“Another Mob to search for Ebenezer Richardson”

Ebenezer Richardson reportedly went into hiding in Philadephia in mid-October 1773, just as the tea crisis heated up.

For the next several weeks the biggest American ports were focused on the East India Company tea.

Richardson’s employers and protectors, the Customs Commissioners, took shelter at Castle William in Boston harbor, and probably others in the department were also lying low.

On 25 Jan 1774, a Boston mob attacked another Customs officer, John Malcom. He had threatened a boy and then clubbed the small shoemaker George Robert Twelves Hewes.

When local authorities tried to convince the crowd to release Malcom, men answered “that in case they let him go they might expect a like satisfaction as they had received in the cases of Richardson and the soldiers, and the other friends of government.” People resented Richardson’s royal pardon and didn’t want a repeat, just as they didn’t like the acquittals after the Boston Massacre.

The attack on John Malcom continued and became one of the most vicious and infamous of the pre-war years.

Two days later, someone reported seeing Richardson himself in Boston. Richard Draper’s 28 January Boston News-Letter said:

It having been reported that the noted Ebenezer Richardson, was seen in Town, a Number of People were in Pursuit of him last Evening, but could not find him.

That same day, Gov. Thomas Hutchinson wrote to the Secretary of State, Lord Dartmouth, about the attack on Malcom and added:

there was an Attempt made to raise another Mob to search for Ebenezer Richardson, lately found guilty for Murder, but Judgment being suspended, His Majesty’s Pardon was applied for & obtained. He is now in some very inferior Employment in the Service of the Customs in Pensilvania, and it is thought a Report of his being in Town was spread for the sake of raising a Mob. Some of the more considerate People appeared & opposed the Leaders in the beginning of the Affair and put a Stop to it.

Hutchinson obviously believed Richardson was still in Philadelphia.

Richardson’s own statement to Dartmouth in January 1775 was skimpy on dates and other specifics about his movements:

after your petitioner was dischargd the Commissioners of the Customs Perocured for your Petitioner a place in Pennaslavania but the peopel of boston sent after and [???] the mob in Pennaslavania so that your petitioner could not shew his head there.

At some point in late 1773 or early 1774, Ebenezer Richardson did make his way back to Massachusetts.

TOMORROW: Meeting with the governor.

John Malcom, Customs Officer

I wish I could find more sources on Capt. John Malcom’s years in Québec.

Select Documents in Canadian Economic History, 1497–1783, compiled by Harold A. Innis in 1929, quotes at least one business advertisement by him, but it’s not an easy book to stumble across in the U.S. of A.

I’m guessing that Malcom ran into some business reverses because in 1769 he not only moved back to New England, but he took a job helping to collect His Majesty’s Customs.

For a merchant captain like Malcom, joining the Customs service meant switching sides in a long-running conflict. In Boston, younger brother Daniel Malcom was being lauded for resisting Customs officers trying to search his property in 1766 and for testifying against officers seizing the Liberty in 1768.

I suspect that Malcom became especially unpopular as a Customs officer precisely because he’d been a New England ship captain. He wasn’t like Henry Hulton or John Robinson, British bureaucrats without local ties. Instead, like Benjamin Hallowell, Jr., he’d worked among fellow New England mariners. He knew their tricks. His neighbors expected better of him.

Malcom would probably have preferred to remain a merchant if he could. In eighteenth-century British society, men aspired to be “independent,” earning a good living from their land or other investments. Working for a salary, however solid, was seen as dependence on someone else.

In Malcom’s case, his first job was as a tide surveyor, which seems to have been in the middle of the bureaucracy, supervising the tide waiters but not being in charge of the money. That looks like a big comedown for someone used to commanding his own ship.

Still, that rank might have been enough for Malcom to qualify as a gentleman, and social status was certainly a recurring theme in his conflicts with other men. After joining the Customs office, he began to use “Esquire” after his name.

There may be more information about this appointment in British government records. I don’t even know when in 1769 it took place, though one clue is that Malcom’s family apparently returned from Canada in August.

On 14 Oct 1769, Isaac Werden wrote from Québec to his employer Aaron Lopez (shown above), enclosing a financial note to “John Malcom Esqr., In his Majesties Customs at Newport, Rhode Island.” In that same letter Werden called Malcom “a drole mortal.” Obviously, Werden was acquainted with Malcom and knew that he would be found in the Newport Customs office by that date.

Twelve days after that letter was written, Daniel Malcom died.

TOMORROW: Boston mourns a Son of Liberty.

The Malcoms Coming Back to Boston

In the published Boston town records are some lists of people arriving in Boston by ship in the 1760s.

Each set of entries starts by identifying the ship: for example, “Danl. Malcom Sloop Rose from Halifax” on 31 Oct 1765. Then come names and sometimes brief descriptions of the passengers.

These records show a couple of John Malcom’s trips back to Boston.

• 15 Dec 1767: On a schooner from Quebec, “Capt. John Malcom”
• 1 Feb 1768: On a sloop from Halifax, “Capt. John Malcom,” mariner

They also show that in this period Malcom was legally not considered a resident of Boston, or else he wouldn’t have gone on these lists.

Another interesting entry appears on 4 Nov 1765, a sloop from Quebec: “Mickl. Malcom to the care of Capn. Malom [sic].” That captain is probably Daniel, still based on Boston. Michael Malcom might have been his aging father or his six-year-old nephew, John’s son.

Sarah Malcom, the matriarch of the family, died in Boston on 23 Sept 1767 and was buried on Copp’s Hill. Her gravestone is quite weathered, but a nineteenth-century publication makes clear she was the wife of Michael Malcom, who died in 1775.

I puzzled over one mystery among these passenger lists. A entry for 4 Aug 1769 says a schooner from Quebec brought “Mary Malcom Wife to Jno. Malcom & 3 Children.”

John Malcom married Sarah Balch in 1750, and they had children together through the following decade. In the 1790s a Boston woman identifying herself as Sarah Malcom, John Malcom’s widow, sent petitions to the British government.

The Boston directory for 1789 listed Sarah Malcom as running a “boarding-house, [on] Ship-street.” And the 15 Sept 1800 Boston newspapers reported that Sarah Malcom, aged seventy-three, had died just a few hours after her forty-year-old daughter, also named Sarah Malcom. Those facts line up pretty well with the records of John Malcom’s wife and daughter from the 1750s.

So where does “Mary Malcom Wife to Jno. Malcom” come in? I wondered if John Malcom’s first wife Sarah might have died in Québec, he remarried to a woman named Mary, she died, and he remarried to a second Sarah. I couldn’t find any records of death and remarriage, but those events might have happened outside of Massachusetts. Given how many women of the time were named Mary and Sarah, that scenario’s not as outlandish as it might seem.

But the simplest explanation is that whoever was making those lists of incoming passengers just wrote down Sarah Malcom’s name wrong. After a few years in Québec, Capt. John Malcom’s family was moving back to Boston.

TOMORROW: More change in 1769.

“Immediately struck Mr. Malcom in the Head”

Despite setbacks like being held prisoner by the French Navy in 1764, Capt. John Malcom appears to have prospered in Québec in the mid-1760s.

By early 1767 he had bought a “country house,” perhaps rising in status from merchant captain to landed gentleman.

There was one hitch to enjoying that house, however: it was already occupied by Lt. James Burns of the 52nd Regiment and his family.

That regiment had arrived in Canada in August 1765. Burns rented the house “in the country near Québec,” he later told Gen. Thomas Gage, “as lodgings were at the time dear in the town, and [I] as a subaltern, could not bear too heavy an expense.”

Months later, as John Gilbert McCurdy recounted in Quarters, Malcom bought that house.

