The Third Mobbing of Jesse Saville

After the attack on Jesse Saville’s house on 7 Sept 1768, the Essex County authorities brought charges against eight men for assault, as Joseph E. Garland described in Guns Off Gloucester.

The criminal case came to trial in the summer of 1769. The jury acquitted one defendant, Paul Dudley Sargent, and convicted the seven others. The wealthiest, including merchant Joseph Foster and Dr. Samuel Rogers, were fined £10 to £15 and ordered to post £50 bonds for good behavior. Four working men were fined £5 and ordered to post £20 bonds.

The organizer of the mob, David Plumer, was never criminally charged with assault, but he lost his cargo and ship to the Customs Office for smuggling.

That didn’t completely satisfy Saville, however. He pursued another avenue of redress—personal damages. He sued all seven convicted men plus a neighbor named Thomas Griffin.

That case came to court in Newburyport in September. This jury decided that Saville—now a Customs officer himself—had gotten all the satisfaction he deserved. They found the defendants not liable and ordered him to pay court costs.

Saville appealed that verdict, and the case was scheduled for a higher court at the end of March 1770.

Meanwhile, the Boston Massacre occurred in Boston. It’s not clear whether that had any effect on the mood in Essex County, but it might have made people more angry about the royal authorities or (after the army regiments were withdrawn to Castle William) more bold about confronting those authorities.

The result was the third and most violent attack on Jesse Saville, as described with minimal sympathy in the 26 March Boston Gazette:

We hear from Cape-Ann, that on Friday night last [March 23], a number of People there, who knew that Town had sustained great Damage by the Misdoings of one Jesse Savil an informer, and that he deserved Chastisement therefor, went in a Body to his House for that purpose, about 10 o’Clock, and finding him in Bed, took him from thence, and walk’d him barefoot about 4 Miles to the Harbour, then placed him in a Cart they had provided for that Purpose, and putting a Lanthorn with a lighted Candle in his Hand, that every one might see him, they carted him thro’ all their Streets, and stopping at every House they roused the inhabitants, and obliged him to declare and publish unto them that he was Jesse Savil the Informer; and having gone round in this manner, they then bestowed a handsome Coat of Tar upon him, and placed him upon the Town-Pump, caused him to swear that he would never more inform against any Person in that or any other Town, and then dismissed him, after having received his thanks for the gentle Discipline they had administered to him.

A report in the 13 Nov 1770 Essex Gazette recounted the same event with slightly different details:

…seizing the Person of one Jesse Saville, in the Month of March last, taking him out of his Chamber, in the Night, without Shoes, and almost naked, dragging him over Hills, Dales and Fences, some Times by the Hair of his Head, for about 4 Miles, and then carting him through the Streets of Gloucester. It is said further, that after elevating Saville upon a Pump, and insisting on his swearing not to steal any more Leather, nor to prosecute any Person for thus abusing him, he was tarr’d and dismissed.

Another detail, possibly in the court record but first published in James R. Pringle’s 1892 History of the Town and City of Gloucester, said the mob came for Saville “disguised as Indians and negroes.”

TOMORROW: The legal fallout.

“My mother Cry’d out Jesse is dead”

As I described yesterday, on 7 Sept 1768 the Gloucester merchant David Plumer directed a mob to a house in the Annisquam village, seeking the Customs informant who had cost him a shipload of undeclared molasses.

When those men couldn’t find that man, Samuel Fellows, they attacked the family he was staying with, the Savilles. The head of that family, Jesse Saville, was out. Though officially a tanner, he, like a lot of Cape Ann men, probably also worked at fishing.

Here’s the rest of Jesse Saville’s description of that day:

I was not at home but was about two miles of by water, neither could i git home by reason of the tide. I came home about ten a Clock at night, very Darck and Raney. Had ocation to go out of Doors so tock my gun for I was affraid without her.

Meanwhile, two men in the mob, Joseph York and Thomas Griffin, woke up a neighbor and friend of the Savilles called George Dennison. According to Saville, they “told him they were coming to tare Down our house.” Dennison said he would be right with them. Then “After giting them out of Doors, [Dennison] fastened his Doors, went to Bed.”

