Knox Museum May Close in 2018

The Knox Museum in Thomaston, Maine, built to honor Gen. Henry Knox, has announced that it may close next year if it can’t quickly raise $150,000.

The museum is a replica of Knox’s 1794 mansion, called Montpelier. The original fell into disrepair and was demolished in 1871, just two years before the first biography of the general was published. The current building was put up in 1929.

Likewise, most of the artifacts in the building linked to the general and his family appear to be reproductions.

Until 1999, the state of Maine owned the building and surrounding thirteen acres. Finding the site didn’t pay for itself, the state government sold the museum to a non-profit group called the Friends of Montpelier while retaining an easement on the property.

As first reported by the Portland Press Herald, the museum has been running deficits since then, but large donations and grants filled the holes. The Free Press Online identified those sources of money. No source of such funds is lined up for coming years.

The Friends of Montpelier could turn the property back over to Maine, but the state doesn’t view the replica building as historic and wouldn’t keep the museum open. As WABI reported, the collection could be dispersed and the building left empty or sold.

Tom Desjardins, Director of Maine’s Bureau of Parks and Lands, told the Press Herald that the Friends had “done an amazing job” with the programs and website, but “There just isn’t enough of a draw of people to generate the revenues” that the site would need to sustain itself.

The Friends of Montpelier will assess the results of the current fundraising campaign and its staff and programming costs in the new year.

Why Wasn’t Henry Knox at the Boston Tea Party?

Considering how many families and authors have made claims for particular men to have participated in the Boston Tea Party, and how lionized Henry Knox has been since the Centennial, it’s surprising that no one’s made a claim that he helped to destroy the tea as well.

Instead, we have a plausible tradition that Knox was on Griffin’s Wharf on 15 Dec 1773, the night before the Tea Party.

That story first appears, so far as I can tell, in a series of essays titled “Recollections of a Bostonian” which ran in the Columbian Centinel starting in 1821.

One speaks in an interesting fashion about how the public memory of that protest had faded nearly fifty years afterward, a decade before the first book about George R. T. Hewes prompted Boston to celebrate the event:

There have been some doubts concerning the destruction of the tea on the 16th of December, 1773. The number of the ships, and the place where they were situated is not quite certain.—One gentleman, now living, over 70 years of age, thinks they were at Hubbard’s wharf, as it was then called, about half way between Griffin’s (now Liverpool) and Foster’s wharf, and that the number of ships was four or five.

Another gentleman, who is 75 years of age, and who was one of the guard detached from the new grenadier company, says that he spent the night, but one, before the destruction of the tea, in company with gen. Knox, then a private in that company, on board of one of the tea ships; that this ship lay on the south side of Russell’s wharf; and that there were two more on the north side of the same wharf, and he thinks one or two at Griffin’s wharf.

A gentleman now living, who came from England in one of the tea ships, thinks there were but two, but he is uncertain where they lay.

A song, written soon after the time, tells of “Three ill-fated ships at Griffin's wharf.” [I’ve found no other trace of this song.]

The whole evidence seems to result in this, there were three ships—but whether at Russell’s or Griffin’s wharf, or one or more at each, is not certain. The number of chests destroyed was, according to the news-papers of the time, 342.

(As Charles Bahne pointed out here, the number stated in East India Company inventories was 340.)

Henry Knox was indeed a member of “the new grenadier company” added to the Boston militia regiment in 1772. In fact, he was a founder of that company. That means he wasn’t “a private” but an ensign and then, by the time of the Tea Party, a lieutenant. But perhaps on the night of 17 Dec 1773 Knox was acting as a private, standing sentry like other men.

After all, that militia company had not been officially called out by the governor. Rather, Bostonians had decided on their own authority to patrol the docks and prevent the tea from being landed. At first the public meetings recruited volunteers ad hoc. After a few nights of that, leaders decided it would be a lot easier if the militia company commanders took turns calling for volunteers from their ranks.

Another, probably independent mention of the grenadier company taking a turn on the docks appeared in the Merchants’ Magazine in 1849:

Mr. Joseph Peirce, although a merchant of Boston, had, prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, organized a company of grenadiers, which he continued to command with Henry Knox, afterward Gen. Knox, as lieutenant, down to the day on which the tea was cast into Boston harbor. . . .

Capt. Peirce was in charge of the tea ships as guard on the night previous to the appearance of those world-renowned “Indians,” of whom his brother John was one. That event brought about the dissolution of the corps; but the friendship then formed between Gen. Knox and Mr. Peirce existed uninterruptedly to the death of the former, in 1806.

It’s not clear what that article meant by saying the Tea Party “brought about the dissolution of the corps.” Mills and Hicks’s almanac for 1775 still listed the grenadiers among the town’s militia units, Peirce and Knox among its officers. Perhaps the article meant that the Crown response to the Tea Party led to the British army’s clampdown on militia activity in 1775, the war, Knox’s departure, and the rest of history. Or perhaps the author was very confused.

In any event, there appears to be a strong tradition reaching us through two sources that Henry Knox helped to watch over the tea ships on the night before the Tea Party. So perhaps on the fateful night he was home resting.

Meanwhile, the artillery company or “train” had its turn patrolling the docks on 16 December—so those men, such as Ebenezer Stevens, John Crane, Samuel Gore, and Moses Grant, got to toss tea into the harbor. Some of them later served under Gen. Knox during the war.

“Henry Knox’s First Mission” in Framingham, 20 June

On Tuesday, 20 June, I’ll speak at the Framingham History Center’s annual meeting, debuting a new talk on “Myths and Realities of Col. Henry Knox’s First Mission.”

As recounted in almost every history of the Revolutionary War, in the winter of 1775-76 young Boston bookseller Henry Knox traveled northwest to Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point in New York to gather large cannon and haul them back to Gen. George Washington’s army besieging Boston.

By 25 Jan 1776, Knox had brought fifty-eight pieces of artillery as far as Framingham. We don’t know that from his own papers since the young colonel had stopped keeping a journal of the journey. Instead, we have John Adams’s detailed report of what he saw in Framingham that day.

In this talk I’ll address these questions and more:

• What sort of artillery did the Massachusetts provincial army start with?
• Who had the idea of fetching cannon from the Lake Champlain forts?
• How and when did Knox get out of Boston?
• What were Knox’s main qualifications to become colonel?
• How did the weather affect Knox’s mission?
• What does the stop in Framingham tell us about Knox’s route?
• What happened to the fifty-ninth cannon Knox started out with?
• What effect did Knox’s cannon have on the British army’s plans?

