“The purport was, Boston was in action…”

One important element of the “Powder Alarm” of 1774 was that although the British army operation ended peacefully on the morning of 1 September, reports of what happened kept spreading for days.

And as those reports spread, they grew more dire.

Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles recorded from an eyewitness that in Shrewsbury in the early morning hours of 2 September the rumor was “six men killed.”

Exaggerations like that brought thousands of Middlesex County militiamen into Cambridge that day. That event produced fear about more British military action, which apparently produced more rumors.

At noon on 3 September, Israel Putnam tried to rouse the militia around Pomfret, Connecticut, because of and with this news:

I have this minute had an express from Boston that the fight between Boston and Regulars [began] last night at sunset, the cannon began to and continued playing all night, and they beg for help

Early on 4 September, Titus Hosmer (shown above) in Middletown, Connecticut, was woken by the sheriff, who had received a letter from Putnam. Hosmer wrote:

The purport was, Boston was in action by the “troops sending out to seize all the powder in the country, especially at Framingham [sic] about 20 miles from Boston; which when discovered occasion’d the country people to collect and offer to rescue the powder [i.e., grab it back]. Six of the country people were shot dead at the very time, and many wounded—an Artillery planted at the Neck—the Ships were heard to fire all night of a Friday.

By noon that day, Hosmer heard a less drastic report via Hartford:

[William] Brattle at Cambridge, a high tory, had petitioned [Gen. Thomas] Gage for troops to protect him at his house, which Gage granted; a mob gathered and demand of Brattle to renounce his toryism or whatever you may term it; but after a short parley the troop fired, kill’d some right out, a large numr. wounded. No news from the town itself.

On Sunday, 4 September, the worst rumors reached Longmeadow, Massachusetts. The Rev. Stephen Williams heard that the Royal Navy was involved:

the Ships in ye Harbour—of Boston, & ye Army on ye Land Side were allso fireing upon ye Town so yt. it was like ye Town was Demolishd.

In Milford, Connecticut, young Joseph Plumb Martin heard the talk at church that Sunday afternoon and went to bed fearing redcoats would attack his family’s home before morning.

Of course, none of that happened. But it took a while for the real news to catch up.

TOMORROW: How the news reached the Continental Congress.

The Ransom of Stephen Williams

Running the portrait of the Rev. Stephen Williams yesterday put me in mind of how at the age of ten he was captured in the 1704 raid on Deerfield.

That was a horrible experience. Stephen’s mother and other captives were killed, he was separated from the rest of his family, and he spent more than a year as a prisoner, fearing possible death.

But there was another prospect for Stephen when he was taken. As a ten-year-old boy, he was a prime candidate for being adopted into a Mohawk or Abenaki family who had lost a family member. That custom was deeply rooted in the Native cultures of the region, even becoming a motivation for warfare. Stephen’s younger sister Eunice did become a lifelong member of the Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) community. But Stephen didn’t.

And to explain that, we can look at his own actions. Here are excerpts from Stephen Williams’s recollections of captivity, as published in the nineteenth century, and what his captors or potential adopters might have been saying at those moments.

Then we left the river and travelled about noon on the west side of the river. We came to two wigwams, where we found the signs of Indians, but no Indians. In those wigwams they left their sacks and went a hunting, if perhaps they might find some moose buried in the snow by the hunting Indians, but could not find any.

I wandered about and lost myself, and hollowed. My master came to me, and was very angry. He lifted up the breach of his gun in order to kill me, but God kept back his hand, for which I desire his name might be praised. The Indians will never allow any body to hollow in the woods. Their manner is to make a noise like wolves, or other wild creatures, when they would call to one another.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you. But none of that would have happened if you hadn’t ‘wandered about’ and gotten lost.

“Look, I’m going to give you to my brother. I’m, uh, not going to mention the lost-in-the-woods episode. Try to make a good impression, all right?”

…when I first arrived here they were extraordinary kind, took care of my toe which was frozen, would not suffer me to do any work, gave me deer-skin to lie on, and a bear-skin to cover me withal;

but this did not last long, for I was forced to carry such a pack when I travelled that I could not rise up without some help, was forced to cut wood, and carry it sometimes a considerable way on my back. After that manner I lived till their hunting time was over, without any society but the inhuman pagans.

“Yes, we need to carry things when we’re hunting. We need firewood. You’re eating a lot more meat than the men we left behind in camp. And you’re going to have to get better at traveling in the woods since now we’re headed for Canada.”

This was an exceedingly tedious march to me. When we came to the French River, it was as much as our canoe would carry our lumber, the water was so shallow; so that I was forced to travel afoot, on the bank, which cut out my shoes. My feet were much galled, and one or two of my toes almost cut off with the stones. I had little or nothing to eat.

“We made those shoes for you. They’re better for walking in the woods than English shoes. Nobody else is having trouble with those shoes.”

While I tarried here [at Shamblee], a Frenchman came and desired the Indians to let me go with him, which they did. He gave me some victuals, and made me lie down in his couch, which my master’s son perceiving, told his father, who thought he did it to hide me, and did design to steal me; upon which he came up and fetched me away, and would not let me go to the fort any more, for which I suffered. While here the French dressed my feet that were wounded, at which the Indians seemed to be vexed.

