Going Back onto Noddle’s Island

The message from Thomas Chase quoted yesterday makes clear that in 1780 Henry Howell Williams still felt he had a claim to “the Soil” of Noddle’s Island.

Williams had leased and farmed the harbor island for years before the Revolutionary War—as his father-in-law had done before him.

But that letter doesn’t indicate Williams was living on that island again. Williams’s appearances in the Boston newspapers during the previous half-decade also suggest he wasn’t.

On 7 Sept 1775, during the siege, Thomas Bumstead put a notice in the New-England Chronicle about “a likely, well built black Mare, and a Colt by her Side,” that were “STRAYED or stolen from Mr. Henry Williams, of Roxbury.” Henry Howell Williams did raise horses on Noddle’s Island, and he may well have gone back to his father’s family in Roxbury during the siege. On the other hand, the lack of a middle name or initial might suggest this was one of his relatives with a similar name, also raising horses.

More telling, on 24 Mar 1777 James Bell advertised in the Boston Gazette for the return of a stout 28-year-old black man named Dick, who had freed himself from slavery. Bell was from Colrain, and he told readers they could deliver Dick “to Mr. Henry Howell Williams in Boston.”

On 7 Sept 1778, Henry Howell Williams himself advertised in the same newspaper for the return of an enslaved 23-year-old woman named Phillis. That notice was datelined in Boston.

Thus, in those two years Williams could be found living in Boston, not in Chelsea, as Noddle’s Island was designated. Meanwhile, the island was occupied by provincial troops and then sick French soldiers.

Then the war ended. On 11 June 1784, the Massachusetts house received “A petition from the Rev. Charles Chauncey [shown above] and others, owners of Noddle’s island, in Boston harbour, stating that said island had been greatly damaged by the troops stationed there, and praying for some compensation.” Chauncy’s third wife had inherited an interest in Noddle’s Island which passed to him on her death in 1783, and then to his heirs.

Williams and his family returned to Noddle’s Island around that time. Back in the early 1770s he had run regular ads complaining about hunters and other trespassers. He did so again in the 15 Aug 1784 Independent Ledger, saying that “Gunners” were endangering his livestock, his mowers, and his family. That notice was signed from “Noddle’s-Island.” Obviously, the farm was back in operation.

As Williams rebuilt his estate, he probably commandeered the barracks originally constructed for Continental troops in Cambridge and then moved to the island by the state in 1776. After all, no one was using that building anymore.

TOMORROW: Renewing the quest for compensation.

“The Continental Barracks on Noddle’s Island”

As soon as the siege of Boston ended, the Massachusetts government moved to fortify Noddle’s Island and other spots in Boston harbor.

On 6 Apr 1776, the lower house of the General Court formed a “Committee for fortifying the Harbour of Boston” and told those members

immediately to take a View of Noddle’s-Island, and report to this Court what Time it will probably take a Regiment, consisting of Seven Hundred and Twenty-eight Men, to perform the Business of Fortifying said Harbour.

Twelve days later the house empowered that committee

To purchase on the best Terms they may be had, eight Hundred Feet of the Continental Barracks (provided their Cost, with the Expence of removing and rebuilding them, shall in the Opinion of the Committee, be less than the Value of new ones) and cause them to be removed to, and re-built on Noddle’s-Island

The Council approved that plan the next day. Until John Hancock took office as an elected governor in 1780, the Council would serve as both the upper house of the legislature and the executive branch of the state government, carrying out legislative policies.

The barracks were assembled on Jeffries’s Point, the southwestern corner of the island. It looks like that building housed provincial soldiers while they built the harbor fortifications, but not year-round.

Those barracks were put to another use in 1780, after French warships started arriving in Boston harbor. That summer Thomas Chase, the state’s deputy quartermaster general, wrote to the Council:

The Commanding Officer of the French Troops has applyed to me for a Hospital for the sick, and as there is Continental Barrack on Noddles Island, suitable for that purpose, and as Mr. [Henry Howell] Williams owns the Soil, and I suppose he will make Objection to their going into Barracks, I pray your Honors would be pleased to give Orders that they shall not be molested in said Barracks.