At the time, it looks like Lt. Burns’s wife was still nursing a new baby. He described her as “confined to her bed, having had both her breasts laid open.”

Malcom told Burns that he had to vacate the property in three days or “become tenant to him.” Which frankly doesn’t seem unreasonable, but perhaps the captain was abrupt or suddenly raised the rent or demanded earlier payment than the previous property owner.

What happened next in February 1767 was reported in the press, including the 16 March Boston Gazette, presumably copying information from a Québec newspaper:

Saturday Night last, as Captain John Malcom, together with his Son and Daughter, was going from Town to his Country-House, in a Cariole, he was met on the Road, between the Wind-Mill and St. John’s Gate, by Lieut. Burns, of the 52d Regiment, walking into Town, with a large Club in his Hand;

upon his meeting Mr. Malcom he struck his Horse and overset his Cariole;

Mr. Malcom ask’d him what he meant by such Usage, to which Mr. Burns made answer, That he would FINISH him, and immediately struck Mr. Malcom in the Head, and by the Stroak broke his Club; but notwithstanding Mr. Malcom and his Daughter asking him his Reasons for so barbarous an Assault, he struck him a second Time, which knock’d Mr. Malcom down, and continued knocking at Mr. Malcom, with the Remains of the club, until he saw two Men come up, upon which he immediately went away.

The same story was reprinted in several other newspapers in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and smaller cities. However, I don’t have any more information about this incident aside from Burns having to explain his side of the story to Gage the next year. Perhaps Canadian sources would tell more.

I can’t help but compare this to Malcom’s famous run-in with George R. T. Hewes in early 1774, except in that case Malcom was the one wielding a stick, hitting the little shoemaker on the head. In that confrontation Malcom insisted that Hewes was too lowly to criticize him, a gentleman; Hewes replied with a remark that questioned Malcom’s social status. For the captain, hitting Hewes with a stick wasn’t simply satisfying in itself, but it also signaled that the shoemaker was of lower social status, not worthy of a genteel challenge.

Up in Québec, Lt. Burns was a British gentleman, at least in his own eyes, and even if he did feel pressed for money. And he may have seen Malcom—raised in provincial Maine, a working mariner until quite recently, and yet now his landlord—as a parvenu who deserved to be put in his place.

TOMORROW: Meanwhile, back in Boston…

“All the English must deliver their Vessels to the French”

The Turks and Caicos Islands lie north of Hispaniola. In the eighteenth century, they were sparsely inhabited, used mostly for harvesting salt.

Like many other Caribbean islands, the Turks were grabbed back and forth by the three main European Atlantic empires of that time: Spanish, French, and British.

And within the British Empire, the Bahamas and Bermuda fought over who should have jurisdiction.

On 15 May 1764, Capt. John Malcom anchored his sloop Friends off the Turks “in order to take in Salt,” according to a story printed in the 13 September Boston News-Letter.

The crew was interrupted a little more than two weeks later:

upon the 1st of June, about 9 o’Clock in the morning, a French Xebeque of 16 Guns, a Snow of 12 and a Sloop of 8 Guns anchored in the Road; a French Ship of War of 64 standing off and on, about a Mile’s distance:

Said Malcom, and other Masters of English Vessels lying there, being eight in Number, were ordered on board the Xebeque; in the mean Time about 250 Soldiers, Marines or Sailors were landed, who, as soon as they got on Shore, set all the Houses on Fire, burnt and destroyed every Thing in them.

Said Malcom, and the other Masters who were put on board the Xebeque, were told, they and all the English must deliver their Vessels to the French, who would be sent out of the Man of War to take possession of them, which he and the rest were immediately obliged to comply with, and by 2 o’Clock the same Day, all the Vessels, French and English (manned with French) got under Sail, and anchored the next Morning at Salt Quay, another Island which they had destroyed, about 24 Hours before Turk’s-Island, in the same Way;

from whence said Malcom, with the other English Prisoners, were sent to Cape François, upon the Island of Hispaniola, where said Malcom was kept Prisoner under a Guard of French Soldiers till the 10th, and then was ordered with his Men on board his own Sloop (which had been plundered of sundry Articles) in order to leave that Place immediately—

Said Malcom further informs us, that a Detachment of Soldiers had been left on Turk’s Island, with all necessary Materials to fortify said Island.

The repeated phrase “said Malcom” makes me wonder if this came from a deposition or other legal testimony the captain gave after returning to Québec.

This was the second, or perhaps even the third, time that Malcom had been held prisoner by the French in the past decade. He must have been getting tired of that.

The Friends had happened to be at “Turk’s-Island” (most likely Grand Turk) when the French came back for the first time in eleven years to reassert their claim to the archipelago. According to this Turks and Caicos history site:

They erected two “pillories” 80 feet tall that rested on large stone bases. One was on Sand Cay and the other at Saunders Pond Beach on Grand Turk. Each had the name of the French Prime Minister and displayed an iron Fleur de Lis.

A Royal Navy sloop reclaimed possession in 1766, presumably when there weren’t any French warships in the area to fight. The French returned in 1778. British Loyalists showed up in 1781. The French returned for most of 1783, fending off a brief attack by Capt. Horatio Nelson, R.N. Finally, the islands were formally assigned to Britain in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

This article appeared in the Boston News-Letter with the dateline “QUEBEC, July 36,” suggesting Richard Draper copied the text from the Quebec Gazette of that date. But I don’t have access to that newspaper since databases are defined by modern national boundaries, not old imperial ones.

It’s therefore possible that John Malcom made more news in Québec City while he was based there. I’ve found one other item reprinted in the Boston press, and it’s a doozy.

COMING UP: The first clubbing.

“His Business immediately calling him back to Quebec”

John Malcom spent November 1759 to August 1760 as a prisoner of war in French Canada.

He sailed back to Québec at the end of the year, apparently to scout for business opportunities, only to have his ship iced in.

In the winter of 1761 Malcom made a month-long trek over lake and land back to Boston.

So what do we hear about him doing next? Moving to Québec!

In the 16 Feb 1761 Boston Gazette Malcom announced:

Boston 9 February 1761.

THIS Day came to Town John Malcom, from Quebec in Canada, and desires one Thomas Power a Suttler at Halifax, immediately to come to Boston and settle all his Accompts with said Malcom without fail, as his Tarry at Boston cannot be long, his Business immediately calling him back to Quebec before the Lakes breaks [sic] up.

I’d think he could have written to Power directly, but advertising in the newspaper might have carried some legal weight.

On 2 March, the captain told Boston Gazette readers:

JOHN MALCOM will set out this Day Week [i.e., one week from today] for Quebec, by the Way of Albany, Lake George, Crown-Point, Montreal and Trois-Rivieres; and will receive Letters to carry to each Place at Mr. John Scollay’s Shop near the Town-Dock.

Perhaps, I thought, he was just going back to pick up his ship and sail it ’round to Boston again. But no, on 6 April his wife advertised in the Boston Gazette:

All Persons to whom John Malcom of Boston is indebted, are desired to bring in their Accounts to Sarah Malcom in order for Payment, as she intends soon to go out of the Province; and all indebted to said Malcom, are desired to make Payment to her directly. Said Malcom has a very commodious House at New Boston to Lett, with three Rooms on a Floor, and very good Accommodations.

In this case, “New Boston” meant what was also known as the West End. That side of the peninsula was less densely built up than the areas closer to the outer harbor.

The Malcoms evidently settled in Québec to help integrate one of the British Empire’s newest provinces into its trading system—and make money along the way. The captain maintained ties with Boston, though. Malcom announced in the 21 Feb 1763 Boston Gazette that in about ten days he was sailing his ship Friends up to Québec and could take freight or passengers.

