“This BOWL commemorative of Events prior to the American Revolution”

In August 1768 a Boston Gazette item, quoted back here, announced that Nathaniel Barber had commissioned a large silver bowl “for the Use of the Gentlemen belonging to the Insurance Office kept by” him. These weren’t his clerks, it appears, but his investors.

That group in turn invited “a Number of Gentlemen of Distinction in the Town” to drink toasts with them. The bowl’s engraving celebrated the 92 members of the Massachusetts General Court who refused to rescind the Circular Letter of 1768.

That newspaper item didn’t name the artisan who created the silver bowl: Paul Revere. Nobody then knew he’d become more famous than Barber or any of the other men whose names he engraved on the vessel.

Several of those gentlemen participated in the Boston Sons of Liberty’s dinner in Dorchester in August 1769. To be sure, there were nearly 300 other men there, too, including Revere and most members of the “Loyall Nine.”

At some point in the middle of the nineteenth century new words were engraved around the bowl below Revere’s original words and pictures:

This BOWL commemorative of Events prior to the American Revolution, was purchased of the Associates whose names are inscribed upon its surface, by Wm. MACKAY, one of their number, from whom upon the demise of the latter, in Feby 1832, it became the property of Wm. MACKAY, his Grandson in direct line, a Resident of the City of New York.

The Associates were Citizens of Boston.

Then someone added to the flat bottom of the bowl:

* at whose death in 1873, it
passed into the hands of his
Brother ROBT. C. MACKAY of
Boston

And finally, even later:

and ROBERT C. MACKAY on Mar. 11, 1902
transferred it to MARIAN LINCOLN PERRY
of Providence, Rhode Island
a great great grand-daughter of
JOHN MARSTON
one of the fifteen associates

The term “Associates” also appears in the Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings reported on a special meeting on 16 Dec 1873, when the Rev. George E. Ellis displayed that bowl for other attendees. Thay report referred to “the Fifteen Associates, belonging to Boston, for whom the bowl was made.”

It appears the M.H.S.P. article picked up the word “Associates” from the later carving around the bowl, while the engraving on the bottom may have taken the phrase “the fifteen associates” from the M.H.S.P. article.

In any event, nowhere on the bowl did the phrase “Sons of Liberty” appear, and the original newspaper report from 1768 didn’t use that term.

TOMORROW: Crossing the streams.

A Different Point of View on the “Bunker Hill” Song

As I discussed yesterday, in post-Revolutionary Boston young veterans of the war preserved and passed around the words to a song about the Battle of Bunker Hill written from the British point of view.

They had different things to say, however, about who had written that song:

• The first surviving broadside says it was “Composed by the British Soldiers,” and an 1811 reprint says it was “Composed by the British.”
• A handwritten copy of the verses kept by the merchant John Marston credited “one of the British army.”
• The historian Samuel Swett apparently had a broadside headlined “Composed by a British Officer after the engagement.”
• Either working with more information or splitting the difference between his sources, Swett labeled the lines “Extracts from a song said to be written by a British Serjeant” in his 1826 book.
• Finally, in the 1830s newspaper publisher Benjamin Russell told a visitor that the song had been “written by a common British soldier, who afterwards deserted to the Americans, and used to sing it in the American camp.”

I’m inclined to think the song came from the British enlisted ranks rather than from an officer. Whether or not that lyricist deserted, some deserter may well have carried the lyrics across the siege line. Russell was in the American camp until August 1775 (when his father grabbed him), so he could have heard the song first- or second-hand. But of course there could have been a lot of distortion in memory or oral tradition over the next sixty years.

And there was even more distortion to come! Sometime in the mid-1830s the Boston printer Leonard Deming reprinted the song once more. His broadside said “Battle of Bunker Hill” had been “Composed by a British Officer, the day after the Battle, June 17, 1775.”

And something curious happened as Deming’s shop put the lyrics into print. His text matches the earlier broadsides closely through the bottom of the first column. Then the next stanza is based on lines that had appeared toward the end of the preceding versions, with some changes. It says:

Brave Howe is so considerate,
As to guard against all dangers;
He allow’d each half a gill this day,
To rum we are no strangers.

