“Rebel Town” in Lenox through 18 Aug.

This week John Alan Segalla’s musical Rebel Town is being performed at the Duffin Theater in Lenox.

The ticket page says:

Rebel Town plunges you into the heart of Boston's political crisis in 1773. The story begins on the bustling wharfs, three days before the Boston Tea Party as Parliament’s Tea Act & the unlawful [sic] tax on tea ignites a firestorm of resistance led by charismatic Sam Adams, who rallies a town meeting to confront tyranny with three tea ships anchored in Boston Harbor.

Amidst the chaos, a 13-year-old apprentice Peter Slater Jr. dreams of joining the Sons of Liberty as carpenter William Grey and his comrades guard the ships, preventing customs officials from unloading the pernicious tea. With days to spare until the ships must be unloaded by law, the men and women of Boston make plans to deal with the tea in a manner that King George would never expect.

From lively gatherings and dance numbers at Liberty Tree to secretive schemes at the Bunches [sic] of Grapes Tavern, these passionate rebels—including John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Mercy Otis Warren—grapple with the weight of their defiance, knowing they risk being branded traitors or worse, being hanged for treason if caught. Daughters of Liberty including Sarah Grey, Abigail Slater and the women of the town play their own unique role in considering the consequences, their own rights, and aspirations for the future.

Segalla directed this production, as well as writing the whole show starting during the pandemic. It was supposed to be performed in May in the theater at Berkshire Community College, but those performances had to be canceled.

This week’s run through Sunday, 18 August, therefore appears to be the show’s debut. Naturally, Segalla hopes to bring Rebel Town to Boston.

Five Ways of Looking at a Brawl

Here are five men’s perspectives on what happened outside John Gray’s ropewalk in central Boston on Friday, 2 Mar 1770, 250 years ago today.

Samuel Bostwick, ropemaker:

between 10 and 11 o’clock in the forenoon, three soldiers of the 29th regiment, came up Mr. Gray’s ropewalk, and William Green, one of the hands, spoke to one of them, saying, Soldier, will you work?

The soldier replied, Yes.

Green said, then go and clean my s--t-house.

The soldier swore by the Holy Ghost that he would have recompence, and tarried a good while swearing at Green, who took no further notice of him, and then went off…

Nicholas Feriter, ropemaker:

about half after 11 o’clock, A.M. a soldier of the 29th regiment came to Mr. John Gray’s ropewalks, and looking into one of the windows said, By God I’ll have satisfaction! with many other oaths; at the last he said he was not afraid of any one in the ropewalks.

I stept out of the window and speedily knock’d up his heels. On falling his coat flew open, and a naked sword appeared, which one John Willson following me out took from him, and bro’t into the ropewalks.

Pvt. Patrick Walker, 29th Regiment:

Deponant having Occasion to go by the Ropewalkes in Boston, he was assaulted, knocked Down, trod under feet, Cut in several places, and Very much bruised, Without any Provocation Given, by about twelve of the Inhabitants of Boston, (supposed Rope makers) and Left in Danger of his Life

Pvt. Walker had to sign his deposition with a mark.

Ropemaker Feriter, continued:

The soldier then went to Green’s barrack, and in about twenty minutes return’d with 8 or 9 more soldiers armed with clubs, and began as I was told with three or four men in Mr. Gray’s warehouse, asking them why they had abused the soldier aforesaid? These men in the warehouse passed the word down the walk for the hands to come up, which they did, and soon beat them off.

Drummer Thomas Walker, 29th Regiment:

between the Hours of Twelve & two o’Clock in the Day He was Going to His Barracks, that he met Pattrick Walker Soldier in Sd. Regiment in the Street cut & bleeding Very much, that he Asked Sd. Walker Who had used him So,

that he told him that he was Served in that manner by the Rope Makers, that he then asked him What was their Reason for so doing, upon which he informed Him that as he Went for a Buckett of Water to a Yard Adjacent to the Rope Walk, he was asked by one of the Rope Makers if he Would Work, he reply’d he Would, asking him What he was to Work at, to Whom the Rope maker reply’d to Empty his Necessary House,

To Which Sd. Walker reply’d, that if he had no other Work, he might Empty it himself, as he thought it beneath a Soldier, to be Guilty of so Scandalous & Servile as Office upon which they argued for Some time, but at Length fell to blows Upon Which the Rope Makers turned out and Cut him most Desperatly,

upon his Information That he [Drummer Walker] & and one or two More Went down to know the truth how it happened,…

Thomas Walker signed his own deposition, which is striking since the drummers of the 29th were black men, originally purchased as enslaved teenagers.

John Hill, justice of the peace:

I was at a house the corner of a passage way leading from Atkinson’s street to Mr. John Gray’s rope-walks, near Green’s barracks so called, when I saw eight or ten soldiers pass the window with clubs. I immediately got up and went to the door, and found them returning from the rope-walks to the barracks; whence they again very speedily re-appeared, now increased to the number of thirty or forty, armed with clubs and other weapons.

