“There are always joys while going through manuscripts”

Last month, Commonplace published Jayne Ptolemy’s “The Record Scratch: Uncovering Documents Relating to William Ansah Sessarakoo,” and I recommend reading the whole article.

Ptolemy, who’s on the staff of the William L. Clements Library in Ann Arbor, wrote:

The Clements holds the papers of Charles Townshend (1725-1767), who served as Secretary of War during the Seven Years’ War and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the decades leading up to the American Revolution. These days, he is mostly known as the straw man for incendiary British taxation policies due to his role in sponsoring the infamous Townshend Acts.

Internally at the library, however, we mostly grumbled about him under our breath because his papers were in a complicated arrangement, the finding aid was difficult to navigate, and the boxes even harder to pull for researchers. It needed someone to puzzle out what was in each box and add descriptive information to the finding aid to make it more manageable. Unfortunately, I don’t have a penchant for economic history, so figuring out how to describe the contents of “Miscellaneous Treasury Papers” meant trying to disambiguate a great many reports on tariffs, duties, and excises.

There are always joys while going through manuscripts—an unexpected doodle, a funny quote, beautiful papers—but most of what I was encountering was financial document after financial document–Until one stopped me right in my tracks. It referred to expenses “for the two African Gentlemen at Barbadoes.” Written in 1747, the use of “Gentlemen” to describe African peoples was eye-catching enough, but glancing down at the accounts, the entries for making waistcoats, providing pocket money, buying ruffled shirts, and more signaled something extraordinary. . . .

And then, a document written from Bridgetown, Barbados, laid it all out:

Whereas John Corrantee and the Caboceers of Annamabo are at present exceedingly well disposed towards the British Nation, and beg the resettlement of that place by the English, and the fort to be rebuilt

And whereas a Son of John Corrantee’s Named Ansah was sold here by Captain Hamilton who he (Corrantee) is very anxious to have redeemed

We hereby give it as our Opinion that the Redemption of the said Ansah will be very acceptable to John Corrantee (who is the leading man at Annamabo) . . . and will be a means to conciliate Corrantee to, and rivet him in the Interest of the British Nation in opposition to the French, who have been aiming for some Years past at the aforesaid settlement.

OH.

OH NO.

“The Record Scratch” is a fine metaphor for that moment, though I don’t think it gives a good sense of the rest of this article.

“Headquarters of a Revolution” in Cambridge, 5 July

On Saturday, 5 July, the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site will host the Sestercentennial commemoration of Gen. George Washington taking command of the Continental Army.

Washington arrived in Cambridge on the afternoon of 2 July and assumed command from Gen. Artemas Ward. Nineteenth-century tradition held that 3 July was the crucial day, imagining the new commander reviewing all his troops on Cambridge common, but that was at best an exaggeration. The 4th is of course claimed by an event from 1776. So Saturday the 5th is the most convenient date for a celebration this year.

Here’s the “Headquarters of a Revolution” schedule. Unless stated otherwise, all of these events start at 105 Brattle Street, the Longfellow–Washington site. Some offerings overlap, so it’s not possible to see everything. The talks are about half an hour long, the house tours almost an hour, the walking tours more like ninety minutes. Folks who need air conditioning or shelter from rain will no doubt prefer the talks and house tours.

10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M.
The New Generalissimo
John Koopman and Quinton Castle

On the mansion’s lawn, visitors can meet and talk with living historians portraying Gen. George Washington (Koopman) and his body servant, William Lee (Castle), as they assess the siege, the Continental Army, the political situation, and living arrangements in Cambridge. Photo opportunities.

10:15 A.M. talk in the Longfellow Carriage House
Get Ready with Martha
Sandy Spector

Learn all about the clothing of 1775 as Mrs. Washington finishes dressing for her day. There will be some stories and some gossip, too! Spector is a Boston-based historian, researcher, and interpreter known for bringing emotional depth, humanity, and a sense of humor to her portrayal of Martha Washington.

10:30 A.M. walking tour
Children of the Revolution: Boys & Girls in Cambridge during the Siege of Boston
J. L. Bell

Meet at the mansion’s driveway for a walk around the Tory Row neighborhood and Harvard Square viewing sites and hearing stories of young people caught up in the opening of the Revolutionary War: Loyalists forced from their homes, soldiers in their teens or younger, war refugees, and enslaved children seizing their own liberty.

11:00 A.M. talk in the Longfellow Carriage House
The Revolutionary War Diary of Moses Sleeper
Kate Hanson Plass

An almost-anonymous journal in the Longfellow–Washington site’s collection provides a look at daily life in the Continental Army in Cambridge. Cpl. Moses Sleeper spent most of the Siege of Boston encamped and building barracks around Prospect Hill. Hanson Plass, the Longfellow House Archivist, explains how Sleeper’s perspective adds to our understanding of the experience of the soldiers under General Washington’s command.

11:30 A.M. house tour
Deep Dive: Headquarters of a Revolution
National Park Service staff

Explore Gen. George Washington’s first headquarters of the American Revolution. That mansion became a testing ground for many of the ideals, institutions, and questions that still define our nation. This conversational tour explores Cambridge Headquarters as a hub of revolutionary activity, where generals, enslaved people, paid laborers, poets, Indigenous diplomats, politicians, and soldiers shaped history—and how later generations would shape its memory.

12:30 P.M. talk in the Longfellow Carriage House
Washington in the Native Northeast
Dr. Ben Pokross

This talk describes George Washington’s interactions with Indigenous people while he lived in the Vassall House. After a look back on Washington’s experiences as a surveyor in the Ohio River Valley, the presentation will focus on his diplomatic encounters with Abenaki, Haudenosaunee, Passamaquody, and Maliseet peoples, among others, during the Siege of Boston. Ben Pokross was a Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at the Longfellow–Washington site researching its Indigenous history. In the fall, he will be a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Trinity College in Hartford.

1:15 P.M. talk in the Longfellow Carriage House
On Managing a Headquarters that is Also a Household
Sandy Spector

Martha Washington made her own arrival in Cambridge in December 1775 and stayed until April, setting the pattern she would follow throughout the Revolutionary War: she spent every winter with her husband and the army, and during campaign season usually remained as close as she safely could. Spector describes how the commander’s wife maintained a genteel household in the midst of war.

1:30 P.M. walking tour
Cambridge as a Seat of Civil War
J. L. Bell

Meet at the Washington Gate on Cambridge Common. This tour explores how the Cambridge community split on religious, political, and class lines between 1760 and 1775, culminating in a militia uprising in September 1774 and the outbreak of actual war in April 1775. Hear how the wealthy and congenial Tory Row neighborhood fell apart and became a stretch of military barracks and hospitals.

2:00 P.M. talk in the Longfellow Carriage House
Phillis and George: Thoughts on Letter-Writing, Power, and Self-Representation
Dr. Nicole Aljoe

One famous event during Washington’s time in Cambridge was his exchange of letters with Phillis Wheatley, the young poet who had been kidnapped into slavery. Aljoe, Professor of English and Africana Studies at Northeastern University, explores this encounter in context. She is co-Director of The Early Caribbean Digital Archive and Mapping Black London digital project, Director of the Early Black Boston Digital Almanac, and author of multiple books and articles. 

