“Capt. Potter answered that he would share none”

Rhode Island actually began its military build-up back in December 1774, as detailed in a letter from former governor Samuel Ward that I quoted back here.

At that time the colony appointed its first ever major general: Simeon Potter (1720–1806).

Potter was a militia colonel, representative of the town of Bristol in the colonial assembly, and veteran privateer captain.

Indeed, Potter had already helped to lead one attack on the British military: while several fellow merchants supported the assault on H.M.S. Gaspee in 1772, he actually commanded one of the boats.

Now in fact, Potter’s most successful privateering haul came in 1744 not from attacking enemy ships but from raiding a poorly defended settlement in French Guyana that hadn’t even heard the empires were at war.

According to one of his captives, he sailed away with:

seven Indians and three negroes [none previously enslaved], twenty large spoons or ladles, nine large ladles, one gold and one silver hilted sword, one gold and one silver watch, two bags of money, quantity uncertain; chests and trunks of goods, etc., gold rings, buckles and buttons, silver candlesticks, church plate both gold and silver, swords, four cannon, sixty small arms, ammunition, provisions, etc.

Father Elzéar Fauque reported that the looting included “tearing off the locks and the hinges of the doors, particularly those which were made of brass,” before burning everything to the ground.

Potter’s lieutenant Daniel Vaughan testified in 1746 that at Suriname

Capt. Potter put a Quantity of sd. Merchandize up at Vendue on board a Vessel in the Harbour and purchased the most of them himself and ship’t them to Rhode Island on his own account; then said Sloop Sailed for Barbadoes on wch. passage the men demanded that Capt. Potter would Share the Money taken, according to the Articles, to which Capt. Potter answered that he would share none until his Return for all the Men were indebted to the Owners more than that amounted to and Swore at and Damn’d them threatning them with his drawn sword at their Breasts, which Treatment Obliged the Men to hold their Peace and when said Sloop arrived at Barbadoes Capt. Potter without consulting the Men put part of the afore mentioned Effects into the Hands of Mr. Charles Bolton and kept the other part in his own Hands and Supply’d the Men only with Rum and Sugar for their own drinking, and further this Deponent saith that Capt. Potter refusing to let the men have their Shares and his Ill Treatment of them by beating them occasioned about twenty-four to leave the Vessel whose Shares Capt. Potter retained in his Hands

Simeon Potter came home to Bristol a rich man. A few years later, in 1747, the peninsula that contained that town was shifted from Massachusetts to Rhode Island, making Potter one of the richest men in the small colony.

Potter launched various maritime businesses: a ropewalk, a distillery, a wharf, a store, and so on. He invested in slaving voyages to Africa. By the 1770s he owned more enslaved people than anyone else in Bristol. According to a nephew, Potter declared, “I would plow the ocean into pea-porridge to make money.”

In those years, Potter’s neighbors recognized his status by electing him to the legislature and to militia commands, and he was happy with the power.

TOMORROW: A fighting man.

“A Fire broke out on board the fine large Store-Ship”

While looking at the diary of Thomas Newell this spring, I was struck by this dramatic entry for 29 May 1773, 252 years ago today:

King’s store-ship burnt in this harbor. The inhabitants greatly surprised, fearing there was a great quantity of gunpowder on board. Thousands retired to the back part of the town, and over to Charlestown, &c.; but no powder happened to be on board.

John Rowe mentioned the same event in his diary, but he was out of town fishing during the panic, so his entry doesn’t preserve the same excitement.

For more detail I turned to the newspapers. Here’s the straightforward report in the 3 June Boston News-Letter:

at Noon, a Fire broke out on board the fine large Store-Ship, (which had been laying in this Harbour for several Months past commanded by Capt. [John] Walker, having Stores for the Navy) which soon communicated to the Masts, Rigging and Turpentine on the Deck, and before any Assistance came, her upper Works were almost wholly in a Blaze; so that little or no Attempt was made to extinguish it:—

The Boats from the Men of War, with some from the Town, towed the Ship over to Noddle’s Island, where, after scuttling her, she was left to burn to the Water’s Edge.—

The Fire, it is said, was occasioned by some Coals falling from the Hearth of the Cabouse on to the Deck, which had lately been pay’d over with Turpentine, and spread with such Rapidity that nothing could be taken out of her:—

The Captain, with his Wife and two Children, who usually kept on board, likewise a Boy (the other People belonging to her being ashore) were obliged to be taken out of the Cabin Windows, without being able to save the least Thing but what they had on:—

A report prevailing at the Time of the Fire, that a large Quantity of Powder was on board, put the Inhabitants in general into great Consternation, for fear of the Consequences that might arise from an Explosion thereof; but being afterwards assured that none was in her, they became perfectly easy, and the Hills and Wharfs were covered with Spectators to view so uncommon a Sight.

Some of the Stores in the Hold, such as Cordage, Cables, and Anchors, which were under Water before the Fire could reach them, will be saved.

A “caboose” was originally a ship’s galley, Merriam-Webster says. Advertisements from eighteenth-century America indicate a “caboose” could be sold separately from a ship, and in 1768 New York a man named Thomas Hempsted was killed by “the Caboose falling on him” as a ship keeled over. So I suspect it also meant the stove and other cooking equipment designed for a ship but not necessarily installed in a dedicated cabin.

The first documented use of the word “caboose” in English was in 1732, and Samuel Johnson didn’t include it in his 1755 dictionary. But everyone reading the Boston newspapers was expected to know what that meant.

TOMORROW: The conspiracy theories.

“Verging fast towards its Last Period in this Stage of Existence”

In 1792, Philip Mortimer, having turned eighty, drew up his will.

In doing so, Mortimer appears to have aimed to preserve his good name in Middletown, Connecticut, in three ways:

• He bequeathed land and money to the city to build a granary and to stock it with two thousand pounds of grains. He also left land for a cemetery; Middletown still has a Mortimer cemetery.
• He promised freedom to all the people he held in bondage, under various conditions, in tune with Connecticut’s general turn against slavery (but not yet).
• He left his mansion, ropewalk, and other property to Philip Mortimer Starr on the condition that that boy—then nine years old—legally take the surname of Mortimer when he came of age.

Little Philip was Mortimer’s great-nephew, son of his niece Ann and her husband George Starr. Mortimer and his wife had had no children of their own, so he had brought that niece over from Ireland. The Starrs had named their children Martha Mortimer Starr and Philip Mortimer Starr after her benefactors.

In the will Mortimer wrote of having adopted both Ann and young Philip. In his study of Prince Mortimer, A Century in Captivity, Denis R. Caron made much of how Mortimer had never formally adopted those relatives. But such arrangements weren’t so formal in the eighteenth century as more recent law demands.

Caron also interpreted Philip Mortimer’s will as expressing hostility toward George Starr since it didn’t leave his estate to Ann (and thus to her husband as well) but merely let them use it until their son was old enough to inherit. But to me it looks like Philip Mortimer’s driving motivation was to give that boy the maximum incentive to carry on the Mortimer name. And there were plenty of precedents for that sort of bequest.