Younger brother Daniel might have gotten involved in this trade, too. In the 25 Apr 1763 Boston Post-Boy, he advertised:

As DANIEL MALCOM intends to leave Boston for Quebec in 10 or 15 Days; any that has Demands on him are desired to apply to him. And any Persons indebted to said MALCOM are desired to pay him, or come and give their Note on Interest.—N.B. Said MALCOM goes by Land to Quebec.

Daniel doesn’t appear to have stayed in Canada for long, though. Church records and newspapers show him and his wife Ann in Boston at several points in the mid-1760s.

For the next few years John Malcom kept Québec as his trading base. But he didn’t keep out of trouble.

TOMORROW: An international incident.

“The Rout taken by Capts Malcom and Holmes, from Quebec”

Yesterday’s posting brought John Malcom back to Boston in August 1760 after more than eight months as a prisoner of war in French Canada.

On 24 November, the Boston Evening-Post reported that “Capt. Malcom…arrived here last week from Ireland.” That was probably John’s younger brother, Daniel Malcom, but there’s just enough time for John to have made that round trip as a way to get his sea legs back, so I can’t say for certain.

It looks more likely that John returned to trading with a voyage to a different port: Québec!

One might think he’d had enough of that region. But viewed another way, it made sense for John Malcom to start sailing to the British Empire’s new city. In his months in Canada, he probably learned the language, observed the culture, made some contacts.

That first voyage turned out to be harder than he planned. According to the 16 Feb 1761 Boston Evening-Post, Malcom’s sloop Wilmot got iced in on the St. Lawrence River, along with a score of other ships.

Malcom and John Holmes, master of the Sally out of Philadelphia, decided to return by land.

The same issue of the Evening-Post explained:

On the 8th of January they left Quebec in a Sleigh, in company with 12 other Sleighs having Goods for Montreal, and travel’d on a good Road to Trois Rivieres: From thence they went up the River on the Ice, and passing over Sorrell, arrived at Montreal in 2 Days:—

After tarrying there 2 Days they proceeded in their Sleigh to Chamble, St. John’s and Isle au Noix, which they reached in 3 Days more: During this Time the Season was moderate for Winter.—

From the Isle au Noix they travel’d 45 Mile on Lake Champlain in one Day, but the next Morning after going some Miles, finding the Ice grow weak, they left their Sleigh, and went ashore with their Horse and Baggage on the South-East Side of the Lake; it being bad Travelling in the Woods, it was 5 Days and as many Nights before they arrived at Crown Point.—

On their Way they met an Officer with Dispatches for the Governors of Montreal and Quebec; with Accounts of the Death of his late Majesty King George the Second, & of the Accession of his present Majesty King George the Third to the British Throne.—

At Crown Point they tarried one Day, and having procured another Sleigh, they proceeded to Ticonderoga, and over Lake George to Fort George: Thence proceeded to Fort Edward, but the Road not being broke they travelled with only their Horse:—

From Fort Edward they went in a Sleigh to Albany: From whence they came to Town by Land on Monday last the 9th of February.

The captains brought news that Maj. Robert Rogers was on his way to Detroit, another new British possession. That information came from Capt. Jonathan Brewer and other officers in the rangers.

When Malcom and Holmes made this trip, they were traversing a route that just a couple of years earlier had crossed the border between two rival empires. I think that was why the Fleets devoted so much of their newspaper to this account: for their readers, the possibility of traveling or shipping goods over land to Montreal and Quebec really was news.

TOMORROW: John Malcom makes his move.

“Taken on the 6th Day of November last by 9 Frenchmen”

Yesterday we left Capt. John Malcom in mid-1759, plying the route between Boston and the British Empire’s new conquest of Louisbourg, relaying information about developments in the Seven Years’ War.

That war caught up with Malcom in the fall. This is how the Boston News-Letter reported the story on 28 Aug 1760:

In Capt. Gardner came Passenger from Quebec, Capt. John Malcom of this Town, who with one of his Hands was taken on the 6th Day of November last by 9 Frenchmen, as they were endeavouring to get Wood off the Island of St. Barnaby for the use of the Vessel,

who after he was taken was immediately strip’d of all his Cloaths and barbarously used by the Enemy for four Days at that Place, and then obtaining Liberty to go to Quebec, was taken twice in Twenty-eight Days;

He informs that after he arrived at Quebec, he was often threatned to be given to the Indians to be massacred, they thinking him to be a Spy.—

And that on the 14th of November his Sloop, called the Sally, (his Mate being then on board endeavouring to get to Boston,) off of Gaspee, was taken by the Ship Two Brothers, Francis Boucher Commander, mounting 20 Carriage Guns; by which Accidents the said Malcom not only lost his Vessel, but likewise to the amount of near give Hundred Pounds Sterling in Cash, and other Effects, then on board.

Since Gen. James Wolfe’s forces had taken Québec City on 13 Sept 1759, I presume the “Quebec” where Malcom spent months as a prisoner of war was the area around Montréal, still in French hands until September 1760.

On 7 Apr 1760 the Boston Post-Boy reported about a couple of Malcom’s crew in a letter from Col. Joseph Frye at Fort Cumberland (now once again called Fort Beauséjour):

About [30 January] there came in eight Men, one of whom was a New-England Man, one Irishman, and the rest Italians and Spaniards; who inform’d me they Deserted from a French frigate that lay froze in, at the Head of Gaspee Harbour.

The two former belong’d to a Vessel commanded by Capt. Malcom of Boston, who was taken on by the above Frigate, as she was returning from Quebec, where she had been on a Trading Voyage.

As for younger brother Daniel Malcom, on 5 May 1760 he was home in Boston, preparing to sell a 50-ton schooner called the Betsy by auction at Harris’s Wharf.

TOMORROW: Back to trading, back to Quebec?

“Capt. John Malcom arrived here in 10 Days from Louisbourg”

On 26 July 1758, the French inside Louisbourg surrendered to a besieging British force led by Gen. Jeffery Amherst.

John Malcom may have been part of the British military in this campaign rather than the one in 1745. In any event, he quickly became a link between that new addition to the British Empire and Boston.

On 15 Jan 1759 the Boston Gazette told readers:

Last Saturday Night Capt. John Malcom arrived here in 10 Days from Louisbourg, who informs us, That the Day he came out he met his Majesty’s Ship Arundel commanded by Capt. Martin [actually Richard Matthews], who desired of him a Pilot that was acquainted with the Harbour of Louisbourg, which he put on board; Capt. Martin inform’d him he had a large Quantity of Money on board for the Garrison, and a Packet:

In Capt. Malcom came Passengers Capt. [Robert] Rogers of the Rangers, Capt. Bennet of the Brig Sally belonging to Philadelphia, lately cast away there.

Capt. Malcom also informs, That he saw a large Ship to the Eastward of the Arundel, which he suppos’d to be one of the Fleet that came out with her.

Meanwhile, younger brother Daniel Malcom was also at sea, according to the 19 February Boston Gazette:

Late last Night Captain Parrot arrived here in 18 Days from South-Carolina, in whom came Capt. Malcom of this Town, who sail’d from Falmouth 8 Weeks ago, in the Earl of Leicester Packet, Capt. Morris, bound to New-York; but meeting with Captain Parrot last Monday, bound hither, he went on board him. . . .

Capt. Malcom brought no English Prints, as he left the Packet in a hurry, which he imagines arriv’d at New-York last Wednesday.

By this time, it appears, the Boston Gazette printers expected readers to know “Capt. Malcom of this Town” was Daniel, returning from England.

