The Losses of Benjamin Davis

In the newspaper reports on the May 1775 fire on Boston’s Town Dock, Benjamin Davis’s name appears only as the man who used to use (“improve”) the building where the fire started.

Davis had “Let General Robenson [James Robertson] have his store for the Brit Troops in the year 1775,” as he told the Loyalists Commission years later.

In his testimony to that commission Davis said he’d lost a great deal of property in the fire: “his story & wharf & Goods in the cellar were destroyed to amount of £900.”

In addition, Davis said that he was out:

• £56 in whaling supplies on a ship “the Rebels” seized in Salem
• £375 more in goods left behind in Boston in March 1776
• £200 in household furniture in Boston
• about £3,666 in uncollected debt due to him through his old partnership with his brother Edward
• £700 in “Money & Wine” confiscated when he was captured in July 1776

Davis also said he “Was robbed of £400 on his way to Halifax,” but I can’t tell whether that was in 1776 or at the end of the war.

Most of Davis’s commission hearing involved discussing financial details like a mortgage or the value of certain land. He asked to be compensated for a total of £4,865 in losses, according to E. Alfred Jones’s The Loyalists of Massachusetts.

The commissioners awarded Davis only £300, suggesting they thought his claims were too high or too poorly documented, and/or that he had already been compensated enough through his wartime business with the government.

TOMORROW: Junior.

More Gilt in the Oval Office

Last year Boston 1775 passed on the news stories about President Donald Trump demanding that the Declaration of Independence be brought to his office, and about his inability to explain what it says.

Earlier this month, Trump posted this photo of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani posing beside the copy of the Declaration now hanging in the Oval Office.

I was struck with how the document’s setting had changed from a year ago, as shown in the May 2025 photo here. Its frame is now gilded. A gilt Presidential seal is glued onto the wall below.

What’s more, there are strange golden furbelows on either side of the Declaration, and a table bearing busts of Abraham Lincoln has been moved away to display more golden furbelows.

In the spring of 2025 newspapers noted how Trump was adding more golden decorations to the office, in contrast to his republican predecessors.

That trend has continued. As shown by this image from a recent event, there are now even more and bigger gold loving cups and participation trophies on the mantelpiece—nine in all. And even more golden furbelows and gold-framed pictures over every patch of the walls.

This man is working out a lot of gilt.

“To open his EVENING-SCHOOL, as usual”

Isaiah Thomas and Henry-Walter Tinges launched the Essex Journal newspaper in Newburyport in 1773.

Among its advertisers was town schoolmaster John Vinal, offering private lessons in a broad range of subjects. His notice on 5 Oct 1774 said:

JOHN VINAL,
INTENDS to open his EVENING-SCHOOL, as usual at the NORTH-SCHOOL the 10th Instant, for Writing and the several practical Branches of the Mathematics, enumerated in a former Advertisement of his.

Alas, I haven’t found that “former Advertisement.” 

On 15 Mar 1775 Vinal was more expansive:

JOHN VINAL,
ACQUAINTS his Friends that he intends to begin his private School for Youth of both Sexes, on Monday the third of April next at 11 o’Clock A.M. in the room he improved the last Summer, nearly opposite Mr. Davenport’s Tavern, and from 5 to 7 o’Clock, P.M. at the Town School House for those who can best attend in the Afternoon.

N.B. The Said VINAL has a very genteel BOWFAT, with a Glass Door to dispose of, very cheap, for almost any Pay that will suit the Purchaser.

A what now?

A week later the same ad ran again except the item offered for sale was “a very genteel BUFFET, (commonly pronounced Bowfat,) with a Glass Door.”

Ah.

Dr. Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defined a buffet this way:

”Mr. Davenport’s Tavern” referred to the tavern started by William Davenport and inherited by his sons Anthony and Moses in 1773. Its sign showed Gen. James Wolfe, so it was also called the Wolfe Tavern.

Vinal’s eagerness to sell that genteel piece of furniture suggests a need for quick cash. Of course, he often seems to have wanted extra cash. But the spring of 1775 wasn’t the best time for selling a luxury item, especially one you didn’t know how to spell.

TOMORROW: War!

“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.

“Your poor memorialist is stripped almost naked”

Within two weeks of seeing the provincial army destroy his house and farm on Noddle’s Island during the Battle of Chelsea Creek, Henry Howell Williams petitioned the rebel government for support.

