“Play up the Yankee Doodle tune”

This series started with a letter from three of Boston’s wardens reporting an incident of martial music played on Sunday, 11 June 1769.

As I’ve been quoting, the Boston Whigs complained about that noise disrupting church services almost since army regiments arrived in town the previous October. That incident wasn’t the only conflict.

The Whigs’ “Journal of the Times” addressed the event the wardens wrote about, but not until the dispatch dated 24 July 1769, or six weeks afterward. That dispatch said:

Some Sabbaths past, as the guards, placed near the Tavern-House, were relieving, there was a considerable concourse of people, chiefly boys and Negroes to partake of the entertainment given by their band of music;

the wardens having by their laudable exertions dispersed the rabble, soon perceived that Mr. John Bernard, our Governor’s second son, had made one among them, and still kept his standing; upon which they very civilly accosted him desiring that he should walk off, lest his being suffered to remain, should give occasion for their being taxed with partiality in the execution of their trust;

Mr. Bernard then seemed to be walking away, when Capt. M—s—h, who commanded the guard, called to him, desiring that he would come into the square, where he should be protected from the wardens; the young man accepted of so pressing and polite an invitation; but the wardens called to him as he was going into the square, praying him to desist, as they would otherwise be put to the disagreeable necessity of returning his name to a magistrate, the Monday following;

upon that the officer of the guard, in a sneering manner, called upon the musicians to play up the Yankee Doodle tune, which compleated the conquest of the military, and afforded them a temporary triumph.

The wardens made good their promise, and discharged their duty, by entering a complaint with a magistrate, against Mr. Bernard, for breach of Sabbath, when he was convicted, and punished agreeable to law.

The wardens’ letter referred to “a Young Gentleman an Inhabitant of the Town,” but this newspaper item makes clear that man was John Bernard (1745-1809), son of Gov. Francis Bernard. He had served as his father’s personal secretary and then set himself up in business. In early 1770 he was one of the handful of merchants who defied the nonimportation agreement.

The wardens spelled out the name of “Capt. M—s—h,” letting us identify him as Ponsonby Molesworth of the 29th Regiment. In April he had eloped with fifteen-year-old Susannah Sheaffe, beautiful daughter of a Customs official, but then they came back to town to start life as a married couple.

The wardens’ letter said Molesworth ordered the regimental musicians to play “the Yankee tune.” The Whigs’ article confirms Lance Boos’s guess that meant “Yankee Doodle.” However, in his essay on the letter for the Massachusetts Historical Society’s blog, Boos interpreted the tune as intended to insult the “Young Gentleman.”

The “Journal of the Times” item shows that in fact the officers saw themselves as protecting Bernard’s right to enjoy the army music, and they called for “Yankee Doodle” as a way to defy and insult the wardens. In Boston’s political conflict, the governor, Customs officials, the army, and their family members were allies.

On the other side, wardens Thomas Walley, John Joy, and Henry Hill had the responsibility to ensure people observed the Sabbath, a reflection of Boston’s Puritan traditions. They couldn’t order the army to keep quiet; they and the selectmen could only make requests of the army commanders. But they could charge “an Inhabitant of the Town” like young Bernard with violating the Sabbath by not going home when they asked him to.

It’s interesting to note that in 1774 warden John Joy (1727-1804) became a Loyalist, probably inspired by his past military service to the Crown. His namesake son returned to Boston after the war and gave his name to Joy Street on Beacon Hill.

“Martial music on the Sabbath”

Back in December 2019 Lance Boos, working on a fellowship at the Massachusetts Historical Society, shared and analyzed a 17 June 1769 letter from Boston’s wardens to Col. Alexander MacKay, senior army officer in town.

The letter concerned an incident the preceding Sunday, six days before. A military band was playing that morning around the time of church services (which of course extended over most of the day).

More specifically:

a Young Gentleman an Inhabitant of the Town, appeared at ye relieving of ye Main Guard who being desired by one of ye Wardens to retire showed a willingness to Comply, but Capt. [Ponsonby] Molesworth of ye 29th Regiment, who was Capt. of ye Guard that was to be relieved, & an other officer Came to him & Insisted upon his tarrying to hear the Musick, Saying he would protect him, & Immediately ordered the fifes to play (in derision, as we Suppose,) what by them is Commonly Called ye Yankee Tune.

