A New Edition of The Power of Sympathy

As a self-proclaimed propagator of unabashed gossip from Revolutionary New England, I have to note the recent publication of a new edition of The Power of Sympathy.

William Hill Brown published this novel pseudonymously in 1789. Most readers quickly recognized that it was based on a recent sex scandal in the top echelon of Boston society: rising attorney Perez Morton had impregnated his wife Susan’s sister, Fanny Apthorp.

In 1787 that affair led to a baby and parental rejection. In 1788 came a challenge to a duel from a Royal Navy officer and months of newspaper innuendo. Finally, Fanny committed suicide. Brown’s novel presented her character sympathetically—but was the book another layer of scandal?

This edition has been assembled by Prof. Jennifer Harris at the University of Waterloo and Prof. Bryan Waterman at New York University. It includes not only Brown’s The Power of Sympathy but also his play Occurrences of the Times, exploring some of the same incident as farce, and another closet drama, Sans Souci, alias, Free and Easy, digging into the sensitive spots of upper-class Boston.

Appendices reprint Fanny Apthorp’s final letters, which circulated at the time, and her sister Sarah Wentworth Morton’s poems; newspaper coverage of the case; newspaper essays on the place of women in the new republic; and letters from Mercy Warren and Abigail Adams about proper behavior for young republican gentlemen.

(Early on, people speculated that Sarah Wentworth Morton herself had written The Power of Sympathy, and that Mercy Warren had written the San Souci play. Warren was exasperated by that suggestion, Morton probably humiliated. I find it significant that both women eventually discarded their early anonymity and published under their own names, establishing how they wanted to be remembered as writers.)

The publisher of this new edition, Broadview Press, is based in Ontario. The book appears to have been published in Canada last month, but is scheduled to officially appear in the U.S. of A. this summer.

“The Funerall of the Remains of Dr. Warren”

Two of the things that merchant John Rowe valued most were Freemasonry and funerals.

He was a high-ranking member of the St. John’s Lodge, Boston’s older and higher-class English Rite lodge.

As for funerals, just as in his diary Rowe named all his midday dinner companions and everyone he spent the evening with, he also wrote down all the names of the pallbearers at Boston’s notable funerals.

On 8 Apr 1776, Boston had its funeral for Dr. Joseph Warren, killed the previous June at the Battle of Bunker Hill. That was a public event in King’s Chapel—not the doctor’s church but kept in better shape during the siege than several of the town’s meetinghouses.  

Dr. Warren was Grand Master of the St. Andrew’s Masonic order in North America. Though Rowe was a different sort of Freemason, he nevertheless wanted to turn out to honor the doctor at his interment. Especially since Warren had become a heroic American martyr.

However, Rowe had spent the siege inside the town with the royal authorities. He had never been on the forefront of the political resistance except when his business interests were involved. Though he had made nice with Continental Army officers as soon as they entered town, lots of Rowe’s neighbors suspected him of being a Tory.

Rowe’s diary entry for 8 April reads:

I attended the Church Meeting this morning & was Chose Warden with Danl. Hubbard—

I din’d at home with Richd. Green Mr. [Samuel] Parker Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe—

afternoon I went by Invitation of Brother [Samuel Blachley or Charles?] Webb to attend the Funerall of the Remains of Dr. Warren & went accordingly to the Councill Chamber [in the Town House] with a Design to Attend & Walk in Procession with the Lodges under my Jurisdiction with Our Proper Jewells & Cloathing—

but to my great Mortification was very much Insulted—by some furious & hot Persons—with the Least Provocation, one of Brethren thought it most Prudent for Mee to Retire I accordingly did so.

this has caused Some Uneasy Reflections in my Mind as I am not Conscius to my Self Of doing any thing Prejudicial to the Cause of America either by Will or deed—

The Corps of Dr. Warren was Carried into Chapell. Dr. [Samuel] Cooper pray’d & Mr. Perez Morton deliver’d an Oration on the Occasion—Dr. Warrens Bearers were—Genl. [Artemas] Ward—Genl. [Joseph] Fry Colo. [Richard] Gridley Dr. [John] Morgan Mr. Moses Gill & Mr. John Scolley—

There was a handsome Procession of the Craft with Two Companies of Soldiers—

After all his effort, Rowe was left outside, looking in.

