Should Today Be “Salem Gunpowder Day”?

Earlier this month the Boston Globe published an essay by the historian Peter Charles Hoffer that it headlined, “Happy Salem Gunpowder Day! Did American independence start with a peaceful protest? The case for a new holiday.”

That holiday would be today, 26 February, and the article began:

In nine weeks, America will once more celebrate Patriot’s Day, in honor of the battles of Lexington and Concord. . . . But when it comes to the start of the Revolution, history has forgotten another crucial British retreat, one that might just as well be the day we celebrate instead. It happened on a Salem bridge on Feb. 26, 1775—239 years ago next Wednesday.

No shots were fired; no patriots or regulars fell. But on that day, for the first time, the Colonists stood up to a British Army serving field commander, and the British withdrew.

The story of the fierce but bloodless showdown that sparked the war is a reminder that our country was born not just out of violence, but from another kind of resistance altogether. If we were to commemorate that day instead—call it Salem Gunpowder Day—it would put a very different spin on our understanding of how our country’s war for independence began.

By no coincidence, Hoffer’s latest book is Prelude to Revolution: The Salem Gunpowder Raid of 1775. He was doing his job as an author, using the news media to bring attention to his book and argue for its importance.

But for me this essay left me less convinced Hoffer knows what he’s talking about. That’s harsh, especially since I’ve enjoyed some of his previous writing, but the run-up to the Revolutionary War in New England is a topic I’ve spent a lot of time on.

If we want to celebrate (mostly) non-violent resistance, then we should highlight the events of the late summer of 1774. Crowds in Massachusetts’s western counties closed their courts, and four thousand men massed on Cambridge common, all to protest the Massachusetts Government Act. Those unarmed crowd actions forced royal appointees to resign their posts or agree not to act under that law. By the end of the first week of September, it was clear that Gov. Thomas Gage exercised no authority outside of Boston. That opened a vacuum for the Massachusetts Provincial Congress formed weeks later.

If we want to spotlight the moment when the political conflict in New England turned military, then we might want to look at the shots fired at Fort William & Mary in Portsmouth harbor in December 1774. Nobody was killed there, but that confrontation got closer to being fatal than the Salem raid.

Why wasn’t the confrontation in Salem fatal? Hoffer paints the provincial obstruction as non-violent, but parts of the Essex County militia did mobilize and march to Salem. They simply arrived too late to get involved, after the British troops had started to withdraw. Only because the crisis was over by then could Hoffer call the event “bloodless.”

In fact, local historians didn’t call the confrontation at the drawbridge “bloodless.” Instead, Salem authors claimed that their townspeople shed the “first blood” of the Revolutionary War because the king’s soldiers pricked some locals in the chests with their bayonets. Not many authors from outside the county have agreed that that blood was so significant.

But most striking to me is how Hoffer refers to the “Salem Gunpowder Raid” and “Salem Gunpowder Day.” What gunpowder? In justifying the action to London, Gen. Gage wrote:

The circumstance of the eight field pieces at Salem led us into a mistake, for supposing them to be brass guns brought from Holland, or some of the foreign isles, which report had also given reasons to suspect, a detachment of 400 men under Lieut. Col. [Alexander] Leslie, was sent privately off by water to seize them. The places they were said to be concealed in were strictly searched, but no artillery could be found. And we have since discovered, that there had been only some old ship’s guns, which had been carried away from Salem some time ago.

Gage’s orders were all about cannon. That was why Lt. Col. Lesie headed for a blacksmith’s shop across the drawbridge across Salem’s North River—because David Mason had collected cannon there to be mounted on carriages.

Mason and his Patriot colleagues hadn’t collected gunpowder there. We know that because one of the rules that people in the eighteenth century knew to live by was:

You don’t store gunpowder in a blacksmith’s shop.

Web Exhibit about the Raids on Fort William & Mary

At the same time that Rhode Island’s preparations for war included moving cannon from Newport to Providence, where they would be beyond reach of the Royal Navy, the New Hampshire militia was taking similar but more dramatic action.

