“Doctor HALL JACKSON has had the Care of this Lad”

Yesterday we left sea captain Sylvanus Lowell near death after he was caught at the wrong end of a cannon on Cat Island in Marblehead’s harbor.

Fortunately for Lowell, that island had become a smallpox inoculation hospital, and a surgeon was nearby: Dr. Hall Jackson (1739–1797, shown here).

Jackson had trained under his father, Dr. Clement Jackson, and then in London. He normally practiced in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but traveled to the Boston area to inoculate people.

Jackson also presented himself as an expert on amputations. The 26 Feb 1768 New-Hampshire Gazette reported that he had just cut off both legs of “a young Lad of 17 Years of Age, belonging to Hampton,” who had suffered frostbite “in crossing Winnipiscokee Pond.” A week later, the same newspaper assured readers that boy was “in a fine Way of Recovery.”

The same 3 March issue then reported another case:

The Servant Boy of Mr. Gibbs…ran away from his Master, and secreted himself on board a Vessel in the Harbour in order to go off, but she not sailing so soon as was expected, he lay on board three Days & Nights, the Weather being extremly cold, he froze in such a Manner that he lost Part of both Feet immediately;

about a Week after he was seiz’d with those terrible Symptoms the Lock’d Jaw, and convulsive Cramp, he lay near three Weeks stiff and immoveable, no Force that could be apply’d would bend one Joint of his Body, nor could the Edge of the thinest Knife be forced between his Teeth:

the Nerves and Tendons of the remaining Parts of one Foot being bare, with violent and almost constant Spasms in the same Leg, it was tho’t adviseable to take it off, which gave him immediate Relief; his bad Symptoms are gone off, and he is so far recovered as to astonish every one who has seen him.———

We hear this Lad took in eighteen Days one Ounce two Drams of solid Opium, besides a large Quantity of Musk, notwithstanding which, he did not sleep one Hour in twenty-four during the whole Time.

Again, Dr. Hall Jackson cared for that boy and performed the amputations.

The Countway Library at Harvard Medical School has a letter Jackson wrote in 1771 to the father of a boy named Andrew Card, recommending that the boy’s leg be removed because of “several holes in his knee which discharge, and cause great pain.”

Andrew was actually under the care of another Portsmouth physician, Dr. Joshua Brackett (1733–1802), but Jackson offered his and his father’s surgical services free of charge. He wrote: “I believe that you would much rather trust your child under such an operation, to those, who have perform’d it fifty times, than to one who is altogether unused to the Business.” (He also asked the Cards to keep his offer secret from Brackett out of collegial courtesy.)

In the early 1770s, newspapers reported on surgeries by Dr. Hall Jackson to restore people’s sight. He felt compelled to advertise in the 13 Apr 1772 Boston Gazette that he only performed surgery on “the Cataract and contracted Iris.” Nonetheless, ocular experience was helpful in treating Capt. Lowell, who had also suffered injuries to the eye.

TOMORROW: Dr. Jackson and the New Hampshire troops.

Who wrote, “we can make every Tory tremble”?

Earlier this year, I saw a tweet crediting Samuel Adams with the line: “With ladies on our side, we can make every Tory tremble.”

Adams wasn’t usually that pithy, and the statement doesn’t appear in the four volumes of The Writings of Samuel Adams.

The line first appeared in a letter to Daniel Fowle’s New-Hampshire Gazette published on 22 July 1774. Here’s more context:

The Consumption of TEA I think is in a fair Way of being totally laid aside in this Town, as there are but very few indeed, that will refuse to sign or solemnly ingage not to suffer it used in their Families;

and what adds a great Pleasure to us all, is, that the Fair Sex universally consent to give up, this detested superfluous Article; and under the Auspices of the worthy Doctor Clement Jackson, we hope soon to see a glorious List of Female Worthies, whose Virtue can withstand every daring Insult when put to the Test; and we all desire their Names may be recorded in the Town Books, to perpetuate their Memories:---

Then let us see who will sell that obnoxious Herb, for with the Ladies on our side, we can make every Tory tremble; as it is generally agreed upon, not to frequent those Shops were TEA is sold.

The signature, under a Latin quotation, was “AMICUS.”

A few weeks later, on 26 August, the New-Hampshire Gazette published another letter, addressed to the people of New Hampshire and signed “AMICUS PATRIAE.” It urged people in that colony to support Boston, suffering under Parliament’s Coercive Acts, with donations for the poor.

Both letters show a pattern of short italicized phrases and occasional all-capitalized nouns. Both end with Latin quotations. The signatures overlap. I therefore think it’s likely the two letters came from the same pen.

In his History of New-Hampshire (1792), the Rev. Jeremy Belknap printed a letter from New Hampshire governor John Winthrop to the Earl of Dartmouth dated 29 August, which said:

The town-clerk of Boston [William Cooper], who is said to be a zealous leader of the popular opposition, has been in this town about a week; immediately appears a publication in the New-Hampshire Gazette, recommending donations for Boston…

Belknap added a footnote to that sentence:

The publication here referred to was written by a person whom the Governor did not suspect, and the town-clerk knew nothing of it.

But Belknap obviously did know the author. In fact, his granddaughter Jane Belknap Marcou wrote in her 1847 biography that she had found “the imperfect manuscript [i.e., draft] remaining among Mr. Belknap’s papers.” In other words, he’d written it himself.

Back in 1774, Jeremy Belknap was the minister in Dover, New Hampshire. Ministers weren’t supposed to get directly involved in politics, but as “AMICUS PATRIAE” he had things to tell his fellow citizens. And Belknap also appears to have been the most likely author of the line “With ladies on our side, we can make every Tory tremble.” (I wonder if a draft of that essay might be in his papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.)

The line resurfaced in John C. Miller’s Origins of the American Revolution (1943) as an example of American Whig sentiment before the war. Philip Foner picked it up in his History of the Labor Movement in the United States (1947), crediting the sentiment to “Sons of Liberty.” Charles O. F. Thompson included the line in A History of the Declaration of Independence: A Story of the American Patriots who Brought about the Birth of Our Nation (1947), curiously tossing in the word “blessed” ahead of “Tory.” Other books followed.

From there it appears that an author or authors decided that “Sons of Liberty” meant Samuel Adams. In the current century several books and authoritative websites attribute the statement to Adams, usually saying “often quoted” or “reported to have said” as a signal that the writers can’t find the words in those four volumes of Writings. In several places the quotation has also lost the article “the” before “Ladies.”

In conclusion, while it’s definitely possible to quote the line “with the Ladies on our side, we can make every Tory tremble” from the Revolutionary era, it should be tentatively attributed to Jeremy Belknap, not Samuel Adams.