According to the legal analysis of the will, if young Philip didn’t take steps to become a Mortimer, then the estate would go to a son of his older sister (then only fifteen) as long as that youth would change his surname. And if the family still didn’t come up with a boy willing to carry on the name Mortimer, then everything would go to the Episcopal church.

As for the enslaved workers, Mortimer tailored his grants to each family unit:

• Bristol and Tamer: freedom for Bristol (no emancipation mentioned for Tamer, so she might already have been free) and the use of their “Garden Spot and House thereon as it is now fenced” for the rest of their lives, after which the land would revert to the estate.
• Hagar and her daughter: freedom plus £5 to “buy her Mourning” for his funeral.
• Jack and Sophy, and their three sons: freedom and use of “one and three-quarters Acres Land” during their lives, after which that land would be divided equally among their sons Lester, Dick, and John, all still under age fourteen. Those boys were to be “kept to School until they arrive at the age of Fourteen Years then put to Apprentice by my Executors, the two Eldest to be put to House Joiners until they arrive to the Age of Twenty-one Years and then give them their Freedom.”
• Amarillas and her children: freedom and “one Rood Land,” probably a quarter-acre.
• Silvy: freedom.
• Peg: freedom when she turned twenty-six; until then she was supposed to work for Elihu Starr, one of the executors.
• Peter and Prince, ropemakers: freedom in three years, but until then “both be kept at spinning” and “to live with and serve Capt. George Starr.”

Back in February 1790, George Starr had advertised in the local Middlesex Gazette asking people to settle their debts since he “purposes to carry on the Rope-Making Business one Year more.” But he decided to stay in the business. Receiving three years of free labor from two experienced ropemakers would be a windfall.

TOMORROW: Legalities.

Independence and Enslavement in Middletown

At the end of the Revolutionary War, lots of things changed in Middletown, Connecticut.

In 1784, Hugh White left that town to start surveying an area of upstate New York that would become Whitestown. Relatives and neighbors would follow. The central part of that area would take the name Whitesboro and for a long time have an unfortunate town seal.

Other Middletown residents also moved west to lands made available by the U.S. victory over Britain and its Native allies. Retired general Samuel Holden Parsons became a director of the Ohio Land Company. He traveled to western Pennsylvania in November 1789 and drowned while canoeing.

There were also legal changes at home. The area around the Connecticut River port, where the merchants and ship-builders lived, incorporated itself as a city in 1784. Instead of a town meeting with nearly every farmer eligible to vote, the city of Middletown had a mayor, four aldermen, and ten “common-council-men” chosen from the upper class.

The first set of aldermen included two former generals—Comfort Sage and the ill-fated Parsons—plus Col. Matthew Talcott and, for old times’ sake, former militia captain Philip Mortimer.

Among the first common-council-men was the husband of Mortimer’s favored niece, George Starr, as well as Col. Return Jonathan Meigs.

Also in 1784, the state of Connecticut passed a Gradual Emancipation Act—so gradual that it didn’t actually emancipate anybody for another twenty-five years. Children born into slavery after 1 Mar 1784 would become free on their twenty-fifth birthdays.

The 1790 U.S. Census counted 2,648 people enslaved in Connecticut, alongside 2,771 free blacks. The person who owned the most other people in the state—eleven by official count—was Philip Mortimer.

Back in Boston, as we know from newspaper advertisements, Mortimer employed at least one Irish teenager at ropemaking in 1738, and he imported young indentured servants from Ireland in 1740 and 1741. Maybe he enslaved Africans then, too, but he was doing so in a big way (by New England standards) in 1790.

That number grew to seventeen by July 1792. Mortimer then listed the people working for him for free as:

• Bristol, married to Tamer
• Hagar and her daughter
• Jack, Sophy, and Sophy’s sons Lester, Dick, and John, all under age fourteen
• Amarillas and her children
• Silvy
• Peg, still under the age of twenty-six
• Peter and Prince

That first census also found that Mortimer was the only white person on his estate, the biggest in Middletown. Most of the people he claimed as property must have been his household and farm help. But Peter and Prince worked at his ropewalk as spinners.

TOMORROW: Freedom, but not yet.

Philip Mortimer, from Waterford to Boston to Middletown

The Mortimer brothers arrived in Boston from Waterford, Ireland, in the early 1700s. They appear to have come with a bit of money since they quickly set themselves up in businesses.

James Mortimer (c. 1704–1773) was a tallow chandler. On 16 Aug 1741 at King’s Chapel he married another arrival from Waterford: Hannah Alderchurch, twelve years his senior.

James Mortimer advertised “Good Dipp’d Tallow CANDLES” and “the best of IRISH BUTTER by the Firkin” from his shop near Clark’s Wharf, later Hancock’s Wharf. He prospered enough that by the 1760s he owned at least one enslaved worker, named Yarrow, and Apple Island in Boston harbor.

Peter Mortimer (c. 1715–1773) was a ship’s captain.

The middle of these three brothers, Philip Mortimer (c. 1710–1794), was a ropemaker. He married Martha Blin (1716–1773) on 14 Nov 1742, also at King’s Chapel. Though she was said to be “of Boston,” she came from a Wethersfield, Connecticut, family.

Philip Mortimer had a higher profile than his brothers. He was in Boston by 1735, when he witnessed a deed. Two years later, he was one of the founders of the Charitable Irish Society. On 17 Oct 1738 Philip Mortimer shared an advertisement with two other ropemakers, each seeking the return of a teen-aged indentured servant.

On 11 Aug 1740, the Boston Gazette carried this notice:

Just Imported and to be Sold by Edward Alderchurch and Philip Mortimer, on board the Schooner Two Friends, Thomas Carnell Master, now lying at the Long Wharfe near the upper Crane, Choice Welch Coal, a Parcel of likely Boys and Girls; good Rice, Virginia Pork, good Cordage, Cod-Lines and Twine, all at a very reasonable Rate, for ready Money.

A year later a similar ad appeared in the Boston Evening-Post, this one adding that the “likely Boys and Girls” were “fit for Town or Country; the Girls can spin fine Thread, and do any sort of Houshold Work.” They were evidently more indentured youths from Ireland.

By 1749, according to the American-Irish Historical Society’s Recorder in 1901, Philip and Martha Mortimer had moved from Boston to Middletown, Connecticut. As the name implies, that was an inland town, halfway between the towns of Hartford and Wethersfield and the Connecticut River’s mouth at Saybrook. Nonetheless, Middletown had small shipyards, and Philip Mortimer saw the potential to build a ropewalk running perpendicular off the main street.

Mortimer quickly became a big fish in that small pond: town official, militia captain, Anglican church warden, Freemason. He owned the grandest house in town, shown above.