The 28 May Boston Evening-Post reported:

Friday last arrived here Capt. Malcom in 9 Days from Louisbourg, and informs, That a Snow had arrived there from Admiral [Philip] Durell, with Advice that the Ice coming down in such great Quantities he was not able to get above half Way up to Gaspey, and before the Snow left him was drove down again almost to the Mouth of the River, but that the Admiral intended to make another Attempt to get up.—

That last Wednesday se’nnight his Majesty’s Ship Northumberland of 70 Guns, Lord Colvill, arrived there in 37 Days from England; and that the next Day Admiral [Charles] Saunders came in with 12 Sail of the Line from Halifax:

Capt. Malcom also informed, that off Caparouse Bay he spoke with the Nightingale Frigate, having under her Convoy 12 Transports from New-York, with Col. [Simon] Fraser’s Highland Regiment on board, also bound to Louisbourg: And that prodigious large Quantities of Ice were still floating about near the Harbour of Louisbourg.

This was still within the “Little Ice Age.”

It’s striking how much information Malcom and the printers were passing on in a time of war. No “Loose lips sink ships” concern there! Instead, the newspapers were telling the world where the British military payroll was, and when Adm. Durell might make into the St. Lawrence River in time to support Gen. James Wolfe’s push on Québec.

I think that reflects something Hannah Tucker described in a 2018 seminar in the context of commercial shipping, as I summarized:

the uncertainty of Atlantic crossings, the difficulty of communication, and merchants’ and ship owners’ inability to supervise sea captains closely meant that they preferred an open information system to a closed one. It was in nearly everyone’s interest to know about other people’s business. If you tried to keep information within your firm, you could easily find yourself cut off with no information at all.

The same culture might have prevailed in a time of war. After all, there was little chance that a French agent could pick up information from a Boston newspaper and transmit it in time to use that advantage. So why not gossip about every ship you saw at sea? That information could actually be helpful to your side.

TOMORROW: But the empires were still at war.

“Capt. Malcom of this Place, who was taken by a French Privateer”

In the late 1750s, Britain’s cold war with France once again boiled up into a hot war.

That presented dangers for merchant captains like John and Daniel Malcom, as well as opportunities.

In seeking British government assistance years later, John Malcom declared:

I have had thirteen Different Commissions in your Majesty’s Land Service in North America the two last French and Spanish warrs that is Past. I have Serv’d from a Ensign to a Colonel. I have been in all the Battles that was Fought in North America those two warrs that is Past except two and at every Place we Conquerd and Subdued our Enemys to your Majesty.

That’s quite a claim, and he didn’t provide any specifics. Were his “Commissions” in the militia, in a colonial army, as a privateer captain, or even as a contractor?

That vagueness makes it hard to figure out where John Malcom was when his surname appears in Boston newspapers. For example, the 6 Oct 1755 Boston Gazette had a supplement with news of two men missing from “Capt. Malcom’s Company” in Maj. Joseph Frye’s force after the Battle of Petitcodiac in what’s now New Brunswick. What that John Malcom, a relative, or someone with no connection?

The 23 Dec 1756 Boston News-Letter reported that a French schooner had captured a “large Sloop, belonging to Carr and Malcolm,” in Martha Brae Harbour on Jamaica. Was that ship partly owned by John Malcom? Or might that owner have been a merchant from distant Scotland?

Adding to the fog is how John’s younger brother Daniel was also a ship’s captain. The 30 May 1757 Boston Gazette reported this adventure for one of the brothers, but which one?

Thursday last came to Town Capt. Malcom of this Place, who was taken by a French Privateer and carried into Port au Prince, from whence he got to Jamaica, and informs, that just as he came away Advice was receiv’d there, that 18 Sail of French Men of War and Transports, and about 7000 Troops, was arriv’d at Port au Prince, very sickly.

I’m struck by how the Boston press referred to “Capt. Malcom of this Place” as if there were only one. Did that mean that John was serving in an army, so Daniel was the only one commanding a ship? Had one of the brothers moved out of Boston, as John would later do? Or was that just sloppy reporting?

On 4 May 1758 the Boston News-Letter reported:

The ———, Vavason, from New York, and the ———, Malcom, from Boston, for Madeira, are taken and carried into Louisbourg.

Not only was that news item short on details, but it came from London, so it was months old. But it couldn’t have been over a year old and refer to the same capture as the last article.

Fortunately, in the summer of 1758 the British Empire took Louisbourg from the French (again). After that, it’s easier to spot John Malcom.

TOMORROW: Back and forth.

The Malcom Brothers on Sea and Land

As I wrote yesterday, the brothers John and Daniel Malcom both became mariners in the middle of the eighteenth century. Here are some of their experiences in the 1750s.

From the 30 Oct 1752 New-York Evening-Post:

HALIFAX, October 14.

On Sunday last a fishing Schooner brought in here Capt. Daniel Malcom and his Men belonging to the Sloop Charming Nancy, from Cork to this Place, whose Cargo consisted chiefly of Sea Coal and Butter, which was cast away at a Place call’d Ship-Harbour, to the Eastward of this Place, where she had put in to avoid the Storm which happen’d on Sunday 7-night [i.e., a week ago]:

She parted her Cables & drove on a Ledge of Rocks, where she stove to pieces in a very little Time; the Men sav’d their Lives by getting on the Rocks, where they tarried 5 Days living upon Butter and Boil’d Dulse (a sort of Sea-Weed) and Cramberrys, which they also boil’d and eat with Butter (without Bread or Meat) ’till they met with said Scooner [sic]; during which Time they sav’d 150 Firkins of Butter and some other Things from the Wreck, which are bro’t in here:

Just before the Vessel struck the Rocks the Captain had put Sixty Guineas into a Purse in order to save them with himself, but upon her striking he jump’d upon Deck and left the Purse and Guineas upon the Table in the Cabbin, which also are lost without any Hopes of Recovery.

Daniel Malcom was undaunted, however. In the 8 Nov 1753 Boston News-Letter he started to advertise “Good Irish BUTTER by the Firkin” for sale at his house on Fish Street. That continued to be his main (public) offering until 1768.

As for older brother John Malcolm, Frank W. C. Hersey wrote: “Litigation was Captain John’s favorite pastime while on shore.”

There might be many stories lurking in the court archives, but the one Hersey told was about a 60-ton sloop called the Sally and Polly. John owned three-eighths of this ship, and Daniel presumably owned the rest. That vessel was lost at sea in 1755 on its way from North Carolina to Cork. (I’ve looked for a newspaper report on this ship with no success.)

Only then did John discover his share of the ship hadn’t been insured. He insisted Daniel had promised to provide coverage.

The two brothers started to take legal action against each other. John swore out writs against Daniel for a total of £155. Daniel responded with a writ for £70.

Finally on 31 July the sheriff of Suffolk County, Benjamin Pollard, sat the Malcoms down and helped them settle their dispute before they wore the constables ragged delivering legal papers.

TOMORROW: The Malcoms go to war (and not with each other).

John Malcom: The Early Years

Back in January I wrote about the mobbing of Customs officer John Malcom on the Sestercentennial anniversary of that event.

The standard study of that attack is “Tar and Feathers: The Adventures of Captain John Malcom,” written by Frank W. C. Hersey in 1941 and available through the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Alfred F. Young’s The Shoemaker and the Tea Party looks at the same day through the eyes of George R. T. Hewes.

I collected some additional information about Malcom that I didn’t have time to dig through and share in January, so now I’m doubling back to his story. We can call this series “The Further Adventures of Captain John Malcom.” Though really it’s more of a prequel.

