Chandler on Stamp Act Protests in New England, 1 Nov.

On Wednesday, 1 November, Abby Chandler will speak to the North Andover Historical Society about her new book, Seized with the Temper of the Times: Identity and Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary America.

As Chandler explained in an interview at the Journal of the American Revolution:

My original plan was to write a biography of Martin Howard who was a Loyalist from Rhode Island who later became the Chief Justice of North Carolina. He refused to disavow his loyalty to Britain in Rhode Island in 1765 and again in North Carolina in 1777 and had to flee for his life both times.

The reason I found him interesting was because the arguments that he made for supporting the British Empire are rooted in the same political traditions used by the men who argued in favor of revolting against the British Empire. . . .

The problem, however, with studying a man who had to abandon everything twice and died in exile is that he left very few documents explaining his thought processes.

So Chandler’s book became a study of the political movements swirling around Howard. Both Rhode Island and North Carolina were overshadowed by large neighboring colonies that became known for leading resistance to the Crown. Yet arguably each of those smaller colonies saw more resistance to authority in the pre-war period. And they were also the last two holdouts against the Constitution.

For the North Andover Historical Society, Chandler will focus on the Stamp Act protests of 1765, and how the movement in Rhode Island played out. While the Crown had appointed Francis Bernard to be governor of Massachusetts, and he felt a duty to enforce the new tax, Rhode Island elected Gov. Samuel Ward. He refused royal instructions to uphold that law. While Bostonians targeted the house of the appointed lieutenant governor, Thomas Hutchinson, in August 1765, Newporters had to find a different sort of target for their wrath—which is where Martin Howard comes in.

Abby Chandler is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She serves on the 250th American Revolution Anniversary Commission in Massachusetts. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing her speak at many forums, most recently this summer’s History Camp Boston.

This talk is scheduled to start at 7:30 P.M. in the Stevens Center on the Common, 800 Massachusetts Avenue, North Andover. Register through this site.

Chandler on Martin Howard in Newport, 12 Jan.

On Thursday, 12 January, the Newport Historical Society will host Abby Chandler speaking on “The Life and Times of Martin Howard.”

Howard was the rare Loyalist who before the Revolutionary War managed to tick off his Whig neighbors in two separate colonies. The event description says:

During this lecture, Dr. Chandler will explore Martin Howard’s life from his time in Newport, when he inhabited the Newport Historical Society’s Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House in the mid-eighteenth century, to his time in North Carolina where he served as the colony’s Chief Justice and his final years in London.

She will share how his political position placed him in firm opposition to many Newport residents during the 1765 Stamp Act crisis, how this led to his decision to flee his Rhode Island home after his house was attacked, his figure was hung in effigy and publicly burned.

Chandler is a professor of early American history at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, researching a book on political unrest in British North America during the 1760s. She is already the author of Law and Sexual Misconduct in New England, 1650-1750: Steering Toward England.

This program will take place at the Newport Historical Society Resource Center at 82 Touro Street,  starting at 5:30 P.M. Admission is $1 for members, $5 for others. Reserve a seat online at NewportHistory.org or call 401-841-8770.

“Left her three years ago in a condition almost helpless”

Yesterday we left Eunice Hazard and her children in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1779 after her husband Thomas evacuated the town with the British military.

In February 1782 she described her situation in a petition to the Rhode Island Assembly:

that she is the wife of Thomas Hazard, late of Narragansett, now a refugee in New York; that the said Thomas Hazard left her three years ago in a condition almost helpless, with seven young children, one of them at the breast, and the rest unable to subsist themselves; and that from that time to this, she has encountered many difficulties in bringing up and supporting the said children, and hath at length exhausted all the resources in her power, and expended not only what remained in her hands of her said husband’s effects, but also nearly the whole of what came to her particular use from the estate of her late honored father; and thereupon she prayed this Assembly to take her unhappy case under consideration, and extend unto her and her children such grace and favor as may seem meet, and in particular to grant her that house and lot of land lying in Newport, which was her said husband’s late estate…

Eunice was a genteel descendant of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams, so she commanded sympathy. Pending their final decision, the legislature ordered the official managing the Hazard estate to give her the current year’s rent.