Chase’s colleague from the “Loyall Nine” fifteen years earlier, John Avery (shown above), had become the state secretary. He reported this action by the Council on 15 July:

Read & Ordered — that Col. Thomas Chace, D.Q.M.G., be, and hereby is directed to take Possession of the Continental Barracks on Noddle’s Island for the Use of the sick Soldiers on Board the Ship Le isle de France, arrived this morning from France, belonging to his most Christian Majesty.

The local historian William H. Sumner, having accepted family lore that Gen. George Washington had given Henry H. Williams barracks from Cambridge before leaving New England in April 1776, concluded that these barracks converted into a hospital must have been a second building. But, as I wrote yesterday, there’s no evidence for such a grant. Nor any mention of multiple barracks on Noddle’s Island.

Furthermore, Chase didn’t write about Williams as having a home on the island, only as protective of his “Soil” there. Chase clearly expected Williams to interfere with turning the barracks into a hospital for the French, so the state explicitly approved his plan. That action suggests the Patriot government still didn’t trust Williams to cooperate with the war effort.

TOMORROW: Where was Henry Howell Williams during the war?

From “Loyall Nine” to “Sons of Liberty”

We have a reasonably good idea of who eight of Boston’s “Loyall Nine” were:

• John Avery, Jr., distiller and merchant
• Thomas Chase, distiller
• Thomas Crafts, Jr., painter
• John Smith, brazier
• Stephen Cleverly, brazier
• Henry Bass, jeweler
• George Trott, jeweler
• Benjamin Edes, printer

In addition, the ship masters Henry Wells and Joseph Field were also lumped in with this group by different contemporaries.

Within months after they started organizing anti–Stamp Act protests, the group appears to have adopted another name. Back during Parliament’s debate over that law, opponent Isaac Barré called American colonists “Sons of Liberty,” as reported to this side of the Atlantic by Jared Ingersoll. By the fall the “Loyall Nine” started using that phrase.

The handbills that Bass described the group printing in his December 1765 letter said: ”The True-born Sons of Liberty, are desired to meet under LIBERTY-TREE, at XII o’Clock, THIS DAY…” Evidently any man could merit that label by coming out to resist the new tax from London. In early 1766 the phrase also started to appear in newspapers in other ports.

But the group also used that term for themselves. In January 1766 John Adams called them “the Sons of Liberty.” On 15 February, Crafts wrote to Adams that “the Sons of Liberty Desired your Company at Boston Next Wensday.” Those are clearly references to a specific group, not to everyone taking a certain political stand.

It looks like the more general use won out. By August 1769, “An Alphabetical List of the Sons of Liberty who din’d at Liberty Tree [Tavern], Dorchester” included 300 names. Clearly those Sons of Liberty weren’t just the “Loyall Nine”—though all eight men listed above were there.

Nonetheless, because of some unsubstantiated claims and portrayals in popular culture, the belief persists that the Sons of Liberty was an identifiable group of activists, not a mass movement, as I’ve written before. Because of that squishiness, I tend not to use the term. But of course it’s strongly associated with the Revolution.

TOMORROW: Back to the bowl.

Counting the “Loyall Nine”

In a 19 Dec 1765 letter divulging details about Boston’s latest Stamp Act protest, and earlier ones, Henry Bass wrote of the organizers as “the Loyall Nine.” He added:

And upon the Occasion we that Evg. had a very Genteel Supper provided to which we invited your very good friends Mr. S[amuel] A[dams] and E[des] & G[ill] and three or four others and spent the Evening in a very agreable manner Drinkg Healths etc.

On 15 Jan 1766 John Adams wrote in his diary:

Spent the Evening with the Sons of Liberty, at their own Apartment in Hanover Square, near the Tree of Liberty. It is a Compting Room in Chase & Speakmans Distillery. A very small Room it is.

