A Hoax about a Hoax

On 29 Mar 1781, a blacksmith named Benjamin Montanye (1745–1825) was detained near Haverstraw, New York, by a Loyalist squad under Lt. James Moody.

Moody discovered Montanye was carrying several letters from Gen. George Washington to Philadelphia. He had Montanye hauled into New York City and jailed.

Eventually Montanye was released and became Baptist preacher in Orange County. He talked about his experience in a fashion that led to this story as a footnote in Benson J. Lossing’s Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution:

[Washington] directed the messenger to cross the river at King’s Ferry, proceed by Haverstraw to the Ramapo Clove, and through the Pass to Morristown.

Montaigne, knowing the Ramapo Pass to be in possession of the Cow-boys and other friends of the enemy, ventured to suggest to the commander-in-chief that the upper road would be the safest. “I shall be taken,” he said, “if I go through the Clove.”

“Your duty, young man, is not to talk, but to obey!” replied Washington, sternly, enforcing his words by a vigorous stamp of his foot.

Montaigne proceeded as directed, and, near the Ramapo Pass, was caught. A few days afterward he was sent to New York, where he was confined in the Sugar House, one of the famous provost prisons in the city.

The day after his arrival, the contents of the dispatches taken from him were published in Rivington’s Gazette with great parade, for they indicated a plan of an attack upon the city. The enemy was alarmed thereby, and active preparations were put in motion for receiving the besiegers.

Montaigne now perceived why he was so positively instructed to go through the Ramapo Pass, where himself and dispatches were quite sure to be seized. When they appeared in Rivington’s Gazette, the allied armies were far on their way to the Delaware.

Montagnie admired the wisdom of Washington, but disliked himself to be the victim.

The frightening experience of being captured by the enemy thus became part of a clever ruse by the great Gen. Washington.

Except, as Jeffrey L. Zvengrowski wrote in an article for Washington’s Papers in January, that story of a hoax was itself a hoax.

James Rivington did print one of Washington’s intercepted letters in his Royal Gazette on 4 April, a message to his cousin and plantation manager Lund Washington dated 28 March, but it didn’t mention any attack plans.

The Papers of Gen. Henry Clinton contain other Washington letters, apparently from the same mailbag:

• 23 March to Francisco Rendon, a Spanish diplomat in Philadelphia.
• 27 March to Continental Congress delegate Benjamin Harrison. (This was at least the second time the correspondence between those two Virginians was waylaid.)
• 29 March to dentist John Baker.

None of those documents say anything about a plan to attack New York. Indeed, in the letter to Harrison, Washington said that even with reinforcements he would “have an Army barely sufficient to keep the Enemy in check in New York.”

Zvengrowski writes: “Washington’s letter to Harrison was not printed for fear among British commanders at New York City that knowledge of its contents would generate pressure upon them to launch an invasion of New Jersey!” Thus, the general using those letters to manage opinion was actually Clinton.

Another reason to doubt the story printed by Lossing is that Washington didn’t make plans with the French general Rochambeau to leave the New York theater and besiege Gen. Cornwallis in Virginia until several weeks later. At that point the Continentals probably did try to fool the enemy about their plans. But not back when Lt. Moody captured Montanye.

Dr. Baker's Brand Marketing

Starting with his first advertisement in America, dentist John Baker promoted his dentifrice as a preventive or cure for practically any tooth problem: gum disease, loose teeth, discoloration. Leaving Boston in 1767, Baker assured his customers that:

His Dentifrice, with proper Direction for preserving the Teeth and Gums, will be to be had at Mrs. Eustis’s, near the Town House, after he had left the Town. N B. Each Pot is sealed with his Coat of Arms, as in the Margin of the Directions, to prevent Fraud.

Using the Baker coat of arms (perhaps the one shown here, perhaps not) was not only a protection against “counterfeit drugs” but also a signal to customers that Baker came from a respectable family.

After he moved from Virginia to Philadelphia in 1778, Baker stated that “His well known Antiscorbutic Dentifrice for preserving the teeth and gums, may be had...at Messrs. Dixon and Hunter’s office in Virginia, with brushes and directions.” Dixon and Hunter were printers of one incarnation of the Virginia Gazette in Williamsburg.

The 14 Sept 1782 Independent Gazetteer of Pennsylvania included this ad touting Baker’s dentifrice and a new, related product called “Albion Essence”:

DOCTOR BAKER,
Begs Leave to inform the Public in general, and his Friends in particular, in the Thirteen United States, that he has just received a fresh Assortment of Medicines, which will enable him to prepare the genuine Antiscorbutic Dentifrice, and Albion Essence, for preserving the Teeth, Gums, Sockets, Breath, &c. &c.

