Anderson on Rebellion 1776 in Cambridge, 1 Apr.

Laurie Halse Anderson’s latest novel about the American Revolution is set in Boston: Rebellion 1776.

Anderson has won awards for her Seeds of America Trilogy (Chains, Forge, and Ashes), as well as her earlier novel Fever 1793 and the picture book Independent Dames: What You Never Knew about the Woman and Girls of the American Revolution.

She’s even better known for her contemporary novel Speak, which is frequently challenged in public schools and libraries because it addresses the problem of rape. She’s one of the handful of American authors who have won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children’s literature.

In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Anderson described the scope of this new book:

My book covers the traumatic effects of the Siege of Boston, the growing political divide within families and communities, and the frightening smallpox epidemic, which threatened everything. One reason I continue to write about this era is because I think we could do a better job depicting the state of the colonies at the start of the Revolution in recognizing that independence was not a done deal.

As a protagonist Anderson created a thirteen-year-old girl named Elsbeth Culpepper, orphaned but taking advantage of the chaos and need for labor in Boston after the British evacuation to keep herself away from the Overseers of the Poor.

Anderson’s long conversation with Horn Book editor Roger Sutton goes deep into her research and storytelling processes:

First I had to understand what the cultural, financial, and sociological constraints were then on a thirteen-year-old kitchen maid. But then came the chaos of the siege, then the changing of the armies, and then it took a while for Boston's government to get up and running again. That chaos opened the door for me and my character to break some rules, some constraints. And then as society gets its act back together, the walls and rules come back up again.

I recommend that interview for anyone writing historical fiction.

Anderson will be speaking and signing books at a ticketed event for Porter Square Books on Tuesday, 1 April. That will happen at the Marran Theater in Cambridge. Admission is $25 (which includes a signed book) or $10 (which doesn’t).

Lt. Ragg and “A Crime of the greatest Magnitude”

The wound that Lt. John Ragg suffered at the Battle of Bunker Hill wasn’t bad enough to knock him out of the marines.

He recovered, remained in besieged Boston, and evacuated to Nova Scotia in March 1776 along with the rest of the British military.

On 6 June, Gen. William Howe’s general orders stated:

A Crime of the greatest Magnitude, Viz.: that of striking an Officer, having been committed by John Browning, Private Soldier of the 23d. Regiment, and the time and Situation of the Army not permitting, at present, the holding of a General Court Martial, It is the Commander in Chief’s order that the Prisoner be continued in Irons on board Ship until he can be tried by a General Court Martial.

In his 2007 book Fusiliers, Mark Urban revealed (in an endnote) that the officer Pvt. Browning struck was Lt. John Ragg.

Ordinarily Browning would have been court-martialed in Halifax, but Howe needed the 23rd and all other available forces to attack New York that summer. The fleet departed three days after his order. The private remained a prisoner below decks. Lt. Ragg and his grenadier company sailed normally.

Browning’s court martial took place on Staten Island in July. Urban writes:

With evidence sketchy to back a lieutenant’s claim that he had been hit, Browning was acquitted of the capital charge but was found guilty of insulting a serjeant, for which he was ordered to receive 200 lashes. However, General Howe reviewed the case and waived he corporal punishment, arguing that if Browning was acquitted of the more serious offence there was no point in chastising him at all.

Browning’s attack was the third time in about a year and a half that Lt. Ragg had gotten into a conflict bad enough to get into the historical record. First young Samuel Shaw, then Lt. John Clarke, and here Pvt. John Browning.

To be sure, Ragg himself wasn’t officially blamed for any of those disputes. He was the alleged victim in both courts-martial.

Nonetheless, I can’t help but wonder if Gen. Howe decided to let Browning off with time served (in irons) because he’d come to view Ragg as a magnet for trouble, someone who made people angry.

TOMORROW: Ragg as the empire strikes back.

“Very much subject to the Poorly’s”

Here’s my favorite Revolutionary document of the month, from the William Bond Papers at the University of California at San Diego library.

It’s labeled “James Richardson / Discharge,” and it reads:

Prospect Hill March 10th. 1776

James Richardson of Capt. [Abijah] Child’s Company & 25th. Regiment, being a Lazy, Idle Fellow, unwilling to do his Duty, & very much subject to the Poorly’s he is therefore Discharg’d from the Continental Service, he having provided Silas Lamson (a much better Man than himself,) to take his place, and serve the remainder of the time for which said Richardson was Inlisted—————

William Bond was from Watertown, as was Abijah Child. Bond became a Continental Army colonel in July 1775, taking over from Thomas Gardner, who died of wounds suffered at Bunker Hill. He led the regiment until 31 Aug 1776, when he died from illness at Mount Independence.

Among the many entries for James Richardsons in Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, a man from Woburn is linked to Bond’s regiment. He enlisted in May 1775 and served the rest of that year. He was, incidentally, set down as 5'9" tall.

The one entry in those volumes for Silas Lamson describes a man from Greenwich, then out in Hampshire County (and now under the Quabbin Reservoir). He’s listed as serving under Col. Jonathan Brewer in the second half of 1775, which is odd since Brewer and most of his men came from Middlesex County.

One notable detail about this document is the date of 10 Mar 1776. That was just as it became clear that the British military was about to leave Boston. Col. Bond no longer needed to have so many men immediately on hand, but he did need someone reliable for the regiment’s next assignment.

O’Brien on Loyalists via Old North, 21 Sept.

On Thursday, 21 September, Old North Illuminated will host a virtual talk by G. Patrick O’Brien on “‘This Perilous Hour of Trial, Horror & Distress’: Loyalist Exile and Return.”

The event description says:

Between April 1775 and the early months of 1783, more than 75,000 colonists fled the upheaval of the Revolution for the protection of the British Empire. Nearly half of these refugees, including many New Englanders, landed on the rocky shores of Nova Scotia.

The most prominent of these exiles called themselves “loyalists,” a label they fashioned to accentuate their own unwavering fidelity, and the broader collective’s shared dedication to maintaining Britain’s empire in North America. . . .

