Capt. Preston and the Boston Committee

At 3:00 P.M. on Friday, 13 July 1770—250 years ago today—the white men of Boston resumed their town meeting in Faneuil Hall.

There was only one item of real business: approving a town committee’s response to what was being published in London about the Boston Massacre.

People knew the acting governor, army officers, and other royal officials had sent reports on that March shooting. But they had been surprised by one document in the Public Advertiser. As the town meeting’s committee said:

We have observed in the English papers the most notorious falshoods, published with an apparent design to give the world a prejudice against this town, as the aggressors in the unhappy transaction of the 5th of March, but no account has been more repugnant to the truth, than a paper printed in the Public Advertiser, of the 28th of April, which is called The Case of Captain Preston.

Writing for the committee, Samuel Adams continued: “we thought ourselves bound in faithfulness to wait on Captain [Thomas] Preston, to enquire of him, whether he was the author.” After all, he had sent a letter with a very different tone to Edes and Gill’s Boston Gazette.

Receiving the town committee in the town jail, Preston replied “that he had drawn a state of his case, but that it had passed through different hands, and was altered at different times; and, finally, the publication in the Advertiser was varied from that which he sent home as his own.”

The committee asked Preston about parts “to which we took exception,” inviting him to say he hadn’t written them.

Preston declined, “saying, that the alterations were made by persons, who, he supposed, might aim at serving him, though he feared they might have a contrary effect, and that his discriminating to us the parts of it, which were his own, from those which had been altered by others, might displease his friends, at a time when he might stand in need of their essential service.”

In fact, the only big alteration to Preston’s “Case” was that the newspaper left off the last part, where he pleaded for a royal pardon before the colony could hang him. The officials who released the document to the London press might have thought that raising that possibility was premature and could backfire in the worst way.

Resolutely clinging (at least openly) to the idea that Preston was being misrepresented, the committee concluded:

we cannot think that the Paper, called The Case of Captain Thomas Preston, or any other Paper of the like import, can be deemed, in the opinion of the sensible and impartial part of mankind, as sufficient in the least degree to prejudice the character of the Town. It is therefore altogether needless for us to point out the many falsehoods contained in this paper, nor indeed would there be time for it at present…

As for Preston’s fear of being lynched, the committee blamed whoever published his “Case” for stirring up resentment against him.

so glaring a falsehood would raise the indignation of the people to such a pitch as to prompt them to some attempts that would be dangerous to him, and he accordingly applied to Mr. Sheriff [Stephen] Greenleaf for special protection on that account. But the sheriff assuring him there was no such disposition appearing among the people, (which is an undoubted truth) Capt. Preston’s fears at length subsided; and be still remains in safe custody, to be tried by the superior court of judicature, at the next term in August, unless the judges shall think proper further to postpone the trial, as they have done for one whole term, since he was indicted by the Grand Jury.

I wonder if the town put the sheriff’s younger brother, William Greenleaf, on this committee to get inside information or credibility.

Under a regular schedule, Preston and the soldiers of the 29th would already have gone on trial for murder. Judicial maneuvers, illnesses, and injuries had put off the trial, keeping everyone on edge.

Earlier in July, furthermore, the Customs Commissioners had sent some dispatches to London with Capt. Joseph Hood on the Lydia. Since Hood worked for John Hancock, that news quickly got back to the town. Locals rightly assumed the Commissioners were complaining about attacks on their employees and their homes.

Thus, Boston was under a lot of pressure to represent itself well to the people in London.

The Hancocks’ Dinner Table

Ticonderoga, New York, boasts the most accurate recreation of the Hancock mansion that used to stand on Beacon Hill.

The merchant Thomas Hancock built the original and passed it to his nephew John.

The replica was erected in 1925, long after the original was torn down, based on detailed architectural drawings. It is the headquarters of the Ticonderoga Historical Society.

Now the society is also the owner of a dinner table that was in the Hancock mansion, as the New York History Blog explains.

The table was the gift of Benn and Claire Eilers of Bend, Oregon. Benn Eilers is a descendant of Hancock’s sister-in-law, Sarah Quincy [who married William Greenleaf, sheriff of Worcester County].

With leaves that extend to 30 feet, the table is constructed of birds-eye walnut, a relatively rare wood. It is believed that George Washington dined at the table while visiting the Hancock House in Boston in 1789, during Hancock’s time as Governor of Massachusetts.

Hancock served many terms as governor, so depending on when he had that table he and his wife Dolly could have used it to entertain French army and naval officers, local politicians, and close friends.