“Aged SAM. in dotage frail”?

Yesterday I quoted some lines from Dr. Lemuel Hopkins’s poem welcoming the year 1795 for the Connecticut Courant.

Having praised Federalist heroes from Massachusetts, Hopkins turned to attacking the state’s Jeffersonians:

But still no flowers of greatness grow,
Where thorny plagues lurk not below:
There swarms Honestus’ rabble throng,
And Lawyer Incest joins the song;
While Jarvis with his bob-tail crew,
Retreats before great AMES’s view.

“Honestus” was a pen name of Benjamin Austin, Jr. “Lawyer Incest” referred to Perez Morton, who had been caught having an affair with his wife’s sister. “Jarvis” was Dr. Charles Jarvis. They were all Jeffersonian politicians. Against them, Hopkins favored the Federalist party of Fisher Ames.

And now, O Muse! throw Candour’s veil,
O’er aged SAM. in dotage frail;
And let past services atone,
For recent deeds of folly done;
When late aboard the Gallic ship,
Well fraught with democratic flip,
He praying fell on servile knees,
That France alone might rule the seas;
While Sense and Reason took a nap,
And snor’d in Jacobinic cap.

This political attack had to start out more delicately. No one could deny Samuel Adams’s leadership during the Revolution. He was still popular enough to have just been elected governor. Finally, though Adams was senior voice for limiting federal power in Massachusetts and still saw potential in the French Revolution, he didn’t oppose all of President George Washington’s policies like some of his younger colleagues.

On the other hand, on 3 Nov 1794 Gov. Adams had issued a proclamation reminding Massachusetts officials of their obligations under Article Seventeen of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between France and the U.S. of A. That agreement required American ports not to offer refuge to British naval vessels or formerly French ships that they had captured.

In doing so, Adams cited a recent message from Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State, who was struggling to maintain President Washington’s neutrality policy. Hopkins and his fellow New England Federalists revered Washington, but they leaned heavily toward Britain and disliked any accommodation of the French.

Therefore, Hopkins attacked Samuel Adams as “in dotage frail,” “on servile knees” about a “Gallic ship.” Because that’s the true spirit of the New Year.

Who Wrote Isaac Freeman’s Petition?

Yesterday I presented a petition sent to the Massachusetts General Court in late 1780 and printed in Massachusetts newspapers the following January.

The petitioner, Isaac Freeman, presented himself as a “poor negro” and an ultra-patriotic citizen of Massachusetts. He said he was a veteran of the Battle of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he had lost considerable property.

Freeman also told the legislature, “I…remain a faithful soldier to this hour,” but he didn’t describe any further military service. The document never stated what company or regiment Freeman served in, nor what town he lived in. Such information would surely have helped his petition.

There are several entries for men named Isaac Freeman in Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, but none of those men is described as black, and none has a record of service covering the Battle of Bunker Hill. George Quintal’s thoroughly researched report for the National Park Service on men of African and Native ancestry in the New England army during the Battle of Bunker Hill likewise has no entry to Isaac Freeman.

Despite that lack of confirming information, on 16 November the legislature

Resolved, That there be paid out of the public treasury of this Commonwealth, the sum of five pounds of the bills of the new emission, in full for his losses set forth in said petition.

With inflation ruining the value of the currency, that wasn’t a big grant. But it was something. The legislators could have given Freeman leave to withdraw his petition, which was the polite legal way to say no, and they didn’t.

I half think the General Court gave Freeman £5 for the petition’s literary qualities. In ornate, powerful language it reviled both the British enemy and provincial cowards at Bunker Hill. It praised the new Massachusetts state constitution. There was even a bit of poetry thrown in.