That vote was striking since the state had decreed in July 1780 that Thomas Hazard had “joined the enemy.” Which he had. He had supported the British army during the occupation of Newport by raiding the New England coast for livestock.

Furthermore, in that same month of July 1780, as Christian M. McBurney reveals in Spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island, Hazard had landed back in Rhode Island to gather information on the newly arrived French fleet. After four days stranded behind enemy lines, Hazard escaped back to New York. He then drew a map of the French warships and land defenses that survives in Gen. Sir Henry Clinton’s papers.

In September 1780, Hazard was setting up a military unit at Manor St. George on Long Island. Maj. Benjamin Tallmadge, Continental dragoons officer and spy manager, raided that site in November. The Americans carried off at least one of Hazard’s soldiers—a black man named Misick Parlay.

Despite her husband’s work, in November 1782 the Rhode Island Assembly decided that Eunice Hazard could have his property. But only that part remaining after some was “surrendered to the creditors of the said Thomas Hazard.” And only after she paid the state for “a debt due from the said estate to Martin Howard, Jr.,” apparently the same man who had been colony’s stamp agent in 1765.

Several months later, the war ended. And Thomas Hazard decided to return to his family.

TOMORROW: So how did that go?

“I related to him the Disposition of the Inhabitants”

As we recall, late on the night of 1 Nov 1765, an anti-Stamp Act mob in New York destroyed the home of Maj. Thomas James of the Royal Artillery.

Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden and Gen. Thomas Gage sent James home to Britain to report on what had happened to him and to seek compensation.

Sometime in early 1766 the major wrote back to Colden explaining how his arrival had affected the debate over the next several weeks about how to revise the Stamp Act:

So soon as I arrived in London on the 10th December I waited on General [Henry Seymour] Conway [the Secretary of State in charge of North America, shown here] with the Dispatch you honourd me with

I related to him the Disposition of the Inhabitants before they ever knew of the Stamp Act having passd the House of Commons, and so lead him on untill I embarq’d and saild on the 8th of November

General Conway was astonish’d and would have taken me to the King that very Day had I been fit to have been seen—

I have gone through many Examinations; and it is impossible to conceive the pains and Trouble the Americans have taken to obtain a Repeal, no Stone has been left unturn’d, many Accusations have been laid to my Charge, all which I have answerd to His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester Privy Council, Lords and Commons; for I was two hours and a half at the Bar of the House—

The House were engaged in Reading American Letters being in Number 400!—with every paper from the American Press with all their Pamphlets &c from Tuesday Wednesday and Friday five in the afternoon.

James reported that Parliament called three other witnesses from North America besides himself: “Dr. Moffatt Mr. Howard and Col Mercer.” Which is to say:

• Dr. Thomas Moffatt and Martin Howard of Newport, Rhode Island.
• George Mercer of Virginia.

All four men had suffered from anti-Stamp mobs in the preceding months (though only Mercer had been a designated stamp agent). Together they reported that there had been riots in most of the biggest colonies, and that when they had left North America it looked like several colonial governments would not be able to enforce the Stamp Act at all.

TOMORROW: A report from the American Customs service.

“A new Fire” in Newport

Yesterday I broke off the news from Newport with the resignation of Augustus Johnston as stamp-tax collector on the morning of 29 Aug 1765.

The town did not stay calm, as the Newport Mercury reported:

Next Morning the Stamp Master’s Resignation being publickly read, the People announced their Joy by repeated Huzza’s, &c. and the Storm ceased.