First of all, a note about nomenclature: Capt. John Malcom spelled his name without a second L, as did his brother Daniel Malcom. However, many people writing about him spelled the surname in the traditional Scottish style as “Malcolm.” Indeed, Hersey transcribed a petition signed by Malcom which a clerk then labeled as coming from “Mr. Malcolm.”

Because so many historians rendered the name as “Malcolm,” I followed that style in making a Boston 1775 tag for the man years ago. However, in these postings I’m going to use the spellings that individuals preferred.

This story starts in 1721, when Michael and Sarah Malcom arrived in Boston from Ulster, Ireland, where their ancestors had moved from Scotland in the previous century. They brought young children named William and Elizabeth.

On 20 May 1723 Sarah gave birth to a second boy, whom they called John. The family then moved to Georgetown in the district of Maine. Another baby boy, Daniel, arrived on 29 Nov 1725, followed by Allen in 1733 and Martha in 1738.

Michael Malcom invested in the Massachusetts “Land Bank or Manufactory Scheme.” In 1745 he was assessed to pay £16, on the high side of those investors.

Also in 1745, wrote Hersey, young John Malcom “served as an ensign in the Second Massachusetts Regiment, commanded by Colonel Samuel Waldo, at the siege of Louisbourg; and this same year he was captain of a vessel which carried dispatches from Louisbourg to Boston,” presaging his maritime career. However, John Malcom’s name also appears as a private enlisting in Capt. Elisha Doane’s company in August 1746.

In 1750 John Malcom married Sarah Balch at Boston’s Presbyterian Meeting-House. The Rev. John Moorhead baptized five of their children between 1751 and 1758.

Younger brother Daniel Malcom also came to Boston and married Ann Fudge, and they also had children starting in 1751. He became a prominent member of the Anglican Christ Church’s congregation. While John named one of his sons Daniel, I’ve found no evidence Daniel named any of his boys John.

Both John and Daniel went to sea, made Boston their home port, and rose to be merchant captains. By the late 1740s a captain or two named Malcom was sailing out of Boston for Cape Fear, North Carolina; Antigua; Annapolis; Philadelphia; Honduras; Bristol, England; and Youghal, Ireland. By the 1750s the Malcoms were owners or part-owners of ships. They traded all over North America, the Caribbean, and Britain—and occasionally Cadiz and Lisbon.

It wasn’t illegal to trade with Portugal, Spain, or Caribbean islands claimed by other empires, but there were higher tariffs on most goods traded that way. Ship captains usually tried every trick they could to minimize those tariffs. Many of those methods made that trade into illegal smuggling, but in that period Boston merchants generally figured that as long as they didn’t get too blatant the Customs service wouldn’t come down hard on them.

The real hazards in ocean trade were natural disasters and war.

TOMORROW: Wrecked and captured.

“John Malcom returns thanks to Almighty God”

Like pretty much everything else in colonial Boston, the mobbing of John Malcolm had a religious aspect.

Malcolm’s parents had migrated from Ireland in 1721, and before that the family was from Scotland. When he married and had children in the 1750s, Malcolm did so in the Rev. John Moorhead’s Presbyterian meeting-house.

(That congregation eventually evolved into the Arlington Street Church. Its surviving eighteenth-century records have been digitized by Harvard, and the image above comes from a book of baptisms. Good luck using that source.)

In 1769, Malcolm made a career change and joined the Customs service. His first station was in Newport, Rhode Island. The Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles recorded in his diary the difficulties Malcolm found in worshipping there:

24 [Feb 1770]. I am told that Mr. Malcom last week signified his Desires to some of the Brethren of the first Cong. Chh. here to partake with them in the Lord’s Supper last Lords day. His motion was declined.

He is an officer in the Customs here: lately removed from Boston & settled here, & with his Family attends that Meeting. Tho’ a Congregationalist, yet not Member in Communion. with any Congrega. Chh: yet to qualify for an office had received the Sacrament at an Episcopal Chh., I think in Boston.

It is the declared principle of our Churches to receive to occasional Communion, any sober Communicants from any protestant Chhs., as Episco., Bapt., &c., if they should desire it. He pleaded this right. But the scruple arose on his Morals, which are exceptionable.

There’s no clue about what made Malcolm morally objectionable, if it wasn’t simply joining the Customs service. In 1771 he attended Stiles’s own meeting six times before leaving New England for his next assignment.

This episode shows a couple of things. First, Malcolm wanted to be part of a congregation. He preferred independent meetings, though reportedly was willing to take communion in an Anglican church if it would help his career with the royal government. I haven’t seen any evidence about where the Malcolm family was worshipping when he was back in Boston in the winter of 1773–1774.

The first newspaper essay to discuss religion in connection to the January 1774 crowd attack on Malcolm in fact never appeared in a newspaper. But in announcing that he declined to print that essay in the 3 February Boston News-Letter, Richard Draper got the main point across:

VERITAS, his Observations on the Method of Punishment inflicted on J. Malcom, in a Place professing the Christian Religion, cannot be inserted.—He concludes “I would have every one punished that is deserving of it.—But would not have it to be said by the INDIANS, We are SAVAGES.”

In other words, the violence of the attack on Malcolm made Bostonians look bad, even to people that community stereotyped as violent.

During his recovery, Malcolm himself released a couple of public statements. The Boston Evening-Post was the first to publish one, on 14 February:

Yesterday se’nnight [i.e., Sunday, 6 February] the following Note, it’s said, was sent to several Churches in this Town, viz.

“John Malcom desires Prayers of the Christian People of this Congregation, that the vile abuse received on the 25th Day or Evening of January last past, from a vile rebellious Mob, without Provocation, may be sanctified to him and his Family; and that he may bless God that his Usefulness is still spared, and that he is greatly recovered from his dreadful Wounds and Bruises he then received from the bloody and cruel Hands of these cruel Mortals here below.—

May God forgive them!

Just above that item the Fleet brothers printed a warning to peddlers not to sell tea, that paragraph ending with the threat of “a modern Dress.—Remember Pedlar Malcom’s Fate!” So that writer wasn’t in the same forgiving mood.

On 17 March, Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy published Malcolm’s next message:

Last Sunday se’nnight [i.e., Sunday, 6 March], the following curious note was sent to several churches in this town, and we hear was read at one of them, viz.

“John Malcom returns thanks to Almighty God, that again he is able to wait on him again in the public worship, after the cruel and barbarous usage of a cruel and barbarous mob in Boston, on the 25th evening of January last past confined him to house, bed and room.

“March 6, 1775.”

I haven’t found any response to these items questioning Malcolm’s faith or choice of denomination, or arguing against the point they all made about how Jesus told people to treat their enemies. Most people seem to have preferred to let that topic drop.

“The licentiousness & barbarism of the times”

Another way to look at the mobbing of John Malcolm in January 1774 is through the issue of the rule of law.

At the end of her account of the event, friend of government Ann Hulton wrote:

These few instances amongst many serve to shew the abject State of Governmt & the licentiousness & barbarism of the times. There’s no Majestrate that dare or will act to suppress the outrages. No person is secure there are many Objects pointed at, at this time & when once mark’d out for Vengence, their ruin is certain.

Yet the Massachusetts Spy ended its Whig version of events by saying:

See reader, the effects of a government in which the people have no confidence!

For Hulton, the riotous attack on Malcolm showed that the people of Boston had no respect for the law, or common decency.

And as John Rowe’s diary entry shows, the crowd could intimidate justice of the peace Belcher Noyes from interfering with their violence.

However, people in the crowd would probably have said they were enforcing the law, not breaking it. It was Malcolm who had defied the law by refusing to obey a constable’s writ. It was Malcolm who had started the violence by clubbing George R. T. Hewes. It was Malcolm who had corrupted the law by abusing his authority as a Customs officer.