Concentrating on a few loyalist families from the greater Boston area, including that of Rev. Mather Byles Jr., the rector of Old North Church until 1775, Dr. G. Patrick O’Brien of the University of Tampa will explore what it meant to be a loyalist during the American Revolution.

The talk will pay special attention to how marginalized loyalists, including women and enslaved people, grappled with the hardships of wartime exile and the role these figures had in bringing families back to their American homes after the war.

It’s notable that although the Rev. Mather Byles, Jr. (shown above), left with the British troops, his father, the Rev. Dr. Mather Byles, Sr., remained in Boston, as did his two half-sisters. The Boston Byles family continued to profess loyalty to the king, even in the new republic. While some Loyalists came back to the U.S. of A., or tried, these Byleses never left.

G. Patrick O’Brien is professor at the University of Tampa. He is working on a book about the experiences of loyalist women and families during the Revolution, their exile in Nova Scotia, and the social networks repatriating loyalists created between British Canada and the United States.

This online event will run from 7:00 to 8:30 P.M. Register for the link through this Eventbrite page; make a donation of of any amount to Old North Illuminated to support the preservation and interpretation efforts at Old North Church in the North End.

The Gap in the Town Clerk’s Records

The official published records of the town of Boston say that on Monday, 3 Apr 1775, the inhabitants held a meeting in Faneuil Hall.

With Samuel Adams busy at the Massachusetts Provincial Congress at Concord, that meeting chose Samuel Swift to preside in his place.

Voters filled some offices that the men they elected in the preceding month had declined. For instance, this town meeting chose the sons of William Molineux and Royall Tyler to be clerks of the market, an entry-level job for young gentlemen.

The other agenda item was collecting a tax approved in July 1774 “for the Relief of the Poor”—a response to the Boston Port Bill. A committee recommended naming collectors, but the citizens put off a decision until their next gathering.

To get around the Massachusetts Government Act’s limit on town meetings without Gov. Thomas Gage’s approval, the citizens then voted to adjourn to 17 April. As long as they kept the same meeting going by adjournment, they were within the law, right?

If a town meeting took place as scheduled on that day, it wasn’t recorded on the following page. That’s because the town clerk, William Cooper, slipped out of Boston around 10 April. He was apparently acting in response to intelligence that the secretary of state, Lord Dartmouth, had recommended to Gage that he start arresting leaders of the rebellion in Massachusetts.

Cooper took the notebooks that recorded town meetings with him. Some of the selectmen remained in town: Timothy Newell, John Scollay, Thomas Marshall, and Samuel Austin. In the following months, as Newell’s journal shows, they tried to document the damages and injustices of war and to stand up for their fellow citizens.

According to Cooper’s records, the next Boston town meeting took place in Watertown on 5 March. This was the annual oration in memory of the Boston Massacre, delivered that year by the Rev. Peter Thacher. That was, of course, the same day the British army saw the Continental fortifications on the Dorchester heights, so Thacher’s speech probably didn’t command people’s total attention.

The British military sailed away on 17 March. Bostonians gathered for another town meeting twelve days later, on 29 March. They met in the Rev. Dr. Charles Chauncy’s church, the “old Brick Meeting House” (shown above). The main order of business was to elect officials for the upcoming year, starting with the town clerk. William Cooper continued to fill that role until his death in 1809.

However, there were at least two town meetings held inside besieged Boston that never got recorded in Cooper’s notes.

TOMORROW: The first lost meeting.

“Paid my Respects to Generall Washington”

By Saturday, 24 March, the merchant John Rowe was so used to dining at home that in his diary he started off describing dinner there before remembering he’d dined with a friend and relative, shown here courtesy of the Boston Athenaeum:

I din’d at home with at Mr. [Ralph] Inman’s with him Mrs. [Elizabeth] Inman Genl. [Nathanael] Green Mrs. [Catherine] Green Tuthill Hubbard Mrs. [Dorothy] Forbes, Mr. [John?] Lowell Mrs. Rowe Capt. Gilbt. Speakman & Doctr. [blank] & Spent the Evening at home with Mrs. Rowe Capt. Speakman & Jack Rowe

Some Fire below Nantasket Road—I take it to be a Transport set on Fire to destroy her

Tuthill Hubbard was another Boston merchant, not very active politically. He would become the town’s postmaster.

If another of Inman’s guests was John Lowell (the surname isn’t clear in the manuscript), Rowe might have spoken to him about recovering the value of the goods the British military confiscated on their departure. Later in the year, Lowell would represent Rowe and other merchants in that effort.

The next day was a Sunday:

afternoon I went to Church Mr. [Samuel] Parker Read prayers & preached from the 22d. Chapter of St. Mathew . . . This was a very Good Sermon & considering the distressing Time A Good many People At Church. . . .

A Transport was burnt Last night in the Lighthouse Channell

The British evacuation fleet was still hovering in the outer harbor as 25 March dawned, and Rowe tracked its movement on Monday:

The Fleet still in Nantasket Road—

A Great many of the Ships in Nantasket Sailed this Afternoon

278 Dollars continintall

There’s no indication what that last line referred to, but Rowe was getting used to a new currency.

On Tuesday, 26 March, John Rowe completed the task of cozying up to the new power structure to protect his commercial interests:

Snowd a Little to Night— . . .

I waited on Genl. Greene this morning with Mr. Baker abo. Some Iron on my Wharff.

I din’d at home with Capt. Timothy Folger The Revd. Mr. [Samuel] Parker Mr. [Jonathan] Warner Mr. Richd. Greene Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe—

after dinner I went with Mr. Parker & paid my Respects to Generall [George] Washington who Receivd us Very Politely.

I’ll leave Rowe there for the nonce, having successfully trimmed his sails in March 1776.

“Severall other officers came to the House”

As of 12 Mar 1776, the merchant John Rowe was writing in his diary how people in Boston were “greatly terrifyed and Alarm’d for Fear of Greater Evils when the Troops Leave.” By “the Troops” he then meant the redcoats.

A few days later those soldiers did leave. Continental soldiers entered Boston, Rowe started calling those men the “Troops,” and life was not evil.