On 12 June 1775 he told the Massachusetts Provincial Congress (as transcribed in American Archives):

That your memorialist hath, for eleven years last past, dwelt on an island in Boston Bay, commonly called Noddle’s Island, at a very high rent, and in order to pay the same was obliged to keep a large stock of horses, cattle, sheep, &c.; and that during all the years aforesaid hath paid very large taxes for said island, stock, &c., for the support of Government; and hath always endeavoured faithfully to discharge his duty, as a good member of society, towards all men, and all that was theirs.

That on Saturday, the 27th day of May last, a number of armed troops, commonly called Provincials, came on to said island, by way of Hog Island, and did then and there kill or carry away eight horses and three cows, part of the aforesaid stock, and also burnt and destroyed one dwelling-house and barn, with all the household goods therein contained, wearing apparel, &c.

That on Monday, the 29th of May, the same or another number of said armed troops, came again on to said island, and then and there did burn and destroy two other dwelling-houses, goods, &c., and three barns; and at the same time did take away and drive off from said island about five hundred old sheep, and about three hundred and forty lambs, with between thirty and forty head of horned cattle, the property of your memorialist, together with a further number of horses, hogs, &c., &c.

And that on Tuesday, the 30th day of May aforesaid, they entered again on to said island, and then and there proceeded and burnt your memorialist’s mansion house, with all the barns, corn-houses, and store houses, stores, provisions, goods, house furniture, wearing apparel, liquors, and utensils of all sorts, to a very considerable amount and value:

And on Saturday, the 10th day of June, instant, entered again, and burnt and destroyed the warehouse, the last building on said island, by which means your poor memorialist is stripped almost naked, and destitute of any place to lay his head, with a very large family of children and servants, to the amount of between forty and fifty in number, that are destitute of any business or supplies but from your memorialist.

These are therefore to request your Honours will take his most distressed circumstances into your wise consideration, and make such order thereon as in your wisdom shall seem meet…

That number of forty to fifty dependents probably included everyone Williams employed at harvest time, not his year-round staff. But he was trying to make the case that his personal loss was a societal problem that justified spending scarce public funds.

It looks like Williams had given up hope of having the congress help retrieve his livestock. In fact, the rebel government was already assigning horses from Noddle’s Island to the war effort. The sheep, cattle, and hogs went toward feeding the troops. Figuratively, it was too late to close that barn door.

Then the Battle of Bunker Hill happened five days later, giving the Provincial Congress a lot of other things to deal with.

TOMORROW: Animal tracks.

“Belonging to Mr. Henry Howell Williams”

Henry Howell Williams lost more property in the Battle of Chelsea Creek than anyone else but the Royal Navy.

Williams held the lease for Noddle’s Island. He had a big house there—big enough to show up on maps of the harbor. He’d invested in agricultural outbuildings, horses, sheep, cattle, hogs, and hay.

Williams probably took his family off the island in April, soon after the war began. On 1 May, Adm. Samuel Graves granted him a pass to go to and from his home, with the stipulation that he not remove anything. Williams later reported that his house still contained a clock bought in Britain, mahogany furniture, family pictures, and other genteel possessions.

Late that month, provincial troops went onto Hog Island and Noddle’s to grab animals, keeping them away from the British. In the fighting that followed, they set fire to the hay and most buildings on Noddle’s Island. In early June the provincials returned to grab the remaining livestock and burn the last structure.

Williams’s farm was reduced to charred ruins on an empty, singed landscape. As I wrote back here, Williams was protective of his interests, placing regular advertisements to warn off trespassers and hunters. He came from a wealthy Roxbury family. He had connections to men in the Patriot leadership.

However, Williams had also signed the farewell to Gov. Thomas Hutchinson. He sold his livestock and forage to the British military, possibly even after the war began. That no doubt affected his standing with the provincial authorities.

On 31 May, Gen. Artemas Ward’s general orders stated:

That the stock, which was taken from Noddle’s Island, belonging to Mr. Henry Howell Williams, be delivered to his father, Col. Joseph Williams, of Roxbury, for the use of the said Henry H. Williams.

But evidently few or no animals were driven all the way around the siege lines to Roxbury and returned to the Williams family. After all, there was a war on. The provincial army also needed food and horses.

TOMORROW: The first petition.

The Last Last Will of Philip Mortimer

After Philip Mortimer completed his six-page handwritten will, he signed it in front of three witnesses, all neighbors in Middletown, Connecticut: Timothy Starr, Joseph Sage, and Elihu Starr.

Elihu Starr was also one of the three men Mortimer designated as his coexecutors, along with George Phillips and George Starr, the husband of his niece. At least two of those men would need to agree on any action regarding the estate.