This website from the University of New Hampshire library preserves an exhibit on the militia raids on Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth’s harbor on 14-15 Dec 1774. The exhibit is largely based on chemistry professor Charles Lathrop Parsons’s The Capture of Fort William and Mary, published in 1903. It provides a good overview of this lesser-known event.

There are still some glitches in the online exhibit. The link labeled “The Gunpowder at Bunker Hill” leads instead to a letter from the governor; I haven’t found a webpage on powder. The webpage titled “Gentleman in Boston writing to a Mr. Rivitigton of New York” actually refers to James Rivington, printer of the Loyalist New York Gazetteer. That letter, as transcribed in American Archives, clearly did not endorse what had gone on in Portsmouth starting the night of 14 December:

With difficulty a number of men were persuaded to convene, who proceeded to the Fort, which is situated at New-Castle, an Island about two miles from the Town, and being there joined by a number of the inhabitants of said New-Castle, amounted to near four hundred men; they invested the Fort, and being refused admittance by the Commander of it [John Cochran], who had only five men with him, and who discharged several guns at them, scaled the walls, and soon overpowered and pinioned the Commander; they then struck the King’s colours, with three cheers, broke open the Powder House, and carried off one hundred and three barrels of Powder, leaving only one behind.

Previous to this expresses had been sent out to alarm the country; accordingly, a large body of men marched the next day from Durham, headed by two Generals; Major [John] Sullivan, one of the worthy Delegates, who represented that Province in the Continental Congress, and the Parson of the Parish [John Adams], who having been long-accustomed to apply himself more to the cure of the bodies than the souls of his parishioners, had forgotten that the weapons of his warfare ought to be spiritual, and not carnal, and therefore marched down to supply himself with the latter, from the King’s Fort, and assisted in robbing him of his warlike stores.

After being drawn up on the parade, they chose a Committee, consisting of those persons who had been most active in the riot of the preceding day, with Major Sullivan and some others, to wait on the Governour [John Wentworth], and know of him whether any of the King’s Ships or Troops were expected. The Governour, after expressing to them his great concern for the consequences of taking the Powder from the Fort, of which they pretended to disapprove and to be ignorant of, assured them that he knew of neither Troops or Ships coming into the Province, and ordered the Major, as a Magistrate, to go and disperse the people.

When the Committee returned to the body, and reported what the Governour had told them, they voted that it was satisfactory, and that they would return home. But, by the eloquent harangue of their Demosthenes [i.e., Sullivan], they were first prevailed upon to vote that they took part with, and approved of, the measures of those who had taken the Powder.

Matters appeared then to subside, and it was thought every man had peaceably returned to his own home, instead of this Major Sullivan, with about seventy of his clients, concealed themselves till the evening, and then went to the Fort, and brought off in Gondolas all the small arms, with fifteen 4-pounders, and one 9-pounder, and a quantity of twelve and four and twenty pound shot, which they conveyed, to Durham, &c.

Two opposing military forces facing off against each other (albeit one comprising only six men). The royal troops firing muskets and cannon, and the colonial militia storming a fortification and capturing the men inside (albeit with no killed or wounded on either side). Territory, gunpowder, and ordnance changing hands. The end of royal government in New Hampshire as Wentworth sought shelter and then departed for Boston. One might even think that a war had begun.

The Rev. John Adams, minister at Durham from 1748 to 1778, suffered from what we’d now call bipolar disorder, according to the description of the Rev. John Eliot:

For he was in his best days, and when he was not exposed to peculiar trials of his ministry, very much the sport of his feelings. Sometimes he was so depressed as to seem like a being mingling with the dust, and suddenly would mount up to heaven with a bolder wing than any of his contemporaries.

Local tradition says that he allowed some of the gunpowder from Fort William and Mary to be hidden under his pulpit. It probably seemed like a good idea at that moment.

New Hampshire State Liquor Stores

During the Revolutionary War, the biggest root of domestic conflicts was probably high prices for the necessities of life. American society hadn’t embraced the market system fully, so both people and governmental authorities objected when merchants raised their prices or kept goods off the market, waiting for demand to rise further.

