“The infamous Capt. Beeman”

The Rev. Jeremy Belknap’s account of how Gen. Thomas Gage’s plan for the march to Concord leaked out to the Patriots, quoted yesterday, mentions four men by name.

Three of those people were well known Patriot leaders: Dr. Joseph Warren, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock.

The fourth was a Loyalist scout for the British troops identified as “the infamous Capt. Beeman.” Is there any more evidence about such a figure, especially evidence not publicized by October 1775? If so, that would suggest that Belknap truly heard some inside information.

And indeed we can identify “Capt. Beeman.” That must be Thomas Beaman (1729–1780), a Loyalist refugee from Petersham, Massachusetts.

Beaman was born in Lancaster. He joined Gov. William Shirley’s 1755 expedition against Acadia as a sergeant under Capt. Abijah Willard, and before the end of that war he was a captain under Col. Willard at the capture of Montréal. From then on people called him “Captain Beaman” even in peacetime.

In the 1760s Beaman was married and settled in Petersham. The first and so far only minister of that town was the Rev. Aaron Whitney (1714–1779). Unlike most of his Congregationalist colleagues in New England, Whitney strongly supported the royal government in the political disputes of the 1760s and 1770s.

So did Beaman. There was an argument and lawsuit over a schoolhouse around 1770 that I’ll save for later. Instead, let’s skip ahead to late 1774 after royal authority outside Boston broke down. According to Petersham town records, Beaman was among fourteen local men who banded together and agreed:

That we will not acknowledge or submit to the pretended Authority of any Congresses, Committees of Correspondence or other unconstitutional Assemblies of Men, but will at the Risque of our Lives, and if need be, oppose the forceable Exercise of all such Authority.

A 2 January Petersham town meeting summoned those men by name to explain themselves or repent. Only two showed up, defiantly maintaining their position. The meeting then determined:

Therefore as it appears that those persons still remain the incorrigable enemies of America and have a disposition to fling their influences into the scale against us in order to enslave their brethren and posterity forever, and after all the friendly expostulations and entreaties which we have been able to make use of, we are with great reluctance constrained to pronounce those, some of which have heretofore been our agreeable neighbors, traitorous paricides to the cause of freedom in general and the United Provinces of North America in particular…

The meeting urged townspeople not to have any commercial dealings with those men, even planning to print up 300 handbills at town expense. The Boston newspapers reported on that resolution.

Customs Commissioner Henry Hulton left this version of what happened next, starting in February 1775:

A number of Inhabitants in the town of Petersham, who had entered into an association for their mutual defence, finding the spirit of persecution very strong against them, assembled together in an house, resolving to defend themselves to the utmost.

The house was soon surrounded by many hundreds of the people, and they were obliged after some days to capitulate and submit. The people, after disarming them, ordered them to remain each at his own house, not to depart from thence, or any two of them to be seen together upon pain of death.

Petersham’s local historian says that siege concluded on 2 March.

Beaman then probably moved his family into Boston, as many other prominent Loyalists did. [ADDENDUM: Further research cited in the comments below shows that Beaman’s wife and children remained in Petersham until early 1779, when the Massachusetts legislature permitted them to travel through Newport to join him in New York City.] But according to the account his heirs later gave the Loyalists Commission, paraphrased in E. Alfred Jones’s The Loyalists of Massachusetts, “he, at the request of General Gage, frequently traveled the country to discover the real designs of the leaders of the rebellion.”

The Beaman family’s claim also stated that “he was a volunteer (as a guide to Lord Percy) with the military detachment to Concord.” Percy got only as far as Lexington, however. According to Belknap’s informant, Beaman was actually a scout for the first British column under Lt. Col. Francis Smith; those soldiers “landed on Phips’s Farm, where they were met by the infamous Capt. Beeman, and conducted to Concord.”