As noted yesterday, the will also granted Elihu Starr the labor of Peg, an enslaved young woman, until she turned twenty-six.

In October 1793 Mortimer wrote a codicil to that will, micromanaging his estate a bit more. At the top of his list of people to be freed were the couple Jack and Sophy. He added two provisions for their benefit:

• Sophy should receive “my chest which I had made at the beginning of the late War, also my wash kettle who contains about four or five gallons, also one small kettle which contains about eight gallons, also so much of the furniture as either two of my coexecutors shall see fitt to give her.”
• Jack and Sophy could “use and enjoy the Interest I have in a Fishing Place in Chatham…during their Natural Lives,” with their three sons inheriting that right.

Then in March 1794 Mortimer, now in his mid-eighties, started to copy the entire will. Unable to complete the task himself, he called in Elihu Starr. Mortimer made only one revision: to grant the two ropemakers Prince and Peter their freedom on his death rather than three years later.

Mortimer signed the papers that Elihu Starr had written for him. Starr didn’t add his own signature, however, nor did anyone else.

The old man died just a few days later on 15 Mar 1794. One week later the Middlesex Gazette reported:

Died, on Saturday last, Capt. PHILIP MORTIMER, of this City, aged 84.—His Funeral was attended, on Tuesday last, with all the honors becoming his most worthy and respectable Character.

On 30 August this notice appeared in the same newspaper:

TWELVE Months from the Date being allowed, by the hon. Court of Probate for the Creditors to the Estate of PHILIP MORTIMER, Esq. deceased, to being in their Claims; those who neglect to exhibit them within the Time will be debarred Recovery. All indebted to said Estate are requested to make immediate Payment, to GEORGE STARR, Attorney to the Executors.

ELIHU STARR, GEORGE PHILLIPS, Executors.
Middletown, August 25, 1794.

ANY Person who may have borrowed BOOKS of the Deceased, in his Life, are desired to return them to George Starr.

TOMORROW: Tied up in court.

“Liberty to remove with her sd. family to her husband”

Ideally I would have quoted today’s documents earlier in this series about Sarah and John Cochran, but I hadn’t find them yet.

As described back here, the Cochrans were separated in 1775, forced to communicate by letters between independent Londonderry, New Hampshire, and British-held Long Island, New York.

In early 1777 one of those letters was intercepted alongside a letter from John’s patron, royal governor John Wentworth. Gov. Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut sent copies to the New Hampshire government and to Gen. George Washington, and an extract was printed in the New-Hampshire Gazette in April.

About a year later, Sarah Cochran gave up trying to stay. She petitioned the New Hampshire government:

To the honble The Committee of Safety for said State now sitting at Exeter — The Petition of Sarah Cochran, of Portsmouth in the County and State aforesaid humbly sheweth that your Petitioner’s husband John Cochran lately of said Portsmouth has for several years past been absent from his family and is now at Long Island without the least prospect of being likely to return to this State —

and your Petitioner having a large family which she finds extremely difficult to support in the absence of her said husband and as he has frequently written to her to come with her family to him —

your Petitioner humbly prays your honors wd grant her liberty to remove with her sd. family to her husband for which favour your petitioner as in duty bound, will ever pray —

Portsmouth April 23d 1778.

Your Petitioner further begs that your honors would grant her liberty to carry her household furniture with her

Five days later, the committee granted Sarah Cochran and her children to go to New York “after having advertized her Departure three weeks Successively in the New Hampr. Gazette.” State leaders didn’t want her to run out on any creditors.

On 27 October, this notice appeared in that newspaper:

The Subscriber by Permission
Of the Committee of Safety for the State of New Hampshire, being about to depart the same, gives this Notice thereof, That all Persons who have Accounts open with her Husband John Cockrin, lately of Portsmouth, may within three Weeks from this Date, appear and settle the same.

Oct, 27, Sarah Cockrin.

That spelling of the family name meant it took me forever to find this ad.

Together these sources suggest that Sarah Cochran and her children traveled from New Hampshire to New York late in 1778. Thus, when the New Hampshire legislature confiscated John Cochran’s property in June 1779, it didn’t have to worry about resistance from his wife.

TOMORROW: Back to that property.

The Ashley Family’s “commitment to tea-drinking”

Last month Historic Deerfield’s blog highlighted the consumption habits of the Rev. Jonathan Ashley (1712–1780), “Deerfield’s notorious Loyalist minister,” as the Revolution proceeded:

Reverend Ashley purchased his house lot in 1733 on the northern end of what is now Old Main Street. His successful career as a minister and his marriage into an elite Connecticut Valley family allowed him to emphasize his status through the furnishings and commodities with which he filled his home.