The three town officials who signed this letter—Thomas Walley, John Joy, and Henry Hill—then asked Mackay to order the troops not to play music during guard changes on Sunday any longer. As wardens, they had civic responsibility to keep the peace on the Sabbath.

We can find more context for this incident in the “Journal of the Times” reports that Boston’s Whigs dispatched to newspapers in other colonies to complain about the army presence in their town. The historian Oliver Dickerson collected and published those articles with the title Boston Under Military Rule.

The Whigs complained about martial music on Sundays starting soon after the regiments landed, with the first complaint dated 6 Nov 1768:

This being Lord’s day, the minds of serious people at public worship were greatly disturbed with drums beating and fifes playing, unheard of before in this land—What an unhappy influence must this have upon the minds of children and others, in eradicating the sentiments of morality and religion, which a due regard to that day has a natural tendency to cultivate and keep alive.

Yes, think of the children! About a month later, as of 4 December, the army seemed to accommodate the local authorities’ wish for peace and quiet:

It is observed with pleasure that the guards are now relieved on Lord’s day morning one hour earlier than on other days, which allows the soldiery to attend public worship in season; that there is now much less martial music on the Sabbath then has been heard since the first arrival of the troops.

But within a couple of weeks, the problem came to be martial music when the meetinghouses let out, and once again children were at risk:

Last evening after church service, there was a considerable gathering of children and servants, near the Town House, drawn by the music of the fife, &c. which is again heard on the Sabbath, to the great concern of the sober and thoughtful inhabitants; some of the youth’s having behaved so as to displease the officer, orders were given the guard to clear the parade; they marched up with bayonets presented,—one of the lads was pursued by a soldier to some distance, who made a thrust with his bayonet, which passed thro’ his coat, and had he not thrown himself on the ground that instant, its thought he would be run thro’ the body: He has entered a complaint against said soldier, with one of the magistrates of the town.

This passage repeats a common Whig trope, blaming disorder on “children,” “servants” (i.e., enslaved people), and “youth’s,” as opposed to “the sober and thoughtful inhabitants” who truly represented the town.

On the one hand, the dispatch said, young people lacked the judgment to resist gathering for the music. Even when they expressed their opposition to the soldiers, they did so through misbehavior instead of, say, formal complaints to the army and newspaper essays.

The result proved the Whigs’ main message: the presence of soldiers in the crowded town led to violence, and the London government should have foreseen that. And of course, when describing military abuse, a child was always a useful victim.

TOMORROW: This conflict continues.

“An incitement for the Author,” Willilam Clarke

In December 1768, the same month that John Brown advertised for customers at the Manufactory as quoted yesterday, his relative Elisha Brown appeared in another plea for business.

That plea took the form of a broadside, a tattered copy of which is visible courtesy of the Library of Congress. It says:

Boston, December, 1768.

PROPOSALS
For printing by Subscription,
The
MISER:
Or The
SOLDIER’S HUMOUR.
A
COMEDY
Of Three Acts,
As it is acted by his Majesty's Servants.

By William Clarke,
Soldier in His Majesty’s XXIXth Regiment.

Non possum placeto Omnibus.

No more Libels shall in my Works be found,
I’ll gently tickle whilst I probe the Wound.

As this new and ingenious Pamphlet was never before printed (though the Author has been often importuned to grant a Copy of the same) it is hoped it will meet with that Applause from the Publick, the Merit of the Performance so justly deserves, which will be an incitement for the Author further to gratify the Curiosity of his Readers in this Way.

The Price to Subscribers will be Eight Pence, L.M. each Book, which will be nearly printed on a good Type, and fine Paper, and will be covered with blue Paper.

Those Persons who subscribe for Six Books shall have a Seventh gratis.

Subscriptions are taken in by ELISHA BROWN, at the Manufactory-House, and by those Gentlemen who are possessed of these Proposals.

Such a proposal was a standard way of raising money to print something when the author didn’t have the funds to pay up front—basically running a Kickstarter campaign, selling copies in advance. The offer of seven for the price of six was an attempt to interest booksellers in carrying the title.

