The Landlord of Liberty Tree

This is how the merchant John Rowe described Boston’s first public protest against the Stamp Act in his diary:

A Great Number of people assembled at Deacon Elliots Corner this morning to see the Stamp Officer hung in Effigy with a Libel on the Breast, on Deacon Elliot’s tree…

The great elm that held the effigy and provided shade for that protest hadn’t yet been dubbed Liberty Tree. In the coming months, the Sons of Liberty would come up with that name, hammer a plaque into the side of the tree, and make it a political gathering-point. As of mid-August 1765, however, that elm was still “Deacon Elliot’s tree.” And who was he?

As far back as May 1733, when the Boston town meeting debated setting up official marketplaces, one of the proposed sites was “near the great Tree, at the South-End, near Mr. Eliot’s House.” When the 31 May Boston News-Letter reported on that hotly contested vote (364 yeas to 339 nays), it referred to “the great Trees at the South End.” That phrase suggests that there were multiple large trees near Eliot’s house, but one particularly big one. It had probably been growing there for over a century, since before Englishmen came to the Shawmut peninsula.

As for clues about “Deacon Elliot,” this advertisement appeared in the 17 June 1734 New-England Weekly Journal:

TO BE LETT,
A Good convenient House, adjoyning the South Market place, with a large Garden in good Order; Inquire of Mr. John Eliot Stationer, living near the great Trees.

When proposals for publishing an American Magazine went around in 1743, “Mr. John Eliot, at the great Trees at the South-End,” was one of the men collecting subscriptions (along with “Mr. Benja. Franklin, Post Master in Philadelphia”).

John Eliot was born in 1692, a descendant of some of Boston’s earliest British settlers. He was a great-nephew of the famous Rev. John Eliot, “Apostle to the Indians.” The young man appears to have followed his uncle Benjamin Eliot (1665-1741) into the business of bookbinding and stationery sales. He also commissioned small books from printers, almost all sermons and other religious literature. As early as 1716 Eliot was issuing these publications “at his shop at the south-end.”

It appears Eliot inherited that land in the South End, as well as property out in Brookline. In 1708, when the Boston selectmen laid out the southernmost stretch of the main road through town, they defined Orange Street as from the old Neck fortifications to the Eliot house. With, presumably, the great elms nearby.

As he neared the age of thirty, Eliot married Sarah Holyoke. Her brother, the Rev. Edward Holyoke, was a Marblehead minister who became president of Harvard College. The Eliots had eight children between 1721 and 1735.

In the early decades of the eighteenth century, the south end of Boston was still sparsely populated. Then the Hollis Street Meetinghouse was built for the Rev. Mather Byles in 1732. The town opened its south market, and soon the area had more houses and streets. We can see that growth in how Eliot’s title pages described his business:

• “at his shop, the south end of the town,” 1724
• “in Orange Street at the south end of the town,” 1734
• “near the South Market,” 1741

Even after the consolidation of Boston’s marketplaces at Faneuil Hall in 1743, the neighborhood grew.

Deacon Eliot’s big trees remained a handy landmark for people entering or navigating town. Newspaper advertisements tell us Josiah Quincy, Sr., lived “opposite to the great Trees, at the South End,” until he struck it rich in privateering and moved to a country estate in Braintree. Other sites in the neighborhood included the house of auctioneer and deacon Benjamin Church, Sr.; the leather workshop of Adam Colson; and a building once called “the Half-Moon, or Land-Bank House.”

Isaiah Thomas later wrote of Eliot:

He published a few books, and was, many years, a bookseller and binder, but his concerns were not extensive. However, he acquired some property; and being a respectable man, was made deacon of the church in Hollis street.

Thomas simply missed the period when Eliot was most active in publishing. After his uncle’s death in 1741, the deacon appears to have cut back on new ventures and lived off his real estate and shop.

Sarah Eliot died in 1755 at the age of sixty. Deacon John Eliot was then sixty-three years old. He married again to a woman named Mary, then in her forties, but she died in 1761. The deacon’s daughters Sarah and Silence remained unmarried, so one or both might have kept house for him after that.

In August 1765, as described yesterday, the Loyall Nine used the boughs of Deacon Eliot’s tree to hang Andrew Oliver in effigy. The figures of several other royal appointees and political enemies followed in the subsequent years. The Sons of Liberty put up a flagpole beside the tree and raised a banner—the Union Jack on a red field—to call public gatherings. Christopher Seider’s funeral train stopped at the tree. So did the processions of men being tarred and feathered.

The way people referred to the tree as belonging to Deacon Eliot suggests it stood on his property with the branches extending over the street. It’s not clear how near Eliot’s house was to the tree, or whether he had a fence around his land. (The picture above was created decades after the tree was cut down in 1775, and there’s no way to know how accurate it was.) How did Eliot feel about the large political gatherings right outside his house? About his property being identified with rebellion?

Though Eliot doesn’t show up on the records as an active Whig, he does seem to have supported that cause and accepted the new identity for the elm outside his house. The 10 Apr 1769 Boston Gazette included an advertisement saying that land and “a large Building thereon, commonly known by the Name of the South Market,” was to be sold by court order. Prospective buyers were invited to “inquire of John Eliot at Liberty-Tree.”

On 14 August that year, the elderly deacon was among the many local dignitaries who dined with Boston’s Sons of Liberty at Lemuel Robinson’s tavern in Dorchester. In 1770, when William Billings advertised his New-England Psalm-Singer, one of the of the four places where people could buy it was “Deacon Elliot’s under Liberty-Tree.”