Few objects in Historic Deerfield’s collection have Ashley provenance, though a 30-piece Chinese export porcelain tea set belonging to the Ashley family bespeaks not only their desire to “maintain sufficiently affluent standards of hospitality,” but also their commitment to tea-drinking as it fell out of favor during the American Revolution.

The tea set consisting of a teapot and teapot stand, sugar bowl, cream pot, pickle or sweetmeat dish, six teacups, coffee cups, and saucers is decorated in a blue “Fitzhugh” butterfly pattern with the initials “H.H.” in a gilded oval cartouche. The Fitzhugh pattern is thought to be derived from the English Fitzhugh family, who held several positions within the English East India Company and is characterized by underglaze blue with a medallion, spearhead and trellis-diaper border, and four floral groups. . . .

as imported teas became symbolic of loyalism during the American Revolution—because of the taxes that were imposed on tea in 1773—several colonists turned to locally grown teas such as raspberry leaf to replace the imports from the British East India Company. Coffee, though not a new commodity in British North America, likewise became a popular drink amongst colonists, as it was a hot, caffeinated beverage that did not represent British economic interests. . . . Reverend Ashley continued to support the Crown by importing tea.

Collections Care Technician and blog writer Samantha Frost drew on Elizabeth Stillinger’s Historic Deerfield: A Portrait of Early America (1992) for details about the Ashleys’ purchases.

Speaking of tea, on Saturday, 14 December, the Lexington Historical Society will commemorate and recreate that town’s burning of local tea stocks in 1773, days before the Boston Tea Party. That event will take place at Buckman Tavern from noon to 3 P.M.

“Into the Woods” with the Dublin Seminar, 28–29 June

On 28–29 June, the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife will convene at Historic Deerfield for its annual conference, with this year’s theme being “Into the Woods: New England Forests in Fact and Imagination.”

The conference organizers explain:

This year’s program will address the rich and varied histories of the relationship between the peoples of New England and adjacent areas and their forests. The seminar will explore the economic, cultural, and social significance of trees and forests in New England history.

Anyone interested in parks and conservation, visual and literary representations of wooded landscapes, indigenous relationships with forests, wood-dependent industries, and folklore involving New England’s woods and forests will find plenty of interest in this two-day program.

For an overview, see this page. Presentations and discussions will take place live in the Deerfield Community Center, be streamed for online registrants, and be recorded for all registrants to view in the coming month.

The schedule of the 2024 conference includes:

• optional tours of Historic Deerfield’s Memorial Libraries and Flynt Center to see resources on New England forestry, woodcarving, and furniture-making.
• optional walking tour along the Channing Blake Footpath with naturalist Laurie Sanders, co-director of Historic Northampton.
• keynote address on “The Lumber and the Trees: Fitz H. Lane, Winslow Homer, and the Nineteenth-Century Forest” by Margaretta Lovell, the Jay D. McEvoy, Jr. Chair of the History of American Art at the University of California, Berkeley.
• eighteen papers, divided into six sessions, on such topics as “Turpentine Extraction & the Metamorphosis of the Local Woodlands, 1689–1713”; “Maple Sugaring Before Syrup”; “Waney Edges: Dendroarchaeology, and What the Timbers Tell Us”; “Reconstructing the Landscape: The Hidden Ecology of New England’s Historic Houses”; and “A View from the Land: 400 Years of New England Forests, Lumber, and Dwellings.”
• Lunch on Saturday will fellow in-person registrants.

Register for the 2024 Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife with Historic Deerfield through this page. In-person registration costs $110, virtual registration $75, with discounts for Historic Deerfield members and students.

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.)

“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.

Researching Historic Carpentry

The North Bennet Street School (one of my mother’s multiple alma maters) just shared a blog post about graduates working at Colonial Williamsburg.

Of the alumni profiled, Jeremy Tritchler (shown above) and Brian Weldy studied in the Cabinet and Furniture Making program and Melanie Belongia in Violin Making—though she’s now applying those skills to harpsichords.

Tritchler was a geologist before trying the North Bennet Street School, and Belongia was a professional musician and law student. (My mother had also worked in several careers, in addition to raising two kids, when she decided to study piano tuning and repair.)