2:30 P.M. house tour
Deep Dive: Headquarters of a Revolution
National Park Service staff

See above.

2:45 P.M. talk in the Longfellow Carriage House
Cambridge’s Black Community, 1775
Dr. Caitlin DeAngelis Hopkins

The American Revolution was a time of both possibility and peril for Black residents of Cambridge. Enslaved people could pursue their liberty but faced the threats of family separation, deadly epidemics, and violence. Whether moving far away, taking jobs at Washington’s Headquarters, or making complex legal arguments to claim pieces of their enslavers’ estates, Black residents used their knowledge and networks to protect themselves and their families. Hopkins is working with the descendants of Cuba and Anthony Vassall to document the Black history of 105 Brattle. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard and was formerly the head researcher for the Harvard and the Legacies of Slavery Project.

This commemoration is funded by Eastern National, a non-profit partner of the National Park Service. It’s supported by friendly organizations like History Cambridge and the Friends of Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters.

“The said Inventory (A Very few Articles excepted)”

By 1787, Henry Howell Williams had been reestablished on Noddle’s Island for about three years.

Having stayed in Massachusetts throughout the war, Williams had also established his loyalty to the republic, which might have been in doubt back in 1774 and 1775.

Williams then decided to revive his effort to be compensated for the loss of his animals and the destruction of his farm and house back in May and June 1775.

Williams assembled a long list of the property he had lost twelve years before, including furniture, clothing, and food. A sampling of the items:

• “24 very Eloquent Gilt Pictures, 1 small Carpet”
• “1 Coat of Arms work'd on Satting with Silver & Gold thread”
• “40 lb. of flax 2 Barrls Hops & 3 Quntal salt fish”
• “3 Large Jarr’s Sweet meats never opened”
• “1 Mahogy. Clock cost in England 25 £ Sterl. New”
• “1 Silver Nipple & Bottle”
• “60 bullets 30 lb. Lead. 6 Powdr horns. 2 Powdr flasks”
• “1 Barrl. best hard Bread a large Quanty of Loaf Sugar”
• “1 Large Bible & Several Other Books”
• “3 Hogsheads New Rum Just got home from the W. Indies Quanty. 234 Gallons a 3/4–”
• “6 Chissells 3 dung forks. Squares &c.”
• “1 large Boat £32– 1 Moses do £14. 1 yall £10–”
• “A New Black-Smiths Shop”
• “333 Young Locust tree’s Cut down which were Set out by Mr. Williams & were to have been paid for by the Owners of the Island at 3/ Each”

As to livestock, Williams stated he had lost:

43 Elegant Horses...@ 30£ Each put into the Publick Stables … £1290:11:—
3 Cattle taken & used as Provisions for the Army … 30:11:—
220 Sheep used as Provisions as above @12/- … 132:11:—
4 fine Swine … 12:11:—
5 Dozn Fowls Turkys & Ducks … 6:11:—

The bottom line was £3645:6:2. That might or might not have been in debased local currency, but pound for pound that total was more than a third of what the East India Company had calculated as its loss in Boston harbor back in 1773.

On 10 Mar 1787, Williams and his wife Elizabeth went before magistrate William Tudor (shown above) and swore

That the said Inventory (A Very few Articles excepted) was taken in the month of July following [the raids] & that according to my best Judgment and Recollection the Same is just and true

The whole document can be studied on the Massachusetts Historical Society’s website.

In addition, Williams had collected some evidence supporting his claim, or perhaps answering critics who had said back in 1775 and 1776 that he didn’t deserve financial support.

TOMORROW: Supporting documents.

Thomas Newell’s Secret Notes

As discussed yesterday, Thomas Newell wrote several lines in his 1773–74 diary in cipher.

Since one of those lines coincides with Newell joining the effort to keep the East India Company tea from landing, one might hope the secret words would have political significance.

Barring that, they could be juicy personal gossip. Better than the weather reports that comprise the great majority of entries in this diary.

But no, these ciphered lines turn out to be far less juicy than other things Newell wrote about openly: political brouhahas, a duel between British military officers, the suicide of a British sailor.

Of eleven lines in cipher, four were Newell admitting to not going to a meetinghouse on a Sunday. Four times in two years!

Three expressed Newell’s worry for a woman named Hannah, who was suffering ill health:

• 10 Oct 1773, Sunday: “Staid at home this day upon account of my dear Hannah being unwell with a breaking out on her hands and legs.”
• 28 December: “My dear Hannah very unwell; out of her head most of this evening.”
• 13 Mar 1774: “My Hannah [not in cipher:] went to meeting, after many months’ illness.”

This was presumably the Hannah he married and had two daughters with years later. I haven’t found a date for that marriage, but the Newells were members of the Brattle Street congregation, and the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper wasn’t known for scrupulous record-keeping. Hannah Newell died in 1807.

Two entries were about attending social events that would be standard for a young man of his class:

• 17 July 1773: “I went to Commencement” at Harvard College, an annual public festival.
• 28 October, after a concert at Faneuil Hall by Josiah Flagg: “For the first time my uncle gave me a ticket.”

And one ciphered entry was about a holiday gift:

• 2 Jan 1774: “Yesterday being New Year’s Day, my father gave me a new shirt, for which I was greatly obliged to him.”

Thomas Newell’s father had the same name; he was called captain because he had commanded a ship as a younger man, but in this period he was running a wharf.

Why would Thomas Newell feel the need to keep that information from posterity? Well, he probably didn’t care about us. In this period a diary was less private than we now expect, so Newell’s uncle Timothy or his father or his friends might have expected to be able to read it.

I suspect that Thomas Newell kept these little personal notes private because they were about his own personal life and not the weather or public events.

TOMORROW: Cannon.

Aritfacts Lost, Strayed, or Stolen

The Journal of the American Revolution regularly asks its contributors to share a short answer to an intriguing question—a favorite event or person, a what-if possibility, a little-known example.

Usually I get intrigued, think about possible answers, often type up something to edit down to the requisite length. And then other things land on top of the task pile and I end up never sending in an answer.

But I was able to muster a reply to the latest challenge for contributors: “an artifact from the 1765–1805 era known to have existed well into the nineteenth century, that has since been stolen or gone missing.”

The various answers include one painting and three medals stolen in the second half of the twentieth century, several items of clothing that have probably been tossed out or disintegrated, and an entire financial archive.

Plus, Elias Boudinot’s handwritten memoir (which was, thankfully, transcribed and published before disappearing from archive shelves), two cannon captured at Saratoga and recaptured one war later, and possibly an entire Hessian colonel.

Another example occurs to me now, but I’m not sure it meets the criterion of having “existed well into the nineteenth century.”

On 16 Feb 1836, the printer Peter Edes, son of Benjamin Edes of the Boston Gazette and the Loyall Nine, wrote to his grandson:

It is a little surprising that the names of the tea-party were never made public: my father, I believe, was the only person who had a list of them, and he always kept it locked up in his desk while living. After his death Benj. Austin called upon my mother, and told her there was in his possession when living some very important papers belonging to the Whig party, which he wished not to be publicly known, and asked her to let him have the keys of the desk to examine it, which she delivered to him; he then examined it, and took out several papers, among which it was supposed he took away the list of the names of the tea-party, and they have not been known since.