By that time, Deacon Eliot was in his late seventies. He didn’t live to see all that his elm tree inspired. On 22 Nov 1771, the Boston News-Letter ran this death notice:

Last Thursday died here, Mr. John Eliot, Deacon of the Church under the Pastoral Care of the the Rev’d Dr. Byles—He justly sustain’d the Character of an Honest Man, and a good Christian—His Remains were decently interr’d on Saturday last.

Three days later an ad in the Boston Gazette called on people with debts to settle with Eliot’s estate to meet with the administrators, Joseph Eliot and Thomas Crafts, Jr. The former was probably his son (1727-1782), who moved to Natick, as did his unmarried sisters. The latter was a member of the Loyall Nine who watched over Liberty Tree from his nearby workshop.

The gravestone for Deacon John Eliot and his two wives still stands in the Granary Burying Ground.

“I suppose the affair will drop”

On the night of 20 Jan 1775, as I described back here, there was a big fight between Boston’s watchmen and British army officers, with a few civilians involved on each side.

While the immediate spur was a mistaken belief that the watchman had arrested an officer, the underlying cause was the ongoing dispute over authority in Massachusetts.

When I took notes on this conflict while examining the Gage Papers at the Clements Library, I didn’t see any indication that the army’s board of enquiry led to charges, discipline, or acquittal for the officers involved.

Instead, Gen. Thomas Gage appears to have decided to leave the next steps to the civil courts. He had achieved his immediate goal of calming the town a bit by ordering a public enquiry, with five high-level officers taking testimony from over three dozen men.

That strategy worked, at least for some people. John Eliot told the Rev. Jeremy Belknap: “His Excellency seems dispos’d to do everything in his power to prevent mischief & satisfy the people, & me judice [in my judgment], the times being considered, is a very good Governor.”

So how did the civil magistrates and court system deal with the case? As the Boston Gazette reported,  Patriot-leaning magistrates ordered eight officers and saddler Richard Sharwin to answer to charges at the next court term. But the newspaper then acknowledged there was a huge obstacle in the way of any trial:

but the good People of this County will rather chuse to hear no more of this Matter, than return Jurors to the Superior Court upon the Act of Parliament to regulate the Government of this Province, which they have resolved never to submit to.——

For months the Massachusetts Whigs had been urging people not to cooperate with the royal court system, first in protest of salaries for judges from the tea tax, then in protest of the Massachusetts Government Act. Crowds had kept the county courts outside of Boston closed since the previous summer. Most of the men of Suffolk County felt the same way.

Lt. John Barker likewise saw where the controversy was heading on 25 January:

Several of the riotous Officers bound over to appear at the April Assizes, when I suppose the affair will drop, as they can’t have any Jury but according to the new Acts which they are hitherto so much averse to.

There were no “April Assizes” in Massachusetts that year. Instead, that month brought war.

“By what Means this Riot was introduced”

While the king’s army held a public court of enquiry into the violence on the night of 20 Jan 1775, the Massachusetts civil authorities did the same.

Town watchmen swore out a legal complaint against certain army officers. According to John Eliot, witnesses “were examined in the Court House before Justice [Edmund] Quincey,” shown here. Or, as the 30 January Boston Gazette reported:

On Tuesday and Wednesday last there was a full and impartial Examination of Witnesses before the Worshipful Edmund Quincy and John Hill, Esquires, two of his Majesty’s Justices of the Quorum for this County.—

Back in 1768-70, the first time the army patrolled the streets of Boston, Justice Quincy became known for his hostility to any soldiers brought before him. Justice Hill had been one of magistrates most involved in collecting testimony for the town report on the Boston Massacre. So, despite the Boston Gazette’s assurances, friends of the royal government must have been dubious those men were conducting a “full and impartial Examination.”

The army board sat that whole week in “the New Court House,” according to John Andrews, so what “Court House” did these two justices of the peace use? The Town House had served as a courthouse for many years, so perhaps that’s what Eliot meant. It’s hard to imagine the two inquiries taking place side by side.

Edes and Gill published the outcome of the magistrates’ inquiry this way:

By the Evidence it appeared, that previous to the Riot the following Circumstances took place: A little after Ten o’Clock two young Men passing down Milk-Street, near the Entrance into Long Lane, they were accosted by an Officer, not in the English, but as they supposed in another Language, which they did not understand; they asked him what he meant; he said he meant to tell them to go about their Business.

That detail about the officer not speaking in English might have been a dig at Scotsmen in the army. Or he might just have been speaking in another language, or incoherently.

They said they were going, and passed along into Long-Lane. They had not gone far before the Officer called them to stop—they stopped till he came up to them, and angry Words ensued. The young Men, however, parted from him the second Time and went on their Way towards their Homes.

The Officer followed and overtook them near the Head of the Lane, and stopped them again, telling them he supposed they were stiff Americans; to which one of them said, he gloried in the Character.—Here again Words ensued, and the Officer drew his Sword, flourished it and struck one of the young Men on the Arm, who immediately seized him.—

At this Juncture, three or four of the Town Watch, who were upon the Patrole, came up and separated them, advising them to go Home. The two young Men did so, but the Officer refused, saying, he was the Prisoner of the Watch and would go with them; they told him he was not their Prisoner, but might go where he plea’d, and if he desired it, they would see him safe Home; but he insisted upon it, that he was their Prisoner ——

The Watchmen went down the Lane towards their Head Quarters in King-Street, where they had been going before, and the Officer accompanied them. In the Way they met with several Persons, whom they took to be Servants of Officers, who supposing this Officer to be in the Custody of the Watch, attempted to rescue him, but he insisted upon being a Prisoner, and said the Watchmen were his Friends, and he would go with them.

