“Are you serious, Dr. Church?”

In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Jeremy Belknap, Paul Revere recalled a dramatic moment on 21 Apr 1775:

The Friday evening after [the Battle of Lexington and Concord], about sun set, I was sitting with some, or near all that Committee [of safety], in their room, which was at Mr. [Jonathan] Hastings’s House at Cambridge. Dr. [Benjamin] Church, all at once, started up—

Dr. Warren, said He, I am determined to go into Boston tomorrow—

(it set them all a stairing)—

Dr. [Joseph] Warren replyed, Are you serious, Dr. Church? they will Hang you if they catch you in Boston.

He replyed, I am serious, and am determined to go at all adventures.

After a considerable conversation, Dr. Warren said, If you are determined, let us make some business for you. They agreed that he should go to git medicine for their & our Wounded officers.

He went the next morning; & I think he came back on Sunday evening.

As part of his medical mission, Dr. Church carried in a note from Dr. John Homans of Brookline to his mentor Dr. Joseph Gardner, asking for surgical knives.

Revere recalled speaking to Church after his return:

After He had told the Committee how things were, I took him a side, & inquired particularly how they treated him? he said, that as soon as he got to their lines on the Boston Neck, they made him a prisoner, & carried him to General [Thomas] Gage, where He was examined, & then He was sent to Gould’s Barracks, & was not suffered to go home but once.

In Igniting the American Revolution, Derek W. Beck guessed that the Gould of “Gould’s Barracks” was Lt. Edward Thoroton Gould, who on that day was a wounded prisoner of war outside of Boston. But I think the answer appears in a letter of merchant John Andrews on 11 January:

This morning the soldiers in the barrack opposite our house, left it, and took quarters with the royal Irish in Gould’s auction room or store—in the street leading to Charlestown ferry.

Bostonians often referred to barracks by the name of the local landlord who had rented those buildings to the army, making “Gould’s barracks” a big building on Back Street in the North End.

Robert Gould was a merchant who in August 1773 announced that the Boston selectmen had authorized him to set up as an auctioneer. He advertised heavily over the next several months (usually signing those notices “R. Gould”) before the Boston Port Bill hit. Renting his store to the army might have seemed like the best possible deal.

Robert Gould had also invested in Maine land along with Francis Shaw, Sr., a settlement that became Gouldsboro. He had trained Francis Shaw, Jr., in business, and newspaper ads in 1770 show that the younger man was selling ceramics out of “the store lately improved by Mr. Robert Gould.” In June 1776, Francis, Jr., and his wife Hannah had a boy they named Robert Gould Shaw. That man would pass the name on to his grandson, the Civil War hero.

Robert Gould remained in Boston after the British evacuation, but the Patriot authorities were suspicious of his dealings with the king’s army. The selectmen recommended detaining him for questioning, but the Massachusetts General Court decided to drop him from the list. Gould went back to advertising as a regular merchant in late 1776. But then he died unexpectedly, intestate and in debt, in January 1777, aged 57.

TOMORROW: The doctor’s documents.

“The workmen all pack’d up their tools and left the barracks”

In late September 1774, as described by the Boston merchant John Andrews yesterday, towns neighboring Boston put pressure on their own citizens and on Bostonians to stop helping the British army build barracks.

As commander of all the British army in North American, Gov. Thomas Gage had faced that problem before back in 1768. Then the royal government had ended up renting buildings from willing owners and turning them into barracks. But in 1774 there were more regiments to house, and even more on the way.

Gage asked Boston’s selectmen to forestall what would amount to a labor strike. They replied that they actually wanted the troops grouped in barracks, but they had no power over rural towns’ policies.

The next day, 26 September, Andrews reported that Gage approached John Hancock directly. Since Hancock was one of the selectmen, he might already met with the general. Hancock was also the chair of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and thus might have had leverage with other towns, but Gage officially refused to recognize that extralegal body. Furthermore, at the start of August, the governor had dismissed Hancock as commander of the Company of Cadets, so coming to the man for a favor was quite a concession.

Andrews wrote:

Sometime this day the Governor had a conference with Col: Hancock, requesting him to use his influence with the Committee to re-consider their vote respecting the barracks.

The Colonel observ’d to him that he had taken every possible measure to distress us: that notwithstanding it was the Solicitor’s opinion that the [Boston Port] Act could be construed to prevent goods, &ca., being transported within ye. bounds of the harbour, yet he had not suffered it to he done, and the Ships of War had seiz’d whatever had been attempted to be transported in that manner.

He likewise told him that he had been threat’ned, and apprehended his person was in danger, as it had been gave out by some of his people that he deserv’d to he hang’d: upon which the Governor told him he might have a guard, if he chose it, to attend him night and day. You will naturally conclude that he declin’d accepting.

The work stoppage took hold the next day:

At four o’clock yesterday afternoon, the workmen all pack’d up their tools and left the barracks, frames, &ca.; so that I am apprehensive we in the town will feel ill effects of it, as it has been given out that the troops will force quarters next month, if barracks are not provided for ’em: neither should I blame them for so doing, as the nights are so cold already, that it’s impossible for ’em to sleep comfortable under their slight canvas tents. And as to empty houses, now since we have got so many [Loyalist] refugees among us, there is not half sufficient to hold what troops we have got already here.

After the carpenters had left off work, the General sent Col. Robinson [actually James Robertson] and Major [William] Sheriff to Mr. Hancock, to let him know if they would proceed with the barracks, he could suffer any thing to be transported within the limits of the harbour, under the sanction of King’s stores—but all would not avail; as they very justly suppos’d, that after the work was compleated he would withdraw the indulgence, as he deems it, though in justice it not be prevented at all.

They have got the Carpenters from the Ships of War, and have sent an arm’d Schooner to Halifax for all the Artificers they can procure from there. It’s possible they may be as averse to coming as the Yorkers.

New York’s Patriots had already voted not to cooperate with the British army in Boston, a move that reportedly inspired the rural towns’ decision.

On 29 September, the merchant reported:

In the course of a day or two past, the Roxbury people have burnt several load of straw that was bringing in here, which has enrag’d the soldiers to such a degree, that I am in continual apprehension we shall soon experience another fifth of March, which God forbid!

In those same days, Andrews described how the Royal Artillery, Boston’s Patriot leaders, and ordinary people were all maneuvering over the mortars, cannon, and other ordnance in the inventory of hardware merchant Joseph Scott. Meanwhile, other artillery pieces were being seized by one side or the other (the focus of my book, The Road to Concord). Andrews was not alone in fearing that violence could break out any day.

“For the workmen here to go on with building barracks”

Like Richard Lechmere, quoted yesterday, the merchant John Andrews watched the conflict over housing the king’s troops in Boston in the fall of 1774.

Unlike Lechmere, Andrews leaned a little toward the Whigs. He, too, had protested the Boston committee of correspondence’s actions earlier in the year, but in a more mild way. He supported resistance against the Crown—as long as it didn’t threaten his business or his health.