From hence we went towards Sorel, but tarried a day or two near a Frenchman’s house, about three miles from Shamblee, who was kind to me, and would have lodged me in his house, but the Indians would not allow of it, mistrusting he would convey me away in the night privately.

“Well, yes! Because you tried to sneak away with that last Frenchman.”

Monsieur Shamblee heard that I was with Sagamore George, and came to buy me. I seemed to be willing to go with him, at which the Indians were much disturbed, and would not let me go, because I showed a forwardness to go, and did likewise threaten to kill me, did complain to the Jesuit, who came and said to me, “What, no love Indian! they have saved your life,” &c.

“The feeling’s starting to be mutual, kid.”

At length, being wearied out, my master went to the Jesuit, and got pen, ink, and paper, would have me write to my father, for we had heard he was learned, and had two hundred pounds a year allowed him, which I believe some of them believed. After he had got paper he takes another Indian with him that could speak good English, who was to indite for me. The substance of the letter was this, that if they did not buy me before spring, they would not sell me afterwards, and that he must give forty crowns for me. They carried it to the Jesuit, who could speak English, to see whether I had written as they ordered me, and when they found I had, they were well pleased.

“All right, finally! Now all we have to do is wait for the English money to come.”

While on a certain day my mistress went to a French house to get victuals, and ordered me to spend my day in getting wood; but it proved a tempestuous day, and we had half a cart-load at the door, which is a great deal for Indians to have, so that I did not get any. When she came home, being disturbed by the French, asked what I had been doing; they replied, nothing, at which she was very angry.

“And that money can’t come fast enough.”

Whilst I lived here, I made about fourscore weight of sugar with the sap of maple trees, for the Indians. My mistress had a mind to go to Sorel, and because there was a barrel of sap to boil she sent me to the sugar place over night to boil it, so that we might go in the morning. I went and kept a good fire under the kettle, little thinking of its coming to sugar, and it was spoiled for want of stirring, for the manner is to stir it when it comes almost to sugar. They were very angry, and would not give me any victuals.

“We have got to get rid of this kid.”

It being now spring, we went in canoes to Sorel; and so soon as we had got there, the woman that brought me victuals across the river when I was there before, came and desired of the Indians to let me go to the fort, which they consented to.

“Yes, you can go into the French fort. I know we didn’t want you to lodge with the Frenchmen before, but now you can go.”

I went; but remembering the bad effect of tarrying all night before, durst not do so again without the Indians’ leave. I went to the Indians and carried them some victuals, and asked them to let me lie at the fort, which they granted.

“Yes, yes, you can go to the fort! Go into the fort!”

“An Intimation of the Bombardment of Boston”

Today is the anniversary of the militia uprising in 1774 that Richard Frothingham dubbed the “Powder Alarm” in his biography of Dr. Joseph Warren.

On 2 Sept 1774 up to five thousand Massachusetts militiamen crowded into Cambridge, forcing every royal appointee in town to resign or apologize.

That event demonstrated the end of royal rule in the province outside of Boston, a few harbor islands, and (later) parts of Marshfield—places where the British military was stationed.

Those militiamen were reacting to the British army’s seizure of gunpowder and militia cannon on 1 September. Or, to be more accurate, many of them were reacting to exaggerated accounts of the previous day.

A traveling merchant named McNeil told the Rev. Ezra Stiles that in Shrewsbury he was woken in the middle of the night by “somebody violently rapping up the Landlord, telling the doleful Story that the Powder was taken, six men killed.”

From Hartford, Titus Hosmer informed Silas Deane that “[William] Brattle at Cambridge, a high tory, had petitioned [Gen. Thomas] Gage for troops to protect him at his house, which Gage granted; a mob gathered and demand of Brattle to renounce his toryism or whatever you may term it; but after a short parley the troop fired, kill’d some right out, a large number wounded.”

The Rev. Stephen Williams, minister of Longmeadow, and his congregation heard that “the [Royal Navy] Ships in ye Harbour—of Boston, & ye Army on ye Land Side were allso fireing upon ye Town so yt. it was like ye Town was Demolishd.” [For more of the Williams diary, visit the Longmeadow Library. Thanks to Ray Raphael for pointing me to that source.]

And one of my favorite responses came from young Joseph Plumb Martin, then thirteen years old and living in Milford, Connecticut:

In the afternoon, one Sabbath day [4 Sept 1774], while the people were assembled at meeting, word was brought that the British (regulars, as the good people then called them) were advancing from Boston, spreading death and desolation in their route in every direction. . . .

I went out of the house in the dusk of the evening, when I heard the sound of a carriage on the road, in the direction of Boston; I thought they were coming as sure as a gun; I shall be dead or a captive before to-morrow morning; however, I went to bed late in the evening, dreamed of “fire and sword,” I suppose; waked in the morning, found myself alive, and the house standing where it did the evening before.

The dire rumors traveled at least as far as Philadelphia, where John Adams wrote about “an Intimation of the Bombardment of Boston—a confused account, but an alarming one indeed.” More accurate stories about what had happened in Cambridge followed, but by the time they arrived people’s thinking about the royal government had started to change.

I devote the first two chapters of The Road to Concord to the gunpowder seizure and Powder Alarm of September 1774 because they’re so important to the political shifts in New England and the start of the Revolutionary War that started.