On 27 Feb 1777, the New Hampshire Committee of Safety issued the following order to the sheriff of Rockingham County:

Whereas George Gains of Portsmouth, Esqr. (who was employed by this Committee to procure Rum for the American Army) has inform’d the Committee That Robert Parker, Thomas Martin, Neal McIntire, Mark Hunking Wentworth, Jonathan Warner, Benjamin Austin, George King, Nathaniel Folsom, George Turner, Jacob Treadwell, Ammi Ruhamah Cutter, Robert Furnass, John Hart, Tertius, Daniel & Samuel Sherburne, merchants, each of them, have West India Rum in their possession more than sufficient for their own use and consumption, which they refuse to sell him for the use of said American Army at a Reasonable rate:

Therefore you are hereby required in the name of the Government & the people of the State of New Hampshire (taking with you sufficient assistance) to break open any stores, Warehouses, or other places, where such Rum may be deposited, belonging to the above named persons, or in their possession, and take from thence the following Quantities of Rum: viz. from

• Robert Parker, four Hogsheads;
• Thomas Martin, Three Hogsheads;
• Neal Mclntire, one Hogshead;
• Jonathan Warner, two Hogsheads;
• Benjamin Austin, one Hogshead;
• George King, two Hogsheads;
• Nathaniel Folsom, three Hogsheads;
• George Turner, three Hogsheads,
• Jacob Treadwell, one Hogshead,
• Ammi Ruhamah Cutter, one Hogshead,
• Robert Furness, one Hogshead,
• John Hart Tertius, one Hogshead,
• Daniel and Saml. Sherburne, four Hogsheads

(if the same may be found as aforesaid) and deliver the same to the said George Gains. You are also to cause all Rum taken as aforesaid to be Gaged by a sworn Gager & make return hereof (as soon as may be) with your doings herein, to the Committee of Safety.

(I reformatted that text to make it easier to read on the internet. Here’s the original transcription.)

The sheriff carried out the order as best he could, collecting fifteen hogsheads. But he reported that eight of those men did not have “more rum than they wanted for their own use.”

Christmas Business in Portsmouth, 1775

On 25 Dec 1775, the white male property-owners of Portsmouth, New Hampshire—ignoring Christmas, like good descendants of Puritans—held a town meeting to select delegates to a Provincial Congress. The men they chose were Samuel Cutts, Samuel Sherburne, and Pierce Long.

One of the big issues at the meeting was the increasing cost of living in wartime:

That the great rise of Goods has given much uneasiness not only to the Inhabitants of this Town, (already being much distressed by being the Frontier & the total Loss of its Trade) but also to those of the Colony in general: Altho’ the Honorable Continental Congress have recommended that the Committees of the several Towns should regulate this matter, yet inasmuch as we have been informed, that Goods, altho’ high here, are higher at Newbury & Salem & higher still at Cambridge, wee are of opinion that it is too extensive as well as too delicate an affair to be in the power of any Town Committee to rectify. Wee therefore look up to the superiour Wisdom of the Congress intreating that they will take up the Matter on a general plan and afford such reliefe as the nature of the case requires.

In other words, prices were okay in Portsmouth, its shopkeepers could undersell those in Massachusetts towns, and the town didn’t want to take any measures to change that.

Portsmouth also didn’t want the New Hampshire Provincial Congress to go too far in assuming governmental powers. The town meeting attendees unanimously approved these instructions to their delegates the next day:

The precept sent to this town for the choice of Delegates, mentions our taking up a form of Government in this Colony. This we conceive to be a measure to be entered upon with the greatest caution, calmness, and deliberation. We are of opinion that the present times are too unsettled to admit of perfecting a form stable and permanent, and that to attempt it now would injure us, by, furnishing our enemies in Great Britain with arguments to persuade the good people there that we are aiming at Independency, which we totally disavow. We should therefore prefer the Government of the Congress till God, in his providence, shall afford us quieter times.

In fact, the town of Portsmouth (heretofore the biggest and most important in the province) was playing catch-up. The Provincial Congress had been meeting in Exeter since 21 December. And the delegates there were already at work on instituting a new government for New Hampshire, with a constitution adopted 5 Jan 1776.