They then went forward, and in Quaker-Lane, which leads into King-Street, they were met and assaulted by more than twenty Officers of the Army, who took several of their Watch-Poles from them and wounded some of them.

We thought it necessary thus far to give a Detail of the Affair, that our Readers might know by what Means this Riot was introduced.——

The Particulars that happened afterwards are too many to be enumerated in a News-Papers. It is sufficient to say, that upon the Evidence the Justices thought proper to bind eight of the Officers, and a Sadler, named Sharwin, who had lived a few Years in Town, to answer for their Conduct at the Superior Court, and in the mean Time to be on good Behavior…

The newspaper clearly painted Sharwin the saddler as a troublemaking outsider. I just hunted for information about him and ended up tracking Richard Sharwin’s career over two decades, followed by his widow’s involvement in the sale of an enslaved woman that linked the Long Island spy Robert Townsend to the Massacre witness Richard Palmes. Someday I may tell that story.

As for the story of what happened on the night of 20 Jan 1775, Eliot supplied this understanding:

Betwixt ten & eleven in the evening an officer in liquor desired the watch to go home with him. A young gentleman of the town, seeing him with two men & thinking him abus'd, went to the British Coffee House, & acquainted the officers collected there that one of their companions was involuntarily led away & made prisoner by the watch. They rushed out, attacked the watchmen with drawn swords, & held the battle till orders were received from the Governor [Thomas Gage] to disperse.

Plus, at some point the main guard turned out under Capt. John Gore, though he was allegedly as drunk as any of the officers from the coffee-house or the first officer who kept cheerfully insisting he was a prisoner of his friends, the watchmen.

TOMORROW: The results of the two investigations.

Lt. Henry Barry: “sappy looking chap” or “calm, worthy man”?

The British army officer who asked Henry Knox to publish a political pamphlet in January 1775, as discussed yesterday, was Lt. Henry Barry (1750-1822), shown here as J. S. Copley painted him about ten years later.

We know about Barry’s authorship because John Andrews mentioned him again in a letter on 29 January:

a pamphlet…wrote in answer to General [Charles] Lee’s by one Barrey, an officer in the 52nd Regiment, whose performance is pretty much like himself, being an awkward sappy looking chap, the more so I think than any officer I have seen among all that’s here.

Others were more complimentary about Barry, and he did manage to get his pamphlet published by the end of that month. The title was The Strictures on the Friendly Address Examined, and a Refutation of its Principles Attempted, and the first edition named no publisher or printer.

On 31 January, the young painter Henry Pelham sent a copy to Charles Startin, a brother-in-law. (To be exact, Startin was Pelham’s half-brother Copley’s wife’s sister’s husband.)

I also inclose you a pamphlet wrote by a young Gentleman, a Lieutenant in the Army here. I believe it will please you as a sensible dispassionate and polite answer to another filled with invective attributed to Gen’l Lee.

Of course, Pelham had become a decided Loyalist after the Boston Tea Party.

Another admirer of Barry was John Eliot, who leaned toward the Whigs. He sent the lieutenant’s pamphlet to the Rev. Jeremy Belknap on 30 January and followed up on 18 February to say:

The author of the “Strictures Examined” is a young gentleman of my acquaintance, an officer in the fiftysecond, now station’d with us, an ingenuous, calm, worthy man. The enclosed is another production of his, which asks your acceptance.

Lt. Barry’s second pamphlet was The Advantages which America Derives from Her Commerce, Connexion, and Dependence on Britain. It doesn’t have a printer listed, either. Some bibliographers guess it was printed in New York, but Barry probably went to the same Boston print shop as before. He also wrote a reply to a Patriot sermon by the Rev. William Gordon of Roxbury.

James Rivington, the New York printer who had first published the Friendly Address and started the back-and-forth, reprinted Barry’s response to Lee’s response under the title The General Attacked by a Subaltern—i.e., a junior officer had answered the (Polish) general. We can assess Barry’s argument here.

(The portrait of Lt. Barry above is now at the Saint Louis Art Museum.)

Boston in 1774 with Notes from Later

Cortney Skinner alerted me to this item in the New York Public Library’s digital images collection.

It’s a leaf from Isaiah Thomas’s Royal American Magazine in early 1774 that featured Paul Revere’s engraving of the eastern shore of Boston with Royal Navy ships in the harbor.

This page from the American Antiquarian Society reports that the magazine included a key for this frontispiece inside on page 40. That key identified the labeled landmarks along the water’s edge and the ships. (Though the latter were simply “1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8 Ships of War. 9 and 10. armed Schooners.”)

However, this copy of the print was removed from the magazine, and sometime in the early 1800s someone created his or her own key in the margins.

Here’s the handwritten key along the left side; if the key from 1774 said something different, I put that information in brackets:

A- is Long Whf.
B- is Hancock’s Whf.
C- is North Battery
D- is Fort-hill Battery [South Battery]
E- is Fort-Hill
F- is Fosters Whf. [Wheelwright’s Wharf]
G- is the Province house [Beach Hill]
H- is Tilteston’s Whf. [Hubbard’s Wharf]
I- is Hallowell’s Ship Y’d [Hollaway’s Ship-Yard]
K- is [blank] [Walker’s Ship-Yard]
L- is Gee’s Ship Yard [Tyler’s Ship-Yard]
M- is [blank] [Island Wharfs]
N- is [blank] [ditto]

Originally there was no key for the meetinghouse and church spires dominating the top of the image, but the annotator put a lot of effort into labeling them. And I put a fair amount of effort into reading those labels, including some in pencil that required raising the contrast on those parts of the scan.

The results are:

Hollis St. Ch.