This Essence and Dentifrice is prepared by himself, and warranted perfectly free from the least corrosive Particle or Injurious Property whatever.

It is replete with that Balsamic Quality, which prevents all defluxions, falling on the gums, or putrefactions that cause bad breath; It takes off the mucilaginous properties that dissolve the sockets of the teeth, and prevents the tooth-ach arising therefrom; it prevents obstructions and inflamations of the nerves and vascular parts of the teeth, and the head and tooth-ach arising therefrom; It concocts the vitiated juices, renders, beyond description, a juvenile fragrance to the breath, makes the teeth white and beautiful, causes the gums to grow firm to the teeth, makes the salivia pure and balsamic, eradicates the scurvy, and restores the gums to their pristine state, if the teeth and gums have been thoroughly cleaned by some skilful Dentist.

Its efficacy is well known to the principal nobility, gentry, and others, of France, Holland, Great-Britain, Ireland, and other principal places in Europe, also to some thousands in America.

N.B. Dr. Baker’s Albion Essence, and Antiscorbutic Dentifrice, is sold wholesale and retail, at his house in No. 45, Second-street, below the City Tavern; where all merchants, shop-keepers, masters of vessels, and others, may be supplied with any quantity to send to foreign parts, with proper printed directions. By attending properly to the directions, and observing the necessary precautions, people may not only free themselves from a great deal of pain, and preserve their teeth and gums throughout life, but also those of their children; as health, and beauty of the teeth, depend in a great measure of the care and treatment of them in early life.

Each pot of Anti-Scorbutic Dentifrice, has, to prevent fraud, his name on the cover, and sealed with his coat of arms, the same as the copper-plate arms on the lable of the bottle of Albion Essence.

Starting in 1785, the printer of the State Gazette of South-Carolina sold Dr. Baker’s products in Charleston. The next year, Spotswood and Clarke of Baltimore announced themselves as the exclusive source in Maryland. Other merchants in the big American cities carried Baker’s dentifrice along with others.

On 25 Nov 1790, the Newport Herald of Newport, Pennsylvania, offered this news:

MARRIED] On Sunday evening the 14th instant [i.e., this month], Doctor JOHN BAKER to Mrs MARY BONANG—a Lady of real worth.

Evidently Dr. Baker had married a wealthy widow, changing his circumstances. He seems to have stopped promoting his services as a surgeon-dentist. But Baker’s dentifrice and Albion Essence stayed on the market. Perhaps he was still making it; perhaps he had licensed it to someone else. Throughout the 1790s Dunlap’s American Daily Advertiser ran ads like this, from 14 Aug 1793:

DOCTOR BAKER’s
Antiscorbutic Dentifrice
and Albion Essence,
Just received, and for sale at
W. Poyntell’s stationary store,
No. 21, Second-street, between Market and
Chestnut-streets 3aw3w

I’m not sure what “3aw3w” meant, but it and similar codes appear in lots of Philadelphia newspaper ads from the 1780s on. I suspect they were how printers kept track of how often an ad had run.

I haven’t found out any more about Dr. John and Mary Baker, nor whether they retained “a juvenile fragrance to the breath.”

Gen. Clinton Reads About Gen. Washington's Teeth

When I started this series of postings on dentistry with the arrival of John Baker in Boston, I’d never looked into that man’s life before. I was just trying to distract myself from the stitches in my gum. But the more I’ve scraped, the more I’ve found, and today’s posting is about how it’s even possible that Baker’s dental practice affected on the outcome of the Revolutionary War.

As I wrote on Tuesday, Baker set up shop in Williamsburg in 1772. He treated George Washington, among other Virginians. After the war began, he went on the move again. The Pennsylvania Packet of 24 Dec 1778 announced:

Doctor Baker,
SURGEON-DENTIST,
Has just arrived in this city from Williamsburg, Virginia. His stay here will be short. Those who are disposed to apply to him may not be disappointed.

This was, as far as I can tell, the first time Baker used the title “doctor” in advertising his services. And whether or not he intended to stay in Philadelphia at that time, he eventually did settle there for many years—perhaps the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, Washington, now busy commanding the Continental Army, continued to consult Dr. Baker about his false teeth. On 29 May 1781, Washington wrote to him (as shown above):

A day or two ago I requested Col. Harrison to apply to you for a pair of Pincers to fasten the wire of my teeth. — I hope you furnished him with them. — I now wish you would send me one of your scrapers as my teeth stand in need of cleaning, and I have little prospect of being in Philadelph. soon. — It will come very safe by the Post — & in return, the money shall be sent so soon as I know the cost of it.