Benjamin Edes died in 1803, his widow Martha in 1809, and this encounter would have happened between those dates, probably earlier. There were two politically active Benjamin Austins in Boston, father and son; the first died in 1806, the second in 1820.

Did Benjamin Edes really keep such a list, and why? Did Benjamin Austin do away with that document? If so, did he act because of the names that were on it or the names that weren’t on it?

“Some of which they themselves were witness to”

As described yesterday, an agent for the British government “pumped” Julien-Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir and the Chevalier d’Amboise at their hotel in London in the summer of 1775.

The two Frenchmen had recently arrived from New England, and they had a lot to say about the rebel army there.

Some of the claims the agent set down were wildly false: “That there are at least 200 french amongst the Troops of the Rebels, who acted as Artillerists and Engineers, which numbers may be augmented since they came away.”

The British agent was particularly eager to report support from European powers: “Seven french Ships, masked under English Colours came into different ports with Ammunition &c.”; “the Americans expected French and Spanish Officers and Engineers, also Powder &c.” Perhaps Bonvouloir and D’Amboise told him what they sensed he wanted to hear.

On the other hand, other reported remarks from the Frenchmen matched the situation more closely, albeit filtered through aristocratic eyes:

6. That the Rebel Officers in general are perfectly ignorant of their business, and they esteem them men of very moderate, or rather mean parts,—but the private men are well trained to the handling of Arms, and remarkably well armed, particularly in the Articles of Firelocks and Bayonets.

7. That they saw the Fortifications on the Posts of Roxbury and Cambridge and also the Park of Artillery the Rebels have in the neighbourhood of the last place consisting of Canons, Mortars and Howitzers, concerning the quality of which they do not agree—Le Comte de Beauvouloir says,—they are equal in quality and Bore to those employed in Europe, and he only found them defective in the Article of the Carriages, which he said are of a bad Construction.—his friend the Engineer (whom I heard called Le Chevr d’Ambroise) held the Artillery rather cheap in general, but perticularly the Mortars which are small.—they both agreed that the Rebels were in want of Ammunition, particularly of powder, and insinuated that they might be greatly distressed by being Canonaded from Posts well chosen and properly fortified.

Bonvouloir reported the militant mood of the New England population in early 1775, though again he came up with a strange anecdote for it:

10. That the common people in America have been worked up to a pitch of enthusiastick phrensy that is beyond conception, and such was their Confidence (when they came away) that they were convinced His Majesty’s Troops would be entirely defeated, and driven on board the Ships in less than two Months, and indeed the Rebel Chiefs employed every Art to keep up their Spirit and enforce such Ideas, some of which they themselves were witness to, such as making their own people put on English Regimentals and come into the Camp in the Character of Officers and Soldiers deserting from His Majesty’s Troops, and one Man personated a Member of Parliament.

There’s no evidence from this side of the Atlantic to support those stories—no plans to impersonate British soldiers, no report of seeing a Member of Parliament on the ground.

In sum, like a lot of raw intelligence, this report was a mix of fact and fabulism.

TOMORROW: Bonvouloir makes his move.

“He will do every Thing any Man can do towards a full Supply”

Philip Mortimer was not from an old New England family and he was Anglican, two traits that might have made him more likely to support the Crown in the pre-war political conflict.

Instead, Mortimer served on the Middletown, Connecticut, committee of correspondence. On 6 Mar 1775, the Connecticut Courant announced that he and George Philips would oversee the public sale of molasses and coffee brought in from Jamaica “agreeable to the 10th Article of said Association.”

That part of the Continental Congress’s boycott agreement said that goods landed between 1 Dec 1774 and 1 Feb 1775 could “be sold under the direction of the committee” covering that region, with “the profit, if any, to be applied towards relieving and employing such poor inhabitants of the town of Boston, as are immediate sufferers by the Boston port-bill.”

Mortimer was also a selectman for the first two years of the war and a justice of the peace.

In 1781, French troops on their way to Yorktown camped on Mortimer’s land in Middletown, according to an article by Allen Forbes for the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The young merchant who married Mortimer’s niece Ann Catharine Carnall, George Starr, was even more active in supporting the American cause. In 1778 Starr, who had the militia rank of captain, became a deputy commissary of hides for the Continental Army. On 26 October Gen. Samuel Holden Parsons wrote to the commander-in-chief from Middletown:

I find Capt. George Starr of this Town is appointed by the Board of War to take Charge of the Leather belonging to the Continent, purchase Shoes, Cartouch Bozes & other Military Accoutrements, by the inclosd Order you will find the Board have impowerd him to contract for those Articles in Exchange for raw Hides; I am fully Satisfied he will do all that any Man can do in that Department;

he informs me he Shall be able to send on about Twelve Hundred pair of Shoes within four Weeks about Seven Hundred of which are now On Hand & will be forwarded as soon as he can procure Buckles for about 300 or 400 Cartouch Bozes which are made and with the Shoes will compleat A Load for One Waggon; he Says he will take every Measure in his Power to procure a large Quantity of Shoes & thinks tis probable he Shall be able to furnish about 1000 or 1500 Pair a Month if the Leather can now be had in exchange for Hides as he is a Man very assiduous in his Business I have no Doubt he will do every Thing any Man can do towards a full Supply—

As to Caps he Says tis impossible to make an Estimate of the Quantity of Leather on Hand suitable for that Business which is not fit for Shoes or to be Usd for Accoutrements or in the Quarter Master’s Department as ’tis not in whole Sides, but part of most of the Leather in working is found unsuitable for other Business which will well Answer for this.

Starr did that job for three years. Even after stepping down he sent George Washington two pairs of boots for his personal use in 1783, though the general was unsatisfied.

TOMORROW: The new postwar order.

(The photo above shows Samuel Holden Parsons’s house in Middletown, now gone, from Damien Cregeau’s article “Top Ten Demolished Houses of Revolutionary War-Era Connecticut” for the Journal of the American Revolution.)

“Leslie’s Retreat” Commemorations in Salem and Marblehead

Essex County is gearing up to commemorate the Sestercentennial of “Leslie’s Retreat,” the frustrated British army expedition on 26 Feb 1775 to seize cannon that Patriot rebels were collecting in north Salem.

Redcoat troops landed in Marblehead and marched through town to Salem. The militia companies of other nearby towns mobilized in response. That confrontation could have led to serious violence in the midst of Massachusetts’s second-largest settlement, but fortunately it was resolved peacefully.

Here are all the commemorations that I’ve learned about through Salem 400, the Marblehead Museum, and partner organizations.

Saturday, 15 February, 10 A.M.
Leslie’s Retreat: Salem on the Brink of Revolution
Salem Armory Visitor Center, 2 New Liberty Street, Salem

The National Park Service opens its exhibit on why Crown soldiers under Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie came to Salem on February 26, 1775, who were the major players in the event, and how this event has been remembered and celebrated in Salem in the last 250 years. This free exhibit wlll be on display through 27 April.

