Ann Green’s View of the Boston Massacre

Bartholomew and Abigail Green had a number of children, some of whom lived in the Customs House on King Street with them in 1770. Among those children were two brothers, John and Hammond. (Bartholomew’s mother had been born Hannah Hammond.) I quoted John Green’s account of what he saw at the Boston Massacre last year.

The Greens also had a daughter called Ann or Nancy, and she also witnessed the shooting on 5 March. It was not how she expected her evening to go.

So far as I know, we don’t have any testimony directly from Ann Green, but we can track her through other people’s accounts. Here’s the wigmaker’s apprentice Bartholomew Broaders describing how she and a maid in the family, Elizabeth Avery, asked him to escort them on an errand:

Soon after [eight o’clock] Mr. Green’s maid and his daughter called him out of the shop, and asked him to go to the apothecary’s; and then they with the deponent returned to the custom-house; in going he met his fellow-apprentice [Edward Garrick], and they went & stood upon the custom-house steps, and Mr. Hammond Green came out, saying, come in girls; then the deponent and his fellow apprentice, by the maid’s invitation, went in also…

That pleasant visit of the two young barbers with two young maids, chaperoned by one of their brothers, was interrupted by the arrival of a man named Sawny Irving, apparently upset that he had lost his hat in a fight with soldiers. After some discussion Hammond Green showed Irving and the apprentices out.

A few minutes after that, Hammond later testified, “two other boys belonging to Mr. [John] Piemont, came into the kitchen, also my brother John.” Out in the street, as described here, Edward Garrick got into an argument with Pvt. Hugh White, the sentry in front of the Customs House. White clubbed Garrick on the head. Broaders yelled back at the soldier, which started to draw a crowd.

John and Hammond Green went out different doors of the house to see what was going on. John walked further, following the noise. Hammond described coming back to look after his sister:

I went to the steps of the Custom-house door, and Mary Rogers, Eliza. Avery, and Ann Green, came to the door, at the same time, heard a bell ring; upon the people’s crying fire, we all went into the house and I locked the door, saying, we shall know if anybody comes; after that, Thomas Greenwood [another Customs employee] came to the door and I let him in, he said that there was a number of people in the street, I told him if he wanted to see anything to go up stairs, but to take no candle with him; he went up stairs, and the three women aforementioned went with him, and I went and fastened the windows, doors, and gate; I left the light in the kitchen, and was going up stairs, but met Greenwood in the room next to the kitchen, and he said that he would not stay in the house, for he was afraid it would be pulled down…

Greenwood left the Customs house, meeting John Green, who was trying unsuccessfully to get back in. The two men went to the army’s guardhouse on the other side of the Town House for help, but found that a squad of soldiers was already on its way to reinforce Pvt. White. And to guard the Customs house itself, in case the mob started to attack the building.

Meanwhile, Ann Green and the two other women were in the upper-floor room, watching the growing violence on the street below.

TOMORROW: What the women saw at the Massacre.

John Green’s View of the Massacre

On 24 Mar 1770, five days after a draft of Boston’s report on the Massacre was submitted to the town meeting, justices of the peace John Ruddock and John Hill quizzed John Green about what he’d seen on the night of the 5th.

I spent some time earlier this week trying to figure out who John Green was, and this is my best guess. He was descended from a line of three Bartholomew Greens. His great-grandfather and grandfather were both newspaper printers, and his uncle John (1731-87) was still in that business as co-publisher of the Boston Post-Boy until 1773. But, as Isaiah Thomas described, John Green’s father had carved out his own niche:

Bartholomew, the eldest [son]…, never had a press of his own. The following peculiarity in his character introduced him to a particular intercourse with the merchants of the town; he made himself so well acquainted with every vessel which sailed out of the port of Boston, as to know each at sight. Perpetually on the watch, as soon as a vessel could be discovered with a spyglass in the harbor, he knew it, and gave immediate information to the owner; and, by the small fees for this kind of information, he principally maintained himself for several years. Afterwards he had some office in the custom house.

