Digging Deeper into Duncan Ingraham

There are two big mysteries in my book The Road to Concord. The first is how in September 1774 Boston Patriots managed to get two cannon out of a locked militia armory with redcoat soldiers standing guard at the front door and an entire regiment camped across the street.

The second mystery is who in Concord was sending Gen. Thomas Gage detailed reports on the artillery and other military supplies that the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s agents were amassing in that town in March and April 1775. That one I didn’t find a definite answer to.

In writing the book, I listed the retired merchant captain Duncan Ingraham as a possible suspect. As for what might have motivated him, I wrote about his tussles with the Patriots over artillery:

Some of those four-pounders [in Concord] came from Concord resident Duncan Ingraham, who in 1778 petitioned the legislature “that he may be paid for four Four-pound Cannon, which were taken for the public Service in October 1774.” Ingraham was a merchant captain who had settled in Concord with his new wife just the year before. Those cannon might therefore have been property left over from his maritime career. Ingraham was not a Patriot. He refused to participate in boycotts of British imports, he was ready to hold court sessions as a justice of the peace, and he hosted British army officers at dinner. The people of Concord showed their disapproval of this new arrival by hanging a sheep’s head and guts on his chaise. They also confiscated his property: on January 3, 1775, Dr. Joseph Lee wrote in his diary, “The mob unloaded Capt. Ingraham’s Bords that were to go to Boston,” where they might have been used by the army to build barracks. It seems likely that the community seized Ingraham’s four cannon for the public good.

That suggestion caught the attention of Robert Gross, the expert on Concord. In fact, I’d studied his Bicentennial classic The Minutemen and Their World to learn more about the town and locals like Ingraham, Dr. Lee, and James Barrett and his family. Look for his new study of Concord’s next greatest generation, The Transcendentalists and Their World, later this year. 

With the help of John Hannigan, curator (and the expert on Revolutionary documents) at the Massachusetts Archives, Bob Gross sought out the documents supporting Ingraham’s 1778 and 1791 petitions for compensation. They show that my guess about who took Ingraham’s cannon was mistaken—the people of Concord didn’t do that. Instead, the people of Boston did.

And like so many other radical acts in Boston between 1768 and 1774, William Molineux was in the thick of it.

TOMORROW: The cannon Duncan Ingraham left behind.

Duncan Ingraham, Justice of the Peace

Yesterday I quoted two depositions of British soldiers taken prisoner on 19 Apr 1775—John Bateman of the 52nd Regiment and James Marr of the 4th.

Both depositions were dated 23 April and attested to by justices of the peace from Concord: Dr. John Cuming (also spelled Cumings, Cumming, and Cummings, of course) and Duncan Ingraham. Interestingly, both those magistrates had Loyalist ties.

First, Ingraham (1726-1811). A sea captain, he was one of the Boston merchants who attacked Loyalist printer John Mein in late 1769.

After a wealthy marriage, Ingraham settled in Concord in 1772 and moved away from the Whig movement. He refused to participate in the renewed boycott of British imports, was ready to hold court sessions in late 1774, and even hosted British army officers at dinner. His neighbors showed their disapproval of that behavior by hanging a sheep’s head and guts on his chaise.

The people of Concord also confiscated Ingraham’s property. In October 1774 the town took four four-pounder cannon from Ingraham—quite possibly the four that were still in town on 19 April. On 3 Jan 1775, Dr. Joseph Lee (another Crown supporter) wrote in his diary, “The mob unloaded Capt. Ingraham’s Bords that were to go to Boston,” where the army might have used them to build barracks.

Because of those conflicts, I’ve even suspected Ingraham of being the “Concord spy” discussed in The Road to Concord, but there’s no smoking cannon to reveal that informant’s identity.

Within a few days after the battle, however, Ingraham was helping to gather and certify depositions from local militiamen, as well as those two captive soldiers, for the Patriot cause. He remained in America through the war and eventually gained enough trust from his neighbors to be elected to the Massachusetts General Court. (That’s when he finally got paid for those cannon.)

After another wealthy marriage, Ingraham moved on to Medford for the last decades of his life. A detail from his gravestone appears above.

TOMORROW: Coming to Dr. Cuming.

[The crossed-out sentence above was corrected in a series of 2021 postings including this one.]

“A Private and Precipitate Journey from Concord to Cambridge”

This afternoon at 3:30 I’m leading my new “Ladies of Tory Row” walking tour of Brattle Street in Cambridge, starting at the Tory Row historical marker at the Mason Street corner.

One of the sources I’m drawing on for my anecdotes is this apology signed by Dr. Joseph Lee of Concord on 19 Sept 1774. It refers to what he had done earlier that month at the start of the Powder Alarm—he’d warned a Loyalist friend in Cambridge that Middlesex militiamen were on their way.

Whereas I, Joseph Lee of Concord, physician, on the evening of the first ultimo [i.e., of this month], did rashly and without consideration make a private and precipitate journey from Concord to Cambridge, to inform Judge Lee, that the country was assembling to come down, (and on no other business,) that he and others concerned might prepare themselves for the event, and with an avowed intention to deceive the people;

by which the parties assembling might have been exposed to the brutal rage of the soldiery, who had timely notice to have waylaid the roads, and fired on them while unarmed and defenceless in the dark: [Of course, that never happened.]

by which imprudent conduct I might have prevented the salutary designs of my countrymen, whose innocent intentions were only to request certain gentlemen, sworn into office on the new system of government, to resign their offices, in order to prevent the operation of that (so much detested) act of the British Parliament for regulating the government of the Massachusetts Bay:

by all which I have justly drawn upon me the displeasure of my countrymen:

When I coolly reflect on my own imprudence, it fills my mind with the deepest anxiety.

I deprecate the resentment of my injured country, humbly confess my errors, and implore the forgiveness of a generous and free people, solemnly declaring that for the future I will never convey any intelligence to any of the court party, neither directly nor indirectly, by which the designs of the people may be frustrated, in opposing the barbarous policy of an arbitrary, wicked, and corrupt administration.

Confusing matters a little is that both the judge in Cambridge and the physician in Concord were named Joseph Lee. I’m going to look at those events through the eyes of Judge Joseph Lee’s wife, Rebecca. The couple lived in the house shown above, now the headquarters of the Cambridge Historical Society.