This event will take place at the Edgell Memorial Library, 3 Oak Street in Framingham. It’s for Framingham History Center members and donors, so if you wish to attend you can join the organization and support local history. The evening will start at 7:00 with some organization business, and there will be refreshments and books for sale afterward.

(The photo above, courtesy of Wikipedia, shows Framingham’s marker along the Henry Knox Trail, tracing his documented or likely route from New York to the siege lines.)

Asa Copeland’s Revolution

Yesterday I introduced Asa Copeland as a “young lad” apprenticed to the Boston carpenter Amos Thayer.

He opened his master’s door to a redcoat the night before the Boston Massacre and heard that soldier offer a warning to Thayer to keep safe off the streets for the next couple of days.

I wondered what happened to Asa Copeland in subsequent years. One of my interests is how the children of Boston were shaped by the political turmoil of the ten years before the war.

Tracking this Asa Copeland isn’t certain because there were other youths of that name. One was born in Braintree in 1756, son of Seth and Lydia Copeland, neighbors of John and Abigail Adams; that lad would have been a good candidate to be Amos Thayer’s apprentice in 1770 since Thayer was also from Braintree. But that Asa Copeland remained in Braintree after the war, long enough to apply for a pension.

Instead, I think the Asa Copeland who became an apprentice carpenter in Boston was the man described by descendants in volume IV of Genealogical and Memorial History of the State of New Jersey, edited by Francis Bazley Lee and published in 1910. That entry is based on a blend of family tradition and research in genealogical sources available at the time.

The descendants were certain this Asa was the son of Jacob and Abigail Copeland, who hailed from Braintree but were living in Boston when they had him. But they didn’t know when he was born. The profile describes Asa as “at the age of seventeen” during the Tea Party of late 1773 and “about nineteen” at the start of 1777, which doesn’t add up. Descendants understood that Asa was “present at the ‘Boston Tea Party’” (which this book misdates). He may well have been present; hundreds of Bostonians were, watching but not participating.

That profile gets on more solid ground when it discusses Copeland’s military service. In January 1777, Copeland joined Maj. Ebenezer Stevens’s artillery battalion of the Continental Army. Like Copeland’s master, Stevens had been a carpenter in Boston before the war. The artillery needed skilled craftsmen. Soon Asa Copeland was a sergeant, and then a sergeant-major.

In April 1779, Copeland was appointed a conductor of military stores, caring for the army’s weapons. Thus, in 1781 Gen. Henry Knox sent him instructions “to procure 1500 muskets, 3 tons of lead, and all of the pistols at New Windsor” and to send some stores to Philadelphia.

In September 1782, as the army wound down, Gen. Knox listed Copeland among the personnel “proper to compose the department of field commissary” in a letter to Gen. George Washington. Copeland reportedly produced “a survey or inventory of ordnance at West Point, New York, dated April 20, 1783” for Knox.

After the war, Copeland settled in Philadelphia rather than returning to Massachusetts. On 27 Feb 1783 the Rev. William White married Copeland to Amelia Price. Eventually the couple had eight children, four girls and four boys. The veteran appears to have gone into business trading goods, using the skills and contacts he developed during the war.

In the 30 Aug 1793 Pennsylvania Gazette Copeland advertised “the schooner Milley” for charter to the West Indies. In October 1794 the U.S. of A. was undertaking to build frigates, including the Constitution. Revenue commissioner Tench Coxe wrote to Knox, then Secretary of War:

in pursuance of the Idea entertained by you and my self in a late conference, I have engaged Mr. Asa Copeland a trader in this town, To go to Georgia for the purpose of assisting Mr. J. T Morgan in expediting the hauling &c. of Timber & dispatching the Vessels.

The country needed strong live oak for the frigates. Coxe told his boss Alexander Hamilton, “Mr. Asa Copeland…is expected to be very useful. He has been accustomed to the Coasting trade and to the procuring of ship Timber.” (But Coxe also had to tell Knox that Copeland, not being a shipwright, couldn’t simply take over Morgan’s job.) According to a Navy Department report at the end of 1794, Copeland’s pay was “three and one-third dollars per day.”

Asa Copeland completed that job for the federal government and returned to Philadelphia, but unfortunately he died on 23 Sept 1797. His family understood the cause to be yellow fever, even though the city’s big epidemic had occurred four years before. The Copelands’ last child was born the following month and died within a year.

So far as I know, we have no personal or political statements from Asa Copeland that preserve his thoughts about the Massacre, the Tea Party, and other events from his teen years in Boston. But it’s clear he committed years to the Continental Army and the United States, and that service gave him the standing to build a new life as a businessman in America’s capital city.

“In daily expectation of Colonel Knox’s arrivall”

Yesterday I quoted the Boston businessman and court official Ezekiel Price about Col. Henry Knox and the artillery he brought from Lake Champlain in January 1776.

At that time Price was a war refugee living at Thomas Doty’s tavern in what was then Stoughton (shown here). That was also the home town of Col. Richard Gridley, Chief Engineer of the Continental Army and, until the previous fall, the commander of its artillery regiment. Price socialized with the Gridley family. He also gathered up rumors from other sources.

Price’s diary entries make clear that people like him knew about Knox’s mission to retrieve cannon and were eagerly awaiting the result.

Thursday, Jan. 11. — Went down to Milton. Could hear nothing remarkable from the American Army. It is reported that Colonel Henry Knox is on his return from Crown Point; got back as far as Worcester, and has with him a number of brass cannon and other ordnance-stores, and was expected at Cambridge last night with his artillery. Mr. William Bant [a business associate of John Hancock] called here on his way to the army, &c. Son Zek spent the day with us. Mrs. Price, Polly, &c, went home with Zek in the chaise. The weather threatens snow or rain soon.

Friday, Jan. 12.— A light snow fell in the night. The weather is moderate, and the morning agreeable for the season. Towards noon, it began to grow cold. Mrs. Gridley and daughter Beckey stopt here, in their way to Cambridge to visit Scar Gridley, who, they hear, is dangerously ill. A soldier from the army below says that nothing material has happened there within a day or two past, except that he heard Colonel Knox was on his return to Cambridge, and that a number of cannon had reached there, which Colonel Knox sent before him. It is cloudy, and has the appearance of more foul weather soon.

I’m skeptical about that “number of cannon” reaching Cambridge; no other sources confirm that secondhand information, and it looks to me like Knox went ahead of the guns instead of the other way around.

On 13 January, Gen. George Washington was still awaiting his artillery commander. He told Col. Alexander McDougall of New York, “I am in daily expectation of Colonel Knox’s arrivall.”

