“My mother Cry’d out Jesse is dead”

As I described yesterday, on 7 Sept 1768 the Gloucester merchant David Plumer directed a mob to a house in the Annisquam village, seeking the Customs informant who had cost him a shipload of undeclared molasses.

When those men couldn’t find that man, Samuel Fellows, they attacked the family he was staying with, the Savilles. The head of that family, Jesse Saville, was out. Though officially a tanner, he, like a lot of Cape Ann men, probably also worked at fishing.

Here’s the rest of Jesse Saville’s description of that day:

I was not at home but was about two miles of by water, neither could i git home by reason of the tide. I came home about ten a Clock at night, very Darck and Raney. Had ocation to go out of Doors so tock my gun for I was affraid without her.

Meanwhile, two men in the mob, Joseph York and Thomas Griffin, woke up a neighbor and friend of the Savilles called George Dennison. According to Saville, they “told him they were coming to tare Down our house.” Dennison said he would be right with them. Then “After giting them out of Doors, [Dennison] fastened his Doors, went to Bed.”

But there were still dozens of men ready to confront Jesse Saville:

A few minuets after I was gone out a Doors they Sorounded our house attemting to Come in. My father was then in bed. He told them They Should not Come in Such a maner but they might three or fore of them come in and Sarch the house. A grate number flocked in headed by Dudley Sargent, marchant. Daniel Warner they Chose as Clark. Thomas Griffin above menteioned & Joseph York: were preasious in this mob.

I love the detail that this crowd mobbing a house chose a clerk, as if they were a town meeting or a charitable society. That reflects how they thought they were doing important community work.

I Stod a Little way of them, heard them Sware they would Tare Down the house, but what they would have him. I made a pass to go into the Door. They Sorounded me. I asked them who was there, was ansered by Dudley Sargent, half a Dozen of us. I asked what half a Dozen of such black gard Did there. They ansered me, Dam you we will tell you. They said where is Sam Fellows. I ansered none of your bysness.

They Imeadatily Seased me. About Eight or thereaway told me to Let go the gun I posessed. Desierd a pass into the house. My mother Cryd. out Jesse is dead. My wife fainting away. They nocked me Down, Toock away my gun, fired it of, broak it in peaces over a Rock. My father halled me into the house by the feet as I Lay on the ground.

It was Terable to See the wimans Countanences and the Cryes of the Children for part of the Children was at School in the Day time. So they Left the house after I threating them in the Law. Job Gallaway of the sd. town Told my wife he new the Person Struck me Down and broak my gun.

We were affraid to go to Sleep Ever Since Safly for word has been threatned to tare Down the house Several times and if Ever they Cached me in the harbor they would Serve me as bad as they would Capt Felows or if they Ever Could find out I Conseald him or by any means aided him or gave him any Sustanance they would tare Down the house and mob me which Since I Daresnot appear to profacute my Bysness but Shall be obliged to Leave the Town. If I want to go out of Town I am obiliged to go and Come in the night or on the Sabbath Day.

Three days after the attack on the Saville home, locals “rescued” or grabbed back another shipload of molasses that the Customs office had seized.

But then the tide turned. At the end of September, Royal Navy ships carrying two regiments of the British army arrived in Boston harbor. Some of those ships started to patrol around Cape Ann. Royal officials became more bold. By the end of the October, the Salem Customs office had seized David Plumer’s whole Earl of Gloucester ship for smuggling.

Around 1 October, Jesse Saville went into Plumer’s shop. In his characteristic spelling, Saville stated, “I told him he must mack good the Dammage I had sustained.” Plumer replied that if the tanner wanted satisfaction he’d have to sue; also, “he said they wanted another frolick, they Did not Desier no beter Sport.”

On 14 October, Saville wrote out a long complaint about what had happened to his family for the Customs Commissioners in Boston. He named names, including prominent men like Plumer, fellow merchants Paul Dudley Sargent and Joseph Foster, physician Samuel Rogers, and as many more as he could identify and remember:

• “Elichander Smith, Block macher”
• “Lebeday Day, mason”
• “William Lowder, tinman”
• “David Day, shoemaker”
• “Philemon Haskel, Black Smith”
• “Daniel Warner, Black Smith”

Saville also filed suit in the local courts against Plumer and other neighbors. In early November a grand jury sitting in Ipswich indicted eight Gloucester men “and others unknown” for attacking Saville’s house. The defendants included Rogers, Sargent, Foster, four other men Saville had singled out as violent, and two additional names: cordwainer Parker Knights and yeoman William Tarbox.

David Plumer wasn’t charged with assault, probably because he’d refrained from going into the Saville house or physically attacking anyone himself. But the Customs Office hauled him into Admiralty Court for smuggling. Plummer hired John Adams as his lawyer but lost the case in December. The Customs office put his schooner Earl of Gloucester up for auction in April 1769.

Since all those developments were bound to make him unpopular locally, Jesse Saville threw his lot in with the royal government. By the spring of 1769, he was working for the Customs service.

TOMORROW: And how did that go?

The First Mobbing of Jesse Saville

Another event of 1770 that I neglected on its 250th anniversary this year was the mobbing of Jesse Saville.