John Avery Distiller or Merchant, of a liberal Education, John Smith the Brazier, Thomas Crafts the Painter, Edes the Printer, Stephen Cleverly the Brazier, [Thomas] Chase the Distiller, Joseph Field Master of a Vessell, Henry Bass, George Trott Jeweller, were present.

I was invited by Crafts and Trott, to go and spend an Evening with them and some others, Avery was mentioned to me as one.

Finally, in 1788 the Rev. William Gordon wrote in his history of the Revolution about the first anti-Stamp protest, back in August 1765:

Messrs. John Avery, jun. Thomas Crafts, John Smith, Henry Welles, Thomas Chace, Stephen Cleverly, Henry Bass, and Benjamin Edes…provide and hang out early in the morning of August the fourteenth, upon the limb of a large old elm, toward the entrance of Boston, over the most public street, two effigies,…

Those sources, which were published in reverse chronological order, all seem to refer to the same group of men. The lists of names overlap—but not exactly.

Bass said there were nine men, and seemed to treat Samuel Adams, Edes, and Gill all as guests. Gordon named eight men, including Edes among them. John Adams also listed Edes in the group, and he treated George Trott, not on Gordon’s list, as in the group.

John Adams didn’t list Henry Wells from Gordon’s list (though Tea Leaves and some subsequent books misquote him as doing so). Instead, Adams named Joseph Field, saying he was a ship captain. According to mentions in the Boston press before he died in 1768, Henry Wells was also a ship captain. Would either of them have been in town long enough to help plan protests? 

It’s therefore difficult to say exactly who the “Loyall Nine” were, but there was definitely a political club supping at the Chase distillery near Liberty Tree and organizing the protests under that tree.

TOMORROW: A change of names?

“Become a violent advocate in the Cause of Liberty”

As recounted yesterday, Capt. Thomas Speakman was killed in the French and Indian War in January 1757.

Though I haven’t seen his probate records, Speakman appears to have left a considerable estate to his wife Mary and their children, including properties in Marlborough and Boston. But perhaps not as much as they needed to maintain their lifestyle. Then a house on Milk Street belonging to Thomas Speakman’s estate was among the buildings destroyed in the Great Fire of 1760.

Thomas and Mary Speakman’s oldest child, William, was then twenty years old, looking ahead to his career. The other surviving siblings included:

• Gilbert Warner, born 7 Nov 1747
• Hannah, born 1 Nov 1749
• Sarah, born 27 Oct 1751
• Mary, born 26 Sept 1754

One important asset for young William Speakman were the men who had married his late father’s sisters—the merchants John Rowe and Ralph Inman. Rowe in particular became a mentor for William and his younger brother. It’s possible William spent time in Rowe’s counting-house, learning business skills; Gilbert certainly did.

By 1765, at the age of twenty-five, William Speakman was partners with a slightly older man named Thomas Chase at a rum distillery in the South End of Boston. Speakman may have inherited that building from one of his grandfathers while Chase handled day-to-day management, but it’s hard to tell. Chase and Speakman also appear together on the records of King’s Chapel, sponsoring babies in their circle at baptism.

Then came the Stamp Act. Thomas Chase was one of a small group of young businessmen who organized public protests against that law, calling themselves the Loyall Nine and later the Sons of Liberty. On 15 Jan 1766 John Adams described dining with the group in “their own Apartment in Hanover Square, near the Tree of Liberty. It is a Compting Room in Chase & Speakmans Distillery. A very small Room it is.”

Speakman never appeared on the list of Whig activists, but he was activist-adjacent. I’ve found only one instance of him participating in politics. On 18 Mar 1768, the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act, his uncle Rowe reported that Speakman, Thomas Crafts, and John Avery took down “two effigies on Liberty Tree this morning marked C[harles]. P[axton]. and J[ohn]. W[illiams].” That action looks like supporting those Customs officials, but in fact Crafts and Avery were members of the Loyall Nine. They wanted to control such protests, and they were among the few men in town with the clout to take down someone else’s effigies when they thought the timing was bad.