Saturday, 15 February, 11:30 A.M.
250th Anniversary of Leslie’s Retreat Forum and Discussion
Pickering House, 18 Broad Street, Salem

Local historians David Moffatt, Benjamin Shallop, Jeff Swartz, and Vijay Joyce discuss the British army expedition and the local reaction. $25 admission, $20 for Pickering House members. (Currently listed as sold out.)

Sunday, 16 February, noon to 3 P.M.
Tours of the Pickering House
18 Broad Street, Salem

The caretaker of the oldest house in Salem will introduce eleven generations of Salem history, including the Patriot activist Timothy Pickering, later a Continental Army general and U.S. Secretary of War and Secretary of State. The tour will cover the oldest parts of the house and end with tea and coffee. Order tickets here.

Friday, 21 February, 6:30 P.M.
Leslie’s Retreat exhibit opening reception and lecture
Salem Armory Visitor Center, 2 New Liberty Street, Salem

Emily Murphy, Ph.D., curator of this exhibit and for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site and Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site, will speak about the history and its interpretation at this free event.

Saturday, 22 February
Commemorative March and Tours
Salem

• 9:30 A.M.: Presentation at St. Peter’s San Pedro’s Episcopal Church, 24 St. Peter’s Street, Salem.
• 11 A.M.: Redcoat March to North Bridge. The public will view the reenactors from the site of the bridge. Spectaors should plan to be at the North Bridge at 11 A.M. sharp.
• Noon to 4 P.M.: Self-guided tours of St. Peter’s San Pedro Episcopal Church.
• 12:30 P.M. and 2:30 P.M.: Salem-Marblehead Trolley Tour lead by local architectural historian Judy Anderson. Reservations encouraged. The trolley starts boarding fifteen minutes before the tour, and everyone with a reservation must be aboard by 12:20 or 2:20. Then the remaining seats will be made available on a first-come first-served basis.
• 2:30 P.M.: Fashion in the Season of Revolution: A Panel Discussion & Revolutionary Reenactor Promenade, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex Street, Salem, free with museum admission.
• 7:30 P.M.: Revolution Ball, Hamilton Hall, 9 Chestnut Street, Salem. An evening of live music, dancing, food, and drinks, with attendees in colonial dress or black-tie fashion. General admission $150.

Sunday, 23 February
Indoor Commemorations
Salem

• 10:30 A.M.: “A Revolutionary Reckoning,” a joint religious service led by First Church in Salem, Unitarian Universalist, and Tabernacle Congregational Church. All ages and denominations welcome. Attendees can stay for a special Fellowship Hour of coffee, tea, and refreshments.
• Noon to 3 P.M.: Tours of the Pickering House, 18 Broad Street, Salem (see above).
• 12:30 to 1:30 P.M.: Norumbega Harmony concert, First Church, 316 Essex Street, Salem. Norumbega Harmony is a choral ensemble founded in 1976 and dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and performance of New England psalm singing from the colonial and early American periods.
• 3 to 5 P.M.: “In Open Rebellion,” Old Town Hall, 32 Derby Square, Salem. World premiere of a drama written by Kristina Wacome Stevick, directed by Samantha Searles, and produced by History Alive. In the fall of 1774, Salem’s Patriots, Loyalists, and enslaved Africans debate the meanings of liberty and loyalty. Free, but attendees must reserve tickets.

Thursday, 27 February, 7 P.M.
When Redcoats Marched in Marblehead
Marblehead Museum, 170 Washington Street, Marblehead, and online

I’ll speak about both the history and the mythology of “Leslie’s Retreat,” drawing on eyewitness accounts and primary sources to illuminate a day the Revolutionary War might have begun, but didn’t. This talk will put the event in the context of the maneuvering between Gov. Thomas Gage and the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and cut away some of the myths that have stuck to it. $15 admission, $10 for museum members.

A Copley Portrait and the Story Behind It

Last month the Pook & Pook art auction house in Pennsylvania sold two paintings of a little girl named Priscilla Greenleaf (and her dog).

One, attributed to Joseph Badger and dated about 1750, went for $20,000, or double the top range of its estimate. 

The other, an early work by John Singleton Copley, sold for $500,000, or more than six times the initial estimate. That’s what appears in this thumbnail.

The Copley portrait, which Pook & Pook dated to about 1757, was posthumous. That’s because Priscilla had probably died in 1750, soon after Badger painted her.

John Greenleaf, the children’s father, was an apothecary. As D. Brenton Simons wrote in Witches, Rakes, and Rogues, when Greenleaf’s eleven-month-old son died in January of that year, soon after the deaths of his daughters, he suspected poison.

Greenleaf accused a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl he enslaved, Phillis Hammond, of giving the baby arsenic. Arrested and under pressure, she confessed to killing John, Jr., and Elizabeth. The family believed she killed Priscilla as well. The newspapers published little about the case, not even the Greenleaf name.

Phillis Hammond pled guilty to murdering baby John that spring. She was sentenced to death. The Boston Evening Post reported, “Her Mother died with Excess of Grief.” Phillis was hanged on 16 May 1751. The Rev. Dr. Mather Byles preached at the execution. Some printer issued a broadside with a crude woodcut and verse titled “The bitter Effects of Sin,” the source for Phillis’s surname.

The Greenleafs had Badger’s portraits of Priscilla and Elizabeth to remember their daughters. (The latter is now in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg.) But evidently they wanted an image of their murdered son, and for the pictures to match.

John Singleton Copley was still a teenager himself when the Greenleafs commissioned him to paint all three of their lost children. The pictures of Elizabeth and John are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The museum website says of the boy’s outfit: “Copley’s source for John’s exotic cap and pose was a print after Sir Godfrey Kneller’s portrait of Lord Bury as a child.” Likewise, though his picture of Priscilla followed Badger in posing the little girl with a dog, he may have used a European print as a better model.

Peeking in on the Hive, 8–9 Feb.

On Saturday and Sunday, 8–9 February, the Friends of Minute Man Park will once again host “The Hive,” a living history symposium designed to prepare people for the Battle Road reenactment in April.

As of this writing, the event is sold out, and the Eventbrite page is putting people on a waitlist.

Nonetheless, I think it’s worth listing the formal presentations. On Saturday:

12:00 noon: 1775: The Year the War Began, Bob Allison
The War for American Independence began in 1775. Why? Why did armed conflict not begin sooner? Could war have been avoided? Neither side wanted a war, but each would accept one in order to establish its aims. What were the aims of each side, what obstacles were in the way of achieving them, and how was the situation different at the end of the year?

1:10 P.M.: Infantry in Battle in the Eighteenth Century, Alexander Burns
This presentation will explore the world of combat for eighteenth-century infantrymen in North America and Europe, in order to contextualize the fighting on April 19th, 1775. Across the Atlantic World, infantrymen often fought in flexible and adaptable ways, firing without orders, firing at longer ranges than their officers preferred, and by taking cover on the battlefield. In this process, these enlisted men played an important role by asserting tactical reforms from below.

