Commemorating the Fifth of March, 5 Mar.

This is the time of year I start posting so much about a Massacre that it’s a wonder the F.B.I. isn’t trying to decode my iPhone. But that’s because the anniversary of the Boston Massacre is coming up on the 5th of March.

This year that date falls on a Saturday, so the annual reenactment hosted by the Bostonian Society outside the Old State House Museum will take place on the exact anniversary. There’s a whole passel of activities planned for the day.

11:00 A.M. and 2:00 P.M.
Little Redcoats and Little Bostonians, interactive program for children
Learn what life was like for Bostonians and British soldiers in Boston in the months leading up to the violence on King Street. Free; at massacre marker in front the Old State House.

11:30 A.M. and 2:30 P.M.
Trial of the Century, interactive program for all ages
Watch lawyers John Adams and Josiah Quincy defend the British soldiers accused of murdering Bostonians. Audience members take on the roles of witnesses and jurors in this celebrated court case. Free with museum admission; in Representative Hall, Old State House. (Space is limited; tickets available with museum admission starting at 9:00 A.M.)

7:00 P.M.
Boston Massacre Reenactment
Witness the shootings reenacted in front of the Old State House by some of the country’s most dedicated Revolutionary-era reenactors in the very place where the event took place in 1770. Before the action unfolds, hear from radicals, friends of government, and moderates who will talk about the events and attitudes that led to that fateful night. (You can also hear me narrating the action.) Free; in front of the Old State House.

In addition, there are a couple more Massacre-related events in the days that follow.

Sunday, 6 March, 1:00 to 2:30 P.M.
Reading of Blood on the Snow
Join the Bostonian Society for a behind-the-scenes preview of the new play Blood on the Snow on the 246th anniversary of the day that political drama takes place, as acting governor Thomas Hutchinson, his Council, Lt. Col. William Dalrymple, Samuel Adams, and others debated about how the government should respond to the violence. This free reading is open to the public. With limited seating available, please sign up for tickets here. (This play will be fully staged at the Old State House in May.)

Wednesday, 9 March, 6:00 P.M.
At Old South Meeting House
Boston Massacre Orations
Each year from 1771 to 1783, Bostonians gathered by the thousands at Old South to hear commemorative speeches from such politicians as John Hancock and Dr. Joseph Warren. Come hear selected excerpts of those orations performed in the same space by an inter-generational group. This program is co-sponsored by Old South, the Bostonian Society, and the History Departments at Suffolk University and Northeastern University. It is made possible by funding from the Lowell Institute. Free and open to the public, but please register for a seat.

A King’s Chapel Anniversary

This photo and the following come from Boston tour guide and educator Ben Edwards.

This 2,437-pound Paul Revere bell at King’s Chapel was installed on February 23, 1816—exactly 200 years ago.

On October 16, 2011, we saw an 1801 Paul Revere bell raised with the aid of a giant crane into the tower of Old South. I believe that bell is 876 pounds. I attended that day, and it made me imagine what it might have been like back in 1816 raising a bell that weighed nearly three times as much!

I read that this bell replaced an earlier one that was even slightly heavier. So eighteenth-century technology got those bells up there.

The Crown Informant Inside Old South

Last week I cited a report about the November-December 1773 public meetings inside the Old South Meeting-House. Labeled “Proceedings of Ye Body Respecting the Tea,” that was created for the royal government soon after the Boston Tea Party.

Whoever wrote that report had obviously been in those meetings listening to Bostonians discussing what they should do about the East India Company’s tea and taking notes on who said what. The document is in the British National Archives.

When L. F. S. Upton first published a transcription of that report in the William and Mary Quarterly in 1965, he wrote that it was unsigned. But he added that other documents in the same handwriting were marked with the name “Colman,” and noted that the last royal Attorney General of Massachusetts, Jonathan Sewall, had cousins named Benjamin and William Colman. They stayed in New England during the war while Sewall and other Loyalists left.

This month I came across this webpage by family historian Robert Sewell offering a similar but not identical transcription. (For example, the surname of ship owner Francis Rotch is rendered as “Botch.”) Sewell wrote that that text is “copied from the Journal of Charles Randolph Montgomerie Sewell.” He was Jonathan Sewall’s great-grandson, and lived in Canada from 1829 to 1876.

Don Corbly printed that transcription in this self-published book in 2009 with a little more background information, probably from the family: Charles R. M. Sewell “recorded a great deal of family history in his Journal circa 1850, including Jonathan [Sewall]’s journal of the actions taken during the Boston Tea Party.” Several details in those introductory paragraphs are wrong, however.

I doubt Jonathan Sewall was in Old South during the tea meetings. By 1773 he was well known as an officer in the royal government, responsible for prosecuting major crimes. His presence at Old South would have attracted attention.

But because Sewall was the Attorney General of the province, it makes sense for him to have asked a cousin to attend those meetings and report back, and/or to have a copy of that report in his papers while another copy was sent to London. So this might be a further clue as to the identity of the man taking notes in Old South.

Josiah Quincy’s “clouds which now rise thick and fast”

Eliza Susan Quincy concluded her 1874 account of her grandfather’s speech in Old South Meeting-House just before the Boston Tea Party with this passage:

While Mr. [Josiah] Quincy was speaking, the men dressed as Indians, who were going to the wharves to destroy the tea, came in, and he closed with the following sentence: “I see the clouds which now rise thick and fast upon our horizon, the thunders roll, and the lightnings play, and to that God who rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm I commit my country.”