That same day, Price wrote, “By advices from Canada, I think Governor [Guy] Carlton’s head is pretty near the noose: so that we may hope to see him soon at headquarters.” He was expecting news of American triumph at Québec City.

In the evening Thomas Crane, representative from Stoughton to the Massachusetts General Court, told Price “that Knox, with the cannon, was at Springfield.” Which of course contradicted the earlier reports that the colonel was much closer. But Price was still optimistic.

Meanwhile, Washington kept waiting. On 16 January, he received a progress report from Gen. Philip Schuyler in Albany and wrote back: “I am much pleased, that the artillery was like to be got over the River, and am in Hopes, that Colonel Knox will arrive with it in a few Days—It is much wanted.”

Late the next day, Gen. Washington received bad news: Gen. Richard Montgomery had died in an unsuccessful assault on Québec. Washington called his generals together for a council of war the next morning to decide how many soldiers they could spare to bolster that effort against Canada. Knox, according to Gen. William Heath, finally arrived later on the 18th.

Sometime that same day, Ezekiel Price also heard about Montgomery’s death. He held out hope that that “melancholy and unfortunate” report was false. But on the 19th everyone connected with the army told Price the same bad news, and he had more detail by the 20th. For the next two days he described troops preparing to head north. Despite all his anticipation of Knox’s arrival, Price never actually recorded that event or mentioned the new artillery until late February. The disastrous news from Québec completely overshadowed it.

Why Did Knox Stop His Guns at Framingham?

In response to my Wednesday posting about Col. Henry Knox’s arrival in Cambridge on 18 Jan 1776 (a week or so earlier than the traditional date), Boston 1775 friend Charles Bahne commented:

I still wonder how the town of Framingham fits into Knox’s route. The direct route to Boston (and Cambridge) from the west was the Boston Post Road, which in this area is basically today’s U.S. 20 with some minor detours. That road passes through Marlborough, Sudbury, Wayland, Weston, and Waltham. All of these, except Wayland, existed as towns in the 1770s; Wayland was still part of Sudbury. It would have been a significant detour — with all those heavy cannon! — to go to Framingham.

It’s more logical for John Adams and Elbridge Gerry to have passed through Framingham on their way from Cambridge to Philadelphia, since there was another road — today’s “Old Connecticut Path” — which branched off the Post Road at the Weston-Wayland line and headed directly to Hartford, bypassing Worcester and Springfield.

So we have a question of space as well as time. As part of my possible project on Knox, I’m reexamining the traditional stories about him. Among the most visible of those stories is his progress through New York and Massachusetts; the Knox Cannon Trail has been marked with large roadside stones starting in 1926. Yet much of that trail is based on assumptions about where Knox and his cargo passed because the records of his trip are incomplete. Some marker stones have had to be repositioned.

Following the first Knox biography, we assumed Knox brought his artillery from Springfield (a town he mentioned in a letter to Gen. George Washington) to Cambridge, arriving 24 January. And we assumed he took the straightest, most traveled route, which was the Boston Post Road. But that timetable is wrong. What if the route is an unsupported assumption as well—at least for the guns?

As shown in the map above (a detail from the 1775 “Seat of War in New England” map), the Boston Post Road leads east from Marlborough through Sudbury to Watertown. At Marlborough another road diverged southeast into Framingham toward Natick. It seems likely that Col. Knox directed his “noble train” along that second road. But why?

Gen. William Heath wrote in his diary that Knox “came to camp” on 18 January while the guns “were ordered to be stopped at Framingham.” To me that wording implies the order came from above—i.e., from Gen. Washington.

Another clue comes from the Gershom Foster orderly book at the Anderson House library of the Society of the Cincinnati. That’s an orderly book for the artillery regiment. The orders start to come from Col. Knox (in a big, dramatic way) on 28 January. So even though he was in Cambridge on 18 January and presumably received his commission as colonel then, Knox didn’t start directing the regiment for another ten days. What was keeping him busy?

I suspect Knox went ahead of the guns to meet with his commander-in-chief in Cambridge on 18 January, then hurried back west to meet the guns and stop them at Framingham, or divert them to that town. Why? Knox’s papers have a big gap at this point, and Washington’s surviving headquarters papers don’t mention him or the new artillery. (Notably, however, “Framingham” is one of the passwords of the day on 22 January.)

One possibility is that Knox always planned to take that road because he was aiming to deliver the cannon to Roxbury, not Cambridge. He had worked on the big fort in Roxbury. He might have expected to mount most of the guns in that part of the siege lines. In that case, the route through Framingham to Natick and thence to Dedham might make sense.

But it also seems likely that those cannon needed to be mounted and equipped for use in the siege. Washington may well have decided that Framingham was the place to do that work, far enough from the lines to be safe from the enemy. I haven’t found any mention of such work in Framingham, however.

It appears that Knox’s heavy cannon remained in Framingham for a month or so. On 26 February Ezekiel Price, a Boston official and businessman who collected many threads of gossip from his refuge in Stoughton, wrote in his diary:

It is said that the heavy cannon which were left at Framingham are brought down to Cambridge; the mortars are fixed in their new beds; the fort at Lechmere’s Point nearly finished; fascines going constantly to Dorchester; and every thing getting in readiness to make a push by our army.

Not all the gossip Price wrote down was that reliable (I’ll talk about that tomorrow). But it seems unlikely that he would have been wrong about the heavy cannon being left in Framingham for weeks.  And while it’s not clear what Price meant by saying they were brought “down to Cambridge” (Allston was still part of Cambridge then), this diary entry does suggest some of Knox’s artillery did indeed travel into that town. So there’s still a case for some of those markers.

How Many Cannon Did Henry Knox Transport?

Another question about Col. Henry Knox’s mission to northern New York to collect artillery for the siege of Boston is how many pieces he brought. And how many did he leave behind?

We have a couple of counts of artillery-pieces in the region from Gen. Philip Schuyler:

• one dated 7 July 1775 in the Papers of the Continental Congress. This has separate lists for Fort Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Fort George.
• one dated 2 Dec 1775 and sent to Gen. George Washington on 7 December. The cannon being counted here were at Fort Ticonderoga, a landing at the north end of Lake George, a landing near a bridge, and Crown Point.

Schuyler first counted 54 cannon at Fort Ti with sizes ranging from four-pounders to eighteen-pounders, but 29 of those were in a category called “Bad cannon.” By December Schuyler was counting 53 cannon in all. There were other artillery pieces as well, including swivel guns and mortars. The general sent some weapons north into Quebec with Gen. Richard Montgomery.

