his war in the west. They called that gathering the Virginia Convention.

In North Carolina, the royal governor, Josiah Martin, and his appointed Council had made clear they wouldn’t convene the legislature until the spring of 1775. Therefore, towns sent delegates to New Bern to meet on 25–27 August. This was the first body to call itself a provincial congress. That gathering sent delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, condemned the Coercive Acts on Massachusetts, promised a boycott, and asserted loyalty to the king.

The new Massachusetts Provincial Congress delegates did two official things on Friday, 7 October:

• Elected John Hancock of Boston as chairman and Benjamin Lincoln of Hingham as clerk. Massachusetts’s legislative leaders Thomas Cushing and Samuel Adams were in Philadelphia, leaving Hancock as the most prominent member of Boston’s delegation in Salem.
• Decided to meet in Concord, out of reach of the Royal Navy, on 11 October.

TOMORROW: Commemorating the legislating.