The earliest printed version said:

Brave Howe is so considerate, as to prevent all danger,
He allows us half a pint each day, to him we are not strangers:

The Deming broadside reproduced two more stanzas intact, but then the American typographers apparently got fed up with all that British boasting. For the rest of the song they rewrote nearly every verse to criticize the British commanders and praise the Americans. The new lines went:

And when the works were got into,
And put them to the flight, sir,
They pepper’d us, poor British elves,
And show’d us they could fight, sir.

And when their works we got into,
With some hard knocks and danger;
Their works we found both firm and strong,
Too strong for British Rangers.

But as for our Artillery,
They gave all way and run,
For while their ammunition held,
They gave us Yankee fun.

But our commander, he got broke,
For his misconduct, sure, sir;
The shot he sent for twelve pound guns,
Were made for twenty-fours, sir.

There’s some in Boston, pleas’d to say,
As we the field were taking,
We went to kill their countrymen,
While they their hay were making.

For such stout whigs I never saw,
To hang them all I’d rather;
By making hay with musket balls,
Lord Howe cursedly did bother.

Bad luck to him by land and sea,
For he’s despis’d by many;
The name of Bunker Hill he dreads,
Where he was flogg’d most plainly.

And now my song is at an end,
And to conclude my ditty;
’Tis only Britons ignorant,
That I most sincerely pity.

As for our King and William Howe,
And General Gage, if they’re taken,
The Yankees will hang their heads up high,
On that fine hill call’d Beacon.

Compare those lines, especially the last, with the original.

There’s no indication on the Deming broadside that it didn’t offer the original lyrics, so later authors took those lines to be authentic. There’s even a lesson plan from the Library of Congress using the 1830s broadside as a Revolutionary text. It says, “within hours of the battle, it also inspired an unknown British officer to set down his own impressions in verse. As you read his account of the bloody day and notice his clear respect for his enemies, you might think about how a different point of view can shed new light on even the most familiar events.”

So here I am shedding new light with a different point of view. We don’t know who wrote the original song, but we know the lyrics on the Deming broadside from the 1830s were not written by a British officer in 1775.

“It has been copied so many times, for the last fifty years”

It’s no surprise that British soldiers composed a song about the Battle of Bunker Hill, as quoted yesterday. After all, they won the fight, and then they had several months in Boston to fill. What’s surprising is that the song was printed and preserved in American broadsides and archives.

It’s conceivable that the song was first printed inside Boston during the siege by one of the remaining Loyalist printers, and a copy of that remained after the evacuation. However, there’s strong evidence that Massachusetts youths of the Revolutionary generation passed along the song.

Complicating the picture a bit is that in 1811 the Boston printer Nathaniel Coverly reissued the verses on a broadside headlined “BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. This Song was composed by the British, after the engagement.” That had the same text and punctuation as the earlier printing, but Coverly broke the long rhyming lines in two to produce twenty-four stanzas instead of twelve. That broadside could have reinforced and distorted people’s memory of the song from Revolutionary times, but people don’t seem to have noticed it.

After the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, Samuel Swett began to work on his History of Bunker Hill Battle. On 17 Apr 1826 a Quincy man named John Marston (1756-1846) wrote this to him:

Agreeably to your request, I send you a copy of the British song, on the battle of Bunker Hill. I will not vouch for its perfect correctness. It has been copied so many times, for the last fifty years, there are probably some mistakes and omissions.

You will observe a word is wanting at the end of the fourteenth verse, to rhyme with “danger.” I believe the meaning of the word wanting is, coward or cowardice. It was a favorite object of the British to represent us as cowards, and that we could not fight except behind stone walls and breast-works.

Marston’s handwritten copy was headed, “A song on the battle of Bunker Hill, composed by one of the British army, June, 1775, Tune—‘When Sawney up to London came.’” Compared to the previously printed texts, Marston omitted two stanzas and occasional words, and transposed two other stanzas.

In addition, in 1838 E. C. Wines wrote this about visiting Bunker Hill in A Trip to Boston, in a Series of Letters to the Editor of the United States Gazette:

I considered myself fortunate in having so excellent a guide as Major [Benjamin] Russell, who, he says, was on the spot the day when the battle occurred, and saw the whole of it, though, as he was but a mere stripling, he took no active part in it. Being, however, a “looker-on in Venice,” he is familiar with every locality and with all the incidents of the day. He gave me a minute and graphic account of the battle, specifying all the leading events, and pointing out the place where each one happened.