Several details made this proposal unusual, however. First, it was for publishing a play in a town that banned theater. To be sure, Bostonians read plays, and booksellers sold them. But this was said to be a new play, never before printed, and not a respectable, established drama like Addison’s Cato.

Second, the playwright was a private soldier. The name of “William Clark” appears on the rolls of Capt. Ponsonby Molesworth’s company in the 29th. Many men in that regiment couldn’t sign their own names, and William Clarke had written a three-act comedy. His notice even included a Latin motto and a quotation in verse. Now that Latin, apparently meant to say, “It’s not possible to please everyone,” wasn’t accurate Latin. And half the verse, but only half, came straight from one of John Dryden’s translations of Persius. But Clarke was clearly making a claim to be learned.

Finally, the one man named as collecting money for this endeavor was “ELISHA BROWN, at the Manufactory-House”—one of the cloth weavers who had been forcibly resisting the British army just two months before. Brown’s role was even immortalized on his tombstone in 1785. How had Clarke and Brown gone into business together like this?

In October 1923, the Massachusetts Historical Society took note of this broadside. A short article in its Proceedings titled “An Unpublished Comedy” said that nothing was known about “Clarke and his unpublished comedy. . . . No copy of the pamphlet is known and it is doubtful if the response to the ‘Proposals’ were such as to warrant its printing.”

TOMORROW: But Clarke’s play was published.

“Carried Miss Suky Sheaffe to Hampton”

In early 1769 William Sheaffe, Deputy Collector of Customs for Boston, refused permission for his daughter Susannah and Capt. Ponsonby Molesworth to get married. After all, as I described yesterday, they had just met the previous October, and she was only fifteen.

But, according to Sheaffe family traditions recorded by Lorenzo Sabine, Susannah had had an ally:

Her governess, to whom she entrusted her grief, espoused her cause, and favored immediate union; and the result accordingly was, the flight of the three to Rhode Island, where the loving pair pronounced their nuptial vows.

Usually Boston couples eloped across the border to New Hampshire if they wanted to marry in secret, and indeed that’s where the merchant John Rowe said Ponsonby and Susannah went in his diary entry for 21 Apr 1769:

Capt. Molesworth of the 29th. carried Miss Suky Sheaffe to Hampton.

But Rowe may just have been guessing. The young printer John Boyle also noted this marriage in his “Journal of Occurrences in Boston” on 27 April, perhaps the day they returned to Boston.

Ponsonby and Susannah Molesworth had a child baptized at Trinity Church on 23 Feb 1770. They called this boy William Carr Molesworth, honoring the colonel in charge of the 29th Regiment (as well as, arguably, the Deputy Collector).

Ten days later, a corporal from Capt. Ponsonby’s company, William Wemys, and several other soldiers from the 29th were caught up in the shooting that became known as the Boston Massacre. To defuse tensions, army commanders moved the whole regiment to Castle William, and then to New Jersey, and eventually to Florida.

Capt. Molesworth went with them, but what about his young wife and child? A incomplete genealogy of the family says that Ponsonby and Susannah Molesworth had a child named Eliza about 1772—perhaps in Boston. But maybe the young wife traveled with her husband. In any event, Sabine concludes:

Molesworth sold his commission [and retired from the army] in 1776, and in December of that year was in England with his wife. Their married life proved uncommonly happy; and they lived to see their children’s children.

Which makes us think how relatively rare it was in that time to see one’s grandchildren grow to a significant age. Susannah died in 1834, Ponsonby sometime before that.

Back in Boston, William Sheaffe “died of a fit of the Palsey” in November 1771, in the words of artist Henry Pelham. He left his widow and several other children in poor straits.

COMING UP: What happened to the Sheaffes?

Capt. Molesworth Falls in Love

According to Sheaffe family tradition, which was apparently first published in the 1864 edition of Lorenzo Sabine’s American Loyalists, Capt. Ponsonby Molesworth spotted Susannah Sheaffe on the first day he arrived in Boston, 1 Oct 1768.

He was marching his company of the 29th Regiment off their transport ship and up Long Wharf. (See those little red figures in the print above?) She and her little sisters were watching from the balcony of their house. And he immediately fell in love.

That’s a lovely “How I Met Your Grandmother” story. And even in the spotty genealogical records of colonial Boston, we can find some more detail to fill it out.