John’s ship-spotting father Bartholomew looked after the Customs office on King Street, with his unmarried daughter Ann helping out. The printer John Green also had ties to the Customs service; its officials granted him printing contracts, and his newspaper tended to support the royal government.

The younger John and his brother Hammond, who had been given their grandmother’s maiden name and was legally a “boat-builder,” both went to the Customs office on the evening of 5 Mar 1770, probably to make sure their relatives were all right. This is how John later described his experience to the magistrates in a deposition:

I, John Green, of lawful age, testify and say, that on Monday evening the 5th instant [i.e., of this month], just after nine o’clock, I went into the Custom-house, and saw in the kitchen of said house two boys [Edward Garrick and Bartholomew Broaders] belonging to Mr. [John] Piemont the barber, and also my brother Hammond Green;

upon hearing an huzzaing and the bell ring, I went out, and there were but four or five boys in King street near the sentinel [Pvt. Hugh White], who was muttering and growling, and seemed very mad. I saw Edward Garrick who was crying, and told his fellow-apprentice that the sentinel had struck him.

I then went as far as the Brazen-Head [importer William Jackson’s shop sign], and heard the people huzzaing by Murray’s barrack [rented to the army by James Murray on behalf of his sister Elizabeth Smith], I went down King-street again, as far as the corner of Royal Exchange lane, by the sentry, there being about forty or fifty people, chiefly boys, near the Custom-house, but saw no person insult, or say anything to the sentry; I then said to Bartholomew Broaders, these words, viz.: the sentry (then standing on the steps and loading his gun), is going to fire;

upon which I went to the Custom-house gate and tried to get over the gate, but could not; whilst standing there, I saw [Customs tide waiter] Thomas Greenwood upon the fence, to whom I said, open the gate; he said that he would not let his [own] father in, and then jumped down into the lane and said to the deponent, follow me; upon which I went down the lane with him, and round by the Post-office, to the main-guard;

he went into the guard-house and said, turn out the guard, but the guard was out before, and I heard that a party was gone to the Custom-house; I then heard the guns go off, one after another, and saw three persons fall;

immediately after, a negro drummer [of the 29th regiment] beat to arms, upon that the soldiers drew up in a rank (and I did not see Greenwood again, until the next morning), after that I saw the 29th regiment drawn up in a square, at the south-west corner of the Town-house; soon after I went home; and further I say not

When John Green testified, Boston officials suspected that Customs service employees had killed people in the crowd by firing guns from an upper window of the building. Green’s brother Hammond and Thomas Greenwood were indicted for murder—despite Green putting Greenwood at the guard-house when the shooting started.

At the end of the year those two men stood trial alongside Customs official Edward Manwaring and notary John Munro, all accused on the basis of dubious testimony from a teen-aged servant named Charles Bourgate. They were quickly acquitted.

The statements of John Green, his relatives, and Thomas Greenwood fit well together and also match testimony from other witnesses, unrelated and unindicted. Those accounts helped to inform the script of tonight’s reenactment of the Boston Massacre outside the Old State House.

Charles Bahne on the Scene of the Massacre

As we approach the anniversary of the Boston Massacre on 5 March, Charles Bahne, author of The Complete Guide to Boston’s Freedom Trail, kindly shared this essay analyzing what may be our earliest visual source on the question: What did the Boston Massacre look like?

Besides the depositions and testimony given by eyewitnesses to the Boston Massacre, we have two contemporary pictorial depictions of the incident. Better known of the two is the copperplate print of “The Bloody Massacre”, “Engrav’d Printed & Sold by Paul Revere, Boston.” As discussed here, Revere’s print of the Massacre was copied—some say plagiarized—from an almost identical image by Henry Pelham.

The Revere/Pelham print is an accurate portrayal of the setting for the Massacre — the buildings, the starry night with its crescent moon, the overall streetscape. But its depiction of the events is far less accurate; issued as part of the radicals’ propaganda efforts, it contains some deliberate distortions. And to compress the entire action into one image, the perspective was foreshortened, placing the victims in much closer proximity than they really were.