And as for waiting for the legal system to address Malcolm’s behavior, the Spy story said his attackers expected he would enjoy impunity like “[Ebenezer] Richardson and the soldiers [at the Massacre], and the other friends of government.”

It seems significant that all those cases involved grown men attacking children: Richardson shooting Christopher Seider, Pvt. Hugh White clonking Edward Garrick on the head, and Malcolm threatening the unnamed child whom Hewes defended. (To be sure, all those attacks on children started with children wising off to the men, but that wasn’t a crime.)

We can see the same sort of dueling accusations of lawlessness today. People on both sides of the political aisle say the other side routinely breaks the law and gets away with it through corruption. That makes it all the more important to look at actual evidence, not just rhetoric, since anyone can wail about “the abject State of Governmt.” 

(The picture above is a 1775 engraving of the attack on Malcolm, built off the previous year’s smaller scene shown here. Once again, tea plays a big part in how Londoners understood the event. Another early image of Boston’s destruction of the tea appears at right, and in the lower center a man is urinating into a teapot.)

“He should not speak to a gentleman in the street”

Yesterday I quoted John Malcolm’s complaint about how some Royal Navy officers had treated him in 1771, cutting buttons off his cloak.

In his newspaper advertisement about the conflict, Malcolm twice used the language of duelling. One navy officer named Davis reportedly “promis’d…Gentleman-like Satisfaction,” and the Customs officer “demanded Satisfaction of him.”

Davis instead proceeded to an action that was also part of the duelers’ code, but not for a genteel equal with whom one would duel. Instead, Malcolm complained, “he struck me with a Stick.”

Clubbing or caning an opponent was not just a physical assault. It also communicated that person was of a lower social class.

When James Otis, Jr., and Customs Commissioner John Robinson met in the British Coffee-House in September 1769, they were following that code. Otis had publicly claimed the right to break Robinson’s head, and Robinson tried to grab Otis’s nose before swinging his own cane.

Decades later, Rep. Preston Brooks’s assault on Sen. Charles Sumner in the U.S. Senate chamber carried the same symbolism. Brooks had considered challenging Sumner to a duel, as he had previously dueled with other men, but another member of Congress persuaded him that dueling was too good for the anti-slavery senator.

When John Malcolm advertised in 1771 that he had given Davis “a genteel Basting or Caneing,” he wasn’t just saying he’d resisted Davis’s strike and come out ahead in their fight. He was signaling that because he’d succeeded in inflicting that chastisement he was the more worthy gentleman.

Malcolm’s behavior toward George R. T. Hewes on 25 Jan 1774 had the same symbolic dimension. The incident started when a boy criticized Malcolm for having knocked his “chips” into the snow the day before. Malcolm didn’t like being pestered by a child and started waving his cane around. Hewes then remonstrated with the man about threatening the boy.

Malcolm again resented being called out by someone from a lower class—a poor shoemaker. According to the Massachusetts Spy, he told Hewes, “You are an impertinent rascal, it is none of your business,” eventually adding that “he should not speak to a gentleman in the street” like that.

The two men then argued over their “good credit” in town. Hewes didn’t claim to be a gentleman, but he found a way to imply that Malcolm wasn’t one, either: “Mr. Hewes retorted, be that as it will, I never was tarred nor feathered any how.”

At this time, before the actual war broke out, crowds almost always reserved tarring and feathering for working-class men connected with Customs enforcement as low-level officers, sailors, or (supposed) informants. Contrary to later popular images, mobs didn’t tar and feather upper-class Tories.

By bringing up the fact that a crowd in Maine had tarred and feathered John Malcolm, Hewes was insinuating that, despite his career as a ship’s captain, colonial army officer, and higher-level Customs officer, Malcolm was not really a gentleman.

Malcolm responded as the dueling code said a gentleman could when insulted by someone beneath his rank: he clubbed Hewes on the forehead and knocked him out.

“I then gave him a genteel Basting or Caneing”

The 18 Feb 1771 issue of Edes and Gill’s Boston Gazette reported that the Customs Commissioners had promoted John Malcolm from the post of Tide Surveyor in Newport, Rhode Island, to Controller in Carratook, North Carolina.

Carratook was a much smaller port, but Controller was a position of more responsibility, especially when it came to money. Malcolm had joined the service less than two years before, so that indicated the commissioners had some confidence in him.

Just below that report (in much smaller type) ran this letter:

Messieurs EDES & GILL.

Please to insert the following in your much-esteemed Paper, and you’ll oblige your humble servant, JOHN MALCOM.

WHEREAS three Officers belonging to his Majesty’s Navy us’d me very ill sometime past, by cutting Buttons from my Hussar Cloak in a private Manner, and carrying them off in their Pockets, which I resented; and on Friday the 15th Instant [i.e., of this month] I met with one of them, whose Name was Davis, two other Officers being with him—

And as said Davis had not given me Gentleman-like Satisfaction as he sundry Times promis’d, I again demanded Satisfaction of him, and he struck me with a Stick—

I then gave him a genteel Basting or Caneing, and sent him off, bidding him if he pleas’d to go and acquaint his Commodore [James Gambier] that a Boston-born Man had given him the said Davis a genteel Trimming.

JOHN MALCOM.
Boston, Feb. 1771

This newspaper item isn’t discussed in Frank W. C. Hersey’s article on Malcolm for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, or anywhere else that I can find.

The confrontation Malcolm described here bears some resemblance to his more famous street fight in early 1774, particularly his insistence on being treated like a gentleman and his whaling away with his cane when that didn’t happen.

One big difference, of course, is that Malcolm’s target in 1771 was a fellow employee of the royal government, albeit in another branch. If there was any political issue in this earlier fight, it was his suspicion that British officers looked down on him as a “Boston-born” colonial.

At this time, Malcolm aligned himself with the town—the same town that would attack him brutally a few years later. He was even using the Boston Whigs’ principal newspaper to promulgate that message.

[My photo above shows a “fist cane” that belonged to Thomas Hancock and was on display at the Massachusetts Historical Society five years ago.]

“Some excuse for such an outrageous action”

Another source on the circumstances of the mobbing of John Malcolm was Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, reporting to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for North America in London.

This text is from the Colonial Society of Massachusetts’s publication of Hutchinson’s correspondence:

I am sorry that I must acquaint your Lordship with a barbarous & inhumane act of violence upon the person of John Malcom the night after the 25th. instant, by a great number of rioters in the Town of Boston. Mr Malcom is a preventive Officer for the port of Falmouth in Casco bay, and lately seized a Vessel, in that port, for want of a Register. I have heard no complaint of any irregularity in this execution of his Office, but a great number of persons, in that part of the Province, thought fit to punish him by tarring and feathering him, & carrying him about in derision.

As he was not stripped, and the chief damage he sustained was in his cloaths, upon his making complaint to me I only sent for one of the principal Justices of peace for the County, and directed him to make inquiry into the affair, and to oblige such of the Actors as he should have evidence against to find security to answer at the next Assizes for the County, or to commit them.

He has, since his being in Boston, made frequent complaints to me of his being hooted at in the streets for having been tarred & feathered and, being a passionate man, I have as often cautioned him against giving way to his passion, or making any other Return than neglect & contempt; but having met with a provocation of this sort, in the afternoon of the 25th. from a tradesman, who, he says, had several times before affronted him, he struck him with his cane.

The tradesman applied to a Justice, who issued a warrant to a Constable, but the Constable not being able to find him, a mob gathered about his house in the evening and, having broke his windows, he pushed through the broken window with his sword, and gave a slight scratch with the point to one of the Assailants; soon after which the mob entered his house and treated him in the manner related in the News paper which I shall inclose.

