Peering into the Josiah Austin Story

Back in 2020 the Spared & Shared website, which usually presents documents from the U.S. Civil War, published the transcript and scans of an account of events on 19 Apr 1775.

Attributed to Josiah Austin, “formerly of Charlestown now of Salem,” this narrative describes the effort of driving a wagon load of “powder & balls” from Concord as the British army closed in.

Indeed, according to this document, regulars actually found the wagon disabled on the road, only to ignore the men with it as “affrightened ‘Yankees,’ returning from market.”

Earlier this year, Alexander Cain at Historical Nerdery did a fine job of pointing out the holes in this account.

The transcription quotes Austin stating “he was at Concord with Col. Barrett and others on the 18th of April 1775 having in charge ammunition &c.” We know that James Barrett was storing a large amount of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s military supplies on his farm—until a couple of days before, when the family and friends started to move that stuff to better hiding-places.

Alex Cain points out that those hiding-places were naturally to the west, further away from Boston and any expedition coming from there. Yet Austin said his wagon went east “toward Lexington.” Why the hell would anyone drive a wagon of secret ammunition toward the military search party?

We also have the names of men employed by the Massachusetts Patriots to help Barrett gather and prepare military supplies. One man was John Austin. None was named Josiah Austin.

The British expedition stopped several young men riding out on the roads on the night of 18–19 April, sometimes detaining them for hours. (One, Asahel Porter, was killed in the shooting on Lexington common.) Cain notes it would therefore be quite odd for some soldiers to come across a wagon in the vicinity of the place they had been ordered to search and pass by without examining the cargo.

Finally, Austin claimed that the British soldiers he met were “pioneers,” but none of those specialized soldiers were assigned to the march to Concord.

I have nothing to add to Alex Cain’s cutting analysis of the document’s content. But I’ll make an observation about its form. The first six lines refer to “Col. Barrett” twice—but only after editing.

Spared & Shared’s scans of the handwritten document show that originally the transcriber wrote another name, possibly “Butler.” Sometime after the original writing, that name was crossed out and replaced with “Barrett.” We don’t know how much later that change was made. We don’t know if someone looking up Barrett’s name in historical sources prompted that change as a correction.

But we do know that whoever first told this story didn’t initially remember the name “Barrett,” even though Josiah Austin was supposed to have worked with Col. Barrett and traveled on the ammunition wagon with Barrett’s son.

That’s just one more reason to deem this account dubious. Josiah Austin might have been telling an exaggerated story to a credulous transcriber, or the entire document might have been concocted.

John Austin, Carver and Conductor

According to Agnes Austin (1769-1861), when the Revolutionary War began, her father John (born in 1722) was at James Barrett’s farm in Concord helping to prepare stores for the provincial forces.

Austin and the seven men he was supervising evidently hid their supplies and dashed away before Capt. Lawrence Parsons and four companies of regulars arrived to search the place. Austin later told his daughter about how Rebeckah Barrett treated those soldiers, so he probably went back to the house after they had left but didn’t participate in the battle.

Meanwhile, Agnes Austin’s other anecdotes indicate that she was home in Charlestown, in place to see those soldiers march in at the end of their long day.

Over the next two months, most families moved out of Charlestown, which was caught between British-held Boston and the besieging provincial army headquartered in Cambridge. John Austin’s family probably joined him at some safe place to the west. On 17 June, the Battle of Bunker Hill caused most of Charlestown to burn (and shown above), and that probably included the Austins’ empty home.

Two days later, a committee of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had recommendations for supporting the artillery regiment (which had suffered a supply problem in the battle):

That, in addition to the storekeeper already appointed by this Congress, there be established four conductors of stores, and two clerks for the ordnance department; and a company of artificers, to consist of a master carpenter or overseer, with 49 privates; and the committee of safety be desired to recommend to this Congress, fit persons for the offices abovenamed. . . .

Your committee, furthermore, beg leave to report an establishment for the officers and privates above mentioned, viz,: The storekeeper, $80 per month: four conductors, each $48 do. [ditto]: one master carpenter, or overseer, $80 do.: two clerks, each £48 do.: 49 privates, they to find their own tools, $50 do. each.

That afternoon the Committee of Safety responded:

Pursuant to a Resolve of the Provincial Congress sent to this Committee respecting the nomination of four Conductors, two Clerks, and one Overseer for a company of Artificers in the regiment of Artillery; they beg leave to recommend the following persons to the office affixed to their names, viz: Mr. John Ruddock, Mr. John Austin, Mr. John Kneeland, Mr. Thomas Uran, Conductors; Mr. Nathaniel Barber, Jun., Mr. Isaac Peirce, Clerks; Joseph Airs [Eyres], Overseer of the Artificers.

All of those men besides Austin were from Boston, and all had been active in Whig politics before the war. Ruddock was the son of the late North End magistrate with the same name; the family had fought with British soldiers in 1768-70. Peirce was a town watchman. Barber’s father was part of the North End Caucus and is one of the names inscribed on the “Liberty” punch bowl. Uran and Eyres had helped to guard the tea ships. Kneeland was a printer—mostly of religious material, said Isaiah Thomas, but some of his pamphlets had clear political messages.

Like Austin, all of those men were refugees. By appointing them conductors, clerks, and overseer, the Massachusetts legislature not only put reliable men in those posts but also provided them and their families with income.