New Hampshire was the first of the rebellious British colonies to establish a new constitution, even a provisional one. The state continued to govern itself by that document until the war ended, and then in late 1783 adopted its current, more detailed and formal constitution.

Strolling by Candlelight in Portsmouth, N.H.

The Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is hosting its annual Candlelight Stroll this weekend, 13 and 14 December, from 4:00 to 9:00 P.M. Every building on the property will be decorated and staffed to celebrate the New Year according to its period. At the Mason-Pitts Tavern, here’s what will be happening in January 1790:

Join the Masons as they talk about the foundation of the Grand Lodge of New Hampshire the previous July, and the ladies excitedly tell the story of the visit of President Washington in November 1789.

Join R. P. Hale on the 2nd floor with his Harpsichord and Hammer Dulcimer. Venture up to the 3rd floor to take in 18th-century songs and chants with Bob Killan as he plays his violin.

You can download a full program of Strawebery Banke Candlelight Stroll events for this weekend and the next from this page. Tickets are $18.00 for adults, $10.00 for children ages five to seventeen, $40.00 for families with two adults and unlimited children under seventeen. At least that’s how I interpret it.

John Loring, Midshipman

John Loring was born in 1761, one of the younger sons of Commodore Joshua Loring and his wife Mary. He and his twin brother Thomas may well have been the first children born in the Loring-Greenough House, built in 1760 and still standing today in Jamaica Plain. Thomas died at age seven.

Commodore Loring got his naval title from service to the Crown on Lake Ontario during the French and Indian War. His oldest son, also named Joshua, was a lieutenant in the army’s 15th Regiment during that same conflict. When the next war came around, young John decided to enter the British military as well, but he chose the saltwater navy.

John Loring was commissioned as a midshipman at age fourteen in 1775. I’m not sure what month he entered the Royal Navy, but his first assignment was apparently on the man-of-war Scarborough, commanded by Capt. Andrew Barkley, and that ship wasn’t in Boston for the first seven months of the year. It was patrolling the harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, disabling the defenses at Fort William and Mary and seizing ships with any sort of food. In August the Scarborough returned to Boston, bringing along royal governor John Wentworth and his family. Presumably Midshipman Loring went on after that.

In early January 1776, the Scarborough captured a schooner named Valent that was said to be heading from Salem to Winyaw, North Carolina. (Winyah Bay is actually in South Carolina, so I can’t explain that.) Barkley apparently made that schooner part of a little fleet he took down to Georgia.

There Capt. Barkley rescued another royal governor, James Wright. In March 1776, the Royal Navy and the local Patriots fought over some rice ships on the Savannah River. Barkley’s forces seized a lot of supplies, but the Georgians burned other vessels to keep them out of royal hands and felt that they had won a great victory.

Barkley sent the Valent back to Boston with a cargo of “rum, sugar, &c.” from Georgia. According to the usual procedures for capturing a ship, he had replaced its captain, who was named Cleveland, with some of his own officers. The two “prize masters” on the schooner were mate Edward Marsh, and young John Loring.

TOMORROW: Midshipman Loring returns home.

Charges "to a Dog" and "to Trouble"

Baron Frederick William Augustus von Steuben arrived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 1 Dec 1777 with his young French aides and a servant. In Europe the baron had been told that the American army wore scarlet, so he had secured uniforms in that color for himself and his companions. The locals immediately assumed they were British officers.

That confusion explained away, the Europeans headed south to Boston. Steuben's teen-aged translator, Peter Stephen Duponceau, later wrote to his granddaughter about their stay in that town:

We lodged as boarders at the house of a Mrs. Downe, the widow of a British officer, a respectable lady, with two beautiful and amiable daughters, the oldest Miss Betsy, about 19, and the youngest Miss Sally 16 years of age. There were no other boarders in the house but Baron Steuben and his family, and we were kindly and hospitably treated.

The bill at parting was very moderate, but there were two items in it which excited the anger of the good Baron, and made him ejaculate more than once, diable! diable! and Tertifle! The first of these charges was “to a dog,” which, in my opinion was a very just, and correct one. The Baron had brought with him his favourite dog Azor, a fine large Italian grey hound, who ate as much as any one of us. Why the charge was objected to, I cannot well conceive; it is probable that in Germany dogs go every where scot free.