Today these three graduates are in the part of Colonial Williamsburg’s costumed staff who also work with wood and other eighteenth-century materials to produce cabinets, musical instruments, and other objects.

Meredith Fidrocki writes of Weldy, a master in the joiner’s shop:

Projects require meticulous research. How did a colonial Joiner make this efficiently and economically? Figuring that out is one of Brian’s favorite parts of the job. “Not too many people can say they’ve crawled up in the steeple of the Bruton Parish Church,” he laughs, recalling up-close exploration of the 18th-century church on the museum grounds. “The beams come together in a beautiful latticework.” In the shop, he’s currently recreating one of the circular windows from the church.

In fact, all three craftspeople speak of enjoying the research side of the job.

How John Adams “Dined at Mr. Nick Boylstones”

John Adams finally got his invitation to dinner at Nicholas Boylston’s mansion in January 1766.

Adams’s mother was a Boylston, first cousin to this Boston merchant. However, Adams visited Boylston’s home only after becoming a rising young lawyer from Braintree, in Boston for court business and a whirl of political conversations.

On 14 January, for instance, Adams dined at town clerk William Cooper’s house with Thomas Cushing, speaker of the house; William Story, an Admiralty Court official; and John Boylston, yet another cousin on his mother’s side.

Adams recorded in his diary:

Boylstone, affecting a Phylosophical Indifference about Dress, Furniture, Entertainments &c., laughed at the affectation of nicely distinguishing Tastes, such as the several Degrees of Sweet till you come up to the first degree of bitter, laughed at the great Expences for Furniture, as Nick Boylstones Carpetts, Tables, Chairs, Glasses, Beds &c. which Cooper said were the richest in N. America.—The highest Taste and newest Fashion, would soon flatten and grow old.

The next evening, Adams met with “the Sons of Liberty, at their own Apartment in Hanover Square, near the Tree of Liberty.” This was the group also called the “Loyall Nine,” principal organizers of the protests that had negated the Stamp Act the year before. They were preparing to celebrate the law’s expected repeal.

Finally came this diary entry:

Thurdsday. Jany. 16th. 1766.

Dined at Mr. Nick Boylstones, with the two Mr. Boylstones [Nicholas and his brother Thomas, probably], two Mr. [James and Isaac?] Smiths, Mr. [Benjamin] Hallowell and the Ladies [the Boylstons’ sister Mary Hallowell and possibly James Smith’s wife, Elizabeth]. An elegant Dinner indeed!

Went over the House to view the Furniture, which alone cost a thousand Pounds sterling. A Seat it is for a noble Man, a Prince. The Turkey Carpets, the painted Hangings, the Marble Tables, the rich Beds with crimson Damask Curtains and Counterpins, the beautiful Chimny Clock, the Spacious Garden, are the most magnificent of any Thing I have ever seen.

Even though those luxurious furnishings might “soon flatten and grow old,” they awed the young country lawyer.

TOMORROW: Dinner conversation.

[The image above shows how John Singleton Copley remade his portrait of Nicholas Boylston, shown yesterday. Harvard College commissioned this copy in 1773, after the merchant had died and left money for a professorship. To match other paintings Copley had made for the college, he turned his original composition into a taller, full-figure portrait. As a result, Boylston was immortalized in honking big red slippers.]

Taking the Measure of Tea Chests

In addition to the various samples of tea leaves I’ve discussed, relics of the Boston Tea Party include supposed remnants of the chests that tea came in.

One highly visible example is a lacquered tea chest donated by the Foster family to the Massachusetts Daughters of the American Revolution in 1902. Tradition said it was collected by Hopestill Foster on the Dorchester shore in 1773.

The state chapter loaned that box to the national organization’s museum in Washington, D.C. In 2006, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported that this tea chest was the most famous item in the museum’s Massachusetts Room, itself a replica of the Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington.

In Treasure Chests: The Legacy of Extraordinary Boxes (2003), Lon Schleining reported that the Foster chest was “quite small, about a foot high and wide by about a foot and a half long, made of 1/2-in.-thick wood and painted with red and black Oriental scenes.” He added, “Even full of tea, one of these chests would have weighed only a few pounds.”

In fact, the East India Company’s list of lost inventory, reproduced back here and analyzed by Charles Bahne, shows that full chests of Bohea tea “contained an average of 353 pounds per chest.” They were lined with lead and built to survive long sea voyages.

Bahne noted that the cargo also included four higher-priced grades of tea shipped in “quarter chests,” and those averaged between 68 and 86 pounds of tea.