Eventually Philip Mortimer also owned an enslaved rope spinner named Prince. If the man later known as Prince Mortimer was indeed born in 1724, as calculated from his reported age when he died, and brought to Connecticut as a child, then he was in his late twenties and had been worked in Middletown for almost two decades before Philip Mortimer arrived. On the other hand, if Prince Mortimer was born later, then he could have arrived at the ropewalk as a child or teenager, fresh from being kidnapped and transported across the Atlantic, and immediately put into training to make rope.

COMING UP: Deaths and marriages.

“There is one Soldier a Coming, knock him down”

Here’s another piece of testimony about the spillover brawls on 3 March.

John Rodgers was a private in His Majesty’s 29th Regiment of Foot. In July 1770 he testified to a magistrate in New Jersey about the fight, signing his deposition with a mark.

According to Rodgers:

on the Third of March Last as he was walking From the Grenadier Barracks, to General [John] Pomeroys, Barracks opposite to the Rope Walks, There was four or five Men standing together one of whom said, there is one Soldier a Coming, knock him down, upon which Joseph Shed, an Inhabitant and two more Men Came out of a House Opposite the Rope walk’s with Faulchins in their Hands & Knock’d this Deponent Down, Fractur’d his Scull, & Broke his Arm, without any the least provocation and one of the Same Men cryed out, Damn him Kill him,

this Deponent knowing he should get no Redress, made no further Complaint,

“Faulchins” appears to mean “falchions,” which were either curved swords, like scimitars, or billhooks, the non-lethal weapon that Boston watchmen sometimes carried. Either way, Rodgers blamed locals for an unprovoked violence.

The assailant Rodgers identified was Joseph Shed (1738–1812), a carpenter whose name doesn’t otherwise come up in the record of the Boston Massacre. However, in the earliest published list of men involved in the Boston Tea Party from 1835, the second name is Joseph Shed. After the war he was a prosperous grocer in Boston said (by his family) to be close to Gov. John Hancock. Pvt. Rodgers’s deposition appears to be the first document to tie Shed to the resistance against the Crown.

Was Rodgers involved in the confrontation described by Archibald McNeal (as I quoted yesterday)? McNeal was quite clear that three grenadiers came to his father’s ropewalk looking for a fight, though the actual violence might have been short-lived. In that case, Rodgers’s description was misleading.

But perhaps Rodgers was unlucky enough to walk through the same neighborhood after that fight, without companions or bludgeons, and thus became prey to Shed and his friends seeking revenge.

Or perhaps the confrontation Rodgers described took place earlier in the day, and the three grenadiers went to the ropewalk neighborhood looking for revenge on Shed and company but couldn’t find them, so they threatened young McNeal.

According to Rodgers, he made it back to his barracks with a fractured skull and a broken arm, yet didn’t lodge any complaint. Surely injuries that extensive would have mattered to his officers? Did he exaggerate his pains for Crown officials months later and hundreds of miles away, when there might pressure to do so and little fear of contradiction?

I don’t think we can answer those questions definitely, but these two accounts of the fight on 3 Mar 1770 show how the stupid argument that started between two men, ropemaker William Green and Pvt. Patrick Walker, kept sucking in more people.

TOMORROW: Naming names.

Back to the Ropewalks

In 2020 I presented five men’s perspectives on the fight between soldiers and ropemakers at John Gray’s ropewalk on 2 Mar 1770.

The next day, there was another, smaller fight as a follow-up. So here’s another, smaller post about that fight.

Revolutionary Boston contained more than one man named Archibald McNeil or McNeal. One was a baker who became a Loyalist. Another owned a ropewalk. A third was the second man’s son, a second-generation ropemaker born in 1750, thus not of legal age when the king’s regiments came to town.

Nonetheless, the younger Archibald had learned most of the art and mystery of ropemaking, and he was the boss’s son and heir, so he probably wielded some authority in the shop. Here’s how he described the events of 3 March:

Archibald McNeil, jun. of lawful age, testifies and says, that on Saturday the third instant, about half an hour after four in the afternoon, the deponent with two apprentices were spinning at the lower end of Mr. McNeil’s ropewalk, three stout grenadiers, armed with bludgeons, came to them, and addressing the deponent said, You damn’d dogs, don't you deserve to be kill’d? Are you fit to die?

The deponent and company being quite unarmed gave no answer. James Bayley, a seafaring young man, coming up, said to the deponent, &c. Why did you not answer?

One of the grenadiers, named Dixson, hearing him, came up to Bayley and asked him if he was minded to vindicate the cause?

Bayley also unarmed did not answer till James Young came up, who, tho’ equally naked [i.e., weaponless], said to the grenadier, Damn it, I know what a soldier is.

That grenadier stood still, and the other who had threatened the deponent came up and struck at him, which Young fended off with his arms, and then turning aimed a blow at the deponent, which had it reached might probably have been fatal.

Patrick ——, Mr. Winter Calef’s journeyman, seeing the affray, went into the tan-house, and bringing out two batts gave one to a bystander, who together with Patrick soon cleared the walk of them

“James Bayley, a seafaring young man,” was the sailor named James Bailey who testified at length at the soldiers’ trial about what he saw at the Massacre two days later. At the end of that testimony he added that he’d seen defendant John Carroll “at the Rope walks in the affray there, a few days before the 5th March”—which of course confirms Bailey was there, too.

Ebenezer Winter Calef (b. 1729) was a tanner in Boston. He and his brother Joseph had lost a lot of property in the great fire of 1760, and a family history credits Winter Calef, a bachelor and thus apparently able to devote all his energies to business, with maintaining the family fortunes. (Joseph’s son, also named Ebenezer Winter Calef, became an officer in the Continental Navy.)

I wondered if Patrick, “Calef’s journeyman,” might be Patrick Carr, the leather breeches–maker fatally wounded at the Massacre, but he worked for John Field.

TOMORROW: More fighting on that Saturday.

Why Was Samuel Emmons Called to Testify?

On 28 Nov 1770, the attorneys prosecuting eight soldiers for the Boston Massacre called Samuel Emmons to the witness stand.

According to defense counsel John Adams’s notes on the trial, Emmons’s testimony consisted entirely of:

I dont know any of the Prisoners. Nor anything.

Prosecutor Robert Treat Paine wrote Emmons’s name in his notes and then crossed it out. The published record of the trial, prepared from John Hodgson’s shorthand notes, didn’t mention Emmons at all.

Hiller B. Zobel’s The Boston Massacre quotes Emmons as adding, “I was not in King Street. My brother was.” However, those words don’t appear in the many documents transcribed in The Legal Papers of John Adams, co-edited by Zobel. I don’t see an Emmons brother among the other witnesses.

So why was Samuel Emmons on the witness list?

I think the answer appears in the 1 Jan 1764 Boston News-Letter, where Emmons advertised:

TAR-WATER,
MADE of Genuine Tar, to be sold by Samuel Emmons, Ropemaker, in Milk-Street, nigh the Foot of the Rope-Walks.

