“Town Meeting. Nothing done but Harangue.”

As recounted yesterday, in May 1774 the Boston town meeting named merchant John Rowe to its committee to formulate responses to the Boston Port Bill.

Rowe attended committee meetings on 14 and 16 May. In his diary he noted who else came but nothing more.

In contrast, Rowe had a lot to say about what happened on 17 May:

This morning Genl. [Thomas] Gage Our New Governour landed from the Castle after having breakfasted with Admiral [John] Montague on board the Captain Man of Warr—he was saluted by the Castle & the Captain Man of Warr & Rec’d at the Long Wharf by Colo. [John] Hancock’s Company of Cadets.

The [militia] Regiment was under arms in King street. The Company of Grenadiers made a good appearance. Capt. [Adino] Paddock’s Company of Artillery & Colo. [David] Phipps Company of [horse] Guards were also under arms in King street.

He came to the Town House, had his Commission Read by the Secretary [Thomas Flucker] & took the Usual Oaths—from thence he was escorted to Faneuil Hall where a good Dinner by his Majesty’s Council. There were but very few Gentlemen of the Town asked to dine there.

That last remark was Rowe consoling himself that he wasn’t invited. But the next day Rowe got to write: “I waited on Genl. Gage this morning who Received me very Cordially.”

Rowe had already expressed hope that the new governor would soften the blow of the new law: “God Grant his Instructions be not severe as I think him to be a Very Good Man.”

Notably, on the same day Gage received Rowe, the merchant skipped the next session of the town meeting. “I was so Busy I could not attend.”

He never mentioned sitting down with the town committee again. We can see Rowe’s allegiance solidify by the end of the month.

• 24 May: “The Merchants met at the Town House on Business of Importance.”
• 30 May: “I paid the General a visit this morning. Town Meeting. Nothing done but Harangue.”
• 2 June: “I met the Gentlemen Merchts at the West Side of the Court House in Boston.”

TOMORROW: More merchants’ voices.

“Their Orders were to keep the Door fast”

On Friday, 17 June 1774, inside the Salem courthouse, the Massachusetts assembly discussed sending five men to what would become the First Continental Congress.

According to the official tally, there were 129 members present. That was only about half the number of representatives that towns had elected in May, but the royal governor’s order to move the legislator to Salem had probably cut attendance. (And truth be told, the Massachusetts House rarely saw full attendance anyway.)

Of those 129 representatives, only twelve voted against the proposal. While some of the rest may have abstained, that number suggests that the Loyalist party commanded only a tenth of the chamber. Though there were lots of political arguments in Massachusetts during these tears, there were few close votes.

Nonetheless, Gov. Thomas Gage had a power stronger than democracy. Under the charter of 1692, he could simply declare the legislative session over, halting all bills.

As soon as he learned what was happening in the House, Gage sent the provincial secretary, Thomas Flucker (shown above), to Salem with just such an order.

The 20 June Boston Gazette reported:

His Excellency the Governor having directed the Secretary to acquaint the two Houses it was his Excellency’s pleasure the General Assembly should be dissolved and to declare the same dissolved accordingly; the Secretary went to the Court House and finding the Door of the Representatives Chamber locked, directed the Messenger to go in, and acquaint the Speaker [Thomas Cushing] that the Secretary had a message from his Excellency to the Hon. House, and desired he might be admitted to deliver it;

The Messenger soon returned, and said he had acquainted the Speaker therewith, who mentioned it to the House, and their Orders were to keep the Door fast:

According to John Sanderson’s profile of Samuel Adams, published about half a century later:

The door keeper seemed uneasy at his charge, and wavering with regard to the performance of the duty assigned to him. At this critical juncture, Mr. Adams relieved him, by taking the key and keeping it himself.

Flucker proceeded with his royal duty, as the newspaper reported:

Whereupon, the following proclamation was published on the stairs leading to the Representatives Chamber, in presence of a Number of Members of the House, and immediately after in Council.

To be clear, the Rev. William Gordon wrote that the secretary “read the proclamation upon the steps leading to the representatives’ chamber.” It’s unclear whether this was before or after the assembly’s vote, but the legislators didn’t acknowledge the governor’s proclamation until Adams opened the doors.

The Massachusetts General Court was officially dissolved. Yet the assembly had officially passed the resolutions sending delegates to the congress and seeking money to pay for that trip. That packet of resolutions was quickly sent to the newspapers, which printed it before Gov. Gage’s proclamation.

TOMORROW: Meanwhile, in Faneuil Hall…

“A ministerial member pleaded a call of nature”

The Massachusetts House started its session on Friday, 17 June 1774, at 9:00 A.M.

The first action was a committee report on a land grant, which the legislators read and accepted.

Then came the all-important “Committee appointed to consider the State of the Province.” The House approved a motion “The the Gallaries be clear’d and the Door be shut.”

Ordinarily this step was to keep spectators away from sensitive discussions before official votes, so legislators could speak freely and discuss compromises. In this case, however, House clerk Samuel Adams and his allies also wanted to keep people in.

The Rev. William Gordon recounted:

They had their whole plan compleated, prepared their resolves, and then determined upon bringing the business forward. But before they went upon it, the door-keeper was ordered to let no one whatsoever in, and no one was to go out:

however, when the business opened, a ministerial member pleaded a call of nature, which is always regarded, and was allowed to go out.

He then ran to give information of what was doing, and a messenger was dispatched to general [Thomas] Gage, who lived at some distance.

Inside the Salem courthouse, the committee laid out their recommendations. First, the General Court would appoint five men to represent Massachusetts at an upcoming “Meeting of Committees from the several Colonies on this Continent”—what became known as the Continental Congress.

The designated men were:

• James Bowdoin
• Samuel Adams
• Thomas Cushing
• John Adams
• Robert Treat Paine

At that moment Adams and Cushing were leading the discussion in the chamber. Bowdoin was home sick, Adams was in Boston, and Paine on his way back to Salem from Taunton with fellow legislator Daniel Leonard.

The House then approved paying £500 for those five men’s expenses traveling and staying wherever the congress met. Finally, with a lot more verbiage than I’ll reproduce, the chamber resolved that this “Meeting of Committees” was so important that it urged towns to come up with that £500 outside of the regular tax system in case the Council didn’t get around to approving this bill or the governor vetoed it.

By this time word had reached Gage at the house he rented in Danvers (shown above at its new location). He knew what the General Court was up to.

TOMORROW: The key.

“Undertook to carry off Mr. Leonard”

As I’ve been discussing, in the middle of June 1774 Samuel Adams and his Whig colleagues had come up with a plan to have their colony represented at what would be the First Continental Congress.

But to give the Massachusetts General Court time to approve that plan before Gov. Thomas Gage learned about it and shut down the legislature, they needed to get around committee member Daniel Leonard. He had recently moved to the Loyalist side of the political divide.

Besides Leonard, the other representative from Taunton was Robert Treat Paine, one of Adams’s allies. Both Leonard and Paine were lawyers, and on Tuesday, 14 June, the Bristol County court of common pleas was due to sit in their town. The courthouse was quite close to Leonard’s house, in fact.