A few months later, on 29 August, Rowe wrote in his diary: “Poor Wm. Speakman was taken in a fit & had doubtful Struggles for Life.” Speakman survived this health scare, but it probably prompted him to leave Boston and move out to Marlborough, where his mother was living. William and his brother Gilbert Warner Speakman (listed erroneously as “G. William Speakman”) appear on the 1770 list of polls reprinted in Charles Hudson’s history of the town.

Mary Speakman was an upper-class Anglican, a relative of imperial merchants, and thus a natural supporter of the royal government. But in that same month, on 7 August 1768, her Marlborough neighbor Christian Barnes reported to her friend Elizabeth Smith:

Mrs. Speakman was become a violent advocate in the Cause of Liberty which (if I was not upon my gard) would ocation some warm disputes but I saw so much of party rage in my last excurtion that I determin’d to surpress my sentiments rather than enter into any debate upon that subject.

The following year, on 20 Nov 1769, Barnes confirmed: “my Friend Mrs. Speakman still continues a Staunch Whig tho to do her Justice not from any Self interested Motives at least that I can see.”

It was in that context that Barnes wrote in June 1770 after locals vandalized her husband’s property (including a coach apparently bought from Smith):

it is said that a Young Gentleman (who had formily Headed the Mob in Boston and now resides with us) is the perpetrator of all this Mischeife but I will not beleive it till I have further profe

On 13 July, after the threats had escalated, Barnes was ready to name names:

I mention’d in my former Letter that some people affirm’d that Billy Speakman was the Person that cut your Coach to Peices I did not beleive it nor do I now but this I am certain of that those who have taken such a cruel Mession [?] to undermine us in our Business would stick at nothing to perpetuate their Scheem and who knows what these two Young fellows may be capible off and how far they may work up the People (already distracted with party rage) to Molest and injure us.

The “two Young fellows” appear to be William and his younger brother.

Meanwhile, the gulf between Mrs. Barnes and Mrs. Speakman had widened to include not just politics but business.

COMING UP: What to do with Gibby?

The Boston Debut of James Joan

Early in October 1768 a family arrived in Boston from Halifax: James Joan (also spelled Juhan and Juan); his wife Mary; their children Mary, Alexander, Martin, and John; and their maidservant Ann Lederai. In traditional Boston fashion, a town official warned them out.

On 20 October, Joan announced himself to the public through an advertisement in the Boston News-Letter and Boston Gazette:

The French Language, Instrumental Music and Dancing taught after the best Methods, by James Joan, in that commodious and large Building opposite Dr. [Samuel] Cooper’s Meeting, by whom, also, Gentlemen and Ladies may privately be taught the Minuet.—

N. B. He has to Lett a very good & large Cellar belonging to the said House; he also makes and sells, neat Violin Bows.

It looks like the family was in a building “formerly Green and Walker’s Store.”

James Joan soon found a use for that “commodious and large Building,” giving it a new name. On 14 November, he advertised in the Boston Gazette, Boston Post-Boy, and Boston Evening-Post:

This is to acquaint the Gentlemen and Ladies, that a Concert of MUSICK will be performed, on Monday the 21st Instant, at Six o’Clock in the Evening, at the Musick Hall in Brattle-Street, opposite Dr. Cooper’s Meeting-House. After the Concert is over, the Gentlemen and Ladies may have a BALL till Eleven o’Clock.

TICKETS may be had of James Joan, at the above-said Place, and of Thomas Chase, near the Liberty-Tree, at Two Shillings Lawful Money, or One & Six Pence Sterling a Piece.

Chase was a distiller and one of the Loyall Nine. This is the only example that I can recall of someone from the time referring to “the Liberty-Tree” rather than “Liberty Tree,” reflecting how Joan was a newcomer to Boston.