Susannah’s father was William Sheaffe, born in 1705 in Charlestown. He became Deputy Collector of Customs for the port of Boston, a mid-level position which meant he usually ended up doing all the work for less pay. (Especially in the 1750s, when the Collector was Sir Harry Frankland, who was busy chasing barmaids.)

Sheaffe was also the Customs official who handled writs of assistance following the latterly famous court case that we discuss at the Old State House on Wednesday. Sheaffe tried to help search Daniel Malcom’s house in 1766, as described back here. He never seems to have become as unpopular as some of his colleagues, but it wasn’t an easy job.

On 1 Oct 1752, Sheaffe married Susannah Child at Trinity Church. He was in his later forties, twice widowed, and she was in her very early twenties. Seven months later, their first child was baptized at the same church; this little William didn’t survive to adulthood.

In the spring of 1754 Susannah Sheaffe was born, followed by the usual pattern of one child every one to three years until their mother reached menopause. Three died young, and eleven survived to adulthood. (The best recreation of their family tree, though still missing little William, appeared in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register in 1971.)

Susannah was thus fourteen years old when Capt. Molesworth reportedly spotted her. The family lore says that she had just turned fifteen when the captain asked for her hand in marriage. William Sheaffe thought that was too young, and refused.

TOMORROW: The young couple find help from an unexpected source.

(Picture of the British army landing in 1768 above courtesy of the Boston Public Library’s Flickr collection. http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/ / CC BY 2.0)

Capt. Ponsonby Molesworth: officer, Freemason

Vast Public Indifference recently featured the name of Capt. Ponsonby Molesworth of His Majesty’s 29th Regiment of Foot. And that’s quite a name to feature.

Molesworth arrived in Boston in October 1768 and—according to family legend—promptly fell in love with a teenaged girl named Susannah Sheaffe. I thought I’d look for more details about him.

Fortunately, it’s easier to find information about someone named Ponsonby Molesworth than someone named, say, James Hall. Or, rather, it’s easier to determine that the information one finds applies to the right Ponsonby Molesworth.

Our Molesworth was baptized on 14 May 1744 at the church of Saint Peter and Saint Kevin in Dublin. He came from a political family that for generations represented Swords in the Irish House of Commons. Obviously, the baby was named to honor a fellow M.P. named John Ponsonby (shown here, courtesy of Wikipedia), who became speaker of that house. (Eventually the baby’s half-aunt Louise would marry the speaker’s son William, one of the most powerful Irish politicians of the late 1700s and the first Baron Ponsonby.)

Our Ponsonby Molesworth was the fifth of six sons, so he wasn’t going to inherit his father’s seat or money. That made the army a good career.

I first spotted Capt. Molesworth’s name on the rolls for the 29th Regiment because his company included Cpl. William Wemys (also spelled Wemms and Wymes), one of the men tried for the Boston Massacre. Wemms appears to have come into the regiment after April 1769. The captain’s administrative skills were haphazard enough that the rolls list Wemms as in prison starting in late 1769, but in fact he was jailed only from March to November 1770.

Capt. Molesworth’s name also appears in connection with Boston’s Freemasons. When the British troops arrived, the town’s two Masonic lodges were arguing over legitimacy. The St. John’s Lodge (Moderns) refused to recognize the St. Andrew’s Lodge (Ancients). On 30 Nov 1768 St. Andrew’s voted to consider petitioning the Grand Lodge of Scotland for permission to appoint a Grand Master of all Ancient Masons in America.

A St. Andrew’s committee met with the Ancient lodges in the 14th, 29th, and 64th regiments. Eventually, on 27 Dec 1769, the Grand Lodge of Ancient Masons was organized at a ceremony at the Green Dragon Tavern, owned by St. Andrew’s.

That gathering made Dr. Joseph Warren the Grand Master of all Ancient-Order Masons within a hundred miles of Boston. Among the many other officers chosen, Thomas Crafts became Grand Treasurer, Paul Revere Grand Deacon—and Capt. Ponsonby Molesworth Junior Grand Warden.

Thus, even after months of fights between Bostonians and British soldiers and officers, including one riot with Capt. Molesworthy in the middle, Masonic unity brought these men together.

TOMORROW: Capt. Ponsonby Molesworth falls in love.