The Mystery of Tertias Bass

As I quoted yesterday, Abigail Adams wrote that in the spring of 1776 the only person in Braintree making saltpetre was “Mr. Tertias Bass as he is calld.” But no such name appears on the town records. Later she wrote that “Tertias Bass” was serving as lieutenant in a militia company, but no such name appears on militia records.

The answer to this mystery starts with the arrival of Deacon Samuel Bass in Braintree around 1640, one of the town’s earliest settlers. He had a lot of sons, and they had a lot of sons, and as a result a century later the town had a lot of men named Bass. When John Adams went to Philadelphia in 1775, for example, he hired a neighbor named Joseph Bass as a personal servant. The colonel in charge of Lt. Bass’s regiment was Col. Jonathan Bass.

The prevalence of that surname was especially problematic when families paired it with a common first name, and colonial New England families chose from a smaller pool of given names than we use today. One particularly popular given name was Samuel.

In that situation, the custom of the time was to distinguish the two men by:

• profession, which also carried legal weight. Thus, in 1704 the town’s tithingmen included “Samuel Bass[,] Carpenter” and “Samuel Bass[,] Cooper.”
• militia rank or other professional achievement. Braintree’s 1792 tax list included both “Ensign Samuel Bass” and “Lieutenant Samuel Bass.”
• suffixes such as “Senior,” “Junior,” and “tertius,” or third.

To make it more confusing, however, those suffixes weren’t permanent and they weren’t necessarily indications of a father-son relationship. “Samuel Bass, Jr.” was simply the younger of the two Samuel Basses doing business in town at the time. When the older one died, he became “Samuel Bass,” or “Samuel Bass, Sr.” if there were others younger than him. So the same man could be designated in different ways on documents only a few years apart.

This genealogy page reports a 1761 will witnessed by “Samuel Bass (tertius).” In 1785 Braintree chose “Mr. Samuel Bass, 3rd” as a selectman. Were those the same man, twenty-four years apart, or had the “tertius/3rd” designation been passed down from one man to another? I’m not sure. But I didn’t find any other Braintree Basses using that suffix.

It’s striking that Abigail Adams’s letters from 1776 indicate that one local Bass was known to his neighbors by the suffix “Tertius” as if that were his given name. Presumably he had been the third-oldest Samuel Bass in town at birth and grew up behind two others for so long that people got used to calling him “Tertius.” (Or “Tertias” in Adams’s spelling.)

There’s a very early published genealogy of the Bass family from 1835 listing multiple Samuels alive in 1776, and local and family historians have added more. Was “Tertius” the Samuel Bass reportedly held prisoner by the British military? The Samuel Bass who helped found Braintree, Vermont?

I was ready to give up on nailing down “Tertias Bass” until I stumbled across a piece of juicy gossip from Abigail Adams’s sister.

TOMORROW: Hmm. Should I share that?

“Get a Horse for Pappa.”

In August 1776, Abigail Adams realized that if she wanted her husband John to come home from the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, she would have to make the trip possible. Procuring his own horses was too hard for him—perhaps because everyone expected a big battle around New York.

So on 22 August, Abigail reported that she had convinced a neighbor named Bass—probably Joseph Bass, who had worked as John’s servant in 1775—to ride to Philadelphia with an extra horse and accompany John home. As to those horses:

I shall write to my Father to request of him that he would endeavour to procure for you a couple of Horses. I shall try some other Friends and will fix of Bass as soon as tis possible to procure Horses for you. . . .

As to applying to —— [she probably meant the Massachusetts government] for Horses, I remember the old proverb, he who waits for dead mens shooes may go barefoot. It would only lengthen out the time, and we should be no better of, than before I askd. I will have them if they are to be had at any price, and they may pay for them. I think you have done your part.

Abigail had other worries on her mind. Nabby, Charly, and Tommy Adams were still getting over their smallpox inoculations, and they wanted their father home. On 25 August, Abigail sent John this anecdote to remind him of his paternal responsibilities:

I was talking of sending for you and trying to procure horses for you when little Charles who lay upon the couch coverd over with small Pox, and nobody knew that he heard or regarded any thing which was said, lifted up his head and says Mamma, take my Dollor and get a Horse for Pappa.

In that same letter, Abigail reported some success at finding mounts:

Our Friends are very kind. My Father [the Rev. William Smith] sends his Horse and Dr. [Cotton] Tufts has offerd me an other one he had of unkle [Quincy] about 5 year old. He has never been journeys, but is able enough. Mr. Bass is just come, and says he cannot sit out till tomorrow week without great damage to his Buisness. . . . Tho I urged him to sit of [i.e., set off] tomorrow, yet the Horses will be in a better State as they will not be used and more able to perform the journey. I am obliged to consent to his tarrying till then when you may certainly expect him.

Bass is affraid that the Drs. Horse will not be able to travel so fast as he must go. He will go and see him, and in case he is not your Brother has promised to let one of his go.

Bass finally departed with the two horses on 29 August.

On 5 Sept 1776, John wrote back:

I am rejoiced that my Horses are come. I shall now be able to take a ride. But it is uncertain, when I shall set off, for home. I will not go, at present. Affairs are too delicate and critical.

I usually admire Abigail Adams more than I sympathize with her, but in this case I feel like she deserves a free swing of the frying pan.

“Dashed the Body of the Sulky all to Pieces”

So what did John Adams have to say about the Massachusetts delegates’ entrance into New York on 7 May 1775? Unlike John Hancock and Silas Deane, he didn’t write home about how the crowd had tried to honor those men by unhitching their horses and pulling their carriages along.

For one thing, Adams didn’t have a carriage, only a “sulky,” or two-wheeled cart, borrowed from his father-in-law, the Rev. William Smith. For another, his servant Joseph Bass seems to have been riding in it alone; Adams was apparently in another delegate’s carriage. But most important, things hadn’t gone so well for him.

On 8 May 1775, John told his wife Abigail:

Jose Bass met with a Misfortune, in the Midst of some of the unnecessary Parade that was made about us. My Mare, being galled with an ugly Buckle in the Tackling, suddenly flinched and started in turning short round a Rock, in a shocking bad Road, overset the sulky which frightened her still more. She ran, and dashed the Body of the Sulky all to Pieces. I was obliged to leave my sulky, ship my Bagage on board Mr. [Thomas] Cushings Carriage, buy me a Saddle and mount on Horse back. I am thankfull that Bass was not kill'd. He was in the utmost danger, but not materially hurt.

I am sorry for this Accident, both on Account of the Trouble and Expence, occasioned by it. I must pay your Father for his sulky. But in Times like these, such Little Accidents should not affect us.

When the delegates entered Philadelphia a few days later, the Loyalist Samuel Curwen noted “John Hancock and Samuel Adams in a phaeton and pair,...John Adams and Thomas Cushing in a single horse chaise; behind followed Robert Treat Paine, and after him the New York delegation and some from the Province of Connecticut etc. etc.”

(The thumbnail above is Carl Rakeman’s vision of the Boston Post Road in 1763, painted for the Bureau of Public Roads sometime between 1921 and 1952. The man in the chaise is supposed to be Benjamin Franklin, the woman on horseback his daughter.)

Entering New York in Proper Style

I’m on a trip to California right now, so I’m devoting a few days to John and Abigail Adams’s epistolary conversations about travel in 1775-76.

In May 1775, less than a month after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, John headed off to Philadelphia for the new session of the Continental Congress. He hired a young neighbor named Joseph Bass to come along as his servant, and traveled in company with the other Massachusetts delegates. The most prominent of that group were John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who had supposedly enjoyed a narrow escape from the British troops at Lexington. (I don’t think they really did.)

In Connecticut the Massachusetts linked up with some of the representatives of that colony and Rhode Island. A great crowd awaited the string of carriages and sulkies when they arrived in New York on 7 May 1775.

That evening, Hancock wrote to his fiancée, Dorothy Quincy:

When I got within a mile of the City my Carriage was stopt, and Persons appearing with proper Harnesses insisted upon Taking out my Horses and Dragging me into and through the City, a Circumstance I would not have had Taken place upon any consideration, not being fond of such Parade.

I Beg’d and Intreated that they would Suspend the Design, and ask’d it as a favour, and the Matter Subsided, but when I got to the Entrance of the City, and the Numbers of Spectators increas’d to perhaps Seven Thousand or more, they Declar’d they would have the Horses out and would Drag me themselves through the City. I repeated my Request, and I was obliged to apply to the Leading Gentlemen in the procession to intercede with them not to Carry their Designs into Execution; as it was very disagreeable to me. They were at last prevail’d upon and I preceded.

Samuel Adams’s family preserved a different memory of such an occasion—possibly this one, possibly some other time—which reflected better on their ancestor and less well on his traveling companion:

The people were attempting to take the horses from the carriage, in order to drag it themselves. Mr. Adams remonstrated against it. His companion, pleased with the intended compliment, was desirous of enjoying it, and endeavored to remove the objection of Mr. Adams, to which he at last replied: “If you wish to be gratified with so humiliating a spectacle, I will get out and walk, for I will not countenance an act by which my fellow-citizens shall degrade themselves into beasts.” This prevented its execution.

And Silas Deane of Connecticut told his wife that he’d shared in the tribute offered to all the Congress delegates:

A little dispute arose as we came near the town, the populace insisting on taking out our horses and drawing the carriages by hand. This would have relieved Mr. Hancock’s horses, for they were well tired; but mine were with difficulty managed amid the crowd, smoke and noise.

Obviously, it was a great honor to have the populace offer to pull your carriage, but it was incumbent upon you to adamantly refuse.

TOMORROW: And what was John Adams’s report on that occasion?