In fact, Rowe was busy hosting Continental officers in his house and at his dinner table. His diary entry for Wednesday, 20 March, said:

Major [John] Chester Mr. [John] Keys & Mr. [probably Samuel Blachley] Webb paid Me a Visit

I din’d at home with Richd. Greene Herman Brimmer Capt. [John] Skimmer Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe & spent the Evening at home with Capt. John Haskins Mr. Richard Greene Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe

They Burnt the Barracks & houses at the Cassell this Afternoon & destroyed Every thing they Could on the Island & blew up the Fortifications all around it

Rowe was welcoming a lot of Continental officers from Connecticut, probably because they had come in on the first day with Gen. Israel Putnam (shown above). Samuel Blachley Webb was that general’s aide, as well as another of Maj. Chester’s brothers-in-law.

Herman Brimmer was a Boston merchant and shopkeeper. He was an Anglican, like Rowe, but leaned toward the Patriot side.

John Skimmer was a ship’s captain. Back in 1769 he was master of the brig Nancy, owned by Rowe, which brought goods from Bristol despite the non-importation agreement. Skimmer commanded one of the schooners sent out by Gen. George Washington during the siege. In 1778 he died while commanding a privateer.

In the last paragraph above Rowe described what the British military was doing at Castle William, but he didn’t even identify who “They” were. The king’s troops still held that fortified harbor island, but they were doing as much damage as they could so the rebels wouldn’t be able to use it to protect the town against the Royal Navy.

Rowe continued to cultivate his old friends and new contacts on 21 March:

Snow’d a Little tonight not very cold…

I dind at home with Mr. [Ralph] Inman Mrs. [Elizabeth] Inman Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe & Spent the Evening at home with Major Chester Capt. [Ebenezer] Huntington Capt. Keys Mr. [Samuel] Parker Mr. [Jonathan] Warner Mrs. Rowe & Jack—

Both Mr. Webbs paid Mee a Visit this day

The second Webb was probably Col. Charles Webb of Stamford, Connecticut.

On Friday, 22 March, Rowe visited the Continental Army’s quartermaster general and one of his deputies, then hosted two of that army’s generals:

I went to see Colo. [Thomas] Mifflin & Mr. [John Gizzage] Fraser

I din’d at home with General Putnam Generale [Nathanael] Greene—Mr. Inman Mrs. Inman Mrs. [Dorothy] Forbes Mrs. Rowe & Jack—

after Dinner Colo [Richard] Gridley Mr. [Thomas] Chase Both Mr. Webbs & Severall other officers came to the House

I Spent the Evening at home with Capt. [William?] Blake Mr. Richard Greene Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe & Capt. Gilbt. Speakman

Just one week before, on 15 March, Rowe had hosted the British general James Robertson as a dinner guest, along with other redcoat officers. Now he dined with Putnam and Greene, as well as receiving the Continental Army’s chief engineer and “Severall other officers.”

On a more personal level, Rowe spent the evening with Gilbert Warner Speakman, a nephew. Back in 1774 Rowe had written frostily about the young man because of his political militancy out in Marlborough. Now Speakman was a captain in Col. John Glover’s victorious regiment, and he was welcome back to his uncle’s house.

TOMORROW: The last of the fleet and the big prize.

“Genl. Putnam & Some Troops came into Town”

In his diary, the merchant John Rowe noted that Sunday, 17 Mar 1776, was “St. Patricks Day” with “Pleasant Weather.”

He appears to have started his entry in the wee hours of the morning, perhaps before second sleep, then added to it later:

The Provincials are throwing up a Battery on Nook Hill on Dorchester Neck, which has occasioned much Firing this night.

This morning The Troops evacuated the Town & went on board the Transports at & about Long Wharff

they sailed & got most part of them into King Road

about Noon Genl. [Israel] Putnam & Some Troops came into Town to the Great Joy of the Inhabitants that Remained behind

I din’d at home with Mr. [Ralph] Inman Mrs. [Elizabeth Murray Campbell Smith] Inman, Mr. [Jonathan] Warner Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe—

I Spent the Evening at home with Major Chester Capt. Huntington Mr. [Samuel] Parker Mr. Warner Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe.

Once again, Rowe was distancing himself emotionally from “the Inhabitants that Remained behind,” though he undoubtedly was part of that group.

The Inmans had been separated by the siege lines, which strained their marriage. Back in July 1775 Ralph and the Rowes were talking about sailing to Britain together, and Elizabeth had responded with “pointed remarks.” This was the Inmans’ first dinner together in about a year, and it might have been tense.

Maj. John Chester (1749–1809, shown above) and Capt. Ebenezer Huntington (1754–1834) were Continental Army officers from Connecticut. They were also brothers-in-law, Chester having married Huntington’s sixteen-year-old sister Elizabeth in 1773.

Rowe’s diary gave no hint about how much pressure he felt to host officers from the conquering army, but he was making a quick transition to being friendly to the Revolutionary cause.

The first full day of independent Boston, 18 March:

Major Chester and Capt. Huntington Lodgd at Our house

The Town very quiet this night. Severall of my Friends came to see Mee from the Country

And the second:

Numbers of People belonging to Boston are dayly coming in—

Genl. [George] Washington & his Retinue were in Town yesterday I did not hear of it otherways Should have paid my Respects & waited on him—

This afternoon the King’s Troops burnt the Blockhouse at the Castle & the Continental Troops A throwing up a Battery on Forthill

Most all the Ships are gone from King Road into Nantasket Road—

TOMORROW: Royal Navy off the coast, Continental generals in the town.

“Twas Expected The Troops would have embarkd this night”

On 15 March 1776, merchant John Rowe was expecting the British military to sail away from Boston. Any minute now.

This night my Store on the Long Wharff broke open & almost A hhd of Sugar & A hog head of Ware Stole—

Twas Expected The Troops would have embarkd this night but they still Remain in Town

I din’d at home with Genl. [James] Robertson Colo. Clark Richd. Green An Officer of the 5th Regt. Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe—

after dinner Capt. [John] Haskins gave me Notice that several officers were in Mrs. [Mary] Hooper’s House committing Violence & breaking Everything Left they Broke a Looking Glass over the Chimney which cost Twenty Guineas such Barbarous Treatment is too much for the most Patient man to bear.

