Knowing Your Enemy by Name

The two pieces of testimony I quoted over the last two days have something in common besides how they both described violence between locals and soldiers near the ropewalks in central Boston.

In both cases the person describing the 3 Mar 1770 fight, putting all the blame on those nasty people on the other side, could also name one of those opponents.

Archibald McNeal wasn’t just menaced by unknown grenadiers, identifiable only by the wings on their uniforms. Rather, he referred to “One of the grenadiers, named Dixson.”

Pvt. John Rodgers didn’t say he was attacked by three anonymous Bostonians. He fingered one of them as Joseph Shed, whom we can identify as a carpenter.

That pattern reflects the extensive ties between soldiers and civilians that Serena Zabin explores in The Boston Massacre: A Family History. Since late 1768 soldiers had been living in Boston, a town of only 16,000 people. People saw each other on the streets, in taverns, in churches. In some cases soldiers worked part-time alongside locals. Their wives boarded with local homeowners. More than a few redcoats wooed or married Boston women.

As a result, some civilians knew some soldiers as individuals, and vice versa. They may not have liked each other, but their relationships went deeper than simply redcoat and local.

Another example of this phenomenon that Zabin highlights is the case of James Bailey, a sailor who was at the 3 March ropewalk confrontation and at the Massacre two days later.

At the ropewalk, Bailey was a bit of a provocateur, asking young McNeal why he didn’t answer the grenadiers’ taunts. (And then, not having a weapon to counter the soldiers’ bludgeons either, Bailey shut up.) But he could also be friendly to a soldier.

On King Street, Bailey testified, he spotted Pvt. Hugh White standing guard outside the Customs office and being badgered by angry boys. [Rightly so, I’d say, but that’s another story.] “I went up to him because I knew him, and to see what was the matter,” the sailor said—i.e., what was all this ruckus about?

When I first went up to him, I said, what is the matter? He said he did not know. The boys were throwing pieces of ice at him, and after I went to him, they threw no more; I stood with him five or six minutes.

Bailey was actually “standing along with the Sentry, on the Custom-house steps,” in effect shielding White from attack. During that time, the sailor recalled, “He said very little to me, only that he was afraid, if the boys did not disperse, there would be something very soon, he did not mention what.”

Pvt. White, in turn, looked out for Bailey. When more soldiers arrived from the main guard, one of them was Pvt. John Carroll. Bailey recognized him from the ropewalk a couple of days before, and it’s quite possible Carroll recognized him. Bailey stated:

When the soldiers came down, Carrol came up to me and clapt his bayonet to my breast, and White said do not hurt him. . . .

Montgomery…was the very next person to me, close to me. When White told him not to hurt me, he took his hand and pushed me right behind him.

Bailey was one of the witnesses who said Pvt. Edward Montgomery fired the first shot after being hit, though he disagreed with other witnesses on what happened just before that. Bailey had such a close-up view of the shooting because Pvt. White perceived him as friendly.

Back to the Ropewalks

In 2020 I presented five men’s perspectives on the fight between soldiers and ropemakers at John Gray’s ropewalk on 2 Mar 1770.

The next day, there was another, smaller fight as a follow-up. So here’s another, smaller post about that fight.

Revolutionary Boston contained more than one man named Archibald McNeil or McNeal. One was a baker who became a Loyalist. Another owned a ropewalk. A third was the second man’s son, a second-generation ropemaker born in 1750, thus not of legal age when the king’s regiments came to town.

Nonetheless, the younger Archibald had learned most of the art and mystery of ropemaking, and he was the boss’s son and heir, so he probably wielded some authority in the shop. Here’s how he described the events of 3 March:

Archibald McNeil, jun. of lawful age, testifies and says, that on Saturday the third instant, about half an hour after four in the afternoon, the deponent with two apprentices were spinning at the lower end of Mr. McNeil’s ropewalk, three stout grenadiers, armed with bludgeons, came to them, and addressing the deponent said, You damn’d dogs, don't you deserve to be kill’d? Are you fit to die?

The deponent and company being quite unarmed gave no answer. James Bayley, a seafaring young man, coming up, said to the deponent, &c. Why did you not answer?