Joan’s same notice ran in the Post-Boy and Evening-Post a week later, the day of the concert and ball. In addition, the latter paper also included this item:

New Advertisement.
This is to acquaint, all Ladies who paint,
Of Music there will be a Concert,
Perform’d on next Monday, the Day after Sunday,
By various Masters of some sort;
When Concert is over, each Lass with her Lover,
May Dance till the Clock strikes Eleven.
Then they may retire to their Bed, or their Fire,
And Sleep till next Morning or Even.
At the foremention’d Place, or else you may CHACE
For your Tickets near Liberty Tree,
In Lawful or Sterling, it heeds not a Farthing,
If you give a JOAN, as a Fee.

I first wondered if in that notice Joan was trying a more imaginative way to promote his event. On second look, I decided it was a local wag’s parody of his ad, satirizing “Ladies who paint” and punning on the names of the two men selling tickets. (A “joan” or “Johannes” was a Portuguese coin.)

Three People Detained at the Castle

On 1 Mar 1775, a group of middling-class Boston activists sent a letter to the Sons of Liberty in New York, asking to set up a regular correspondence so as to share news and “contradict the many infamous lies which are propagated by the Enemies of our Country.”

Three of those Bostonians are well known to the authorities at Boston 1775: silversmith Paul Revere, printer Benjamin Edes, and decorative painter Thomas Crafts, Jr.

The other three were also active in the Patriot movement:

• Joshua Brackett, proprietor of the Cromwell’s Head tavern on School Street.
• schoolmaster Joseph Ward (in Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, Esther Forbes misidentified him as a distiller).
• Thomas Chase, whose South End distillery stood next to Liberty Tree.

Of those six men, three (Edes, Crafts, and Chase) had been part of the “Loyall Nine,” the political club that helped organize Boston’s Stamp Act protests in 1765. Three (Revere, Ward, and Crafts) would gain the title “colonel” in the coming war.

The Bostonians asked to set up a correspondence with their counterparts in New York so as to share news and “contradict the many infamous lies which are propagated by the Enemies of our Country.” They added a postscript about Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie’s recent unsuccessful raid on Salem:

Enclosed you have an account of the late Expedition which terminated to the honour of Americans. In addition to the secrecy with which the maneuvre to Salem was conducted, we inform you that three persons were occasionally at the castle on Saturday afternoon and were detained there till 10 o’clock on Monday lest we should send an Express to our brethren at Marblehead and Salem.

When that letter, now in the John Lamb Papers at the New-York Historical Society, was printed in Elbridge Goss’s 1891 biography of Revere, there was one small error. Instead of saying “three persons,” Goss’s transcription said “these persons.”

While writing her biography of Revere, Forbes interpreted “these persons” to refer to the men who had signed the letter, including the silversmith. At the time Revere was leading an effort to gather information about the army, so she concluded that he and his colleagues had gone to Castle William to spy on the troops. Later she fictionalized the same scene by adding her young hero Johnny Tremain, but then removed those pages from her final manuscript.

The letter to the New Yorkers is correctly transcribed in David Hackett Fischer’s Paul Revere’s Ride, where I first read about this mixup years ago. What’s more, the word “occasionally” in eighteenth-century usage implies that the three people detained at the fort just happened to be there on business rather than to be spying on the army. Since the letter offers no first-hand details about being held at the Castle, we can feel certain that none of those three men were Revere or his colleagues (or Johnny Tremain).

The North End Caucus Mobilizes Against the Tea

So yesterday the North End Caucus—a group of more than sixty politically minded Bostonians—started meeting in 1772 to choose candidates for town offices. This appears to have been an outgrowth of an earlier, smaller, wealthier “Caucas Club.” That first year, the only times the North End Caucus met were just before town meetings in March and May, when Bostonians elected their officials and representatives to the General Court. The same pattern applied in early 1773. But then in late October a dire threat to British liberties loomed on the eastern horizon: tea.

On 23 Oct 1773 the North End Caucus assembled, elected shipwright Gibbons Sharp their moderator, and then:

Voted—That this body will oppose the vending any Tea, sent by the East India Company to any part of the Continent, with our lives and fortunes.