As Paine described his actions decades later, he told Leonard that

it had been usual for Years past, to adjourn the Common Pleas Court at Taunton which was to set the then next Tuesday in Order that the Members of the General Court from that County might attend the General Court; but that the Neglect of it always gave uneasiness to many persons; especially the Tavern keepers, who from the great Concourse of people Collected there (the days being long & the Season pleasant) reaped great profits &c., &c., & that we might agree to Shorten the Court by Demurrers & Continuances & get back to [the Massachusetts General] Court in Season to attend to all important business

It was important for politicians to keep local tavern-keepers happy, after all. They were influential men at election times.

But Paine revealed his real motivation when he wrote: “the writer hereof Undertook to carry off Mr. Leonard.”

This maneuver is sometimes described as Paine inducing Leonard to leave Salem just before the crucial legislative vote. But in fact the two men left the previous Saturday, attended the county court for a few days, and even agreed to sit on a county committee to write an address to Gov. Gage.

At the end of the week, Paine and Leonard headed back to the legislature in Salem—“in Season to attend to all important business,” Paine had promised. But Adams’s resolutions were already moving.

TOMORROW: Behind closed doors.

Boston’s “party who are for paying for the tea”

June 1774 was a tense time in Boston. At the start of the month the harbor was closed to trade, with Royal Navy warships enforcing that rule.

Army regiments were arriving: the 4th Regiment on 10 June, the 43rd Regiment on 15 June. These troops joined the men Gen. Thomas Gage had brought with him in May.

Many of the town’s merchants, fearing for their livelihood, were trying to devise a way to pay for the East India Company tea destroyed in December, compromising with the Crown and getting back to business.

The “no taxation without representation” crowd thought that would be giving in to an unjust power grab by Parliament.

Just as the Boston Whigs had organized opposition to landing that tea in meetings of “the Body of the People” rather than official town meetings, Boston’s business community had their own big but unofficial gathering.

Merchant John Rowe wrote in his diary on 15 June:

This Evening the Tradesmen of the Town met to Consult on the Distress of this Place

There were Upwards of eight hundred at this meeting – they did nothing being much Divided in Sentiment

Dr. Joseph Warren reported to Samuel Adams, who was in Salem with the Massachusetts General Court:

This afternoon was a meeting of a considerable number of the tradesmen of this town; but, after some altercations, they dissolved themselves without coming to any resolutions, for which I am very sorry, as we had some expectations from the meeting.

We are industrious to save our country, but not more so than others are to destroy it. The party who are for paying for the tea, and by that making a way for every compliance, are too formidable.

However, we have endeavored to convince friends of the impolicy of giving way in any single article, as the arguments for a total submission will certainly gain strength by our having sacrificed such a sum as they demand for the payment of the tea.

I think your attendance can by no means be dispensed with next Friday. I believe we shall have a warm engagement. . . .

You will undoubtedly do all in your power to effect the relief of this town, and to expedite a general congress; but we must not suffer the town of Boston to render themselves contemptible, either by their want of fortitude, honesty, or foresight, in the eyes of this and the other colonies.

Back on 30 May, the Boston town meeting had adjourned to Friday, 17 June. Warren wanted Adams back in Boston by then to chair that session. But Adams was busy pulling strings in Salem, and trying to keep those strings invisible from Daniel Leonard.

TOMORROW: Back in Salem, a plan comes together.

The Sestercentennial of Salem as the Seat of Government

Gov. Thomas Hutchinson prorogued the Massachusetts General Court on 8 Mar 1774, stating:

I have passed over without notice the groundless, unkind, and illiberal charges and insinuations made by each of the other branches against the Governor…

So those insinuations didn’t bother him, not at all.

Two months later, Gen. Thomas Gage arrived as the new governor, and the legislature didn’t have Thomas Hutchinson to kick around anymore.

A newly elected General Court convened in Boston on 25 May. By the end of the day, the legislatures had elected twenty-eight gentlemen to sit on the new Council.

The next morning, Gov. Gage vetoed thirteen of those men. So things were off to a smooth start.

The House started to address the petitions, bills, and other business before it. On Saturday, 28 May, the governor sent a message that he was adjourning the legislature, and the term would start up again on 7 June in the courthouse at Salem (shown above).

That action was part of the British government’s policy of isolating and punishing Boston until the town repaid the cost of the tea destroyed the previous December. Gage acted on instructions from London. Deciding when and where the legislature would meet had long been a Massachusetts governor’s power.

Naturally, the House’s first business when it reconvened was to complain about having to be in Salem. Its resolution argued that since Gage had acted “unnecessarily, or merely in Obedience to an Instruction, and without exercising that Judgment and Discretion of his own,” he wasn’t properly exercising the governor’s prerogative.

A day after that, the House members responded to Gage’s speech opening the session with more complaints about being in Salem.

Late on the morning of 9 June, the House made itself “a Committee to consider the State of the Province” after the Boston Port Bill. After some private and unrecorded debate, the lawmakers appointed a committee to recommend responses to that situation. Its members were:

• speaker Thomas Cushing
• Joseph Hawley
• clerk Samuel Adams
• William Phillips
• Robert Treat Paine
• James Warren
• John Tyng
• Daniel Leonard
• Timothy Pickering

(Some sources say the “Col. Tyng” appointed to this committee was William Tyng of Falmouth, but he had served in the previous General Court and the House journal referred to him as “Mr. Tyng.” The only Tyng in this session was John Tyng of Dunstable, and the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper’s diary confirms his title of colonel.)

That committee thus included three of Boston’s four representatives to the General Court. The remaining member was John Hancock, who’s not mentioned in the record of the Salem session, suggesting he wasn’t even there.

Paine later wrote that eight of those men “were considered as firm in the Opposition to British measures.” The exception?

by the mixture of nominations from both parties in the House the Name of Daniel Leonard was so repeated, that the Speaker found himself Obliged to nominate him & he was chosen.

TOMORROW: Who was Daniel Leonard?

Tea with Gen. Gage in Salem This Week

In June 1774, 250 years ago, Salem suddenly became more important.

Parliament’s Boston Port Bill took effect on 1 June, and the harbor of Salem and Marblehead became Massachusetts’s largest port open to trade from outside the colony. The Customs office moved there.

Also, Gov. Thomas Gage adjourned the Massachusetts General Court from Boston to Salem, following orders from London. That move didn’t require a new law since the royal governor already had the power to convene the legislature where he chose. That didn’t stop most of the new session being taken up with complaints about being in Salem.

When Gage moved to the region, renting a house in nearby Danvers, he also brought a contingent of British soldiers. There doesn’t appear to have been as much friction between those troops and the locals as in Boston in 1768–1770, but the town governments still raised concerns.

This week the city’s historical organizations are commemorating that period with some public events.

Thursday, 13 June, 7:00 P.M.
Tea’s Party: From Boston to Salem and Back Again
Salem Armory Regional Visitor Center

James R. Fichter speaks about how, despite the so-called Boston Tea Party of 1773, large shipments of tea from the East India Company were sold in North America. The survival of the Boston tea shaped Massachusetts politics in 1774, impeded efforts to reimburse the company for its losses, and hinted at the enduring conflict between consumer demand and political boycotts.