Henry Knox left at least three different listings of the artillery pieces he decided to transport back. The first, dated 10 Dec 1775, was transcribed in his earliest biography, by Francis S. Drake. It includes 59 pieces of artillery, including 43 cannon and 16 mortars of different sorts. Knox also determined that one brass cannon Schuyler had labeled an eighteen-pounder was instead a twenty-four-pounder; the difference in bore appears to have been less than half an inch.

On 17 December, Knox sent Gen. Washington a list of the guns he planned to bring east, probably so that Massachusetts blacksmiths could start making shot for them. That list contained only 55 guns—he left off 4 twelve-pounders from his earlier list.

Drake also transcribed the heading of Knox’s expense report for this trip:

For expenditures in a journey from the camp round Boston to New York, Albany, and Ticonderoga, and from thence, with 55 pieces of iron and brass ordnance, 1 barrel of flints, and 23 boxes of lead, back to camp (including expenses of self, brother, and servant), £520.15.8¾.

So we might think the colonel transported 55 cannon to Boston, including 43 cannon. But on 5 January he told Gen. Washington, “We got over 4 more dble fortified 12 pounders after my last to your excellency.” So his count was back to 59. Why Knox mentioned only 55 on his expense report is a mystery, but presumably his expenses were the same.

Yet another Knox document was transcribed in the first volume of the Harvard Illustrated Magazine, published in 1900.

Knox evidently made these notes during his journey, recording what ordnance went on a scow and what on a periauger. There are overlapping listings here, but at that point the freight included “42 Cannon of different Sizes” and “16 Mortars.”

Those numbers match the inventory that I quoted yesterday from John Adams, who viewed the train of artillery in Framingham in January 1776. (Of course, an editorial note indicates that the editors of the Adams papers used the Knox papers as a reference, so we should expect them to match.)

We also have Knox’s diary for the first part of his trip, and that tells us that he lost one cannon along the way. On the afternoon of 4 January, he wrote, he was “much alarm'd by hearing that one of the heaviest Cannon had fallen in to the [Mohawk] River at Half Moon Ferry.”

Three days later, near Albany, another cannon went “fell into the River notwithstanding the precautions we took.” Knox and the locals managed to get that gun out of the water the next day, but he’d had to leave the first sunken gun behind. That explains why he set out with one more iron eighteen-pounder than Adams saw.

Thus, Col. Knox set out from Lake Champlain with 59 artillery pieces, including 43 cannon; lost one eighteen-pounder; and arrived in eastern Massachusetts with the rest.

I’ve seen a report that the 59 artillery pieces Knox selected came almost evenly from Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga. However, I haven’t found a source for that statement.

There’s also the story told in an article in the Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum titled “History of a Wandering Cannon.” During work on a dam across the Mohawk River in the 1850s, an iron six-pounder with the royal monogram was dredged up. It was eventually displayed at the restored Fort Ti as the cannon Knox had lost back in 1776. But I’m not sure how it shrank from being an eighteen-pounder.

When Henry Knox Came Back to Cambridge

On Thursday, 25 January 1776, John Adams and Elbridge Gerry were on their way back to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The two Massachusetts delegates stopped at midday to dine in Framingham.

Adams wrote in his diary:

Coll. [Joseph] Buckminster after Dinner shewed us, the Train of Artillery brought down from Ticonderoga, by Coll. [Henry] Knox.

It consists of Iron—9 Eighteen Pounders, 10 Twelves, 6. six, four nine Pounders, Three 13. Inch Mortars, Two Ten Inch Mortars, one Eight Inch, and one six and an half. Howitz, one Eight Inch and an half and one Eight.

Brass Cannon. Eight Three Pounders, one four Pounder, 2 six Pounders, one Eighteen Pounder, and one 24 Pounder. One eight Inch and an half Mortar, one Seven Inch and an half Dto. and five Cohorns.

That’s fifty-eight pieces of artillery in all. (I’ll get back to that number tomorrow.)

Adams’s diary entry for this date in 1776 is notable because the traditional date for Knox reaching Cambridge with his “Noble train of Artillery” is 24 January. Here, for examples, is a Mass Moments page linked to that date. I stated that same date in my study for the National Park Service a few years back. And yet Adams tells us that on the following day all the colonel’s guns were still out in Framingham.

So did Knox leave the ordnance behind and go ahead to Cambridge to report to Gen. George Washington? That makes sense since Knox owed his position to Washington and was acting on orders he received directly from the commander-in-chief. And the historical record indicates that Knox did indeed leave his guns behind—but he did so the previous week.

Gen. William Heath’s memoirs, based on his wartime diary, state this for 18 January:

18th.–Col. Knox, of the artillery, came to camp. He brought from Ticonderoga a fine train of artillery, which had been taken from the British, both cannon and mortars, and which were ordered to be stopped at Framingham. 

At this time Heath was serving under Gen. Israel Putnam in east Cambridge. So “came to camp” almost certainly meant Knox came to Washington’s headquarters.

So where did the 24 January date for his arrival come from? It appears in the first biography of Knox, published by Francis S. Drake in 1873, but that doesn’t cite a source. And the Adams and Heath diaries say that:

• Knox reached Cambridge six days before that date.
• All the artillery pieces were still out in Framingham after that date.

So I apologize for repeating the 24 January date without foundation.

TOMORROW: How many cannon and mortars did Knox transport?

The J.A.R. Starting the Year Off Big

Over at the Journal of the American Revolution, there have been several articles of interest this year already. And not just because they arose out of conversations involving me.

First, the organization has given its 2016 Book of the Year Award to Brothers at Arms, American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It, by Larrie D. Ferreiro.

When I first looked at that book, I thought its marketing copy was too breathless—what student of the Revolutionary War doesn’t know that America’s ultimate victory depended on help from European governments, particularly France? But then I sampled the book, and I was impressed with the detail that Ferreiro brought to exploring that history.

Honorary mention goes to Edward G. Lengel’s First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His—and the Nation’s—Prosperity.

Last week the site featured one of its periodic round-robins, asking several of us contributors for short answers to some (hopefully) provocative questions. This series was:

• Name one major misconception about the American Revolution that you would like to dispel.
• Which two people leveraged their friendship into a positive working relationship that delivered strong results?
• Which two people let their personal dislike of each other interfere the most with their working relationship?
• Which individual made the single greatest sacrifice, other than death, for their cause? Bonus points for thinking outside the box.
• What do you think was the strangest or most unconventional moment, battle or event of the Revolution?

As usual, there were a range of responses, especially from those of us who have a more narrow focus in our interests—with some lumping around particular personalities.

Finally, America’s History, L.L.C., will host its annual American Revolution Conference at Colonial Williamsburg on 24-26 March 2017. I attended last year for the first time, and enjoyed myself. Although some fine academic scholars attend, this isn’t an academic conference. In fact, it reminded me more of the fan conventions I’ve been to, except that in this case the corpus to study is real.

