Going to Work for the Feds

In exploring the Creating a Federal Government website, I saw a fair number of familiar names.

Then as now, government officials appointed military veterans to civilian posts. Thus, I see significant appointments in the U.S. Customs department going to:

• Thomas Melvill (1751–1832, shown here) of the Boston Tea Party and the Massachusetts artillery regiment, holding various positions in Boston from 1789 until 1830, just two years before his death. (Melvill actually started working in Customs in 1786, before the Constitution put the office on a new footing.)
• John Popkin (1743–1827), lieutenant colonel in the Continental artillery, who worked for the Customs for at least a decade after his farm in Bolton failed and he needed to support his family.
• John Foster Williams (1743–1814) of the Massachusetts navy ship Protector, commanding a revenue cutter.

Likewise, a lot of men who were active in Boston’s Whig movement before the war got posts in the state government during and after it.

I also saw some familiar names which turned out to be men with appointments a generation or more after the Revolution. I wonder if they’re descendants of the Patriots, named after a Revolutionary ancestor and perhaps leveraging the family name and connections.

On interesting example is Francis C. Whiston (1798–1878), a Customs employee from 1824 to 1828. He later related how the Marquis de Lafayette handed him a masonic apron after laying the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument in 1825.

Francis C. Whiston’s grandfather Obadiah Whiston was a blacksmith in pre-war Boston, ready to tussle with British soldiers during the 1768–1770 occupation. In late 1774 he helped to hide two of the militia cannon I wrote about in The Road to Concord. But in January 1775 the Patriot leaders heard rumors he was talking about switching sides and divulging where those guns had been taken, so they cut him out of the network. The blacksmith had to leave town with the British military in March 1776.

I don’t know if Obadiah Whiston’s wife and sons stayed behind or sailed away with him and returned, but his grandson was working for the federal government fifty years later.

TOMORROW: Sorting out Lovells.

“The ’Vention did in Boston meet”

In 1782 Eleazer Oswald founded the Independent Gazetteer newspaper in Philadelphia with the help of a local printer named Daniel Humphreys.

A couple of years later Humphreys left and relaunched the Pennsylvania Mercury, and Universal Advertiser. 

Oswald was able to publish daily while Humphreys put out issues three times a week. Either way, that was a big jump over the weekly newspapers both men had worked on before the war.

While Oswald opposed the new U.S. Constitution of 1787, Humphreys became one of many Federalist printers supporting that reform.

On 19 Feb 1788, Oswald poked fun at the parade the Boston Federalists organized after Massachusetts ratified the new Constitution, as I quoted yesterday. Three days later Humphreys ran this response:

Mr. Humphreys,
The Independent Gazetteer has been long famous for its Attic salt; and it now lays a claim to Parnassian wit. I am sorry, however, that an Hibernian muse should be invoked to give an account of the proceedings at Boston; for, however meritorious Dean Swift’s “O my kitten, my kitten, my deary,” may be, yet Yankee doodle seems best adapted to this country, and you know we ought to encourage our own spiritu as well as manu factures. So please to accept the following from
A YANKEE.

The ’Vention did in Boston meet,
But State-house could not hold ’em,
So then they went to Fed’ral-street,
And there the truth was told ’em–

Yankee doodle, keep it up!
Yankee doodle, dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.

They ev’ry morning went to prayer,
And then began disputing,
’Till opposition silenc’d were,
By arguments refuting.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

Then ’squire Hancock like a man,
Who dearly loves the nation,
By a concil’atry plan,
Prevented much vexation.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

He made a woundy fed’ral speech,
With sense and elocution;
And then the ’Vention did beseech
T’ adopt the Constitution.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

The question being outright put,
(Each voter independent)
The Fed’ralists agreed t’ adopt,
And then propose amendment.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

The other party seeing then
The people were against ’em,
Agreed like honest, faithful men,
To mix in peace amongst ’em.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

The Boston folks are deucid lads,
And always full of notions;
The boys, the girls, their mams and dads,
Were fill’d with joy’s commotions.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

So straightway they procession made,
Lord! how nation fine, Sir!
For ev’ry man of ev’ry trade
Went with his tools——to dine, Sir.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

John Foster Williams in a ship,
Join’d in the social band, Sir,
And made the lasses dance and skip,
To see him sail on land, Sir.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

Oh then a whapping feast begun,
And all hands went to eating;
They drank their toasts, shook hands and sung,
Huzza! for ’Vention meeting.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

Now Politicians of all kinds,
Who are not yet decided;
May see how Yankees speak their minds;
And yet are not divided.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

Then from this ’sample let ’em cease,
Inflammatory writing,
For FREEDOM, HAPPINESS, and PEACE,
Is better far than fighting.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

So here I end my fed’ral song,
Compos’d of thirteen verses,
May agriculture flourish long,
And commerce fill our purses!

Yankee doodle, keep it up!
Yankee doodle, dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.

While the Independent Gazetteer implied the Boston Federalists’ parade deserved questionable Irish praise, this song parodied common Yankee speech—a stereotype carrying the aura of Patriotism.

Pennsylvania’s Federalists didn’t like how their Anti-Federalist neighbors kept arguing their case weeks after they had lost decisively at the state ratification convention. That’s why this song emphasized not being “divided” by “fighting.” Federalist newspapers approvingly quoted the Massachusetts delegates who had voted against the Constitution but then pledged fidelity to the new government.