This letter is now in the papers of Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, then the commander of British land forces in North America. Despite Washington’s confidence that a scraper would “come very safe by the Post,” British spies or patrols must have intercepted Washington’s mail packet and delivered it to Clinton’s headquarters.

In mid-1781 Clinton was trying to figure out whether Washington and the French army that had landed in New England were going to attack him in New York, or whether he could send some of his troops south to reinforce Gen. Cornwallis. This letter told him that Washington felt he had “little prospect of being in Philadelph. soon.” The fact that the letter was about such a personal matter as cleaning his teeth implied that it was genuine, not a ruse designed to mislead enemy agents. And that meant any other documents in the same packet were probably genuine as well. Clinton gained confidence that Washington wasn’t preparing to head south through Philadelphia to attack Cornwallis.

Indeed, at the time he wrote, Washington was planning to attack New York. Just about a week before, he and the French commander, the Comte de Rochambeau, had agreed to engage Clinton’s forces as soon as the French navy arrived. In July, Rochambeau’s land forces came into the New York theater.

But then in August, Washington and Rochambeau received a dispatch from the French admiral, the Comte de Grasse, saying that he’d left the West Indies to join up with American forces in Chesapeake Bay. Washington abandoned the plans for New York and marched to Virginia instead. Clinton had lost his chance to send reinforcements south, and in October the French and Americans forced Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown. That turned out to be the decisive campaign of the war.

Of course, there were a lot of factors involved in Clinton’s decisions, and it’s unclear whether Washington’s letter to Dr. Baker played a significant role. But the mere possibility tickles me; teeth really do have deep roots.

According to James Thomas Flexner’s four-volume biography of Washington, a couple of years later another letter from the general to Dr. Baker also went astray and ended up in Clinton’s files (now housed at the Clements Library in Ann Arbor). In that one, Washington asked for the plaster or powder that Baker had used to make a mold of his mouth—which he probably never got. I have to wonder how the general was sending his Philadelphia mail.

Who Took Over Dr. Baker's Dental Practice?

After John Baker left Boston for colonies to the south, as described in yesterday’s posting, other “surgeon dentists” arrived from Europe, but none seem to have stayed long. Rather, a couple of locals adopted his methods.

During his time in Boston, Baker taught some of his techniques to Isaac Greenwood (1730-1803), a craftsman living on Salem Street next to what’s now called Old North Church. Greenwood made umbrellas and tools, and was an “ivory-turner”—hence the affinity for tooth repair. His apprentice Samuel Maverick was the youngest fatality of the Boston Massacre.

Greenwood in turn passed his knowledge to his sons William P. (1756-1851), Isaac, Jr. (1758-past 1806), and John (1760-1819), who advertised their dental services in Boston, Salem, Providence, Savannah, New York, and other towns in the early republic. Like Baker, they often had to travel to find enough clients to support themselves.

John Greenwood is known in dental history for inventing a treadle-powered drill, reportedly inspired by his mother’s spinning-wheel (though he was probably also familiar with his father’s lathes). At the age of fifteen, John had enlisted in the American army as a fifer, and I’ve quoted some passages from his memoir The Revolutionary Services of John Greenwood of Boston and New York, 1775-1783 here on Boston 1775.

But the most direct pitch to Bostonians who had come to rely on John Baker’s dental techniques appeared in the Boston Evening-Post on 5 Sept 1768:

Whereas many Persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore Teeth by accident, or otherways, to their great Detriment, not only in Looks, but Speaking, both in public and private:—

This is to inform all such, that they may have them replaced with false Ones, that look as well as the Natural, and answer the End of Speaking, to all Intents, by PAUL REVERE, Goldsmith, near the Head of Dr. Clarke’s Wharf, Boston.——

All Persons who have had false Teeth fix’d by Mr. John Baker, Surgeon Dentist, and they have got loose (as they will in Time) may have them fastened by the abovesaid Revere, who learnt the method of fixing them from Mr. Baker.

Revere turned to dentistry when his goldsmithing business had fallen off due to economic doldrums and boycotts. Because he focused on building false teeth and cleaning teeth, he could apply his existing skills in metalwork and, well, scraping. Jayne Triber’s biography A True Republican notes that Revere stopped advertising his dental services in 1770, after he began to earn more from other tasks—including engraving “cane heads” for ivory-turner and fellow dentist Isaac Greenwood.

TOMORROW: Pulling teeth in colonial Boston.