Dan Du’s doctoral thesis, “This World in a Teacup: Chinese-American Tea Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” quotes another period source:

During the adventure to Canton in 1791, Jonathan Donnison, Captain of American ship General Washington, detailed the measuring of the tea chests for Hyson, Hyson [Skin], Bohea, and Souchong teas in his account book.

That account book is now in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum. It shows a half chest of Bohea tea was nearly three feet long, two feet wide, and over a foot tall. Chests of more expensive Hyson and Souchong teas were closer to the dimensions of the Foster family chest, but still larger.

Most important, the chests that the East India Company shipped to America were utilitarian containers meant to go to tea wholesalers. They were not decorative household objects like the Foster family chest. Which, incidentally, shows no signs of having been hatcheted or left soaking in saltwater for hours.

Interestingly, a 2013 issue of South Boston Today reports a completely different story of Hopestill Foster’s family and the tea destruction:

the Widow Foster became famous during the Boston Tea Party. While it seems far away today, in 1770 it was ocean from First Street to the British tea ships at anchor. When the “Indians” dumped the tea, at least one chest floated to the area around F Street. A workman on the Foster estate dragged the chest to a barn, lit a fire and tried to dry it. Widow Foster discovered him and made him burn the tea, chest and all.

(The Tea Party was, of course, in 1773.)

[ADDENDUM: As the comment from Patrick Sheary below reports, the museum has concluded that this chest dates from after the Boston Tea Party, and it’s no longer on display in the Massachusetts Room. Older sources still mention it as a Tea Party relic, but the latest study is more exact.]

“Irritated by this obstacle, it broke the stove”

The Philadelphia Packet newspaper ran two long reports on the 27 Mar 1782 lightning strike on the Philadelphia house that the French diplomat De la Luzerne had rented, as I mentioned yesterday.

According to George Grieve, writing in a footnote to his 1796 translation of the Marquis de Chastellux’s Travels in North-America, “Mr. Arthur Lee, and Dr. [Benjamin] Rush, thought proper to publish a very long and curious account of” the calamity.

The newspaper articles are probably that account since there doesn’t seem to be any other candidate. Those articles also might show the signs of dual authorship with shifting tenses and sentence structures.

Both Lee and Rush had medical training, though only Rush was still a practicing physician. Lee (shown here) had spent most of the war in Europe as one of the Continental Congress’s diplomats, feuding with all the others. After he came back to Virginia, that state sent him to the Congress in 1782. Rush had left the Congress in 1778 but continued to be politically active in Philadelphia.

The 2 April Packet installment was an extremely detailed description of how the thunderstorm damaged the house:

The lightning struck it in three different places. The principal explosion was on the west side of the house. The chimney of monsieur le chevalier de la Luzerne was thrown down to the roof, and the bricks scattered to a great distance; the lightning descended down the chimney, attracted by a stove that stopped up the fire-place: irritated by this obstacle, it broke the stove in pieces, demolished entirely the mantle piece, split the funnel of the chimney, threw down and broke all the wainscotting near it, dispersed the bricks to the other end of the room, and cast pieces of the stove to the distance of ten or twelve feet, broke the furniture and glass, and the chamber was found covered with rubbish.

The electric matter appears to have scattered, by traces left on the wall at the front of the house, in returning upwards towards the roof, where the lead of the gutters attracted it without doubt. The same explosion which struck the chimney followed the course of the gutters and descended by a leaden pipe, the end of which terminated on the outside of the wall of the bedchamber of the chevalier: attracted by an iron bedstead in the chamber, it penetrated the wall and tore two bricks out of it, leaving a long black trace on the wall and collected by the iron bedstead set the curtains and bedcloaths on fire; it has started the flooring and made its way into the dining room, underneath this chamber, by a breach in the ceiling of the dining room of about six feet long and two feet broad; gliding along the wainscoting has fallen upon the window-leads and hinges of the shutters, which were all torn off, and has cast the window shutters to the other side of the room; split in several places a mahogany buffet and broke all the china within: the chairs were all broken by the force of the commotion, after which it passed out at a window of the court, without any other consequences.

The lightning struck also the eastern side of the house…

And so on. The electricity “broke a china jug of milk, and reduced the milk to smoke.” It “went off in an iron cilender full of live coals, placed in the middle of a tray of water: it dispersed the coal in all directions.” And “there is scarcely a nail but what has been removed by the shock upon the house.”

There were actually people inside the house at the time to witness the damage.

