“Go down to the ferry ways so as to see Charls”

Even after the siege of Boston began, the nearby ferries continued to operate, at least intermittently. Those boats offered ways to transmit information or goods, sometimes illicitly.

There was a ferry between Boston’s North End and Charlestown, operated by a man named Enoch Hopkins (d. 1778). On 15 June 1775, a Boston magistrate named William Stoddard wrote to James Littlefield in Watertown:

Your letter and the last, dated the 13th instant, by Mr. Hopkins, I have received. I waited on the Admiral [Samuel Graves] this morning, and have got you a fishing pass for your boat and three men, to come in and out of this harbour, which I now send you. You will carefully observe the pass; you must observe to go a fishing from Salem, before you come up here, and then you may come in and go out. I hope you will not meet with any obstruction at Salem; not forgetting, if in your power, to bring up veal, green peas, fresh butter, asparagus, and fresh salmon.

Mr. Miles went away yesterday in the afternoon, by water, in order to come to you, and we suppose he is with you before this. I hope you have received a cloak, with a bag of brown sugar, I sent over yesterday by Mr. Hopkins’s son. I have paid some of the ferrymen, and I shall pay them all for their trouble, when I have done with them. Do not pay them any thing; if you have, let me know; keep that to yourself. . . .

I wish you would send me last Monday’s newspaper, and this day’s paper. I shall be much obliged to you, if you can, before you go for Salem, send me some fresh butter, and half a bushel of green peas. I now send you two dollars in this letter, and an osnaburgh bag, by Mr. Hopkins’s son, to put the peas in. What other charges you are at I will settle with you hereafter.

On 28 July, Joseph Reed, Gen. George Washington’s military secretary, wrote about getting a secret message into Boston via “a Waterman” operating north of Boston, possibly Hopkins. And at some point during the siege, a Boston shopkeeper warned Gen. Thomas Gage that ferrymen named Hopkins and Goodwin were “as bad Rebels as any”:

I have seen them bring men over in Disguise—and they are up in Town every Oppertunity they have gathering what Intelegence they can and when they return communicate it to the Rebels the other side, and they again to the Rebel Officers.

This may be the same Enoch Hopkins who with his wife and seven children arrived in Concord as war refugees in November, as Katie Turner Getty has written about.

The British army took the Charlestown peninsula two days after the Stoddard letter above. That meant the ferry across the Charles River was fully within royal territory, and the Mystic River now defined the siege line. There were two ferries crossing the Mystic to Charlestown, one from Malden called the Penny Ferry and one from Chelsea called the Winnisimmet Ferry (spelled variously, of course).

On 6 August, British army raiders burnt the Penny Ferry landing house in Malden, and it was never rebuilt.

At Chelsea, Lt. Col. Loammi Baldwin was in charge, stationed at the ferry landing. On 28 July he became part of Reed’s chain of men sending information into Boston, and in return he sent headquarters several reports about people coming over the Winnisimmet Ferry.

As I quoted yesterday, in the summer of 1775 Dr. Benjamin Church discussed using the Winnisimmet Ferry as a conduit for information and what he really wanted, money:

If I am to Continue in your Service Major be so good to send me out a little Cash, Charly the ferry Man if you can trust him may give it me—Slyly—by heavens Major I shou’d loose my life if it was known by these people.

I attempted some time ago to write you, over Chalsey ferry but the Committy would not let me go down to the ferry ways so as to see Charls. After that I did not try but went to Newport and from thence wrote.

Clearly the local Patriot authorities (“the Committy”) understood that people might use that ferry for nefarious purposes and didn’t let Church, or probably anyone, go there alone. 

I’ve tried to identify this ferryman named “Charly” or “Charls” (or, presumably, Charles) without success. While the men granted the right to run a ferry sometimes show up in the records, Charly may well have been an employee instead.

Stymied by that route, Church instead sent information through Newport, and ultimately that led to his arrest.

TOMORROW: Church’s report on the Arnold expedition.