As her source, Quincy offered this note:

Two contemporaries of Mr. Quincy repeated his words on this occasion. The name of one was not distinctly remembered by his son [Eliza Quincy’s father]; but, on the 18th of June, 1852, the venerable Daniel Greenleaf, of Quincy, Massachusetts, at the age of ninety years, gave the same account, and repeated the closing sentences. He said that he was a boy in the Latin School, in Boston. The master, John Lovell, was a Tory, but James Lovell, his son and assistant, was a Whig; and, whenever the school was adjourned in consequence of public excitement, he always told the boys to go to the upper gallery in the Old South. In 1852, Mr. Greenleaf was probably the only person living who distinctly remembered the 16th of December, 1773.

Daniel Greenleaf (1762-1853) was admitted into the Lovells’ South Latin School in 1770. He became known for telling such stories in old age, according to a family history: “His memory was very retentive; he could relate almost every transaction of his long life; was full of anecdotes of revolutionary events; being then a young and active lad in immediate contact with some of the prominent actors of those times.”

In 1826 Greenleaf was one of the appraisers of John Adams’s estate, and Eliza Quincy’s father was an executor along with John Quincy Adams. Clearly Greenleaf was part of the Quincy family’s circle on the South Shore. That might have tinged his memories over more than seventy-five years.

Our contemporaneous source, the person reporting on the meeting for the royal government, didn’t mention Quincy speaking that afternoon at all, nor “men dressed as Indians” who “came in” to the meetinghouse. He heard noises outside the building and saw men leaving.

So did Josiah Quincy, Jr., say those seemingly prescient words about “clouds which now rise thick and fast upon our horizon” in December 1773? All we can say for sure is that he did think a lot about clouds, particularly as a metaphor for political turmoil.

From his 15 Sept 1768 letter to the Rev. John Eagleson:

The present aspect of the day is gloomy indeed, yet we are far from despair. Though the clouds, full charged, rise thick and fast, the thunders roll, and lightnings play, nay, it is said, are just within striking distance, there are not wanting those among us, who believe that proper conductors will safely carry off all the political fluid, the clouds disperse, and the sky soon become calm and serene.

From an essay signed “Hyperion” in the 3 Oct 1768 Boston Gazette:

British taxations, suspensions of legislatures, and standing armies, are but some of the clouds, which overshadow the northern world. Heaven grant that a grand constellation of virtues may shine forth with redoubled lustre, and enlighten this gloomy hemisphere!

From the journal of his mid-1773 sea voyage to the southern colonies:

What a transition have I made and am still making! was the exclamation of my heart. Instead of stable earth, the fleeting waters: the little hall of right and wrong is changed for the wide-expanding immeasurable ocean: instead of petty jars and waspish disputations; waves contend with waves, and billows war with billows: seas rise in wrath and mountains combat heaven; clouds engage with clouds and lightenings dart their vengefull corruscations; thunders roll and oceans roar: all other flames and distant shores, sea, air and heaven reverberate the mighty war and echo awfull sounds. . . .

Vast field for contemplation! Riches for mind and fancy! Astonishing monuments of wisdom; magnificent productions of power!

One possibility is that people assigned something Quincy often said about clouds on the political horizon to that dramatic moment on 16 Dec 1773. Another is that he really did say it (and his friends all thought, “Oh, Josiah’s going on about clouds again.”).

The Young Gentleman in the Gallery

There’s a third description of what Josiah Quincy, Jr., said in the Old South Meeting-House on 16 Dec 1773, preserved in the biography of the young lawyer authored by his descendants.

But not in the first edition of that biography, published by the subject’s son Josiah Quincy (1772-1864) in 1825. That book had little to say about the destruction of the tea, which had not yet gained fame and respect as the “Boston Tea Party.”

Instead, the anecdote first came into print in the second edition, edited by the subject’s granddaughter Eliza Susan Quincy (1798-1884) for publication almost fifty years later. (Actually, this Massachusetts Historical Society webpage says she had prepared the first edition as well, though it was published under her father’s name.)

The 1874 book says:

During the interval, speeches were made by Samuel Adams and others. Josiah Quincy, Junior, standing in the east gallery of the Old South meeting-house, spoke in a tone of bold and animated invective against the measures of the British government.

Harrison Gray [royal treasurer of Massachusetts], standing on the floor, in reply warned the young gentleman in the gallery against the consequences of the intemperate language in which he indulged, saying that such language would be no longer borne by administration; that measures were in train which would bring the authors of such invectives to the punishment they deserved.

Mr. Quincy replied, “If the old gentleman on the floor intends, by his warning to ‘the young gentleman in the gallery,’ to utter only a friendly voice in the spirit of paternal advice, I thank him. If his object be to terrify and intimidate, I despise him. Personally, perhaps, I have less concern than any one present in the crisis which is approaching. The seeds of dissolution are thickly planted in my constitution. They must soon ripen. I feel how short is the day that is allotted to me.”

The remarks about “my constitution” alluded to the tuberculosis Quincy was suffering from, but also brought up thoughts of the British constitution. Was it also doomed to dissolution?

Two days ago, I quoted a report of that meeting written by a Crown informant inside Old South. It didn’t describe Quincy speaking “against the measures of the British government,” even though the informant’s job was to pay attention to such remarks. It didn’t mention Harrison Gray, a royal appointee by then firmly on the side of the Crown, at all.