Furthermore, the New-England Chronicle newspaper of 12 Sept 1776 referred to “Capt Beeman, of Petersham (who piloted the ministerial butchers to Lexington).” And Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 history of Concord, published before many Loyalist sources became available, stated: “It is also intimated that tories were active in guiding the regulars. Captain Beeman of Petersham was one.” Those sources suggest that locals recognized Beaman among the redcoats, as Belknap’s information implies.

Back in Boston, Gen. Gage rewarded Thomas Beaman in May by appointing him wagon-master to the army. Later in 1775 Beaman became a first lieutenant in the Loyal American Association, a militia company led by his old commander Abijah Willard, which never saw combat.

Beaman kept the position of wagon-master under Gen. William Howe. He traveled with the king's army, working in and around British-occupied New York until he died in November 1780. By then the state of Massachusetts had banished him and confiscated his property. Beaman's widow and children settled in Digby, Nova Scotia.

We thus have our first indication that Belknap’s October 1775 account of the march to Concord came from someone who had at least some reliable, little-known information.

Unpaid Taxes and a Stolen Horse

As I said yesterday, I searched Massachusetts newspapers for any mention of the Quock Walker cases in July 1783 or any other month of that and preceding years—without success.

I searched not only for Walker’s name but also for the names of Nathaniel Jennison and John and Seth Caldwell, the white men involved.

I didn’t find reports of the case. But I did come across advertisements showing some of what those men were dealing with in 1783.

On 30 Dec 1782, Jotham Houghton, constable for Petersham, sent out a long, detailed notice about the taxes on tracts of land in that town and how much tax was owed on them. It was printed in the 16 Jan 1783 Independent Chronicle in Boston.

According to Houghton’s accounts, “Nathaniel Jennison, of Barre,” owed more than £30 going back to June 1780, plus “for hiring a soldier, 1s 5d.”

In apparent response, Jennison placed an advertisement in the 3 July 1783 Massachusetts Spy offering fifty acres in Petersham and “A LOT of new LAND lying in Rutland” for sale “for State securities or good private security, hard money will not be refused.”

On 2 July, Jennison was on the eastern side of the state. The 10 July Independent Chronicle ran this ad from him:

STOP THIEF!
Twenty dollars reward,
STOLEN from a pasture in Roxbury, on the 2d of July instant, a large dark bay HORSE, sixteen hands high, black mane and tail, trots and paces, high carriage, about nine years old. Any person who shall take up said horse, and give intelligence to Nathaniel Jennison, of Barry, in the county of Worcester, shall receive ten dollars, with all necessary charges; and if the thief is apprehended, and brought to justice, they shall have the above reward of twenty dollars…

It wasn’t turning out to be a great year for Nathaniel Jennison, even beyond the judgment against him in the Walker cases. 

But Jennison wasn’t the only figure having troubles. On 19 February, David Puket, the tax collector of Greenfield, issued a notice, printed in the next day’s Independent Chronicle, that he was selling “One farm belonging to John Caldwell, Esq;” for unpaid taxes. As a measure of inflation, Duket calculated the tax bill to be worth:

• “79l. 4d. old emission.”
• “4l. 6s. 11d. State’s money.”
• “16s. silver.”

The sale was to take place on Monday, 17 March.

On 10 June, John and Sarah Caldwell bought a notice in Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy (published first on 12 June), saying that they would sell “By PUBLICK AUCTION” three horses and “A NUMBER of good likely COWS” at “the house of Mrs. SARAH CALDWELL, widow, in BARRE.”

Finally, the 26 June Independent Chronicle ran a notice from Daniel Wells, new tax collector in Greenfield, stating that “John Caldwell, Esq;” now owed nearly £2.13s., and he would sell off the man’s property on 21 July if that bill was still unpaid.

Because of the number of Caldwells in Barre and nearby, I’m not sure those three notices involved the same John Caldwell involved in the Quock Walker cases. Nor can I figure out how this John Caldwell was related to the widow Sarah Caldwell; her late husband was possibly William, who died young in 1780.