One of the grenadiers, named Dixson, hearing him, came up to Bayley and asked him if he was minded to vindicate the cause?

Bayley also unarmed did not answer till James Young came up, who, tho’ equally naked [i.e., weaponless], said to the grenadier, Damn it, I know what a soldier is.

That grenadier stood still, and the other who had threatened the deponent came up and struck at him, which Young fended off with his arms, and then turning aimed a blow at the deponent, which had it reached might probably have been fatal.

Patrick ——, Mr. Winter Calef’s journeyman, seeing the affray, went into the tan-house, and bringing out two batts gave one to a bystander, who together with Patrick soon cleared the walk of them

“James Bayley, a seafaring young man,” was the sailor named James Bailey who testified at length at the soldiers’ trial about what he saw at the Massacre two days later. At the end of that testimony he added that he’d seen defendant John Carroll “at the Rope walks in the affray there, a few days before the 5th March”—which of course confirms Bailey was there, too.

Ebenezer Winter Calef (b. 1729) was a tanner in Boston. He and his brother Joseph had lost a lot of property in the great fire of 1760, and a family history credits Winter Calef, a bachelor and thus apparently able to devote all his energies to business, with maintaining the family fortunes. (Joseph’s son, also named Ebenezer Winter Calef, became an officer in the Continental Navy.)

I wondered if Patrick, “Calef’s journeyman,” might be Patrick Carr, the leather breeches–maker fatally wounded at the Massacre, but he worked for John Field.

TOMORROW: More fighting on that Saturday.

Was Crispus Attucks Really the First Man Shot at the Massacre?

Another question about the Boston Massacre that I saw come up this Sestercentennial season is whether Crispus Attucks was really the first man to be killed in that event.

Attucks is certainly remembered as the “First Martyr of Liberty,” as in the title of Mitch Kachun’s book on the historical memory of the man. That reflects the importance of Attucks’s African ancestry to the abolitionist and civil-rights movements. (Of course, it sets aside young Christopher Seider, killed eleven days earlier.)

But what evidence says that Attucks was the first man shot on King Street? Given the stress and confusion of the moment, how consistent and reliable could the witnesses be?

In fact, a review of the eyewitness testimony finds multiple witnesses describing Attucks as being the first person to fall. There’s a little confusion since the first shot seems to have come from Pvt. Edward Montgomery, but it’s not clear he shot Attucks. He may have fired his musket high and hit no one but spurred another soldier to fire at Attucks soon afterwards. Nonetheless, people saw Attucks fall before anyone else.

Here’s some of eyewitness John Hickling’s deposition:

I instantly leaped within the soldier’s bayonet as I heard him cock his gun, which that moment went off between Mr. [Richard] Palmes and myself. I, thinking there was nothing but powder fired, stood still, till upon the other side of Mr. Palmes and close to him, I saw another gun fired, and the man since called Attucks, fall. I then withdrew about two or three yards, and turning, saw Mr. Palmes upon his knee, and the soldiers pushing at him with their bayonets. During this the rest of the guns were fired, one after another, when I saw two more fall. I ran to one and seeing the blood gush out of his head though just expiring, I felt for the wound and found a hole as big as my hand. This I have since learned was Mr. [Samuel] Gray. I then went to Attucks and found him gasping, pulled his head out of the gutter and left him…

Unlike Hickling, Charles Hobby blamed Capt. Thomas Preston:

The Captain then spoke distinctly, “Fire, Fire!” I was then within four feet of Capt. Preston, and know him well; the soldiers fired as fast as they could one after another. I saw the mulatto fall, and Mr. Samuel Gray went to look at him, one of the soldiers, at the distance of about four or five yards, pointed his piece directly for the said Gray’s head and fired. Mr. Gray, after struggling, turned himself right round upon his heel and fell dead.

Sailor James Bailey had been standing with sentry Hugh White as the crowd built up. According to John Adams’s notes at the soldiers’ trial, he said:

Montgomery fired the first Gun. He was the next Man to me close to me, at the right. Cant Say whether the 1st. Gun killed or hurt any one. I Stoopd down to look under the Smoke and the others went off. 1/2 a Minute between 1st. and 2d. Gun. . . . Montgomery fired, about where the Molatto fell. It was pointing towards the Place where we saw Attucks lie.