2:20 P.M.: Farming and Land Use along the Battle Road in 1775, Brian Donahue
This talk will describe the development of colonial farming in Concord and Lincoln. It will focus on the pattern of settlement and land use along the Battle Road by 1775. It is drawn from Brian's book The Great Meadow, which can be consulted for greater detail on any neighborhood, particularly from the Meriam House to the Hartwell Tavern.

3:30 P.M.: April 19th Overview and Panel Discussion about British and Colonial Tactics, Alexander Cain, Jim Hollister, Sean Considine, and Jarrad Fuoss
The Battle of Lexington and Concord is often associated with the image of British soldiers marching in tight formations and in the open, incapable of defending themselves against the unorthodox tactics of the minute men. How much of this is real vs historical fiction? How did the fighting along the bloody Battle Road compare to more regular military practices?

On Sunday:

11:00 A.M.: Sober, Industrious Women: Portraying the Roles of Soldiers’ Wives, Don Hagist
Wives of soldiers had to work to earn their keep, but many of their jobs were associated with parts of the military infrastructure that isn't portrayed at reenactments. This talk will present ways to effectively present the roles of nurses, sutlers, seamstresses, gardeners and others within the limitations of modern reenactment encampment settings.

12:10 P.M.: Massachusetts Men’s Civilian Clothing 1750–1775, Paul Dickfoss
Using depictions in period art and portraiture, historian Paul Dickfoss will provide a detailed glimpse into how men from Massachusetts dressed in the late colonial period.

1:20 P.M.: Battle Road Fashion Runway, Ruth Hodges and friends
Looking for some inspiration to update your Battle Road impression? The Minute Man Living History Authenticity Standards offers a wider variety of impressions than first meets the eye. Differences are sometimes subtle, and the devil is in the details! See some excellent examples of women and children of 1775 Middlesex County Massachusetts in this very first Battle Road Fashion Runway!

There are also workshops, drills, inspections, and mutual advice for a couple of hours each morning and breakout sessions on specific elements of an eighteenth-century impression on Sunday afternoon. High standards and mutual support like this is what makes the Battle Road reenactment so terrific.

The Hive’s other sponsors are the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati, Revolution 250, and the Massachusetts Army National Guard. It will take place at the Massachusetts National Guard Museum and Archives in Concord for folks who can secure a spot.

“Lurks about the wharves of this city”

Page 3 of William and Thomas Bradford’s Pennsylvania Journal for 13 Oct 1773 included a notice of a meeting of the American Philosophical Society and a proclamation from Gov. John Penn that the Crown had approved two bills the colonial assembly had passed back in March 1772 (a divorce and a naturalization).

In between those items was this announcement:

WHEREAS the infamous EBENEZER RICHARDSON, convicted of PERJURY and MURDER, has, at the instance of his special friend, Charles Paxton, been sent to this city as a pensioner to the —honorable Commissioners at Boston; and in consideration of his many special Services, has by them been rewarded with a quarterly payment, out of the money levied on the Americans, by an Act of Parliament, without their consent:

And whereas the said RICHARDSON, rioting in the spoils of his country, lurks about the wharves of this city, seeking an opportunity to distress the Trade of Philadelphia, and enslave America: And, in order more effectually to answer his vile purpose, has intimately connected himself with a certain T———, a Tide-Waiter here, who publicly declared “he would not only associate with the VILLAIN, EBENEZER, but with the DEVIL himself, if so ordered by the COMMISSIONERS,”

Now it is expected, that all Lovers of Liberty, in this Province, will make diligent search after the said RICHARDSON, and having found this Bird of Darkness, will produce him, tarred and feathered, at the Coffee-House, there to expiate his sins against his country, by a public recantation.

TAR AND FEATHERS.

N.B. The above RICHARDSON appears to be a man of 40 years of age, is about 5 feet 4 or 5 inches high, pretty thick and broad a-cross the shoulders, has a very ill countenance, and down look, [Cain’s Phyz,] mostly wears a flopped hat, a piss burnt cut wig, and a blue surtout coat, with metal buttons.

That’s quite a display of rhetoric. It makes something sinister from Richardson’s job in the Customs service: he “lurks about the wharves,” aims to “distress the Trade,” receives “a quarterly payment” (i.e., his salary). The item links him to “the DEVIL,” “Cain,” and a “Bird of Darkness.” It also contains the only physical description of the man that I’ve seen, not at all flattering. 

This article appears to have been written in Philadelphia by someone not fully familiar with Richardson’s long history in Massachusetts, picking up cues from Boston newspapers. The man was never “convicted of PERJURY,” to my knowledge. Bostonians called him a perjurer, including at the start of the riot at his house, because he’d deceived the public about his child with Kezia Hincher for several crucial months, and because painting him as a habitual liar let them cast doubt on his reports about smuggling and other activity.

The invocation of “TAR AND FEATHERS” is also striking because that public punishment hadn’t shown up in Philadelphia yet. Indeed, many Americans, even Whigs, viewed those incidents as New Englanders going too far. But the next month a broadside warning river pilots against bringing tea into Philadelphia would be issued by “THE COMMITTEE FOR TARRING AND FEATHERING.” (Or “Committee of Taring and Feathering,” as the next paragraph put it, showing the locals behind this threat were still working out details.)

Lastly, this newspaper notice overtly confronts the royal Customs service. It names one of the agency heads in Boston, verges on calling those men “[dis]honorable,” and refers to a local tide waiter by an initial everyone on the Philadelphia waterfront would recognize. That last seems like a clear threat.

TOMORROW: Results.

Picking at the Martha Washington Dress Quilt

In the Colonial Revival period, many Americans came forward with relics of the Revolution passed down in their families or discovered in attics.

And some of those were even authentic.

Others, however, were not. I retold the saga of a reputed Thomas Oliver portrait here, for example.

Among items donated to the Bostonian Society in its early decades, I’m skeptical about the machine-woven “Sons of Liberty flag.”

I worked with Dave Ingram on a report about a powder horn ascribed to Richard Gridley; we determined it was almost certainly a Colonial Revival–era creation.

The Old South Meeting House also became a public institution at that time and began receiving donations. In the 1890s one important supporter, Mary Hemenway, gave Old South “a quilt made from fragments of Martha Washington’s dresses,” as Lori Fidler, Associate Director of Collections at Revolutionary Spaces, recently described in this article.

That’s just the sort of object that Americans oohed and aahed over breathlessly during the Colonial Revival. From the Age of Homespun! Touched by the great Washingtons themselves! But how reliable is its lore?

We know the quilt came to Hemenway from Fannie Washington Finch, an actual great-grandniece of George Washington. Her story:

Fannie was born Frances Louisa Augusta Washington in Virginia in 1828. Her mother, Henrietta Spotswood, was the granddaughter of George Washington’s half-brother, Augustine, Jr., while her father, Bushrod, was the grandson of George’s brother, John Augustine. Fannie’s grandmother, Jane Washington, had made the quilt out of scraps she received directly from Martha.

We also know from Finch’s letters in 1884–1886 that she was selling heirlooms from Mount Vernon, including this quilt, because of her “pecuniary condition.” In other words, she needed money.