In the Suffolk County probate records I found documents that might shed more light on Freeman. A 1782 file for “Isaac Freeman Free Negro,” also identified as a “Labourer,” starts with the will he signed his mark to on 24 January. Well inscribed and full of legal language, the will says first, “My Body I commit to the Dust with decent Burial.” It goes on:

In Consideration of the Care and Kindness I have received from Mr. Dimond Morton of Boston, both in time of my Sickness, & at all other times, I give devise and bequeath to the said Dimond Morton all my Estate real personal or mixt, whether in possession Action or Reversion, wheresoever the same may be found, to hold to him the said Morton his Heirs and Assigns forever.—

The will also appointed Dimond Morton as executor. In other words, I suspect, Morton could keep anything he found of Freeman’s as long as he made sure the man received a “decent Burial.”

Morton ran a well established inn in Boston, the Sign of the Black and White Horse. His father had been an innkeeper as well, moving into town from Plymouth. In 1770 Morton witnessed the Boston Massacre. Having joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1765, he served as a captain in Col. Henry Knox’s artillery regiment for the year 1776. Later in the war he invested in privateers and mercantile ventures.

The connection between Freeman and Morton also offers an explanation for how a man who couldn’t sign his name was able to submit a long legal petition that verged on literature. The innkeeper’s younger brother was Perez Morton (shown above), a rising lawyer. In fact, Perez was surety for the bond Dimond had to submit to the probate court in settling the Freeman estate. And Perez had literary interests even before he married the poet Sarah Wentworth Apthorp.

While studying for his master’s degree at Harvard, Perez Morton composed some of the verses in William Billings’s New England Psalm-Singer. His funeral oration for Dr. Joseph Warren included three bursts of poetry; one was borrowed from Mercy Warren, and the other two I can’t identify, offering the possibility that they were his own compositions.

I theorize that Perez Morton composed the petition for Isaac Freeman, indulging himself in florid prose and throwing in a couplet he adapted from John Pomfret. The brothers used their connections to push the small grant for Freeman through the legislature. And one or the other probably slipped the composition to the Boston Gazette as well. Freeman gained some recognition and a little bit of cash, but some of that probably went to Dimond Morton for medical expenses or when he died less than two years later.

TOMORROW: The biggest mystery of Isaac Freeman.

“A new world was now opened to Rebecca…”

Susanna Rowson was America’s first blockbuster novelist, achieving lasting success with her fourth fiction, Charlotte: a Tale of Truth (1790), later retitled Charlotte Temple.

In 1792 Rowson published The Fille de Chambre (chambermaid), later retitled Rebecca, or The Fille de Chambre. It features a detailed and dramatic description of a voyage to America in the 1760s:

The day after Rebecca entered Miss Abthorpe’s service she set off for London, where she was to join Mr Seward’s family, who were to embark on board the same ship with her, and under whose protection she was to proceed to New-England. It was late in September when they arrived in town, and a variety of incidents detained them till the middle of October, so that they had but an untoward prospect before them, when so late in the season they embarked at Deal, on board a brig bound for Boston.

A fair wind presently took them out of the channel, and they flattered themselves with a prosperous voyage; but these flattering appearances were soon reversed, for the wind suddenly changed, rising almost to a hurricane, so that it was impossible to pursue their intended course, or return to port, and they continued tossing about in the Atlantic till the latter end of December, and then had not half made their passage, though their provisions
were so exhausted that they were obliged to live on a very small allowance of bread; of the water and salt meat which they had, together with a few pease, they were extremely careful.

After some anecdotes about the crossing (which I’ll return to), the ship finally reaches Massachusetts Bay. But by now it’s in the middle of winter.

The port of Boston is situated in such a manner, that, after having made land, six or seven hours good sailing will take a vessel into safe harbor, so that our weary voyagers began to think of landing that evening, however late it might be when they arrived;—but as the night came on, the wind increased, accompanied by snow and sleet; the cold at the same time being intense, it froze as it fell, and in a very short period the ropes about the ship were so incased in ice that they became immovable; the darkness increased, and to add to their distress, they lost sight of the light-house at the entrance of the harbor.