“Brisk Firing” along the Rivers in 1775

When we last peeked in on Malden during the siege of Boston, a British raiding party from Charlestown had crossed the Mystic River and burned the building at the Penny Ferry landing.

The Continental Army officer assigned to that spot, Capt. Eleazer Lindsey, was no help. Reports differ about whether he had gone home or took just that moment to go home in a hurry.

The British floating battery remained in the Mystic River, threatening those parts of the American siege lines.

A week later, on 13 Aug 1775, there was another exchange of fire. It started when some British boats came to resupply the floating battery. Capt. William T. Miller of Rhode Island, stationed on Prospect Hill, told his wife there were “2 Boats that were armed from Bunkers hill.” The historian Richard Frothingham later stated there were “two barges and two sail boats, on their way from Boston.”

Men guarding Malden’s ferry landing opened fire. Capt. Miller wrote that the British boats “were Drove back by the brisk firing of Some field pieces from Malden this day which Caused them in a Very great Hurry to Retreat and Run ashore on Bunkers hill Shore.”

Those small cannon might have been the two that had arrived in April from Newburyport. If so, the men firing them appear to have been a local guard rather than men from Lindsey’s company. In addition, Lt. Col. Loammi Baldwin’s soldiers at Winnisimmet in Chelsea fired on the British boats.

There were no known casualties on either side. The Continentals were quite pleased with their performance in comparison to the previous week, though presumably the redcoats would have gone back to their lines anyway.

Both Lindsey and Baldwin reported to Col. Samuel Gerrish of Newbury. His regiment was spread out over several spots along the northern wing of the siege lines. When a group of officers from the regiment sent a petition to Gen. George Washington complaining that they hadn’t been paid, they signed from the “Camps at Chelsea, Malden, Medford, and Sewells Point” near what is now the B. U. Bridge.

Gen. William Heath’s memoir records a similar British attack on that Brookline fortification a couple of weeks earlier, on 31 July:

A little before one o’clock, A.M. a British floating-battery came up the river, within 300 yards of Sewall’s Point, and fired a number of shot at the American works, on both sides of the river.

Some of the works on the Cambridge side survive as Fort Washington Park. The picture above, a detail from Henry Pelham’s map of the siege, shows the area in 1775. (Pelham’s map has north on the right.)

That attack might have been the occasion when Col. Gerrish chose not to shoot back at the British but instead told his men to hunker down behind their walls. Reportedly he said, “the rascals can do us no harm, and it would be a mere waste of powder, to fire at them with our 4 pounders.” That was the wrong attitude for an officer already under criticism for how he had behaved at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

COMING UP: Washington’s “pretty good Slam” among the officers.

“Two floating batteries came up Mystic River”

Back in June, we left the town of Malden worrying in mid-1775 about being attacked by British forces out of Charlestown, across the Mystic River.

The town had ended up with two cannon from Newburyport. Locals built earthworks near the landing of the Penny Ferry from Charlestown and strengthened the buildings there. (A comment on that June posting reminds us the ferry landing was near what’s now the Encore Casino in Everett.)

To guard that site, the Massachusetts army assigned a company of Malden men to their home town. Their leader was Capt. Naler Hatch (1731-1804), who had learned to command at sea. Locals remembered him as “a stout built man, rather rash in temper, and fiery in zeal.”

Deloraine Pendre Corey’s history of Malden says that on 23 July Christian Febiger, the Denmark-born adjutant of Col. Samuel Gerrish’s regiment in the Continental Amy, wrote of the situation at Malden:

Capt Hatch of Colo. [Thomas] Gardners Regiment is there with one Company & has to mount 20 men on Guard every Day without Officers, three Relieves is 20 men privates mounting every Day & then they have no Sentries on the River which by the Description and the Situation of the place wants at least 4 Centries every Night.

Gerrish moved Capt. Eleazer Lindsey and his company from Winnisimmet in Chelsea to strengthen that spot in Malden. Lindsey was a 59-year-old veteran of the last war from Lynn. His men had signed up from several Essex County towns.