Bishop George Berkeley and other authorities promoted water infused with tar as a medicine. Tar was also used in preparing ropes for use on ships, so a ropemaker might well have a supply around. Emmons’s advertisement put him in the part of central Boston where John Gray’s ropewalk stood.

Thus, Emmons was almost certainly a witness to the big brawls between ropemakers and soldiers on 1 and 2 March, one of the events that raised tensions before the Massacre. Three of the soldiers on trial—Mathew Kilroy, William Warren, and John Carroll—were involved in those fights, as was victim Samuel Gray.

It looks like the prosecutors put Samuel Emmons on their list of possible witnesses as part of a plan to make the ropewalk fight a significant part of their case, just as it played a big role in the town’s Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre. Later on 28 November they called ropemaker Nicholas Feriter to the stand; he described being involved in the fight and seeing Kilroy and Warren on the other side.

In a modern trial, those prosecutors would have learned more about what Samuel Emmons did and didn’t have to say before calling him to the stand. But Samuel Quincy and Paine didn’t have the time and personnel that modern prosecutors command. Who knows what the jury made of his remark?

More about Samuel Emmons appears in Robert Love’s Warnings, by Cornelia H. Dayton and Sharon V. Salinger. In 1753 he married Rachel Love, daughter of town employee Robert Love. They had their children baptized in the West Meetinghouse. In the 1780s Samuel became disabled because of “several touches of the Palsey,” and Rachel supported the family by keeping a small shop with a liquor license.

Looking for Trouble, Even on the Sabbath

Among the men who brawled at John Gray’s ropewalk on 2 Mar 1770 were a young ropemaker named Samuel Gray (no known relation) and Pvts. William Warren and Mathew Kilroy of the 29th Regiment.

The next day, there were more fights in Boston. Some redcoats from the 29th, including Pvt. John Carroll, went back into Gray’s ropewalk and challenged the men working there, along with sailor James Bailey. Then there was another brawl, with one private reportedly badly injured.

Town watch captain Benjamin Burdick also had a run-in with soldiers on Saturday:

A young man that boarded with me, and was at the Rope-Walks, told me several of them had a spite at him, and that he believed he was in danger. I had seen two soldiers about my house, I saw one of them hearkening at the window, I saw him again near the house, and asked him what he was after;

he said he was pumping ship:

(“Pumping ship” was slang for urinating. This may have been a reference to William Green’s rude joke the day before about cleaning an outhouse. Then again, the soldier might have been urinating.)

Was it not you, says I, that was hearkening at my window last night?

what if it was, he said, I told him to march off, and he damned me, and I beat him till he had enough of it, and he then went off.

That incident made Burdick, and even more so his wife, decide that he should carry a Highland broadsword when he went out on duty.

Sunday was a day of rest in Boston, of course. Yet more military men visited Gray’s ropewalks then, 250 years ago today. But this delegation was at a higher level, as owner John Gray testified:

At Sabbath noon I was surprised at hearing that Col. [Maurice] Carr [of the 29th] and his officers had entered my rope-walk, opened the windows, doors, &c, giving out that they were searching for a dead sergeant of their regiment; this put me upon immediately waiting upon Col. [William] Dalrymple [of the 14th, senior army officer in Boston, pictured above after retirement], to whom I related what I understood had passed at the rope-walk days before.

He replied it was much the same as he had heard from his people; but says he, “your man was the aggressor in affronting one of my people, by asking him if he wanted to work, and then telling him to clean his little-house.”

For this expression I dismissed my journeyman on the Monday morning following; and further said, I would do all in my power to prevent my people’s giving them any affront in future.

He then assured me, he had and should do everything in his power to keep his soldiers in order, and prevent their any more entering my inclosure.

Presently after, Col. Carr came in, and asked Col. Dalrymple what they should do, for they were daily losing their men; that three of his grenadiers passing quietly by the rope-walks were greatly abused, and one of them so much beat that he would die.

He then said he had been searching for a sergeant who had been murdered; upon which, I said, Yes, Colonel, I hear you have been searching for him in my rope-walks; and asked him, whether that sergeant had been in the affray there on the Friday; he replied, no: for he was seen on the Saturday. I then asked him, how he could think of looking for him in my walks; and that had he applied to me, I would have waited on him, and opened every apartment I had for his satisfaction.

These gentlemen in the military and in business were trying to keep the peace, but also sought to protect the interests of their operations.

The 12 March Boston Gazette added detail, perhaps even reliable, to the story of the missing sergeant:

Divers stories were propagated among the soldiery that served to agitate their spirits; particularly on the Sabbath that one Chambers, a sergeant, represented as a sober man, had been missing the preceding day and must therefore have been murdered by the townsmen. An officer of distinction so far credited this report that he entered Mr. Gray’s rope-walk that Sabbath; and when required of by that gentleman as soon as he could meet him, the occasion of his so doing, the officer replied that it was to look if the sergeant said to be murdered had not been hid there.

This sober sergeant was found on the Monday unhurt in a house of pleasure.

On the day of rest there were no more brawls, but rumors flew among the townspeople that soldiers were plotting revenge on Monday. Oddly enough, rumors spread among the soldiers that townspeople were plotting revenge on Monday.

COMING UP: Another glimpse of Sergeant Chambers. But first…

Five Ways of Looking at a Brawl

Here are five men’s perspectives on what happened outside John Gray’s ropewalk in central Boston on Friday, 2 Mar 1770, 250 years ago today.

Samuel Bostwick, ropemaker:

between 10 and 11 o’clock in the forenoon, three soldiers of the 29th regiment, came up Mr. Gray’s ropewalk, and William Green, one of the hands, spoke to one of them, saying, Soldier, will you work?

The soldier replied, Yes.

Green said, then go and clean my s--t-house.

The soldier swore by the Holy Ghost that he would have recompence, and tarried a good while swearing at Green, who took no further notice of him, and then went off…

Nicholas Feriter, ropemaker:

about half after 11 o’clock, A.M. a soldier of the 29th regiment came to Mr. John Gray’s ropewalks, and looking into one of the windows said, By God I’ll have satisfaction! with many other oaths; at the last he said he was not afraid of any one in the ropewalks.

I stept out of the window and speedily knock’d up his heels. On falling his coat flew open, and a naked sword appeared, which one John Willson following me out took from him, and bro’t into the ropewalks.

Pvt. Patrick Walker, 29th Regiment:

Deponant having Occasion to go by the Ropewalkes in Boston, he was assaulted, knocked Down, trod under feet, Cut in several places, and Very much bruised, Without any Provocation Given, by about twelve of the Inhabitants of Boston, (supposed Rope makers) and Left in Danger of his Life

Pvt. Walker had to sign his deposition with a mark.

Ropemaker Feriter, continued:

The soldier then went to Green’s barrack, and in about twenty minutes return’d with 8 or 9 more soldiers armed with clubs, and began as I was told with three or four men in Mr. Gray’s warehouse, asking them why they had abused the soldier aforesaid? These men in the warehouse passed the word down the walk for the hands to come up, which they did, and soon beat them off.