Knox “kept the Sacred image erect”

Given the concatenation of the Fifth of November and yesterday’s discussion of Henry Knox’s childhood, I’ll repeat an anecdote that pertains to both.

On 21 July 1848 a Cambridge man named George Ingersoll sent Charles Daveis, who was trying to write a biography of Knox, a letter setting down a story about the man. Ingersoll said he’d heard the tale from “Mr. Charles Hayward of Boston heard it from the lips of an Eye-witness Mr. Richard Chamberlain, who had been in someway connected with the army” before becoming an import merchant.

The South & North ends of Boston were, in old times, (that is that exceedgly wise & important [?] portion of the Population the boys) in decided and unceasing opposition to each other. In celebration of that immortal day the fifth of Nov. each Party had its Pope accompanied by the “gentleman in black”—there were thus the South End Pope & the North End Pope.

These two parties always continued to meet at some half way spot where a regular fight ensued (an annual battle)—which lasted until one Party drove off the other & took possession of its Pope—the victorious Party then took both Popes to some particular place—generally the Mill Pond, & then burnt them both together.

On the present occasion, one of the wheels which supported the Platform of the South End Pope came off—or broke down—this, of course, would tend to Slide off his Holiness into the Street or at least compel him to lower his head before the rival Pope which would be regarded as a Sign of Submission.

To prevent this awful catastrophe, Knox immediately placed his Shoulder under the platform & kept the Sacred image erect until the fight was over. Which way the victory turnd Mr. Hayward does not remember.

Knox at the time was not—properly speaking—a boy, but rather as Mr. Chamberlain said, a dashing young man, about 18 or so. The belligerents—by the way—on these occasions were not by any means mere boys only, but were composed also of young men.

The South End Party was then commanded by a certain Abraham Foley—usually known as Niddy-Noddy, a nickname given him from a peculiar motion of the head. This man afterwards became a Servant and at last died in the Hospital [i.e., was poor and possibly insane]. Knox as Pope man was Subject to his orders—among others of the South End Party. And here, as the Showman says, is the illustration which the anecdote affords—Foley the comander, dying in the Hospital—Knox, the dashing young man, at last the Major-General.

Over the next two years, Daveis collected similar versions of this anecdote from two other men, but no one could say he’d seen the event himself. If this event did happen as described, it was in the late 1760s, when Knox was in his late teens.

Daveis’s papers went into the files of another unsuccessful Knox biographer, Joseph Willard, now at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The anecdote about Pope Night made its way into Francis S. Drake’s 1873 Life and Correspondence of Henry Knox. From there it’s been repeated by every Knox biographer in turn, but I believe this letter is the earliest source.

The “juvenile sports” of Two Boston Boys in the Late 1750s

In 22 Dec 1788, the Rev. David McClure wrote from Windsor, Connecticut, to one of his childhood friends from Boston:

Dear Sir,—On the footing of that juvenile friendship and acquaintance with you with which I have been honored, and which was kept alive to our riper years, I now do myself the pleasure to address a line to you, to assure you of my respectful and affectionate remembrance of you, and of the satisfaction with which I sometimes call to mind those scenes of innocent amusement and play in which we were mutually engaged when we were boys.

I have often thought of our attempts to imitate the man who flew from the steeple of the North Church, by sliding down an oar from the small buildings in your father’s house-yard at Wheeler’s Point; and by letting fly little wooden men from the garret window on strings. Have you forgotten that diversion?

McClure was recalling how a traveling daredevil named John Childs had “flown” from Christ Church in the North End in September 1757, as discussed way back here. Childs actually slid face-first down a rope, which is why the boys at Wheeler’s Point tried “sliding down an oar” and “letting letting fly little wooden men from the garret window on strings” to replicate his feat.

The minister’s old playmate was Henry Knox (shown above), then in New York as Secretary of War. He replied on 25 Jan 1789:

Our juvenile sports, and the joyful sensations they excited, are fresh in my mind; and what to me renders the remembrance particularly precious is, that I always flattered myself that our hearts and minds were similarly constructed.

This is one of our few authentic glimpses of Henry Knox as a boy in the 1750s. Within a few years, Henry’s father suffered business reversals and left his family, dying in the Caribbean in 1762. Henry became indentured to a bookseller, his first career.

On Monday, 7 November, I’ll speak to the Sudbury Companies of Militia & Minute about the events that allowed the launch of Henry Knox’s second career, as an artillery officer in the Continental Army. How did Gen. George Washington come to view his artillery regiment as in dire need of a shakeup? That talk will take place at the Wayside Inn in Sudbury at 8:00 or so, and I’ll have copies of The Road to Concord for signing.

“Great difficulty about the teams“

After the end of the siege of Boston, Gen. George Washington ordered Col. Henry Knox (shown here) to move most of the Continental Army’s artillery south to defend New York.

The Massachusetts General Court promised to supply 300 teams of horses or oxen to start moving those guns across the province by 6 Apr 1776. However, as that day approached, only 50 teams had shown up. The legislature assigned more members to hire animals, and Knox sent off some ordnance along two different routes to Norwich, Connecticut.

Here’s a snapshot of the trouble one of Knox’s subordinates encountered in a letter addressed to Knox or Ezekiel Cheever, quartermaster of artillery:

Grafton, April 9, 1776.

WORTHY SIR:

I am at great difficulty about the teams and their loading at present, and last night likewise in shifting them, the which I did with three of them, and the three fresh teams that I got then are already tired, and say that they cannot go any farther than Sutton, which is six miles from hence, and there I expect to find them all to-morrow morning, and all of them wanting to have their teams shifted; and you may depend that they cannot go farther, for I have had a survey of all their cattle, by all the Selectmen of this town, and their Representative; and they say they cannot go on, their cattle are so much galled and lame.

I am informed by the Selectmen that there are many teams in this town, but they cannot get any of them to go forward with a load, not even so far as Sutton; and in the whole town can get but one team, and he is gone forward; and there are three now remaining; and how to get them any farther I know not, without a special order from you or the General Court, to impress any of them that can be found, and the order to continue in force until they arrive at Norwich.

The bearer hereof is one of the teamsters, who I thought proper to despatch, and he will inform you of more particulars.

Waiting your answer, I remain, sir, with impatience, your very humble servant,

ROBERT COOK.

P. S. I hope you will satisfy this man for coming to you, which he desires.

Two days after that letter, the Massachusetts legislature authorized town selectmen to impress animals for the army’s use. With all that trouble, Knox didn’t get on the road himself until 14 April, as this letter reported.