There are also intriguing details about the quilt itself:

In 1979, a textile curator at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts examined the quilt, finding the silk pieces to be expensive English-made loom-woven fabrics, consistent with textiles worn by wealthy women of the 1700s. He mentioned that the designs represented a range of time periods, with larger floral patterns from the mid-18th century and tiny blossoms from the late 1700s. . . .

In May 2024,…[Zara] Anishanslin noted that a fabric used in the quilt appeared to be an Anna Maria Garthwaite design. Garthwaite was a female silk designer who lived and worked in the Spitalfields area of London in the mid-1700s.

Thus, Finch might have had a motive to concoct a connection between this quilt and Martha Washington—but the artifact itself really does contain the fabrics a wealthy British-American woman in the mid- to late 1700s would have owned.

Furthermore, Fidler reports, “In her writings, Martha Washington mentions cutting up her garments and distributing pieces to family members and friends as mementos.” Finch couldn’t have inserted that into the historical record.

So on this item, I’m inclined to accept the lore.

Daniel Leonard on the Move

Daniel Leonard (1740–1829) was born into a wealthy family in Norton. He went to Harvard College, where he ranked third in the class of 1760 in social prestige, captained a militia company, and was elected valedictorian.

After graduating, Leonard earned his master’s degree and then went into the law. He was a leader among other bright young attorneys like Josiah Quincy, Jr., Francis Dana, and John Trumbull.

In 1767 Leonard married Sarah White, daughter of his legal mentor. Her other suitors had included Robert Treat Paine. Sarah Leonard died young, however, and in 1770 Leonard remarried to Sarah Hamock, daughter of a wealthy Boston merchant, in Trinity Church.

Inheriting his first father-in-law’s legal practice and his second father-in-law’s money, Leonard settled in Taunton. He quickly gained a royal appointment as the King’s Attorney for Bristol County and a seat in the Massachusetts General Court.

In that legislature Leonard worked with the province’s most fervent Whigs. He was on the committee of correspondence and a committee that called for the removal of Gov. Thomas Hutchinson and Chief Justice Peter Oliver.

Around the time of the Boston Tea Party, however, Leonard moved toward the side of the royal government. He said he’d come to distrust the motives of men like Samuel Adams. In February 1774 Leonard voted against impeaching Oliver.

People said Gov. Hutchinson had lured Leonard over to the Crown. Taunton locals reportedly watched him standing under a pear tree, speaking at length with the governor as he sat in his carriage. (I don’t know of any time the governor actually visited that town.) In 1815 John Adams put his own spin on the younger man’s progress:

As a Member of the House of Representatives, even down to the year 1770 he made the most ardent Speeches which were delivered in that House against Great Britain and in favour of the Colonies. His Popularity became allarming. The two Sagacious Spirits Hutchinson and [Jonathan] Sewall Soon penetrated his Character of which indeed he had exhibited very visible proofs.

He had married a daughter of Mr Hammock, who had left her a Portion, as it was thought in that day. He wore a broad Gold Lace round the rim of his Hatt. He had made his Cloak glitter with laces Still broader. He had sett up his Charriot and Pair and constantly travelled in it from Taunton to Boston. This made the World Stare. It was a Novelty. Not another Lawyer in the Province, Attorney or Barrister, of whatever Age Reputation Rank or Station presumed to ride in a Coach or a Charriot.

The discerning ones Soon perceived that Wealth and Power must have charms to a heart that delighted in So much finery and indulged in such unusual Expence. Such Marks could not escape the vigilant Eyes of the two Arch Tempters Hutchinson and Sewall, who had more Art, Insinuation and Adress than all the rest of their Party.

Poor Daniel was beset, with great Zeal for his Conversion. Hutchinson sent for him, courted him with the Ardor of a Lover, reasoned with him flattered him, overawed him frightened him, invited him to come frequently to his House.

As I was Intimate with Mr Leonard during the whole of this process I had the Substance of this Information from his own Mouth, was a Witness to the progress of the Impression made upon him, and to many of the Labours and Struggles of his Mind between his Interest or his Vanity and his Duty.

Whatever had motivated Daniel Leonard’s political shift, in June 1774 he still had enough of a history of standing up to the royal governors that several colleagues recommended him for the assembly’s committee to respond to the Boston Port Act. But Whig leaders didn’t trust him. He would, they suspected, tell Gov. Thomas Gage everything that committee was talking about.

So Adams and friends came up with a plan.

TOMORROW: An old rival returns.

“Taken on the 6th Day of November last by 9 Frenchmen”

Yesterday we left Capt. John Malcom in mid-1759, plying the route between Boston and the British Empire’s new conquest of Louisbourg, relaying information about developments in the Seven Years’ War.

That war caught up with Malcom in the fall. This is how the Boston News-Letter reported the story on 28 Aug 1760:

In Capt. Gardner came Passenger from Quebec, Capt. John Malcom of this Town, who with one of his Hands was taken on the 6th Day of November last by 9 Frenchmen, as they were endeavouring to get Wood off the Island of St. Barnaby for the use of the Vessel,

who after he was taken was immediately strip’d of all his Cloaths and barbarously used by the Enemy for four Days at that Place, and then obtaining Liberty to go to Quebec, was taken twice in Twenty-eight Days;

He informs that after he arrived at Quebec, he was often threatned to be given to the Indians to be massacred, they thinking him to be a Spy.—

And that on the 14th of November his Sloop, called the Sally, (his Mate being then on board endeavouring to get to Boston,) off of Gaspee, was taken by the Ship Two Brothers, Francis Boucher Commander, mounting 20 Carriage Guns; by which Accidents the said Malcom not only lost his Vessel, but likewise to the amount of near give Hundred Pounds Sterling in Cash, and other Effects, then on board.

Since Gen. James Wolfe’s forces had taken Québec City on 13 Sept 1759, I presume the “Quebec” where Malcom spent months as a prisoner of war was the area around Montréal, still in French hands until September 1760.

On 7 Apr 1760 the Boston Post-Boy reported about a couple of Malcom’s crew in a letter from Col. Joseph Frye at Fort Cumberland (now once again called Fort Beauséjour):

About [30 January] there came in eight Men, one of whom was a New-England Man, one Irishman, and the rest Italians and Spaniards; who inform’d me they Deserted from a French frigate that lay froze in, at the Head of Gaspee Harbour.

The two former belong’d to a Vessel commanded by Capt. Malcom of Boston, who was taken on by the above Frigate, as she was returning from Quebec, where she had been on a Trading Voyage.

As for younger brother Daniel Malcom, on 5 May 1760 he was home in Boston, preparing to sell a 50-ton schooner called the Betsy by auction at Harris’s Wharf.

TOMORROW: Back to trading, back to Quebec?

Summer Saturdays at the Paul Revere House

The Paul Revere House has a special program included with admission on every Saturday afternoon this summer. Unless otherwise stated, all these events run 1:00 to 3:00 P.M.