Two persons who were in [De la Luzerne’s bed-chamber] saw the [iron] bedposts dart abundance of flashes of fire in the midst of a thick black smoke, which had a sulphurous smell; it has torn up all the flooring under the bedstead, and has opened a large passage into a parlour on the ground floor, by breaking away the intermediate boards, and removing joices four inches thick.

Only a couple of sentences within that scientific report stated that a person had been injured:

Unfortunately a French officer was near this window; the shock threw him into a swoon on a chair, and set fire to his cloaths. He was alone, and no one coming to his assistance for some minutes, he was terribly and dangerously burnt; his clothes were almost wholly consumed about him.

That French officer, unnamed in this account, was Lt. Albert Rémy de Meaux.

TOMORROW: The lieutenant’s injuries.

At the French Ministry in Philadelphia

Here’s a story I’ve been intermittently digging into since 2013, when a chance tweet about it from the author William Hogeland intrigued me. That’s a long time ago, and it feels like even longer.

Albert Rémy de Meaux was born in Vitry-le-François, in the French province of Champagne, on 11 May 1753. In July 1769 he entered artillery school, and a year later became a lieutenant in the Auxonne Artillery.

In 1778, after the French government decided to help the new nation irk Great Britain, it sent guns and money; a diplomatic minister, Conrad Alexandre Gérard de Rayneval (1729–1790); and a naval fleet under Adm. Charles Henri Hector, count d’Estaing (1729–1794).

The next year, France upped its stake by sending a more prestigious minister, the chevalier de la Luzerne (1741–1791, shown here). And the year after that, it dispatched an Expédition Particulière—a special expedition containing a significant number of soldiers (by North American standards) under Gen. Rochambeau.

Lt. De Meaux was part of Rochambeau’s army and thus probably saw action at Yorktown at the end of 1781. He appears to have sustained some sort of wound or injury early the next year and needed to convalesce.

For that the lieutenant was given a berth in the large home that De la Luzerne had rented in the American capital of Philadelphia. The 2 Apr 1782 Philadelphia Packet reported, “This building stands alone, at a considerable distance from any other, at the western extremity of the city.” In her diary Elizabeth Drinker described it as located “up Chestnut St.”

On 27 March, during “a considerable shower of rain,” that house was struck by lighting—“in three different places,” said a detailed report in the Packet.

De la Luzerne had taken to sleeping in an iron bed. According to George Grieve, writing a couple of decades later, this was “by way of security from the bugs.” The lightning went through the bed and “set the curtains and bedcloaths on fire.”

Fortunately for the minister, he was away in Virginia consulting with the army. Rochambeau wrote to the French minister of war from Williamsburg on 14 April:

It was lucky for him that M. de Luzerne has been paying us a visit. Had he remained in Philadelphia it is probable he would have been killed by the lightning flash which fell upon his house, where, as a result, his bed and everything else was destroyed by fire.

Not everything about the Philadelphia house was destroyed, but a great many things were badly hurt. And that included the unlucky Lt. De Meaux.

TOMORROW: “The electric matter appears to have scattered.”

(My thanks to Dr. Robert A. Selig for his help in identifying Lt. Albert Rémy de Meaux.)

Quilts and Bed Covers to View in Old Lyme

Here’s a fragment of a quilted petticoat from the mid-1700s that shows a ship under sail.

This handsome fabric art, belonging to the D.A.R. Museum, is now on display in an exhibit at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut: “New London County Quilts & Bed Covers, 1750‒1825.”

Curated by Lynne Z. Bassett,  this museum show “examines the artistic excellence of these pieces within the context of design inspiration drawn from an array of transatlantic sources and explores the question of how the county fostered such exceptional work.” There’s a preview of the variety of quilts and covers on display on the museum website.

There’s also a stellar series of historical talks connected with the exhibit:

• Lynne Z. Bassett, online lecture on “Something in the Water: Quilts & Bed Rugs in New London County, 1750–1825,” 24 February, 2:00 P.M.
• Bassett, gallery talk on “Petticoats in New London County, 1750–1825,” 16 March, 11:00 A.M.
• Camille Breeze, virtual presentation on “Under the Covers: Conservation of New England Bed Rugs,” 23 March, 11:00 A.M.
• Linda Baumgarten, online lecture on “Wearing Quilts: Regionalism in Quilted Petticoats,” 8 April, 3:00 P.M.
• Bassett, gallery talk on “Bed Rugs from New London County, 1750–1825,” 13 April, 11:00 A.M.
• Marla R. Miller, online lecture on “Hidden Hands: Labor and Leisure in Early American Needlework,” 15 April, 3:00 P.M.
• Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, online lecture on “‘The Second Scene of Mortality’: Courtship and Sexual Danger in Revolutionary Connecticut,” 22 April, 3:00 P.M.
• Susan P. Schoelwer, online lecture on “Stitching Women’s Stories: New London County Needlework Traditions and Family Connections,” 29 April, 3:00 P.M.