In this latter company was a tall negro drummer, to whom I called, you black rascal, what have you to do with white people’s quarrels?

He answered, I suppose I may look on, and went forward.

Hill was sixty-nine years old. He would soon one of the magistrates active in collecting testimony, including his own, about the shooting on King Street.

Ropemaker Feriter, continued:

In a few minutes the soldiers appeared again at the same place, reinforced to the number of 30 or 40, armed with clubs and cutlasses, and headed by a tall negro drummer with a cutlass chained to his body, with which at first rencounter I received a cut on the head, but being immediately supported by nine or ten more of the rope-makers, armed with their wouldring sticks, we again beat them off.

Peter Slater, then a nine-year-old apprentice at the ropewalk, much later recalled fetching those hickory sticks for his older colleagues to fight with.

Justice Hill, continued:

I went out directly and commanded the peace, telling them I was in commission [i.e., was a magistrate]; but they not regarding me, knocked down a rope-maker in my presence, and two or three of them beating him with clubs, I endeavoured to relieve him; but on approaching the fellows who were mauling him, one of them with a great club struck at me with such violence, that had I not happily avoided it might have been fatal to me.

The party last mentioned rushed in towards the rope-walks, and attacked the rope-makers nigh the tar-kettle, but were soon beat off, drove out of the passage-way by which they entered, and were followed by the rope-makers, whom I persuaded to go back, and they readily obeyed.

Ropemaker Bostwick, continued:

a party of thirty or forty soldiers, headed by a tall negro drummer,…challenged the ropemakers to come out. All hands then present, being about 13 or 14, turn’d out and beat them off, considerably bruised.

Drummer Walker, continued:

that he no Sooner Entered the Rope Walk, then they Rope Makers ordered them to turn back, which they Did, But had not Gone far when they Called him Sd. Thomas Walker back, Saying that they Wanted to Speak to him, that he turned back When Numbers of them Jumped out of the Windows in the Walk, with Clubs in their hands asking What he wanted

to Which the Soldier that was Cut by them, reply’d that he wanted to know in what Shape he had offended them that they should use him so inhumanly as they had done

they Made no Answer but fell upon me and the two that Was with me, most Outragiously in Which time they Cut me in three places in the Head

he remained there as long as I was able but Growing weak with the Great Effusion of blood Which abundantly Issued from his Wounds that it was with Some Difficulty he could reach the Barrack

That the Next Morning as he was Carrying to the Hospital in the Machine for the Conveniency of Removing the Sick, He heard them in a Deriding & Scoffing manner ask the Men that bore him Were they Going to Bury their Dead.

An off-hand, perhaps spur-of-the-moment insult thus grew into a brawl involving dozens of men.

TOMORROW: Drummer Walker’s war.

How Peter Slater Snuck Out to the Tea Party

Here’s another early insider’s account of the Boston Tea Party—made public only fifty-eight years after the event.

This account appeared in the obituary for Peter Slater, who died in Worcester in 1831. It was first published in the Newburyport Herald on 18 October and Slater’s home-town newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy, on 19 October, and then reprinted with small changes in the November issue of the New-England Magazine:

Captain Slater was one of those persons who disguised themselves and threw the Tea overboard in Boston harbor, in December, 1773. He was then but a boy—an apprentice to a Rope maker, in Boston.

He attended the meeting of the citizens of Boston at the Old South Church, in the afternoon, where the question was agitated relative to the landing of the tea, and some communications were made to [Francis] Rotch, the consignee of the cargoes. His master, apprehensive that something would take place relative to the tea then in the harbor, took Peter home and shut him up in his chamber.

He escaped from the window, went to a Blacksmith’s shop, where he found a man disguised, who told Peter to tie a handkerchief round his frock, to black his face with charcoal and to follow him—the company soon increased to about twenty persons.

Captain Slater went on board the Brig [the Beaver] with five others—two of them brought the tea upon deck—two broke open the chests and threw them overboard—and Captain Slater with one other, stood with poles to push them under water. Not a word was exchanged between the parties from the time they left Griffin’s wharf till the cargo was emptied into the harbor, and they returned to the wharf and dispersed. This is the account of that memorable event as given by Capt. Slater.

He afterwards served five years as a soldier in the Revolution. He was a firm patriot, a brave soldier, a valuable citizen and an honest man.

Slater was born in 1760, thus thirteen years old at the time of the Tea Party and (contrary to the claim on his gravestone, above) seventy-one when he died. Though he was one of the youngest people who helped to destroy the tea, that wasn’t his first participation in political violence: he’d already been involved in the brawls that led up to the Boston Massacre.

Like Joshua Wyeth and Benjamin Simpson, who spoke for attribution about their experiences at the Tea Party in the late 1820s, Slater had moved out of Boston, and thus away from the ethos that kept such stories private. And of course by the time his account made it into print, he was dead.