Though not as lauded as Knox’s efforts to transport about half of that same artillery down from Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga the preceding winter, this trip to New York in springtime seems to have been almost as much trouble.

Mad about the Massachusetts Historical Society’s Collections

The Massachusetts Historical Society is celebrating its 225th anniversary this year with, among other things, this online exhibit of 225 notable objects from its collection.

Those objects don’t appear to include the broadside titled “Wolfe’s summit of human glory” which I wrote about here and is one of my personal favorites.

But they do include the Samuel Selden powder horn and many other treasures from the Revolutionary period:

• Phillis Wheatley’s writing desk.
• a panorama of besieged Boston based on the work of Lt. Richard Williams.
• Col. Henry Knox’s diary for the winter of 1775-76.
• epaulets worn by Gen. George Washington.
• Washington’s address to the officers at Newburgh, written in his own hand.
• the Bucks of America medallion from (I believe) the mid-1780s.
• Elbridge Gerry’s notes on the Constitution.
• the one known image of Lucy Knox, a caricature in silhouette.
• Paul Revere’s most detailed description of his ride on 18-19 Apr 1775.

And much more. Some of the material even comes from other historical periods.

Starting today, the M.H.S. is hosting some sort of bracket competition involving 64 of those objects, designated by red dots on the collection page. Since that hasn’t started yet, I don’t know how it works, but I’m sure the webpage will be happy to explain.

In addition, the society’s exhibit on “The Private Jefferson” has opened and will be free to visitors Monday through Saturday until 20 May. There’s also a new illustrated book highlighting Thomas Jefferson documents in the society’s collections.

The Stamp Act as a Marriage Tax

Genealogists, historians of marriage, and other experts might correct me on this, but in provincial Massachusetts a new couple didn’t obtain a certificate of marriage.

Rather, they got a certificate of their intention to marry from their town clerk, who certified that the engagement had been announced from the pulpit for the requisite fifteen days (three Sundays) beforehand.

Then they could take that paper to the minister or justice of the peace (ministers seem to have become the default choice by the eighteenth century) for the actual marriage.

I looked for examples of certificates of intent to marry from eighteenth-century Massachusetts, and the closest I got, courtesy of Access Genealogy, was the example above from 1806. But hey, it’s signed by William Cooper, who was Boston’s town clerk from 1761 to 1809. So he would have signed the equivalent document in the 1760s.

[To folks at the Massachusetts Historical Society: If my notes are correct, the Willard (Knox) Papers contain the certificate that Cooper filled out for Henry Knox and Lucy Flucker on June 23, 1774. That might make a nice Object of the Month.]

I did find a number of transcriptions from town clerks’ records, showing they didn’t all follow the same linguistic formula in noting down who planned to marry in their towns. Here’s an example from Stoughton:

The Intention of Marriage Betwen Mr. Ezra Morse of Stoughton & Mrs. Susanna Guild of Walpole Entred April ye 13th 1765

From Dover:

October 1st 1786. The intention of marriage between Mr David Fuller Jr of the District of Dover and Miss Sally Gay of Dedham is this day entered with me and a certificate given that the said intention of marriage hath been made public agreeable to law

Joseph Haven District Clerk

The text of a certificate from Westfield:

This may certify that the Intention of Marriage between Mr. Zenas Noble, of Washington, and Mrs. Margaret Granger, of Westfield, hath been published in the manner the Law directs; and their names entered with me fourteen Days previous to the Date.

Westfield, Oct. 24th, 1791
Attt. P. WHITNEY, Town-Clerk.

Some clerks noted when couples registered their intention but never came to pick up their certificates, and were therefore not supposed to have gotten married.

The text of the Stamp Act makes no explicit mention of marriage, but it includes this clause:

For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any appeal, writ of error, writ of dower, Ad quod damnum, certiorari, statute merchant, statute staple, attestation, or certificate, by any officer, or exemplification of any record or proceeding in any court whatsoever within the said colonies and plantations (except appeals, writs of error, certiorari, attestations, certificates, and exemplifications, for or relating to the removal of any proceedings from before a single justice of the peace) a stamp duty of ten shillings.

Evidently the term “certificate, by any officer,” covered certificates of intent to marry. As a result, the Stamp Act put a ten-shilling tax on the legal act of marrying.

TOMORROW: Tax avoidance in 1765.

The Print Record of Pickled Olives in Early America

Yesterday I recounted an anecdote about Henry Knox’s first, unhappy encounter with pickled olives. And I wondered whether those were truly an exotic delicacy in North America.

I went to Readex’s Early American Newspapers database for more information on this question. Its search function confirms that pickled olives weren’t advertised or widely discussed in America until after the Revolution, and then appear to have been a special import.

The only mention of “pickled olives” in American newspapers before independence is a 2 Apr 1767 item in the New York Gazette, reprinting a article in the Quebec Gazette, which in turn quoted from Henry Baker’s Employment for the Microscope, published in London in 1753. That quotation described treating a woman after accidental arsenic poisoning with an emetic, and it compared her resulting excrement to pickled olives.

Moving on.

In the 18 July 1785 Connecticut Courant, a Hartford merchant named Daniel Smith announced that he’d just put on sale a very wide assortment of imported goods, including “pickled Olives and Capers.” The 22 Dec 1788 State Gazette of South Carolina had an advertisement from the mercantile firm of Crouch and Trezevant offering, among other things, “Pickled Olives and Girkins.”

Finally, in the New York Daily Advertiser starting on 31 July 1797 the Coster brothers ran an ad about a ship just arrived from Bourdeaux. Among its goods were “pickled olives, capers anchovies.” That was during the decade when Martha Washington reportedly served pickled olives to Knox, Secretary of War.

In that same year, Samuel Deane of Bowdoin College published a book titled The New-England Farmer, or Georgic Dictionary, in which he encouraged American farmers to plant olive trees. “The oil and pickled olives brought from thence [Europe], amount to more than a trifle, which ought to be saved if practicable.” By that point pickled olives were clearly known in America, but Deane still had to argue that their import from Europe amounted to “more than a trifle,” so they probably weren’t widely consumed.

What Henry Knox Would Not Eat

The Westbrook (Maine) Historical Society preserves this story about Henry Knox and Martha Washington, apparently first published in the Narragansett Sun newspaper of Portland on 12 Dec 1895 (P.D.F. download):

An anecdote that is vouched for as true by high authority is worth recording. At one of those elegant dinners given by Washington after he had come to the presidency, and which were presided over by his estimable wife, the pickled olives, now so common, but at that time almost unknown, were passed to Gen. Knox. The first trial of the new relish was quite enough for the valiant Secretary of War, who quickly taking the obnoxious fruit from his mouth, thus addressed himself to his hostess, “Please, Madam, may I put this d___ thing on the floor?”