Among other things, he repeated a doggerel description of the battle, written by a common British soldier, who afterwards deserted to the Americans, and used to sing it in the American camp. It has no poetical merit, but as the Major declares it to be perfectly accurate in its facts, and as it has never yet appeared in print, I venture to transcribe it.

Wines then wrote out a ten-stanza version of the song. Despite being Boston’s leading Federalist publisher, Russell (1761-1845, shown above) apparently didn’t know that those lines had been published at least three times before.

Thus, Bostonians who were teenagers during the Battle of Bunker Hill preserved this British army song about the fight and helped it get into history books over half a century later.

TOMORROW: So who wrote those lines? And why do we remember a different version?

Thanksgiving Memories from John Marston

For the holiday I’ll quote John Marston’s recollection of Thanksgiving in Boston before the Revolution. Marston evidently wrote this letter to Anne Adams about 1830, and it was first published in The Treat Family: A Genealogy of Trott, Tratt, and Treat for Fifteen Generations, and Four Hundred and Fifty Years in England and America in 1893.

Dear Cousin,

This is Thanksgiving day and we have eaten our plum pudding alone, a circumstance I do not remember having occurred before in the course of my life. All anniversaries bring with them solemn reflections and reminders of former days. I have been cogitating on one of the earliest I can remember when I was about ten years old. My father always invited a large party to supper on the evenings of those days, and by carrying you back to one, I may be able to give you some idea of the “olden times” you express a wish to hear about.

The room in which were to be assembled the invited guests was what we call the Drawing room, but in those days it was called the large parlour. At the upper end of which a large mahogany desk and book case. Between the windows hung a large Pier glass with a black and gold frame, and under it, a mahogany round table, covered with the beautiful chintz of that day. Opposite to this was another glass in a gilt frame, and under it a valuable marble slab on a richly covered mahogany frame. The chairs were carved mahogany with black morocco seats.

In one corner stood a clock with a blue enameled case, and in the other corner, a “Beau fet,” fashionable in those days, the upper part of which displayed the richest burnt China, enameled [porcelain with underglaze blue decoration and overglaze red and gilding], and the lower part a goodly assortment of silver plate which was more common then than now.

The window curtains were blue, made of a fabric not now in use, composed of worsted and cotton, or may be linen, very handsome. The carpet was humble Scotch and considered at the time a great luxury. The walls were hung over with flowered paper, and covered with elegant prints of the King and Queen, Lord Chatham and some others I do not recollect of a different description. The old fashioned walnut wood fire, must not be omitted, and the brass fire-set. We seldom see now this cheerful accompaniment of a family gathering.

The only children present, were, on that occasion, your aunt Bessie Treat, and myself. We were anxiously looking for the company as they arrived. And first came our dear old grandfather [Nathaniel] Greenwood with the countenance of a saint, his silver locks flowing on his shoulder, his cambrick neckcloth tucked through the button hole of his coat.

And next our venerable grandmother [Elizabeth Greenwood], with a rich brocade, so substantial it might have stood alone; yet, with the address of her sex, she would occasionally raise her dress, so as to discover a scarlet broad cloth skirt with a broad gold lace round the bottom.

Then came my aunt [Eunice] Bowers in a rich dove colored damask dress. I have since seen many Duchesses while in England, who with all their diamonds were vastly her inferiors in beauty and dignity of port and elegance of manners. She was at this time a widow.

Next her sat my good aunt [Anna] Treat, your worthy Grandmother: dressed in a brocade the color of which I have forgotten. There too was her noble husband, my uncle Robert Treat, your Grandfather, dressed in a blue coat, scarlet vest, black small clothes, and white hose. He had the face of Apollo! with the dignity of Mars.

There were also your uncles Nathaniel and Samuel Greenwood in plain suits—their brother Miles was approaching to a Maccaroni—what we now call a dandy. His coat was scarlet with a dash of gold lace. He was naturally fond of dress, but at that time he was secretary to the Governor of Nova Scotia, in which position a young man would wish to appear well dressed.

And last, not not least my beloved father and mother—their portraits are familiar to you. When we recollect, my dear Cousin, our worthy ancestors, who were possessed of high moral worth and most of them of deep and ardent piety, should we not feel proud of our progenitors?