The gallery talks are free with museum admission. The online events are $10, with a discount for registered museum members.

New Elements Found in Lavoisier Painting

The Metropolitan Museum of Art just announced some interesting findings about Jacques Louis David’s portrait of Antoine and Marie Anne Lavoisier, which has been in its collection since 1977.

While working on the canvas, conservator Dorothy Mahon saw dots of red showing through in some unexpected spots while cracks in the red tablecloth on the right hinted at a pattern underneath.

Museum technicians collected images of the canvas using various technology: infrared reflectography, macro X-ray fluorescence mapping, and so on. That allowed them to identify where certain elements were present in the paint—most appropriate since Antoine Lavoisier gets top credit for starting the process of identifying the chemical elements.

One finding is that David originally painted Anne Lavoisier in a large, high-crowned hat of a sort fashionable in “the late summer and fall of 1787,” as the Met reported. However, by the time the couple paid for their portrait in December 1788, that style was literally old hat. David repainted the lady in powdered hair or a wig only.

The painter made another big change on the right, where a red cloth now covers a surface holding chemical apparatus. The painting originally showed an expensive wooden table bearing a classical decoration. Behind it was a bookcase full of bound volumes. For the final version, David painted over the bookcase and covered the table with a solid red cloth. Then he devoted that space to glass and bronze scientific instruments.

Thus, as originally composed, the picture showed at Lavoisiers at a luxurious table working on papers with records behind them. Those could have been documents related to Antoine’s job collecting taxes. Anne was up to date in fashion—which meant soon out of date.

By removing the hat and adding scientific tools, David shifted the picture’s emphasis to the Lavoisiers’ intimate partnership and scientific research, which is what we remember them for today.

The scientists involved in this analysis just published their work in Heritage Science. The Met summarized its staff’s findings in “Refashioning the Lavoisiers.” Hyperallergenic offers a slider image for comparing the finished painting to what’s under its surface.

TOMORROW: Mme. Lavoisier’s American connection.

“A respectable and well-known Officer”

For Thomas Seward, his military service in the Continental artillery, rising from lieutenant to brevet major over eight years, remained an important part of his identity after the war.

Seward was an original member of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati and served on its standing committee in the 1790s.

Like a lot of networked Continental Army officers, he eventually accepted a job in the federal government, becoming an officer of the United States Customs in Boston in 1796.

When Alexander Hamilton was vetting officers for the “Quasi-War” with France in 1798, Henry Knox apparently told him that Seward was “advanced in years & corpulent,” and would be best as a “Garrison Capt” rather than in the field, but there were “few better Officers.”

Thomas Seward’s namesake son, a merchant captain, married in 1799. The following year, the major’s wife, Sarah, died in March.

On 28 Nov 1800 the Massachusetts Mercury reported in its Deaths section:

Yesterday, Major Thomas Steward, aged 60. A respectable and well-known Officer in the revolutionary army of the United States. His funeral will be from his late dwelling at the bottom of Middle-street, near Winnisimet-Ferry, this afternoon, which his relations and friends are requested to attended, without further invitation.

[pointing hand] The Members of the Cincinnati are respectfully requested to attend the funeral.

The next day’s Jeffersonian Constitutional Telegraph repeated the sentence describing Seward as a “respectable and well-known Officer” and added a new line: “A firm and determined Republican.” The major had taken sides in the nation’s political divide.

Seward died without a will, so probate judge George R. Minot appointed his late wife’s sister Abigail Brett to work out the estate. The inventory she filed shows that Seward owned many artifacts of gentility: a silver watch, a Bible and seventeen other books, an angling rod, two canaries in a cage, a $35 desk, $100 worth of wearing apparel. The house contained twenty pictures of various sizes, including two of “Bounaparte & Lady”—reflecting early Republican admiration for France.

That inventory also confirms that Seward owned a pew in the Rev. John Murray’s Universalist meetinghouse. At some point he had moved from an orthodox Congregationalist meeting to this liberal new sect. Among other converts to Universalism was Col. Richard Gridley, the artillery officer Seward had served under back in 1775.

TOMORROW: Why we remember Thomas Seward.