Drummer Thomas Walker, 29th Regiment:

between the Hours of Twelve & two o’Clock in the Day He was Going to His Barracks, that he met Pattrick Walker Soldier in Sd. Regiment in the Street cut & bleeding Very much, that he Asked Sd. Walker Who had used him So,

that he told him that he was Served in that manner by the Rope Makers, that he then asked him What was their Reason for so doing, upon which he informed Him that as he Went for a Buckett of Water to a Yard Adjacent to the Rope Walk, he was asked by one of the Rope Makers if he Would Work, he reply’d he Would, asking him What he was to Work at, to Whom the Rope maker reply’d to Empty his Necessary House,

To Which Sd. Walker reply’d, that if he had no other Work, he might Empty it himself, as he thought it beneath a Soldier, to be Guilty of so Scandalous & Servile as Office upon which they argued for Some time, but at Length fell to blows Upon Which the Rope Makers turned out and Cut him most Desperatly,

upon his Information That he [Drummer Walker] & and one or two More Went down to know the truth how it happened,…

Thomas Walker signed his own deposition, which is striking since the drummers of the 29th were black men, originally purchased as enslaved teenagers.

John Hill, justice of the peace:

I was at a house the corner of a passage way leading from Atkinson’s street to Mr. John Gray’s rope-walks, near Green’s barracks so called, when I saw eight or ten soldiers pass the window with clubs. I immediately got up and went to the door, and found them returning from the rope-walks to the barracks; whence they again very speedily re-appeared, now increased to the number of thirty or forty, armed with clubs and other weapons.

In this latter company was a tall negro drummer, to whom I called, you black rascal, what have you to do with white people’s quarrels?

He answered, I suppose I may look on, and went forward.

Hill was sixty-nine years old. He would soon one of the magistrates active in collecting testimony, including his own, about the shooting on King Street.

Ropemaker Feriter, continued:

In a few minutes the soldiers appeared again at the same place, reinforced to the number of 30 or 40, armed with clubs and cutlasses, and headed by a tall negro drummer with a cutlass chained to his body, with which at first rencounter I received a cut on the head, but being immediately supported by nine or ten more of the rope-makers, armed with their wouldring sticks, we again beat them off.

Peter Slater, then a nine-year-old apprentice at the ropewalk, much later recalled fetching those hickory sticks for his older colleagues to fight with.

Justice Hill, continued:

I went out directly and commanded the peace, telling them I was in commission [i.e., was a magistrate]; but they not regarding me, knocked down a rope-maker in my presence, and two or three of them beating him with clubs, I endeavoured to relieve him; but on approaching the fellows who were mauling him, one of them with a great club struck at me with such violence, that had I not happily avoided it might have been fatal to me.

The party last mentioned rushed in towards the rope-walks, and attacked the rope-makers nigh the tar-kettle, but were soon beat off, drove out of the passage-way by which they entered, and were followed by the rope-makers, whom I persuaded to go back, and they readily obeyed.

Ropemaker Bostwick, continued:

a party of thirty or forty soldiers, headed by a tall negro drummer,…challenged the ropemakers to come out. All hands then present, being about 13 or 14, turn’d out and beat them off, considerably bruised.

Drummer Walker, continued:

that he no Sooner Entered the Rope Walk, then they Rope Makers ordered them to turn back, which they Did, But had not Gone far when they Called him Sd. Thomas Walker back, Saying that they Wanted to Speak to him, that he turned back When Numbers of them Jumped out of the Windows in the Walk, with Clubs in their hands asking What he wanted

to Which the Soldier that was Cut by them, reply’d that he wanted to know in what Shape he had offended them that they should use him so inhumanly as they had done

they Made no Answer but fell upon me and the two that Was with me, most Outragiously in Which time they Cut me in three places in the Head

he remained there as long as I was able but Growing weak with the Great Effusion of blood Which abundantly Issued from his Wounds that it was with Some Difficulty he could reach the Barrack

That the Next Morning as he was Carrying to the Hospital in the Machine for the Conveniency of Removing the Sick, He heard them in a Deriding & Scoffing manner ask the Men that bore him Were they Going to Bury their Dead.

An off-hand, perhaps spur-of-the-moment insult thus grew into a brawl involving dozens of men.

TOMORROW: Drummer Walker’s war.

The Sestercentennial of the Boston Massacre

The shooting of Christopher Seider led on to the Boston Massacre, one of the major milestones on the road to the American Revolution. The 250th anniversary of the Massacre will be 5 March 2020, but it’s such a big event that there will be multiple commemorations in early March.

First, Prof. Serena Zabin in coming to New England to discuss her new book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History. The publisher explains:

Zabin draws on original sources and lively stories to follow British troops as they are dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonists. She reveals a forgotten world hidden in plain sight: the many regimental wives and children who accompanied the armies. We see these families jostling with Bostonians for living space, finding common cause in the search for a lost child, trading barbs, and sharing baptisms. Becoming, in other words, neighbors. When soldiers shot unarmed citizens in the street, it was these intensely human and now broken bonds that fueled what quickly became a bitterly fought American Revolution.

Visit Zabin’s webpage for the full list of her upcoming events. Some require advance registration, so also check in with the host organizations. Here are the public events scheduled for New England.

Wednesday, 4 March, 5:30-7:00 P.M.
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston

Thursday, 5 March, 6:00 P.M.
Boston Public Library, Boston

Friday, 6 March, 7:00 P.M.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge

Saturday, 7 March, 2:00 P.M.
Tewksbury Public Library, Tewksbury

Tuesday, 10 March, 7:00 P.M.
Cary Memorial Library, Lexington

Thursday, 12 March, 5:30 P.M.
Newport Historical Society, Newport, Rhode Island

On the exact anniversary of the Massacre, I know of five events.

Thursday, 5 March, 9:00-9:30 A.M.
Old Granary Burying-Ground, Boston
The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution lays a wreath at the grave of the five victims of the shooting.

Thursday, 5 March, all day
Old State House, Boston (with admission)
A new exhibit titled “Reflecting Attucks” will open in Representatives’ Hall, exploring the life and memory of Crispus Attucks. There will be related tours and facilitated dialogues in the galleries. This exhibit will be on display until March 2021.

Thursday, 5 March, 12:00 noon
Boston Athenaeum, Boston ($10 for non-members)
Curator Ginny Badgett displays and discusses the society’s copy of Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre.

Thursday, 5 March, 2:00-2:30 P.M.
Concord Museum, Concord (with admission)
Executive Director Tom Putnam discusses the Massacre and its legacy in a gallery talk using multiple editions and interpretations of Paul Revere’s print being shown in the exhibit “Beyond Midnight: Paul Revere and His Ride.”

Thursday, 5 March, 6:30-8:00 P.M.
Old South Meeting House, Boston
Revolutionary Spaces hosts political and community leaders speaking on their lives in the Boston Massacre and reflect on how difficult memories can inspire us to reach higher.