Their situation now was imminently dangerous; driving before the wind, among a multitude of rocks and breakers, without the least chance of avoiding them; to be shipwrecked in the very sight of home, was a painful trial indeed, yet this was what all expected, and for which all endeavored to prepare themselves with patient resignation.

About ten o’clock all their fears were realized, and a sudden shock convinced them they had struck on some rocks. The ensuing scene from that time till seven the next morning is better imagined than described, for till that time they had no prospect of relief, but continued beating on the rocks, the waves washing over them, and expecting momentary dissolution.

As the day-light advanced they discovered the island, from which the reef ran, to be inhabited. Several muskets were immediately discharged, and signals hung out, and about eight o’clock they discovered people coming to their assistance. It was impossible to bring a boat near the vessel, but the tide beginning to leave her, the men waded into the water, and placed a ladder against her side, down which the fear of immediate death gave Miss Abthorpe and Rebecca courage to descend; but what were the feelings of Mr. Seward, when he found the impossibility of his little daughter’s going down, so dangerous was it rendered by the ice that enveloped the steps of the ladder, and whence, if she fell, she must have been dashed to pieces, or lost among the rocks; nor did he dare to venture to descend himself with her in his arms, lest a false step or slip might destroy them both. But there was not time for much deliberation, as it was absolutely necessary to leave the ship before the tide returned.

At length an old sailor offered an expedient which was thought feasible; and the agitated parent fastened a strong cord round the waist of his child, by which he lowered her down the side of the vessel; the old sailor caught her in his arms, and bore her exultingly to the shore.

A new world was now opened to Rebecca, who, when she was a little recovered, beheld with astonishment how every object was bound in the frigid chains of winter.—The harbor which she could see from the house on the island, was one continued sheet of ice. The face of the country was entirely covered with snow, and from the appearance of all around she could form no probable hope of getting to colonel Abthorpe’s till the genial influence of spring should unbind their fetters; but in this she was agreeably mistaken, for the inhabitants of those cold climes being accustomed to the weather, were quick in expedients to facilitate their conveyance from one place to another.

The very next morning a boat was procured, and men placed at the head to break the ice as they proceeded. By two o’clock on the thirtieth of January, 1767, our heroine found herself once more on terra firma, comfortably seated at a large fire, in colonel Abthorpe’s parlor; for during the voyage Miss Abthorpe had conceived such an esteem for her, that she insisted on her being considered as a friend and sister, and her parents had too high a respect for their daughter, to wish to contradict so laudable a desire.

The Abthorpe family was no doubt inspired by the Apthorps, probably the wealthiest family in pre-Revolutionary Boston.

The Apthorps were even more an inspiration for America’s very first fiction blockbuster, William Hill Brown’s one-off The Power of Sympathy (1789). The young lawyer Perez Morton married Susan Wentworth Apthorp in 1781, then seduced her younger sister Frances. After becoming pregnant, Frances Apthorp committed suicide in 1788. That situation just cried out for a roman à clef. But unlike Rowson, Brown never published another novel.

TOMORROW: How Rowson drew on her own memories.

John Rowe and “the Funeral of the Remains of Dr. Warren”

Yesterday I noted that on Thursday King’s Chapel will host a talk by Sam Forman on the funeral of Dr. Joseph Warren, which took place in that same church on 8 Apr 1776.

The organizers of that funeral were the Freemasons of the St. Andrew’s Lodge, which Warren had led. Deputy Grand Master Joseph Webb asked young member Perez Morton to quickly write and deliver an oration. Paul Revere, Edward Procter, and Stephen Bruce expressed the lodge’s thanks afterward, and printer John Gill’s edition of that speech highlighted the Freemasons’ support.