In writing to his relative in Philadelphia on 25 September, Andrews emphasized how the people of Boston weren’t making life easy for the soldiers. He didn’t want people in other colonies to get the idea that Bostonians weren’t worthy of their support.

The example of our worthy brethren of New York, in not letting their vessels for Government service, as well as that their Carpenters would not engage in any work for ’em, has induc’d the country people to think seriously whether they were right in supplying with timber, joice, and Straw for the Barracks here.

They accordingly met and determin’d in ye. negative; sent committees to the severall contractors to let them know if they supply’d any further they would incur the resentment of the whole country; and at the same time signified to our committee of correspondence that they did not think it eligible for the workmen here to go on with building barracks or preparing houses for the reception of the troops, as we might possibly, by persisting, not only incur blame from our sister colonies, but essentially affect the union now subsisting between town and country; which circumstance caus’d the Committee to get together Saturday P.M., when they pass’d a vote, that it was not prudent for ye. workmen to go on with ye. frames, &ca., nor in any shape to contribute towards the accommodation of the soldiery, as they might themselves give offence to their country brethren.

The purport of which coming to the Governor [Thomas Gage], he sent his compliments to the Select men, and beg’d their attendance at six o’clock this evening, when he requested of them that they would not take any measures to prevent the workmen from going on with the barracks.

They reply’d it was not in their power to influence the country, and it lay principally with them whether the workmen should proceed or not: that they themselves were dispos’d to have the barracks go on, as they conceiv’d it much more for the benefit of the town (if the Soldiery must be here) to have them kept together, rather than to be scatter’d over the town, as in that case it would be a very difficult matter to keep them in order.

The Governor seem’d a great deal worried about ye. affair, and am told that in the course of the conversation he express’d himself thus—“Good G—d! for G—d’s sake, Gentlemen! they have got two months work to do, and the Soldiers ought to he in barracks in one. Do consider, Gentlemen!”—Thus the tables are in some measure turn’d. Formerly they solicited the Governor, but now it seems he solicits them.

As Andrews pointed out, that discussion happened on a Sunday, when Bostonians weren’t supposed to do any business unless it was really urgent.

TOMORROW: Trying to strike a bargain.

“The barracks that were begun now stand still”

Richard Lechmere was a friend of the royal government with a country estate in Cambridge.

In the summer of 1774, the ministry in London appointed Lechmere to the new mandamus Council. He accepted the post and for his safety moved into Boston.

Lechmere continued to support Gov. Thomas Gage’s administration, as shown in a letter he wrote to his London mercantile contacts on 28 September, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society:

Some time ago Capt. Mitchel left with me about 4000 feet plank, board measure, which I sold to the contractor for building barracks, who sent a cart to the wharfe for them. They got one load into the street, and the populace pull’d them out of the cart, and left them in the street ’till towards evening when a party of soldiers were sent to take them up, which was done without any interruption, but in the night all the rest of the plank were split in peices, and thrown into the water and lost.

This was the first instance of attempting to oppose the building the fortification at the Neck and barracks for the troops. They have since done every thing in their power to oppose and obstruct every measure of governmt. for the safety, as well as convenience of the troops, and finally have prevented the tradesmen from working for them, so that the barracks that were begun now stand still.

I have let them have my distill house, which was fitting for them, and in good forwardness for their reception, and will contain one regiment. By this step, selling the plank to them, accepting the office of a Councillor, my connection with the navy and army, together with my being an Addresser, Protestor against the Committee of Correspondence, and a variety of other incidents, has render’d me one of the most obnoxious of all the friends of government. This scituation, you must be sensible, is not the most desirable, especially to a person who very lately was, I may venture to say, as much esteem’d by the people as almost any private gentleman in town. . . .

They have gone so farr as to prohibit any person’s supplying the government with materials for the King’s service. They have burnt several loads straw at Roxbury, as they were coming in for the troops, and for a day stopp’d the butcher from bringing in beef and other provissions for them, but this last circumstance they soon found wou’d not do, for by this step they wou’d starve six or eight of their own party to one of the other, and that the General wou’d take possession of all the provissions and grain in the town.

They really act like distracted men more than reasonable beings, and seem at their wit’s end, what will become of them when a sufficient number of troops can be got here. By some parts of their conduct one wou’d imagine they were endeavourg. to bring things to extremities before a reinforcement can arrive, but are afraid to make the first attack, and by every act of insolence and impudence they seem to be contriving to provoke the General and troops to commence hostilities, but they, with that calmness and prudence that does them honor, carefully avoid, and put up with many insults and abuses ’till they may be sure of success, both in the town and in the country.

With every regiment in North America headed for Boston and the New England winter coming on, Gen. Gage was feeling pressure to find housing for his troops.

TOMORROW: Calling in the selectmen.

“Humourously call’d the Little Pope”

Here’s one more detail from the merchant John Andrews’s 22 July 1774 letter about how over a hundred Boston merchants came to sign one of two protests against the Boston committee of correspondence.

Andrews wrote that the shorter, milder protest that he signed was “humourously call’d the Little Pope.”

That’s a Pope Night reference! Joshua Coffin’s 1845 Sketch of the History of Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury stated:

In the day time, companies of little boys might be seen, in various parts of the town, with their little popes, dressed up in the most grotesque and fantastic manner, which they carried about, some on boards, and some on little carriages, for their own and others’ amusement.

Pierre Eugène du Simitière drew a Boston boy with such a “little pope” on a board in 1767. It’s a miniature version of one of the big wagons rolled around on the night of 5 November with (from left) a horned devil holding a lantern, the papal effigy, and a big lantern.

The milder protest was thus like a miniature effigy carried by little boys while the larger, broader protest was like a full Pope Night wagon. That might not reflect well on Andrews and his cohort, but he had enough of a sense of humor to share the joke. 

“To sell according to the tenor of the Covenant”?

John Andrews’s 22 July 1774 letter to his relative in Philadelphia offers an inside look at why he and some other merchants who generally supported the Whigs ended up signing protests against the Boston committee of correspondence.

According to Andrews, he had “countermanded my orders [from Britain] by the first opportunity after the Port Bill arriv’d, and of consequence acquiesced with a non-importation agreement when propos’d about three or four weeks after.”

But then Andrews heard that merchants in Newport, New York, Philadelphia, and points south hadn’t agreed to such an agreement. He figured that boycott wouldn’t take hold, and he’d lose money if he continued to abstain. So he “embrac’d the first opportunity and re-ordered about one fourth part of such goods as I thought would be most in demand.”

But a month or so later, Andrews saw rural towns signing onto the Solemn League and Covenant, a non-consumption agreement—people were promising not to buy those goods he had ordered. That’s why he felt the covenant “has serv’d rather to create dissentions among ourselves than to answer any valuable purpose.” It would cost him money!