Summer St. Ch. [Though was a term for Trinity Church, that building had no steeple; this spire was the New South Meetinghouse on Summer Street.]

First Ch. Federal St.
now Dr. Channings [Rev. William Ellery Channing preached to this congregation from 1803 to 1842; this building was replaced in 1809.]

Old So. Ch. Washington
St. Dr. Eckley’s [Rev. Joseph Eckley’s tenure at Old South ended in 1811.]

Old King’s Chapel

Province house
Beacon light
Old Brick ch. now [?]
Joy’s buildings Cornhill
Sq.
Town house at head
of State St.

West Ch. (Howard’s) [Rev. Simeon Howard died in 1804, and a new church was erected on the site in 1806.]
Faneuil Hall
Brattle St. ch.

New Brick ch. Hanover
St. Dr. Lathrop’s [Rev. John Lathrop died in 1816.]

Ch. in No. Square site
now built over with
dwelling houses. In 1775
it was distroyed. [This was the Old North Meetinghouse.]

Christ Ch. Salem St. [Now best known as Old North Church.]

Dr. Elliot’s Hanover
St. [Rev. Andrew Eliot died in 1778, Rev. John Eliot in 1813.]

Those labels offer some clues about when the notes were written. The annotator put Old South on “Washington St.,” and that stretch of the street wasn’t officially renamed Washington until 1824. For the Federal Street Church still to be “now Dr. Channings” means that the labels predate 1842. So let’s say around 1830.

It’s a bit confusing that the annotator included the names of some ministers who were dead by that date. I suspect the notes were an attempt to identify who presided over those meetinghouses during the Revolutionary War, at the approximate time of the picture. In the case of Howard, Lathrop, and the older Eliot, they were indeed preaching under those spires in 1774, but Eckley wasn’t installed at Old South until 1780.

Fake News from Overseas in 1777

On 17 June 1777, the young Rev. John Eliot wrote from Boston to his New Hampshire friend and colleague, the Rev. Jeremy Belknap.

Eliot’s letter discussed, among other topics, foreign press coverage of the ongoing Revolution:

We have here among us some Irish Magazines which Capt [Samuel] Smedly took lately [in a naval capture]. I wish you could see them. There is plenty of matter edifying & entertaining. Your brother & I think them far beyond any thing of the kind that we have seen. But ye reason of my mentioning them at this time is to let you know how they speak of our politicians & hero’s. They appear to be friend[s] to America & say much in our praise; but they seem to be very much mistaken in ye Characters, or else speak contrary, from their Hibernian dialect.

The frontispiece is the President of our Continental Congress [John Hancock]. It is said he is a person of surprising eloquence, a fine writer, argumentative & cool, as may be seen in the addresses of the Congress, all which were penned by him; that he hath lately married one of the most accomplished ladies on the continent, who has bro’t him a great addition to his paternal fortune. So much for him.

Okay, to get the joke you really had to be there—in Revolutionary Boston. Because Eliot, Belknap, and all the other learned young gentlemen in their circle knew that Hancock was no writer. The biggest piece of eloquence in his name was his Massacre oration of 1774, which the Rev. Samuel Cooper and others had written for him. As chairman of the Congress, Hancock simply signed what other delegates wrote. Furthermore, his father had left no fortune (he inherited from an uncle), and his wife was from the poorer branch of the Quincy family.

Likewise:

Mr S[amuel]. Adams is a gentleman who hath sacrificed an immense fortune in the service of his country. He is an orator likewise, & there is a famous oration upon the independance of America, which, it is said, he delivered at Philadelphia, January, 1776, but which was never seen in America before.

Adams never had “an immense fortune,” and his moderate inheritance was gone long before the Revolutionary turmoil. He also wasn’t a great public speaker because of a tremor that could affect his throat; I discussed that putative oration last month.

General [George] Washington, they say, was first a private in the King’s Guards, & fought against the Rebels in [the Jacobite uprising of] 1745. Afterwards he went to America, & was promoted till he rose to be the accomplished gentleman the world now views him.

We all know Washington was born in Virginia, never went to Britain, never served in the regular British army, and never was a private past the age of eighteen.

Old [Israel] Putnam was a long time in the service of the King of Prussia.

Putnam had seen military action from Fort Detroit to Cuba, but never under the Prussian king.

In short, if you had nothing to judge from but the Characters, you would suppose it to be entirely burlesque. But from the whole of the Magazine you must impute it to ignorance. It is my own opinion that some Irishmen set down & conjectured what might be the characters of the American worthies, & dealt them out according to his own sentiments.

The most surprising circumstance is that they suppose Major [Robert] Rogers is a general in our army, & that he left the British service upon the disgust he took at his treatment some years ago. After giving his general character, they enlarge upon the ingratitude of Britain in treating such men as he, [Charles] Lee, [Richard] Montgomery, &c., in such a manner.

At the start of the war Rogers concealed his loyalties, but by 1777 Americans knew he was back with the British. Evidently the editors of this Irish magazine didn’t.

Finally, Eliot closed with a little personal news:

These things have diverted me during my confinement, which has been off & on these three weeks, owing to lameness. I was so terribly galled by a hard trotting horse sometimes that I could scarcely walk for a week, & when I did walk it was in such a manner that I was obliged to tie a handkerchief round my leg to save appearances. The next week a bad sore came in that very place where the hankerchief was tied. And last night, when my leg had got pretty well, I sprained my knee, & am unable to stir out of my chair today, & am in great pain. It would divert you to see me, however.

The picture above is a portrait of Gen. Washington, not taken from life at all but published in Germany during the war to satisfy public interest, courtesy of the New York Public Library.