That tension was not confined to Boston. As Gen. Gage and the colonial government relocated to Salem in the summer of 1774, Essex County residents found committing to a boycott just as difficult as Bostonians had.

Fichter is Associate Professor in Global and Area Studies at the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of So Great a Profit: How the East Indies Transformed Anglo-American Capitalism and Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776.

This event is free. For directions, visit this page.

Saturday & Sunday, 15–16 June, 10 A.M. to 4 P.M.
Governor Gage Comes to Salem
Derby Wharf, Salem

The British army will encamp on the waterfront, with some of New England’s finest living history practitioners portraying soldiers, officers, legislators, and the Loyalist and Patriot citizens of Salem. Over the weekend, visitors can meet people from many walks of life: shoeblacks, teachers, merchants, tavern-keepers, midwives, and more. Activities to be reenacted include military drill, camp cooking, placing ads in a newspaper, and political debate at the tavern.

Here is the full schedule of events.

Sunday, 16 June, 9:00 A.M.
Join the Royal Governor at Church
St. Peter’s Church, Salem

Gen. Gage attended the local Anglican Church when he was in America. In Salem, that meant St. Peter’s, which will recreate an eighteenth-century service with the general occupying the same pew that he used in 1774.

“A ball came thru the Meeting house near my head”

Yesterday we left Maj. Loammi Baldwin and his Woburn militiamen skedaddling east from Brooks Hill in Concord with the withdrawing British column on their tail.

Baldwin’s account in his diary, as transcribed in this copy with line breaks for easier reading, continues:

we came to Tanner Brooks at Lincoln Bridge & then we concluded to scatter & make use of the trees & walls for to defend us & attack them—We did so & pursued on flanking them—(Mr Daniel Thompson was killed & others[)]. till we came to Lexington. I had several good shots—

“Tanner Brooks” referred to the tannery owned by the Brooks family. Analysts of the battle say the Woburn companies engaged the British troops somewhere around the Hartwell Tavern within the borders of Lincoln.

The Enemy marched very fast & left many dead & wounded and a few tired I proceeded on till coming between the meeting house and Mr Buckmans Tavern with a Prisoner before me when the Cannon begun to play the Balls flew near me I judged not more than 2 yards off.

I immediately retreated back behind the Meeting house and had not been there 10 seconds before a ball came thru the Meeting house near my head.

I retreated back towards the meadow North of the Meeting house & lay & heard the ball in the air & saw them strike the ground I judged about 15 or 20 was fired but not one man killed with them. They were fired from the crook in the road by Easterbrooks—

The picture above, courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society, shows a “small cannon ball, said to have been found on the side of the road near Lexington” at some point. The webpage for this artifact says: “It is made of lead and was the type of projectile fired from a smooth-bored cannon.”

In The Road to Concord I argue that the presence of cannon in Concord, and particularly the brass cannon of the Boston militia train, was crucial to Gen. Thomas Gage’s decision to order an expedition there.

But the provincials moved most of those cannon further west in the days before that march. They probably weren’t all equipped for use, anyway. On the British side, the expedition under Lt. Col. Francis Smith marched with no artillery for maximum speed.

But Col. Percy’s reinforcement column did come out with field-pieces, and those were the cannon that Loammi Baldwin and his Woburnites ran into. By deploying heavy weapons for the first time that day, Percy was able to make time for the combined British forces to regroup in Lexington, tend their wounded, and set off for Boston.

As for Maj. Baldwin, his diary stops as quoted above. The transcripts don’t resume until May, when he was an officer in the provincial army. Baldwin probably decided that having marched into Concord and back, fired “several good shots,” and taken a prisoner, his unit had done their dangerous duty for the day. He and his men may have followed the British column east for some more miles, but they stayed out of cannon range.

“The Inhabitants of Boston are on the move”

Among the items in the London newspapers that arrived in Marblehead in the first week of April 1775 was this:

Yesterday a messenger was sent to Falmouth, with dispatches for General [Thomas] Gage at Boston, to be forwarded by a packet boat detained there for that purpose.

It didn’t take long for the Massachusetts Patriots to figure out that if this report had gone into the newspapers, and those newspapers had traveled to New England, then those dispatches could have made it to New England, too. And in that case, the royal governor might already be preparing to act on them.

Decades later, Mercy Warren wrote of the royal authorities in Massachusetts: “from their deportment, there was the highest reason to expect they would extend their researches, and endeavour to seize and secure, as they termed them, the factious leaders of rebellion.”

I can’t actually find those italicized words in the writings of royal officials, and “deportment” is a lousy basis for such a conclusion. But the Patriots may have had a more solid basis for expecting arrests, possibly from sympathetic people in Britain.

On behalf of the imperial government, the Earl of Dartmouth had written to Gage: “the first & essential step to be taken towards re-establishing Government, would be to arrest and imprison the principal actors & abettors in the Provincial Congress.” That letter didn’t arrive in Massachusetts until 14 April, but it looks like Patriots anticipated it after those Marblehead arrivals.

Most of the rest of the letter from James Warren to his wife Mercy that I’ve been discussing is about that worry—that Gage’s government would start arresting resistance leaders. On 6 April, James wrote from Concord:

The Inhabitants of Boston begin to move. The Selectmen and Committee of Correspondence are to be with us, I mean our Committee, this day. The Snow Storm yesterday and Business prevented them then. From this Conference some vigorous resolutions may grow. . . .

I am with regards to all Friends and the greatest Expressions of Love and regard to you, your very affect. Husband, JAS. WARREN

Love to my Boys. I feel disposed to add to this long letter but neither time nor place will permit it.

Then on 7 April James went back to his letter with more information and a warning:

I am up this morning to add. Mr. [Isaac] Lothrop [another Plymouth delegate] is the bearer of this and can give you an Acct. of us.

The Inhabitants of Boston are on the move. [John] H[ancock] and [Samuel] A[dams] go no more into that Garrison, the female Connections of the first [Lydia Hancock and Dorothy Quincy] come out early this morning and measures are taken relative to those of the last [Elizabeth Adams, who didn’t make it out before the siege]. The moving of the Inhabitants of Boston if effected will be one grand Move. I hope one thing will follow another till America shall appear Grand to all the world.

I begin to think of the Trunks which may be ready against I come home, we perhaps may be forced to move: if we are let us strive to submit to the dispensations of Providence with Christian resignation and phylosophick Dignity.

God has given you great abilities; you have improved them in great Acquirements. You are possessd of eminent Virtues and distinguished Piety. For all these I esteem I love you in a degree that I can't express. They are all now to be called into action for the good of Mankind, for the good of your friends, for the promotion of Virtue and Patriotism. Don’t let the fluttering of your Heart interrupt your Health or disturb your repose. Believe me I am continually Anxious about you. Ride when the weather is good and don’t work or read too much at other times. I must bid you adieu. God Almighty bless you. No letter yet. What can it mean? Is she not well? She can't forget me or have any Objections to writing.