Things, however, did not continue long in this easy State: An Irish young Fellow, who had been but a few Days in the Town, stood forth, like Massaniello, openly declared that he was at the Head of the Mob the preceding Night, and triumphed in the Mischief that was done. Some Gentlemen, to prevent any further Evil, thought it best to seize immediately upon this Desperadoe, and put him on board the Man of War, which they accordingly did: But this, instead of answering the desired Purpose, kindled a new Fire.

The Mob began again to collect; and a Number of Persons, who, it seemed, were not before concerned, were so irritated as his being carried on board the Man of War, that it became necessary to bring him on Shore again. This was done; and upon his promising immediately to quit the Government [i.e., leave the colony], he was released, and the Night passed without any Tumult.

The Morning following [30 August], Massaniello appeared again in the public Streets, boldly declaring himself to have been the Ringleader of the Mob, and threatning Destruction to the Town, more particularly to the Persons and Houses of those who seized him the preceeding Day, unless they made him Presents agreeable to his Demands.

The Attorney-General, who was the late Stamp-Master, being met and insulted by him, heroically seized upon him; and some Gentlemen running to his Assistance, they carried him off to Goal. This proved effectual;—nobody appeared to rescue him, nor to say a Word in his Favour. He is now under Confinement;—the Town is again in Peace, and we sincerely wish it my continue so.

The whole situation had gone topsy-turvy twice. First, the “Gentlemen” merchants who had led the town’s anti-Stamp protest turned against the self-proclaimed leader of the mob that followed. They put that young man on board the same Royal Navy ship as Martin Howard and Dr. Thomas Moffatt, two targets of that protest. That left him in danger of impressment, so the Newport crowd turned against those local merchants until they brought him back to town.

But then the young man kept threatening disorder, enough to be arrested by the colony’s Attorney General—none other than the central target of that anti-Stamp protest three days before. Johnston had resigned as stamp master and was now helping to stifle class conflict, so the local gentry accepted him again. (As I noted yesterday, the populace was also more lenient on Johnston than on Howard and Moffatt, so he might have had more social capital built up overall.)

One thing that didn’t change was how the other two Newport protest targets were still unwelcome. The 2 September Mercury concluded: “The Ship Friendship, Capt. Lindsey, sailed for England Yesterday. Doctor Thomas Moffat, and Martin Howard, jun, Esq; of this Town, went Passengers.”

The same issue of the Newport Mercury contained this advertisement.

Howard’s house is now the Newport Historical Society’s Revolution House. In London the Crown government gave both supporters new patronage positions, Howard as Chief Justice in North Carolina and Moffatt as a Customs official in New London, Connecticut.

COMING UP: Who was that “Irish young Fellow”?

“They soon returned to the Charge with redoubled Fury”

Yesterday I quoted the 2 Sept 1765 Newport Mercury’s description of the Rhode Island capital’s anti-Stamp Act protest on 27 August. Locals hung up effigies of stamp agent Augustus Johnston and supporters Martin Howard, Jr. (shown here), and Dr. Thomas Moffatt, and then burned those effigies when night fell.

It all seemed to be over. The newspaper went on to a paragraph about assembly elections. But then there were more disturbances, perhaps inspired by news of the destruction of Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s house in Boston on 26 August.

The Mercury resumed its reporting:

Early on Wednesday Evening [28 August], as four Gentlemen, among whom was Martin Howard, jun. Esq; were walking down Queen Street, a Person, in Consequence of a private Pique, assaulted one of them, who soon disengaged himself, and retreated. The other Gentlemen manifested some Resentment in his Behalf; but the Return they met with, induced them to withdraw, and go towards Mr. Howard’s House.

An Account of this Affair immediately spread among the People, a Mob collected, and marched directly to Mr. Howard’s; and not finding the Gentlemen there, they shattered some of the Windows, and went off. But not satisfied with the Mischief they had done, they soon returned to the Charge with redoubled Fury, broke the Windows and Doors all to Pieces, damaged the Partitions of the House, and ruined such Furniture as was left in it, the best Part being happily removed out between the Attacks.