That report did say Quincy was heckled, but it described the voice coming down from the gallery, not directed up to it. And that voice insinuated that Quincy had taken money to support the Rotch family, not that he was using “intemperate language.”

So was that exchange between Quincy and a suspicious radical transmuted by memory into this back-and-forth between Quincy and a leading Loyalist?

TOMORROW: Quincy looks at clouds from both sides.

Quincy’s Speech in Quincy’s Words

Our next source for what lawyer Josiah Quincy, Jr., said in Old South Meeting-House during the tea meetings of December 1773 comes from Quincy himself.

In a letter to his wife Abigail, written in London on 14 Dec 1774, Quincy described the impending confrontation between Massachusetts and the imperial government:

Your countrymen must seal their cause with their blood. You know how often and how long ago I said this. I see every day more and more reason to confirm my opinion. Surely, my countrymen will recollect the words I held to them this time twelvemonth.

It is not, Mr. Moderator, the spirit that vapors within these walls that must stand us in stead. The exertions of this day will call forth events which will make a very different spirit necessary for our salvation. Look to the end. Whoever supposes that shouts and hosannas will terminate the trials of the day, entertains a childish fancy. We must be grossly ignorant of the importance and value of the prize for which we contend;—we must be equally ignorant of the powers of those who have combined against us;—we must be blind to that malice, inveteracy, and insatiable revenge, which actuate our enemies, public and private, abroad and in our bosom, to hope we shall end this controversy without the sharpest, the sharpest conflicts; to flatter ourselves that popular resolves, popular harangues, popular acclamations, and popular vapor, will vanquish our foes. Let us consider the issue. Let us look to the end. Let us weigh and consider, before we advance to those measures which must bring on the most trying and terrible struggle, this country ever saw.

Quincy said that he had made those remarks twelve months before, and he includes the phrase “Mr. Moderator,” strongly suggesting he meant during the tea meetings of December 1773. If he was being exact, that would be 14 December, but he might have meant the day the crisis came to a head, 16 December.

While Quincy presents his words as a direct quote, there’s no way he could have spoken spontaneously and taken notes at the same time. So either he had written out his remarks in advance in 1773 and then brought that document to London, or he was recreating his speech for his wife—which brings up the possibility of a little improvement or 20-20 hindsight.

There’s some interesting disagreement about how to interpret these remarks. Some historians read Quincy as advocating moderation, warning the gathering not to push too hard against the law. But he didn’t suggest a compromise. Quincy clearly saw himself as trying to steel the crowd’s resolve, to ensure that people were ready for a much bigger, harder struggle against the malicious and inveterate royal power.

“Mr. Josiah Quincy junior then rose”

On this anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, I’m looking at the question of what Josiah Quincy, Jr., said in the Old South Meeting-House during the meeting that led up to that event.

First up, a report to the British government written by someone inside the meetinghouse, evidently there to observe the proceedings and take note of any criminal activity. It appears this report was drafted just a couple of days after the tea was destroyed.

This report described Quincy speaking on 14 December or the morning of the 16th. The meeting was pressing Francis Rotch to order his ship Dartmouth to leave Boston harbor still loaded with tea, as ships’ masters had done in other American ports. Rotch feared the Royal Navy and Customs service would seize the ship for violating a law against leaving port without unloading. (I’ve long wondered what the reason for that law was.) Losing the ship would be a big financial hit for Rotch and his family, so he asked the Boston merchants to buy the ship so they would all run the risk together.

The informer wrote:

Mr. Josiah Quincy junior then rose and said that he thought Mr. Rotch had offered very fair to submit the Vessel to the Appraisement of Merchants and to be a Sharer in the Loss—that it was cruel to put him in the Front of the Battle—that the People ought to be be Sharers with him in the Loss of the Vessel since this was a Business of public Concern—that he himself would give fifty Guineas towards purchasing and sending her back—that he had ever held Humanity as a first Rate Virtue and that Patriotism without Humanity was not true Patriotism etc. with many other Expressions to the like Effect.

As soon as he had finished, one in the Gallery cried out, “You speak Sir very finely, but you don’t shew your Money”—

on which Mr. Quincy replied that whoever suggested that he was bribed, was a Scoundrel, and he averred that he had not directly taken any Money of Mr. Rotch to say thus, which Mr. Rotch also attested, adding that he was much surprized that no Merchant or other of his Fellow Citizens (who might be innocently ensnared as he was) had till then shewn the Generosity to espouse his Cause and offered to share in the Damage he might sustain.

Being written so soon after the event by someone without an obvious bias for or against Quincy, this seems like a highly reliable source. It depicts Quincy as speaking up for someone others perceived as cooperating with the tea tax, and being heckled on that account from the gallery. Even though Quincy was arguing on the basis of what would make the Whigs look fair and humane, he was proposing some sort of compromise, and some people in the hall didn’t want to hear that.

TOMORROW: Quincy’s own words.

Viewing the Tea Party in Context

If you attend the Boston Tea Party reenactment at Old South and the Boston Tea Party Ships, I have two things for you to keep in mind about what you’re hearing.

As I’ve written before, it’s unlikely that many friends of the royal government came to Old South to debate what to do about the tea. To begin with, those mass gatherings weren’t official town meetings, so even showing up would grant them more legitimacy than most Loyalists wanted.

At least one supporter of the royal government was there to take notes and report back to the authorities, and of course that man, apparently named Colman, wouldn’t have called attention to himself. He did note who spoke and about what, and he didn’t mention many political compatriots. Unless they were trying to save their property (John Rowe) or their new in-laws (John Singleton Copley), Loyalists kept far away from the other side’s rally.