James Warren appears to have gone home to Plymouth a few days later and then immediately gone on to Rhode Island to try to convince that elected government to help prepare a New England army. He was in that colony when word came of shooting at Lexington.

“They all to a Man refus’d taking the Oath”

William Molineux refused to pay the £6 fine the Massachusetts Superior Court imposed on him for refusing jury duty in the fall of 1773.

Publicly, that was because Molineux was protesting how Chief Justice Peter Oliver accepted (or at that point not denying that he would accept) a salary from the Crown rather than the people of Massachusetts.

Privately, Molineux might have had another reason: he was in debt to Boston for £300 for money advanced for a public-works venture.

In February 1774, as the Massachusetts General Court moved to impeach Oliver, the merchant petitioned that legislature to block this fine on his behalf. The assembly declined to take action for Molineux alone.

On 28 July, Gov. Thomas Gage wrote to Chief Justice Oliver from Salem about how Molineux had still not paid his fine for refusing jury duty. He promised to support the judges if they demanded that £6 and threatened to jail the merchant.

But in August 1774 Parliament’s new Massachusetts Government Act made even more people refuse to cooperate with the court system under Oliver.

In the western counties, popular protest took the form of hundreds of men massing around the courthouses and keeping the justices out.

Bostonians didn’t dare to do that since their streets were once again patrolled by redcoat soldiers. So on 30 August they emulated Molineux’s refusal.

William Tudor (shown above later in life) wrote to his mentor in the law, John Adams, on 3 September:

Tuesday the Superior Court opened and Mr. Oliver took his Seat as chief Justice. When the grand Jury were called upon to be sworn they all to a Man refus’d taking the Oath, for Reasons committed to Paper, which they permitted the Court, after some Altercation, to read.

The Petit Jury unanimously followed the Example of the Grand Jury; their Reasons together with the others You will read in the Masstts. Spy.

The jurors’ protests were also published as handbills by Edes and Gill. Among the grand jurors were longtime activists Thomas Crafts and Paul Revere, John Hancock’s younger brother Ebenezer, and William Thompson, whose granddaughter supplied the texts to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1875.

In different ways the grand and petit jurors pointed to these reasons:

• The General Court had impeached Chief Justice Oliver.
• The Massachusetts Government Act had taken control of the courts from the people and put them under the Crown.
• Justices Oliver, Foster Hutchinson, and William Browne had accepted seats on the Council, now appointed under the new law instead of elected by the legislature as the charter specified.

The judges, attorneys, and young men waiting to be admitted to the Boston bar (like Tudor) tried to figure out what to do.

TOMORROW: The last court session.

The Hive Symposium, 17–18 Feb.

On the weekend of 17–18 February, Minute Man National Historical Park will host its annual symposium for living history interpreters, The Hive.

Cosponsoring organizations include the Friends of Minute Man, Revolution 250, Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area, and the Massachusetts Army National Guard, which will host the gathering.

Though this series of presentations and workshops is designed primarily for people who participate in the park’s colonial reenactments, including the Battle of Lexington and Concord, they offer valuable information for anyone interested in local Revolutionary history.

The schedule of presentations includes:

Overview of the Minute Man 250 Thematic Framework with Park Rangers Jim Hollister and Jarrad Fuoss: The 250th anniversary of the American Revolution is well underway! The staff at Minute Man have developed an interpretive framework that carry our program through the next several years.

1774: The Empire Strikes Back, and Resistance Becomes Revolution with Prof. Bob Allison of Suffolk University: Parliament responded to Boston’s destroying the tea by closing the port and suspending the 1691 charter. The people of Massachusetts would no longer have control over their municipal governments. Instead of silencing the local resistance, these moves brought the other colonies into an alliance with Massachusetts to begin a revolution against Parliament's authority. Find out what went wrong for the Empire in 1774.

By His Excellency’s Command: General Gage, the British Army and the People of Salem in 1774 with Dr. Emily Murphy: In June of 1774 the newly appointed royal governor of Massachusetts, Gen. Thomas Gage, was eager to escape the political turbulence of Boston. Therefore, he took the drastic step of removing himself and the provincial legislature to the seemingly calmer waters of Salem. Two regiments of British regulars came with him. That summer the people of Salem came into direct contact with a display of royal power on a scale they had never before experienced. What was the social and political landscape of the town like in 1774? How did the people deal with their new neighbors?

Lives of the Embattled Farmers: The Towns of Lexington, Lincoln and Concord in 1775, a panel discussion with Alex Cain, Don Hafner, and Bob Gross: The towns of Lexington, Lincoln and Concord were farming communities. Many of the families who called these towns home had been there for multiple generations. In this panel discussion we will look at the social and economic dynamics of these three towns, their similarities and their differences.

Practical, often hands-on workshops will cover these topics:

• “Techniques for Informal Visitor Engagement” with Park Ranger Jarrad Fuoss
• “Too Clean!: Incorporating Appropriate Levels of Garment Distress into Your Historical Impression” with Adam Hodges-LeCaire
• “A Pressing Matter: Media Literacy & 18th Century Newspapers” with Michele Gabrielson
• “Women’s Hair Styles and Cosmetics” with Renee Walker-Tuttle
• “Men’s Hair Styles” with Neils Hobbs and Sean Considine
• “‘Fitted with the Greatest Exactness’: The Material Culture of Appearance of the 18th-Century British Soldier” with Sean Considine and Niels Hobbs
• “Pinning Gowns & Filling Pockets: How to Wear Women’s Clothing Well & Have Fun Pulling from Your Pockets!” with Ruth Hodges

Plus, the program includes time for sewing circles, infantry drill, consultation on kit, and lunchtime conversations.

The 2024 spring season at Minute Man will includes some events about the crucial year of 1774 in addition to the traditional Patriots Day battle reenactment. That event will be practice for the Sestercentennial in 2025, which may very well be insane.

Register to attend the 2024 Hive symposium through the Friends of Minute Man Park.

The Real Life and Death of Mrs. Coghlan

Margaret Moncrieffe was born in Scotland in 1762. Her father was army officer Thomas Moncrieffe, who soon became one of Gen. Thomas Gage’s aides in North America. Her wealthy mother died young.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, Margaret was in the New York area while her father was serving as a brigade major inside besieged Boston.

In 1776 Maj. Moncrieffe came to New York with the British expeditionary force, and his teenage daughter became a suspected spy, potential hostage, and all-around headache.

Over the next ten years, Margaret Moncrieffe:

• Fell in love with an American officer—most authors believe that man was Aaron Burr.
• Was sent over to the British in Manhattan.
• Was married to Lt. John Coghlan of the 23rd Regiment of Foot.
• Ran away from her husband to London.
• Became mistress of Lord Thomas Pelham-Clinton.
• Was sent to a convent in Calais.
• Fell in with Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and others in the British political opposition.
• Became mistress to a “Mr. Fazakerley.”
• Became mistress to Lord John Augustus Hervey.
• Became mistress to Capt. Andrew Barnard.
• Became mistress to a “Mr. Giffard.”

Then, in June 1787, the London newspapers reported that Margaret (Moncrieffe) Coghlan had died. The Daily Universal Register, which later became the Times of London, stated she passed away on 4 June “After two days illness…at three o’clock.”