In addition to Warren’s family and the members of the St. Andrew’s Lodge, the funeral procession also included a contingent of Continental Army troops and members of the Massachusetts General Court. The Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper offered prayers, so the Patriot establishment was well represented.

However, one gentleman found he wasn’t welcome: the merchant John Rowe, also a grand master in the Freemasons. In his diary for 8 April Rowe wrote:

Afternoon I went by invitation of Brother Webb to attend the Funeral of the Remains of Dr. Warren & went accordingly to the Council Chamber [of the Old State House] with a Design to Attend & Walk in Procession with the Lodges under my Jurisdiction with our Proper Jewells & Cloathing but to my great mortification was very much Insulted by some furious & hot Persons witho. the Least Provocation

one of Brethren thought it most Prudent for me to Retire. I accordingly did so—this has caused some Uneasy Reflections in my mind as I am not Conscious to myself of doing anything Prejudicial to the Cause of America either by will or deed.

The Corps of Dr. Warren was Carried into Chapell Dr. Cooper prayed & Mr Perez Morton delivered an Oration on the Occasion. There was a handsome Procession of the Craft with Two Companies of Soldiers.

Those last sentences evoke a picture of Rowe standing outside the chapel, watching people go in—standing on the side of the street as the “handsome Procession” passed by without him.

Rowe was the leader of Boston’s other group of Freemasons: the St. John’s Lodge. That lodge had been wealthier and closer to the Crown than the upstart St. Andrew’s, which was at last in the ascendancy.

Furthermore, Rowe himself had “trimmed” his political sails enough during the preceding decade to make people on both sides of the political divide suspicious of him. And that April, there was no way to deny that he had spent the whole siege inside Boston with the royal government and royal military.

Rowe assured himself that he hadn’t done “anything Prejudicial to the Cause of America either by will or deed.” But some of his fellow Bostonians, “furious & hot” after twelve months of war, didn’t share his confidence.

Warren Funeral Commemoration at King’s Chapel, 5 Apr.

On Thursday, 5 April, King’s Chapel will host a talk by Samuel A. Forman on “Dr. Joseph Warren and King’s Chapel—242nd Anniversary of Warren’s Funeral.”

As Boston 1775 readers know, Dr. Joseph Warren was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill and then buried several times. Not in pieces, though some rumors claimed that, but in different graves over the decades.

The first burying-place was on the battlefield itself. But after the British left Boston, Warren’s family and friends sought out his body and brought it across the Charles for a large funeral.

That event took place at King’s Chapel on 8 Apr 1776. Warren wasn’t a member of that Anglican congregation; he had been a congregant at the Brattle Street Meetinghouse instead. But Boston’s places of worship were in turmoil after the siege.

On Sunday, 10 March, the minister at King’s Chapel, the Rev. Henry Caner, had written in the church records:

An unnatural Rebellion of the Colonies against his Majesties Government obliged the Loyal Part of his subjects to evacuate their dwellings and substance, and to take refuge in Halifax, London, and elsewhere; By which means the public Worship at King’s Chapel became suspended, and is likely to remain so, till it shall please God in the Course of his Providence to change the hearts of the Rebels, or give success to his Majesties arms for suppressing the Rebellion.

Much of the upper-class Anglican congregation sailed away with the royal troops.

That left the big stone building available for Dr. Warren’s funeral less than a month later. A few weeks after that, the Old South Meeting-House congregation moved in for a few years until their own building was restored from being used as a riding stable by British dragoons.

Sam Forman’s talk will examine what Warren meant to Boston, the retrieval of his remains from Charlestown, and how young lawyer Perez Morton’s oration helped to define Warren’s legacy in the nascent republic. Forman is the author of Dr. Joseph Warren: The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty.

King’s Chapel is at 58 Tremont Street in Boston. This event will start at 6:30 P.M. It is free and open to the public, but King’s Chapel asks people who plan to attend to register here. There’s a suggested donation of $5 to support the church’s preservation efforts and history program.

