From “Loyall Nine” to “Sons of Liberty”

We have a reasonably good idea of who eight of Boston’s “Loyall Nine” were:

• John Avery, Jr., distiller and merchant
• Thomas Chase, distiller
• Thomas Crafts, Jr., painter
• John Smith, brazier
• Stephen Cleverly, brazier
• Henry Bass, jeweler
• George Trott, jeweler
• Benjamin Edes, printer

In addition, the ship masters Henry Wells and Joseph Field were also lumped in with this group by different contemporaries.

Within months after they started organizing anti–Stamp Act protests, the group appears to have adopted another name. Back during Parliament’s debate over that law, opponent Isaac Barré called American colonists “Sons of Liberty,” as reported to this side of the Atlantic by Jared Ingersoll. By the fall the “Loyall Nine” started using that phrase.

The handbills that Bass described the group printing in his December 1765 letter said: ”The True-born Sons of Liberty, are desired to meet under LIBERTY-TREE, at XII o’Clock, THIS DAY…” Evidently any man could merit that label by coming out to resist the new tax from London. In early 1766 the phrase also started to appear in newspapers in other ports.

But the group also used that term for themselves. In January 1766 John Adams called them “the Sons of Liberty.” On 15 February, Crafts wrote to Adams that “the Sons of Liberty Desired your Company at Boston Next Wensday.” Those are clearly references to a specific group, not to everyone taking a certain political stand.

It looks like the more general use won out. By August 1769, “An Alphabetical List of the Sons of Liberty who din’d at Liberty Tree [Tavern], Dorchester” included 300 names. Clearly those Sons of Liberty weren’t just the “Loyall Nine”—though all eight men listed above were there.

Nonetheless, because of some unsubstantiated claims and portrayals in popular culture, the belief persists that the Sons of Liberty was an identifiable group of activists, not a mass movement, as I’ve written before. Because of that squishiness, I tend not to use the term. But of course it’s strongly associated with the Revolution.

TOMORROW: Back to the bowl.

Counting the “Loyall Nine”

In a 19 Dec 1765 letter divulging details about Boston’s latest Stamp Act protest, and earlier ones, Henry Bass wrote of the organizers as “the Loyall Nine.” He added:

And upon the Occasion we that Evg. had a very Genteel Supper provided to which we invited your very good friends Mr. S[amuel] A[dams] and E[des] & G[ill] and three or four others and spent the Evening in a very agreable manner Drinkg Healths etc.

On 15 Jan 1766 John Adams wrote in his diary:

Spent the Evening with the Sons of Liberty, at their own Apartment in Hanover Square, near the Tree of Liberty. It is a Compting Room in Chase & Speakmans Distillery. A very small Room it is.

John Avery Distiller or Merchant, of a liberal Education, John Smith the Brazier, Thomas Crafts the Painter, Edes the Printer, Stephen Cleverly the Brazier, [Thomas] Chase the Distiller, Joseph Field Master of a Vessell, Henry Bass, George Trott Jeweller, were present.

I was invited by Crafts and Trott, to go and spend an Evening with them and some others, Avery was mentioned to me as one.

Finally, in 1788 the Rev. William Gordon wrote in his history of the Revolution about the first anti-Stamp protest, back in August 1765:

Messrs. John Avery, jun. Thomas Crafts, John Smith, Henry Welles, Thomas Chace, Stephen Cleverly, Henry Bass, and Benjamin Edes…provide and hang out early in the morning of August the fourteenth, upon the limb of a large old elm, toward the entrance of Boston, over the most public street, two effigies,…

Those sources, which were published in reverse chronological order, all seem to refer to the same group of men. The lists of names overlap—but not exactly.

Bass said there were nine men, and seemed to treat Samuel Adams, Edes, and Gill all as guests. Gordon named eight men, including Edes among them. John Adams also listed Edes in the group, and he treated George Trott, not on Gordon’s list, as in the group.