Voicing only anti-Tea Act opinions would therefore be a more accurate depiction of the final tea meeting, but that would provide a false impression of the larger debate in Boston and in America in late 1773. There really was a political dispute, as well as smaller disagreements about tactics. So there’s a good reason the script includes more Loyalist voices.

As for that script, a lot of it ends up in the hands of the audience as people take turns reading arguments about what to do off cards they receive when they come in. Ideally, there would be a one-to-one ratio of speakers and arguments. In other words, everyone who wants to speak would have something to say, and nobody would repeat anyone else. But of course life doesn’t work that way.

Instead, the way it works out is that an audience member who’s eager to participate lines up, waits her turn, and then reads off her card—even if someone else has read the same argument already. There’s a lot of repetition, and speakers don’t respond to what others have just said. However, I’m quite sure the event organizers know all that, and there’s really no smoother way to incorporate the audience into the discussion. The value of being able to participate in the reenactment—especially for younger audience members—outweighs the drawbacks of this approach.

While listening to all those debating points last year, I heard a lot of political anachronisms—rhetoric that might be appropriate during the Revolutionary War, but not two years earlier. In 1773, American Whigs weren’t yet attacking King George III. They were still focusing their anger on what they saw as a corrupt Parliament and corrupt government ministers while proclaiming loyalty to the king and the British constitution.

Similarly, there were no British army troops patrolling Boston in 1773. They had been there from October 1768 to March 1770, and they were ordered back in May 1774 as a response to the Tea Party. Any complaints you hear about redcoats in the streets during the Tea Party would also be anachronistic. The Crown hadn’t yet taken any steps to close the port or disarm the colonists.

As with the criticism of King George, such complaints arise from looking back at the Revolution at such a distance that the distinctions between particular years blur together. But seeing how they accumulated and how American thinking evolved is useful in understanding that the Revolution developed. The Tea Party of 16 Dec 1773 was a particular moment in a gradual process.

The Tea Party in Review

Old South Meeting House and the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum are hosting their annual reenactment of the first Boston Tea Party on Wednesday, 16 December, starting at 6:30 P.M. (Doors open at 5:45.) Tickets are still available through this website.

I attended last year’s reenactment on a media pass, trying not to block paying customers’ views by standing behind a video camera (see photo). So it’s about time I reviewed that presentation.

The first act of the event takes place at Old South, the exact site of mass meetings about the tea in November and December 1773. Its main floor and first gallery are filled with people, Revolutionary reenactors mostly at the center and the public everywhere else. As people enter, they receive cards with remarks on the controversy over the East India Company’s tea monopoly and how Boston should respond.

At the start, some of the reenactors use first-person interpretation (i.e., portraying individual figures from 1773 Boston) lay out the basics of the debate. Then the gentleman presiding over the meeting opens the floor to other voices—folks in the audience. Everyone who wants to participate can line up at one of the microphones and read an argument from his or her card. As those lines wind down, sea captain Francis Rotch returns to report that Gov. Thomas Hutchinson has refused to permit him to sail away with the tea. Some of the reenactors whoop and head outside.

The audience is then led through the streets (rain, shine, or chill) to a viewing area across the channel from the well-lit Boston Tea Party Ships. From there they watch Sons of Liberty arrive on the ship, demand the keys to its hold, and start breaking open tea chests and throwing the cargo overboard. Finally, there’s a short spoken presentation by performers from the Tea Party Ships about what the tea destruction will lead to.

The tea crisis is a tough political confrontation to explain. The action in Old South lays out the issue on the highest level—Parliament has enacted a tax and granted a monopoly without North American subjects having any say in the matter. It also explains the lowest level—if the tea stays in those ships one more night, the royal authorities win. But the combination of laws, regulations, and circumstances that links those levels is still murky.

But these sorts of public presentations aren’t meant to lay out every detail of a historical event. They’re designed to give the public a vivid experience—in this case, hearing the arguments about the tea in Boston in late 1773 and then watching men destroy that tea on the night of 16 December. If everything works, the visuals the reenactment provides and the emotions it evokes are strong enough to entice people to learn more.

TOMORROW: Historical facts to keep in mind.

Fine Tailoring at Old South and Old North, 18 and 30 Sept.

This month there are two events at Boston’s historic houses of worship exploring the clothing of the eighteenth century.

On Friday, 18 September, at Old South Meeting House, Henry M. Cooke IV will deliver an illustrated talk titled “William Waine: Tailor to the Common Man.” Cooke has studied the account book of Waine’s South End business, in addition to himself being one of the premier historic tailors in America. He will discuss “the tailor’s craft as a window into economy, social stratification, and everyday life in the 1770s.”

Part of the site’s “Midday at the Meeting House” series, Cooke’s talk will run from 12:15 to 1:00 P.M. Tickets are $6, free for Old South members, and available with an extra fee through this site. (This event was originally scheduled for this past February, but this past February intervened.)

Up in the North End, the Old North Church is now recruiting sponsors for its event “Founding Fashions: Clothing from the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783”:

Step back in time to experience a runway show featuring the clothing and uniforms of the men, women, and children of the Revolutionary War. You will see British regulars and Continental soldiers, ball gowns and riding habits, sailors and farmers, and everything in between! See 240-year-old fashions outside of museums and on real-life models. With commentary from experts in Revolutionary Period textiles, you will learn about the materials, construction, origin, and functionality of the garments on display. 