Finally, on Saturday I’m part of the group of volunteers putting together a Sestercentennial reenactment of the Massacre and surrounding events with Revolutionary Spaces and the Newport Historical Society’s History Space.

Saturday, 7 March, afternoon and evening
The reenactments fall into two parts, “Life Before the Boston Massacre” in the afternoon and “Incident on King Street” in the evening. Some events will take place inside the Old State House and Old South Meeting House, and the price for admission to both buildings is $12. Other reenactments will take place outside and will be free to the public, including puzzled passersby.

Inside the Old State House, 1:00 to 4:00 P.M. (with admission)
Boston selectmen dealing with issues of the day
Women of Boston discussing recent events

Inside Old South Meeting House, 1:00 to 4:00 P.M. (with admission)
Visits to the Royal Exchange Tavern, the Boston almshouse, an elegant tea, and the office of ropewalk owner John Gray
Demonstrations of leatherworking, sewing a sailor’s hammock, and recreating a British regimental coat
Talk on recreating the uniforms of the 29th Regiment, 4:00 P.M.

Inside Faneuil Hall
At the Edes & Gill Print Shop, 1:00 to 4:00 P.M.
Henry Pelham and Paul Revere argue about their Boston Massacre engravings
In the Great Hall, 3:00 to 3:30 P.M.
Vengeance or Justice?: National Park Service rangers lead a participatory town meeting on the aftermath of the shooting

Outside the Old State House
Changing of the guard, 1:00 P.M.
Children harass a sentry with a football, 1:15 P.M.
Isabella Montgomery disputes with Susannah Cathcart, 4:30 P.M.

Along Washington Street
First-person interpretive walks discussing life in 1770
From Old South to the Old State House, on the half-hour from 1:30 to 4:30 P.M.
From the Old State House to Old South, on the hour from 2:00 to 4:00 P.M.

At Washington and School Streets
(near the godawful Irish Famine Memorial)
Sons of Liberty songs, 1:30 and 3:15 P.M.
Rope Walk brawl and public discussion, 2:15 P.M.

Outside the Old State House, starting around 7:00 P.M.
Vignettes of Life in Occupied Boston and the Shooting on King Street
To be followed by a ceremony of remembrance

Once again, I’ve been working with the reenactors on the scenario they’ll portray and will be the play-by-play announcer.

The Great 1770 Quiz Answers, Part 2

Here are the answers to the questions remaining from part 1 of the Great 1770 Quiz, along with the background and sources for each answer.

III. Match the person to the weapon he reportedly carried at the Boston Massacre.

1) catstick
2) cordwood stick
3) firelock and bayonet
4) Highland broadsword

A) Crispus Attucks
B) Benjamin Burdick
C) John Carroll
D) Christopher Monk

There are two ways to tackle this on Google, I think: pairing the phrase “Boston Massacre” with the men’s names, and pairing “Boston Massacre” with the weapons.

The first search shows that of these four people, John Carroll was a defendant in the trial—i.e., a soldier. We know those grenadiers were armed with firelocks (muskets) and bayonets.

From the other direction, “Highland broadsword” points to several sources naming Benjamin Burdick; “cordwood stick” to several naming Crispus Attucks; and “catstick” to this Boston 1775 posting about Christopher Monk.

One further comment on Burdick and his broadsword. Boston records show he was “Constable of the Town House Watch,” head of the nighttime patrol in the center of town. However, he never identified himself as such in his testimonies on the Massacre—I assume everybody at the time already knew.

As a result, until I wrote about Boston’s watchmen in a paper titled (after a quote from Burdick) “I Never Used to Go Out with a Weapon,” most people didn’t analyze his behavior through that role. The Highland broadsword wasn’t evidence of a man out for trouble; it was evidence of a man out to do his job of keeping the peace.

All four people commenting on this question—kmjones234, Kathy, Justin C, and John—put the weapons in the right hands.

IV. Followup: Who used “wouldring sticks” as weapons in March 1770?

Google the phrase “wouldring sticks,” and the only references that come up point to the ropemakers of Gray’s ropewalk during their brawl with redcoats on 1 March. The phrase appears in Boston’s Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in 1770 and in many accounts based on that source.

Those tools were also called “wouldering sticks” and “way sticks.” Ropemakers used them to help twist large cables tighter. But a thick, tapered stick could be useful in other situations as well.

Again, kmjones234, Kathy, Justin C, and John all answered this question correctly.

V. Which of the following men did the Boston town meeting elect to the Massachusetts house in May 1770?

• John Adams
• Samuel Adams
• James Bowdoin
• Thomas Cushing
• John Hancock
• James Otis, Jr.
• William Phillips

According to Massachusetts’s charter, Boston could elect four men to the lower house of the General Court. Every other town could elect only two. (That meant Boston’s population, more than twice the size of any other town, was underrepresented. However, its representatives could easily attend sessions in Boston, and they had outsized influence.)

From 1766 to 1769 the town meeting elected the same four men to the legislature each year: Thomas Cushing, James Otis, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock. But the effects of his coffee-house brawl in September 1769 had addled Otis so much that in April he shot a pistol out of his window on School Street. He therefore needed to be replaced.

Over those same years James Bowdoin had served on the Massachusetts Council, but in 1769 Gov. Francis Bernard “negatived” or vetoed him along with a bunch of other troublemakers. That meant Boston had an active Whig politician without an official seat, and a seat needing someone to fill it. People sensed a solution.

Here’s the published record of Boston’s town meetings from 1770 to 1777. The election on 8 May 1770 is on page 21. That shows the four men elected that day were Hancock (511 votes out of 513), Cushing (510), Samuel Adams (510), and Bowdoin (439).

Those weren’t Boston’s representatives for the legislative year, though. When the Massachusetts General Court chose its new Council later in May, members once again named James Bowdoin to that upper chamber—and acting governor Thomas Hutchinson decided to accept him. That left his legislative seat vacant. On 6 June Boston had another town meeting (page 33), and Bostonians chose a young lawyer originally from Braintree to represent them: John Adams (418 votes out of 536).

In 1771 John Adams declined to run again, and Otis was reelected (page 53). Then Otis had another bout of insanity and lost the support of voters. In 1772 the town chose William Phillips as its fourth representative (page 78).

Kathy, Justin C, and John answered this question completely.

VI. Followup: In what building did the Massachusetts house meet in 1770?

To punish Boston and reduce the influence of its representatives, Gov. Francis Bernard convened the Massachusetts General Court in Cambridge in May 1769. That of course produced a lot of arguments about whether he was right to do so. Acting governor Thomas Hutchinson followed that lead and also convened the General Court in Cambridge.

The Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office has a webpage linking to the journals of the Massachusetts house as reprinted by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Those volumes have handy introductions about each year’s legislatives tussles. The title page of the 1770 volume states where the legislature was convened: “at Harvard-College in Cambridge, in the County of Middlesex.”