Mary Hooper was the widow of the Rev. Dr. William Hooper (1702–1767, shown above), an Anglican minister Rowe admired. She was also the mother of the William Hooper who represented North Carolina in the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence.

“Rainy Weather” came on 16 March, and the preparations for departure went on.

The Troops are getting every thing in order to depart.

My store on Long Wharff broke open again this night—the Behaviour of The Soldiers is to bad—tis almost Impossible to believe it

I din’d at home with Mrs. Rowe & Capt. [John] Gore & Spent the Evening at home with Richd. Greene Mr. [Samuel] Parker Mr. [Jonathan] Warner & Mrs. Rowe & Jack.

Two officers of the 5th: came to Mee for Wine they wanted to be Trusted I Refused them since I have heard nothing only they Damned me & swore they would take it by Force—One of them nam’d Russell of the 5th. Regmt. the Other I dont know

There was a Boston paint merchant and official, about to evacuate, called Capt. John Gore for his militia rank. Just to make things fun, there was also a captain named John Gore in His Majesty’s Fifth Regiment of Foot. Rowe could conceivably have dined with either.

As for Russell of the Fifth Regiment, no officer of that name appears in the Army Lists of 1773 or 1778. Then again, Rowe forgot the name of the officer from that regiment whom he hosted at dinner the day before. So he didn’t know them that well. Certainly not enough to extend credit for wine.

TOMORROW: The country people come in.

“Plundering of Houses &c. Increasing”

By 12 Mar 1776, the British military’s evacuation of Boston was dissolving into chaos in the eyes of merchant John Rowe, and the cannon were going off again:

A Continual Fire from Both sides this night

They are hurrying off all their Provisions & destroying & Mangling all Navigation

also Large Quantitys of Salt & other things they heave into the Sea & Scuttle the stores

I din’d & spent the Evening at home with—
The Revd. Mr. [Samuel] Parker Mr. [Jonathan] Warner & Richd. Green also Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe—

The Inhabitants are greatly terrifyed and Alarm’d for Fear of Greater Evils when the Troops Leave this distressed Place

I got Crean Brush Rect. for the Goods taken from Mee, but dont expect much Good from it tho severall Gentlemen Say they will be my Friend in this affair

By “be my Friend” Rowe meant those gentlemen would testify about his losses—though now he had a receipt as well.

Rowe dated his next entry “13 March Wednesday,” getting the date wrong—a sign of his distress:

I have Staid at home most part of this day—

The Confusion still Continues & Plundering of Houses &c. Increasing

Genl. [James] Robinson paid Me a Visit & Eat a Morsell of Provisions together with Richd. Green Mrs Rowe & Jack Rowe

The Sailors from the Ships have Broke Open my Stores on my Wharff & plunderd them— this was done at Noon this day—

This morning A house was burnt at the North End, whether Set on Fire on Purpose or from Accident Seems Uncertain—

a Considerable Number of Cannon fir’d in the night from Both Sides—

The Country People throwing up more Entrenchments &c on Dorchester Neck—

(I dind at home with Genl. Robertson—Mr. Richd. Green Mrs. Rowe & Jack—) and spent the Evening at home with the Revd. Mr. Saml. Parker Mr. Warner Mr. Richd Greene & Mrs. Rowe

On Thursday, 14 March, Rowe realized he’d made the dating error and corrected himself. This day brought “Snow & Sleet” and a cold wind:

This night much damage has been done to Many houses & stores in this Town & many valuable Articles stolen & Destroyed—

Stole out of Wm. Perrys Store a Quantity of Tea Rum & Sugar to the value of £120 Sterling

Mr. Saml. Quincys house broke & great Destruction The Revd. Mr. Wm. Walters also the Revd. Dr. [Henry] Caners & many others

Samuel Quincy had left Boston months before, so his house was vulnerable. But the ministers had stayed out the siege and presumably didn’t have mercantile goods to carry away.

The picture above shows the Rev. William Walter, Anglican minister at Boston’s Trinity Church (1767–1776) and Christ Church (1791–1800). It was sold at auction in 2021.

TOMORROW: The expected departure date.

“They Stole many things & plunder’d my Store”

John Rowe reported that Monday, 11 Mar 1776, brought “Gloomy heavy Weather,” and his mood wasn’t any better.

The day before, as quoted yesterday, Gen. William Howe issued a proclamation requiring everyone with “Linnen and Woolen Goods” to turn them over to the evacuating army lest they fall into Continental hands.

That proclamation promised that the New York merchant Crean Brush (shown here) “will give a Certificate of the Delivery, and will oblige himself to return them to the Owners.” But if people didn’t comply, they risked being treated as rebel sympathizers.

Rowe appears to have been surprised that this proclamation applied to him, too. His 11 March diary entry says:

This morning I Rose very Early and very Luckily went to my Warehouse

when I Came there I found Mr. Crian Brush with an Order & party from the Genl. who were just going to Break Open the Warehouse which I prevented by Sending for the Keys & Opening the Doors—

They took from Mee to the Value of Twenty Two hundred & Sixty Pounds Sterling According to the best Calculation I Could make in Linnens Checks Cloths & Woollens—

This Party behaved very Insolently & with Great Rapacity & I am very well Convinc’d exceeding their orders to a Great Degree They Stole many things & plunder’d my Store. Words cannot Describe it

This Party consisted of Mr. Blasswitch who was one of the Canceaux people [i.e., an officer on H.M.S. Canceaux] Mr. Brush the Provost Mr. [William] Cunningham A Refugee Mr. [James or Peter] Welch The Provost Deputy—A Man nam’d [William] Hill & abo. fifteen Soldiers—with others—

I Remained all Day in the store but Could not hinder their Destruction of my Goods This day I Got a piece of Bread & one Draft of Flip

I Spent the Evening at home with Mr. [Samuel] Parker Rich’d Green Mr. [Jonathan] Warner of Portsmouth who assisted Mee very much with Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe

They are making the Utmost Speed to get away & carrying Ammunition Cannon & every thing they Can away taking all things they meet with never asking who is Owner or whose Property making havock in Every house & Destruction of All kinds of Furniture—

There never was Such Destruction & Outrage committed any day before this Many other People have suffer’d the Same Fate as Mee— Particularly—
Mr. Saml. Austin Mr. John Scolly Capt. [Samuel] Partridge Capt. [Samuel] Dashwood Mr. Cyrus Baldwin The Widow [Mary] Newman

In May 1776, Austin, Scollay, Partridge, Dashwood, and Rowe petitioned the Continental Congress to speak up for them about their confiscated goods. But there was a war on.