This event is part of Boston Fashion Week, which some might consider a contradiction in terms. But if we’re admiring 235-year-old fashions, we’re not being too forward.

There are different levels of sponsorships available, ranging from $250 to $5,000. All sponsors will receive preferred seating and an invitation to the private reception following the show, and larger gifts will bring more visibility for a donor or organization.

The advisory committee for this event includes Henry Cooke (see above), Hallie Larkin and Stephanie Smith from At the Sign of the Golden Scissors, and Michelle Tolini Finamore, Penny Vinik Curator of Fashion Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, among other notables.

A limited number of general-admission and student tickets for “Founding Fashions” will go on sale through Old North in mid-September. The show will start at 6:00 P.M. on Wednesday, 30 September, in Old North’s Bigelow Courtyard.

Phillis Wheatley Day at Old South, 18 Aug.

I’m momentarily stepping away from the 1765 Stamp Act ruckus to note that on Tuesday, 18 August, the Old South Meeting-House celebrates its Phillis Wheatley Day.

That’s the date on which Phillis Wheatley officially joined the Old South congregation in 1771. At the time she was still enslaved in the Wheatley family though she was already becoming known locally for her memorial verse.

The historic site will offer hands-on activities related to Wheatley’s work with museum admission. Meanwhile, her writing desk can be seen at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and a signed copy of her 1773 collection of poems is on display at the Boston Public Library. [ADDENDUM: The library exhibit is closed from 3:30 P.M. on 18 August through 20 August.]

Wheatley usually wrote in rhymed pentameter couplets, but here’s a Horatian ode from that collection:

ODE TO NEPTUNE,
On Mrs. W——’s Voyage to England.

WHILE raging tempests shake the shore,
While Æolus’ thunders round us roar,
And sweep impetuous o’er the plain,
Be still, O tyrant of the main;
Nor let thy brow contracted frowns betray,
While my Susannah skims the watery way.

The Power propitious hears the lay,
The blue-eyed daughters of the sea
With sweeter cadence glide along,
And Thames responsive joins the song.
Pleased with their note, Sol sheds benign his ray,
And double radiance decks the face of day.

To court thee to Britannia’s arms,
Serene the clime and mild the sky,
Her region boasts unnumbered charms;
Thy welcome smiles in ev’ry eye.
Thy promise, Neptune, keep; record my prayer,
Nor give my wishes to the empty air.

Boston, October 10, 1772.

That poem raises an obvious question: Who was “Mrs. W——”?

TOMORROW: The usual answers.

“Meanings of Liberty” Events at Old South in April

This month the Bostonian Society and Old South Meeting House are presenting a series of Friday lunchtime events at the latter venue on the theme “Meanings of Liberty.” These presentations commemorate the 250th anniversary of the month when Americans learned that the new Stamp Act would come into effect in November. That law, aa tax enacted by Parliament rather than the colonies’ own legislatures, provoked transatlantic debate on the bounds of liberty within the British imperial system. Of course, American independence didn’t end conflicts between central and local authority, or community and individual liberty.

Friday, 10 April 10, 12:15 to 1:00 P.M.
Liberty Hall: Popular Politics in the Shadow of Boston’s Liberty Tree
Boston’s Liberty Tree—a stately elm located at the corner of Essex and Orange streets—rose to prominence during the tumultuous Stamp Act protests of 1765-66 and quickly became both an important symbol and gathering place for the Boston crowd. Discover the forgotten story of “Liberty Hall,” the name that Bostonians gave to this public space. Liberty Hall’s elaborate rules and rituals invite new ways of thinking about popular politics during the Revolutionary era. Don’t miss this lecture and discussion led by Nathaniel Sheidley, Historian and Director of Public History at The Bostonian Society.

Friday, 17 April, 12:15 to 1:00 P.M.
Symbols and Meanings of Liberty
Come to the Old State House to meet Stephen Greenleaf, Suffolk County’s Sheriff in 1765. As sheriff, Greenleaf endeavored to keep the peace in Boston during the tense days and months that followed the passage of the Stamp Act, but often failed. Greenleaf will even share the particularly harrowing tale of his attempt to remove protest symbols from the Liberty Tree! Stay after the talk to reflect on the meanings of liberty today as you make your own liberty symbol in the form of a lantern or “liberty leaf” to add to our Liberty Tree.

Friday, 24 April, anytime 11:30 A.M. to 1:30 P.M.
Liberty Verses, Liberty Tree!
Stop by Old South Meeting House and add your own “Liberty Leaves” to the growing tree. Choose from a selection of short poems and stanzas about liberty and freedom (some by poets connected with Old South) or write your own “liberty poem”! This activity will be one of several available as part of the site’s celebration of April School Vacation Week and National Poetry Month.

The first and third events will take place at Old South, the second at the Old State House. They are free with admission to each site, and come with a one-day pass to the other museum as well. All are of course free to members of the Old South Meeting House and Bostonian Society.

Paul Revere at Old South and Old North

Fans of Paul Revere can attend two talks about his Revolutionary activities beyond his famous and less-famous rides of 1774 and 1775.

Friday, 20 March, 12:15 P.M.
Old South Meeting House
The Picture of Innocence: Symbols and Propaganda from the Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre became infamous throughout the American colonies in a matter of weeks. Patriot leaders immediately circulated the news with heavy doses of propaganda. So what really happened on March 5, 1770? Historian and Old South Meeting House Educator Tegan Kehoe will walk you through the facts and fictions of Paul Revere’s famous print and several other contemporary depictions of the “bloody massacre on King Street.”
Admission $6; free for Old South Meeting House members.