It takes a little more digging to determine in what building the house met. The 1770 minutes contain many references to messages or people going back and forth between the house and the Council. Gov. Hutchinson and the Council were in “the Philosophy Chamber,” and the lower house was in “the Chapel.”

There’s some debate in the literature as to whether “the Chapel” meant Holden Chapel, built in 1744, or the ground-floor chapel of Harvard Hall, rebuilt in 1766. We know the Philosophy Chamber was in Harvard Hall. We also know the legislature had met in the previous Harvard Hall during the smallpox epidemic of 1764; in fact, a fire that started during that session was why the hall had to be rebuilt. Most important, we know the architect of the new building was none other that Gov. Bernard, who got to choose where the legislature met.

Thus, the consensus now, as this guide to Massachusetts legislators specifies, is that the Massachusetts house met on the ground floor of Harvard Hall.

Justin C and John both identified “Harvard College,” earning at least partial credit for this question.

TOMORROW: Pseudonyms and more.

A Plea for Relief after the Great Fire of 1794

The State Library of Massachusetts is spotlighting, both on the web and at the State House, a broadside from 1794.

Its blog posting explains:

This month, we’re displaying a broadside that was distributed as an “Appeal from Boston for Aid after the Great Fire, 1794”. In 1794, the part of downtown Boston that is currently bordered by Milk, Pearl, Purchase and Congress Streets was home to residences and a number of ropewalks (a long, narrow building where ropes are woven by hand). In the early morning of July 30, a fire broke out in one of the ropewalks and spread quickly, destroying seven ropewalks and approximately ninety other buildings (primarily houses, outbuildings, barns, and stores).

The fire was so extensive that additional engines were brought in from Brookline, Cambridge, Charlestown, Milton, Roxbury, and Watertown. An account of the fire was written up in the July 31 edition of the American Apollo, a copy of which is also in the State Library’s collection. The article, titled “Horrid Fire,” describes the affected area, lists the home and business owners who lost property, and thanks the fire engines from neighboring towns that provided assistance.

On August 5, Boston Selectmen issued a broadside in response to the devastation caused by the fire, calling attention to the residents whose lives changed “in an instant, from a situation convenient and comfortable, to a state of deplorable poverty and want.” The broadside was then distributed to cities and towns throughout the state in an effort to raise funds for assistance. The copy in the State Library’s collection was sent to the selectmen of Shutesbury, along with the handwritten instruction to share it with the town, likely as an announcement during a town meeting.

This “Great Fire” was of course not the great fire of 1760, which started in the Brazen Head and which eventually I’ll get back to. Nor the previous great fires, nor the great fire of 1870. But it was great enough.

One effect was that those proto-industrial ropewalks near the center of town—the workshops whose employees had brawled with soldiers in the days leading up to the Boston Massacre—were rebuilt out on new land south of the Common. Eventually that land had to be bought back from the ropemaking firms when the city decided to build the Public Garden.

In looking at the broadside, I was struck with how the selectmen’s names are set in a font reminiscent of the round hand to suggest their signatures. Whichever printer got the contract to produce this broadside obviously had some spiffy new type to use.

Ripples from the Boston Massacre

Normally around the 5th of March I write about the Boston Massacre, the events that led up to it and its aftermath. But I’ve been recounting a criminal trial from 1785 which is unconnected—or is it?

Several of the figures in that burglary trial have links to the Massacre, showing the small size of pre-industrial Boston and the big impact of the violence on King Street.

Robert Treat Paine, the Massachusetts attorney general in 1785, was a special prosecutor in the Massacre trials. The town of Boston hired him when the royal attorney general, Jonathan Sewall, was looking reluctant.

James Lovell, the victim of the 1784 robbery, was the first man invited by Boston to orate on the Massacre, in April 1771. (Dr. Thomas Young had spoken on the anniversary of the killing at the Manufactory, but that was unofficial. The town took up the idea and ran with it until 1783.)

Defense attorney William Tudor was one of John Adams’s clerks during the Massacre trials. He delivered the anniversary oration in 1779.

Bartholomew Broaders was an elected constable in 1784 who helped to investigate the burglary. Back in 1770, he was one of the barber’s apprentices who got into an argument with Pvt. Hugh White in front of the Customs office, the incident that ballooned into the shooting.

Archibald McNeal, a witness to the burglary in 1784, might also have been a witness to the events of 1770. An Archibald McNeil, Jr., testified for the town report:

that on Saturday the third instant, about half an hour after four in the afternoon, the deponent with two apprentices were spinning at the lower end of Mr. McNeil’s ropewalk, three stout grenadiers, armed with bludgeons, came to them, and addressing the deponent said, You damn’d dogs, don’t you deserve to be kill’d? Are you fit to die?

However, there was at least one other Archibald McNeal in pre-Revolutionary Boston, a baker who evacuated with the British troops in 1776, so this may not be the same man.

As for shopkeeper John Fullerton, also burglarized in 1784, he was one of the victims of the Great Fire of 1760. (Yes, I’ll get back to that story, too.)

Clark on Work in Revolutionary Boston at Old North, 2 May

On Wednesday, 2 May, the Old North Speaker Series will host Christopher Clark speaking on “Work and Employment in Late 18th Century Boston.”

The event description:

Labor took many forms for Revolutionary-era Bostonians, who conducted work in many types of locations and under a variety of social arrangements. Occupations, levels of skill, and working conditions varied considerably. Men, women, and children, free and enslaved, conducted work in households and workshops, on wharves and slipways, in ropewalks and printing-shops.

Join Professor Christopher Clark as he provides insights into the Atlantic world, the beginnings of the American Revolution, race and gender relations, and the origins of Boston’s subsequent urban growth through the lens of laboring people.

Clark is a professor at the University of Connecticut, currently Head of its History Department. His books include The Roots of Rural Capitalism: Western Massachusetts, 1780-1860, Social Change in America from the Revolution through the Civil War, and (with Nancy Hewitt and others) Who Built America?: Working People and the Nation’s History.

This event is co-sponsored by the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology. After the lecture, there will be a reception and conversation with Clark and institute president Anthony Benoit on the parallels between training and apprenticeships in the eighteenth century and the career training and readiness of our young people today.

The talk is scheduled to start at 6:30 P.M. at the Old North Church, 193 Salem Street in the North End. Register to attend through this webpage.

How Peter Slater Snuck Out to the Tea Party

Here’s another early insider’s account of the Boston Tea Party—made public only fifty-eight years after the event.

This account appeared in the obituary for Peter Slater, who died in Worcester in 1831. It was first published in the Newburyport Herald on 18 October and Slater’s home-town newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy, on 19 October, and then reprinted with small changes in the November issue of the New-England Magazine:

Captain Slater was one of those persons who disguised themselves and threw the Tea overboard in Boston harbor, in December, 1773. He was then but a boy—an apprentice to a Rope maker, in Boston.