Despite those genealogical uncertainties, those advertisements show how farmers in central Massachusetts, including relatively prosperous men who had been able to invest in land in different towns, were under economic pressure by 1783. That was part of the background to the Quock Walker decisions.

One bit of pleasant news: Seth Caldwell married Mary (Polly) Jones of Worcester in 1782, and they started a large family the next year. He died in 1805 at age forty-seven, styled a militia major. She died in 1828 at age sixty-four.

Contrasting Reactions to the Massachusetts Convention

Massachusetts towns had a range of responses to Boston’s invitation in September 1768 to come to a Convention in Faneuil Hall and discuss the province’s grievances.

The 26 Sept 1768 Boston Gazette proudly ran a dispatch from Petersham in Worcester County. On 19 September, the town’s “Sons of Liberty” had met to choose Theophilus Chandler to attend that Convention. But they didn’t stop there.

The following day, those men of Petersham had a ceremony to “dedicate a Tree to that most amiable Goddess,” Liberty, choosing the Wilkesite time of “45 Minutes past two o’Clock, P.M.”

Accordingly they met at the Time appointed, and having made Choice of a beautiful young Elm, they cut off 17 useless Branches (leaving 92 thereon) and one of them taking hold of the Tree uttered the following Words, “O Liberty! thou divine Goddess! may those that love thee flourish as the Branches of this Tree! but those that hate thee be cut off and perish as these 17, which we are now about to commit to the Flames?[”] And a Pile of condemn’d Shingles being instantly set on Fire, the amputated Branches, together with the Effigies of the 17 strong Asses were cast therefore and consum’d, while the well known Song of Liberty was sung; and having scatter’d their Ashes towards the four Winds of Heaven, they gave three Cheers, and then walked back in Procession, where a Dish of Barley Coffee was prepared for them:

The 92 branches and the 17 lopped off referred to the Massachusetts assembly’s vote not to rescind the Circular Letter. The “Barley Coffee” might have been an early example of eschewing taxed tea.

The Petersham celebrants then drank thirteen “constitutional Toasts,” starting with the royal family and moving on to “Lord Chatham—[John] Wilks,…The brave Corsicans…our glorious intrepid Ancestors,” John Dickinson, James Otis, and “A speedy Repeal of all unconstitutional Acts.”

In contrast, the Connecticut River town of Hatfield met on 22 September, “calmly and fully deliberated and considered” Boston’s invitation, and voted unanimously not to participate.

What’s more, the next day Hatfield approved a long reply to Boston. This document was written mainly by Israel Williams (1709-1788), a wealthy landowner and militia officer who strongly supported the royal government. In the House he had been one of the 17, not one of the 92.

Williams and his neighbors produced a detailed rebuttal to Boston’s points about the danger of the army regiments being stationed in town. They expressed confidence that the regular process of petitioning Parliament would resolve Massachusetts’s problems. Hatfield’s reply ended:

Suffer us to observe that in our Opinion the Measures the Town of Boston are pursuing and proposing to us and the People of this Province to unite in, are unconstitutional, illegal, and wholly unjustifiable, and what will give the Enemies of our Constitution the greatest Joy, subversive of Government, destructive of that Peace and good Order which is the Cement of Society, and have a direct Tendency to rivet our Chains, and deprive us of our Charter Rights and Privileges, which we the Inhabitants of this Town desire may be secured to us, and perpetuated to our latest Posterity.

Thus we have freely expressed our Sentiments, having an equal Right with others, tho’ a lesser Part of the Community, and take this first Opportunity to protest against the proposed Convention;—and hereby declare our Loyalty to His present Majesty, and Fidelity to our Country; and that it is our firm Resolution, to the utmost of our Power, to maintain and defend our Rights in every prudent and reasonable Way, as far as is consistent with our duty to GOD and the KING.

The town clerk who signed off on that message on behalf of Hatfield, Oliver Partridge, was appointed a county judge in October. Every town had its own story.

TOMORROW: Politicking in Cambridge.