However, I don’t think Washington dined at the Hancocks’ house in 1789. The governor invited him to do so, but the new President was trying to establish that he outranked American governors, so he wanted Hancock to wait on him instead of the other way around. Eventually Hancock relented and visited the President at a tavern, pleading infirmity for not coming out earlier. There was also a public dinner for Washington at Faneuil Hall. But I can’t find a mention of the President visiting Beacon Hill.

The table is on display in the parlor of Ticonderoga’s Hancock House daily until Labor Day. The society is hoping to raise funds to interpret a table setting in John Hancock’s time.

TOMORROW: Why that display should include plum cake.

“A proceeding which we could not but regard as traitorous”

Yesterday’s installment from the 1835 United Service Journal article ended with the unnamed, and perhaps fictional or composite, author becoming a prisoner in Boston. He and comrades in His Majesty’s 71st Regiment had sailed into Boston harbor in June 1776 thinking the town was still held by the British.

The officers were reportedly put into the town jail for a night, but then the American “Governor” came to relieve them. The writer recalled this man as “Colonel Crofts,” and I’m trying to figure out if that’s an imperfect memory of Thomas Crafts, prewar political activist and colonel in charge of the Massachusetts artillery force in 1776.

Here’s the part of the account that first caught my eye, its description of days leading up to 18 July 1776 in Boston:

We gave our word of honour that we would not attempt to pass beyond a certain distance out of Boston, till the privilege of parole should be withdrawn, or an exchange of prisoners effected; and we became, in consequence, as much masters of our own time as was consistent with a moderate degree of surveillance. Besides, the kindness of Colonel Crofts did not end here: he caused excellent quarters to be assigned to us in the houses of certain families who were suspected of a leaning in favour of the royal cause; and he issued orders that our wants should be duly attended to, and the utmost respect paid to our persons. Here then, we were, prisoners at large, in a town famous, above all in the New World, for its hostility to the English, yet well treated both by the civil and military authorities; and with a fair prospect of spending our days among them till a war, just begun, should be brought, one way or another, to its close. . . .

Meanwhile we found what amusement we could in wandering over the town, and visiting the positions of Bunker’s Hill, Breed’s Hill, Dorchester, Charleston, and other points rendered memorable as the scene of recent operations. Among these, nothing struck us more forcibly than the site of the encampment which the Americans first occupied after the skirmish of Lexington. Many huts were yet standing in regular lanes or streets which crossed one another at right angles; and it was easy to perceive, that the same ingenuity which they were in the habit of exercising in the construction of their rude dwellings in the woods had been applied by the rebel heroes to the formation of their bivouac. We were forced to admit, while examining their lines, that in the use of the spade and the pickaxe—implements of war not less formidable than the musket and the cannon—our men would be no match for an enemy so skilful.

In this manner a whole month wore itself out, and listless indifference was beginning to mark the bearing of some, when an event befel which so far stood us in stead, that it furnished us, for awhile, with a subject of conversation. On the 17th of July, the British officers on parole received each a card from the Governor, requesting the honour of his attendance at a specified hour on the morrow, in the Town Hall. As rumours were already afloat touching the decided step that had been taken at Philadelphia, we were not without a suspicion as to the purport of this meeting; and we hesitated for a while, as to the propriety of giving the sanction of our countenance to a proceeding which we could not but regard as traitorous. Curiosity, however, got the better of scruples, which, to say the truth, were not very well founded; and it was resolved, after a brief consultation, that the invitation ought to be accepted.

Accordingly, at the hour appointed, we set out, arrayed in the full-dress uniform of our corps, and became witnesses to a spectacle which excited even in us feelings it would not, perhaps, be very easy to be defined. As we passed through the town, we found it thronged in all quarters with persons of every age, and both sexes. All were in their holiday suits, every eye beamed with delight, and every tongue was in rapid motion. King-street, Queen-street, and the other streets adjoining the Council Chamber, were lined with detachments from two battalions of infantry, tolerably well equipped; while in front of the jail, a brigade of artillery was drawn up, the gunners standing by their pieces with lighted matches; nor, to do them justice, was there any admixture of insolence in the joy which seemed to animate all classes.

Whether our lengthened residence among them, and the anxiety which we displayed never wantonly to offend their prejudices, had secured their esteem, or whether they considered it beneath the dignity of a grave people standing in a position so critical, to vent their spleen upon individuals entirely at their mercy, I do not know; but the marked respect with which we were treated both by soldiers and civilians could not be misunderstood. The very crowd opened a lane for us up to the door of the Hall, and the troops gave us, as we mounted the steps, the salute due to officers of our rank.