Likewise, Andrews wrote, the merchant Samuel Elliot (shown above in later life) was

expecting a large quantity of goods which, should they arrive, he can’t possibly qualify himself to sell according to the tenor of the Covenant, having countermanded ’em no other ways than to have ’em shipped, provided your place, with New York. Rhode Island, &c., should have their goods as usual: and from the determination of those places, he has all the reason in the world to expect them.

Elliot had committed to non-importation only if the merchants in other ports did the same, and he’d told his contacts in Britain to keep shipping him goods if they didn’t. Therefore, he was now expecting to receive lots of stuff that more and more folks in New England were swearing not to buy.

Andrews reported that at the 27 June town meeting in Old South

Eliot display’d his eloquence in a long speech upon the subject, deliver’d in so masterly a stile and manner as to gain ye. plaudits of perhaps the largest assembly ever conven’d here, by an almost universal clap: wherein he deliver’d his sentiments with that freedom and manliness peculiar only to himself.

However, the formal vote at that town meeting was shaped by another set of gentlemen: those who had signed the complimentary addresses to departing governor Thomas Hutchinson and incoming governor Thomas Gage. They were upset by “hearing the letters read that were sent to your place [Philadelphia] and New York (the latter in particular) in regard to that part of their conduct.” Resenting that criticism, those merchants and professional men demanded a vote “to censure and dismiss ye. Committee.” And they lost big.

Andrews said he had expected a motion “to suspend ye. Covenant till ye. [Continental] Congress should meet.” He insisted, “We don’t mean to oppose any general measure that maybe adopted by the Congress, but are well dispos’d in the cause of Freedom as any of our opponents, and would equally oppose and detest Tyranny exerciz’d either in England or America.”

Likewise, some towns considering the Solemn League and Covenant decided to take no action until seeing what the Congress would do, or added clauses reserving the leeway to adjust the terms based on that Congress’s recommendations. But that didn’t make merchants like Elliot and Andrews any happier.

TOMORROW: One last detail.

“May not great Heats and Animosities from hence be justly feared?”

In addition to the two protests against the Solemn League and Covenant boycott that I’ve quoted over the past two days, three Boston newspapers also published a letter laying out the argument against it at more length.

That letter is written in the first person singular: “I beg Leave to lay before them the following Facts and Observations…”

However, in a 22 July private letter, John Andrews, a signatory of the milder protest, wrote that “our reasons for a dissent are given [in that essay] in a more explicit manner than in the protest.”

So even if this letter had a singular voice, and may have come from a single hand, a larger community of merchants felt it spoke for them.

That letter was sent to the printers of the Boston Evening-Post, Boston Post-Boy, and Boston News-Letter addressed to “Messirs. Fleets,” “Messieurs MILLS and HICKS,” and “Messi’rs PRINTERS,” respectively. Editors still like a sign of individual attention.

(Management of the News-Letter was in flux that summer. On 9 June Margaret Draper announced that she was continuing her late husband Richard’s partnership with John Boyle. But on 11 August she announced that she was taking over the newspaper herself.)

The letter ran through the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant, emphasizing the hardships and how signers were supposed to shun anyone who didn’t sign and continued to import goods from Britain. Then it argued:

Whoever attends to these Terms of the Covenant, wholly proscribing the Goods expected in the Fall and all those upon hand, unless an Oath is taken, must be greatly concerned lest from the Non-exception of Articles of necessity the people should be drawn into a dangerous Snare, and Perjury in many Cases fatally ensue. The multiplication of Oaths (tending to introduce a disregard of them) has been always carefully avoided by wise Legislators; it being well judged that Society cannot exist when Oaths shall cease to be religiously observed. When that dreadful Event happens among any People, their Lives, Liberties and Properties cannot be safe. . . .

It may also be observed, that if a Carpenter, a Taylor, or a Shoemaker shall refuse to sign, he is to be considered as a contumacious Importer.--Or should they sign the Covenant, they cannot serve those in the Way of their Occupation who shall not---What distress must this occasion at a Season when little or no Employ is to be procured among us without these Restrictions? . . . May not great Heats and Animosities from hence be justly feared?

Upon the whole, as I think this Covenant not adapted to procure that Relief we so greatly need, because I think it arbitrary and oppressive, subversive of our Rights and destructive of the Morals of the People, as also inconsistent with the true Spirit of Liberty and the Constitution, and not founded on the Principles of Honor and Honesty, I am led to offer these Observations to the Public, which appear to me to be founded on Reason.

Of course, the people promoting the boycott wanted it to be total. They wanted non-participants to be shunned. And one group, at least, wanted people to be bound to the movement by oath. That was the path to solidarity.

TOMORROW: The weight of an oath.

“A Committee exercising such extensive Powers as this”

In addition to the main protest against Boston’s committee of correspondence and Solemn League and Covenant boycott, quoted yesterday, there was also a shorter, milder protest signed by only eight merchants.

This was also dated 29 June 1774 and appeared in the same newspapers as the big one. In fact, the Boston Post-Boy printers ran it first, perhaps because it was easier to set in type.

That protest read:

WHEREAS at a Meeting of the Town of Boston, held at the Old-South Meeting-House on the 28th Instant, a Motion was made and seconded, That the Committee of Correspondence of said Town should be censured and dismissed, which being put to Vote passed in the Negative.

We the Subscribers, being Dissentients therefrom, do now enter our Protest, grounded on the following Reasons:

First, Because that notwithstanding we think that a Committee of Correspondence, constitutionally appointed, may at any Time be useful, provided it was under proper Restrictions, and that the Letters wrote by them previous to their being sent were duly considered and approbated by the Town; yet that a Committee exercising such extensive Powers as this has done, is of dangerous Tendency.

This Committee was appointed in November 1772, to state the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province in particular, with the Infringements and Violations thereof that have been, or from Time to Time may be made; and to publish the same to the World as the Sense of the Town; and likewise to request of the other Towns a free Communication of their Sentiments on this Subject; and to make Report of the same to this Town for their Approbation; and were not authorized to publish the same until it was approved, and the Letter accompanyed by the Town; and when this Business was done we apprehend the Committee was dissolved, or at furthest at the End of the Year; and as they have not been re-chosen, we are of Opinion they do not properly now subsist as a Committee.

Because the said Committee have lately, not only without the Knowledge and Approbation of the Town, but in a secret Manner, issued out to many Towns in the Province a Covenant for Non-Consumption of British Goods, accompanied by a Letter recommending the same, signed by their Clerk, which Covenant was of the highest Importance to the Town.

Because they have also, as a Committee of the Town, aspersed the Characters of many respectable Inhabitants of this Town, in Letters written by them to the Cities of New-York and Philadelphia.

Nothing less than a Sense of its being our Indispensable Duty, to defend the Characters of our Neighbours, when we think them injured, could have induced us to give this last Reason.——

We declare we have no private Pique against any one Gentleman of the Committee, but have an Esteem for some of them, and can readily do them Justice to say, that this Conduct is so far from being consonant to the Tenor of their Actions (as far as we have known them) in the common Occurrences of Life, that we were struck with the greatest Surprize at the Discovery.