Nine years later, in 1785, Rowe, Partridge, Dashwood, and Austin sought help from Gov. James Bowdoin and American minister John Adams in gaining redress from Britain. (I don’t know why Scollay dropped out; he was still alive at the time.)

Responding to a similar claim from Dr. Thomas Bulfinch, Adams wrote back on 13 Oct 1786:

I have not yet presented any of these Claims at Court, because there is not even a Possibility of their being regarded— . . . I frankly own I do not think, that the Dignity or the faith of the United States ought ever to have been compromised in these Matters—

If those Boston merchants had left with the British military, they might have regained their property after landing in Halifax. But they did, after all, show themselves to be rebel sympathizers.

TOMORROW: A receipt, and more disorder.

“Utmost Endeavors to have all such Articles convey’d from this Place”

Here’s merchant John Rowe’s diary entry for Sunday, 10 Mar 1776:

Capn. Dawson is Returnd with Two Vessells—he has had a severe Brush with four Privateers.

George Dawson commanded H.M.S. Hope, a schooner with four guns and thirty crewmen. On 30 January he had nearly caught or killed the first Continental naval hero, John Manley, as described here.

Rowe seems to sympathize with Dawson rather than the Patriots on the two ships he had captured, or the four “Privateers” that had tried to capture him. He went on:

I staid at home all Day—

A Proclamation came Out from Genl. How this day a very severe one, on Some People

In writing he stayed home, Rowe meant he didn’t go to church, though he did have the Rev. Samuel Parker over that evening.

That proclamation from Gen. William Howe appears here at the Journal of the American Revolution:

As Linnen and Woolen Goods are Articles much wanted by the Rebels, and would aid and assist them in their Rebellion, the Commander in Chief expects that all good Subjects will use their utmost Endeavors to have all such Articles convey’d from this Place:

Any who have not Opportunity to convey their Goods under their own Care, may deliver them on Board the Minerva at Hubbard’s Wharf, to Crean Brush, Esq; marked with their Names, who will give a Certificate of the Delivery, and will oblige himself to return them to the Owners, all unavoidable Accidents excepted.

If after this Notice any Person secretes or keeps in his Possession such Articles, he will be treated as a Favourer of Rebels.

So now we know what happened to the Minerva, the ship that Rowe had noted the army had impressed the day before.

When Rowe called Howe’s proclamation “very severe…on Some People,” he was downplaying how that could be severe on him. As a merchant, he owned a lot of cloth. But perhaps he thought he could get away with keeping most of it.

The general’s order not to leave any cloth in Boston sheds light on the rest of Rowe’s diary entry for 10 March:

John Inman Went on board this day—with his Wife he has in his Possession three Watches of mine & Sundry Pieces of Checks which was to be made into Shirts—

Jos Goldthwait Mrs. Winslow went on board this day—he has Carried off Capn. Linzees horse witho. Paying for him

John Linzee was a captain in the Royal Navy who had married Rowe’s niece and remained a good friend. Goldthwait wasn’t just a horse thief; he was commissary for the king’s troops, and undoubtedly wanted to preserve that animal from the rebels as well.

TOMORROW: A brush with Brush.

“Nothing but Cruilty & Ingratitude falls to my Lot”

With Continental cannon pointing at Boston from Dorchester Heights, the merchant John Rowe realized that the siege was coming to an end. But what did that mean for him?

In his diary Rowe wrote on 6 Mar 1776:

This morning the Country People have thrown a Strong Work on Another Place on the Neck at Dorchester Nick. Gen. [William] Howe has order’d the Troops ashore again & tis now out of Doubt that Gen Howe will Leave this Town with his Troops &c—which has put The Inhabitants of This Town into Great Disorder Confusion & much Distress. . . .

The Firing has Ceas’d this day—

7 March:

The Troops & Inhabitants very Busy in Getting All the Goods & Effects on board the Shipping in the Harbour—

tis Impossible to describe the Distresses of this unfortunate Town

I din’d and spent the Evening at home with my Dear Mrs. Rowe Mr. [Ralph] Inman & Jack Rowe—

Genl. Robinson Pd. Mee a Visit

Rowe hadn’t described his wife as “my dear” for a while, possibly since the summer of 1774 when she was injured in a carriage accident. That’s a measure of the stress he was feeling now.

I believe the man Rowe referred to in this week as “Genl. Robinson” was Maj. Gen. James Robertson, barrack master general of the British army in North America. (Other documents, including selectman Timothy Newell’s journal and even Gen. Howe’s orderly book, also referred to him as “Robinson” at times.)

Back in 1768 Rowe had called Robertson a “Gentleman of Great Abilities & very cool & dispassionate.” He handled a lot of the army’s logistics, which at this moment meant safely moving the troops.

8 March:

My Situation has almost Distracted Me [i.e., driven me insane]

John Inman Archy McNeil and Duncan are determin’d to Leave Mee—God Send Me Comfort in My Old Age—I try to do what Business I Can, but am Disapointd and nothing but Cruilty & Ingratitude falls to my Lot.

I Spend the Day & Evening with my Dear Mrs. Rowe Richd. Green & John Haskins—

John Inman was a young relative of Mrs. Rowe. There were multiple men named Archibald McNeil or McNeal in Boston in the 1770s, and this appears to have been the baker, perhaps working for the Rowes as a cook. Duncan also seems to have been a household servant, perhaps enslaved. They were all evidently ready to sail away with the troops, and Rowe felt they were deserting him personally—which means he had already made up his mind to stay.