“Purporting to have been delivered by Samuel Adams”

Yesterday I described an oration that Samuel Adams delivered in Philadelphia on 1 Aug 1776—or at least that was what a pamphlet published in London said.

In his 1865 biography of Adams, descendant William V. Wells wrote:

There appeared in London this year a printed oration, purporting to have been delivered by Samuel Adams on the 1st of August at Philadelphia. Written in the style of Adams, with but one or two exceptions, it was evidently prepared by some person familiar with his writings. Even his frequent italicizing of words, intended to convey pointed meanings, is not neglected. It must have had an extended circulation, several copies being now preserved in various libraries. Its spuriousness was not suspected in England, where its effect had been the principal object of the author; but whoever was the writer, it is difficult to see what was the immediate point to be gained by the deception. . . . The only contemporary notice was apparently written in London, after a perusal of the oration; and the writer expresses the general opinion of the subtlety of Samuel Adams as beyond that of all others in Congress.

In a footnote Wells laid out the “numerous and palpable” arguments against the authenticity of the pamphlet:

1. Congress was in session on the 1st of August, when the oration purports to have been delivered. It is hardly possible that on such an occasion, that body would not have adjourned; and the title-page bears the words, “delivered at the State House.”

2. Contemporary records make no mention of any public celebration on the 1st of August; nor could the signing of the engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence on the following day have had any association with the speech. None of the American reminiscences of those times refer to it, either in diaries, letters, or newspapers, and it is not likely that so interesting an occurrence would have escaped mention.

3. This professes to be a reprint of the original Philadelphia pamphlet. No such American edition has ever been seen, but at least four copies are known of the London issue.

4. Though the oration is dated nearly a month after the Declaration of Independence, it is silent as to that event, which the unceasing efforts of Adams had particularly pushed to consummation, showing that the author (evidently in London) was ignorant of the Declaration. . . .

6. The oration repeatedly alludes to the “present Constitution” as then in force, as being already “composed, established, and approved.” No constitution existed at this date. The only approach to such an instrument were the Articles of Confederation; and Samuel Adams being one of the committee which had reported them in the previous month, none better than he knew that they had not been approved. Congress, on that very day, resolved upon the consideration of them, and the debate continued far into August, when they were laid aside, and not taken up until the next spring.

Wells also stated that “contains certain indecent passages which it would be absurd to suppose for a moment that Samuel Adams could ever have written.” Unfortunately, those were too indecent to point out. Nothing stands out as indecent to my eyes, but I immediately had doubts about Adams quoting Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In 1875, Charles Francis Adams showed a copy of the oration to the Massachusetts Historical Society while adding that “there was no evidence that Samuel Adams ever delivered such an oration, nor had there ever been discovered a copy published in Philadelphia.”

In the early 1900s, Harry Alonzo Cushing edited a comprehensive collection of The Writings of Samuel Adams. He referred to the pamphlet only in a footnote, citing Wells’s arguments against its authenticity while noting that the text continued to be reprinted “as recently as 1900.” Cushing also quoted a contemporaneous American reference to the “oration” as dubious:

John Eliot of Boston apparently had the matter in mind when he wrote to Jeremy Belknap, June 17, 1777: “Mr S. Adams is a gentleman who hath sacrificed an immense fortune in the service of his country. He is an orator likewise, & there is a famous oration upon the independance of America, which, it is said, he delivered at Philadelphia, January [sic], 1776, but which was never seen in America before.”

Today the oration is recognized as a hoax by bibliographers and booksellers. But with so many anthologies of American oratory reprinting the text in the 1800s and early 1900s, the internet has rediscovered it and brought it back as a seemingly authentic statement by Samuel Adams. The sentence “Truth loves an appeal to the common sense of mankind” seems particularly popular and, given the deceptive source, particularly ironic.

TOMORROW: Who created this hoax?

The “Centinel” in the Spy

In 1799 the Massachusetts Historical Society published a history of newspapers in Boston and New England. Unsigned at the time, that article was later credited to the Rev. John Eliot. Among his comments:

At this time [1771], the Massachusetts Spy was growing into high repute; a more violent class of politicians filled this paper with their speculations than the whigs who wrote in the Boston Gazette, who were experienced statesmen, and had a particular object in view; to make people understand the nature of government, the rights of the colonies, the oppressions of Great-Britain, and the virtues necessary to promote social order with the principles of liberty.

A more disorganizing spirit prevailed among those who wrote for the Massachusetts Spy; and who were, most of them, young men of genius, without experience in business, or knowledge of the world; some of whom, perhaps, had no principles to actuate them; or were enthusiasts, if they had principles; and wanted judgment where their virtue did not fail.

Any one who reads a periodical work, styled the Centinel, in forty numbers, which was highly celebrated, and some other pieces of a similar nature, will now see that the same spirit and principles lead to a dissolution of all society, and like more modern publications, on equality and the rights of men [e.g., later works by Thomas Paine], are direct attacks at all authority and law; and being carried into effect, would have made confusion here, as they have since dissolved the governments, and desolated the fair fields of Europe.

The Massachusetts Spy was printed at Worcester during the war; it became a more useful and excellent paper, and did infinite service, in diffusing a knowledge of facts, and some of the best written pieces that have appeared in our American periodical publications.

Who wrote the “Centinel” essays in Spy? Printer Isaiah Thomas never revealed who gave him those essays, and Eliot apparently didn’t know. In fact, Eliot’s characterization of the Spy writers as “young men of genius, without experience in business, or knowledge of the world,” appears to have little foundation.

