John Field: breeches-maker

Back in March, I posted about what little is known of Patrick Carr, one of the victims of the Boston Massacre. He was working for a maker of leather breeches named John Field, and I’ve found more information about that man. Like Carr, Field appears to have immigrated to Boston from Ireland, but he was wealthier.

Church records show that Field’s wife had been named Catherine (or Katherine) Ryan, and they had married at the Presbyterian Meeting-House on 15 Jan 1767. They had their children baptized in Anglican churches: Mary in 1769, Catherine in 1772, John in 1774 (all at King’s Chapel), then Margaret in 1781 and Betsy in 1786 (at Trinity). The family was close to a blacksmith named John Magner and his wife Mary; the couples sponsored the baptisms of each other’s children. In February 1772, Field joined the Charitable Irish Society of Boston; most of its members were immigrants from Ireland.

Field stayed in Boston through the siege of 1775-76 rather than joining the provincials outside. Then he stayed through the evacuation of March 1776 rather than leaving with the British military. The Provincial Congress had him arrested for questioning, but he seems to have been released quickly.

Field might then have tried farming in Chester, Massachusetts. The baptismal record of Margaret Field in 1781 names her father as “John Field of Chester.” In the 13 June 1782 Independent Chronicle, John Field advertised a farm for sale in Chester. But he still owned real estate in Boston; in late 1781 he sold a lot to John Magner.

Another source on John Field are two narratives of a poor black woman from Rhode Island named Phillis Merritt Wanton. In 1784, she testified

that the next day after her Master [John] Merritt [of Providence] died, she was sold by Mr. Overring, the executor, to one Mr. John Field of Boston, a leather breeches maker, and in that month went to live in Boston with the said Field as his servant; that some years ago the said Field told her she might go and get her own living; and that he went away out of the country; whereupon she came to Providence about four years ago

I can date John Merritt’s death to 1770, which would mean Wanton was in the Field household for about ten years, perhaps from the time he moved onto Cornhill, one of Boston’s main streets, until he left town to try farming.

However, in 1800 Wanton described her history differently. She then said that Field had bought her for £100 after Merritt’s death, but then sold her to a “Mr. Peck” of Boston, who granted her freedom “about the time of the blockade of that place by the British.” Wanton may have been trying to shape her history to prevent the Providence officials from ordering her to leave that town—in which case, she was unsuccessful. Both these accounts are transcribed in Ruth Wallis Herndon’s Unwelcome Americans.

The 9 Sept 1800 Massachusetts Mercury reported that “Mrs. Catharine Field, Aet. [i.e., aged] 46, widow of Mr. John Field,” had died. So John had died some time before—perhaps in 1787, when the town granted Catherine a stand in Market Square for selling fruit and vegetables. But what’s most interesting about this notice is that, if the age is correct, John Field had married Catharine when she was only about twelve or thirteen years old.

Patrick Carr: breeches-maker, Massacre victim

On 14 March 1770, a young Irish immigrant named Patrick Carr died in Boston. He had been shot on the 5th, and thus became the fifth (and by most counts the last) fatal casualty of the Boston Massacre.

On the H-OIEAHC email list, someone recently asked why we don’t know more about Patrick Carr. I replied that we know very little about any working-man of the time. In fact, we know more about Carr than about most men of his circumstances because of how he died.

Shortly after the Massacre, Boston’s newspapers had described Carr this way:

Mr. Patrick Carr, about 30 Years of Age, who worked with Mr. Field, Leather-Breeches-Maker, in Queen-Street, wounded; a Ball entered near his Hip, and went out at his Side.

The records of King’s Chapel, from which he was buried, also gave his age as thirty.

Dr. John Jeffries, one of the surgeons who treated Carr’s wounds, testified in the soldiers’ trial, adding a few more details about the man:

he was a native of Ireland, that he had frequently seen mobs, and soldiers called upon to quell them: whenever he mentioned that, he always called himself a fool, that he might have known better, that he had seen soldiers often fire on the people in Ireland, but had never seen them bear half so much before they fired in his life.

In addition, Jeffries said that Carr told him he had left Field’s house when the church bells rang, and was “carried home to Mr. Field’s by some of his friends” afterward.

We also have the trial testimony of Mrs. Catherine Field and John Mansfield, who preceded Dr. Jeffries on the witness stand. They both testified that Catherine’s husband had told Carr, his employee and tenant, not to go out with a sword under his coat. But only an unnamed neighbor woman was able to convince Carr to leave that weapon behind.

Inspired by success in identifying the employer of another Massacre victim, I did a little digging on “Mr. Field, Leather-Breeches-Maker.” Leather breeches were a standard garment for working-men and for boys of all classes, so there was a steady trade in them. It didn’t take long to find records of a man in that business named John Field. In February 1772 he joined the Charitable Irish Society of Boston; most of its members seem to have been immigrants from Ireland, so he might well have been one, too.

In Oct 1770 several Boston newspapers carried this advertisement:

John Field,
Breeches-marker and Glover—takes this Opportunity to Acquaint the Publick, that he as removed from the House he lately lived in, in Queen-street, opposite to the Old Brick Meeting-House, near the Town-House, where he has a large parcel of the best Buck and Doe skin Breeches, and a large Assortment of the best Gloves, which he means to sell by Wholesale or Retail; such Gentlemen as are pleased to favour him with their Custom, may depend on having their Work done in the neatest and best Manner.

George R. T. Hewes, whose memory had proven reliable in many details, recalled Carr’s employer as living “on Prison Lane,” the west end of Queen Street (modern Court Street). So in March 1770 John Field and his household were only a couple of blocks from the site of the Massacre at most. Then at the end of the year they moved around the corner onto Cornhill. (I’m digging deeper into the Fields’ life, and have found some strange holes to discuss sometime.)

Someone’s created a Wikipedia article about Patrick Carr with:

• a middle name, which was quite rare in the 1700s for lower- and middling-class men.
• famous descendants, though there’s no hint from Boston records that he was married or had children.
• a botched transcription of the testimony about him at the soldiers’ trial (since improved).

But that article includes no sources for all that personal information. Obviously, the hunger for information about Patrick Carr, reliable or not, is strong.