John Baker, "Surgeon Dentist," Moves South

Yesterday I posted John Baker’s announcement in June 1766 that he had arrived in America to care for the inhabitants’ teeth in the most modern way. That December, Baker traveled to Rhode Island, advertising in the Newport Mercury that he had treated “some Hundreds in the Town of Boston.”

Then the 29 Jan 1767 Boston News-Letter announced:

JOHN BAKER,
Surgeon Dentis,
Begs Leave to take this Method of informing the Public, That he shall leave this Place in twenty Days at farthest.—That those who are disposed to apply to him may not be disappointed.

He also begs Leave to express his Gratitude for the Favours he has received while in Boston; and hopes that those who doubted of the Safety of his Art, from its Novelty in this Country, are now convinced of its Safety and Usefulness.

Until he leaves his Town he continues at Mr. Joshua Brackett’s in School-Street; where he will be ready to contribute to the utmost of his Power to serve the Publick in his Profession.

Brackett was proprietor of an upscale tavern and inn known as the Cromwell’s Head because its sign featured a portrait of the late Protector (as did its billhead, shown above). Most of the British Empire then saw Cromwell as a dictator, a warning against both popular power and religious enthusiasm, but Boston, with its Puritan heritage, still admired him.

Baker originally called himself an “Operator for the Teeth,” an older name for his profession. His next three newspaper ads all use the label “Surgeon Dentis,” so I don’t think the second word was a typo. In fact, before Baker’s arrival, the word “dentist” seems to have appeared in Boston newspapers only once, in a reprint of a 1766 essay from New York. Other practitioners arriving in America from Europe used “Surgeon Dentist,” however, and later in 1767 Baker adopted that label permanently. So the vocation seems still to have been defining itself.

On 5 May 1768, “John Baker, Surgeon Dentist,” announced his arrival in New York, “at Mr. John Watson’s, in the house wherein Capt. Randall lately lived, at the corner of Pearl-street.” By this time, he claimed to have “given sufficient proof of his superior judgment in this art...to upwards of two thousand persons in the town of Boston.” Then in July, Baker announced he was leaving after one more month. Travel seems to have been a professional necessity in those centuries before the six-month check-up.

Baker next surfaces in Williamsburg, Virginia, in early 1772. And there his clientele included... Well, which colonial Virginian is most famous for his dental difficulties?

Yes, in April 1772 Dr. Baker removed several troublesome teeth from the mouth of planter George Washington. On 13 Oct 1773, Washington noted in his diary that “Mr. Baker Surgeon Dentist” had arrived at Mount Vernon that afternoon. The dentist stayed several days and charged £5, according to the planter’s accounts.

TOMORROW: Who took over John Baker’s practice in Boston?

John Baker: "Operator for the Teeth"

I had some minor oral surgery this afternoon, so I’m wondering when I’ll eat solid foods again and if I can survive entirely on soft ice cream until then.

To take my mind off my own teeth, I did some poking around among other people’s teeth. This advertisement appeared in the Boston Post-Boy on 30 June 1766:

John Baker,
Operator for the Teeth, &c.
Begs Leaves to acquaint the Gentry, that he is now in Boston, at Mr. Joshua Brackett’s in S[c]hool Street, and will wait on them, on receiving their Commands.

In other words, this dentist made house calls.

He cures the Scurvey in the Gums, first cleanes and scales the Teeth, from that Corrosive, Tartarous, Gritty Substance which hinders the Gums from Growing, infects the Breath, and is one of the principal Causes of the Scurvey, and by degrees (if not timely prevented) eats away the Gums, so that many Peoples Teeth fall out Fresh.

He fills up with Lead or Gold those that are hollow (so as to render them useful) and prevents the Air getting into them, which aggravates the Pain.

He makes and fixes Artificial Teeth, with the greatest Exactness and Nicety, so that they may eat, drink, and sleep with them in their Mouths as natural ones, from which it cannot be discovered by the sharpest Eye.

He having given sufficient Proof of his Superior Judgment in this Art, to the principal Nobility, Gentry and others, of Great-Britain, France & Ireland, and other principal Places in Europe.

Of course we must ask: if Dr. Baker had such a busy and wealthy clientele in Europe, why was he trying his fortunes in a distant colony?

Baker also had a toothpaste or tooth-powder to sell, and it seems to do all that modern toothpastes promise and more:

His Dentifrice, which is free from any corrosive Preparation will restore the Gums to their pristine State, will preserve the Teeth, and render them perfectly white, will fasten those that are loose, and prevent them from further decay.

N.B. His Dentifrice may be had at his Lodgings at ONE DOLLAR each Pot, with proper Directions.

Baker then went on to list many items of jewelry that he had brought from London to sell.

TOMORROW: Baker tries out some other colonies.