I can easily fit this anecdote in with what lots of other sources describe as Knox’s easy friendship with the Washingtons. But is there any way to test its authenticity?

One question is whether pickled olives were still unfamiliar by the 1790s. A 1749 London edition of A Treatise on Foreign Vegetables, by Dr. Ralph Thicknesse (1719-1790), includes this entry:

Pickled Olives, being eaten before Meals, says Schroder, provoke an Appetite, raise and comfort a moist Stomach, and move the Belly.

Richard Bradley’s Treatise on Husbandry and Gardening, as published in 1723, discusses cherries treated “to imitate pickled olives,” suggesting that the latter had become popular somewhere.

But that was in Britain. Had pickled olives made their way to the colonies? In 1759, George Washington sent an invoice to his London merchant that included: “1 Case of Pickles to consist of Anchovies—Capers, Olives—Salid Oyl & 1 Bottle India Mangoes…” That’s the closest match to the phrase “pickled olive(s)” that I found in all of the Founders’ papers digitized at the National Archives and the Library of Congress. But Washington ordered “French olives” regularly in the 1750s. Was pickling taken for granted?

TOMORROW: Evidence from newspapers.

A Miniature Henry Knox

In Dealings with the Dead (1856), Lucius Manlius Sargent told this anecdote about the Rev. Mather Byles, Sr., a Loyalist minister who stayed in Boston after the siege and became notorious for being unable to resist a pun:

He was intimate with General [Henry] Knox, who was a bookseller, before the war. When the American troops took possession of the town, after the evacuation, Knox, who had become quite corpulent, marched in, at the head of his artillery.

As he passed on, Byles, who thought himself privileged, on old scores, exclaimed, loud enough to be heard—“I never saw an ox fatter in my life.” But Knox was not in the vein. He felt offended by this freedom, especially from Byles, who was then well known to be a tory; and replied, in uncourtly terms, that he was a “—— fool.”

That anecdote has been republished in biographies of both Knox and Byles, and in other books as well. It’s too good to resist.

But I’ve long wondered whether Henry Knox was really that fat at the time. The picture above shows a miniature of Gen. Knox by Charles Willson Peale, dated 1778 and now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this image Knox, while not miniature, doesn’t appear any fatter than many other gentlemen of his time.

When Peale painted Knox again around 1784, the general’s face had grown noticeably more jowly.

That might have been a peak point for Knox’s weight because on 18 May 1788 Abigail Smith wrote to her mother, Abigail Adams: “The General is not half so fat as he was.” (In his 1873 biography of the general, Francis S. Drake combined this remark with what Smith wrote about Lucy Knox on 15 June 1788.) At that time Smith was returning to America after some years in Europe, so she was comparing Knox in 1788 with him a few years earlier.

Knox’s later portraits by Edward Savage around 1790 and and Gilbert Stuart are also on the heavy side. (Mid-nineteenth-century American artists shaved down Knox’s belly like magazine art directors using Photoshop.) There’s no question Knox was a big man, but in 1776, when he was still in his mid-twenties, was he truly as fat as an ox?

The South Boston Parade’s Legend of John Henry Knox

Today the St. Patrick’s Day Parade is scheduled in South Boston, sponsored by the local Allied War Veteran’s Council under the leadership of John “Wacko” Hurley.

A while back, a nice person from one of greater Boston’s history museums contacted me, aghast at the parade’s “History” webpage. That page declares:

The History and the Defined Truth of the South Boston, St. Patrick's Day Parade

General John Henry Knox brought the 55 cannons captured at Fort Ticonderoga. In March, the troops positioned the cannons on
Dorchester Heights.

They had cut down trees to cannon size, hollow them out and blacken them over fire to look like cannons. Surprise was just around the corner..

On March 17th, 1776, orders were given that if you wish to pass through the continental lines, the password was "St. Patrick". The British had seen all the cannons on the Heights and left Boston.

During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress appointed general officers to lead the Continental Army. They were usually distinguished community leaders and statesmen, and several had served as provincial officers in the British Army. While there were some general officers who were promoted to the grade from lower ranks, most held their ranks by initial appointment and then with such appointment at the pleasure of the Congress, to be expired or revoked at the end of a particular campaign.

More History to be inserted here and down...

Even beyond the non-sequiturs, shifting tenses, and poor punctuation, this page contains an awful lot of sheer bunk. John Henry Knox was a nineteenth-century British politician. The officer who hauled 58 artillery pieces (not 55) to Boston from Fort Ticonderoga and (the usually omitted) Crown Point in New York was Col. Henry Knox. At History Camp we joked about a hybrid of John Henry and Henry Knox building a railroad through the Berkshires.

Not all those cannon went onto the Dorchester peninsula, but some did. However, there’s no evidence for the besieging army creating fake cannon out of tree trunks; in the right circumstances that ruse might keep an enemy from advancing toward a particular position, but it wouldn’t help at all in what the Continentals wanted to do—make the Crown forces leave Boston.

The name of Michael Bare appears in the midst of that copy, probably as a credit for the photo of the Dorchester Heights monument. Bare devoted a lot of time and energy to sharing the history of Evacuation Day before his death in 2010. This text is not an appropriate tribute to him.

I suspect that the whole website was constructed in haste and left unfinished. The F.A.Q. and Contact Us pages lead to a 404 message with dummy text in Latin. Given how the parade organizers say their event is all about veterans and families, surely they planned to add information about veterans’ services and family activities. Right now there’s only a honking big link pointing to a list of South Boston bars. (That page lists Sam Adams Beer, which I understand has canceled its sponsorship this year.)

When I first saw this South Boston Parade webpage, I thought of dropping the organization a line with some corrected copy. But as planning for this year’s parade unfolded, it became clear that the organizers don’t want outside advice or participation. So I decided just to share this “History and Defined Truth” here. Happy holiday.

TOMORROW: Was the American password on 17 March really “St. Patrick”?

Evacuation Day Exercises in Dorchester and Roxbury, 17 Mar.

Monday, 17 March, is the anniversary of the day in 1776 when the British military left Boston and the first Continental troops moved in. That event will be commemorated with historical exercises in Dorchester and Roxbury starting at 10:00 A.M.

The ceremony at the Dorchester Heights monument will feature the Lexington Minutemen, the Allied War Veterans of South Boston, a children’s choir from the South Boston Catholic Academy, and the Major General Henry Knox Lodge of Freemasons.

Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Bunker Hill and other award-winning historical books, will speak, along with elected officials and Boston National Historical Park Deputy Superintendent Rose Fennell.

Park Service rangers and volunteers will be on hand to recount the important moments in the siege of Boston. They’ll lead a hands-on archeology program from 11:00 A.M. to noon, inviting visitors to simulate the 1990s dig that uncovered a 200-foot-wide star-shaped earthwork on that hill. There will also be information about a replica British 18-pounder cannon that eventually will be displayed at Dorchester Heights.

At 11:00 A.M., State Representative Gloria Fox will host historical exercises at Fort Hill in Highland Park, Roxbury (shown above). The fortification at this site, designed by volunteer Henry Knox, blocked the only land route out of Boston during the siege. Gen. George Washington was so impressed with Knox’s work in laying out and constructing this fort in the summer of 1775 that he supported the young bookseller’s appointment as colonel in charge of American artillery that fall.

Immediately after the ceremony at Fort Hill, Fox will host a free luncheon at the Shirley-Eustis House at 33 Shirley Street in Roxbury. Nat Philbrick will speak again about Bunker Hill, the Lexington Minutemen will fire another salute, and Maj. Gen. Knox himself will make an appearance.

The Memory of Samuel Ely

For the last two days I’ve quoted advertisements from Connecticut newspapers spelling out a dispute between militia colonel William Williams of Wilmington, Vermont, and the former minister Samuel Ely. That wasn’t the last dispute that Ely got into.

In April 1782, while living in Conway, Massachusetts, Ely led a crowd that kept the Hampshire County court closed, just as similar crowds had done in 1774 and throughout the war. Though Massachusetts had a new constitution, Ely and the scores of men who supported him didn’t think the system was fair to poor farmers. Ely is described as picking up a stick and shouting, “Come on, my brave boys, we’ll go to the woodpiles and get clubs enough to knock their grey wigs off!” State authorities arrested Ely, but a crowd of over a hundred men broke him out of the Northampton jail.

Ely returned to Wilmington, Vermont, for refuge, only to find the same issues in that little nation. By the end of the year Ely was convicted for saying, “The state of Vermont is a damned state, and the act for the purpose of raising ten shillings upon every hundred acres of land is a cursed act, and they that made it are a cursed body of men.” Vermont officials happily gave Ely back to Massachusetts, which locked him up for a while.

After winning his release, Ely seems to have laid low, or perhaps he just got lost in the crowds of the Shays’ Rebellion. But he resurfaced in Maine in 1790, and was soon leading a settlers’ campaign against big landowner Henry Knox. While hiding from legal authorities he managed to publish pamphlets with titles like The Unmasked Nabob of Hancock County; or, The Scales Dropt from the Eyes of the People and The Deformity of a Hideous Monster, Discovered in the Province of Maine, by a Man in the Woods, Looking after Liberty. Ely finally died in the late 1790s.

In short, Samuel Ely was a radical organizer, constantly fighting against economic inequality according to his interpretation of Christian scripture. He wasn’t the sort of Revolutionary whom America’s wealthy liked to remember.

In Travels in New-York and New-England, Timothy Dwight (1752-1817, shown above) called Ely “the great fomenter of discontent, confusion, and sedition, in Massachusetts,” and wrote, “The remainder of his life was a tissue, woven of nothing but guilt and infamy.” Dwight had the most to say about Ely’s early work as a minister in Somers, Connecticut:

Ely was an unlicensed and disorderly preacher, and could not obtain an ordination. His character even at that time, although less known and probably less corrupted than it was afterwards, was yet so stained, as to render it impossible for him to enter the ministry. But he possessed the spirit, and so far as his slender abilities would permit the arts, of a demagogue in an unusual degree. He was voluble, vehement in address, bold, persevering, active, brazen-faced in wickedness, and under the accusation and proof of his crimes would still wear a face of serenity, and make strong professions of piety. At the same time he declared himself, everywhere, the friend of the suffering and oppressed, and the champion of violated rights. Wherever he went, he industriously awakened the jealousy of the humble and ignorant against all men of superior reputation, as haughty, insolent, and oppressive. Jealousy he knew to be, among human passions, the most easily and certainly kindled. Both his character and his circumstances were in his own view deplorable; and he felt therefore, that he had nothing to lose beside his neck; a loss too uncommon, in this state, to be seriously dreaded, except in the case of murder. Of course, he undauntedly applied himself to any wickedness, which promised him either consequence or bread.

In fact, Ely was qualified to preach as a graduate of Yale, the same college where Dwight was president for twenty-two years. Dwight was an arch-conservative of early America, so of course he hated Ely’s preaching against the upper class. Despite the omissions and obvious political leaning of Dwight’s statement, later authors repeated his judgment on Ely.

In 1858 Benjamin H. Hall’s History of Eastern Vermont described Samuel Ely’s military career this way:

A bold, but rash and impetuous man, he had served in the battle of Bennington as a volunteer, and being connected with no company or regiment had fought without the advice or direction of any person. He had been court-martialed after the action on account of his singular conduct in retaining a large amount of valuable plunder, but had been honorably discharged on proof that he had taken only such articles as he had won in his own independent method of warfare.

That account said nothing about Ely commanding of the Wilmington militiamen after their colonel had left, as three of them later wrote. Instead, it painted Ely as unable to get along with any group, and getting away with looting on that account. (Hall had only good things to say about Ely’s accuser William Williams, though he had to note that Williams had ended up moving to Canada.)

Another Yale-connected author actually concealed some favorable information about Ely. In Yale and Her Honor-roll in the American Revolution, 1775-1783 (1888), Henry P. Johnston quoted the 1778 advertisements from Ely’s supporters in Vermont, but incompletely. He left out the part about Ely leading the Wilmington militia and the Vermont men’s denunciations of Williams for plundering himself. Johnston did state: “After the war Mr. Ely agitated socialistic views, got into trouble, defied the authorities in Massachusetts, was denounced as a ‘mobber,’ and arrested.”

It wasn’t until the Depression that historians began to recognize Samuel Ely as a political leader, albeit an unsuccessful one. In 1932 the New England Quarterly published an article by Robert E. Moody titled “Samuel Ely: Forerunner of Shays.” In 1986 the Maine Historical Society Quarterly published Alan Taylor’s “The Disciples of Samuel Ely: Settler Resistance against Henry Knox on the Waldo Patent, 1785-1801.” And now the new Massachusetts Historical Review offers Shelby M. Balik’s “‘Persecuted in the Bowels of a Free Republic’: Samuel Ely and the Agrarian Theology of Justice, 1768-1797.”