The Gentleman’s Magazine included her in its section “Obituary of Considerable Persons,” with these details: “In Cavendish-street, Portland-squ. … Mrs. Margaret Coghlan, lady of John C. esq; and dau. of Colonel Moncrieffe.”

Seven years later, British readers were presented with Memoirs of Mrs. Coghlan, (Daughter of the late Major Moncrieffe.) Written by Herself and Dedicated to the British Nation; Being Interspersed with Anecdotes of the late American and Present French War, with Remarks Moral and Political.

That book described adventures and affairs extending past 1787 to the date of publication. Among her later lovers was retired general William Dalrymple, who makes most of his Boston 1775 appearances as the British army commander in Boston during the Massacre.

In Revolutionary Ladies (1977), Philip Young guessed that Margaret Coghlan had left some memoirs before she died, but someone—he guessed it was the political writer Charles Pigott—had expanded that document in unreliable ways and arranged for it to be published.

In Revolution Song (2017), Russell Shorto cited documents showing Margaret Coghlan was active after 1787. He concluded that she reported her death to newspapers in order to escape creditors and flee to France. Later she published her memoirs herself in another bid for money. That made Coghlan’s memoirs a more credible historical source—albeit coming from someone dishonest enough to fake her own death.

Last month the Journal of the American Revolution published Jane Strachan’s two-part profile of Margaret (Moncrieffe) Coghlan, from birth through fake death to her last recorded writings, documents begging for support from 1803 and 1805. It’s a thorough discussion of her life and the challenges of sorting out the facts about that life. It’s also quite a ride.

“Not to repel Force by Force, unless in case of absolute Necessity”

Earlier this month the Clements Library in Ann Arbor announced that it had started posting digital images from the Papers of Gen. Thomas Gage.

Specifically:

The William L. Clements Library has made available volumes 1-11 of the English Series of the Thomas Gage Papers from a famed British commander-in-chief in the decade leading up to the American Revolution and who also was governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1774 to 1775.

The papers are being digitized through a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize more than 23,000 items from one of the Clements Library’s largest and most utilized collections.

These first volumes cover the dates from October 1754 to April 1768. They contain Gage’s “correspondence with military officers and politicians in England, including Secretaries of State, Secretaries at War, the Treasury, the Board of Trade, the Board of Ordnance, the paymaster general, commanders-in-chief, and others.” (Correspondence with North American officials, officers stationed in North America, and civilians are in the separate American Series.)

Gage’s letters back and forth with his main bosses, the Secretary of State for North America (different men over time) and the Secretary at War (always Viscount Barrington, shown here), were transcribed and published in two volumes back in 1931. The full series contains many more documents.

Here’s the meat of one letter written on 24 Oct 1765 by Christopher D’Oyly (1717–1795), deputy secretary in the War Office:

In the Absence of my Lord Barrington, who is now at a Distance in the Country, it falls upon me as a Duty to transmit to you His Majesty’s Commands upon a Matter of the highest Importance to the Tranquility of the Colonies of North America…

It having been represented to His Majesty in Council, that violent & dangerous Riots have arisen in the Town of Boston…with a View to prevent the Execution of an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, for levying a Stamp Duty…you do forthwith issue your Orders to the several Officers commanding all the Regiments Posts & Detachments under your Command in America, that, in case by the Exigency of Affairs in any of the Provinces in America it should be necessary to procure the Aid of the Military in support of the Civil Power, and that, for that Purpose the Governor of the Province where that may happen, should apply to the Commanders of His Majesty’s Land Forces in America, the said Commanding Officers should, upon such Requisition made by the Governor of the Province to them give the said Governor their concurrence & Assistance for the Purpose abovementioned.

Having thus for signified to you the King’s Pleasure, in the strictest conformity to the abovementioned Order in Council, permit me to apprize you of the Precautions constantly observed by the Secretary at War, in every Case, wherein he had found himself obliged by the urgent solicitation of the Civil Magistrates in the Mother Country to grant them the Assistance of a Military Force, to aid them in the suppression of any Riots & Disturbances which have occasionally happened here.

In the first place the commanding Officer hath always been directed to take no step whatever, either with respect to the Marching, or quartering the Troops under his Command, but at the express requisition of the Civil Magistrate.

Secondly, that when so marched & quartered, the Forces are to take no Step whatever towards opposing the Rioters, but at the same Requisition; and Thirdly, that they are not to repel Force by Force, unless in case of absolute Necessity and being thereunto required by the Civil Magistrate.

In sum, Viscount Barrington was happy to pass on the government’s orders that the army help out in enforcing the law, but local civil authorities had to take the lead—and thus the heat. That restraint reflected the values of the British constitution as top officials in London saw it.

D’Oyly’s letter ended up playing no part in the Stamp Act crisis. Gage didn’t receive it in New York until six months later, on 3 May 1766. By that time the city had already suffered its own Stamp Act riot, the law was dead on the continent, and the new ministry in London was moving to scrap it.

I see that John Phillip Reid quoted these orders in In Defiance of the Law: The Standing-army Controversy, the Two Constitutions, and the Coming of the American Revolution (1981). Back then a researcher had to travel to Ann Arbor or London to read this letter. But now we can see D’Oyly’s words from the comforts of our own homes.

“Arms (deliver’d by the Inhabitants in April 1775)”

On 27 Apr 1775, Boston’s selectmen and designated committee members delivered to the royal governor, Gen. Thomas Gage, “the return made to them by the constables of the town relative to the delivery of arms in their respective wards.”

In other words, the count of how many weapons people had turned over to town officials in exchange for being allowed to leave the besieged town.

The next day, one member of that committee, former selectman Henderson Inches, left Boston and went to where the Massachusetts committee of safety was meeting in Cambridge. He brought the same data:

Mr. Henderson Inches, who left Boston this day, attended, and informed the committee, that the inhabitants of Boston had agreed with the general, to have liberty to leave Boston with their effects, provided that they lodged their arms with the selectmen of that town, to be by them kept during the present dispute, and that, agreeably to said agreement, the inhabitants had, on yesterday, lodged 1778 fire-arms, 634 pistols, 973 bayonets, and 38 blunderbusses, with their selectmen.

In 1900, Boston published an inventory of these weapons with the owners’ names attached (and somewhat different figures from Inches’s). The date on this record is 24 April, the first full day after the town voted to start collecting weapons, but that process took three days at least. It’s notable that this count of weapons “in the Town House” includes guns owned by the town itself. 

Recently Caitlin G. DeAngelis reported finding another inventory of “Arms (deliver’d by the Inhabitants in April 1775) in the Town House Chambers,” dated 1 March 1776, as the British military was slowly preparing to depart. (That process sped up considerably a few days later.) This list comes from Francis Green’s file submitted to the Loyalists Commission, preserved in the British National Archives, series AO 13 (Massachusetts). The photo above from DeAngelis shows the totals, including a note that most of the weapons were in poor repair.