Most of the “Centinel” essays were about what the writer saw as abuses of the British constitution and law. In 1995, the M.H.S. published an essay by Neil L. York positing that the author was lawyer Josiah Quincy, Jr. York has since co-edited volumes of Quincy’s papers published by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.

The other leading polemicists publishing in the Spy appear to have been Joseph Greenleaf (1720-1810) as “Mucius Scaevola” and Dr. Thomas Young (1732-1777) as “Leonidas.” “Mucius” especially got under the royal authorities’ skin. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson tried to punish Greenleaf and try his printer Thomas for seditious libel, but the local grand jury refused to indict.

I’ll talk about these and other controversies of colonial Boston’s newspapers tonight at the Boston Public Library.

“He received four balls in his body.”

And at last it’s time to unveil the Boston 1775 answer to that burning question: Which provincial soldier killed Maj. John Pitcairn of the British Marines as he led the final assault on the provincial redoubt atop Breed’s Hill? Was it—

• Peter Salem, as most historians have written since the mid-1800s?
• Salem Poor, commended for his conduct in that battle?
• Joseph Spalding, credited in his 1820 obituary?
• Benjamin Webber of Gloucester?
• Phinehas Whitney of Maine?
• An unnamed boy who became a shoemaker by 1807?

Do we even have enough information to hazard an answer? How much longer can I draw this out?

Okay, okay. My answer to that question is:

Wrong question.

Let’s go back and look at the earliest description of how Pitcairn was shot, the Rev. Dr. John Eliot’s note in his almanac for 1775:

He had been wounded twice; then putting himself at the head of his forces, he faced danger, calling out, “Now for the glory of the marines!” He received four balls in his body.

So according to someone who was actually in Boston when Pitcairn died, the major was struck at least four times, perhaps six. Even if he was wounded twice with a single shot (a possibility with eighteenth-century muskets), that still means there were multiple shooters.

Furthermore, the June 1775 letters of Lt. John Waller cast doubt on Samuel Swett’s 1819 story of Maj. Pitcairn being shot as he “mounted [the works]...and exultingly cried ‘the day is ours’.” And on the 1807 battlefield guide’s tale that “the major called to his soldiers to hasten their speed, as the enemy had abandoned the fort.”

According to Waller, Pitcairn was fatally shot at “the Talus of the Redoubt”—at the bottom of the rise and the wall the provincials had built the night before. Between the Marines and the redoubt were “Hedges,” “the Talus,” “the Ditch,” and “the Parapet.” Furthermore, those British troops were suffering a “very heavy and severe Fire from the Enemy in the Redoubt,” so no one would have considered it empty.

Waller recalled that his men were pinned down in that spot for “Ten Minutes or near a Quarter of an Hour”—in which time Maj. Pitcairn was shot and his son started to carry him back to the waterside. It probably took more minutes for Waller to regain command of that unit and coordinate the final attack with two superior officers as he described. Maj. Pitcairn wasn’t shot during the final storming of the redoubt, as the stories have come down to us, but a significant period before.

TOMORROW: So, jeez already, which provincial soldiers were responsible for Maj. Pitcairn’s death?

“Now for the glory of the marines!”

Here are some immediate reactions to the death of Maj. John Pitcairn at the Battle of Bunker Hill, as described by Marines comrade Lt. John Waller in yesterday’s post.

The Rev. Dr. John Eliot reportedly made this note about Pitcairn in his 1775 almanac:

This amiable and gallant officer was slain entering the intrenchments. He had been wounded twice; then putting himself at the head of his forces, he faced danger, calling out, “Now for the glory of the marines!” He received four balls in his body.

Around the same time, Gen. John Burgoyne (shown above, courtesy of the University of Houston’s Digital History site) described Pitcairn’s loss in a letter to Lord Palmerston:

Major Pitcairn was a brave and good man. His son, an officer in the same corps, and near him when he fell, carried his expiring father upon his back to the boats, about a quarter of a mile, kissed him, and instantly returned to his duty. This circumstance in the hands of a good painter or historian, would equal most that can be found in antiquity.

This letter was printed in an 1876 volume with the fine title Political and Military Episodes in the Latter Half of the Eighteenth Century Derived from the Life and Correspondence of the Right Hon. John Burgoyne.

Finally, here’s a letter published in the 22 June 1775 New-England Chronicle, one of the newspapers outside of Boston. This document was, the printers wrote, “thought by many judicious Persons to contain Accounts not far from the Truth.” [How reassuring.]

Hingham, June 19.

Yesterday I came out of Boston at 2 o’Clock P.M. I heard the Officers and Soldiers say that they were sure that they had a Thousand or more killed and wounded; that they were carrying the wounded Men from 4 o’Clock on Saturday until I came away.

General [William] Howe commanded the Troops. They buried their Dead at Charlestown. Among the Dead was Major Pitcairn. A great many other Officers are dead. There were 5000 soldiers went from Boston. The Soldiers and Officers exult very much upon taking our Lines.

J.B.

It seems significant that the only dead officer this refugee named was Pitcairn. That might have been because at the time he was the British forces’ highest-ranking casualty. (Lt.-Col. James Abercrombie succumbed from his wounds a few days later.) But I think it also reflects Pitcairn’s visibility in the town, and his notoriety in the countryside after the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

TOMORROW: More details about who killed Maj. Pitcairn surface after the war.

Listening in on the North End Caucus

I’ve been tracing the development of Boston’s caucus system, and am now pleased to come to actual records from the “North End Caucus” from 1772 to 1775. A century ago these papers were in the hands of Boston publisher A. O. Crane. They were printed as Appendix C in Elbridge Henry Goss’s Life of Colonel Paul Revere, volume 2 (1891). As of today, alas, Google Books has scanned only the first volume of this biography.

