“They found part of a half chest which had floated”

A natural question after hearing the stories of chests from the Boston Tea Party floating across the bay to the Dorchester shore is whether that was even possible.

The men and boys of the Tea Party worked hard to break open all the chests, pour out the tea leaves, and even then make sure those leaves got submerged in the salt water. Could a container of tea have escaped their attention?

In fact, there’s good evidence from 1773 for a small chest making it across the water with some drinkable tea inside.

Samuel Pierce of Dorchester wrote in his diary for 30 December:

There was a number of men came from Boston in disguise, about 40; they came to Mr Eben Withington’s down in town, and demanded his Tee from him which he had taken up, and carried it off and burnt it at Boston.

The merchant John Rowe recorded the same event from his Bostonian perspective the next day:

There was found in the House of One Withington of Dorchester about half a Chest of Tea—the People gathered together & took the Tea, Brought it into the Common of Boston & Burnt it this night about eleven of Clock

This is supposed to be part of the Tea that was taken out of the Ships & floated over to Dorchester.

On 3 Jan 1774, Edes and Gill’s Boston Gazette laid out the story that the town’s Whig leaders wanted people to know:

Whereas it was reported that one Withington, of Dorchester, had taken up and partly disposed of a Chest of the East-India Company’s Tea: a Number of the Cape or Narragansett-Indians, went to the Houses of Capt. Ebenezer Withington, and his Brother Philip Withington, (both living upon the lower Road from Boston to Milton) last Friday Evening, and with their consent thoroughly searched their Houses, without offering the least offence to any one.

But finding no Tea they proceeded to the House of old Ebenezer Withington, at a place called Sodom, below Dorchester Meeting House, where they found part of a half chest which had floated and was cast up on Dorchester point. This they seized and brought to Boston Common where they committed it to the flames.

Pierce identified the men enforcing the tea boycott as “from Boston,” but the Gazette referred to them as “Cape or Narragansett-Indians.” This is an early example of the Whigs realizing that referring to the men who destroyed the tea as unrecognizable Natives let everyone maintain deniability.

There were many Withingtons in Dorchester, obviously. The Gazette emphasized how two Withingtons of the higher class—the militia captain and his brother—had done nothing wrong and were eager to cooperate with the searchers.

“Old Ebenezer Withington” didn’t come off as well. This is the only reference I’ve found to a place in eighteenth-century Dorchester being called “Sodom.”

On the same day that issue of the Boston Gazette appeared, old Ebenezer Withington had to answer to the Dorchester town meeting.

TOMORROW: The town takes a stand.

A Juror’s Notes on the Boston Massacre Trial

Edward Pierce (1735-1818) was a carpenter, farmer, and deacon in Dorchester. He came from the family that built and expanded the Pierce House, erected around 1683 and thus one of the oldest surviving structures in the state.

The Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society’s 1859 local history called Pierce “a prominent man in town, and well remembered by our older people.”

Pierce’s reputation as a builder was so strong that Col. Josiah Quincy hired him to construct a new mansion in Braintree in 1770 (shown above).

Pierce also oversaw the expansion of the Dorchester meetinghouse in 1796 “by dividing it in the middle lengthwise, and removing the north part twelve feet, and the tower six feet.” As compensation, he received “all the new pews, excepting those to be granted to individuals who lost theirs by the alteration”; I assume he then sold the rights to those.

In 1770, the same year Edward Pierce took on the big job for Col. Quincy, he was also seated on the jury for the trial of the British soldiers after the Boston Massacre. That might seem like a conflict of interest since one of the colonel’s sons was a prosecutor, but another son was a defense attorney, and people didn’t have the same ideas of conflict of interest that our legal profession does today.

Deacon Pierce kept notes during the trial, preserved at the Massachusetts Historical Society. A transcription was published in The Legal Papers of John Adams, listing each soldier by name and then several witnesses speaking about them:

Hugh Wite. James Baley Saw White. Josiah Simpson Saw White. Thos: Hall Saw White.

William Warren. James Dodge Knew Warren. Nicholas Feriter Saw Warren at the fray. Josiah Simpson Saw Warren Under arms in the Party. Theodore Bliss Saw Warren fire.

William Whems, Josiah Simpson Saw Whems Under arms in the Party. Thos: Hall Saw Whems.

John Carroll. Mr. Austin Saw Carrall and heard Six or Seven Guns. James Baley Saw Carrall fire the Second Gun. John Danbrook Saw Carrall. Thos Hall Saw Carrall.

William McCawley. Mr. Austin Says that he Saw McCawley Load his Piece and Push his Bayonet at him.