But there were still dozens of men ready to confront Jesse Saville:

A few minuets after I was gone out a Doors they Sorounded our house attemting to Come in. My father was then in bed. He told them They Should not Come in Such a maner but they might three or fore of them come in and Sarch the house. A grate number flocked in headed by Dudley Sargent, marchant. Daniel Warner they Chose as Clark. Thomas Griffin above menteioned & Joseph York: were preasious in this mob.

I love the detail that this crowd mobbing a house chose a clerk, as if they were a town meeting or a charitable society. That reflects how they thought they were doing important community work.

I Stod a Little way of them, heard them Sware they would Tare Down the house, but what they would have him. I made a pass to go into the Door. They Sorounded me. I asked them who was there, was ansered by Dudley Sargent, half a Dozen of us. I asked what half a Dozen of such black gard Did there. They ansered me, Dam you we will tell you. They said where is Sam Fellows. I ansered none of your bysness.

They Imeadatily Seased me. About Eight or thereaway told me to Let go the gun I posessed. Desierd a pass into the house. My mother Cryd. out Jesse is dead. My wife fainting away. They nocked me Down, Toock away my gun, fired it of, broak it in peaces over a Rock. My father halled me into the house by the feet as I Lay on the ground.

It was Terable to See the wimans Countanences and the Cryes of the Children for part of the Children was at School in the Day time. So they Left the house after I threating them in the Law. Job Gallaway of the sd. town Told my wife he new the Person Struck me Down and broak my gun.

We were affraid to go to Sleep Ever Since Safly for word has been threatned to tare Down the house Several times and if Ever they Cached me in the harbor they would Serve me as bad as they would Capt Felows or if they Ever Could find out I Conseald him or by any means aided him or gave him any Sustanance they would tare Down the house and mob me which Since I Daresnot appear to profacute my Bysness but Shall be obliged to Leave the Town. If I want to go out of Town I am obiliged to go and Come in the night or on the Sabbath Day.

Three days after the attack on the Saville home, locals “rescued” or grabbed back another shipload of molasses that the Customs office had seized.

But then the tide turned. At the end of September, Royal Navy ships carrying two regiments of the British army arrived in Boston harbor. Some of those ships started to patrol around Cape Ann. Royal officials became more bold. By the end of the October, the Salem Customs office had seized David Plumer’s whole Earl of Gloucester ship for smuggling.

Around 1 October, Jesse Saville went into Plumer’s shop. In his characteristic spelling, Saville stated, “I told him he must mack good the Dammage I had sustained.” Plumer replied that if the tanner wanted satisfaction he’d have to sue; also, “he said they wanted another frolick, they Did not Desier no beter Sport.”

On 14 October, Saville wrote out a long complaint about what had happened to his family for the Customs Commissioners in Boston. He named names, including prominent men like Plumer, fellow merchants Paul Dudley Sargent and Joseph Foster, physician Samuel Rogers, and as many more as he could identify and remember:

• “Elichander Smith, Block macher”
• “Lebeday Day, mason”
• “William Lowder, tinman”
• “David Day, shoemaker”
• “Philemon Haskel, Black Smith”
• “Daniel Warner, Black Smith”

Saville also filed suit in the local courts against Plumer and other neighbors. In early November a grand jury sitting in Ipswich indicted eight Gloucester men “and others unknown” for attacking Saville’s house. The defendants included Rogers, Sargent, Foster, four other men Saville had singled out as violent, and two additional names: cordwainer Parker Knights and yeoman William Tarbox.

David Plumer wasn’t charged with assault, probably because he’d refrained from going into the Saville house or physically attacking anyone himself. But the Customs Office hauled him into Admiralty Court for smuggling. Plummer hired John Adams as his lawyer but lost the case in December. The Customs office put his schooner Earl of Gloucester up for auction in April 1769.

Since all those developments were bound to make him unpopular locally, Jesse Saville threw his lot in with the royal government. By the spring of 1769, he was working for the Customs service.