9 March:

I dind at home with the Revd. Mr. [Samuel] Parker [shown above] Mrs. Rowe & Jack & Spent the Evening at the Possee

This day Genl. Robinson pressed the Ship Minerva into the Service—nothing but hurry & confusion, Every Person Striving to get Out of this Place

A Great Deal of Firing on both Sides this night

As I wrote yesterday, I suspect that Rowe had a financial interest in the Minerva since he mentioned that ship and not others, but I can’t confirm that. Perhaps Gen. Robertson’s visit two days before was about the army’s need for that getaway vessel.

TOMORROW: Worse and worse.

John Rowe Near the End of the Siege

On 17 Mar 1776, the last ships carrying British soldiers and Loyalists pulled away from Boston’s docks.

John Rowe wasn’t on one of those evacuation vessels. That might have surprised some people because that merchant was a native of England, an Anglican, and, according to the crowd inside Old South Meeting-House on 30 Nov 1773, “a good Tory.”

But Rowe was what people called a “trimmer,” adjusting his political stances to what seemed popular and advantageous. On 16 Mar 1775 he wrote disapprovingly in his diary about a Thanksgiving called by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and then at some point he went back and wrote in new words to make it look like he was fine with that, as I quoted here.

That said, I come away from reading Rowe’s diary with the feeling that whatever he wrote at the time he really meant. Maybe he’d change his position in a few weeks, but when he sat down of an evening to record the day’s events he was sincere. Rowe’s emotions come through when he wrote about himself, even as he tries to suppress them like a good eighteenth-century gentleman.

So I’m going to recount the evacuation of Boston through John Rowe’s eyes. His journal has been published in edited form twice, in the Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings in 1895 and again with more accurate misspellings in 1903. It’s now available in full digitally through the Massachusetts Historical Society’s website.

Rowe almost obsessively recorded whom he dined with at midday and whom he spent the evening with. He often described the weather, and every Sunday included details about the church service he attended. A lot of that detail was repetitive and left out of the printed editions. Here, for example, is Rowe’s full entry for 1 Mar 1776, with the words printed in the published editions in boldface:

Primo March 1776 Fryday very Cold WNW—blows fresh

My Brigg Sukey went down in Order to Proceed to Oporto—

I dind at home with Mrs. Rowe & Spent the Evening at home with Richd. Green & Mrs. Rowe

Rowe was still trading across the Atlantic—and not just within the British Empire since Oporto was in Portugal.

The next daily entry doesn’t appear in either of the printed editions despite—or probably because of—how it recorded an interesting event:

2d. March 1776 Saturday A Pleasant morming WSo.W—

This morning Capt. Johnson of the Minerva drown’d himself

I dind at home with Mr. [Ralph] Inman Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe—

& Spent the Evening at home & at the Possee

The “Possee” was Rowe’s usual club or circle of friends.

So far that month, life was going on normally—or not going on, in the case of Capt. Johnson. Despite the fact that Rowe was living in a besieged town during a civil war.

TOMORROW: The shooting starts.

The Captain Who Hosted Gen. Washington in Boston

In looking for clues about the ship captain who told Gen. George Washington that the British military was preparing to leave in March 1776, I came across this line in an 18 March letter from Thomas Cushing to Robert Treat Paine:

A Detachment of our Troops have gone into Boston and this Day General Washington & his Suit dined with Captain Erving.

Was that the same captain as the Erving, Irvine, Irwin, Erwin, or Ervin who provided the general with useful information about two weeks before?

Did Washington choose to dine inside liberated Boston with the mariner who had first told him the British were preparing to leave?

It appears not.

Rather, the consensus is that Washington’s host was the Boston merchant captain and erstwhile Council member John Erving, Sr. However, as the editors of the R. T. Paine Papers commented:

John Erving (c. 1692–1786), a wealthy Boston merchant originally from the Orkneys, was an odd choice as Washington’s first dinner host. A member of the Council for some twenty years, Erving declined the offer of a seat on General [Thomas] Gage’s Mandamus Council, but his sons John and George accepted. All three of his surviving sons became Loyalists, and at least one of had just left Boston with the British troops.

I think the answer to that minor mystery goes back to James Bowdoin (shown above), the same man whose anecdote about Gen. William Howe sent me looking for Washington’s late informants in the first place.

Bowdoin was a senior member of the Massachusetts Council who had met several times with Gen. Washington in the preceding months. On good days he was the senior figure in the Massachusetts government. And John Erving, Sr., was his father-in-law.

Bowdoin couldn’t host Washington at his own house since he didn’t know what shape it was in after British occupation. But old Capt. Erving had stayed in Boston through the siege and could still host a genteel dinner.

True, most Erving men had shown themselves to be Loyalist, but perhaps that was all the more reason to reward a well-connected patriarch who had decided to remain in town as the British left.

A Redcoat Deserter and a Salem Captain

I’ve looked for more sources about the British army deserter who reached the Continental lines around Boston on the night of 8–9 Mar 1776 and evidently spoke to Gen. George Washington on 10 March.

So far I haven’t found anything besides the reports I’ve quoted from Maj. Samuel Blachley Webb and James Bowdoin.

Neither Washington nor his aide Stephen Moylan mentioned that man in their 10 March letters reporting that the British were planning to leave Boston. I believe they wrote those dispatches before the deserter arrived at the Cambridge headquarters. His information corroborated what they had already heard, so they saw no need to send additional reports about him.

It’s possible that a British army muster roll might identify a soldier who deserted on 8 March. Then we could look for evidence of where that regiment was stationed, and we could look for that man’s name in American records.

Those bits of information could be useful in assessing the man’s credibility when he quoted Gen. William Howe as saying about the works on Dorchester heights, “Good God! These fellows have done more work in one night than I could have made my army do in 3 months. What shall I do?” Was this enlisted man actually in a position to hear the commander speak frankly like that? Or was he flattering the American commander with a story? For now, those are still open questions for me.

As for the person whose information Washington and Moylan did cite in their 10 March letters, that was a sea captain from Salem whose name different American officers rendered as Erving, Irvine, Irwin, and Erwin. Only the form Ervin (or Earven) appears in the Salem vital records.

At least one man from Salem with that surname was reported as commanding a merchant ship before the war. Those maritime records don’t come with first names, but the best candidate is George Ervin. After he died in 1816, his administrator identified him as a “Mariner.”