For a more accurate depiction, we look to the above image, also attributed to Paul Revere, but with less certainty, since it’s unsigned. (Mellen Chamberlain, who gave this document to the Boston Public Library, said that the handwriting matched Revere’s.) Unlike the more famous print, which was fairly widely distributed, this image existed only in manuscript and wasn’t circulated publicly until over a century later.

We’re looking at a plan or map of the action that evening, drawn from an overhead perspective. North is at right, west at top. In the upper center the Town House (Old State House) is prominently marked. Rows of buildings line either side of King Street (State Street), with other streets branching off to right and left.

But while this plan is a more accurate portrayal of the Massacre events, it also has its limitations. Four bodies lie in the street, some drawn in intricate detail, along with six circles, which apparently show the injured townsfolk. That makes a total of ten victims, but eleven people were actually shot—five dead and six wounded.

At extreme upper right is a seventh circle, unlabeled by the artist and unnoticed by any earlier commentator. Could this be the eleventh victim, or is it something else entirely, being so remote from the rest of the action?

All four bodies, and five of the circles for the wounded, are labeled with letters. Two letters clearly match the names of the slain: A for Attucks and G for Gray. But the other two bodies are marked C and G, only a partial match with the other martyrs, Caldwell, Carr, and Maverick. The circles are labeled with three Ps and two Ms; the six wounded citizens were Payne, Patterson, Parker, Monk, Clark, and Green.

Some discrepancy may have been caused by the belated deaths of Patrick Carr and Samuel Maverick. Was one of them considered wounded, rather than killed, when the plan was drawn?

Still, there are just nine letters in this plan. With eleven known victims, we’re missing two Cs; while a G and an M appear to have been switched between the injured (Green) and the deceased (Maverick).

At lower right, in front of the Custom House, stands a curved line of seven soldiers—not the eight who were actually there. Some historians have theorized, partly on the basis of this plan, that one of the regulars may have stood behind the others, not in line with his colleagues.

Unfortunately, the meaning of the letters, numbers, and circles must remain a matter of speculation. If a key to the plan was created, it’s been lost. Some say that a key was written on the back of the paper, which has since been glued to a board, permanently obscuring whatever it may once have said.

In their recent books about the Massacre, Neil York and Richard Archer both attempt to match the bodies and circles with the names of the fallen citizens—and they disagree. (Neil York consulted with me on this, and cites me in his book.)

The bottom line is that we know with some certainty where Crispus Attucks and Samuel Gray fell, next to the soldiers, and where Edward Payne was hit, standing on his doorstep at lower left. James Caldwell is one of the other bodies shown on the plan, probably the prominent one in the middle of the intersection. As for the other victims, we can only guess who fell where.

TOMORROW: How the scene looks today.

Courting Indifference

I’ve been enjoying Caitlin GD Hopkins’s studies of early American gravestones at the Vast Public Indifference blog. Two easy ways to find those postings are to read the entries labeled gravestones and 101 Ways to Say “Died”. The 18th century track is fun, too.

Above all, there are Caitlin’s quotations from young printer John Boyle (1746-1819). Boyle kept a marvelously miscellaneous and gossipy “Journal of Occurrences in Boston” between 1759 and 1778. He probably started it in the early 1760s while apprenticed to John Green, then went back and filled in what he’d missed. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register published the whole in 1930-31. An entry that probably interests both Caitlin (for her interest in deathways) and me (for my interest in Gores) appeared on 3 Sept 1771:

This Morning (Tuesday) Mr. John Gore, Junr. intending an Excursion in the Country with his Friends arose vigorous and cheerful: being casually detained longer than he expected, his friends Set out without him, with the expectation that he would soon overtake them, but alas! his bounds were determined that he could not pass He was seized with an Apoplectic Fit at ten o’Clock, and expired at four in the Afternoon.