Richard Frothingham had seen such documents when he wrote his History of the Siege of Boston (first published 1849), and one of his footnotes adds some details:

• The word caucus was actually spelled “caucos”—another clue to its etymology?
  
• “On the first leaf is the memorandum, ‘Began 1767—records lost.’”
• “On the cover, under the date of March 23, there is a list of sixty persons, probably the members of the caucus.”
• The documents originally extended to 17 May 1774, though the surviving transcript ends on 9 May.
  

The vote to define the duties of a secretary (quoted below) make me think the 23 Mar 1772 meeting was when the North End Caucus was founded and organized, and the 1767 date refers to an earlier or parent group. That also fits with John Eliot’s 1809 statement that the members of an existing caucus decided to expand in 1772.

The North End group’s first recorded meeting took place at the Salutation Tavern on North Street. That tavern’s sign showed two gentlemen conversing, which inspired an alternative name for the establishment: the Two Palaverers. The thumbnail picture up top shows a 1773 London print called “The Salutation Tavern,” by Henry Bunbury (1750-1811), inspired by a public house of the same name in Holburn. This print is part of the digital images collection at Yale University Libraries.

The list of sixty caucus members starts with William Molineux, Samuel Adams, Gibbons Sharp, and John Adams. Was this John Adams the lawyer, one-term town representative, and future President? At the time, he was living in Braintree, not Boston. Then again, Molineux lived on Beacon Hill (where the State House now stands) and Samuel Adams lived in the South End. So the North End Caucus wasn’t confined to men from Boston’s North End.

The family of selectman John Ruddock, which was the biggest man in the neighborhood, was represented by his son Abiel Ruddock, who became the caucus’s secretary, and his son-in-law, Dr. Elisha Story. Dr. Joseph Warren and Dr. Thomas Young were both present. Men from the Loyall Nine of 1765 included Thomas Chase, Henry Bass, and Benjamin Edes.

As far as the meeting goes, its records are about as exciting as the records of any other meeting whose goal is to build and demonstrate consensus rather than to record divisions or disagreement. The secretary noted the group’s decisions without preserving any hint of the debate or, if the vote wasn’t unanimous, saying how close it was. Thus, the first meeting’s business was:

At a meeting of the North End Caucus, Boston, held at Mr. William Campbell’s March 23, 1772. . . .
Gibbens Sharp, was Moderator.
Abiel Ruddock Secretary.

Voted—That the Secretary be desired to record the proceedings of the Caucus.

Voted—That we will use our endeavours for Oliver Wendell, Esq., to be Selectman, in the room of Dr. Jon Greenleaf, resigned.

Voted—That Capt. Cazneau and Nathaniel Barber, be a Committee to write votes for the body, and distribute them, accordingly.

Voted—That Messrs G. Sharp, N. Barber, T. Hitchborn, Capt. Pulling, H. Bass, Paul Revere, J. Ballard, Dr. Young, T. Kimball, Abiel Ruddock, and John Lowell, be a committee to examine into the Minority of the town, and report to this body. And, also, that this Committee notify the body when and where to meet.

I believe “to write votes for the body” meant writing out ballots with the names of the caucus’s preferred candidates that voters could use in a town meeting and not have to write their own. I don’t know what the “Minority of the town” might mean: the rest of town, the outvoted group, the younger set?

The North End Caucus met again on 5 May to decide their preferences for Boston’s representatives in the General Court. Unstated in that record is how James Otis, Jr., was no longer up to that job, so the caucus wished to replace him with William Phillips. Most of the time, the caucus endorsed all the incumbent office-holders.

The May meeting also appointed committees “to wait upon the South End Caucus, and let them know what we have done, and that we shall be glad of their concurrence with us in the same choice,” and the same for the “Caucus in the Middle part of the town.” Again, these caucuses springing up all over seem to have been part of the expansion that year. The North End records have more references to those other two caucuses, but so far as I know we have no documents from those groups themselves. The North End Caucus never recorded receiving messages or advice from those other groups. Perhaps it was the most influential caucus, or perhaps it was simply fast off the mark.

There are some tantalizing gaps in the record, left either by the original secretary or by someone transcribing the document later. On 19 May 1772 the caucus:

Voted—unanimously—That in consequence of the past misconduct of ——— Esq. this body will oppose his appointment to any office of trust of the tow[n]

On 9 May 1774, the caucus got into the affairs of an unidentified church:

Voted—That the prayer of the Rev. ——— Congregation’s petition be supported.

Most of the few other non-election items seem mundane. On 4 May 1773, the caucus agreed “That this body will use their influence to have Kilby st. paved, if they petition according to the ancient custom of the town.” That looks like ordinary neighborhood politics. But when the caucus decided on 9 May 1774, “That this body oppose letting the granery being appropriated to another purpose than it is at present,” I bet that refers to the possibility that the government-owned granary (where Park Street Church now stands) might be turned into barracks for the troops that the London government had ordered into Boston.

In his Biographical Dictionary John Eliot recalled that the expanded caucus “always had a mechanick for moderator.” Gibbons Sharp was a shipwright, though also respectable enough to be a church deacon. However, the group chose insurance broker Nathaniel Barber, merchant Nathaniel Holmes, and physician Thomas Young as moderators on other days. Eliot wrote, “After the destruction of the tea, the place of assembling was known, and they met at the Green Dragon in the spring of 1775.” The North End Caucus actually met at the Green Dragon Tavern first in November 1773, before the Boston Tea Party, and returned to the Salutation Tavern for one meeting in March 1774. So Eliot must have been working off people’s memories rather than the written records.