The men who signed this protest were Edward Payne, Thomas Amory (shown above), John Amory, Samuel Elliot, Caleb Blanchard, Frederick William Geyer, John Andrews, and Samuel Bradstreet. Some were future Loyalists, others moderate Whigs. Payne was even a victim of the Boston Massacre.

This document notably didn’t criticize the Solemn League and Covenant itself, only how the committee had promulgated it without running it by a town meeting first.

In fact, on 30 May the town had instructed the committee to write a non-consumption agreement and communicate it to other Massachusetts towns. The committee members evidently felt they didn’t have to go back to another meeting for approval of the final text.

TOMORROW: Behind the protests.

“On the Conduct of the Comittee of Correspondence”

When John Andrews complained to his out-of-town relative about the Solemn League and Covenant, he didn’t know what he was talking about. And that was part of his complaint.

The Boston committee of correspondence sent its draft non-consumption agreement to all towns in Massachusetts and to allies outside of the colony on 8 June. But it didn’t make those documents public within Boston.

Andrews later wrote:

it was not known to be in being in this town (but by the few who promoted it) till near a month after it had been circulated through the country: in which time it went through whole towns with the greatest avidity, every adult of both sexes putting their names to it, saving a very few.

It was sent out in printed copies by the Clerk to the Committee. W[illiam]. Cooper, who accompanied it with a letter intimating that the measure was in general adopted here, whereas upon enquiry I can’t find that a single person in the town has signed it—and the only excuse they now make for so absurd a piece of conduct is, that it originated altogether from the country, without any of their advice or interposition; thinking so palpable a falsehood will remove the just prejudices of the more rational and judicious people among us.

By the time Andrews composed that letter, Boston’s Loyalist-leaning newspapers had published the text of the Solemn League and Covenant. But, as I concluded back here, that 23 June publication reflected the Worcester version. The Boston committee would thus have been accurate to say “it originated…from the country.”

“Altogether” would have been misleading to say since most of the Worcester text echoed Boston’s. But I rather suspect that Andrews inserted that adverb. He tended to exaggerate details, such as that it took “near a month” for the non-consumption agreement to appear in Boston rather than fifteen days.

Still, Andrews was far from alone in his anger at the committee of correspondence. On 17–18 June, as I recounted back here, Boston had a town meeting to hash out the situation. Voters ended up endorsing the committee, but that was before people had read its work.

A week later, everyone in Boston had been able to see the Solemn League and Covenant (Worcester edition) and the letter Cooper had sent. The Loyalists and merchants demanded another session of the ongoing town meeting on the morning of Monday, 27 June.

As described back here, that meeting brought in so many people it moved to Old South.

The complaints led to a motion “that some Censure be now passed By the Town on the Conduct of the Comittee of Correspondence; and that said Committee be annihilated.” Some leading politicians and traders spoke for and against that proposal.

In fact, the discussion went on for so long that the day grew “dark” (in late June!). And still the proponents of the motion said “they had farther to offer.” Cooper as town clerk put on record that those men had been “patiently heard.” The meeting voted to adjourn for the day and pick up their discussion on Tuesday at 10:00 A.M.

TOMORROW: The final vote.

“Not a topsail vessel to be seen”

Dissecting the multiple texts of the Solemn League and Covenant boycott and following the Rev. Ebenezer Parkman’s uncomfortable wriggling around that issue in Westboro pulled me past the debate over that document in Boston.

So I’m going back to mid-June 1774. Many of Boston’s merchants thought the top priority should be finding a way to lift the Port Bill, even if that meant (as George Erving and John Amory proposed) raising money privately to pay the cost of the tea destroyed in December.

The town’s political leaders, on the other hand, felt that standing up to Parliament’s oppressive laws was more important than regaining some expedient advantages in business.

The merchant John Andrews, who normally supported the Whigs (albeit at an ironic distance), joined their opponents on this issue. He saw the town’s economic situation as dire, as he wrote in a 12 June letter to a relative in Philadelphia:

Our wharfs are intirely deserted; not a topsail vessel to be seen either there or in the harbour, save the ships of war and transport, the latter of which land their passengers in this town tomorrow.

Four regiments are already arriv’d, and four more are expected. How they are to be disposed of, can’t say. Its gave out, that if ye. General Court don’t provide barracks for ’em, they are to be quarter’d on ye. inhabitants in ye. fall: if so, am determin’d not to stay in it.

Only five days after Andrews wrote, Gen. Thomas Gage dissolved the Massachusetts General Court, as recounted here. That legislature never had a chance to provide quarters for the troops in Boston—or to refuse to.

Nonetheless, those soldiers were never housed in private homes, nor did Gage invoke the revised Quartering Act to put them into “uninhabited buildings” and taverns. Instead, the royal government built barracks and rented buildings from willing landlords, including warehouses empty because of the lack of trade.

Andrews still thought royal officials were being too strict:

The executors of the [Boston Port] Act seem to strain points beyond what was ever intended, for they make all ye. vessels, both with grain and wood, entirely unload at Marblehead before they’ll permit ’em to come in here, which conduct, in regard to ye. article of wood has already greatly enhanced the price, and the masters say they won’t come at all, if they are to be always put to such trouble, as they are oblig’d to hire another vessel to unload into, and then to return it back again, as they have no wharves to admit of their landing it on.

Nor will they suffer any article of merchandize to be brought or carry’d over Charles river ferry, that we are oblig’d to pay for 28 miles land carriage to get our goods from Marblehead or Salem. Could fill up a number of sheets to enumerate all our difficulties.

Nonetheless, at this time Andrews saved his worst criticism for Boston’s zealous Whigs, “those who have govern’d the town for years past and were in a great measure the authors of all our evils, by their injudicious conduct.” Now those men were supposedly threatening to finish off the town’s trade with the Solemn League and Covenant.

TOMORROW: Back to town meeting.

(The picture above, courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is one version of Christian Remick’s painting of the Crown fleet in Boston harbor as seen from Long Wharf in 1768.)

“The foregoing is a Copy of a Covenant…”

The Boston committee of correspondence’s Solemn League and Covenant went further than previous boycotts by having ordinary people pledge not to buy any goods from Britain after a certain date, and to shun business with anyone who continued to sell.

That’s why the 30 May town meeting voted “That the Comittee of Correspondence be & hereby are directed, to comunicate the Non Consumption Agreement aforesaid to the other Towns in the Province.” Not just non-importation by merchants but non-consumption by everyone.

According to the merchant John Andrews, that agreement was “sent out in printed copies by the Clerk to the Committee. W[illiam]. Cooper,” along with his printed letter dated 8 June 1774.

One might think that it would therefore be easy to identify the official text of that boycott agreement.