25 May
Colonial Dance Tunes and Love Songs from Al Petty & Deirdre Sweeney.

1 June
Colonial Weaving Demonstration by fiber artist Zoe Lawson.

8 June, 1:00, 1:45, 2:30 P.M.
Meet Harriet, Daughter of Paul Revere: Diane Lent portrays one of Paul Revere’s sixteen children, reminiscing about her father and growing up in the North End.

15 June
Patriot Fife and Drum concert by David Vose and Sue Walko.

22 June, 1:00, 1:45, 2:30 P.M.
Meet Loyalist Tea Consignee Joshua Winslow: Father of young chronicler Anna Green Winslow, Winslow was named one of the East India Company’s tea consignees. After watching one protest, he retreated to a family home in Marshfield. Meet him today, as portrayed by Michael Lepage, on a rare venture into Boston before he was forced into exile.

29 June
Hammered Dulcimer played by award-winning musician Dave Neiman.

6 July
Colonial Dance Tunes and Love Songs from Al Petty & Deirdre Sweeney.

13 July
Patriot Fife and Drum concert by David Vose and Sue Walko.

20 July
Hammered Dulcimer played by award-winning musician Dave Neiman.

27 July, 1:00, 1:45, 2:30 P.M.
John Adams: The Colossus of Independence: The lawyer discusses his beginnings in Braintree through his days as delegate to the Continental Congress and diplomat. As portrayed by Michael Lepage, hear how he longs to be home with his wife and children. 

3 August, 1:00, 1:45, 2:30 P.M.
The Many Rides of Paul Revere: The silversmith traveled far from home many times as a courier for the Boston Patriots, including a May 1774 trip to New York and Philadelphia bearing news of the Boston Port Bill. Learn about these trips as Michael Lepage portrays the home owner.

10 August
The Tailor’s Craft: Clothing historian Henry Cooke takes on the role of an early Boston tailor. 

17 August
Hammered Dulcimer played by award-winning musician Dave Neiman.

24 August
Patriot Fife and Drum concert by David Vose and Sue Walko.

31 August, 1:00, 1:45, 2:30 P.M.
Meet Harriet, Daughter of Paul Revere: Diane Lent portrays one of Paul Revere’s 16 children, reminiscing about her father and growing up in the historic North End.

G. F. Hoar and “stories of the Battle of Concord”

George Frisbie Hoar (1826–1904, shown here) was born in Concord. His father, Samuel Hoar, represented the area in the U.S. Congress and contributed to the wording of the town’s monument at the North Bridge.

In his autobiography Hoar wrote fondly about growing up in Concord, and particularly about living reminders of the Revolutionary War:

Scattered about the church were the good gray heads of many survivors of the Revolution—the men who had been at the bridge on the 19th of April, and who made the first armed resistance to the British power. They were very striking and venerable figures, with their queues and knee-breeches and shoes with shining buckles. Men were more particular about their apparel in those days than we are now. They had great stateliness of behavior, and admitted of little familiarity.

They had heard John Buttrick’s order to fire, which marked the moment when our country was born. The order was given to British subjects. It was obeyed by American citizens. Among them was old Master [Thaddeus] Blood, who saw a ball strike the water when the British fired their first volley. I heard many of the old men tell their stories of the Battle of Concord, and of the capture of Burgoyne.

I lay down on the grass one summer afternoon, when old Amos Baker of Lincoln, who was in the Lincoln Company on the 19th of April, told me the whole story. He was very indignant at the claim that the Acton men marched first to attack the British because the others hesitated. He said, “It was because they had bagnets [bayonets]. The rest of us hadn’t no bagnets.”

One day a few years later, when I was in college, I walked up from Cambridge to Concord, through Lexington, and had a chat with old Jonathan Harrington by the roadside. He told me he was on the Common when the British Regulars fired upon the Lexington men.

He did not tell me then the story which he told afterward at the great celebration at Concord in 1850. He and Amos Baker were the only survivors who were there that day. He said he was a boy about fifteen years old on April 19, 1775. He was a fifer in the company. He had been up the greater part of the night helping get the stores out of the way of the British, who were expected, and went to bed about three o’clock, very tired and sleepy. His mother came and pounded with her fist on the door of his chamber, and said, “Git up, Jonathan! The Reg’lars are comin’ and somethin’ must be done!” . . .

A very curious and amusing incident is said, and I have no doubt truly, to have happened at this celebration. It shows how carefully the great orator, Edward Everett, looked out for the striking effects in his speech. He turned in the midst of his speech to the seat where Amos Baker and Jonathan Harrington sat, and addressed them. At once they both stood up, and Mr. Everett said, with fine dramatic effect, “Sit, venerable friends. It is for us to stand in your presence.”

After the proceedings were over, old Amos Baker was heard to say to somebody, “What do you suppose Squire Everett meant? He came to us before his speech and told us to stand up when he spoke to us, and when we stood up he told us to sit down.”

In Concord, George F. Hoar became lifelong friends with Henry David Thoreau. They met as schoolboys at different grades, and George later attended the Thoreau brothers’ Concord Academy for a while. It’s unclear whether he overlapped with Edmund Quincy Sewall, Jr.

However, in an 1891 letter Hoar wrote that as a boy he attended a lecture in Concord where the speaker exhibited the skull of a British soldier killed in 1775. That could only have been Walton Felch at the town’s lyceum in the spring of 1840.

After the obligatory years at Harvard, George F. Hoar went into the law, establishing his practice in Worcester. Then he went into politics. He served in the Massachusetts General Court, then the U.S. Congress after the Civil War, and finally the U.S. Senate from 1877 to 1904.

Back home, Hoar helped found what became the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and served as president of the American Antiquarian Society. He also sat on boards of the Smithsonian Institute and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, so he didn’t have a complete aversion to museums holding human remains.

But Sen. Hoar didn’t like the idea of the Worcester Society of Antiquity holding that skull of a British soldier killed on 19 Apr 1775.

TOMORROW: A private arrangement.

Elijah Sanderson of Lexington and Salem

Elijah Sanderson has appeared on Boston 1775 several times, but usually as a source on other people’s experiences of the April 19 battle.

Several years back, Donna Seger highlighted Sanderson’s memories of that day and his subsequent career on her Streets of Salem site.

In 1775 Sanderson signed off on a brief account of his experience for the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. But he had much more to say in Elias Phinney’s History of the Battle of Lexington, on the Morning of the 19th of April, 1775, published in 1825.

Seger wrote:

Phinney took oral histories from participants who were still alive, published in the form of sworn affidavits in the book’s appendix, and the very first account was that of Elijah Sanderson, who was at the end of a long career as one of Salem’s most successful cabinetmakers. Sanderson’s testimony was given just weeks before his death in early 1825, and published not only in Phinney’s account but also in the regional newspapers that year, when historical consciousness of the importance of the Battles of Lexington and Concord seems quite well-developed.

Elijah Sanderson and his younger brother Jacob were among the most prolific and consequential cabinetmakers of Salem, who spread the city’s craftsmanship and style far beyond New England through an expansive export trade in alliance with their partner Josiah Austin and several prominent merchants and shipowners.