Of course, the voices of those reconciled Anti-Federalists reached Philadelphia mostly through the Federalist press. I doubt Massachusetts politics looked so peaceful and unified close-up.

Midshipman Preble Chases a Sea Serpent

Yesterday I quoted the memories of George and Luther Little of the day in May 1780 when their Massachusetts frigate chased a sea serpent off the coast of Maine. But did anyone besides the Little lieutenants leave a record of that giant fish that got away?

One of the youngest officers aboard that ship, the Protector, was Midshipman Edward Preble (1761-1807), later a celebrated U.S. Navy captain. James Fenimore Cooper’s profile of Preble for Graham’s Illustrated Magazine in 1845, republished in Naval Biographies, included his version of the chase:

Preble related the affair substantially as follows: The Protector was lying in one of the bays on the eastern coast, which, has been forgotten, waiting the slow movements of the squadron. The day was clear and calm, when a large serpent was discovered outside the ship. The animal was lying on the water quite motionless. After inspecting it with the glasses for some time, Capt. [John Foster] Williams ordered Preble to man and arm a large boat, and endeavor to destroy the creature; or at least, to go as near to it as he could. The selection of Preble for such a service, proves the standing he occupied among the hardy and daring. The boat thus employed pulled twelve oars, and carried a swivel in its bows, besides having its crew armed as boarders.

Preble shoved off, and pulled directly towards the monster. As the boat neared it, the serpent raised its head about ten feet above the surface of the water, looking about it. It then began to move slowly away from the boat. Preble pushed on, his men pulling with all their force, and the animal being at no great distance, the swivel was discharged loaded with bullets. The discharge produced no other effect than to quicken the speed of the serpent, which soon ran the boat out of sight.

There is no question that in after life, Preble occasionally mentioned this circumstance, to a few of his intimates. He was not loquacious, and probably saw that he was relating a fact that most persons would be disposed to doubt, and self-respect prevented his making frequent allusions to it. . . . Preble stated it as his opinion, that the serpent he saw was from one hundred, to one hundred and fifty feet long, and larger than a barrel.

Preble’s anecdote, filtered through Cooper’s novelistic imagination, left out Lt. George Little as the officer in charge of the boat, putting Preble in his place. Preble’s serpent was three times as long as the Littles’.

In fact, there were such differences between the Little and Preble accounts that some later sea serpent scholars treated them as separate incidents. But Preble was probably just a junior officer who went out in the boat under George Little. His anecdotes of that event, passed along orally to Cooper, offer another, less reliable look of the mysterious creature.

TOMORROW: One more memoir from the Protector.

Lieutenant Little Chases a Sea Serpent

George and Luther Little were two brothers from Marshfield who both served as officers aboard the Massachusetts navy vessel Protector under Capt. John Foster Williams from 1779 to 1781.

Luther, the younger by two years, was badly wounded during a sea battle. Later George was captured, held briefly on the Jersey prison ship, and sent to the Mill Prison in England. He and other officers bribed a guard and escaped to France.

In 1804, George wrote a letter to Alden Bradford about another of his adventures during the war. In 1820 that letter was published in the American Journal of Science as follows:

Marshfield, 13th March, 1804.

Sir,
In answer to yours of the 30th of January last, I observe, that in May, 1780, I was lying in Round Pond, in Broad Bay [off Waldoboro, Maine], in a public armed ship. At sunrise, I discovered a large Serpent, or monster, coming down the bay, on the surface of the water. The Cutter was manned and armed. I went myself in the boat, and proceeded after the Serpent. When within a hundred feet, the marines were ordered to fire on him, but before they could make ready, the Serpent dove. He was not less than from 45 to 50 feet in length; the largest diameter of his body, I should judge, 15 inches; his head nearly of the size of that of a man, which he carried four or five feet above the water. He wore every appearance of a common black snake. When he dove he came up near Muscongus Island—we pursued him, but never came up within a quarter of a mile of him again.

A monster of the above description was seen in the same place, by Joseph Kent, of Marshfield, 1751. Kent said he was longer and larger than the main boom of his sloop, which was 85 tons. He had a fair opportunity of viewing him, as he was within ten or twelve yards of his sloop.

I have the honor to be, sir, Your friend and humble servant,
GEO. LITTLE.

A couple of decades later, Luther Little dictated his memoirs, eventually published in the Journal of American History. Luther corroborated his older brother’s experience:

The Capt. thought it necessary to put into an eastern port for wood and water;—we sail’d for Broad Bay, and arrived at the mouth and anchored in a cove near the shore, called Muscongus. The Capt. made arrangements with a farmer at this place to land our sick, at an out building leaving the surgeons mate to take care of them, making a sort of hospital. I was then sufficiently recovered [from my wound] to be able to walk the deck. The next day, at four in the afternoon, we discovered a large black snake coming down from out the bushes abreast the ship; he took the water and swam by us; we judged him to be 40 feet long, and his middle the size of a man’s body; he carried his head six feet above water. We manned a barge, and went in chase of him; when fired at, he would dive like a sea-fowl. They chased him a mile and a half firing continually. The snake landed at Lowd’s Island, and disappeared in the woods. The barge returned to the ship.

Luther’s account suggests he saw the serpent from the deck of the Protector but didn’t join George in the boat that chased it.

Did anyone outside the Little family tell this odd story?

TOMORROW: Tales from a midshipman.

(The Protector was a 26-gun frigate launched in 1779. The picture above shows H.M.S. Cleopatra, a 32-gun frigate launched the same year; that’s the closest I could find.)