On entering the Hall we found it occupied by functionaries, military, civil, and ecclesiastical; among whom the same good humour and excitement prevailed, as among the people out of doors. They received us with great frankness and cordiality, and allotted to us such stations as enabled us to witness the whole of the ceremony, which was as simple as the most republican taste could have desired. Exactly as the clock struck one, Colonel Crofts, who occupied the chair, rose, and silence being obtained, read aloud the celebrated Declaration, which announced to the world that the tie of allegiance and protection which had so long held Britain and her North American colonies together, was for ever separated. This being finished, the gentlemen stood up, and each repeating the words as they were spoken by an officer, swore to uphold, at the sacrifice of life, the rights of his country.

Meanwhile, the town-clerk read from a balcony the Declaration of Independence to the crowd; at the close of which, a shout, begun in the Hall, passed like an electric spark to the streets, which rang with loud huzzas, the slow and measured boom of cannon, and the rattle of musketry. The batteries on Fort Hill, Dorchester Neck, the Castle, Nantucket, and Long Island, each saluted with thirteen guns—the artillery in the town fired thirteen rounds, and the infantry, scattered into thirteen divisions, poured forth thirteen volleys—all corresponding to the number of States which formed the Union.

What followed may be described in a few words. There was a banquet in the Council Chamber, where all the richer citizens appeared—where much wine was drunk, and many appropriate toasts given. Large quantities of liquor were distributed among the mob, whose patriotism of course grew more and more warm at every draught; and when night closed in, the darkness was effectually dispelled by a general and, what was termed then, a splendid illumination. I need not say that we neither joined, nor were expected to join, in any of the festivities. Having sufficiently gratified our curiosity, we returned to our lodgings, and passed the remainder of the evening in a frame of mind, such as our humiliating and irksome situation might be expected to produce.

According to a 21 July letter from Abigail Adams and the 25 July New-England Chronicle, Thomas Crafts did take a major part in the official reading of the Declaration of Independence, starting exactly at one o’clock on this date in 1776. The thirteen-gun salutes, the many toasts—they’re also in the published record.

But the 22 July Boston Gazette and 25 July Continental Journal said the “Sheriff of the County of Suffolk,” who was William Greenleaf, did the reading, as the Council had officially requested. An October 1841 letter from the sheriff’s son Daniel explained that he had asked Crafts to help out because he had a “weak voice,” and the colonel repeated each phrase in a bellow for the benefit of the crowd below.

In that case, the author of this account seems to have mixed up the two men, having the colonel read the Declaration inside the chamber and a “town clerk” then repeat it (as a whole?) to the crowd. Again, this purported reminiscence is a frustrating mix of nearly accurate detail and discrepancies.

TOMORROW: The story continues.

The Drama of Dr. Byles

Also in the new Common-place is Edward M. Griffin’s dramatically written article about the experiences of the Rev. Dr. Mather Byles (shown here). Byles was the Boston Congregationalist minister closest to the royal government—yet he also remained in Boston after the British evacuation.

“A Loyalist Guarded, Re-guarded, and Disregarded: The Two Trials of Mather Byles the Elder” identifies this moment as crucial to how the Patriot public came to view Byles:

Within four days after the battle [of Lexington and Concord], this rumor swirled through Boston: the king’s troops admitted firing first. Lieutenant [Thomas] Hawkshaw had said so to the elder Reverend Mather Byles and the Boston merchant Gilbert Deblois.

Hawkshaw, an officer of Hugh Earl Percy’s 5th Regiment of Foot, scoffed at the rumor, issuing a sworn statement that “the Country People” had fired first, but on the streets of Boston, residents muttered about a cover-up. Hadn’t the lieutenant privately said otherwise to Byles and Deblois? Pressed on the issue, Byles and Deblois, each a prominent citizen and a Loyalist supporter of the Crown, responded with their own sworn declaration that they, “the only two Gentlemen of the Town, who have visited Lieut. Hawkshaw since his being brought into Boston, both declare that, neither of them had the least Conversation with Lt. Hawkshawe upon the Subject of the Affair of Wednesday last the 19th April; + particularly, that They nor Either of Them ever heard Lt. Hawkshaw say that the King’s Troops had fired first upon the Country People.”

Hawkshaw had been wounded on the road near Lexington. Could anyone believe that when Byles and Deblois had visited him they simply passed the time in pleasant conversation without ever discussing the previous week’s armed confrontation between British troops and rebellious locals? But the two gentlemen swore that they had not asked about the first shot. And that put Mather Byles Sr. in the thick of it.

Of course, Patriots already disliked how close Byles was with royal officials, and his insistence on not discussing politics took on new meaning in a highly political time.

The long article has some glitches. The Loyalist judge Peter Oliver coined the term “black Regiment” for James Otis’s clerical supporters; that wasn’t Otis’s own term. Thomas Crafts was not sheriff of Suffolk County when he bellowed the Declaration of Independence out the State House window; he was helping the sheriff, the more soft-spoken William Greenleaf.