That’s the same Josiah Austin quoted in this document describing how he moved ammunition out of Concord. Since that account seems incredible, perhaps Austin was spurred to invent his tale after hearing his partners talk about their presence at Lexington. Or perhaps someone else thought that if one Salem cabinetmaker was in the thick of the fight, another could be inserted into that action as well.

…in 1775 the Sanderson brothers were living in Lexington, in the home of their elder brother Samuel…on the main road from Boston. . . . relatively late on the evening of the 18th Elijah noted the passing of a party of British officers “all dressed in blue wrappers”. He decided to discern what was up, so made his way to John Buckman’s tavern where an older gentleman encouraged him to “ascertain the object” of these officers, so he did so, on a borrowed horse in the company of two other comrades. . . .

Elijah’s party was stopped by nine British officers a few miles down the road in Lincoln, and they were detained and examined, along with two other “prisoners”, a one-handed pedlar named Allen and Col. Paul Revere. After “as many question as a Yankee could” ask, the entire party mounted and made their way to Lexington, where [fellow detainee John] Loring observed “The bell’s a ringing, and the town’s alarmed, and you’re all dead men” but [the officers] let them go, after cutting the bridle and girth of Elijah’s horse.

We hear no more of Revere, but Elijah made his way to the tavern in Lexington and there promptly fell asleep! Yes, he fell asleep in the middle of the opening act of the American Revolution.

But then came the drums signalling that the British column was in sight. To follow Sanderson through what happened next, visit Streets of Salem.

(The picture above is a secretary bookcase from the Sanderson brothers’ shop, now the property of the U.S. Department of State.)

Leafing through the “Davenport Letters”

The Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia has just unveiled a webpage displaying seventeen letters written by Continental soldiers Isaac How Davenport (1754–1778) and James Davenport (1759–1824) of Dorchester.

The original letters don’t survive, but a nephew copied them into a ledger book, which remains in the family.

The museum is sharing scans of those transcripts as well as P.D.F. files of their text in the raw and with modernized punctuation for easier reading.

I presume the older brother was the “Isaac Davenport” listed among the Dorchester men who responded to the militia alarm on 19 Apr 1775.

Middle names were rarely used in New England at this time. It looks like Isaac How Davenport received his father’s mother’s maiden name, sometimes spelled Howe, as his middle name. In nineteenth-century histories of Dorchester, that man’s name was misprinted as “Isaac Shaw Davenport.”

Isaac became a member of the commander in chief’s guard and then the dragoons under Col. George Baylor. He spent several months of 1777–78 at Valley Forge, where he wrote two of the letters in this collection. Isaac Davenport was among the Continental dragoons killed in a nighttime raid on their billets on 27 Sept 1778.

The younger brother, James, enlisted in the Continental Army in February 1777, when he was seventeen years old, leaving behind an apprenticeship to a shoemaker. He served for the rest of the war, rising to the rank of sergeant in 1780. In 1777–78 he was also at Valley Forge, but his surviving letters start in 1780, getting more numerous late in the war when there was less to do besides write home.

After the war James Davenport returned from New York to Dorchester and used his earnings to build a house, marry, and start a family. He lived long enough to apply for a pension in 1818, sending in copies of his promotion to sergeant and his discharge signed by Gen. George Washington. Many veterans didn’t have such documentation.

The U.S. government initially awarded Davenport a pension, but then rescinded it. I suspect the problem was that Davenport wasn’t poor enough; the pensions of that decade required applicants to show need, and he owned a farm, a house, and cash.

Davenport tried to present himself as in need: “my health is much impaired by my services in the Army,” “My House was built more than 30 years ago,” his wife Esther was prone to illness.

In the end, though, James Davenport’s best claim to public support was his service. He described himself as “engaged at the Capture of Burgoyne, Cornwallis, at Monmouth & always with my Regiment.” (His regiment wasn’t actually at Yorktown.) A later law would have let him keep his pension because it wasn’t need-based, but by then there were fewer veterans to pay for.

After James Davenport died in 1824, Dorchester’s minister, the Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, preached at his interment. The published sermon reportedly “included excerpts from a journal of his wartime experiences.”

The Davenport family had not only preserved that journal until then and the texts of the letters, but also some mementos of James’s military service: a sword, epaulettes (shown above), and a pair of red wool baby booties reportedly made from a British coat. Those are now part of the Museum of the American Revolution’s collection, and can be viewed through the “Davenport Letters” webpage.

Two Lieutenants and the Battle of Brooklyn

On the afternoon of 27 Aug 1776, British and Hessian soldiers under Gen. James Grant advanced on a Continental force, including men from Delaware and Maryland, under Gen. William Alexander, Lord Stirling (shown here).

Lt. John Ragg of the British marine grenadiers led twenty men forward from the right flank of the Crown forces. His orders were “to speak to” the commander of a unit in blue coats, thought to be Hessians, and tell them to stop firing at their own side.

Meanwhile, Lt. William Popham was one of the American officers trying to hold the left side of their line with a company of “awkward Irishmen and others.” Coming from the Delaware regiment, those soldiers were dressed in blue coats.

You can guess what happened. As Popham told it, “Capt. Wragg [sic] and 18 men, supposing us to be Hessians by the similarity of our dress, approached too near before he discovered his mistake.”

The Delaware Continentals took the marines as prisoners. The Americans stripped the British of their guns, Popham taking charge of Ragg’s weapons.

Decades later Popham reported:

I was immediately ordered with a guard to convey them across the creek in our rear to our lines. On descending the high ground we reached a salt meadow, over which we passed, though not miry, yet very unfavorable to silk stockings and my over-clothes.

Popham was a Princeton College graduate eager to look like a gentleman.

As the party crossed the meadow, the British started to fire cannon in their direction. Lt. Ragg stopped moving, “in the hope of a rescue.”

Popham ordered Ragg to “march forward instantly, or I should fire on him.”

Ragg started moving again. But then a new obstacle appeared:

When we got to the creek, the bank of which was exceedingly muddy, we waded up to our waists. I got in after my people and prisoners, and an old canoe that had been split and incapable of floating except by the buoyancy of the wood, served to help those who wanted help to cross a deep hole in the creek, by pushing it across from the bank which it had reached.

I had advanced so far into the mud, and was so fatigued with anxiety and exercise, that I sat down on the mud with the water up to my breast, Wragg’s fusee, cartouch-box, and bayonet on my shoulder; in which situation I sat till my charge were all safely landed on the rear.

Gen. Grant continued to press forward with his 7,000 men, more than twice the British force in the Battle of Bunker Hill. However, that was just a diversion.

Gen. William Howe had sent many more of his troops on long flanking march to the right. They moved through an unguarded pass and hit the Americans from an unexpected direction. In fierce fighting, almost the whole Continental force was driven back to Brooklyn Heights.

Stirling ordered most of his men back as well, keeping a contingent of Maryland soldiers as the rear guard. He led them in two counterattacks on the Crown forces while other Americans withdrew as best they could.

At the end of the day, the Continentals had lost more than 2,000 men. Nearly all the Maryland rear guard was dead. Stirling was a prisoner.

Gen. Howe reported 64 killed, 293 wounded, and 31 missing—including Lt. Ragg and his marines.

TOMORROW: The end of Lt. Ragg’s war?