Wednesday, 25 March, 6:30 P.M.
Old North Church
Paul Revere: Beyond the Midnight Ride
Author and attorney Michael Greenburg will talk about Revere’s lesser-known travails and ultimate court-martial following the doomed Penobscot Expedition, an often-ignored chapter in the life of this beloved American icon. Following the lecture will be a reception and book signing of Greenburg’s book, The Court Martial of Paul Revere: A Son of Liberty & America’s Forgotten Military Disaster.
Free and open to the public.

One nice thing about lectures in these eighteenth-century Boston churches is that you can almost always get a seat. A hard, flat seat.

Has General Washington’s Riband Come Back Around?

Back in 2010 I wrote some articles about Gen. George Washington’s decision in July 1775 to adopt a blue sash or “ribband” across his chest as the sign of his rank in the new Continental Army.

It turns out that Washington’s riband might survive in the collections of Harvard University’s museums, having come back to Cambridge after passing through the hands of painter Charles Willson Peale, who owned a museum himself.

In this Common-Place article, Philip C. Mead of the Museum of the American Revolution writes of the general:

The decoration he chose, a blue silk moiré ribbon worn across his breast, made allusions to both one of the traditional colors of Whigs, the British political party with which American Revolutionaries identified, and the aristocratic decorations of Europe. At first, he wore the ribbon regularly, and then only on ceremonial occasions and in battles, until he phased the decoration out in 1779, replacing it with stars on his epaulettes. Examples of Washington’s epaulettes have survived and appeared in several publications, but his silk ribbon has remained largely obscure among students of Washington objects and the American Revolution.

A recently re-examined silk moiré ribbon in the collections of Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology may well be the very ribbon depicted in the Washington portrait paintings by the Revolutionary artist Charles Willson Peale. It may even have been the one worn by Washington from 1775 to 1779 as referenced in various writings during the war. It may also be the ribbon displayed at Peale’s museum in the nineteenth century.

Harvard received the artifact in 1899 and immediately loaned it to the Old South Meeting-House, one of Boston’s historic sites most associated with the Revolutionary War. It stayed there until shortly after the Bicentennial. When it came back to Harvard, the cloth no longer had its label from Peale’s museum, and, more importantly, the cultural climate had changed since its first arrival. Both museum curation and historiography had become more professionalized, a process that encourages skepticism about the claims of tradition and enthusiastic amateurs. So was this artifact genuinely the general’s?

Mead’s investigation includes the process of making “watered” silk, how this riband compared to what Peale painted in the 1770s, why Washington stopped wearing the sash midway through the war, and how such an artifact does and doesn’t fit into the mission of the museums where it has appeared.

Now if this sash belonged to the Harvard Art Museums, it might be possible to request a personal examination through Harvard’s Art Study Center. But it came to the Peabody Museum. So I don’t know how it might be seen.

Big Plans for the Massacre in Boston

This is the time of year that Boston 1775 starts pinging the Department of Homeland Security servers by talking about our big plans for the Massacre.

That’s the Boston Massacre, of course, which took place on the 5th of March in 1770. This year the event will be reenacted on the evening of Saturday, 7 March, outside the Bostonian Society’s Old State House Museum—assuming that the snow has been cleared from the area. Here’s the schedule of events for that day.

10:30 A.M.
Little Redcoats and Little Bostonians
This interactive program for children explores what life was like for Bostonians and British soldiers in Boston in the months leading up to the Boston Massacre. Free; in front the Old State House.

11:00 A.M.
Blood on the Snow
Delve into the stark choices that faced the acting governor Thomas Hutchinson in the aftermath of the Massacre as shocked Bostonians demanded immediate action to prevent further bloodshed. Actors will present a scene from Patrick Gabridge’s original drama Blood on the Snow. Free with museum admission; inside the Old State House.

11:30 A.M.
Trial of the Century
Watch lawyers John Adams and Josiah Quincy defend the British soldiers accused of murdering Bostonians. Audience members are invited to act as witnesses and jurors for this celebrated case. For all ages. Free with museum admission, but space is limited; tickets go on sale at 9:00 A.M. at the Old State House Museum front desk.

1:30 P.M.
Little Redcoats and Little Bostonians reprise

2:00 P.M.
Blood on the Snow reprise

2:30 P.M.
Trial of the Century reprise

Weather permitting, volunteers may be recreating other scenes of historical conflict that afternoon outside Faneuil Hall, at the Old State House, or in other public spaces. Keep your eyes open.

7:00 P.M.
Boston Massacre Reenactment
The big event! Witness the argument, riot, and shooting reenacted in front of the Old State House, in the very area where it took place in March 1770. Before the action unfolds, hear from Patriots, Loyalists, and moderates who will talk about the events and attitudes that led to that fateful night. Free; in front of the Old State. (Once again I’ll be there as narrator.)

And if that’s not enough, on Wednesday, 11 March, from 6:00 to 7:30 P.M. the Old South Meeting House will host an event called “The Fifth of March Anniversary Orations–Speak Out!” From 1771 to 1783, the town of Boston invited prominent gentlemen to speak in memory of the Massacre at Old South Meeting House. Among the men thus commemorating the anniversary were James Lovell, Dr. Joseph Warren, Dr. Benjamin Church, and John Hancock. Hear selections from their speeches performed by an intergenerational group. Co-sponsored by the History Department of Suffolk University. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested.