“Marks of respect paid to the memory of our deceased Governour”

Here are some additional details from Gov. John Hancock’s funeral on 14 Oct 1793.

First, the 21 October Columbian Gazetteer of New York reported on the response of the new acting governor:

A correspondent who cast his eye at the present Commander in Chief, the venerable SAMUEL ADAMS, was sensibly affected with the appearance of this hoary Patriot. His feelings were too mighty for the infirm state of his health. He was in reality a sincere mourner.—

It was scarcely possible for the aids who accompanied him, to support his debilitated frame, till he reached Perez Morton’s, Esquire.

Adams was seventy-one years old, born fifteen years before Hancock. The funeral procession started at Hancock’s house, near where the Massachusetts State House now stands, went south along the Common, turned east at Frog Lane (Boylston Street), turned north onto the main street through town (now Washington Street), went up to the Old State House, then west on Court Street, and finally south again to the Granary Burying Ground.

Adams made it nearly all the way. Perez Morton lived in the house his wife Sarah had inherited from her Apthorp ancestors at the end of Court Street where the land starts to rise toward Beacon Hill.

Adams ran for the governor’s seat himself in 1794 and held it until he retired in 1797. During the last years of his life, his essential tremor worsened so that he couldn’t write—ironic given that his political activism was based on writing. Adams outlived Hancock by ten years, dying in October 1803.

The Haverhill Guardian of Freedom newspaper I quoted yesterday included this remark:

Among the individual marks of respect paid to the memory of our deceased Governour, that of Mr. Duggan, near the market, arrested the attention of our correspondent. The finely finished sign of his excellency which is suspended from his house, was covered with a mourning crape; and exhibited a very decent tribute of regard and gratitude.

John and Mary Duggan had opened the Hancock Tavern on Corn Court in 1790. Mary Duggan had inherited the house from her family, the Keefes or Keiths. She deeded the property to her husband in early 1796 and died soon afterwards. He then married another woman named Mary (there were a lot of those, to be fair), had three children with her, and died in 1802.

Another tribute to Hancock was created shortly before his death. In the 10 October Columbian Gazetteer Daniel Bowen advertised a display of waxworks in New York that included:

The late and venerable American Statesman and Philosopher, Dr. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, sitting at a Table, with an Electrical Apparatus. JOHN HANCOCK, Esq. Present Governor of Massachusetts, and ALEXANDER HAMILTON, Esq. Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, at a Table, and the Figures of Peace and Plenty advancing to crown them with wreaths of Laurel.

It’s striking that of all the politicians living in America at that time, Hancock and Hamilton were the two featured in this display. But Bowen rotated figures to bring customers back; he’d already advertised President Washington earlier in the year. In addition, he was in the process of moving his operations from New York to Boston, and Hancock would be a big draw in his new home.

Jerusalem Banned in Boston

I haven’t found any newspaper notices of the model of ancient Jerusalem in Boston the way it was advertised in Philadelphia, New York, Newport, and Providence (as quoted over the past two days).

But we know it was on display at the White Horse Tavern in the South End by 26 Oct 1764 because the merchant John Rowe (shown here) went to view it. And he was not impressed. In his diary he wrote:

Went after dinner to see a Show at the White Horse wh. was a very faint Representation of the City of Jerusalem, in short ’tis a great Imposition on the Publick. I dont Remember to have seen so much Rainfall in so short a time

The phrase “imposition on the public” was a common idiom for a fraud.

Almost two weeks later, on 8 November, the Boston selectmen’s records contain this item:

Complaint having been made to the Selectmen by a number of the Inhabitants, that ——— & his Mother are entertained at Mr. Moultons Tavern at the sign of the White Horse, at which Place he exhibits the City Jerusalem in Wood work whereby he draws considerable sums from the Inhabitants and as upon enquiry the Representation is not esteemed by Judges to be the work of Art & ingenuity, but rather an imposition on the public.

Voted, that Mr. Adams be directed to warn them to leave this Town immediately, and also to acquaint Mr. Moulton that the Selectmen expects he will not suffer any more exhibitions of the same in his House.