Voted—That there be a committee chosen to correspond with any Committee chosen in any part of the town, on this occation; and call this body together at any time they think necessary.—Paul Revere, Abiel Ruddock and John Lowell the Committee.

Revere was a well connected silversmith with some talent in engraving and dentistry. Ruddock was secretary of the caucus and heir to a late shipyard owner, John Ruddock. Lowell was a young lawyer (unless that was a different John Lowell). They thus represented the cross-section of their group: a well-established craftsman, a major employer, and a professional gentleman. [ADDENDUM, Dec 2008: I now believe this John Lowell was a thirty-three-year-old merchant from a Charlestown family, not a young lawyer. He had been part of a Boston town committee to promote a tea boycott in 1770.]

The North End Caucus met again on 2 November, for the first time gathering at the Green Dragon Tavern (shown above). This building had become the property of the St. Andrew’s Lodge of Freemasons a few years before, but it continued to function as a tavern. The group chose merchant Nathaniel Holmes as their moderator and then began issuing demands:

Voted—That a committee be chosen to wait upon the Committee of Correspondence of this town, and desire their attendance here. Committee, B[enjamin]. Kent, E[dward]. Proctor, and G[abriel]. Johonnot.

Voted—That a committee be chosen to wait on John Hancock, Esq. and desire him to meet with us. Committee, John Winthrop, Capt. [John] Matchet, and G. Johonnot.

Voted—That this body are determined that the Tea shipped or to be shipped by the East India Company shall not be landed.

Voted—That a committee be chosen to draw a resolution to be read to the Tea Consignees to-morrow 12 O’Clock, noon, at Liberty Tree: and that Dr. Thos. Young and [Dr. Benjamin] Church, and [Dr. Joseph] Warren, be a committee for that purpose, and make a report as soon as may be.

To deliver its messages to town officials and rich merchants, the caucus called only on its more genteel members: other merchants and professionals.

The next day the group gathered again at noon and voted to accept the recommendation of its committee of three doctors:

And the Committee reported as follows. viz. that Thos. and Elisha Hutchinson [the governor’s sons], R[ichard]. Clark & Sons, and Benjamin Faneuil [the tea consignees appointed in London], by neglecting to give satisfaction as their fellow-citizens justly expected from them in this hour, relative to their acceptance of an office destructive to this Community, have intolerably insulted this body, and in case they do not appear, forthwith, and satisfy their reasonable expectation, this body will look upon themselves warrented to esteem them enemies to their Country; and will not fail to make them feel the weight of their just resentment.

The caucus had lined up support from other activists, the town’s standing Committee of Correspondence, and the most popular young merchant around. It had given the tea consignees a chance to resign. Now the North End Caucus took their crusade “out of doors.” Instead of meeting privately, they summoned the people of Boston to a public meeting:

Voted—That Capt. Proctor, John Lowell, G. Johonnot, James Swan, John Winthrop and T[homas]. Chase be a committee to get a flag for Liberty Tree.

Voted that Thos. Hichborn and John Boit be a committee for posting up said notification.

Boston’s Whigs had made a habit of flying a flag at Liberty Tree to gather crowds in the late 1760s, but apparently that practice had fallen into abeyance since the North End Caucus needed to roust up another flag. Thomas Chase owned the distillery under Liberty Tree, and the rest of the men on his committee were merchants and professionals. In contrast, Thomas Hichborn was a boatbuilder and John Boit a shopkeeper—probably seen as more fitting for the actual work of putting up notices for this public meeting.

The North End Caucus thus started mobilizing against tea imports in October and was calling meetings in early November—weeks in advance of the arrival of the first tea. It appears that the caucus was pushing other local groups and institutions along. In addition, the first group to patrol the wharf where a tea ship docked was led by the caucus’s Capt. Proctor, and the first four volunteers and eight of the first eleven on his list were also members of the North End Caucus.