Brawl at Gray’s Ropewalks

On 2 March 1770, Pvt. Patrick Walker of the 29th regiment passed John Gray’s ropewalks in Boston on an errand. Months later, he left a blunt and unhelpful description of what he experienced there:

That about the latter end of February Last, Deponant having Occasion to go by the Ropewalkes in Boston, he was assaulted, knocked Down, trod under feet, Cut in several places, and Very much bruised, without any Provocation Given, by about twelve of the Inhabitants of Boston, (supposed Rope makers) and Left in Danger of his Life

Pvt. Walker had to sign his deposition with his mark, didn’t recall the exact date of this assault, and didn’t accurately describe the details of what led up to his beating. But Walker was correct about minding his own business, fetching water, as he passed the ropewalks. Ropemaker William Green called out a question: did he want work? (Soldiers were allowed to moonlight, which lowered the wages for locals.) Walker asked Green what the work was. For three descriptions of Green’s insulting reply, see my posting on the term “little-house.”

Witnesses differ about what happened next. Drummer Thomas Walker (no relation to Patrick) recalled meeting the private “in the Street cut & bleeding very much” because he and Green had fought. The two soldiers then gathered several of their fellows and returned to the ropewalks.

On the other side, ropemaker Nicholas Feriter stated:

about half past 11 o’clock, A.M., a soldier of the 29th Regiment came to Mr. John Gray’s ropewalks, and looking into one of the windows, said, by God I’ll have satisfaction! with many other oaths; at the last he said he was not afraid of any one in the ropewalks. I stept out of the window and speedily knock’d up his heels. On falling, his coat flew open, and a naked sword appeared

Another ropemaker, Samuel Bostwick, insisted that “Green...took no further notice of” Walker after getting off his clever line, but the soldier came back “with a party of thirty or forty soldiers, headed by a tall negro drummer.” That drummer was Thomas Walker, quoted above; since 1759, the 29th had used black men as its regimental drummers.

Whoever was the first to get physical, Green’s gratuitous insult quickly escalated into a brawl between dozens of soldiers and dozens of ropemakers. Even young apprentices got into the action: Peter Slater, only nine years old, recalled bringing the ropemakers their “way-sticks” or “wouldring-sticks”—each two feet of hickory, used for twisting and laying out strands of hemp.

Sixty-nine-year-old Justice of the Peace John Hill testified:

I was at a house the corner of a passage way leading from Atkinson’s street to Mr. John Gray’s rope-walks, near Green’s barracks so called, when I saw eight or ten soldiers pass the window with clubs. I immediately got up and went to the door, and found them returning from the rope-walks to the barracks; whence they again very speedily re-appeared, now increased to the number of thirty or forty, armed with clubs and other weapons.

In this latter company was a tall negro drummer, to whom I called, you black rascal, what have you to do with white people’s quarrels?

He answered, I suppose I may look on, and went forward.

I went out directly and commanded the peace, telling them I was in commission [i.e., was a magistrate]; but they not regarding me, knocked down a rope-maker in my presence, and two or three of them beating him with clubs, I endeavoured to relieve him; but on approaching the fellows who were mauling him, one of them with a great club struck at me with such violence, that had I not happily avoided it might have been fatal to me.

The party last mentioned rushed in towards the rope-walks, and attacked the rope-makers nigh the tar-kettle, but were soon beat off, drove out of the passage-way by which they entered

Though it’s clear Green’s gratuitous insult had started this conflict, I think it probably escalated in a tit-for-tat pattern, each side bringing in more fighters and thus prompting the other side to do the same. Among the ropemakers involved was a young man named Samuel Gray—no relation to the ropewalks owner. Among the soldiers were Pvts. William Warren and Mathew Kilroy and (during follow-up brawls the next day) John Carroll, all grenadiers in the 29th.

All in all, the ropemakers seem to have gotten the better of the fights. Drummer Walker and Pvt. John Rodgers had to be taken to the hospital on Saturday, and several more soldiers described their injuries in depositions months later. In contrast, though ropemakers complained about the soldiers’ aggression, none reported serious injuries.

On Saturday the owner of those ropewalks, John Gray, visited the colonels of the two regiments in Boston. Gray was very wealthy, not politically active but leaning toward the Crown. (His brother Harrison was the provincial treasurer.) He made a deal with the colonels: he would dismiss Green from his employ, they wouldn’t enter his property without his permission, and each side would try to calm their own men. How well that worked became clear the following Monday night.

(The modern picture of a colonial ropewalk above comes from a webpage about ropemaking in Alexandria, Virginia. There are other useful sites about the cordage industry from Lewis-Clark.org, kite flyer Uli Wahl, and the Historic Naval Ships Association. Incidentally, in January 1771 the fired ropemaker William Green started working at the Box & Austin ropewalk on the other side of town. One of that firm’s account books is in the Winterthur library.)