(And if you are from the Department of Homeland Security, come to these events! You may have some time to fill.)

“Made by Hand” at Old South

The Old South Meeting House is hosting a series of midday events on the theme of “Made by Hand in Boston: The Crafts of Everyday Life,” cosponsored by Artists Crossing Gallery. These sessions explore the cross between artistry and commerce in the pre-industrial economy.

This Friday, 23 January, the historian of science and technology Robert Martello will speak about “Benjamin Franklin, Tradesman.” The event announcement says:

Follow Franklin’s footsteps from the time he ran his brother’s press as a young apprentice, through the many life adventures that shaped his life as a wordsmith, statesman, and printer. Printing was a tricky business in the 18th century, and Franklin’s combination of business acumen and intellectual prowess contributed to his success and versatility in the trade. Don’t miss this chance to learn how Franklin changed printing, and how printing changed Franklin.

On Friday, 6 February, Boston City Archaeologist Joe Bagley will speak on “From Pewter to Pottery: The Archaeology of Boston's Colonial Craftspeople”:

[Bagley] will offer an overview of the city’s archaeological collections as a rich source of data, then explore in depth what archaeological research has revealed about two mid-18th-century Boston professional craftspeople—Grace Parker, who had a redware ceramic business, and John Carnes, who ran a pewter workshop.

That was the father of the Rev. John Carnes who spied during the siege.

On Friday, 13 February, historical tailor Henry M. Cooke (shown above) will speak about “William Waine: Tailor to the Common Man”:

With a shop in Boston's South End, Waine tailored to working-class Bostonians—including longshoremen, and perhaps some participants in the Boston Tea Party! This illustrated talk will open your eyes to the tailor’s craft as a window into economy, social stratification, and everyday life in 1770s Boston.

These sessions will all take place from 12:15 to 1:00 P.M., with guests welcome at noon. They are free to Old South members, $6 for others. To make reservations, use this webpage.

Caricature of a Tea Partier

Adam Colson (his family name was also spelled Collson, Coleson, and Coulson) was born in 1738. At that time his grandfather David was a Boston selectman. Adam followed his grandfather into leather-dressing, and he also became politically active.

Colson joined the St. Andrew’s Lodge of Freemasons in 1763. In 1766 the town meeting elected him as a “Clerk of the Market,” a beginner-level office. By 1773, he was also a member of the North End Caucus (and, reportedly, the “Long Room Club”).

Colson was in the second set of volunteers patrolling the wharves to make sure no East India Company tea was landed. Benjamin Bussey Thatcher’s 1835 book Traits of the Tea-Party listed him among the men who destroyed that tea on 16 Dec 1773—the earliest such list to see print. Thatcher also wrote of that night’s meeting at Old South:

Some person or persons, in the galleries, (Mr. [William] Pierce thinks Adam Colson,) at this time cried out, with a loud voice, “Boston Harbor a tea-pot this night!”—“Hurra for Griffin’s Wharf!”—and so on.

For Colson to have gotten down from the gallery during a crowded meeting and onto a tea ship would have been a feat.

In 1774 Bostonians voted Colson to be the town’s Informer of Deer, a post he held for years, and the next year he was chosen to be a Warden. In 1779, with the town hurt by shortages and price jumps, he was made an Inspector of the Market. He appears to have served only briefly in the military, patrolling the town under Col. Jabez Hatch.

During these years Colson maintained his business selling leather goods in the South End under the “Sign of the Buck and Glove” near Liberty Tree. But he also bought real estate, opening an inn and what by 1788 he called the “Federal Stable.” In 1782 he hosted the future Marquis De Chastellux, who was making a trip through the new U.S. of A.

In Boston’s 1792 state election returns, Colson garnered 7 votes for lieutenant governor, coming in third. Samuel Adams with 686 was the clear winner, and merchant Thomas Russell with 17 was second. Yet Colson was still just a tradesman and landlord, not a gentleman (he didn’t get “Esq.” after his name in the official tally). That made his relative prominence notable. So what were his post-Revolutionary politics?

In 1795 the Rev. John Silvester John Gardiner (1765-1830), future rector of Trinity Church, published a book called Remarks on the Jacobiniad through the new Federal Orrery newspaper and then the printers Weld and Greenough. It was a biting, satirical, and not entirely coherent attack on the nascent Jeffersonian party in Boston. In particular, Gardiner lampooned Thomas Edwards, Benjamin Austin, Samuel Hewes, “Justice [John] Vinal,” and Colson. Judging by a legal report in the Columbian Centinel in 1791, Gardiner must have been carrying on that feud for years.

Remarks on the Jacobiniad portrayed Colson as an illiterate veteran of the Revolutionary struggle. At what must have been some expense, the book even included caricatures of those five leading “Jacobins,” allowing us to see a version of Adam Colson, above.

Colson died in 1798, not surviving to see his party take the Presidency and hold it for six terms. He left an estate worth nearly $17,000, including $10,000 of real estate on Washington Street in the South End.

“Law and (Dis)Order in Boston, 1773” at Old South in December

In historical Boston, December is Tea Party time, and the Old South Meeting House and Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum are collaborating on a series of public presentations.