Over the last twenty years I’ve mentioned the published list in a few history forums, hinting that it might provide useful data for a study of gun ownership in occupied Boston. The Green list, which differs slightly in what’s counted and in the totals, could add to that data. No one’s taken up that challenge so far.

The publications that discuss Gage’s demand that Bostonians lodge their firearms with the town are by and large those arguing that a significant factor in the American Revolution was the royal government’s attempts to confiscate individuals’ guns, with implications for modern political conflicts.

Now I’ve written a book about the competition between Gage’s government and the Patriot underground for artillery pieces in 1774 and 1775. I argue that was a precipitating factor in how the war began. But I don’t see evidence for a similar conflict over muskets, pistols, and other individually owned and operated weapons.

Gen. Gage arrived in Boston in May 1774. The “Powder Alarm” in September made both sides shift to military preparations. Samuel Dyer tried to assassinate two British officers with pistols in October. A small British army squad and the New Hampshire militia exchanged fire at Fort William and Mary in December. And at no time before 19 April 1775 did Gage try to confiscate people’s muskets or pistols.

Only after the war had started, the redcoats had suffered hundreds of casualties, and thousands of militiamen were besieging his base did Gen. Gage seek to disarm the civilians all around him. Until then, he’d respected private property and the province’s militia law. And even after he took this step to protect his soldiers from an armed uprising, Gage asked elected town officials to collect and store the weapons, not his army or appointees. This was a wartime measure, not a peacetime policy.

COMING UP: The bargain collapses.

“The town relying on the honor and faith of General Gage”

On 27 Apr 1775, in another session of Boston’s ongoing town meeting not preserved in the official records, a committee of selectmen and eminent gentlemen told voters how they had carried out their mandate from four days before.

As printed in the 26 June Boston Gazette:

They reported as follows, viz.

The committee waited on his excellency General [Thomas] Gage, with the papers containing the account of the arms delivered to the select-men, and the return made to them by the constables of the town relative to the delivery of arms in their respective wards.

After long conversation on the subject of the inhabitants removing themselves and effects from the town; his excellency being obliged to attend other business, left the affair to be settled with Brigadier General Robinson, who after further conference, and reporting the substance of it to General Gage, returned to the committee, and declared to them that General Gage, gives liberty to the inhabitants to remove out of town with their effects; and desires that such inhabitants as intend to remove, would give their names to the selectmen, and signify whether they mean to convey out their effects by land or water, in order that passes may be prepared; for which passes, application may be made to General Robinson, any time after eight o’clock to morrow morning; such passes to be had as soon as persons wanting them shall be ready to depart.

VOTED, That the foregoing report be accepted, the town relying on the honor and faith of General Gage, that he will perform his part of the contract, as they have faithfully performed their part of it.

Then the meeting was adjourned to monday next, ten o’clock in the forenoon.

A true copy, examined
Per Henry Alline, jun. Town Clerk, P. T.

I’ve found no record of another town meeting session on the following Monday, 1 May, but such adjournments were a legal way around the restrictions of the Massachusetts Government Act.

This is one of many places I’ve seen the surname of brigadier general James Robertson (1717–1788), the British barrack master general, rendered as “Robinson.” Was this the result of some collision between his Scottish accent and the Boston accent?

Robertson had already served many years as a military administrator in New York, and he would go on to be promoted to lieutenant general and royal governor of New York before the end of the war.

The town clerk pro tem. who took down these minutes was Henry Alline (1736–1804). Different sources say he had been trained as a “housewright and gauger” or “bred a Scrivener,” but he made his living as a notary public and clerk for such organizations as the Plymouth Company and the Kennebeck proprietors. In 1791 the Columbian Centinel reported that “his bodily health is such as renders a stationary business necessary and agreeable.”

In other words, Alline was a natural bureaucrat. After marrying in 1764, he was able to support a growing family; his society didn’t provide a lot of openings for those skills compared to ours, but it rewarded men who could do the job. Evidently in this emergency the town called on Alline to fill in for absent town clerk William Cooper.

In July 1776 Henry Alline had his family inoculated against smallpox and witnessed the reading of the Declaration of Independence from the Town House balcony, as he described in this letter at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

In 1791 Alline succeeded Nathaniel Green as the Suffolk County registrar of deeds. He held that job for five years until retiring because of failing eyesight. Then his son William, born in 1770, won election and served until 1821. Then William’s son Henry was registrar of deeds until 1860. That’s almost seventy unbroken years of the same family holding the position.

TOMORROW: Counting the guns.

“The Affair of delivering up the Arms”

On 23 Apr 1775, as recounted yesterday, the Boston town meeting approved an arrangement with Gen. Thomas Gage for people to store their weapons in exchange for the chance to leave their besieged town.

The committee who served as intermediaries between Gage and the town quickly wrote to Dr. Joseph Warren, chair of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s committee of safety:

Sir:

The following proceedings contain the Agreement made between his Excellency General Gage and the Town of Boston.

You are informed it is the earnest desire of the inhabitants, that such persons as incline to remove into the Town with their effects, may be permitted so to do without molestation, and they having appointed us as a Committee to write to you on this subject, we hope this request will be complied with, as the Town, in a very full meeting, was unanimous in this and every other vote, relating to this matter; and we beg the favour of as speedy an answer as may be.

We are, most respectfully, your obedient humble servants,
James Bowdoin, John Pitts,
John Scollay, Ezek. Goldthwait,
Tim. Newell, Alexander Hill,
Thos. Marshall, Henderson Inches,
Samuel Austin, Edward Payne.

That letter was later printed in Peter Force’s American Archives (probably with stylistic editing).

Town officials then got to work collecting people’s guns. The records of the selectmen are entirely blank from 19 Apr 1775 to 20 May 1776, but other sources offer peeks into this work.

Selectman Scollay (shown above) later wrote, “The Affair of delivering up the Arms & of the Inhabitants removal has given us great trouble.” That was even with the help of the constables the town had elected back in March—up to twelve men.

The family of lawyer Samuel Swift later claimed that his “zeal and resolution…caused many Bostonians to secrete their arms.” There’s not much evidence to support that flattering lore, but then arms-hiding would have been secret. Most townspeople seem to have cooperated grumpily. On 24 April the hat merchant Thomas Handysyd Peck even wrote to Gen. Gage about cannon:

their is two Iron Guns in my store I think about four Pounders if your Exellency thinks best that the guns should be Removed if you Sir will order to what Place I will take Care and have it Done. . . .

PS Those Guns have no Carrages and have laid ever since last war.

It looks like the selectmen thought the collection could be finished in a couple of days. The 26 June Boston Gazette stated:

The meeting was then adjourned to Tuesday morning the 25th of April, ten o’clock in the Forenoon, and was continued by successive adjournments to thursday, P. M. the 20th [sic, 27th] of April, 1775, when the town met to receive the further report of the committee.

TOMORROW: What the committee had to say.

“The vote of the town complying with his excellency’s proposal”

On Sunday, 23 Apr 1775, Boston’s emergency town meeting considered whether to accept Gen. Thomas Gage’s condition for letting people leave the besieged town: all Bostonians had to turn their firearms over to the selectmen to be stored in a central place.