TOMORROW: And how did that go?

Was Col. Paul Dudley Sargent Wounded at Bunker Hill?

The Wikipedia entry on Col. Paul Dudley Sargent of the Massachusetts and Continental Army is only the latest description of him that says he “was wounded at Bunker Hill.” (In fact, that part of the sentence comes right out of the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography for 1895.) But was he? Well, that depends on what one means by “at Bunker Hill.”

On 20 Dec 1825, Sargent sent his recollections of that battle to Samuel Swett, who was gathering information for an expanded edition of his book. Sargent wrote:

I made application three times that day to be permitted to march my regiment to Charlestown, but General [Artemas] Ward feared my post [at Ralph and Elizabeth Inman’s farm in east Cambridge] would be attacked, and for once judged right, for a large schooner, with from five to six hundred men, attempted to gain the landing, but the wind against her and the tide turning, she returned.

About 4, P. M., General Ward permitted me to march my regiment with one called his own to Charlestown, but too late to do any good. Gen. [Israel] Putnam, then on Prospect Hill, sent an officer to order me on to the hill, but finding I did not attend to his order, he sent a second, who I took no notice of. A third came open mouth, saying Gen. Putnam says the devil of hell is in you all, you will be all cut to pieces.

The words were scarcely uttered when I was left with Lieut. Col. [Jonathan] Ward and my waiter. I had before this received a scratch from a four pound shot—the same shot took off Lt. Col. Ward's catouch box, and knocked down a subaltern behind him. I returned to head quarters.

Swett relied on that letter in his History of Bunker Hill Battle (1826), saying that Sargent was “slightly wounded,” evidently in west Charlestown short of the peninsula. Swett didn’t quote or mention the letter, however.

Richard Frothingham cited Sargent’s letter with a quote in a footnote in his 1849 History of the Siege of Boston. But Swett objected that that book gave the impression that Sargent had refused Putnam’s order to go onto Breed’s Hill, where the main battle was fought. By “the hill” Sargent meant Prospect Hill, where Putnam was trying to organize a defense after the British army had taken the peninsula; in refusing to go there, Sargent was refusing to pull back to a fortified position, as well as refusing to take orders from a Connecticut man.

In fact, Swett and Frothingham both interpreted Sargent’s phrase the same way, as their dueling pamphlets eventually made clear. Swett’s two-page objection to Frothingham on this point might have been a proxy for their bigger dispute over Putnam’s role in the battle. Swett might also have been pushed to that public objection by complaints from the Sargent family, who were quite protective about the colonel’s reputation.

In any event, Col. Sargent and his regiment never made it onto the Charlestown peninsula—though not for lack of trying. His “scratch” came near Bunker’s Hill, and after the main fight. Still, it was a wound, and it was during the overall battle. I think Sargent’s recollection is most valuable in demonstrating Gen. Ward’s worry about where else the British forces might attack. While we can look back in perfect hindsight, on 17 June 1775 no one knew which direction the fighting would go.

Col. Sargent and Col. Sage

Earlier this week, I quoted from the records of the court-martial of Ens. Matthew Macumber, kicked out of the Continental Army in September 1776 despite first being cleared of plundering.

Other officers involved in that incident were also gone from the Continental Army in a few months, though not so ignominiously.

Col. Paul Dudley Sargent (shown here), who Macumber said had ordered him to empty Loyalist houses in New York, was home by spring 1777.

The head of the court-martial panel that originally convicted Macumber on a lesser charge, Col. Comfort Sage, did not reenlist at the end of the year.

I wonder if those officers departed because they sensed they had gotten on Gen. George Washington’s bad side.

Both gentlemen remained respected in their own communities: Sargent became a magistrate in Maine, and Sage a brigadier general of the Connecticut militia. Most of what we know about them came from the writings of their descendants, who of course would not have said much about Gen. Washington’s dissatisfaction.

TOMORROW: The career of Maj. Daniel Box.