Matthew Killroy. Lanksford Saw Killroy Present his Gun and fird and Gray fell at his feat then Pushd his Bayonet at Lanksford and run it through his Cloaths. Francis Archible Saw Killroy. Hemenway heard Killroy Say he would not Miss an opportunity to fire on the Inhabitance. Nicholas firiter Saw Killroy. Joseph Crosswell Saw Killroy. Bayonet Bloodey the next morning. Thos Crawswell Saw Killroy. Jonathan Cary Saw the Same.

James Hartengem. John Danbrook Saw Hartengem. Josiah Simpson Saw Hartengem.

Hugh Montgomery. Test. James Baley Saw Mongomory fire the first Gun. Pointed towards the Molatto he Stood the Third from the Right. Parms Saw Mongomery and Pushd at me With his Bayonet twise. John Danbrook Saw Mongomory fire and Saw two Persons fall Near together. Ted: Bliss Saw Mongom Push his Bayonot and fire he thinks he heard Six Guns fire. Thos Wilkinson Saw Mongomory and heard Seven Guns fire and one Snap.

We can thus see what Pierce thought was important to keep track of. He wanted to have at least one witness placing each accused soldier on King Street. He also wanted to have positive evidence of whether each man fired his gun or otherwise behaved aggressively.

By Pierce’s reckoning, witnesses confirmed that all eight men were on the scene of the shooting. However, witnesses described only William Warren, John Carroll, Mathew Kilroy, and Edward Montgomery as firing their guns. In addition, Montgomery, Kilroy, and William Macauley pushed at people with their bayonets. And witnesses linked Montgomery and Kilroy’s shots with the fall of particular victims.

Edward Pierce’s brother Samuel kept a terse but useful diary through the Revolutionary period, recording, among other things, when Edward broke his leg in 1761. Here’s what Samuel wrote about in the dramatic year of 1770:

Feb. 22. A boy was shot at Boston by an informer.
March 6. Four men killed in Boston by the soldiers.
March 12, The soldiers go from Boston to the Castle.
April 19. Richarsan had his trial for his life.
May 28. I had 18 men to making stone wall in one day.
May 30. There was an ox roasted whole at Boston.
Aug. 11. Mr. Whitfield came to Boston.
Sept. 10, Castle William is resined to Col. Dalrymple.
Oct. 20. Was a violent storm as ever was known in these parts, and did a vast deal of damage.
Dec. 2. Little Sam first wore jacket and bretches.

Samuel Pierce never mentioned his brother’s service in the province’s most closely watched trial nor mentioned the verdict. On 2 Dec 1770, 250 years ago today, he had something more important to record.

The Case of the Blown Up Battery

Today’s installment of CSI: Colonial Boston comes from two of the diaries of the siege of 1775-76 that I’ve been quoting regularly.

On 17 Oct 1775, Capt. John Barker of the 4th Regiment wrote in his journal:

Last night the Rebels brought down Cambridge River two Gondolas with a Gun in each of ’em; they fired several shot at the encampment on the Common without doing any harm ’till at last one of their Guns burst and killed and wounded several of them.

Besieged selectmen Timothy Newell described the same event, and the evidence of the explosion’s toll:

Two floating batteries from the Provincials from Cambridge river [i.e., the Charles], fired a number of cannon into the camp at the Common, the shot went thro houses by the Lamb Tavern &c.—A deserter who came in this morning, says one of the Cannon split, and killed and wounded several. 5 or 6 hats, a waistcoat and part of a boat came on shore at the bottom of the Common.

The picture above of a Continental floating artillery battery was published in Benson J. Lossing’s Pictoral Field-book of the Revolution; he based it on sketch that the historian Peter Force copied it from “an English manuscript in his possession.”

We also have a description of the vessel’s flag in a letter dated 20 Oct 1775 from Gen. George Washington’s top aide Col. Joseph Reed to Col. John Glover and Muster-Master General Stephen Moylan, who were in Marblehead arranging to equip two ships to patrol the Massachusetts coast:

Please to fix upon some particular colour for a flag, and a signal by which our vessels may know one another. What do you think of a flag with a white ground, a tree in the middle, the motto “Appeal to Heaven?” This is the flag of our floating batteries.

ADDENDUM: The diary of Samuel Pierce of Dorchester, 16 Oct 1775, offered an explanation for why the floating battery blew up.

Our people went down in Cambridge bay with two floating Batery’s to fire upon Boston, and one of them split their cannon by not raming their shot down; it kild one and wounded 6.