John Adams didn’t list Henry Wells from Gordon’s list (though Tea Leaves and some subsequent books misquote him as doing so). Instead, Adams named Joseph Field, saying he was a ship captain. According to mentions in the Boston press before he died in 1768, Henry Wells was also a ship captain. Would either of them have been in town long enough to help plan protests? 

It’s therefore difficult to say exactly who the “Loyall Nine” were, but there was definitely a political club supping at the Chase distillery near Liberty Tree and organizing the protests under that tree.

TOMORROW: A change of names?

Violence Beyond King Street on the Fifth of March

By modern standards, the judges overseeing the trial of the soldiers for the Boston Massacre should have limited the testimony to what happened in King Street or specifically involved the defendants.

However, prosecutors Robert Treat Paine and Samuel Quincy wanted to call witnesses to violence and threats from other soldiers that night. Or as acting governor Thomas Hutchinson later wrote: “The Counsel for the Crown urged to be admitted to prove the threats &ct. of the Soldiers preceding the Action.”

The judges were dubious, but defense attorneys John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., were agreeable as long as they had the same leeway to introduce testimony about violence and threats by civilians.

That tactic actually split the defense team, again according to Hutchinson. Robert Auchmuty, senior attorney for Capt. Thomas Preston and a strong advocate for the Crown in other respects, didn’t like letting people testify about aggressive soldiers, but he wasn’t arguing this case.

Adams himself reportedly didn’t want to put too much testimony about aggressive townspeople on record. Hutchinson stated:

Quincy one of the Counsel for the prisoners was for giving very large Evidence against the Inhabitants to prove a premeditated design to drive out the Soldiers & frequent abuse as well as threats Adams was against it & [Sampson Salter] Blowers who acted as an Attony to prepare the Evidence told me that Adams said if they would go on with such Witnesses who only served to set the Town in a bad light he would leave the cause & not say a word more. So that a stop was put & many witnesses were not brought who otherwise would have been.

Some supporters of the Crown even feared Adams was sabotaging the soldiers’ case, but Hutchinson declined to replace him “as it would have been extremely irregular” and Auchmuty wasn’t ready to step in.

As a result, we have records from the trial of confrontations elsewhere in town that night. For instance, Sgt. William Davis of the 14th Regiment described running into a crowd he estimated as about 200 people near Wentworth’s wharf:

I saw no soldier in the street; I heard them saying damn the dogs knock them down, we will knock down the first officer, or bloody backed rascal we shall meet this night; some of them then said they would go to the southward, and join some of their friends there, and attack the damned scoundrels, and drive them out of the town, for they had no business here.

Apprehending danger if I should be in my regimentals, I went into a house at the North end and changed my dress, and in my return from the North-end, about nine, coming near Dock square, I heard a great noise a whistling and rattling of wood; I came near the Market place, and saw a great number of people there, knocking against the posts, and tearing up the stalls, saying damn the lobsters, where are they now; I heard several voices, some said let us kill that damned scoundrel of a Sentry, and then attack the Main guard; some said, let us go to Smith’s barracks [also called Murray’s barracks], others said let us go to the rope-walks;

they divided: The largest number went up Royal-exchange-lane, and another party up Fitch’s alley, and the rest through the main street, up Cornhill. I passed by the Golden-Ball, I saw no person there but a woman, persuading a man to stay at home; he said he would not, he would go amongst them, if he lost his life by it. . . .

It was past nine, for I heard bells ring before. One of them was loading his piece by Oliver’s dock, he said he would do for some of these scoundrels that night.

John Cox, brick-layer, testified to a different scene in the South End:

I saw three soldiers, two belonging to the Neck, and one to the Main Guard, by Liberty-tree, I was at Mr. [John] Gore [Jr.]’s shop opposite the Tree; one said to the other, bring half your guard, and we will bring half ours, and we will blow up this damned pole; I said, so sure as you offer ye scoundrels to blow up that pole, you will have your brains blown out.