This being done, the Mob drew off, and proceeded to the hired House that Doctor Moffatt lived in, where they committed Outrages equally terrible, in tearing the House in Pieces, and demolishing his Furniture. The Cellars of both Houses were ravaged, and the Provisions, Wines, &c. destroyed and lost.—

From the Doctor’s they went in Quest of the Gentleman first aimed at, who had luckily, by that Time, got on board the Cygnet Man of War, which lay upon the Back of the Fort.

After this, they surrounded the House of the then Stamp-Master; but upon Promises of his resigning that Office, they offered no Violence to his Habitation.—It was near Eleven o’Clock when they were about to perform this last Act of Devastation; but desisting from this they contented themselves with rendering more complete the Ruin of the two Houses aforementioned.——

The London journalist John Almon later published a report with more detail about the crowd’s interaction with the stamp master, though he didn’t get the man’s name right:

They then proceeded towards the house of Augustine Johnston, Esq; who had been appointed stamp-master for Rhode Island, but were met and parlied with by a gentleman, who, telling them the house was not Mr. Johnston’s property, they desisted from any farther attempts, but insisted that Mr. Johnston’s effects should be delivered to them next day, unless he would resign his place, which he did on his coming to town next day, in the following terms, and then they dispersed:

To the Inhabitants of the town of Newport,
Gentlemen,

As I find my being appointed the stamp-officer of this colony has irritated the people of this town against me, though the office was bestowed on me unasked and unthought of; and being willing, as far as it is in my power, to restore tranquility to the town, do engage, upon my honour, that I will not accept of the said office, upon any terms, unless I have your consent for the same.

Augustine Johnston.
August 29, 1765.

In Boston, the mob on 26 August had been dissuaded from attacking Charles Paxton’s house by his landlord, as discussed here. Someone evidently made a similar claim for Johnston’s house, but I’m not sure that was true: according to this page, he inherited the house from his grandfather in 1765. And the Newporters didn’t mind tearing apart Dr. Moffatt’s “hired house.”

In another respect, the Newport crowd behaved like the Boston crowd two nights before: they didn’t focus all their anger on the stamp-tax collector but attacked other men who supported Parliament’s new taxes. A lot of Newport’s Customs officials also took refuge on the Royal Navy’s Cygnet that night; among them was John Robinson, who later moved to Boston and got into a brawl with James Otis, Jr., in 1769.

TOMORROW: But that still wasn’t the end of it.

Anti-Stamp Act Protests in Rhode Island

Public protests against the Stamp Act spread outside of Boston in August 1765 so quickly that I’ve fallen behind the sestercentennial anniversaries of those events.

Since the Newport Historical Society is commemorating that port town’s protests with a reenactment today, I’m focusing on the events in Rhode Island.

On 24 August, ten days after the first protest at Boston’s Liberty Tree, A Providence Gazette Extraordinary appeared. William Goddard (1740-1817) had stopped publishing this newspaper in May. This special issue was “Printed by S. and W. Goddard,” the “S.” being William’s mother Sarah (c. 1701-1770).

Sarah Goddard resumed the weekly publication of the paper in 1766 as “Sarah Goddard, and Company.” From January 1767 to 1769, the colophon clarified that she printed “(In the Absence of William Goddard),” the son having gone on to other cities. Finally she sold the business to employee John Carter, who maintained the paper for decades to follow. Her daughter, Mary Katherine Goddard, established a print shop in Baltimore.

That issue of the Providence Gazette was extraordinary indeed, being almost entirely devoted to one political cause:

• Above the masthead it proclaimed, “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” (“The Voice of the People is the Voice of God”).
• The essays were all about the problems with the Stamp Act, including a paragraph from Isaac Barré’s speech in Parliament.
• The news was all about anti-Stamp Act protests in Boston and Connecticut, and similar disturbances in Britain.
• The paper printed five resolutions from the Providence town meeting modeled on the resolutions that the Virginia House of Burgesses had reportedly passed that spring.
• The last page described a new paper mill that the Goddards were helping to build outside Providence—a business potentially at odds with the Stamp Act.