This account is given to me by the Relations of Mr Malcom, who are persons of good characters in the Town. He has, for some time past, been threatned by the populace with revenge for his free and open declarations against the late proceedings [i.e., the Boston Tea Party], and has, I believe, sometimes indiscretely provoked them, which it is pretended may be some excuse for such an outrageous action.

I am informed, to day, that, although he is terribly bruised, it’s probable he will recover. I will do every thing in my power to bring the guilty persons to condign punishment. I have not heard of any except the lowest class of the people suspected of being concerned in this Riot.

The next night there was an attempt to raise another mob to search for Ebenr. Richardson lately found guilty by a Jury of Murder, but judgment being suspended His Majesty’s pardon was applied for & obtained. He is now in some very inferior employment in the service of the Customs in Pensilvania and, it is thought, a report of his being in town was spread for the sake of raising a mob. Some of the more considerate people appeared and opposed the leaders in the beginning of the affair and put a stop to it.

I am the more particular in these accounts, because I have heretofore been thought negligent in not transmitting the earliest advice of every attack upon the Officers of the Customs, though of the lowest rank. The town continuing in this state the friends of the Consignees of the East India Company judge it unsafe for them to appear there, though they are sensible that any further compliance with the demands of the people could not have been justified, and that the whole proceedings with respect to them have been unjust & tyrannical. There is no spirit left in those who used to be friends to Government to support them or any others who oppose the prevailing power.

Among the notable additions to the record from this letter are that the name of pardoned killer Ebenezer Richardson was still toxic enough to arouse the Boston crowd. Gov. Hutchinson was correct that the man had gone to Philadelphia to work for the Customs office there.

However, in November 1773 the Boston newspapers ran articles from the Pennsylvania Journal suggesting that its coverage had made that town too hot for him, and he might go to New York or elsewhere. It wasn’t out of the question, therefore, that Richardson could be back in Boston. (He did return to Massachusetts by the summer of 1774 and was found in Stoneham that September.)

Hutchinson’s letter also says, based on an account from Malcolm’s relatives, that the “tradesman” he struck (George R. T. Hewes) had “affronted” him “several times before.” Neither the immediate newspaper stories nor Hewes’s later recollections indicate that history, but it’s clear that Hewes knew who Malcolm was.

Notably, Malcolm’s own narrative skipped over that first encounter entirely, except to deny the “False pretence of his haveing the Same day used a Boy Ill in the Street.” Instead, he began the confrontation with people coming to his house and breaking windows for no good reason.

TOMORROW: John Malcolm’s street fights.

“Applyed to a particular Justice to Exert his Authority”

On 25 Jan 1774, the day that a Boston mob attacked John Malcolm, the merchant John Rowe wrote this in his diary:

John Malcom having done some violence to A man with A Sword enragd the Multitude that they took him & put him into a Cart, Tarr’d & featherd him—carrying thro the principall Streets of this Town with A halter about him from thence to the Gallows & Returned thro the main Street—making Great Noise & Huzzaing.

I did not see the Numbers attending but tis Supposed by the People that did there were upwards of Twelve hundred people. tis Said that Malcom behav’d with Great Fortitude & Resolution—this was Look’d upon by Mee & Every Sober Man as an Act of Outragious Violence & when severall of the Inhabitants applyed to a particular Justice to Exert his Authority & Suppress the People & they would support him in the Execution of his Duty he Refusd.

As you can see on the original page from the Massachusetts Historical Society, Rowe put a little asterisk next to the word “Justice” and at the bottom of the page this footnote:

B N

After I spent some time identifying that magistrate from those initials, I discovered that Clifford K. Shipton had already done so in his Sibley’s Harvard Biographies profiles.

That reluctant justice of the peace was Belcher Noyes (1709–1785), who lived near Dock Square, the neighborhood where the riot started. After graduating from Harvard College, Noyes followed his father into medicine but soon spent more of his time, and made more of his money, speculating on land in Maine, as documented at the Maine Memory Network above. In 1773 Noyes was in his sixties, not politically active, and clearly reluctant to become involved.

Rowe’s diary entry is also interesting for showing the merchant himself trimming back toward the royal side weeks after he had pleased the crowd in Old South Meeting-House by asking “whether Salt Water would not make as good Tea as fresh.” Here Rowe, for most of his career an active smuggler, takes the side of Customs Surveyor Malcolm.

“An ancedote of a hair’s breath escape” from George R. T. Hewes

It’s not that surprising that the two books based on the memories of George Robert Twelves Hewes, A Retrospect of the Boston Tea-Party (1834) and Traits of the Tea Party (1835), contain anecdote after anecdote placing Hewes at major events in pre-Revolutionary Boston.

After all, people’s memoirs often play up their role in history or their knowledge of events.

What’s remarkable about the Hewes books is that contemporaneous documents often bear out the little shoemaker’s memories. Details he recalled six decades later turn out to be consistent with the records of the time.

For both those books Hewes described how he had gotten into an argument with a Customs officer and suffered an injury, prompting his fellow Bostonians to attack that man. He had his own riot in pre-Revolutionary Boston!

Yet, as the account from the Massachusetts Spy shows, that’s exactly what happened on 25 Jan 1774. Hewes’s memories weren’t fully accurate—for example, he recalled this confrontation happening before the Boston Tea Party instead of six weeks after it. But they’re impressivelt consistent.

Here’s how James T. Hawke recorded Hewes’s memory in A Retrospect of the Boston Tea-Party:

One day, said he, as I was returning from dinner, I met a man by the name of John Malcom, who was a custom-house officer, and a small boy, pushing his sled along, before him; and just as I was passing the boy, he said to Malcom, what, sir, did you throw my chips into the snow for, yesterday?

Upon which Malcom angrily replied, do you speak to me, you rascal; and, as he raised a cane he had in his hand, aiming it at the head of the boy, I spoke to Malcom, and said to him, you are not about to strike that boy with your cudgel, you may kill him; upon my saying that, he was suddenly diverted from the boy, and turning upon me, says, you d——d rascal, do you presume too, to speak to me?

I replied to him, I am no rascal, sir, be it known to you; whereupon he struck me across the head with his cane, and knocked me down, and by the blow cut a hole in my hat two inches in length.

At this moment, one Captain [Isaac?] Godfry came up, and raising me up, asked who had struck me; Malcom, replied the by standers, while he, for fear of the displeasure of the populace, ran to his house, and shut himself up.

The people, many of whom were soon collected around me, advised me to go immediately to Doctor [Joseph] Warren, and get him to dress my wound, which I did without delay; and the doctor, after [he] dressed it, observed to me, it can be considered no misfortune that I had a thick skull, for had not yours been very strong, said he, it would have been broke; you have come within a hair’s breath of loosing your life.

He then advised me to go to Mr. [Edmund] Quincy, a magistrate, and get a warrant, for the purpose of arresting Malcom, which I did, and carried it immediately to a constable, by the name of Justine Hale [sic], and delivered it to him, to serve, but when he came to the house where Malcom was locked up, it was surrounded by such a multitude he could not serve it.

The people, however, soon broke open the door, and took Malcom into their custody. They then took him to the place where the massacre was committed, and their flogged him with thirty-nine stripes. After which, they besmeared him thoroughly with tar and feathers; they then whipped him through the town, till they arrived at the gallows, on the neck, where they gave him thirty-nine stripes more, and then, after putting one end of a rope about his neck, and throwing the other end over the gallows, told him to remember that he had come within one of being hanged. They then took him back to the house from whence they had taken him, and discharged him from their custody.