But there’s a lingering mystery about the Solemn League and Covenant. Two different texts were printed in American newspapers by the end of the month. Both also exist as broadsides carrying the date of June 1774. To add to the muddle, a third text was also printed as a broadside.

In 1915 Albert Matthews compared the two June 1774 texts for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, calling them Form A and Form B. I guess I’ll call that third version Form C when I get to it.

Normally the Boston town government favored the Edes and Gill print shop. The letter and broadside might well have come from its presses. On 20 June Edes and Gill’s Boston Gazette editorialized in favor of it:

The Solemn League & Covenant for a non-consumption of British Merchandize is an Ax to the Root of the tree; by coming into it we establish our own Manufactures, save our Money, and finally our Country from the destruction that threatens it.

But that newspaper didn’t report the actual text of the new agreement. The Boston committee evidently didn’t want to publicize details of the boycott in town, at least not until a lot of rural communities had signed on to it.

Instead, the recently widowed Margaret Draper printed the document in her Boston News-Letter on 23 June. This wasn’t an official release. The document was prefaced with a request to print it and followed by:

The foregoing is a Copy of a Covenant, which I am told great Pains are now taking to promote in the Country. As I think it is of the most pernicious Tendency, as at present circumstanced, I beg Leave through your Paper to propose some Questions relating thereto.

Nearly a full column of political questions and argument followed. Then came an even longer series of questions leading to the suggestion not to take any action until “the approaching Congress.”

Four days later Mills and Hicks’s Boston Post-Boy printed the entire text of Cooper’s letter followed by the same form of the Solemn League and Covenant as in the News-Letter.

In other words, the Solemn League and Covenant wasn’t announced by Boston’s committee of correspondence. It was leaked by opponents through the Loyalist press.

TOMORROW: Form A.

“For every inhabitant in each town to sign”

Among the Bostonians objecting to the town committee of correspondence’s Solemn League and Covenant of June 1774 was John Andrews. Normally a supporter of the Whigs, that merchant wrote on 12 June:

Our committee of correspondence, not content with the calamities already come upon us, have issued out letters to every town in the province (without consulting ye. town in regard to the expediency of such a measure) accompanied with a Solemn League and covenant, so stil’d, for every inhabitant in each town to sign, whereby they obligate themselves by the most sacred oaths not to purchase any kind of goods fabricated in England, either already here, or that may be hereafter imported.

Such is the cursed zeal that now prevails: animosities run higher than ever, each party charging the other as bringing ruin upon their country; that unless some expediency is adopted to get the Port open by paying for the tea (which seems to be the only one) am afraid we shall experience the worst of evils, a civil war, which God avert! . . .

those who have govern’d the town for years past and were in a great measure the authors of all our evils, by their injudicious conduct—are grown more obstinate than ever, and seem determin’d to bring total destruction upon us: which may be sufficiently evinced by all their conduct. They not only intend to deprive us of trade in future, but render us utterly incapable of contributing that assistance which will be absolutely necessary for the support of the indigent the approaching fall and winter, by their cruel endeavors to stop the little inland trade we expected.

Andrews hadn’t seen the text of the Solemn League and Covenant as of 12 June, but obviously he didn’t like what he’d heard about it.

The complaint that the committee had acted “without consulting ye. town” isn’t entirely fair. A vote in the town meeting had ordered the committee to send a non-consumption agreement to other towns. Another vote scheduled the next meeting session more than two weeks away with no indication that the committee should hold their work until then. But clearly Andrews wished he (or like-minded colleagues) had had a chance to review the details.

There may also have been pushback from the other Massachusetts towns who received the printed letter from Boston, accompanied by a printed pledge with blanks to fill in. On 10 June, only two days after sending out his first letter, town clerk William Cooper sent a follow-up, also printed:

Whereas several of our brethren, members of the committees of correspondence in the neighbouring towns, have since our letter of the 8th instant applied to us, to know whether it was expected that the form of the covenant which we inclosed in our letter should be literally adopted by the several towns:

We have thought it necessary to inform our respectable fellow countrymen, that the committee, neither in this or any other matter mean to dictate to them, but are humbly of opinion, that if they keep to the spirit of that covenant, and solemnly engage not to purchase any goods which shall be imported from Great Britain after the time stipulated, and agree to suspend dealing with such persons as shall persist in counteracting the salutary design, by continuing to import or purchase British articles so imported, the end we proposed will be fully answered, and the salvation of North-America, under providence, thereby insured.

That suggests other towns’ selectmen or committees resented something about the Boston documents. Did the problem lie in the parameters of the boycott, the language, or the speed of the campaign? Or simply in Boston appearing to issue forms for smaller towns to fill out?After all, this was a crusade for local self-government.

TOMORROW: Conflicting texts.

“Many among us, who are for compromising matters”

John Andrews was another merchant who left a lively record of the discussions in Boston in spring 1774 as the business community grappled with the impending effects of the Boston Port Bill.

Andrews was more aligned with the Whigs than John Rowe, but still didn’t always see eye-to-eye with the radicals.

Andrews’s account appears in a series of letters to an in-law in Philadelphia, now in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. On 18 May he wrote in the most dire tone:

Imagine to yourself the horror painted in the faces of a string of slaves condemn’d by the Inquisition to perpetual drudgery at the oar! Such is the dejection imprinted on every countenance we meet in this once happy, but now totally ruin’d town.

Andrews urged his correspondent to sign on to “an entire stoppage of trade, both to England and the West Indies, throughout the continent.” Any alternative would be to “acknowledge the right of parliament to d—n us whenever they please.”

Later that day Andrews added the news that “we have had advice from Salem, Newbury, etc’a., that they will haul up all their vessels, and stop every trade, provided it becomes general through the continent.”

If accurate, that news must have after the day’s town meeting session, where a committee reported merely that the selectmen of Marblehead and Salem had sounded sympathetic and promised to call meetings in their towns, too.

Note how the promise from those smaller Massachusetts ports was contingent on all the other ports in North America signing on to a boycott as well. That’s often how collective action has to be organized: promising party A that party B is ready to act if party A will, and promising party B that party A is ready to act if party B will.

Yet Andrews also reported some Boston merchants calling for a different approach:

At the same time, we have many among us, who are for compromising matters, and put forward a subscription to pay for the Tea.

George Erving has declar’d this day. that if it should be promoted, he is ready to put down two thousand pounds sterling towards it, and will take it upon himself to wait on Governor [Thomas] Gage and know what his demands upon us are—which circumstance Jno. Amory mentioned at ye. town meeting this day, which was in general rejected, though he urged the matter much.

George Erving (1738–1806) and John Amory (1728-1803, shown above) were both Loyalists during the war. Amory ultimately returned to Massachusetts, and Erving’s son became a U.S. diplomat.

Though the Boston Tea Party had cost the East India Company over £9,000, five merchants pledging the amount Erving promised would have been enough to cover that sum. But the community “rejected” that idea.