Soldiers in New York had blown up the Liberty Pole there a few weeks earlier, prompting bigger fights.

Gregory Townshend, merchant:

Just after the bell rung nine, hearing the bell ring again, I went out thinking it was fire; I saw numbers of people running from the South-end some had buckets, the principal number had clubs in their hands. I asked where is the fire, I received for answer, at the Rope-walks and in King street. Numbers were coming with buckets, and the rest said Damn your bloods do not bring buckets, bring clubs.

Henry Bass, another merchant—and a member of the Loyall Nine:

I went down the main-street, and coming near Boylston’s alley, I saw a number of boys and children from twelve to fifteen years old, betwixt Mr. [William?] Jackson’s and the alley; some of them had walking canes. A number of soldiers, I think four, sallied out of the alley. . . .

I took the soldiers for grenadiers, all of them had cutlasses drawn. . . . They came out of the alley, and I imagine from the barracks; they fell on these boys, and every body else that came in their way, they struck them; they followed me and almost over took me, I had the advantage of them and run as far as Col. [Joseph] Jackson’s, there I made a stand, they came down as far as the stone shop. . . .

these lads came down, some of them came to the Market square, one got a stave, others pieces of pine, they were very small, I do not know whether any of the lads were cut. I turned and then saw an oyster-man, who said to me, damn it here is what I have got by going up; (showing his shoulder wounded) I put my finger into the wound and blooded it very much.

Each legal team thus tried to portray the other side as needlessly aggressive and their own clients as responding with reasonable force. Of course, that was the problem in the first place.

Details of the First Stamp Act Protest

The anonymous account of Boston’s 14 Aug 1765 Stamp Act protest I quoted yesterday also includes a passage that’s prompted a lot of questions about who was behind the event:

…thus Hung the Image thro all the Day tho Three Guineas [£3.3s.] was offerd to any one that should take it down and no one dared to make the Tryall. The Paper on which A. O in Capitals was wrote blew off and at mid Day a person came with an Hanchif over his Face went up with a Ladder and fastnid it on in the Sight of Numbers who dard not obstruct him. It was observd that in making a Slip his Trousers slide up and discovered a silke Stockinge and Breeches answerable in Goodness—from whence you may infer that some of them undress’d were not of the lowest Class.

Trousers were stereotypically sailors’ dress, and this anecdote suggests that a man wealthy enough to afford silk stockings and good breeches had disguised himself as a sailor during the protest. That man was probably a member of the Loyall Nine, the political club that included both better established craftsmen and young merchants.

That evening, “Forty or fifty tradesmen, decently dressed,” led the procession with the effigy, according to Thomas Hutchinson, writing in his capacity as historian. The organizers were obviously trying to present the protest as coming from the middling class, not the gentility.

Another passage from that letter that I skipped yesterday described where that procession went:

They…proceeded to the Town House [shown above in 1751], went thro that and here the noise was Bombs bursting and cannons firing, on this the Governor and Councillors who were above stairs consulting the Dispersion of the Mob, thought it prudent to extinguish their Lights and take to their Heels as fast as they could.

Gov. Francis Bernard’s account said only:

knowing that we were sitting in the Council Chamber, they gave three huzza’s by way of defiance, & passed on.

However, Lt. Gov. Hutchinson confirmed that the crowd was actually in the building:

Just at dark an amazing mob brought the image thro the court house [Town House] the council then sitting above…

And Cyrus Baldwin wrote that the effigy “was brought by the Mob through the main street to the Townhous, carried it through…” The street level of the Town House (now the Old State House Museum) was set aside for a merchants’ exchange. Evidently in the evening it was open to pedestrians.

Baldwin’s letter contains another curious phrase about how the procession started: “after sun sett the North gave up & the South keept not back.” That appears to refer to the North End and South End Gangs, best known from their annual brawl on Pope Night. The effigies, the procession to the center of town, and the bonfire on Fort Hill were all part of the South End Gang’s regular Pope Night ritual.