The Retrial of Matthew Macumber

On 21 September 1776, Col. Comfort Sage reconvened a court-martial to consider the case of Ens. Matthew Macumber. Just the day before, that panel had found Macumber not guilty of disobeying orders by plundering, but guilty of defying an officer who had tried to stop him. But then Gen. George Washington had ordered the court to reconsider the sentence.

It seems to me that everyone knew the generalissimo really wanted a reconsideration of the verdict. Which left little doubt about what verdict he preferred. But how could the same panel (minus two members) justify a reversal?

They called a new witness for the prosecution:

Captain [NATHANIEL?] RAMSAY being sworn, deposes. Last Tuesday, in the beginning of the afternoon, I was crossing Harlem Plains; I saw a number of men loaded with plunder. I went up to them and told them they had been acting exceeding wrong, and would have to answer for their conduct; they said they had acted in obedience of their officers’ orders. Presently Ensign Macumber came up, and I renewed the conversation with him; he told me he had gone out by orders of his officer, and that he had a right to take any thing outside of our lines.

Ensign Macumber had at this time a knapsack full on his shoulder, out of which stuck two waxen toys, which I took hold of, and jested with him on his having such a pretty sort of plunder; he made me no reply, but ordered them to proceed with what things they had; they had a large chair full, consisting of poultry and some house furniture; some were loaded with kettles and kitchen furniture.

Just upon this, Major [Daniel] Box came up, and spoke to the foremost of the party, who told him they had got the plunder at Harlem; on which the Major, with a pistol in his hand, ordered the man to lay it down; the man hesitated and looked round on his party; upon this, Major Box ordered the whole party to lay down their plunder, or he would shoot the first man that refused; immediately on this, Ensign Macumber called out to his men, “my lads, stand to your arms and form,” and said to Major Box, “we’ll see who has the strongest party,” or words to this effect; the men instantly formed; on this, Major Box asked the Ensign if he knew him; the Ensign replied, yes, that he knew him to be Major Box. The Major replied that he was so, and that he came with express orders from his Excellency to act as he did, and to prevent plundering; the Ensign told him that he had acted by orders of a superiour officer.

Major Box said, I must put you under an arrest, and ordered a man to take his arms. Macumber said he would not be disarmed, but would go with them and his plunder to his General, who might act with them as he pleased, and that he would spill his blood before he would give them up there. At this time his men were exceeding mutinous; several of them cocked their pieces and brought them nearly to a present at Major Box. The Major asked for the Ensign’s name, and went off.

The men were exceeding abusive to the Major, and Ensign Macumber ordered them to be quiet. I have no doubt but if any attempt had been made to disarm the prisoner, his party would have fired; and I was so apprehensive of this, that I stood on my guard.

Dramatic as this testimony was, it didn’t provide significant new information about Box’s confrontation with Macumber. (Well, I guess the wax dolls was a new detail.) Witnesses the day before had already described how Macumber had defied Box, claiming that his colonel’s orders justified the taking of that property, and also how Macumber had tried to restrain his men from going too far.

But the new testimony would be enough to justify a new verdict. Macumber, who may have sensed what was coming, offered no additional witnesses.

Following “the maturest consideration of the further evidence,” the panel rendered its new decision:

the prisoner is guilty of plundering and of mutiny, and the Court annul the sentence of yesterday, and are of opinion that the prisoner be cashiered for said offence; and he is accordingly cashiered.

Washington endorsed that decision, and apparently decided to make an example of the incident. His general orders for 25 September said:

Colonel [Paul Dudley] Sargent is to send to the Provost-Guard the soldiers who were with Ensign Macumber, and charged with plundering at Harlem.

Washington also passed on details of the case to the Continental Congress, which on 30 September resolved:

That General Washington be directed to call upon such of the Members of the Court-Martial as sat upon the trial and concurred, in the acquittal of Ensign Macumber, to assign their reasons for their first judgment; that those reasons, together with the names of such of the said Members who were for the acquittal, be returned to Congress:

The officers on the court-martial panel had to send a letter justifying their original decision. I haven’t seen it, but I suspect the task was a reminder that they had displeased Gen. Washington.

(The doll above comes from the collections of Colonial Williamsburg.)