In his history of the Revolution, the Rev. William Gordon wrote that “Effigies were also exhibited; and in the evening cut down and burnt by the populace” in Providence on this date, but I haven’t found any confirmation of that.

Instead, the next big development in Rhode Island appears to have happened down in Newport on 27 August. Here’s the description of that day published in the 2 September Newport Mercury:

Last Tuesday Morning a Gallows was erected in Queen-Street, just below the Court-House, whereon the Effigies of three Gentlemen were exhibited, one of whom was a Distributor of Stamps, which was placed in the Center. The other two were suspected of countenancing and abetting the Stamp Act.

Various Labels were affixed to their Breasts, Arms, &c. denoting the Cause of these indignant Representations, and the Persons who were the Subjects of Derision.—They hung from Eleven o’Clock till about Four, when some Combustibles being placed under the Gallows, a Fire was made, and the Effigies consumed, amidst the Acclamations of the People.—The whole was conducted with Moderation, and no Violence was offered to the Persons or Property of any Man.

A report published in London later that year offered some more physical details: “about nine o’clock in the morning, the people of Newport, in Rhode Island, brought forth the effigies of three persons, in a cart, with halters about their necks, to a gallows, twenty feet high.”

Notably, the Mercury didn’t identify the three “Persons who were the Subjects of Derision,” even by initials. But everyone in town knew who they were:

• Rhode Island’s stamp-tax collector, Augustus Johnston (c. 1729-1790).
• Martin Howard, Jr. (1725–1781), a lawyer who had written a pamphlet titled A Letter from a Gentleman at Halifax to His Friend in Rhode Island, supporting the Stamp Act—a very rare position for an American to take.
• Dr. Thomas Moffatt (c. 1702–1787), another supporter of stronger royal government.

Moffatt later identified three merchants—Samuel Vernon (1711-1792), William Ellery (1727-1820), and Robert Crook—as guarding the spectacle from local officials, just as the Loyall Nine did in Boston. The doctor also said that to build a crowd they “sent into the streets strong Drink in plenty with Cheshire cheese and other provocatives to intemperance and riot.” Yet that day ended with no other destruction than the burning of the effigies.

TOMORROW: But it wasn’t over yet.

Stamp Act Riot and More in Newport, 29 Aug.

The Newport Historical Society has its own Stamp Act sestercentennial commemoration this month, scheduled for the afternoon of Saturday, 29 August.

Starting at 1:00 P.M., there will be a big public reenactment in downtown Newport. The society’s announcement says:

Visitors can meet with craftspeople whose businesses were once present on Washington Square, such as a printer, tailor and milliner, along with historic interpreters portraying specific figures including sailors, rabble rousers and even prominent citizens like the Ellerys and Vernons. Events include an upper-class lady’s tea and children’s games; reenactments include an effigy demonstration much like the original protest and a “rank sacking” of the Society’s house museum, and will close with street theater in front of the Colony House.

Newport’s Stamp Act protests closely followed the model of events in Boston on 14 August. On 27 August, people paraded with effigies of the stamp agents, one of whom—Martin Howard (1725-1781)—was also the principal author of one of the only American pamphlets to argue that the new law was constitutional.

As night fell, citizens became more violent. They roughed up Customs official John Robinson. Howard intervened, making himself even less popular. The next night, a crowd broke into Howard’s house and chopped apart his furniture, then his doors, then his trees. Howard went aboard a British ship and left the colony. The Crown compensated him with an appointment as a judge in North Carolina. Robinson was made a Customs Commissioner based in Boston, where in late 1769 he got into a coffee-house brawl with James Otis, Jr.

Alongside its reenactment of these disturbances, the society is reinterpreting its circa-1697 Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House as a museum of the American Revolution in Newport rather than a traditional house museum. The first exhibit opens tomorrow, 9 August: “Revolution House: John G. Wanton and Newport at War.” Wanton took possession of the house in the fall of 1765 after the sudden departure of its previous owner—Martin Howard.