Friday, 5 December, 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
Holiday Open House at Old South
Meet colonial characters, enjoy a cup of tea, and discover if you would have been a Patriot or Loyalist in 1773. Programs for young children will include puppet making, scavenger hunts, and tiny tea sets! Free.

Friday, 5 December, 12:15 P.M.
“That Pesky Tax on Tea!”
Listen to an exchange between a Son of Liberty and a Tory as they spar on matters of tea and taxes, law and liberty in 1770s Boston. Then join the conversation! Presented by actors from the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum. Free to all, but pre-registration requested.

Saturday, 6 December, 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
Holiday Open House at Old South
See above. Free.

Friday, 12 December, 12:15 P.M.
Ebenezer Mackintosh, the Gangs of Boston, and Riot in the New World
Historian Matthew Wilding will focus on the life of radical Ebenezer Mackintosh as he explores the theme of riot as political expression in colonial Boston, from the Stamp Act Riots to the Boston Tea Party. Free for Old South members, $6 for others. Pre-registration requested.

Tuesday, 16 December, 6:30 to 8:30 P.M.
Tea Party Reenactment
Gather at Old South Meeting House, where the colonists met in 1773, with colonial agitators and Loyalists to debate the tea tax and liberty from the British crown! Afterwards, join the procession to Griffin’s Wharf accompanied by fife and drum. You will line the shores of Boston Harbor to witness the destruction of the tea as the Sons of Liberty storm the brig Beaver, tossing the tea into the frigid water below.

Tickets to the big event cost $25, and there’s a deal if you buy a membership in Old South at the same time.

Women at Old South Meeting House in February

Old South Meeting House’s “Middays at the Meeting House” talks resume on Thursdays in February with presentations on eighteenth-century women.

February 6
Sarah Prince: A Life in Meditations and Letters
Sarah Prince Gill (1728-1771, shown here courtesy of R.I.S.D.), daughter of influential Old South Meeting-House minister Thomas Prince, kept a spiritual diary for twenty-one years and maintained a friendship and correspondence with her “dearest Friend” Esther Edwards Burr, daughter of famed theologian Jonathan Edwards. Historian and Wheelock professor Laurie Crumpacker will discuss what the journal and letters reveal about women’s roles in the Great Awakening, the astonishing spiritual revival that swept the colony.

February 13
Abigail Adams: Life, Love, and Letters
Abigail Adams claimed to write with an “untutored stile,” and asked her husband John to destroy her letters. He saved them anyway, giving posterity a unique look into the life and times of this iconic wife, mother, and Patriot. Living history interpreter Patricia Bridgman uses the couple’s correspondence to bring Abigail to life, from the Adamses’ courtship in 1764, through the tumultuous years of the American Revolution, to 1778 on the eve of her husband and son’s voyage to France. Bridgman’s Mrs. Adams is serious about such issues as women’s education and rights, but she’s saucy, too, and enjoys poking gentle fun at those who deserve it, including Mr. Adams!

February 20
Petticoats at the Revolution
Join us to hear a remarkable story of tea and Revolution from the woman who rode through life with Paul Revere. Actor and storyteller Joan Gatturna portrays Rachel Revere sharing the story of the Boston Tea Party, the Midnight Ride, and the Siege of Boston through the eyes of a woman who kept the home fires burning while her husband fanned the flames of rebellion. Her characterization of Rachel Revere was developed with assistance from the staff of the Paul Revere House.

February 27
“Lett No Country Grants to be Laid Upon our Lands”
The lives and perspectives of Native women are often left out of histories of colonial New England. In 1723, Eastern Pequot leader Mary Momoho submitted a petition to the Connecticut General Assembly, demanding tribal recognition and the preservation of her community’s reservation in Stonington. In this illustrated lecture, anthropologist and UMass Boston professor Amy Den Ouden will explore what we can learn about indigenous women’s daily lives from 18th-century land petitions, and will draw parallels between these historical realities and contemporary issues in indigenous communities involving land, voice, and power.

Each session starts at 12:15 P.M. and lasts for about an hour. They are free to Old South members, $1-6 for others.

Carp on Resolute Men and Mohawks at Old South, 12 Dec.

The January 1774 London Magazine shared this news from Boston:

The people finding all their efforts to preserve the property of the East-India company, and return it safely to London, frustrated by the tea consignees, the collector of the customs and the governor of the province, dissolved their meeting.—But, behold, what followed! A number of resolute men (dressed like Mohawks or Indians) determined to do all in their power to save their country from the ruin which their enemies had plotted, in less than four hours emptied every chest of tea on board the three ships commanded by the captains [James] Hall, [James] Bruce, and [Hezekiah] Coffin, amounting to 341 chests, into the sea! without the least damage done to the ships or any other property. The masters and owners are well pleased that their ships are thus cleared; and the people are almost universally congratulating each other on this happy event.

Eventually that “happy event” became known as the Boston Tea Party, of course. And, as the latter-day illustration above shows, the “Mohawk” disguises have been a crucial part of that story.

On Thursday, 12 December, Benjamin L. Carp, author of Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America, will give a lunchtime talk at Old South Meeting House on “Resolute Men (Dressed as Mohawks)”:

What does historic evidence tell us about these disguises, and what misconceptions linger? Learn why Boston Tea Party participants selected Native American, and specifically Mohawk, disguises, and what this aspect of the Boston Tea Party can tell us about the emerging identity of Anglo-Americans in eighteenth-century Boston.

Ben Carp’s lecture will begin at 12:15 P.M. Admission is free for Old South members, $6 for others. A book-signing will follow.