Massachusetts’s militia law required most men to own and train with firelocks. Provincials were proud of that self-defense system. Indeed, they were now relying on it to resolve their dispute with Crown authorities.

Furthermore, Gen. Gage’s demand that men lock up their guns may have come as a surprise; that issue doesn’t appear on the records of the town meeting the day before.

Nonetheless, Bostonians wanted to get out of the town, to be away from the expected battles and food shortages.

As soon as the town’s committee put their understanding of the agreement with the governor in writing, the men at the town meeting acted on it:

Whereupon, Voted,
That the town accept of his excellency’s proposal, and will lodge their arms with the select men accordingly.

Voted, That the same committee be desired to wait upon his excellency the governor with the vote of the town complying with his excellency’s proposal, and the committee are desired to request of his excellency that the removal may be by land and water, as may be most convenient for the inhabitants.

The men at that meeting wanted out. Unlike the previous day’s vote on a promise not to attack the redcoats, this vote wasn’t recorded as unanimous. But it came quickly, and there’s no indication of any counterproposals.

The record published in the 26 June Boston Gazette doesn’t indicate how long the committee’s further consultation with Gage took, instead continuing:

The Committee appointed to wait upon his Excellency, report; that they accordingly waited upon him, and read the vote of the town, which was accepted by his Excellency; and at the same time his Excellency agreed that the inhabitants might remove from the town by land and water with their effects, within the limits prescribed by the Port Act:

Parliament had outlawed most sea voyages from Boston to ports outside of Massachusetts, and Gage felt he had to maintain that law.

…and also informed the committee he would desire the Admiral [Samuel Graves] to lend his boats to facilitate the removal of the effects of the inhabitants, and would allow carriages to pass and repass for that purpose: Likewise would take care, that the poor that may remain in Town should not suffer for want of provision after their own stock is expended, and desire that a letter might be wrote to Doctor [Joseph] Warren, chairman of the committee of the [Massachusetts Provincial] Congress, that those persons in the country who may incline to remove into Boston, with their effects, may have liberty so to do without molestation.

The town unanimously accepted of the foregoing report, and desired the inhabitants would deliver their arms to the Selectmen as soon as may be.

The townsfolk then voted to adjourn their meeting until “Tuesday morning the 25th of April, ten o’clock in the Forenoon.” And most of the men went home to find their guns.

TOMORROW: Implementing the agreement.

“Being informed that General Gage has proposed a Treaty”

On 22 Apr 1775, Dr. Joseph Warren, chair of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s committee of safety, wrote a letter to the Boston selectmen approving an arrangement that would let civilians leave the newly besieged town.

As transcribed by Warren biographer Samuel Forman, the doctor’s letter said:

Joseph Warren to the Select Men and Inhabitants of the Town of Boston

Gentlemen—

The Committee of Congress being informed that General [Thomas] Gage has proposed a Treaty with the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, wherein he stipulates that the Women and Children with all their Effects shall have safe Conduct without the Garrison and their Men also, upon Condition that the Male Inhabitants within the Town shall on their Part solemnly engage that they will not take up Arms against the King’s Troops, within the Town, sh:d an attack be made from without:

We cannot but esteem those Conditions to be just & reasonable, and as the Inhabitants are in Danger of suffering from the want of Provisions, which in this time of general Confusion cannot be conveyed into the Town: we are willing you should enter into and faithfully keep the Engagement aforementioned said to be required of you, and to remove yourselves, the Women, Children & Effects as soon as may be—

By Order of the Committee of Congress—

Joseph Warren, Chairman

Cambridge 22nd April 1775

It’s significant that Warren and his committee believed Gen. Gage had proposed this arrangement. This letter doesn’t hint at how they came to believe that.

Warren’s letter didn’t hint at any other concessions besides a promise not to attack the redcoats. He wrote that families could leave “with all their Effects.” He noted “the want of Provisions” inside Boston without suggesting the Patriot forces might let food into the town. He didn’t say he still hoped for a peaceful resolution.

Originally Warren told the selectmen, ”we would earnestly pray your acceptance of his proposals,” before toning that down to “we are willing you should enter into and faithfully keep the Engagement aforementioned said to be required of you.” Again, the committee of safety thought that Gage had set forth his conditions.

It’s not clear whether that letter reached the town meeting on 22 April in time to influence the discussion there. However, on that Saturday, Bostonians approved a long statement to Gage that “the selectmen in behalf of the town engaged for the peaceable behaviour of the inhabitants.” Their resolutions then went on at more length reminding Gage of his past promises of good treatment.

When the town’s high-powered committee visited the royal governor, however, he had another condition. Perhaps Gage had had that proviso in mind all along, but to the Bostonians it may have seemed like a new requirement. A “long conference” between the general and the committee resulted, as reported in the 26 June Boston Gazette.

Gen. Gage asked that Bostonians agree to “lodging their arms in Faneuil-hall, or any other convenient place, under the care of the Selectmen.” That way, men couldn’t attack the soldiers with those guns or hand them over to besieging militiamen. Only then would he let families leave the town.

Thus, when the committee returned to the town meeting on Sunday, 23 April, they were recommending the people accept a condition that neither that meeting nor the committee of safety had officially discussed before.

TOMORROW: Decision time.

“Upon the inhabitants in general lodging their arms in Faneuil-hall”

On 22 Apr 1775, with the Massachusetts militia besieging the king’s soldiers inside Boston, many townspeople wanted to get out of the way.

Gen. Thomas Gage, army commander and royal governor, had his own priorities: forestalling any citizen uprising against those soldiers.

Gage had approached Boston’s selectmen to start discussions on avoiding discontent and unrest. Those officials seized the opening to talk about letting people leave town.

In addition to five of the seven selectmen (John Hancock and Oliver Wendell had left Boston earlier in the month before fighting broke out), the town appointed four men to communicate with the governor. They were all established businessmen with political experience:

• James Bowdoin, a member of the Council, firm Whig, and, therefore, longtime headache for Govs. Francis Bernard and Thomas Hutchinson. He was, however, wealthy and learned, thus undeniably respectable. Also, though Bowdoin might excuse violence after the fact, he didn’t encourage it beforehand.
• Ezekiel Goldthwait (shown above), insurance broker, registrar of deeds, and veteran of other political offices, including Boston town clerk. While calling himself a Whig, Goldthwait was more centrist than most in that party and maintained friendly relations with the royal governors. Some people even called him a Tory.
• Henderson Inches, a Boston selectman voted out earlier in the decade for not pushing as hard on the Massacre orations as the voting public wanted, but still in the Whig party.
• Edward Payne, wounded in the Boston Massacre while standing peacefully on his front steps—but he chose not to sue about it. 
• Alexander Hill, a warden and fireward often chosen to audit the town’s accounts. Though he had been put on the town’s committee of correspondence, Hill was rarely involved in protests and debates over imperial issues.

In sum, these were gentlemen whom the governor couldn’t dismiss or treat with suspicion.

It’s a sign of the emergency situation that the town met on Sunday, 23 April. Indeed, Hill’s job as warden had been to ensure that people didn’t conduct business on the Sabbath. But these were desperate times.

