Rev. Richard Mosley and the Boylston-Molineux Marriage

A couple of days ago, I mentioned the Rev. Richard Mosley, chaplain of H.M.S. Salisbury. He wrote about Capt. Thomas Preston’s trial for murder.

Mosley’s presence may help in the quest to answer one of the vexing genealogical mysteries of pre-Revolutionary Boston.

According to family historians, Mosley was the minister who married Ward Nicholas Boylston to Ann Molineux. The ceremony reportedly took place on the Salisbury while it was in Portsmouth harbor, with a special license from New Hampshire governor John Wentworth.

Since Boylston was the son of Benjamin Hallowell, Jr., a Customs Commissioner, and Molineux was the daughter of William Molineux, one of Boston’s most radical anti-Crown activists, their marriage raises lots of questions. Mosley’s presence doesn’t help to answer the question of why. But it may help to answer the question of when, or at least narrow down the window.

H.M.S. Salisbury arrived in Boston harbor on the morning of 10 Oct 1770, as reported in the newspapers and the diary of John Rowe. It sailed for Britain at the end of August 1771. We have glimpses of the commodore in command of the ship, James Gambier, and chaplain Mosley in Boston in the intervening months:

• 10 Dec 1770: While in Boston harbor, Cmdre. Gambier signed a proclamation about deserters printed in the Boston News-Letter and other papers.
• 28 Jan 1771: Gambier and his wife had a baby daughter baptized at King’s Chapel with Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, Lady Agnes Frankland, and Ann Burch, wife of a Customs Commissioner, as sponsors.
• 8 February: Gambier signed another proclamation, also in Boston harbor.
• 9 March: Rowe wrote in his diary, “The Chaplain Mr. Mossely of the Salisbury was taken in an Apoplectick fit yesterday which hindered him coming to our house.”
• 14 March: Gambier presided over the firing of cannon to salute new royal appointments.
• 2 April: Rowe saw both Gambier and Mosley at a dinner for a charitable society.
• 29 May: Gambier attended the opening of the legislative session at Harvard College.
• 4 June: Gambier hosted a ball that Rowe attended.
• 21 June: Gambier dined at Ralph Inman’s house in Cambridge.
• 6 August: Gambier entertained Boston’s elite on the Salisbury.

I haven’t yet found mentions of the Salisbury visiting New Hampshire. It could have zipped up and back in some of the gaps in that timeline, with the biggest good-weather gaps coming in April-May and July 1771.

Notably, the first child of the Boylstons’ marriage, young Nicholas, arrived before the end of 1771. So maybe we learn a little about the why as well.

COMING UP: Mr. Mosley’s North American career.

Capt. Preston at the Castle

The Boston Whigs don’t appear to have been surprised or terribly upset when Capt. Thomas Preston was acquitted of murder for the Boston Massacre in October 1770.

The 5 November Boston Gazette reported the not guilty verdict without comment.

Writing to John Wilkes on behalf of the Whigs, young merchant William Palfrey complained at length about how the jury had been seated and called the trial a “farce,” but he also said:

It must however be confessed that the confusion of that unhappy night was so great that the Witnesses both for the Crown & the prisoner differed materially in some parts of their testimony, and even in my own mind there still remains a doubt whether Capt Preston gave the orders to fire, as the two Witnesses who swore to that point, declared also that Capt Preston had on a Surtout Coat, which he proved was not the case.

Preston and his friends nonetheless still feared a lynching, or at least more harassment. On 31 October, the captain wrote to Gen. Thomas Gage in New York:

They have endeavourd to lodge an Appeal against me, in behalf of one of the relations of the deceasd, but it won’t lie, as there are not any near enough of kin now surviving, but their busy malice has found out another way to distress me, by sueing me for damages on acct. of the wounded, & if taken wou’d involve me in endless lawsuits…

The next day, Lt. Col. William Dalrymple added, “I understand there are fresh warrants out against him.” No lawsuit went forward, however.

To be safe, Capt. Preston had headed for Castle William, where the 14th Regiment could protect him against both mobs and constables.

We even have a glimpse of the captain’s departure for that island fort in a document that Christie’s auctioned in 2005. That was a handwritten copy of Preston’s “Case,” including a section not published in the London newspapers.

Bound with that plea for a pardon was a letter from the Rev. Richard Mosley dated 7 November. He recounted the captain’s trial and stated, “After Capn Preston was discharged…I escorted him to a boat” headed to Castle Island. Mosley believed the locals still wanted “Blood for Blood.”

Mosley was then the chaplain of H.M.S. Salisbury, which had arrived in Boston harbor earlier in October carrying Commodore James Gambier, recently appointed naval commander of the North American station. Some Whigs had speculated that the Crown had sent the warship to Boston to ensure the town remained peaceful during the Massacre trials.

As for the Preston/Mosley document, I don’t know where it is now. The selling price was over a quarter-million dollars, so it’s not in the Boston 1775 collection.

TOMORROW: Preston’s own view of his trial.