On Sunday, 6 August, the British finally came. Lt. Benjamin Craft of Manchester, stationed at Winter Hill, wrote in his diary:

Just after [morning] meeting two floating batteries came up Mystic River and fired several shots on Malden side, and landed a number of regulars, which set fire to a house near Peny ferrys which burnt to ashes.

One Capt. Lyndsly who was stationed there, fled with his company, and got before the women and children in his flight.

We were all alarmed, and immediately manned our lines, and our people went down to Temple’s Point with one field piece, and fired several shot, at the regulars, which made them claw off as soon as possible. Gen. Gage, this is like the rest of your Sabbath day enterprises.

“Temple’s Point” was no doubt part of Robert Temple’s farm in what is now Somerville.

Katie Turner Getty described this fight in detail from the perspective of Lt. Col. Loammi Baldwin, then stationed in Chelsea, for the Journal of the American Revolution. Baldwin reported directly to Gen. George Washington:

I proceeded to Malding as quick as possable found that Capt. Lindsey was gone home, & his Company dispersd, all but a few with the Lieut. was down at the House that was Burnt[.] I went to him and enquired into the matter who Informd me that the Capt. was gone Home & near one half the Company was fled & where they were gone he could not tell, I ordred him to Rally his Company & Guard his Post which he Seem’d willing & ready to preform as far as Lay in his Power.

It appears that the lieutenant was Daniel Galeucia (also spelled Gallusia and Galushe, 1740-1825). In an odd twist, he was married to Capt. Lindsey’s daughter.

By this time the British were back over in Charlestown, parading on shore in triumph. Inside Boston, though, selectman Timothy Newell noted in his diary “several Soldiers brought over here wounded.”

COMING UP: More fighting and a court-martial or two.

How Malden Managed “Our Cannon”

On 21 Apr 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s Committee of Safety officially set up its artillery regiment by sending for Richard Gridley, Scarborough Gridley, and David Mason, three of the top four officers in that unit.

At the same time the committee voted “That the field pieces be removed from Newburyport, and deposited for the present, in the hands of Capt. [John] Dexter of Malden.” That brought those guns closer to the siege lines. Dexter was told “to conceal the cannon committed to his care.”

Three days later the committee felt cautious enough about provoking further fighting to resolve:

That the inhabitants of Chelsea and Malden be, and hereby are, absolutely forbidden, to fire upon, or otherwise injure any seamen belonging to the navy under the command of Admiral [Samuel] Graves, unless fired upon by them, until the said inhabitants of Chelsea and Malden receive orders from this committee or the general of the provincial forces so to do.

But two days after that the committee rescinded that resolution and voted:

That the inhabitants of Chelsea and Malden be hereby desired, to put themselves in the best state of defence, and exert the same in such manner, as under their circumstances, their judgments may direct.

The war was on. And indeed, there was a fight off Chelsea on 27-28 May.

As for the cannon in Malden, that story got picked up in Deloraine Pendre Corey’s History of Malden, Massachusetts (1899). For a little while the guns were hidden “in the hay in Captain Dexter’s barn,” but pretty soon everyone in Malden knew they were there. Then the townspeople started to prepare to use them.

On 13 June, the Malden town meeting voted “That some part of the Town’s stock of powder be made up in Cartridges for the Cannon to be used upon necessity.” Three days later, on 16 June, two men were sent to the army’s headquarters in Cambridge to “request that a person be sent to view our cannon, & advise where to make an Entrenchment, for our own defence.” The field-pieces that had arrived in Malden less than two months before were now “our cannon.”

Then came the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June. The British lines moved closer to Malden, and the Royal Navy was probing the Mystic River. People grew more nervous. Two days after the battle Malden voted “That Capt Daniel Waters be desired immediately to prepare ye cannon in this Town for use.”

As instructed by their neighbors, Waters and Ezra Sargeant went to the provincial congress “for direction in using the artiliry in this Town, &…orders to enlist a sufficient number of men to make use of them if necessary, & also to request some assistance from the army for our defence in our very dangerous situation.”