The severity of the flogging they had given him, together with the cold coat of tar with which they had invested him, had such a benumbing effect upon his health, that it required considerable effort to restore his usual circulation. During the process of his chastisement, the deleterious effect of the frost, it being a cold season, generated a morbid affection upon the prominent parts of his face, especially upon his chin, which caused a separation and peeling off of some fragments of loose skin and flesh, which, with a portion of the tar and feathers, which adhered to him, he preserved in a box, and soon after carried with him to England, as the testimonials of his sufferings in the cause of his country.

On his arrival in England soon after this catastrophe Malcom obtained an annual pension of fifty pounds, but lived only two years after to enjoy it.

On relating this adventure, the very excitement which the affront must have wrought upon him, evidently began to rekindle, and he remarked with emphasis, I shall carry to my grave the scar which the wound Malcom gave me left on my head; and passing my finger over the spot to which he directed it, there was obviously such a scar, as must have been occasioned by the wound he had described.

Hewes’s knowledge was of course more accurate about his own experiences than other details. Malcolm was awarded a sinecure but not a pension, and he lived many more than two years.

A year after that first book, Hewes sat for more interviews with the Bostonian journalist Benjamin Bussey Thatcher, and those conversations produced this version:

John [Malcom]…lived (says Mr. Hewes) at the head of Cross Street, where he worked in some capacity for a man by the name of Scott, when one day, as Hewes was returning from dinner to his shop, (for he continued at hard work all this time—as industrious and as impartial as ever,) he met Malcom at the mouth of the street.

He was engaged in an altercation with a boy who was dragging a hand-sled before him—the snow being a foot deep, or more, on the ground. The lad complained of his having turned over his chips, the day before, into the snow, and wanted to know what good that could do him.

“Do you talk to me in that style, you rascal!” said Malcom; and he was raising his cane, to give emphasis to his answer, over the boy’s head, just as Hewes came up. The latter was unarmed, and small, but it was no way of his, cost what it might, to see foul play. He stepped up to Malcom without ceremony, and warned him not to strike the lad with that cudgel. Malcom, in a rage already, now left his smaller game, and fronted Hewes:

”And do you presume to insult me, too, you scoundrel!—what have you to do with it?”

“I am no scoundrel, Sir,” said Hewes,—“and be it known to you”—

Malcom, at this, levelled a blow with his cane, which struck Hewes over the top of his head, cutting a hole two inches long through his hat, and brought him to the ground.

One Captain Godfrey came up at this moment, and helped him to rise. There was a bad wound on his temples, and the blood ran down his face in streams. “Who did this?” cried Godfrey, in a voice of thunder.

Hewes was known for a good Son of Liberty, as well as Malcom was for a Tory, and the by-standers, who were fast gathering by this time, quickly interfered. Malcom contrived to get a weapon into his hand and keep them at bay, till he could flee to is house, where he fastened himself in.

Hewes, meanwhile, had gone to Dr. Warren (Joseph) [footnote: in Orange-Tree Lane.] who was a relative (his grandmother’s sister’s son) and an old acquaintance of his; and the Doctor, after dressing his head, had advised him to get a warrant out against Malcom. He got one, accordingly, of Justice [Richard] Dana.

Constable Hale undertook to execute it. He found the house surrounded by a crowd of people. Malcom, from his back window, begged him to let him alone till morning, as he was afraid they would tear him to pieces, if he ventured out. He concluded to do so, and Hewes went away with him.

This, probably, only made the matter worse. The people became more furious, while Malcom, on the other hand, armed himself to the teeth, with sword, pistols, and broad-axe, took possession of the upper story, and threatened destruction to the first person who trespassed on the premises.

An acquaintance of his got in at the back-door, at length, by deceiving his wife, by a stratagem induced him to put his weapons by, seized him by the back in that condition, and hallooed to the people, who stood waiting to help him, which they did with a relish. They got a horse-cart, and lowered him out of the window by ropes into that.

This detail about the window appeared in the 27 January Boston News-Letter, but that newspaper retracted it the next week. According to Hewes, he had left the scene by that time. So either he heard a rumor of Malcolm being lowered out a window or read it in a newspaper, or Thatcher found the detail in the newspaper or some report based on it and inserted it into the book.

They called for feathers, and two pillow-cases-full were shortly produced—probably from Malcom’s own stores. They started for Henchman’s Wharf, and there took in a quantity of tar, the purpose of which…was soon explained by their stripping poor Malcom naked above the breast, and plastering over his upper extremities.

Thence they carted him to Butcher’s Hall [i.e., the Customs house]; thence to Shubael Hewess,’ who kept a butcher’s-market at that period on the Main Street, in a wooden house near the Old South Church, with a jutting upper story, which still stands there (and was pointed out by our veteran, on his last visit to the city.)

Here, as in King Street, a flagellation was tried. Then, they drove to Liberty-Tree—to the gallows on the Neck—back to the Tree—to Butcher’s Hall again—to Charlestown ferry—to Copp’s Hill,—flogging the miserable wretch at every one of these places, if not some more—a fact which the papers of the day overlook, for obvious reasons, though the Gazette acknowledges that he was “bruised” in such a manner “that his life is despaired of.”

Hewes states that when they left him at the door of his own house, after a four-hours’ torture, the poor creature was almost frozen, and was rolled out of the cart like a log. Dr. [Silvester] Gardiner, who met Hewes soon after, told him that it took three days to get his blood into circulation again; adding, in the same breath, the consolatory compliment, that he, as the cause of it, would infallibly be hanged, and ought to be.

The Doctor…was doubtless ignorant of one or two things which it is but justice to his patient to mention. Hewes could not be blamed, certainly, for complaining to the Justice and taking the warrant, had he done it at his own suggestion, instead of Dr. Warren’s, or any body’s else. The assault was unprovoked and outrageous; and the wound so serious that the indentation it made in his skull is as plainly perceptible to this moment as it was sixty years ago. Indeed, as the Doctor told him when he dressed it, it was within one of his life. “Cousin Hewes,” said he, good-humoredly, “you are the luckiest man I know of, to have such a skull—nothing else could have saved you;” and nothing else did. It was the narrowest of all his dodgings of death.

Nor was he accessory in any way to the disgraceful treatment which Malcom received; so far from it, that when he first heard of his miserable situation, his instant impulse was to push after the procession as fast as he could, with a blanket to put over his shoulders. He overtook them at his brother’s house and made an effort to relieve him; but the ruffians who now had the charge of him about the cart, pushed him aside, and warned him to keep off.

Malcom recovered from his wounds, and went about as usual. “How do you do, Mr. Malcom?” said Hewes, very civilly, the next time he met him. “Your humble servant, Mr. George Robert Twelves Hewes,” quoth he—touching his hat genteelly as he passed by. “Thank ye,” thought Hewes, “and I am glad you have learned better manners at last.”

Nor was that the only benefit which accrued to this unfortunate politician. The frost caused an affection which caused a considerable portion of the skin to peel off. This, with a quantity of the Tar and feathers that adhered to him, it is understood he carefully preserved, boxed up, and carried with him to England, as a testimonial of his sacrifices for the royal cause.

Hewes’s memory appears to be the only source for the statement that Malcolm preserved samples of his own skin (though Ann Hulton did write that “They say his flesh comes off his back in Stakes [steaks]”). Again, it’s not clear how Hewes would know that as a fact without any other record of it surviving. But authors love to include it.

Again, on details of his own experience, Hewes could be remarkably reliable. For example, there’s the constable he summoned to serve a writ on Malcolm, noted as “Constable Hale” and “Justine Hale” (which historian Alfred F. Young guessed was a typo for “Justice Hale”). Among the men the Boston town meeting elected as constables in 1773 was Augustus Hail.