At that point in late May 1774, Boston’s committee of correspondence may well have felt they had solid popular support for promoting a general boycott to protest the Port Bill. But when the committee drafted its “Solemn League and Covenant” and sent it to other towns and provinces, its members may have overplayed their hand.

TOMORROW: Going too far?

“Poor Boston will feel the whole weight of ministerial vengeance”

One facet of the Boston Tea Party that I’m thinking about this season is how many observers expected quick retaliation of some sort from the London government.

But those same Massachusetts men got busy convincing themselves that reaction would be no worse than they would have suffered anyway, given Lord North’s established policies.

A day and a half after the tea destruction, the merchant John Andrews wrote to his brother-in-law in Pennsylvania:

However precarious our situation may be, yet such is the present calm composure of the people that a stranger would hardly think that ten thousand pounds sterling of the East India Company’s tea was destroy’d the night, or rather evening before last, yet its a serious truth; and if your’s, together with ye. other Southern provinces, should rest satisfied with their quota being stor’d, poor Boston will feel the whole weight of ministerial vengeance.

However, its the opinion of most people that we stand an equal chance now, whether troops are sent in consequence of it or not; whereas, had it been stor’d, we should inevitably have had ’em, to enforce the sale of it.

On 17 December, John Adams worried in his diary:

What Measures will the Ministry take, in Consequence of this?—Will they resent it? will they dare to resent it? will they punish Us? How? By quartering Troops upon Us?—by annulling our Charter?—by laying on more duties? By restraining our Trade? By Sacrifice of Individuals, or how.

But in a letter to his friend James Warren (shown above), Adams was more dismissive of the dangers. First he quoted the Wellfleet merchant Elisha Doane: “The worst that can happen, I think, Says he in Consequence of it, will be that the Province must pay for it. . . . it will take them 10 Years to get the Province to pay for it. If so, we shall Save 10 Years Interest of the Money. Whereas if it is drank it must be paid for immediately.”

Then he tried to convince Warren and himself that the consequences of the tea destruction couldn’t be worse than paying the tea tax in the first place:

the final Ruin, of our Constitution of Government, and of all American Liberties, would be the certain Consequence of Suffering it to be landed. . . .

Threats, Phantoms, Bugbears, by the million, will be invented and propagated among the People upon this occasion. Individuals will be threatened with Suits and Prosecutions. Armies and Navies will be talked of—military Execution—Charters annull’d—Treason—Tryals in England and all that—But—these Terrors, are all but Imaginations. Yet if they should become Realities they had better be Suffered, than the great Principle, of Parliamentary Taxation given up.

In response, Warren agreed with Adams on 3 Jan 1774:

They have now Indeed passed the River and left no retreat and must therefore Abide the Consequences. What those will be seems to be the great matter of Speculation and as People are determined by Reason or by the frightful List of Scarecrows and Bugbears (mentioned in your last and which are Employed on this Occasion) their speculations will differ.

Adams and Warren both insisted that the real blame for the crisis lay with Gov. Thomas Hutchinson and the Customs Commissioners for being such sticklers about the law.

So did their friend Samuel Adams. Anticipating a crackdown, he wrote to Arthur Lee in London on 28 January:

The Destruction of the Tea is the pretence for the unprecedented Severity shown to the Town of Boston but the real Cause is the opposition to Tyranny for which the people of that Town have always made themselves remarkeable & for which I think this Country is much obligd to them. They are suffering the Vengeance of Administration in the Common Cause of America.

Adams offered that spin even before the details of the imperial government’s “unprecedented Severity” and “Vengeance” became clear.

A transatlantic crossing in this era took about six weeks. That meant it would be three months, or until mid-March, before Boston would hear about how people in London were responding to the tea destruction, and at least a couple of more weeks before they learned about Parliament’s official reaction.

How Many People Were at the Old South Tea Meetings?

Last weekend, I served as announcer for the reenactment of the “Meeting of the Body of the People” in Old South Meeting-House.

The most striking moment was hearing noises from outside the building, glancing through the window behind me, and seeing the sidewalk and street absolutely packed with people.

The sight reminded me of all the reports from 1773 of throngs outside that same building, locals straining to hear the developments and lending their bodies to the popular pressure. It was even rather spooky.

The crowd also brought up a historical question that appeared both in the introduction to the event and backstage discussions: How many people were at the tea meetings in Old South in late 1773?

In a letter to Arthur Lee about the whole tea crisis dated 31 Dec 1773, Samuel Adams wrote that on 28 November “the Old South meeting-house [had…] assembled upon this important occasion 5000, some say 6000 men.” And later on 16 December, “the meeting…had consisted by common estimation of at least seven thousand men.”

But of course we recognize Adams as a master of propaganda. Here he was using the technique of crediting lots of other people with saying what he wants to say.

The merchant John Andrews wrote similarly about the latter day:

A general muster was assembled, from this and all ye neighbouring towns, to the number of five or six thousand, at 10 o’clock Thursday morning in the Old South Meeting house, where they pass’d a unanimous vote that the Tea should go out of the harbour that afternoon.

But as a rule, I assume Andrews has inflated his numbers by 50–100%.

For example, Andrews wrote that John Ruddock was “the most corpulent man among us, weighing, they say, between 5 and 600 weight.” That would have put the magistrate in the same range as David Lambert, Georgian Britain’s example of corpulency. Justice Ruddock was heavy, but not heavy enough to be able to display himself. He was probably closer to 300 pounds.

Andrews said the cannon now labeled “Adams” and “Hancock” (at the heart of The Road to Concord) must “weigh near seven hundred weight apiece.” The National Park Service has found those guns “weigh about 450 pounds each.”

Finally, we all know that estimating the size of a public crowd, especially at a political event, is notoriously prone to exaggeration. Even today, when we can collect photographic evidence, crowd estimates can be frought with bias, wishfulness, and in some cases simple narcissism.

Using my formula for interpreting John Andrews’s numbers, we should translate his and Adams’s reports of 5,000–7,000 people into about 3,000. That’s still about equal to all the adult white men in Boston.

It’s also far more than the legal capacity of Old South today. But back in 1773 the building’s main floor didn’t have displays in the back, the first gallery had benches instead of individual seats, and the second gallery was open. Most important, people were smaller and had different assumptions about personal space, so they probably crowded together more densely.

Three thousand adults would still probably have been beyond tight—but what if we also count crowds on the streets outside?

“I went contentedly home & finishd my tea”

One of my favorite accounts of the Boston Tea Party comes from the merchant John Andrews.

He cultivated a sense of detached irony in his letters. So much so that he can come across as barely able to rouse himself and find out what was going on.

Andrews wrote this letter on 18 Dec 1773, more than a day after the event, so he had a chance to digest it and polish his observations.