The South End’s “captain” for that year, shoemaker Ebenezer Mackintosh, was soon being called the leader of the protest movement, so he was probably at the head of those “forty or fifty Tradesmen” who marched the effigy through the Town House. However, as Loyall Nine member Henry Bass wrote at the end of the year, those men were “not a little pleas’d to hear that McIntosh has the Credit of the whole Affair.”

Henry Bass Spills the Beans on a Political Protest

In December 1765, merchant Henry Bass sent his father-in-law a remarkably candid letter describing how he and his political comrades had just organized an anti-Stamp Act protest:

Boston 19 Decr 1765.

Hon’d Sir,—

On seeing Messrs. Edes & Gills last mondays Paper [i.e., the Boston Gazette of 16 Dec, which hinted that Andrew Oliver had not gone through with his promise to resign as London's Stamp distributor in Boston, which he had made under threats in August], the Loyall Nine repair’d the same Evg. to Liberty Hall [Chase and Speakman's rum distillery in the South End of Boston, shown above], in order to Consult what further should be done respecting Mr. Oliver’s Resignation, as what had been done heretofore, we tho’t not Conclusive and upon some little time debating we apprehended it would be most Satisfactory to the Publick to send a Letter to desire him to appear under Liberty tree at 12 oClock on Tuesday, to make a publick Resignation under Oath:—the Copy of which the Advertisement, his Message, Resignation and Oath you have Inclos’d.

The whole affair transacted by the Loyall Nine, in writing the Letter, getting the advertisements Printed, which were all done after 12 oClock Monday Night, the Advertisements Pasted up to the amount of a hundred was all done from 9 to 3. oClock.

You also have a Copy, of what he said to the Publick as near as we can Recolect: he thank’t the Gentlemen for the Polite Letter and treatment he Received The Copy of what you have Inclos’d, was last Evg sent to Messrs. Drapers to be put in to days Paper [i.e., the Boston News-Letter, published on Thursdays] wh. Directions not to print any of the transactions, without they did the whole; if the[y] could not wt. propriety as being the Government’s Printers [i.e., being paid by the royal government of Massachusetts to publish official notices] to send it to the Patriots of Messs. Edes & Gill, for whom we have the greatest respect. The whole was Conducted to the General Satisfaction of the Publick.

And upon the Occasion we that Evg. had a very Genteel Supper provided to which your very good friends Mr. S— A— [Samuel Adams] and E— & G— [Edes & Gill, who had a "Long Room" over their print shop often used for private Patriot gatherings] and three or four others and spent the Evening in a very agreable manner Drinkg Healths etc.

Dr. Sir,—I must desire you’d keep this a profound Secret and not to Let any Person see these Papers, and should be glad when you come to town youd bring them with you, as we have no other Coppys, and choose to keep them as Archives. We do every thing in order to keep this and the first Affair Private: and are not a little pleas’d to hear that [shoemaker Ebenezer] McIntosh has the Credit of the whole Affair. We Endeavour to keep up the Spirit which I think is as great as ever.

I give you joy in the Custom house being Opened, & hope soon to advise you of the Courts of justice doing the same, I am wh. my best wishes for you and Familys health and Happiness Your affe. friend

[Henry Bass]

P.S. I have Recd. a Letter from Billey he Begs you’d send him down his Jackets and Breeches, as he Stands in great need of ‘em. I should be glad you’d write me more perticular what Sort of Plank you want faiths tells me two Inch: Let me know in your next and about the Boards etc.

The Loyall Nine had "the greatest respect" for printers Edes & Gill because Benjamin Edes was a member of the Loyall Nine. Also in the small group was vegetarian japanner Thomas Crafts, Jr. Ebenezer Mackintosh, though highly visible at protests as captain of the South End gang, was not a member of this socially and politically ambitious group, and Bass was glad of that.

This letter appears in the forty-fourth volume of the Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings.