“All possible exertions to stem the current of the mob”

Richard Clarke and Sons weren’t the only merchants tapped by the East India Company to import tea into Boston in 1773. The others were:

• Business partners Benjamin Faneuil, Jr. (1730-1787) and Joshua Winslow (1737-1775).
• Thomas Hutchinson, Jr. (1740-1811), and his brother Elisha (1745-1824). They were sons of royal governor Thomas Hutchinson, who had invested about £1,000 in their business—what some of us today would call a conflict of interest. 

Those firms didn’t treat each other as competitors. In fact, Richard Clarke was Joshua Winslow’s uncle by marriage. Winslow and the Hutchinsons were third cousins. Everyone was in close contact with the governor.

When all three firms received the unwelcome invitation to Liberty Tree on 3 Nov 1773 that I quoted yesterday, they agreed to act in concert. The Clarkes later wrote:

The gentlemen who are supposed the designed factors for the East India Compy, viz: Mr. Thos. Hutchinson, Mr. Faneuil, Mr. Winslow & Messrs. Clarke, met in the forenoon of the 3rd instant, at the latter’s warehouse, the lower end of King Street. Mr. Elisha Hutchinson was not present, owing to a misunderstanding of our intended plan of conduct, but his brother engaged to act in his behalf.

You may well judge that none of us ever entertained the least thoughts of obeying the summons sent us to attend at Liberty Tree. After a consultation amongst ourselves and friends, we judged it best to continue together, and to endeavour, with the assistance of a few friends, to oppose the designs of the mob, if they should come to offer us any insult or injury. And on this occasion, we were so happy as to be supported by a number of gentlemen of the first rank.

There appear to have been over a dozen friends and supporters in the Clarkes’ warehouse, in addition to the family and the other importers.

About one o’clock, a large body of people appeared at the head of King Street, and came down to the end, and halted opposite to our warehouse. Nine persons came from them up into our countingroom, viz: Mr. [William] Molineux, Mr. Wm. Dennie, Doctor [Joseph] Warren, Dr. [Benjamin] Church, Major [Nathaniel] Barber, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Gabriel Johonnot, Mr. [Edward] Proctor, and Mr. Ezekiel Cheever.

Caleb H. Snow’s 1825 History of Boston didn’t list anyone named Henderson on this impromptu committee. Francis S. Drake’s Tea Leaves identified this man as Henderson Inches, and Bernhard Knollenberg’s Growth of the American Revolution, 1766-1775 guessed he was tax collector Benjamin Henderson.

This man was almost certainly Joseph Henderson, who this same week signed a letter asking the selectmen to call an urgent town meeting about the tea tax. On that document his name appears right below those of Samuel Adams, Church, and Proctor. Henderson was then a merchant and proprietor of Long Wharf; later he became commissary of prisoners and sheriff of Suffolk County. (Interestingly, John Rowe wrote that in July 1771 a crowd “Routed the Whores” at a waterfront house that Henderson owned.)

Henry Pelham estimated the crowd behind that committee of nine as “about 300 People.” A similar crowd, including most of the town’s top elected officials, were waiting behind at Liberty Tree. The Clarkes’ report goes on:

Mr. Molineux, as speaker of the above Comtte., addressed himself to us, and the other gentlemen present, the supposed factors to the East India Comy. and told us that we had committed an high insult on the people, in refusing to give them that most reasonable satisfaction which had been demanded in the summons or notice which had been sent us, then read a paper proposed by him, to be subscribed by the factors, importing that they solemnly promise that they would not land or pay any duty on any tea that should be sent by the East I. Comy, but that they would send back the tea to England in the same bottom, which extravagant demand being firmly refused, and treated with a proper contempt by all of us, Mr. Molineux then said that since we had refused their most reasonable demands, we must expect to feel, on our first appearance, the utmost weight of the people’s resentment, upon which he and the rest of the Comtte. left our countingroom and warehouse, and went to and mixed with the multitude that continued before our warehouse.

Soon after this, the mob having made one or two reverse motions to some distance, we perceived them hastening their pace towards the store, on which we ordered our servant to shut the outward door; but this he could not effect although assisted by some other persons, amongst whom was Nathaniel Hatch, Esqr. one of the Justices of the inferior Court for this country, and a Justice of the Peace for the county.

Nathaniel Hatch (1723-1784) was born in Dorchester and graduated from Harvard in 1742. He became a bureaucrat, accumulating royal appointments: clerk of the Massachusetts Superior Court, comptroller of the Customs office, justice of the peace and of the quorum, member of a commission to wind down the Land Bank. In 1771 he was seated on the Suffolk County court of common pleas, and at the end of 1772 Thomas Hutchinson, Jr., joined him on that bench.

Hatch also had a family tie to at least one tea agent. In 1768 his stepdaughter Elizabeth Lloyd had married Joshua Loring, Jr., whose sister was the wife of Joshua Winslow.

This genm. made all possible exertions to stem the current of the mob, not only by declaring repeatedly, and with a loud voice, that he was a magistrate, and commanded the people, by virtue of his office, and in his Majesty’s name, to desist from all riotous proceedings, and to disperse [i.e., he read the Riot Act], but also by assisting in person; but the people not only made him a return of insulting & reproachful words, but prevented his endeavors, by force and blows, to get our doors shut, upon which Mr. Hatch, with some other of our friends, retreated to our counting-room.

Soon after this, the outward doors of the store were taken off their hinges by the mob, and carried to some distance; immediately a number of the mob rushed into the warehouse, and endeavored to force into the counting-room, but as this was in another story, and the stair-case leading to it narrow, we, with our friends—about twenty in number—by some vigorous efforts, prevented their accomplishing their design.

The mob appeared in a short time to be dispersed, and after a few more faint attacks, they contented themselves with blocking us up in the store for the space of about an hour and a half, at which time, perceiving that much the greatest part of them were drawn off, and those that remained not formidable, we, with our friends, left the warehouse, walked up the length of King Street together, and then went to our respective houses, without any molestation, saving some insulting behavior from a few despicable persons.

Thus ended the first physical confrontation of the tea crisis in Boston. According to Gov. Hutchinson, “This seems to have been intended only as an intimation to the consignees, of what they had to expect.”

TOMORROW: Shooting on School Street.

Dr. Joseph Warren: “very desirous to go on ye Ground”

Dr. Joseph Warren was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June 1775, one of the highest-ranking Patriots (combining political and military rank) to die in the war. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress had elected Warren as its president on 31 May, and on 14 June the body also appointed him the province’s “second major general.” Naturally, Warren was quickly made a martyr figure, especially for Bostonians and for Freemasons; at the time of his death he was “Grand Master of Masons for the Continent of America”—at least according to a Scottish charter. The doctor’s prominence caused people to record and romanticize what he’d done leading up to the battle, and I’ll explore three versions of those events this week. One of the earlier and more detailed accounts appears in the notebooks of the Rev. Dr. Jeremy Belknap, founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society:

August 24, 1787. I was informed by Mr. Sheriff [Joseph] Henderson that he was one of ye Clerks of ye Board of War in the year 1775 of wh[ich] Dr Jos Warren then newly made Majr Genl was a Member. That on ye day of ye action at Bunker hill, he was very desirous to go on ye Ground and take part in ye affair, that ye other Gentn did all they could to dissuade him, alledging that his Life was of too much consequence to be exposed on that occasion. Col. (afterward Genl) [Benjamin] Lincoln offered to go & execute any orders wh[ich] he would give, as did one or 2 other Gentn. At length to deceive them he pretended that he was going to Roxbury—but went directly to Charlestown & entered the Lines. Col [William] Prescott who had the command, begged him to retire, & upon his refusal offered to resign ye Command to him. He said he would not interfere with him, & yt [i.e., that] he came only as a Volunteer. As he was binding up a wound w[hi]ch a Man had rec[eive]d in his arm the Enemy entered by storm. He Retreated a few rods with ye rest before they killed him.

Belknap wrote this down twelve years after the battle, so there had been enough time for memories to fade and little and legends to take their place. But eyewitnesses to these events were still alive, and Belknap was a good historian, gathering information for himself and for posterity rather trying to make an inspiring story. Warren’s name doesn’t appear in the records of the Provincial Congress or its Committee of Safety for 17 June 1775, so we know he probably wasn’t in those meetings. So far as I know, there are no corresponding records for the “board of war,” or council of high-ranking officers under Gen. Artemas Ward in Cambridge. But Henderson’s account seems reliable. Dr. Warren had also gone out on the lines during the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Gen. William Heath recalled:

on the plain below the [Menotomy] meeting-house...Dr. Joseph Warren,—afterwards Major-General Warren,—who kept constantly near me, and then but a few feet distant, a musket-ball from the enemy came so near his head as to strike the pin out of the hair of his ear-lock.

Warren’s bravery is admirable, but his desire for personal military glory led him to risk his life when he had important political responsibilities. As a result, on 18 June the province was missing one of its most capable leaders at a crucial time. TOMORROW: Replacing Dr. Warren.