This extract picks up Andrews’s account as ship-owner Francis Rotch has returned from Milton with the not-unexpected news that Gov. Thomas Hutchinson wouldn’t let the Dartmouth carry its load of tea back to London.

upon readg it, such prodigious shouts were made, that induced me, while drinkg tea at home to go out, & know the cause of it, the [Old South Meeting] house was so crowded could get no further than ye porch, where I found ye moderator [Samuel Phillips Savage], was just declaring the meetg to be dissolvd, which causd another general Shout, outdoors & in, of three cheers; what wth that, & the consequent noise of breaking up the meetng, you’d tho’t the inhabitants of the infernal regions had broke loose.

for my part, I went contentedly home & finishd my tea, but was soon informd what was going forward, but still not crediting it without ocular demonstration, I went & was satisfied–

they mustered I’m told upon Fort hill, to the number of about 200 & proceeded, 2 by 2 to Griffins wharfe, where [the ships captained by James] Hall, [James] Bruce and [Hezekiah] Coffin lay, each with 114 Chests of the ill-fated article on board, the two former with only that article, but ye lattr arriv’d at ye wfe only ye day before, was freighted with a large quantity of other goods, which they took the greatest care not to injure in the least, and before nine O Clock in ye eveng, every Chest, from on board the 3 vessells, was knocked to pieces and Flung over ye sides–

they say the actors were Indians from Naragansett, whether they were, or not, to a transient observer they appeard as Such, being cloathd in Blankets, wth their heads muffled & copper colord countenances, being each arm’d with a hatchet or axe or po [pair of] pistols, nor was their dialect different from what I conceive those geniueses to speak, as their jargon was uninteligible to all but themselves–

not the least insult was offerd to any person, save one Capt [Charles] Conner, a letter of horses in this place, not many years since immergd from dear Ireland who had ript ye lining of his coat & waistcoat under the arms, and watchg his oppoty had nearly filld ’em wth tea, but being detected, was handled pretty roughly, they not only Stript him of his cloaths, but gave him a coat of mud, wth a severe bruising into the bargain, & nothing but their utter aversion to make any disturbance prevented his being tard & featherd.

Conner was also mentioned (though not by name) in the Whig newspapers and in the Rev. Samuel Cooper’s report to Benjamin Franklin. Boston’s political leaders really wanted people to know the men who destroyed the tea (whoever they might be) were acting on principle and not for private gain.

(The depiction of the Tea Party above comes courtesy of the Boston Athenaeum, where I’m typing these words. It was engraved in 1856 by John Andrew, who I don’t think was any relation to the merchant.)

The Lockes in Wedlock

Three years ago I wrote about the sestercentennial of the Rev. Samuel Locke’s inauguration as president of Harvard College.

Normally I wouldn’t find such a ceremony interesting, but that was all in service of the really juicy 250th anniversary that I can finally discuss this month: Locke’s departure from that job after people discovered he’d impregnated his housekeeper.

The earliest surviving source on that affair is the letter of John Andrews that I quoted here. That’s a mostly sympathetic account, dwelling on Locke’s religious crisis: he had mystified his colleagues by holding back from taking communion and leaving chapel suddenly during prayers. He exhibited “most sincere grief,” earning the “ye. compassn. of all.”

Yet Andrews also described Locke offering his housekeeper £150—for what, it’s not clear. A doctor who graduated in the Harvard class of 1782 told Harvard librarian John Langdon Sibley that he’d heard Locke had summoned his own physician, Dr. Marshall Spring of Watertown, but then couldn’t express his request. Was he trying to ask for an abortifacient?

Most striking, Andrews blamed Locke’s wife for the trouble, writing that her “vices, has been ye. means of drivg. him to it.”

Mary (Porter) Locke was born in 1738, daughter of the Rev. Samuel Porter of Sherborn. Her mother Mary, a Coolidge from Cambridge, died in 1752. Her father the minister died in 1758. At the age of twenty, therefore, she was left an orphan with a fair amount of property in her home town.

Samuel Locke came to Sherborn in 1759, having taught school and preached in Lancaster and Plymouth. Within a few months the congregation offered him the job of minister. In January 1760, less than two months after being ordained, Locke married Mary Porter in Natick.

On 11 February Locke wrote a letter to Edward Wigglesworth in Boston, having apparently heard that that young merchant was getting married:

It seems to be ordained by Providence in ye. oeconomy and constitution of all created, animate nature we are acquainted with that each individual of ye. several species should be drawn by some secret attraction to those of its own kind; and indeed it appears to be a necessary precaution for ye. preservation of order amidst ye. immense variety of creatures that people ye. world and for ye. regular conservation and increase of ye. several classes into which they are divided.

But man has a nature peculiarly adapted for society and friendly intercourse and is directly urged to it by ye. great difficulties, if not utter impossibility, of subsisting alone independent of and inconnected with others of ye. same nature with himself,—his wider capacities demand more gratifications, and he feels in himself innumerable wants which a life of sollitude cannot supply, and many powers to which it cannot give employment.

Hereupon he is naturally led by some affections amost peculiar to our kind to select some from among ye. many individuals of human nature for peculiar intimacy and tenderness in order to improve the condition of his existence and refine ye. common principles of benevolence into a peculiar affection for some individuals.

And I apprehend in particular with regard to ye. nuptial tie (ye. closest of any) we are not only directed to it by ye. constitution of our nature and ye. many miseries which a forlorn individual must necessarily suffer while he stands alone without any prop to support him, but also by ye. continued course of Providence in preserving in all ages such an apparent equality between ye. sexes.

This, I think is an additional call to every one to be up and doing. You will therefore, Sr., I trust, find a complyance with your duty in ye. respect a solid foundation of ye. most substantial happiness which this world affords,—and that it will be a happy medium of improvement in sosial virtue, and of increasing to you that felicity which I cannot describe but heartily wish to be ye. portion of every human creature in a way consistent with ye. wise designs of ye. great Father and governor of ye. universe.

Locke’s language was highly philosophic, but the bottom line was that he believed a man needed a wife for his “innumerable wants’ and “many powers.”

The Lockes had three children in regular fashion:

• Samuel, Jr., in 1761.
• Mary in 1763.
• John in 1765.

Then they didn’t have any more. That’s an unusual pattern for a New England couple of this period. Sometimes a husband and wife had no children, suggesting a fertility problem. More typically, the wife was pregnant every two or three years for up to two decades. For a couple to have a few children and stop suggests that something came between them, medically or interpersonally.

At first Locke resisted recruitment by Harvard College, but in late 1769 he finally agreed and moved his family to Cambridge. Samuel and Mary were both familiar with that town, him from his college days and her from living with her maternal relations.

In his profile of Locke, Clifford K. Shipton wrote that “Mrs. Locke was a feeble, sickly woman,” but he cited no evidence to support that. Andrews was nastier, saying Mary’s unspecified “vices” had driven Samuel to adultery. Either way, the implication was that the college president turned to his housekeeper for sex that he couldn’t have with his wife.