After looking at lots of colonial and Federalist gravestones, you’ll be ready to take this Vast Public Indifference quiz:

I’ll give you some names and you tell me whether they belong to people born in Connecticut between 1701 and 1800 or to Muppets who have appeared on Sesame Street.

1. Herbert Birdsfoot
2. Sherlock Doolittle
3. Hannah Hobby
4. Vincent Twice
5. Herman Bird
6. Orange Wedge
7. Alice Braithwaite Goodyshoes
8. Bathsheba Bird
9. Bathsheba Bugbee
10. Appleton Osgood . . .

Follow the quiz link for the rest of the list, and the answers.

Robert Patterson: disabled sailor

As he testified in March 1770, Robert Patterson was wounded in the right arm during the Boston Massacre—one of several Bostonians injured in that shooting on top of the five killed. Patterson evidently suffered such damage that he became unable to do the physically demanding work of a sailor.

On 30 Jan 1771, selectmen John Hancock and Jonathan Mason and Overseer of the Poor Royall Tyler signed the paperwork to allow Patterson to stay in the Boston workhouse. The Boston town records say:

Mr. Paul Farmer Keeper of the Alms house was directed to receive into the Alms house to be supported at the Province Charge one Robert Patterson a Stranger and not an Inhabitant of any Town in this Province, being Poor & having lost the use of his Right Arm on the 5 of March last in the Massacre made by the Soldiers.

It’s not clear how long Patterson remained there.

As I recounted last week, starting in 1774 young Christopher Monk was the beneficiary of donations collected at the oration Boston commissioned on each anniversary of the Massacre. In 1781, after Monk died, Patterson evidently feared all that charitable instinct would go to waste, so he asked if he could start receiving the donations instead. The town records for 5 Mar 1781 say:

a Petition of Mr. Robert Patterson setting forth, “that he received a wound in his Right Arm on the 5th. of March 1770. by a Shot from [Capt. Thomas] Prestons Party, whereby he has entirely lost the use of it; and that since the death of Mr. Monk he is the only one of the unhappy number then badly wounded, that survive,” and therefore praying the Charity of the Town—was read, whereupon

Voted, that a Collection be made at the close of this Meeting, for the said unhappy Sufferer, and Boxes were placed at each Door to receive the Collections

The Collection made for the said Mr. Patterson, amounted to the Sum of

And the blank was never filled in. Instead, two days later selectman John Scollay told his colleagues:

that the Money Collected for Mr. Patterson at the Town Meeting the 5th. of March in consideration of the wounds he received the 5 of March 1770 from Prestons Party, amounted to £326’15’4. Old Money & 4/ & 1/2 hard Money—

Mr. Scollay was desired to retain the Money belonging to Mr. Patterson, till further enquiry can be made respecting him which was accordingly done

Bostonians seem to have been clearing out their old, devalued paper currency but parting with few hard coins. Patterson presented the same petition in January 1782, and the town meeting again approved it. That March, the selectmen’s minutes recorded:

There was Collected for James Patterson, who was wounded the 5 of March 1770, the Sum of Seven Pounds twelve Shillings,—and the same has been put into the hands of Capt. William Mackay, for the use of the said Patterson, & his Wife

Nearly £8! Obviously, Patterson’s public image wasn’t as heart-tugging as Monk’s had been. And town clerk William Cooper even got his name wrong.

In 1783, Patterson’s cause suffered further. First, another surviving Massacre victim turned up, asking for cash. The town records say:

A Petition of John Green one of the Persons wounded on the Evening of the 5th. of March 1770 also the request of Mr. Patterson who lost the use of one of his Arms on that, memorable Night—was read—and considered—

A Collection was made for the aforenamed Persons amounting to the Sum of and put into the hands of the Selectmen to be distributed as they may Judge proper

John Green’s name didn’t appear on the first published list of Massacre victims, but the Boston Gazette that followed named him and said he was a tailor. (A young man named John Green had run to fetch soldiers when a crowd threatened the sentry outside the Customs house, but I doubt this was the same man who was shot since that would have been too ironic not to be mentioned somewhere.)