Unfortunately, the selectmen didn’t record the name of the exhibitor and his mother, who were apparently traveling around with the model. Maybe town employee Robert Love wrote it down; he made regular stops at the White Horse Tavern asking about new arrivals from Providence, but people who were obviously passing through town may not have caught his attention.

The innkeeper at the White Horse Tavern was Joseph Morton, not Moulton—though this wasn’t the only time his name was misspelled that way. His teenage son Perez would grow up to be a noted and somewhat notorious attorney.

The “Mr. Adams” the selectmen sent to close this exhibit was Abijah Adams, a young men elected Clerk of the Market the previous month. He was chided the following January for “great neglect in the Warning Strangers to depart this Town.”

But let’s look at the selectmen’s own neglect. Even if Rowe had gone to see the model city on the day it opened, the exhibit had drawn “considerable sums from the Inhabitants” for fourteen days before the town fathers acted. This little Jerusalem had spent about three weeks in each of Newport and Providence. If the exhibitors had planned to spend about the same time in Boston, they were through most of their planned run when the selectmen ordered them “to leave this Town immediately.”

Perhaps, as I suspect happened in the case of rope-flyer John Childs, Boston’s selectmen were making a show of shooing something theatrical out of town only after people had had a chance to enjoy it if they chose.

Newspaper ads show that the Jerusalem model traveled back through New York, and on 6 June 1765 it was once again on display in Andrew Angel’s Green Tree Tavern in Philadelphia. “This Curiosity has been seen by a great Number of Gentlemen, Ladies, and others, with great Satisfaction,” the Pennsylvania Gazette advertisement assured readers. The price was one shilling, “but to the poorer Sort, and Children, an Allowance will be made.”

The Last Members of the North End Caucus

Last month I highlighted from the Boston News-Letter and City Record’s 1826 publication of records from the pre-Revolutionary North End Caucus.

The periodical credited “a gentleman at the North End” for sharing his knowledge of the period, and presumably sharing those documents. We know that source was not himself a member of the caucus, however, because the newspaper staff was under the impression that no members were still alive.

Then on 9 December the News-Letter added:

In the News Letter of the 25th ult. [i.e., last month] we gave a catalogue of the most conspicuous patriots of 1771, and 1772, who frequently assembled in Caucus, at the North-End, for the purpose of consulting together, and passing such resolutions, as might be deemed necessary for the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people. We were not aware, at the time of publishing this record, that Perez Morton, esq. [shown here] was the only surviving one of the whole party; but the Gazette of Thursday informs us that he is; and we are gratified in learning that this gentleman still enjoys good health, and the full possession of his rich faculties, and will probably furnish some remarks on the disposition and character of his associates in the leading events of our glorious revolution.

Then on 23 December the periodical published a letter from someone signing with the initials “O.P.”:

It was mentioned in your last “News Letter,” that there was but one member of the Old North-End Caucus, of, 71, and 72, now living, and that was the Hon. Perez Morton. We are glad, however, to learn, by the last advices from Paris, that Col. James Swan, also one of the distinguished patriots in those meetings, is still alive, and has been recently released from the Debtors’ apartments in Paris, after a detention of nearly twenty years.

It may be proper to state, that the apartments, here spoken of, unlike ours for the confinement of Debtors, are extensive and cornmodious, having a fine garden surrounding them, and the tenants at liberty to walk in them, at all hours to enjoy what amusements they please—and to indulge themselves in such a manner of living, as they may think proper, and can afford to pay for—there being within the outer walls several restorators and other places, for the disposal of provisions, liquors, fruits, and confectionary.

“Restorators” was an old term for restaurants.

That description of Swan’s comfortable confinement for debt in Paris matches a lot of other sources from the following decades. However, those sources don’t speak of Swan being released in 1826. Rather, he reportedly remained in detention until 1830, dying shortly afterward. But there are a lot of mysteries about Swan that I'm still muddling through.