The other charge was rather extraordinary, but under the circumstances a very just one. It was “to trouble.” I cannot recollect how much the charge amounted to, but it appeared to me very moderate. Only fancy to yourself an old German Baron, with a large brilliant star on his breast, a German servant attending him, and three French aid-de-camps, and a large spoiled Italian dog. None of all that company could speak a word of English except your grandfather, who was not a grave old man, as he is at present, but loved his share of fun when it went round.

We gave trouble enough to the good lady, and though I see in her charge much naiveté, I cannot perceive in it a symptom of avarice. As she had a little of what is, I do not know why, called Yankee cunning, she would have dropped these charges, and obtained her end by swelling a little, the more usual ones. . . .

In Mrs. Downe’s family to which came frequently female visitors,...I did not fail to take advantage of my fortunate situation, being the only person in our company who could speak the language of the country; I interpreted it as true as in duty bound, between the Baron and the old lady, and transmitted sometimes a few compliments from him to the young ones, but I left my brother beaux to shift for themselves. There they stood, or sat like Indians, and could talk only by signs. But the ladies had not studied Hieroglyphics, and I had the field all to myself. O! those were delightful times!

Italian greyhound portrait courtesy of Italian-Greyhound.net and Pet Action Shots.

General Washington Negotiates for Flour

On the same day that Gen. George Washington was dealing with the fallout of Dr. Benjamin Church’s trial, he was still trying to make sure his troops were supplied. He wrote to the Committee of Safety at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 5 Oct 1775:

I am to acknowledge the Receipt of your favor of the 2d Inst. [i.e., this month]; informing me that the Ship Prince George Capt. [Richard] Emms, from Bristol to Boston, with Flour for the Enemy, by a mistake of her Captain and the Spirited Conduct of some of the Inhabitants was now in your Possession.

I cannot but consider this as a most Providential Event, the State of this Army being alone defective in that Article, it would therefore highly Conduce to the Public Interest and to our relief, to forward it hither as soon as possible, which I apprehend may be done with Safety and ease by Water as far as Salem or Marblehead; in the mean time I will communicate the Matter to the Continental Congress for their Direction: as to the Compensation to be made the Captors and the determination of what Property arises by the Capture, and in whom Vested.

What ever Expenses may accrue in Complying with the above Request and whatever risque may be run by the Carriage by Water I will engage; but as I do not learn there are any of the Enemy's Ships on the Coast, I hope the Risque is very small.

There were 1,880 barrels and 24 half-barrels of flour on the Prince George. On the 10th, the New Hampshire Committee of Safety met again and decided the first thing to do with that flour was to supply its own troops. It ordered

George King, Esqr to take Charge of the Cargo of the Ship Prince George, & to deliver to Samuel Cutts, Esqr one hundred Bbls. [barrels] of Flour, at such Times & in such Quantities as he may need it to Supply the Soldiers at the Batteries in Piscataqua Harbour.

The next day, the committee wrote to Washington saying it had taken this step for “the Promotion of the Common Cause.” It also asked for approval to sell 500 barrels in Portsmouth, with the money held until the Continental Congress decided what to do with it. Finally, the committee said, “The Sailors appear to be pleased with the Capture, but are uneasy about their wages.”

On the 15th, Washington wrote:

I was yesterday favored with yours of the 11th Inst., wherein the Necessities of the Town of Portsmouth and the Garrison there, for some Part of the late Capture of Flour are represented; Had I known their Situation I should have made the Application unnecessary, by directing Mr. [Stephen] Moylan [muster master general] on the Subject, They have my Chearful Consent, to take what is necessary, but perhaps somewhat less than 600 Barrels may Answer the present Exigence; As our mutual Wants are now known to each other, I shall leave it to you to reserve what Quantity, you think indispensably Necessary.

I do not see any Impropriety in paying the Seamen their Wages, out of the Sales of some part of the Cargo and make no doubt it will be approved in the Settlement of this Affair.