Other documents show that John Austin continued to work for the Massachusetts military at least through early 1778. At that time, his pay was coming through Nathaniel Barber. Or, since Austin had a son of the same name (Agnes’s older brother) born in 1756, and probably namesake cousins as well, some of those references might be about other men.

Austin, a carver by trade, appears to have died in 1786. There’s more about him and his family in The Cabinetmakers of America and New England Furniture: The Colonial Era.

“The person chose to carry on our Military preparations”

A few years back, Boston 1775 reader Judy Cataldo alerted me to the United States Revolution collection of the American Antiquarian Society. In it are several documents linked to James Barrett, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress delegate and militia colonel who was collecting artillery and other military stores in Concord in the spring of 1775.

On 15 March, David Cheever of Charlestown wrote to Barrett on behalf of the congress’s Committee on Supplies that he was sending “a Load of Bullets,” and that “Seven Men for putting up the Cartrage and Ball will be up with you tomorrow, when you must provide for them, and a House to work In.”

Two days later Cheever wrote:

Mr John Austin the Bearer of this Letter is the person chose to carry on our Military preparations and of more men the names of whome he will aquaint you with, and desier you will Furnish them with provision and a House to Carry on our military preparations. The Committee will be up next Wednesday and ease you of the trouble

And a day after that, on 18 March, Cheever sent another load that included “a chest of Cloathes and 2 Caggs for Mr Austan’s Workmen.” That letter also said:

this teem is sent away at 10 O’clock Satturday night in a Graite pannick Just having heard that the Kings Officers have seazed a cart load of Cartrages going thru Roxbury containing 19000 which must make you and I Extremely Cautious in our carrying on

Lemuel Shattuck quoted briefly from those letters in his 1835 history of Concord, when the documents were probably still held by the Barrett family.

These letters basically confirm what Agnes Austin told Harvard librarian John Langdon Sibley about her father in 1858, as I quoted yesterday: “John Austin, with ten others, was at work nine weeks at Concord before the battle. They were collecting and arranging public stores.” There appear to have been only eight men, they were working in Concord for only a month before the war began, and they were probably making musket (or maybe artillery) cartridges rather than being in charge of all the stores.

But Agnes Austin was only six years old in 1775, and she spoke to Sibley over eighty years later. Furthermore, given that her father’s work was top-secret, there’s remarkable confirmation of her recollection.

That documentary support adds credibility to the rest of Agnes Austin’s anecdote, about how her father responded to the warning that British soldiers were on the way:

Mr. Austin told the men to dress themselves as much like gentlemen as they could, to put on two shirts as they might be captured & they would want them. & then disperse & take care of themselves.

I’ve read about men on privateers also putting on two shirts when they expected to be captured. Clothing was relatively expensive in the eighteenth century, and an extra shirt was also the equivalent of an extra pair of underwear.

On 19 Apr 1775, British soldiers reached the James Barrett farm, the far end of the march into Middlesex County, looking for the very supplies John Austin and his men had been preparing.

TOMORROW: What happened to Austin after the shooting started?

Agnes Austin’s “Many Incidents” of the Revolution

Brian A. Sullivan, archivist for Mount Auburn Cemetery, has transcribed the diary of John Langdon Sibley, Librarian at Harvard College in the mid-1800s (shown at left). The transcription is available on here on the web.

In this Patriots’ Day season, I found the entry for Sunday, 3 Oct 1858, particularly interesting. It says in part:

A blind lady, 89 years old May 27, 1858, Miss Agnes Austin, who lives on the west corner of the Appian Way & Garden St, says that her father John who had charge of the public stores here in the time of the Revolutionary war & often told her many incidents connected with it. . . .

John Austin, with ten others, was at work nine weeks at Concord before the battle. They were collecting and arranging public stores. The news of the approach of the British arrived; they scattered the provisions. Mr. Austin told the men to dress themselves as much like gentlemen as they could, to put on two shirts as they might be captured & they would want them. & then disperse & take care of themselves.

When the enemy came to Col. [James] Barrett’s where Mr. Austin was stopping. they inquired for them & for the Colonel. Mrs. [Rebeckah] Barrett told them they were all gone, & she did not know where they were. The enemy told Mrs. Barrett not to be alarmed. as she should not be harmed. They made her accompany them to every room in the house to see if there were warlike stores or arms. They wanted food. She let them have what milk she had & bread.

Agnes Austin (1769-1861) is also mentioned in George Kuhn Clarke’s 1912 History of Needham:

In my childhood I was often taken to call upon a very ancient blind lady, Miss Agnes Austin, who was born in Charlestown, and lived there for many years, and who delighted to tell her visitors that she saw the British troops under Earl Percy and Lieut.-Col. [Francis] Smith on their return at the close of the memorable nineteenth of April, 1775. A considerable number of the soldiers had thrown away their red coats and much of their equipment. The first legacy that I ever received was under the will of this venerable lady, who was a distant connection of my family.

Austin’s tale about her father in Concord has many of the hallmarks of what I’ve called “grandmothers’ tales” of the Revolution:

• It’s a story told decades later, long after most participants and witnesses have died.
• The story puts an ancestor of the teller (and often the first listeners) front and center at a historic event.
• The narrator was an elderly unmarried (widowed or never married) woman passing on lessons to children.

As with all oral traditions, my response is to look for contemporaneous documentary support. Is there corroboration for any detail? Are there significant contradictions?

And in this case, I actually found strong documentary support.

TOMORROW: John Austin and the supplies in Concord.