Calculating back from his reported age at death, George Ervin was probably born in 1749. He married Mehitabel Gardner at Danvers on 12 Oct 1773. She had been baptized on 31 Jan 1748. They started having children a little more than nine months later:

• George Gardner Ervin, born 31 July 1774, died 12 Oct 1781.
• Hetty, born 21 Jan 1777, died in May.
• another Hetty (Mehitable), born 11 Oct 1778, married Joseph Felt (not the Salem chronicler) in 1799, and died in 1843.
• Joseph, born 8 Dec 1780, died in Martinique in 1816.
• another George, born 8 Sept 1782.
• Sally (Sarah), born 5 Sept 1784, died 15 Oct 1813.
• Betsy, born 23 July 1786.
• Ernest Augustus, born 25 Jan 1789, a privateer captain in the War of 1812, died in December 1860.

According to Washington’s letters, he spoke to “A Captain of a Transport” who told him “That the Ship he commanded was taken up, places fitted & fitting for Officers to lodge, and Several Shot, Shells & Cannon already on board” for the evacuation of Boston. That of course meant that the captain, his ship, and his crew were all in Boston harbor, either voluntarily or by force. I haven’t found any sources putting George Ervin in that situation.

George Ervin served as first lieutenant on the privateering sloop Rhodes, commanded by Nehemiah Buffington and sailing out of Salem in the summer of 1780. He was listed as thirty-one years old, 5'8" tall, with a light complexion.

In 1785 Salem elected George Ervin as one of the town tax collectors. When he died decades later, he owned two houses on Mill Street. His estate was a few hundred dollars in debt.

There were other men named Erwin in Salem, including Samuel, “heretofore of Bristol in England, now of Salem,” who married Lydia Chever in 1770; John, who married twice in the 1770s; and Joseph, who had twin girls with his wife Mary baptized in July 1774. But I can’t connect any of those men with the sea like George.

COMING UP: Gen. Washington’s dinner with “Captain Irving.”

“Revolutionary War Refugees on Tory Row,” 20 Mar.

This is Evacuation Day in Suffolk County, celebrating when the British military left Boston in 1776.

In commemoration of the Continental Army’s first successful campaign under Gen. George Washington, I’ll deliver an online lecture for the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site and the Friends of Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters.

Sunday, 20 March, 2:00 P.M.
Revolutionary War Refugees on Tory Row
register through this page

Our description:

Like all armed conflicts, the start of the Revolutionary War produced a flood of refugees seeking safety. Loyalist families moved into Boston for the protection of the redcoats. Patriot families fled the besieged capital. The Battle of Bunker Hill destroyed most of Charlestown, leaving more people desperate for homes and livelihoods. Tracking the changes in one wealthy Cambridge neighborhood away from the battles shows the impact of war on ordinary women, children, and men.

As I’ve developed this talk, I realized that I should move beyond the 1774–1776 years I usually cover to discuss when thousands of homeless men, women, and children streamed slowly along the road from Watertown into Cambridge.

Hannah Winthrop, wife of a Harvard College professor, described those people rather uncharitably:

To be sure the sight was truly Astonishing, I never had the least Idea, that the Creation producd such a Sordid Set of Creatures in human Figure—poor dirty emaciated men, great numbers of women, who seemd to be the beasts of burthen, having a bushel basket on their back, by which they were bent double, the contents seemd to be Pots & kettles, various sorts of Furniture, children peeping thro gridirons & other utensils. Some very young Infants who were born on the road, the women barefoot, cloathd in dirty raggs

Such Effluvia filld the air while they were passing, had they not been smoaking all the time, I should have been apprehensive of being Contaminated by them.

Winthrop was so hostile because those refugees were the British and German-speaking soldiers captured at Saratoga, along with their families. They were to be housed around Boston before being sent back to Europe. At least that was the initial plan for what became known as the Convention Army.

When I alighted on the topic of war refugees for this year’s Evacuation Day lecture, I had no idea how loudly it would resonate with current events. Or to be more exact, since war has never stopped sending families fleeing somewhere in the world, how loudly this topic resonates with the current news.

We plan to record this talk and make it available through the sponsoring organizations later this spring.

Dorchester Heights ceremony, 17 Mar.

On Thursday, 17 March, the National Parks of Boston will observe Evacuation Day with a ceremony at the Dorchester Heights site in what is now termed South Boston.

Co-hosted by the South Boston Citizens’ Association, this year’s celebration will take place in the hilltop park where the Dorchester Heights Monument stands. On the program are:

• Mayor Michelle Wu
• Rep. Stephen Lynch
• Other political figures to be named later
• National Park Service Regional Director Gay Vietzke
• Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola
• Student awards of some sort
• The Lexington Minutemen
• The Boston University Band

Most notable might be “an announcement of a substantial multimillion-dollar federal investment to restore Dorchester Heights Monument as a local and national landmark.” Since 2012 the observation tower at that site has been closed due to “water infiltration and structural deterioration.” This building was just one item in the National Park Service’s long list of deferred maintenance projects.

With the national Sestercentennial coming up, and Congress eager to stimulate the economy as the pandemic began in an election year, the federal government found the funds for that tower. In a press release last week the park said:

a multi-million-dollar appropriation from the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) [will] restore the iconic 1902 Dorchester Heights Monument tower and landscape. When the project is completed, visitors will be able to enjoy the improved public green space and spectacular 115-foot landmark on Telegraph Hill that commemorates a pivotal event of the Revolutionary War.

The 17 March ceremony is free and open to the public, but space is limited and nearby parking even more so. People who want to attend are asked to register through this webpage. There will be a heated tent in the park and refreshments after the ceremony. Attendees may wish to wear masks for safety in the crowd. A video record of the event will be streamed on Boston National Historical Park’s Facebook and YouTube pages.

Learning More about Hammond Green and Mary Rogers

This afternoon at the Dedham Historical Society is the third of the panel discussions I’m participating in with Christian Di Spigna and Katie Turner Getty (shown speaking here) in commemoration of the Boston Massacre.

This will be Katie’s fourth event, and Christian is going on to do a fifth. Jonathan Lane of Revolution 250 has moderated all sessions, and Bob Allison spoke in Charlestown last night.