Three days later the committee ordered King to sell up to 300 barrels of the flour at 20 shillings per hundredweight and

out of the money arising from the Sale, pay the Seamen of the Ship Prince George—Richard Emms, Master—the Wages that Shall appear due to them, agreeable to their original Contract.

Meanwhile, the commander-in-chief and the New Hampshire committee was still discussing the best way to move flour barrels from Portsmouth to Boston: a sailing ship was faster and cheaper, except that the Royal Navy might capture that ship and all its cargo. Should a ship go only as far as Ipswich? As Marblehead? This was the nitty-gritty of commanding an army.

Where Was the "Shot Heard Round the World"?

I've decided to start an irregular series of postings called "Myths of Lexington and Concord." By "Lexington and Concord" I mean the conflict between the British army and the militias of Massachusetts on 19 April 1775, which started with shooting on Lexington Green, restarted with a skirmish at the North Bridge in Concord, and then became a running battle all the way along the British withdrawal from Concord to Charlestown—hence the alternate term "Battle Road."

And by "myth" I mean "Something which someone somewhere has written down, which I can treat as conventional wisdom to be debunked, thus making what I write seem more original and important." Promising to debunk myths is a valuable tool in marketing history books, or indeed almost any sort of nonfiction.

So my first myth will be the "shot heard round the world." What shot does that phrase refer to, and does the shot deserve such phrase?

There's no question of what Ralph Waldo Emerson meant when he wrote his "Concord Hymn" in 1836:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Emerson lauded the militia companies from Concord, Acton, and Lincoln who marched down on the North Bridge. But of course Emerson had a dog in that fight. He was a Concord boy. His grandfather, the Rev. William Emerson, had turned out with the Concord militia that day, and would later die of disease while on campaign. And he wrote his hymn for the dedication of a monument in Concord. Of course Emerson said that what happened in Concord was most important!

But already there were folks in Lexington who felt their town deserved more credit. American historians had always pointed to the deaths of several Lexington militiamen at dawn on 19 April as the war's first casualties. In 1775, Massachusetts wanted to portray the British regulars as violent oppressors, so provincial leaders were careful not to publish much evidence of their preparations for a military conflict or of any forceful resistance to the British column before Concord. But fifty years later the men of Lexington got tired of being portrayed as mere victims. They began to insist loudly that they had fired back at the redcoats.

Thus, argued Elias Phinney in his 1825 pamphlet History of the Battle at Lexington, his town deserved credit for making the first forcible resistance to the British army. He published several depositions from survivors to support that claim. Nonsense, answered Concord minister Ezra Ripley; in A History of the Fight at Concord (1827), he published other depositions to show that the Lexington men had done little or no damage to the British column. Thus, by the late 1800s both towns claimed to be the site of the real "shot heard round the world."

And those aren't the only claims about when and where the war started. Ray Raphael argues in The First American Revolution that Massachusetts's political revolution took place in the summer and fall of 1774 as crowds of citizens stifled all royal authority in most of the province—several months before any shooting. People in Salem suggest that military hostilities between the British and Americans began there, with the confrontation between companies of the 64th regiment and locals on 26 Feb 1775. But that face-off turned into a face-saving compromise between Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie and the local elite; no one at Salem wanted to start a war.

So what's my answer as to where the Revolutionary War started?

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

On 14-15 Dec 1774, companies of New Hampshire militia under current and future Continental Congress delegates John Sullivan (shown above) and John Langdon attacked Fort William & Mary in Portsmouth harbor. The five-man British squad in the fort under Capt. John Cochran fired cannon at the intruders, but were overwhelmed by numbers. Nobody was killed or wounded. The provincials removed cannon, powder, and other supplies from the fort to use later.

Why do I consider that the first shot of the Revolutionary War? For the first time British and American military units deliberately confronted each other and used deadly force to seize territory (temporarily) and ordnance (permanently). The London government could not have overlooked the raid on Fort William & Mary; it was an act of rebellion and civil war.

So if I truly believe that, why did I name my blog "Boston 1775" instead of "Portsmouth 1774"? Um. Er. Oops, out of time for today. More myths tomorrow!