All those men were up toward the front of the crowd. John Danbrook was somewhere in the middle, and he also testified that Attucks was the first man shot—but also that another man was hit immediately afterwards. Here’s Danbrook at the soldiers’ trial:

Q. Was you looking at Montgomery when he discharged his piece?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you see any body fall upon his firing?

A. Yes, I saw two fall, one fell at my elbow, another about three feet from me. I did not hear the sound of another gun, before they both fell.

Q. Were they standing before Montgomery?

A. Yes, about twelve or fifteen feet from him, and about five feet apart, one was the Molatto, the other I did not know.

Q. Do you think one gun killed both these men?

A. Yes, for I heard no other gun when they fell.

Q. Are you certain the other person was killed?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you hear any other gun before that man fell?

A. No.

And Adams’s notes on Danbrook’s testimony:

I saw Montgomery there and saw him fire. . . . I saw two fall as he fired, before I heard any other Gun. One fell just vs. my left Elbow, and the other about 3 foot from me about 10 or 15 foot from the Soldier. In a range with me, one was the Molatto. I believe it was with the first Gun that they were. They were 5 foot a sunder. It was not a Minute, after the Molatto fell that the other Man fell. I cant say, I heard another Gun, before I Saw the 2d Man down. 

I couldn’t find any witness identifying another victim as dropping before Attucks.

Thus, while witnesses disagreed on some details, they did provide us with strong support for saying that Crispus Attucks was the first man fatally shot in the Massacre.

TOMORROW: Was Attucks shot twice?

Richard Palmes’s Last Word

As Neil L. York quotes in The Boston Massacre: A History with Documents, Richard Palmes published his own version of his testimony about the Boston Massacre in the 25 Mar 1771 Boston Gazette because “the sentiments of the People seems various concerning the Testimony I gave.”

That apparently meant that neighbors were accusing him of saying things that had helped to acquit Capt. Thomas Preston and most of the soldiers, and caused the last two soldiers to be convicted of manslaughter instead of murder. Specifically, Palmes took issue with the version of his testimony that shorthand expert John Hodgson had published in Boston early that year.

What are the important differences between the two versions of Palmes’s testimony? Aside from details of wording, they appear in these questions about Pvt. Edward Montgomery, the first soldier to fire. Hodgson’s version:

Q. Are you certain that Montgomery was struck and sallied back before he fired?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know whether it was with a piece of ice or a club?
A. No.

And Palmes’s version:

Q. Are you sure Montgomery was struck and sallied back before he fired?
A. I tho’t he stept back when it hit him.
Q. Do you know whether it was a piece of ice, or a club?
A. It was something resembling ice.

Palmes wanted his neighbors to know that he did not say Montgomery “sallied back,” or staggered, but that he deliberately stepped back. He also said that private was most likely hit by ice rather than wood. In both details, Palmes downplayed the violence Montgomery had suffered.

Or rather, Palmes insisted that Hodgson had made him overstate that violence: “Mr. Hodgson confounds my remembrance in such manner, that I could not determine the difference between a piece of ice and a club, for what purpose this fetch, judge impartial reader!”

After Palmes’s testimony the court recalled another witness, James Bailey, and asked if he still believed that Montgomery fell down after being hit by the object. Bailey reaffirmed that he did. Palmes commented: “I imagine this evidence was bro’t to invalidate my declaration in court; but I assure the world upon the oath I then took, that Montgomery did not fall until he attempted to run his bayonet thro’ my body; which was about the time the last gun went off.”

Which version was accurate? In his earlier testimony Palmes had consistently spoken of “a piece of snow or ice” being thrown. Even someone taking notes for the Crown at the soldiers’ trial recorded that. So Hodgson’s report that Palmes said the object might have been a club seems suspect.

However, that anonymous note-taker also reported that Palmes had remarked about the ice hitting the soldier, “whether it staggered him back or he only stepd back I cant tell”—more doubt about Montgomery stepping back than Palmes himself later acknowledged.

In any event, by publishing his version of his testimony in the Boston Gazette, Palmes got the last word.

TOMORROW: Until the 21st century.