The record published in the 26 June Boston Gazette continued:

Sabbath morning ten o’clock, April 23, 1775.

The town met according to adjournment.

The said committee made a verbal report. Whereupon it was desired that the committee would withdraw and reduce their report to writing, which was accordingly done, and is as follows, viz.

The committee appointed by the town to wait upon his excellency General Gage, with a copy of the two votes passed by the town yesterday in the afternoon; report, that they being read to him by the committee, and a long conference had with him upon the subject matter contained in the said votes, his excellency finally gave for answer, that upon the inhabitants in general lodging their arms in Faneuil-hall, or any other convenient place, under the care of the Selectmen, marked with the names of the respective owners, that all such inhabitants as are inclined may depart from the town, with their family’s and effects; and those who remain may depend upon his protection. And that the arms aforesaid at a suitable time would be return’d to the owners.

Most men in Boston, as in other towns, were required by law to drill with the militia and therefore owned firelocks. Gen. Gage didn’t want those guns used against his soldiers. He also didn’t want people to take their weapons out of town, join the besieging force, or arm fighters in that force.

On the other hand, the province had just gone through several months of Patriots complaining that they had the right—indeed, the obligation—to amass weapons, gunpowder, and other military supplies. Bostonians couldn’t participate much in that arming of the countryside, being under army occupation, but they supported it. Would they give up their means of self-defense?

TOMORROW: The townspeople’s expectations?

Boston’s Town Meeting on the Fourth Day of the War

As quoted yesterday, on 3 Apr 1775 the Boston town meeting voted to continue their work by adjournment on 17 April.

By that date, town clerk William Cooper had slipped out of town with the official records. Also unavailable were Samuel Adams, chosen moderator of that meeting, and selectman John Hancock.

I’ve found no record of a notice that Bostonians would not meet that day, nor indication that they tried. The following day, Gen. Thomas Gage set his plan for the Concord expedition in motion, and the day after that the province was at war.

The first indication of another town meeting appeared in Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy, newly moved to Worcester, on 3 May. After a detailed account of the first day of fighting, that paper stated:

It is now thirteen days since Boston was entirely shut up. The Sunday after the battle there were but two or three religious assemblies that met in Boston. In the Forenoon there was a town meeting, at which a Committee, consisting of the Select-Man, were chosen to wait upon General Gage, in order to get permission for the inhabitants to remove out of town with their effects.

A more detailed and apparently more accurate account appeared in the Boston Gazette on 26 June. This report used the legal formula of Boston’s other town meetings, and it’s clear the selectmen were involved, so this appears to meet all the criteria to be an official meeting.

Boston, ff. At a Meeting of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston legally warned, on Saturday the Twenty second day of April, A. D. 1775.

The Hon. JAMES BOWDOIN, Esq [shown above]; was chosen Moderator.

The Moderator informed the town that the present meeting was in consequence of an interview between his excellency General Gage and the Selectmen, at his desire, and mentioned the substance of the conversation that pass’d; and also that the Selectmen with the advice and assistance of a number of gentlemen had prepared several votes, which they thought it might be proper for the town to pass—And which in conjunction with the assurances that had been given to his excellency by the selectmen, they apprehended from the interview aforesaid, would be satisfactory to his excellency——

Whereupon,
The Hon. James Bowdoin, Esq; Ezekiel Goldthwait, Esq; Mr. Henderson Inches, Mr. Edward Paine, Mr. Alexander Hill, together with the selectmen, viz. John Scollay, Esq; Mr. Timothy Newell, Mr. Samuel Austin, Thomas Marshall, Esq; & Mr. John Pitts, were appointed a committee to consider of this important matter, and were desired to report as soon as may be.

The said Committee made report, and after some debate, the two following votes passed unanimously, viz.

His excellency General Gage in an interview with the selectmen, having represented that there was a large body of men in arms assembled in the neighbourhood of this town, with hostile intentions against his majesty’s troops stationed here, and that in case the troops should be attacked by them, and the attack should be aided by the inhabitants of the town, it might issue in very unhappy consequences to the town.

For prevention whereof, his excellency assured the selectmen, that whatever might be the event of the attack, he would take effectual care, that the troops should do no damage, nor commit any act of violence in the town; but that the lives and properties of the inhabitants should be protected and secured, if the inhabitants behaved peaceably; and the selectmen in behalf of the town engaged for the peaceable behaviour of the inhabitants accordingly:

In confirmation of which engagement—Voted,
That as the town have behaved peaceably towards the troops hitherto, they hereby engage to continue to do so; and the peace officers, and all other town officers, are enjoined, and the magistrates, and all persons of influence in the town, are earnestly requested to exert their utmost endeavors to preserve the peace of the town:

The Town at the same time relying on the assurances of his excellency, that no insult, violence or damage shall be done to the persons or property of the inhabitants, either by the troops or the kings Ships, whatever may be the event of the attack his excellency seems to apprehend; but of which attack we have no knowledge or information whatever, as all communication between the town and country has been interrupted by his excellency’s order, ever since the collection of the body aforesaid.

Whereas the communication between this town and the country both by land and by water is at present stop’d by order of his excellency General Gage, and the inhabitants cannot be supplied with provisions, fuel and other necessaries of life; by which means the sick and all invalids must suffer greatly, and immediately; and the inhabitants in general be distress’d, especially such (which is by much the greatest part) as have not had the means of laying in a stock of provisions, but depend for daily supplies from the country for their daily support, and may be in danger of perishing, unless the communication be opened:

Therefore, Resolved,
That a committee be appointed to wait on his excellency General Gage, to represent to him the state of the town in this regard, and to remind his excellency of his declarations in answer to addresses made to him when the works on the neck were erecting, viz. “That he had no intention of stopping up the avenue to the Town, or of obstructing the inhabitants or any of the country people coming in or going out of the town as usual;” that “he had no intention to prevent the free egress and regress, of any person to and from the town, or of reducing it to the state of a garrison; that he could not possibly intercept the intercourse between the town and country;” that “it is his duty and interest to encourage it; and it is as much inconsistent with his duty and interest to form the strange scheme of reducing the inhabitants to a state of humiliation and vassalage, by stopping their supplies,”—

Also, to represent to him, that in consequence of these repeated assurances of his excellency, the fears and apprehensions of the inhabitants, had generally subsided, and many persons who had determined to remove with their effects, have remain’d in town, whilst others largely concern’d in navigation, had introduced many valuable goods, in full confidence of the promised security:

That the Town think his Excellency incapable of acting on principles inconsistent with honor, justice and humanity, and therefore that they desire his excellency will please to give orders for opening the communication, not only for bringing provisions into the town, but also, that the inhabitants, such of them as incline, may retire from the town with their effects without molestation.

The same Committee were appointed to wait upon the General with the foregoing votes.

Then the meeting was adjourned to Sabbath morning, ten o’clock.

The town was reminding Gen. Gage of all the promises he’d made in the preceding months of keeping life as normal as possible. Of course, now there was a besieging army outside (“a large body of men in arms assembled in the neighbourhood”). How would the general respond?

TOMORROW: Sunday meeting.