But by this time the provincial congress had already enlisted as many men as it could. It was shoring up the whole siege line and worrying about protecting the long Massachusetts shore as well. All they could offer Malden was free rein:

the inhabitants of the town of Maiden be [directed] to make the best use of their artillery they can, for their defence, in case they shall be attacked by the enemy, and that they make their application for assistance to the general of the army [Artemas Ward], who, doubtless, will furnish them with such detachments from the army, as they shall judge necessary and expedient.

Townspeople built earthworks near the landing place for the Penny Ferry from Charlestown, shown at the upper right of the map above. They prepared the houses near that site with “apertures” to shoot out from. And they waited.

COMING UP: Floating batteries.

Moses Brown’s Malden Christmas

In December 1775, Moses Brown led a delegation of Quakers from Rhode Island up to the Boston siege lines to bring relief to the suffering poor.

Brown and his comrades went to Gen. George Washington in Cambridge and explained how they wanted to go into Boston with money they had collected. A siege is of course an attempt to deny resources to the enemy, so the commander-in-chief couldn’t have been enthused about this idea.

Quartermaster general Thomas Mifflin was even more negative, thinking that such charity would prove unpopular with the Massachusetts populace.

In consultation with Washington and members of the Massachusetts General Court, the Quakers decided they would meet some of their contacts at the siege lines and hand over the money. But Sheriff Joshua Loring and Maj. John Small came out and told them that the poor in Boston didn’t need money and the town had adequate food.

So the Quakers went off to hand out their money to the poor people they found in Marblehead, Salem, Lynn, Chelsea, and the smallpox hospital at Point Shirley.

Soon enough it was Christmas Day, as Brown described in his report on the journey:

We went to Malden and Lodged at —— where were the Select men upstairs on business and below a Noisey Company of Soldiers fidling and Danceing after supper.

David [Buffum] and I proposed to see the Select Men and Inform them of our Business went up stairs and I spoke to them of the Noise etc not being sufferable it was not only rong in itself but contrary to Every prospect of the present time and Even the Congress Discouraged it by Resolves.

They allowed it was not agreeable but thought as they were Soldiers it must be allowed. It was what they called a Christmas frolich and they had been up all the Night before, were principaly of the Riflemen.

As an eighteenth-century Quaker, Brown didn’t celebrate Christmas. Neither did most New Englanders. But these riflemen were from the Middle Colonies, many of them transplants from Britain, and they didn’t adhere to Puritan customs. And thus we discern the limits of Moses Brown’s charity.

Malden’s Road to Revolution Retraced, 2 May

On Tuesday, 2 May, the Malden Historical Society will hold its 130th annual meeting with a special presentation titled “Malden—Steps Along the Road to Revolution.”

The event description says: “Six costumed re-enactors will portray historic Maldonians in a script based on their lives written by historian Mary Fuhrer. Learn what was in the hearts and minds of residents as the Revolution approached.” Those personae include the Rev. Peter Thacher, enslaved worker Peter Green, and militia officer’s daughter Rebecca Dexter.

Fuhrer told me more about how this program grew out of collaboration with the Freedom’s Way Heritage Association:

Freedom’s Way has a program called Patriot’s Paths that helps towns research their local records to recover local stories in the decade leading up to April 19th. Once we’ve combed town meeting, church, court, probate, newspaper, letters, memoirs, etc. for evidence, we select six real local historical personae to tell the stories of the town’s path to revolution. We craft a 40-minute script with narrator and characters, showing how the road to revolution was uneven, contingent, influenced by personalities and localities, but ultimately driven by themes that are shared across the province.

Sometimes communities don’t know their stories widely. Sometimes they do but think their stories are unique, not realizing how they parallel and connect to what other towns were doing at the same time. And in fact elements of every community’s story are unique, so research and comparison brings out those details.

The Malden Historical Society meeting is scheduled to start at 7:00 P.M. at the town’s public library, 26 Salem Street. It is free and open to the public. In addition to the presentation, there will also be an election of officers for the coming year. A reception will follow.