General admission is free through Friday, 11:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. (Donations welcome.) After that, Revolution House will become part of the regular tour of the Newport Historical Society’s sites.

News from Newport

The Newport Historical Society is commemorating the city’s Stamp Act protests of late August 1765.

The society has created an online timeline of the protests, where the above clipping from the Newport Mercury comes from. The three effigies represented stamp agent (and Rhode Island attorney general) Augustus Johnston and two men who had written in favor of the law and stronger central authority, Dr. Thomas Moffatt and lawyer Martin Howard.

Today at 11:00 A.M., the Newport History Tours collaboration offers a walking tour titled “The Stamp Act Riot and the Road to Revolution,” going past some of the sites involved in those protests. That costs $15 per person; call 401-841-8770 to see if there are still spaces.

Next Saturday, 23 August, starting at 1:00 P.M., a team of reenactors will stroll the Old Quarter of Newport, chatting with visitors about the new Stamp Act. In the late afternoon those pedestrians will congregate in front of the Colony House on Washington Square, and the action will escalate into a riot. Perhaps some houses will be mobbed, as in 1765.

Attending the outdoor reenactment is free, though the society welcomes any donations. Immediately afterward, from 5:00 to 7:00 P.M., the society with host a Stamp Act party; admission to that is $25, or $20 for members, and presumably there will be no mobbing.

Newport’s “Revolution House” Coming in 2015

The Newport Historical Society reports it will reinterpret its Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House as “Revolution House.” Rather than continue to present that building as a standard house museum, it will use it to tell the history of Newport in the American Revolution.

“Revolution House” will open next summer. In the meantime, the society has launched a new “Revolutionary Newport” website. And on Saturday, 23 August, it will commemorate the anniversary of when in 1765 the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House was almost sacked because it was then home to Martin Howard, stamp tax collector. There will be a reenactor-led public “riot” and other programs.

The society’s press release argues that the first violent resistance of the Revolution took place in Rhode Island:

In the wake of the Sugar Act of 1764, violence broke out when colonists took over Fort George on Goat Island, off the far end of Long Wharf, and fired cannon on the British ship St. John whose crew allegedly stole merchandise from Newport businesses but which was also enforcing tax laws against local ships.

More violence erupted in 1765 when a long boat from the British ship the Maidstone was captured by an angry mob, dragged through the streets, and set fire in the square. This ship had been impressing Rhode Islanders into the British Navy, that is, capturing them and forcing them to serve on British ships, a common but highly unpopular practice of the British here and elsewhere.

In 1769 Newporters destroyed the British revenue sloop the Liberty. After harshly questioning the captains of two ships out of Connecticut, the Captain of the Liberty was surrounded by an angry mob of Newporters and forced to bring his crew in from the ship. Locals boarded the empty ship, cut it loose and it floated around the Point where it was stripped and burned. London protested to Rhode Island officials, but decided to let the matter drop.

And lastly there was the burning of the Gaspee, a Royal Navy ship, in 1772, after it had stopped the Hannah, out of Newport.

I’d argue that the 1764 and 1765 events weren’t really part of the Revolution because there was an ongoing conflict between mariners and officers of the Customs service and Royal Navy. In 1747, for example, Boston was shut down by riots over impressment. The Liberty and Gaspee riots are easier to link the new Crown taxes and duties that brought on the Revolution.

Still, Rhode Island deserves credit for destroying three government ships in less than a decade, and getting away with that. The closest Bostonians were able to match that was burning a small boat belonging to Customs official Joseph Harrison in 1768.

But Rhode Island was already known as a hard place to enforce the law. In contrast to Massachusetts, the governor was elected locally, not appointed by the king, and the harbor was much bigger and harder to patrol. I get the impression that Crown officials didn’t try so hard down there because they knew they couldn’t win.