More important, the article retells many amusing anecdotes about Byles—and there are a lot of those stories because Byles was such a big personality and known for his jokes. But some of those tales were recorded decades after all the supposed witnesses had died. Griffin not only accepts them without question (at least in this online format), but also elaborates on them in dramatic detail. See, for example, his retelling of the encounter between Byles and Col. Henry Knox in March 1776. Do we really know all that?

Sheriff Greenleaf and Col. Crafts Read the Declaration

In October 1841, Daniel Greenleaf (1762-1853) wrote to a Boston newspaper from his home in Quincy. He was correcting some recollections of Revolutionary Boston from Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764-1854), who he thought was too young to remember events clearly:

The Declaration of Independence was read by William Greenleaf (my father), the sheriff. . . . My father was so proud of that proclamation that he had the paper from which he read it framed and glassed, and it hung over his parlor fireplace as long as he was a housekeeper.

As his voice was rather weak, he requested Colonel [Thomas] Crafts to act as his herald; they stood together at the front of the balcony, and my father read a sentence, which was immediately repeated by Crafts, and so continued to the end, when was the huzza. . . .

The lion and unicorn [from the Town House] were burnt on the evening of the declaration on a bonfire, in front of the Bunch of Grapes [tavern], as were the king’s arms from the Court-House, and all signs bearing emblems of royalty that could be found.

This first public reading of the Declaration in Boston took place on 18 July 1776, when its text reached Boston from Philadelphia. Col. Crafts’s artillery regiment and other military units were drawn up in the streets below the balcony on the Town House, now called the Old State House. Also among the listeners were a couple of British officers captured aboard a transport ship.

The lion and unicorn were heraldic symbols of the British king. Though they were burned in 1776, when the Old State House was preserved from being dismantled and was instead “restored” in 1882, reproductions went back up, as shown above, courtesy of iBoston.org. Here’s a color photo of the lion and unicorn, and a close-up of the unicorn.

Greenleaf’s letter appears to have been published first in the Boston Transcript on 2 Aug 1855. I think it’s a reliable picture of the event because he wasn’t just puffing up his father, who as sheriff did indeed have the duty of reading important proclamations. He also acknowledged that Papa had a weak voice and needed Crafts’s stentorian help.

George Washington Sat Here?

On 19 January, Sotheby's in New York is scheduled to auction this chair. It's Lot 362 in a sale of "Important Americana including Property Approved for Deacession [sic] by the Board of Trustees of Historic Deerfield." (Not that this chair necessarily came from Deerfield.)

The chair comes with a seventy-year-old note that says:

This chair is one of a set of six loaned by William
Greenleaf, High Sheriff of Suffolk County, to help furnish General
Washington's Headquarters when he occupied the building now
known as the Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From July 1775
until March 1776.
Washington's Headquarters were in Wadsworth House from July 1 to July 15, 1775.
Wm. Greenleaf
Elizabeth Greenleaf - m. Samuel Eliot
Wm. G. Eliot
Thomas D. Eliot.
Margaret E. Gifford 1933

Sloans & Kenyon Auctioneers sold another chair from this set a year ago for $51,920.

During Boston's pre-Revolutionary turmoil, Stephen Greenleaf (1704-1795) was the royally appointed sheriff of Suffolk County, which then included both the capital and all of modern Norfolk County extending to the Rhode Island border. He supported the royal governors' attempts to impose their rules on the Whigs, though not aggressively. In provincial Massachusetts, a sheriff's main job was to deliver and execute warrants and writs in private lawsuits, not to police the county.

After the war broke out and the Continental Army besieged Boston, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress decided that it should appoint a new Suffolk County sheriff under its own authority. On 31 Oct 1775 that legislature chose William Greenleaf (1725-1803), Stephen's younger brother, who had been an apothecary.

When the British military left Boston, Stephen stayed in town, resigned his post, and kept quiet about his Loyalist sentiments. William remained sheriff for five years; the high point was formally reading out the Declaration of Independence from the Old State House with Col. Thomas Crafts. After leaving the job in 1780, William set up a business in New Bedford.

Just to add to the confusion, another William Greenleaf (1738-1793), a nephew of those two brothers, was sheriff of Worcester County for a few years after the Revolution, including the period of the Shays rebellion. So it's quite maddening to sort out references to "Sheriff Greenleaf."

The chairs seem to have come down from the Suffolk County sheriff William to his eldest child, Elizabeth (1750-1841); then to her youngest child, William Greenleaf Eliot (1781-1853), who married his first cousin Margaret Greenleaf Dawes (1789-1875), the better to keep the family property together; then to their eldest child, Rep. Thomas Dawes Eliot (1808-1870)—and then I lose the path.