In 1783, Green and Patterson probably split the few pounds collected, their last chance to do so. It was already clear that the war was coming to a close, and the Massacre remembrances no longer had propaganda value. Boston voted to shift its annual oration to Independence Day. I don’t know what happened to Robert Patterson after that.

The First Newspaper Reports on the Massacre

In colonial Boston, some newspapers published each Monday, and some each Thursday. Because the Boston Massacre occurred on a Monday evening, the first press reports appeared on Thursday the 8th—237 years ago today. The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter listed the casualties this way:

Mr. Samuel Gray, Ropemaker, killed on the Spot, the Ball entred his Head broke the Skull.

A Mollatto Man, named Johnson, who was born in Framingham, but lately belonging to New-Providence, and was here in order to go for North-Carolina, killed on the Spot, two Balls entering his Breast.

Mr. James Caldwell, Mate of Capt. Morton’s Vessel, killed on the Spot, two balls entering his Breast.

Mr. Samuel Maverick, a promising Youth of 17 Years of Age, Son of the Widow Maverick, and an Apprentice to Mr. Greenwood, Joiner, mortally wounded, a Ball went through his Belly, and came out at his Back: He died the next Morning.

A Lad named Christopher Monk, about 17 Years of Age, an Apprentice to Mr. Walker, Shipwright; Mortally wounded, a Ball entered his Side and came out of his Back; apprehended he will die.

A Lad named John Clark, about 17 Years of Age, whose Parents live at Medford, and an Apprentice to Capt. Samuel Howard of this Town; Mortally wounded, a Ball entered just above his Groin and came out at his Hip, on the opposite side, apprehended he will die.

Mr. Edward Payne, of this Town, Merchant, standing at his Entry Door, received a Ball in his Arm, and shattered some of the Bones.

Mr. John Green, Taylor, coming up Leverett’s Lane, received a Ball just under his Hip, and lodged in the under Part of his Thigh, which was extracted.

Mr. Robert Patterson, a Seafaring Man, who was the Person that had his Trowsers shot thro’ in [Ebenezer] Richardson’s affair, wounded; a Ball went thro’ his right Arm.

Mr. Patrick Cole, about 30 Years of Age, who work’d with Mr. Field Leather- Breeches-maker in Queen-Street, wounded, a Ball entered near his Hip and went out at his Side.

A Lad named David Parker, an Apprentice to Mr. Eddy the Wheelwright, wounded, a Ball entered his Thigh.

What seems off about this list? Well, for one thing, though people expected apprentices Christopher Monk and John Clark to die shortly, neither did. Monk remained disabled by his wound for several years before dying, so he’s not memorialized among the standard five Massacre victims.

The Boston Gazette, published the same day, ran a similar list, emphasizing the three wounded apprentices ahead the working-men. The Gazette also gave different names for two men. The first was Patrick Carr, an Irish-born laborer I’ll have more to say about soon. While the two apprentices survived, Carr turned out to have been mortally wounded.

The Gazette also reported the one name people today are most likely to connect to the Boston Massacre: Crispus Attucks. Apparently he was living in Boston under the alias “Michael Johnson,” the name on the coroner’s report on his death (now in the collections of the Old State House Museum). Both the News-Letter and the Boston Chronicle reported the mulatto sailor’s name as Johnson. But the Boston Gazette had the name that appeared on all the subsequent legal proceedings, the name that’s come down in history.

Oddly enough, however, the News-Letter and Gazette had the same description of the man’s history: born in Framingham, working as a sailor out of the Bahamas, in Boston between voyages. Both identified him as mulatto, and therefore didn’t grant him the honorific title of “Mr.” In the 1850s historians found a newspaper ad that implied Attucks had escaped from slavery in Framingham twenty years before, which would explain why he used an alias while back in his home province. But how Bostonians discovered the history of that dead man, and how details reached one newspaper before the others, is still a gnawing mystery.