The one female commenter I’ve found, Hannah Winthrop, made no remarks about Mary Locke but wrote that she hoped the post of president would “be filld with a person who may do Honor to the Station.”

In December 1773, 250 years ago this month, the Locke family returned to the town of Sherborn. The town’s pulpit had been filled by another minister, and no doubt some people no longer saw Samuel Locke as fit to preach. But Mary still owned property there, and Samuel had bought 120 more acres in 1772. The Lockes also had three children to raise, aged twelve to eight.

TOMORROW: Can this marriage be saved?

“A child Laid to him by his housekeeper”

Though the Harvard College corporation kept quiet about the reason for president Samuel Locke’s resignation in December 1773, news was already seeping out. Tea wasn’t the only thing people around Boston were talking about 250 years ago.

One of the finest sources on Revolutionary Boston is the collection of letters that the businessman John Andrews wrote to his brother-in-law William Barrell in Philadelphia in the 1770s.

Andrews was a gossip sponge, and apparently uninhibited when writing to someone out of town. His letters were discovered during the Civil War, sent back north to the Massachusetts Historical Society, and published in the society’s Proceedings in 1866.

Not entirely, though. The transcriber, Winthrop Sargent, focused on political developments and conflicts with the royal authorities. And of course there was this thing called the Victorian sensibility.

One bit left out of print came from a letter Andrews dated 29 Nov 1773. Most of that letter was about money issues, followed by a paragraph about the arrival of East India Company cargos. (Andrews was working under the impression that two ships had arrived, not one.)

Then came a long postscript in small writing along the left side of the page:

P.S. I have a secret to tell you, which not only affects ye. direction of our Colledge, but brings great dishonor upon it:

after sufferg. the most poignant distress for two months past, and repeatedly leavg. ye. Sacraments, with frequently leavg. off, while in Prayer at ye. Chappel in a most abrupt manner, & going out; it has come out that no less a man than P—i—t L—ke has a child Laid to him by his housekeeper: after trying every method compromise to ye. mattr. wth. her, without effect, even to ye. offerg. her £150 Sterlg., he has retird to ye. Country, [???] wth. ye. most sincere grief, his situation excites ye. compassn. of all, as he is curs’d wth. a wife, whose vices, has been ye. means of drivg. him to it

Clifford K. Shipton quoted two clauses out of that passage in his Sibley’s Harvard Graduates biography of Locke, but I think this is the first time the whole thing is out in the world.

Andrews’s letter tells us that two days before Locke wrote out his resignation from the college presidency, people in Boston were already talking about the sex scandal behind it.

By 9 December, the Rev. Ezra Stiles down in Newport wrote in his diary: “More melancholy news about President Locke of Harvard College Camb.” And a week later: “The Corporation of Harvard College met last Week, & sent a Committee to wait on President Locke, & on return, voted his Answer not satisfactory.”

The Rev. Nathaniel Appleton of Cambridge was the corporation member who forced Locke to stop dithering and resign. His grandson, recent Harvard graduate Nathaniel Walker Appleton, wrote to his classmate Eliphalet Pearson on 14 December:

The unhappy affair concerning the late Pr-s-d-nt remains as yet something in the dark, perhaps Time may discover it. He resigned on 6th. Inst & went off to Sherburne the next Day. We Hope that the Corporation will make Choice of a Person to fill the vacant Chair who by his exemplary VIRTUE will remove the Blemish which now lays upon the College.

But only Andrews’s letter was straightforward about what that blemish was.

TOMORROW: And it was all Mrs. Locke’s fault?

(Incidentally, lately I’ve seen some items identifying John Andrews as a lawyer. He’s labeled “Merchant” in the 25 Feb 1771 Boston Post-Boy report of his marriage to Ruth Barrell. He was later a selectman and helped to set up the Boston Sail-Cloth Manufactory, the Massachusetts Fire Insurance Company, the Boston Dispensary, and other organizations.)

The Mystery of Phillis Wheatley’s First Published Poem

Earlier this month the Newport Historical Society shared Amelia Yeager’s essay on a question about the career of Phillis Wheatley: Why did the teenager’s poetry first appear in print in the 21 Dec 1767 Newport Mercury rather than a Boston newspaper?

Yeager phrases the question as “Why would Phillis Wheatley publish her first poem in a Newport paper rather than one of the many newspapers local to Boston?” She writes of printer Samuel Hall’s choice “to accept the poem,” as if it had been a submission to a literary magazine.

As much as I’m all for recognizing the agency of enslaved people, I doubt the young poet had much say in that matter. Not only was she enslaved, but she was still in her early teens. Furthermore, in a society without copyrights, writers rarely had control over where their words might appear in print. In modern terms, printers compensated young creatives with exposure.

In the Newport Mercury Hall prefaced this poem with the cover message he had received:

To the PRINTER.

Please to insert the following Lines, composed by a Negro Girl (belonging to one Mr. Wheatley of Boston) on the following Occasion, viz. Messrs Hussey and Coffin, as undermentioned, belonging to Nantucket, being bound from thence to Boston, narrowly escaped being cast away on Cape-Cod, in one of the late Storms; upon their Arrival, being at Mr. Wheatley’s, and, while at Dinner, told of their narrow Escape, this Negro Girl at the same Time ’tending Table, heard the Relation, from which she composed the following Verses.

That paragraph wasn’t written from the perspective of the “Negro Girl” herself, or even from the family of her legal owner John Wheatley, identified unfamiliarly as “one Mr. Wheatley of Boston.” Rather, it’s the voice of someone who heard this fascinating anecdote and wanted to pass it on. (To be sure, anyone in the Wheatley family could have adopted that persona, but it doesn’t match how they presented her later work.)

Likewise, Yeager also writes:

Later in her life, Wheatley would have difficulty placing poems for publication; it was only with patronage from England that her first and only book of poetry was published.

Again, I think that misinterprets the situation by viewing it through the lens of hopeful writers in a more recent environment. Wheatley had many poems printed in Boston in the early 1770s. She was recognized locally. What she wanted, understandably, was to be paid for her writing—and to minimize the publication costs that authors usually assumed for a first edition.

By that time, Phillis Wheatley was five years older, with several publications under her belt, including an elegy on the Rev. George Whitefield that had been reprinted in multiple cities and formats (with no payment to her). By 1772, sources say, she was making decisions about her authorial career despite still being enslaved.

Wheatley’s first attempt to publish a collection for sale was to solicit subscriptions for a collection to be printed by Ezekiel Russell, as I discussed back here. John Andrews’s letters indicate that some Americans did pledge money for that crowdfunding effort. But then, that merchant wrote, Wheatley was “made to expt [expect] a large emolument if she sent ye copy home [i.e., to Britain], which induced her to remand yt of ye printer & dld [delivered] it Capt [Robert] Calef.” In other words, she still had prospects in Boston, but she had better prospects in London.

TOMORROW: My thoughts on why this early poem appeared in Newport before Boston.