Or rather, the mobbing of Jesse Saville in March 1770, because we have to distinguish that mobbing from several others.

To start at the beginning, in the summer of 1768 a Gloucester sea captain named Samuel Fellows told the Customs Office in Salem that the schooner Earl of Gloucester was about to arrive with undeclared molasses. Fellows used to command that ship for the merchant David Plumer, and evidently he was peeved at being replaced.

Samuel Fellows had been born in Ipswich in 1736, but was described as “of Gloucester” when he married Mercy Treadwell of Ipswich in 1763. Their first two children were sons born in Gloucester in 1764 and 1765. Samuel Fellows had also served as an ensign at Crown Point in 1755.

Acting on Capt. Fellows’s tip, Customs surveyor Joseph Dowse went to Gloucester on 6 September and seized more than thirty-three barrels of molasses from the Earl of Gloucester. At some point the Commissioners of Customs also talked to Fellows about coming to work for them. With more powers and more revenue under the Townshend Act, the department was expanding.

The next day, Plumer and several dozen friends came after Capt. Fellows. Which meant they came to the house of Jesse Saville, up on the Annisquam peninsula, where Fellows was staying.

Saville was a tanner, born in 1740 as the twelfth and youngest child of a cooper. In 1763 he married Martha Babson, and they had sons Thomas (1764), Abiah (1766), and John (April 1768), with more children on the way. The household appears to have included some of Jesse’s adult relatives, and he also spoke of “my Servant,” the usual euphemism for a slave. So I can’t tell if this was a wealthy family with a big house and a staff, or a poor family with boarders and everyone crowded together into one building used for both living and manufacturing.

This is how Saville described the confrontation at his house on 7 Sept 1768, with his own creative spelling, as published in the Essex Institute Historical Collections:

…a number of men came To my House,…the number of about 70, all of Sd. Gloucester, as nigh as could be Judged. They asked Leave to go into the house to Sarch for Capt. Fellows, wich they Did, not then ofering any abuse onely in Talek.

My wife Sent my Servant of an erant [and] David Plumer Seized him by the Coller Refusing to Let him go. His mistress called him Back [but] they would not Let him Come but Sd. If he was Sint he should not go unless they knew hiss bysness but Docter [Samuel] Rogers Tock out his Instrements, the wich he halls Teath with, [and] threatened to Hall all his teath out unless He told where Capt. Fellows was, threatening to Split his head open with a Club, Holding it over his head. Then they left the House.

[In] about an Hour, in wich Time Capt. Fellows Road up to our house, Thomas Griffin, Shore man, Seeing him Ride up that way Ran after the mob, told them he was gone up there. In about one hours time they Returnd wich my wife Seeing them told Capt. Fellows of. He ameadaately Run out of Doors as fast as posable.

No Person was in the house Excapt my wife & my mother, Dorcas Haskel, Mary Savell, with two of my Small Childredn. They Came up to the Doors and Sorounded the house with Clubs & axes. The wimen Seing them Run in Such a maner affrited fastning the Doors & windows.

They Crys with Shouting we got him. They Cryed opin the Doors.

They Refused declaring to the mob ther was no man bodey in the house Except a Child of 5 months old they could give oath.

That child was obviously baby John, but what about his older brothers, aged four and two? And who was the little girl Saville mentioned later? Was “Mary Savell” Jesse’s mother, already mentioned, or his older sister?

Mr. Plumer Told them, Gentlemen why Dont you walek in. Mr Plumer Did not go into the house himself.

My mother Told them they Come in upon the Peril of there Lives if they oferd To break Down the Doors. They immeadately Stove Down one Door and Entered a grate number of the abouve persons & William Stevens, Brick Laior, Like wise and a grate many Strangers wich they Didnot no. They Like wise beat of a Lach & buttons of another Door, struck the pole of the ax into the Door & Caseing very much Dammageing. The Same Broak a Seller window to peaces, a Chain, thro’d over barils, Chests, Tables & tubs, Ransacked the house, all parts of it, Broak a bundle of Dry fish to peaces, Destroyed a good deal of the Same, Tock a Gun and broak it by throghing it out of the garit window.

Benjm. Soams, B[arrel]. Cooper, pinted it, a Loadin Gun, Toward my wife, ordered her out of Doors, A Little gairl of about tow or three of ours so terified, Cryed To my wife fainting a way. They call’d my mother [and] my wife all the hoors and all the Dam’d biches and Every Evil name that they Could think of Stricking Down their Clubs on the flour Each Side of them. My mother beg’d they would Spare her Life for it was not Posable She Could Live one hour. They would not listen to her intreateys.

They Sarched the house over & over Several times Halling all the Beds into the flours. After awile they left the house, then went Down to the meeting house. There Joseph York, shoe macker, gave them vitels & Drink and was back and forward with them while absent from our house wich Generally is Judg’d he was ordered to Do what he Did by his father[-in-law] Deacon Samuel Griffin of sd. Town. Our folcks Sent for Some of the nabors to come for they Expected to be killed if they came again. Some sd. they were glad. Some was affraid to Come So a bitter afternoon they had.

TOMORROW: Where was Jesse Saville?

[The photo above shows the Edward Haraden House, built on Annisquam in the mid-1600s and expanded in the mid-1700s and later.]