TOMORROW: The North End Caucus and the Boston Tea Party.

Boston’s Caucus Expands in 1772

One of Boston’s political changes in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, according to John Eliot’s A Biographical Dictionary (1809), was an expansion of the caucus to include craftsmen as well as genteel officials and businessmen.

In his entry on Dr. Joseph Warren, Eliot (1754-1813) wrote:

From the year 1768 [actually much earlier], a number of politicians met at each other’s houses to discuss publick affairs, and the settle upon the best methods of serving the town and country. Many of these filled publick offices. But the meetings were private, and had a silent influence upon the publick body.

In 1772 they agreed to increase their number, to meet in a large room, and invite a number of substantial mechanicks to join them, and hold a kind of caucus, pro bono publico. They met in a house near the north battery, and more than 60 were present at the first meeting. Their regulations were drawn up by Dr. Warren and another gentleman, and they never did any thing important without consulting him and his particular friends.

It answered a good purpose to get such a number of mechanicks together; and though a number of whigs of the first character in the town were present, they always had a mechanick for moderator, generally one who could carry many votes by his influence. It was a matter of policy likewise to assemble at that part of the town. It had the effect to awake the north wind, and stir the waters of the troubled sea.

By this body of men the most important matters were decided—they agreed who should be in town offices, in the general court, in the provincial congress, from Boston. Here the committees of publick service were formed, the plan for military companies, and all necessary means of defence. They met about two years steadily at one place. After the destruction of the tea, the place of assembling was known, and they met at the Green Dragon in the spring of 1775, with as many more from the south end, and the records of their proceedings are still preserved.

The writer of these memoirs has been assured by some of the most prominent characters of this caucus, that they were guided by the prudence and skilful management of Dr. Warren, who, with all his zeal and irritability, was a man calculate to carry on any secret business; and that no man ever did manifest more vigilance, circumspection and care.

In every country there are politicians, who are the mere cymbals of the mob, and answer some good purpose, when they are not left to themselves. In this country, through all stages of the revolution, we had many such, who, to their own imagination, appeared to direct the affairs of the publick. Such men were never admitted to be members of the caucus here mentioned; many of them never knew the secret springs, that moved the great wheels, but thought themselves very important characters, because they were sons of liberty, and excelled others in garulity, or made a louder cry upon the wharves, or at corners of streets.

Eliot seems to have had someone in mind when he wrote the last paragraph. I just wish I knew who it was.

TOMORROW: Actual minutes from colonial caucus meetings.

Colonial Boston Vocabulary: "coasting"

Today’s vocabulary word is "coasting," which is what Boston boys used to call sledding. Their "coast" was the slope they chose to sled on, which for the South Latin School students in the winter of 1774-75 meant down from part of Beacon Hill onto School Street.

John Andrews, a Boston merchant, wrote to a correspondent in Philadelphia on 29 Jan 1775:

Shall close this by giving you a small anecdote, relating to some of our school lads—who as formerly in this season improv’d the Coast from Sherburn’s hill down to School street. General [Frederick] Haldiman, improving the house that belongs to Old Cook, his servant took it upon him to cut up their coast and fling ashes upon it.

The lads made a muster, and chose a committee to wait upon the General, who admitted them, and heard their complaint, which was couch’d in very genteel terms, complaining that their fathers before ’em had improv’d it as a coast for time immemorial, &ca. He order’d his servant to repair the damage, and acquainted the Governor [Gen. Thomas Gage] with the affair, who observ’d that it was impossible to beat the notion of Liberty out of the people, as it was rooted in ’em from their Childhood.

John Elliott wrote out the same story for the Rev. Jeremy Belknap the next day:

You may remember there is a declivity from the lane opposite School Street, which is the winter season the boys make use of as a coasting-place. Here not long since a number of boys were assembled for the purpose aforesaid. A servant of General Haldiman’s (whose stables were in that lane), being displeas’d by the slippery walking their amusement occasioned, maugre their pleadings & threatnings, scattered ashes over the place, & spoiled their fun.

With the true spirit of the sons of Boston, they chose a committee to wait upon the General to remonstrate against the proceedings, & complain of the maltreatment they had received of his servant. When the servant came to the door, he asked their business; they replied it was with the General. The servant was ordered to wait upon them into the parlour. The chairman informed the General that they were a committee from the boys, sent to make complaint of the invasion of their rights made by one of his servants; that he had spoiled their sport by tossing a quantity of ashes over a spot of ground which they & their fathers before them had taken possession of for a coasting-place.

The General at first did not understand what they meant by the term coasting. When informed of its meaning, he called all his servants, and, being told which was the offender, ordered him to go & throw water on the place sufficient to rectify the damage caus’d by the ashes. He treated the committee with a glass of wine, & they took their leave.

General Haldiman with great good humour told the story at General Gage’s table, which afforded the company great diversion. The Governor observed that they had only caught the spirit of the times, & that what was bred in the bone would creep out in the flesh.

This anecdote was fondly, though not accurately, remembered in Boston for decades. There are some stirring mid-1800s depictions of the schoolboys' committee in books, paintings, and engravings, mostly with the wrong location, date, or general. The publication of these two letters by the Massachusetts Historical Society in the late 1800s provide our only contemporaneous sources for the incident.

As for "coast" and "coasting," my Oxford English Dictionary lists these letters as the first recorded uses of the words with this meaning. It remained Bostonians' term of choice for decades. In a paper on a New England boy of the mid-1800s delivered at the 2002 Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, Prof. Rebecca R. Noel reported that Ned Wright consistently described himself as "sledding" in Montpelier but "coasting" on Boston Common. And the usage survives in such terms as "roller coaster."