Katie Turner Getty’s presentation was about the two women who gave detailed, preserved testimony about the Massacre, Jane (Crothers) Whitehouse and Elizabeth Avery.

From Avery’s testimony we know two more women watched the confrontation from an upper floor of the Customs house with her: Ann Green and Mary Rogers.

Ann, also called Nancy, was the sister of Hammond Green, one of the men tried for allegedly shooting a gun out of that room into the crowd below. Hammond was baptized in Christ (Old North) Church in January 1749, Ann in September 1756—and thus was still only thirteen on the night of the Massacre.

Not until I heard Katie’s talk did I learn that Mary Rogers, also called Molly, went on to marry Hammond Green. In fact, they married in Christ Church on 29 Nov 1770, just a couple of weeks before Hammond went on trial for murder. As Katie pointed out, this might have made the jury skeptical about anything Mary might say to clear her husband. The defense attorneys called Elizabeth Avery to testify instead, and Ann Green to corroborate the exoneration of her brother.

The record from 1770 makes clear that Hammond Green’s father worked for the Customs Commissioners, but it isn’t clear to me that the young man himself did. Legal records identified Hammond as a “boat-builder.” As of the evacuation of March 1776, however, Hammond Green was a Customs house “Tidesman.”

Notably, Mary Green didn’t leave with her husband that month. He evacuated as a party of one. In July 1777 the Massachusetts General Court passed a special law:

Upon the Petition of Mary Green, Wife of Hammond Green, late of Boston, praying Leave to go to her Husband now resident at Halifax—

Resolved that the Prayer of the Petition be granted & that the sd. Mary Green with her Child have Leave to go by such Opportunity & under such restrictions as the honorable Council judge proper—& that she have Leave to take with her, her Bed & other necessaries

I presume Mary (Rogers) Green and her child arrived in Halifax soon afterward.

Mary Green probably died in the following years because Hammond remarried to Elizabeth Mott in 1785. This second wife was still in her teens, having been born to a retired British artillerist and his wife in Halifax in 1768. Hammond and Elizabeth Green had a few children together before she died in 1802. He continued working as a tidesman until at least 1807, according to a local almanac.

On 26 July 1808, the New-England Palladium reported that Hammond Green had died in Halifax, aged sixty. (He was in fact fifty-nine.)

One other personal detail about Hammond Green: In accusing him of murder, Charles Bourgate referred to him as “a young man one Green, he with one eye,” pointing him out in court. So Green didn’t simply become a Customs inspector; he became a one-eyed Customs inspector.

“My Daughter, which she really is, tho’ but an adopted one”

This story came up (in my head at least) during yesterday’s online presentation from King’s Chapel about how the Revolution affected members of that Anglican congregation. I realized I hadn’t shared it here before. 

The minister of that church was the Rev. Henry Caner. He raised a niece named Sarah Foster, whom he called Sally. I don’t know how that arrangement came about since Sarah’s father, a deacon of Boston’s First Meetinghouse named Thomas Foster, was alive. Perhaps he had remarried.

The minister was very fond and protective of his niece, telling Earl Percy that he “took the Liberty of introducing [her], as my Daughter, which she really is, tho’ but an adopted one.”

In March 1768 Sarah Foster married John Gore, Jr., a dry goods merchant. His father had risen from the trade of decorative painter to become a paint merchant, militia captain, and Overseer of the Poor—moving from the ranks of mechanics to the ranks of gentlemen.

John and Sarah Gore had a baby, also named John, in 1769. He was baptized at the West Meetinghouse, which the Gore family attended. Evidently being raised by an Anglican minister hadn’t made Sarah an Anglican.

In 1771 John, Jr., unexpectedly died. That left Sarah Gore as a young widow with a baby son. I don’t know if Sarah Gore moved back in with her uncle then, but the Caner household was undoubtedly less crowded than the Gore household.

Then came the Coercive Acts and the war. The Rev. Mr. Caner was always one of the strongest supporters of the royal government. When the lines were drawn in 1774, Capt. John Gore also declared himself loyal to the king while most of his family, including son Samuel and son-in-law Thomas Crafts, were not only Patriots but active Patriots.

In March 1776, the British military evacuated Boston. Among the Loyalists leaving at the same time were Henry Caner, John Gore, Sarah Gore, and her little boy. “I was crowded with my Daughter & an old Houskeeper on board a small Vessel with forty people,” the minister wrote.

That extended family then moved on to London. The letters of Henry Caner, which were collected and published in 1972, show that in London Sarah Gore lived with Caner and that “old Houskeeper.” John Gore shared space with his friend Adino Paddock.

Caner spent a lot of effort trying to find a new income for himself as an Anglican cleric. Sarah Gore explored high social circles, visiting Lady Rockingham, meeting the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland. Her uncle hoped these connections would lead to a living, but in July 1776 complained, “I meet with many ‘good Morrows’ & compassionable expressions, but that is all except a share of the Donations…for the suffering Clergy.”

On 22 Apr 1777, the Rev. Mr. Caner had big news for Deacon Thomas Foster:

Sally, who will write you by this Opportunity, has never been from me a Day since we left Boston. She had far’d as well as my Self, & has been fully attentive to me as to her Father, having never taken a step which I did not approve.

I have preserv’d her from a Connection with the Army, which I knew would be disagreeable to you, & in right of a Guardian or Father am about to dispose of her within a day or two to a Gentleman here in London, one Richard Manser, who appears to be a sober, well-bred young man, with whom I hope she will be happy.

They will live in the same house with me while I stay in England, & when we return to America I assure you I shall leave her behind me with regret.

A postscript to that letter reports the deed had been done: “Yesterday I parted with your Daughter, my dear Child & companion, Sarah Gore, having married her to Mr. Richard Manser, of London. I performed the Ceremony myself at St Martin’s Church, Westminster.”

That’s the famous church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, rebuilt in the 1720s and shown above in a photo by Robert Cutts. [It has a lovely café in the crypt.]

However, by 30 June the Rev. Mr. Caner was once again referring to Sally as “Mrs. Gore.”

TOMORROW: Can this marriage be saved?