On this occasion my father invited other guests. On this occasion I remember the Rev’d Mr. Allan, an English Patriot, James Otis—well known in the history of the Revolution—Dr. [Thomas] Young and some others.

At nine o’clock the company were ushered into the supper room. The first course was served on highly polished pewter. The second on the finest of china. The knives and forks had silver handles. The candlesticks were of pure silver. The table was of polished oak, and covered with the finest linen damask.

As Caitlin G. D. Hopkins noted when she shared this letter two years ago, Marston expended a great deal of effort on describing furniture and clothing. Even when the meal begins, his words focus on the plates and silverware. No tastes, no smells, no snatches of conversation.

This recollection has been dated to 1766, when Marston was ten years old. However, if “the Rev’d Mr. Allen, an English Patriot,” was John Allen, then it was around 1772 and Marston was sixteen. Allen was a Particular Baptist minister who published “The Spirit of Liberty” in London in 1770 and “An Oration on the Beauties of Liberty” in New England in 1772. According to John Adams (Anne Adams’s father-in-law) in May 1773, “Coll. Otis [the Whig lawyer’s father] reads to large Circles of the common People, Allens Oration on the Beauties of Liberty and recommends it as an excellent Production.”

A House in Beverly and Its Revolutionary Owner

In Beverly, a developer has offered a 1715 house to anyone who will move it away from its present location, where the firm plans to build a drugstore. The Salem News reported that offer this month, describing the house like this:

Built in 1715, it is one of the last remaining First Period homes from Beverly’s earliest settlement. It was the home of Nathaniel Greenwood, a captain in the militia and a member of the Sons of Liberty, a group of patriots that included John Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere.

An earlier article described the building’s history in more detail:

The wood-frame house was built by a shoemaker named Nehemiah Wood between 1715 and 1725 and was later owned by Nathaniel Greenwood, an officer in the Boston Regiment. The building was a grocery store in the early 1900s. It was bought by Johnny Appleseed’s in 1947 and became the clothing company’s headquarters.

It’s currently a real-estate office.

As for former owner Nathaniel Greenwood, the articles appear to be combining two men of that name, father and son. The son owned the house and kept an inn there for a while later in the eighteenth century. He was born in 1732, married Priscilla Snelling of Boston in 1766, and moved out of town during the war. Later he returned to Boston, established a sail-making business, and died in 1823.

The older Nathaniel Greenwood was born in 1693 and became a merchant, militia captain, town official, and Old South member. Everyone seemed to know who “Captain Greenwood” was. He died in 1780, having lived his last couple of years with his son in this Beverly house.

Much of the information about the family comes from The Greenwood Family of Norwich, England in America (1934), and I can’t confirm a lot of it. The genealogy says, “Nathaniel Greenwood belonged to the ‘North End Caucus’, the most important political club in the town at the time.” But I don’t see that name in the only surviving records of that group, published in Elbridge Goss’s Life of Col. Paul Revere.

The name of “Capt. Greenwood” is indeed on the long list of men who dined with the Sons of Liberty in August 1769. This was a large event that involved most of the prominent men in Boston. Some of those diners later became Loyalists, others Patriots.

The Greenwood family included men in both political camps. The captain’s son-in-law John Marston was a fairly prominent Whig. Yet the captain’s son Samuel Greenwood (1741-1826) joined the Sandemanian sect, which preached against rebellion, and became a Loyalist. (Interestingly, Samuel’s second wife was another Snelling. The captain had been business partner with their father.)

In the spring of 1774, Nathaniel Greenwood, Sr., signed a complimentary address to Gov. Thomas Hutchinson as he prepared to sail to England. He also signed a protest against actions of the Whig-dominated town meeting. That put the octogenarian captain into the Loyalist camp, at least that year. [ADDENDUM: In late 1773, during the tea crisis, Greenwood was one of the liaisons between the public meetings and the governor’s sons, who were tea importers.]

When the British military left Boston in 1776, Samuel Greenwood and his family sailed with them. But his brother Nathaniel stayed behind, and the old captain evidently stayed with him. They moved out of Boston, eventually settling in that house in Beverly. So saying that building was home to “a member of the Sons of Liberty” makes a complex picture too simple. But a muddle doesn’t sell buildings.