He attended the meeting of the citizens of Boston at the Old South Church, in the afternoon, where the question was agitated relative to the landing of the tea, and some communications were made to [Francis] Rotch, the consignee of the cargoes. His master, apprehensive that something would take place relative to the tea then in the harbor, took Peter home and shut him up in his chamber.

He escaped from the window, went to a Blacksmith’s shop, where he found a man disguised, who told Peter to tie a handkerchief round his frock, to black his face with charcoal and to follow him—the company soon increased to about twenty persons.

Captain Slater went on board the Brig [the Beaver] with five others—two of them brought the tea upon deck—two broke open the chests and threw them overboard—and Captain Slater with one other, stood with poles to push them under water. Not a word was exchanged between the parties from the time they left Griffin’s wharf till the cargo was emptied into the harbor, and they returned to the wharf and dispersed. This is the account of that memorable event as given by Capt. Slater.

He afterwards served five years as a soldier in the Revolution. He was a firm patriot, a brave soldier, a valuable citizen and an honest man.

Slater was born in 1760, thus thirteen years old at the time of the Tea Party and (contrary to the claim on his gravestone, above) seventy-one when he died. Though he was one of the youngest people who helped to destroy the tea, that wasn’t his first participation in political violence: he’d already been involved in the brawls that led up to the Boston Massacre.

Like Joshua Wyeth and Benjamin Simpson, who spoke for attribution about their experiences at the Tea Party in the late 1820s, Slater had moved out of Boston, and thus away from the ethos that kept such stories private. And of course by the time his account made it into print, he was dead.

How to Prepare to Have Your Head Shot Off

Today’s the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, and this evening we’re reenacting the event outside the Old State House Museum, as close to the original site as it’s safe to get (since there’s a big, busy road there now).

Among the reenactors will be Timothy Abbott, author of the Walking the Berkshires and Another Pair Not Fellows blogs (shown here). He’ll portray Samuel Gray, one of the men killed at the front of the crowd.

Abbott has written a five-part series on his research into Gray—overall methodology, his family, his role in the ropewalk brawl and other fights that followed, how he made his way to King Street,
and what he was doing just before being killed.

Gray was a ropemaker, but for the famous 1770 engravings Henry Pelham depicted him wearing the short jacket and trousers of a sailor. That allows Abbott to adapt the clothing and depiction he’s prepared for the persona of an American merchant seaman of the era. Abbott has shared his process publicly, but lots of other historical reenactors put the same amount of research and work into their portrayals. We’ll get to enjoy the sights and sounds of those efforts at tonight’s event.

The Evidence for Paine as a Staymaker

As I discussed yesterday, a claim appeared on Wikipedia last month that Thomas Paine started out making stays for sailing ships, not stays for women to wear, and that Paine’s political enemies misrepresented him as a maker of underwear.

This fraud apparently fooled every historian and biographer who has written about Paine. At least, the citations that Wikipedia editor “Jkfkauia” inserted after that statement did not actually name any scholar who had seen through the ruse. In fact, those citations offer no outside support for the new statement.

Normally I’d point out that “Jkfkauia” has the responsibility to provide evidence for a claim, especially if he or she is going to dress it up with footnotes. Skeptics don’t have the burden of proving a historical statement is untenable. But I can’t resist poking some holes in the theory.

First, it wasn’t just Paine’s enemies who wrote that he had trained as a staymaker. Paine’s friends did, too. The jokes about Paine making stays for women appeared during and shortly after his lifetime when he or his friends could have refuted them. After all, Paine didn’t build a career as a political writer on two continents by staying quiet about his opponents’ errors.

Second, I have yet to find any eighteenth-century use of the word “staymaker” to mean someone who made stays for ships. Those were a type of rope, and the common term for someone who made ropes was “ropemaker.” If “staymaker” was also used for someone who spun stays for ships, there would surely be period sources remarking on its double meaning.

Instead, sources like this guide to professions from 1747, defined “The Stay-Maker” as “employed in making Stays, Jumps, and Bodice for Ladies.” (That book went on to nasty remarks about women before getting to the working conditions and wages young staymakers might expect.) And here’s a court case from 1771 when “James Paterson, staymaker,” sued to be paid for “furnishings to Taylor’s wife and daughter.”

Furthermore, Paine’s early biographers identified particular staymakers he worked for: his father in Thetford, a “Mr. Morris” on Hanover Street in London, and a “Mr. Grace” in Dover. Records from the late 1700s have helped recent biographers identify the latter two as John Morris and Benjamin Grace. Morris was in fashionable Covent Garden, not a shipbuilding center.

Thetford is an inland town in the east of England. According to “Jkfkauia,” Thomas’s father John Pain was supplying a port downriver with ropes, but it wouldn’t have made economic sense for a ropemaker serving ships to be so far away from the sea. On the other hand, half the people in Thetford needed stays. Making them was a steady, skilled profession.

In fact, Thomas Paine wasn’t the only British political writer of the period who had been trained to make stays. Hugh Kelly, who wrote propaganda for Lord North and plays and poems for himself, was also apprenticed to a staymaker as a teenager. And, like Paine, people who disliked Kelly didn’t let him forget that he’d trained to sew women’s underwear. Because he had.

This Season’s New Paine Claim

Last month, on 24 September, someone signed in to Wikipedia as “Jkfkauia” in order to revise the Thomas Paine entry. He or she explained the editing this way:

(I am correcting a widely repeated piece of insulting misinformation about Thomas Paine. He was involved in youth with making rope stays used on sailing ships, NOT the stays used in corsets. This lie about his life story was invented by his foes.)

Wikipedia records four other edits by “Jkfkauia” in 2012 and 2013, none having to do with eighteenth-century history.

The section on Paine’s early life now reads in part:

At the age of 13, he was apprenticed to his stay-maker father. Paine researchers contend his father's occupation has been widely misinterpreted to mean that he made the stays in ladies’ corsets, which likely was an insult later invented by his political foes.[citation needed] Actually, the father and apprentice son made the thick rope stays (also called stay ropes) used on sailing ships.[10][better source needed] Thetford historically had maintained a brisk trade with the downriver port city of Yarmouth.[11][not in citation given]

Those “citation needed” variants were added later on that same day by “Tedickey,” an active Wikipedia editor who’s worked on entries about the Articles of Confederation and Connecticut Compromise.

“Jkfkauia” did not cite or name the “Paine researchers [who] contend his father’s occupation has been widely misinterpreted.” As far as I can tell, no biographers from the 1790s, when Paine became prominent as a political writer in Britain, to the last decade identified him or his father as making stays for ships. And, despite the complaints of his fans, Paine has not been neglected by biographers.

It’s true that Paine’s political enemies in the 1790s made fun of his early work as a staymaker. In 2011 the Two Nerdy History Girls analyzed two political cartoons (one above) that showed “Thomas Pain / Stay Maker” squeezing Britannia into stays that were too strait for her.

But “Jkfkauia” wrote that Paine had never made stays, only ropes for ships.

TOMORROW: Does that make any sense?