Who Coined the Phrase "Till You See the Whites of Their Eyes"?

For most of the 1800s, American historians happily attributed the phrase “Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes” to either Israel Putnam or William Prescott, commanders at the Battle of Bunker Hill. As I discussed yesterday, there was disagreement about which of those men issued such an order, with Putnam getting an early lead but Prescott winning in the end.

Then British historian Thomas Carlyle (shown here, courtesy of NNDB.com) published his massive History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great from 1858 to 1865. And American readers couldn’t help noticing that Carlyle quoted Prussian documents about ordering soldiers not to shoot “till you see the whites of their eyes” decades before Bunker Hill.

That made authors change how they described the quotation. In Winsor’s Memorial History of Boston (1881), Edward Everett Hale wrote:

All along the American lines the order had been given which the officers remembered in the memoirs of Frederick’s wars: “Wait till you can see the whites of their eyes.”

He added this explanatory footnote:

Prince Charles, when he cut through the Austrian army, in retiring from Jägendorf, gave this order to his infantry: “Silent, till you see the whites of their eyes.” This was on May 22, 1745; and this order, so sucessful that day, was remembered twelve years after at the battle of Prague, when the general Prussian order was, “By push of bayonets; no firing till you see the whites of their eyes.”

Since then many reference books and websites attribute the “whites of their eyes” phrase to “Prince Charles of Prussia” at Jägendorf. He wasn’t using it in the same context as during Bunker Hill; he wanted his men to sneak through a larger Austrian force, so they shouldn’t attract attention by, say, shooting off their guns. But the clear implication is that he deserves credit for the coinage. Additionally, the citation reminds us not to simply accept our American tradition about Putnam or Prescott coining the phrase.

That’s where I thought the story ended. You know: the received version, and the slightly more interesting, less flattering reality. And then I started to look into the sources. Ironically, I found that all references to Prince Charles of Prussia at Jägendorf are a received version, too. They reproduce errors by Hale (or whomever he relied on):

• The small town was Jägerndorf, with an additional R.
• Carlyle called the Prussian commander “Margraf Karl”; the title of margraf or margrave should be translated as marquess, not prince.
• Carlyle actually quoted a “whites of their eyes” command even earlier in his book, in discussing the Battle of Mollwitz in 1741. But he didn’t credit a particular commander, and he didn’t cite a source, as in his later two references, so in this case Carlyle himself might have written too exuberantly.
  

Hale assumed that American officers of the 1770s were familiar with the Prussian tradition of “till you see the whites of their eyes.” The Prussian army was highly admired in that period, and had been allies of the British in 1757 during the Seven Years’ War (though not in the War of the Austrian Succession in the 1740s).

I therefore searched for the phrase “white(s) of the(ir) eye(s)” in newspapers and other material printed in colonial America. I figured it might have shown up in reports from Europe or articles about how great Frederick the Great really was. But I couldn’t find a single example.

It’s possible that “whites of their eyes” was printed in English books and magazines, which were then shipped to America and read by military-minded gentlemen. It’s also possible that the Prussian phrase circulated among British officers posted to North America; both Putnam and Prescott were officers in the French and Indian War, and Putnam was particularly close to a set of British counterparts.

But it’s also possible that:

• Putnam, or another American at Bunker Hill, came up with the phrase on his own.
• Mason Weems put the phrase into Putnam’s mouth in his Life of Washington, and it stuck.

So I started this posting thinking the answer to its question is a Prussian prince, and I come out thinking the answer is probably a Prussian margrave, but I’m less sure. That’s the trouble with reading stuff.

Who Said, "Don't Fire Till You See the Whites of Their Eyes"?

The Battle of Bunker Hill yielded one of those quotations that every American is supposed to know: “Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes!” Meaning, “Don’t use any of your gunpowder until they’re really, really close, so you won’t miss.” But it’s still debatable which American officer said this, if anyone. Some sources credit Gen. Israel Putnam of Connecticut, some Col. William Prescott of Massachusetts.

In 1788 David Humphreys published an Essay on the Life of the Honourable Major General Israel Putnam. I haven’t rustled up that edition, but I found an 1818 printing through Microsoft’s Live Search, and it did not contain the “whites of their eyes” quotation. That leads me to think the original didn’t have it, either.

Which means the first book attributing this quotation to Gen. Putnam might well be that great font of American myth, Mason Weems’s Life of George Washington, with curious anecdotes, equally honourable to himself and exemplary to his young countrymen. In the 1808 edition of that book (and perhaps earlier ones), Weems quoted Putnam saying:

Don’t throw away a single shot, my brave fellows; . . . don’t throw away a single shot, but take good aim; nor touch a trigger, till you can see the whites of their eyes.

As with his legends of Washington and the cherry tree and Washington praying in the snow at Valley Forge, Weems gave no source for this anecdote. He wasn’t a scholarly writer, and (unlike Humphreys) he didn’t know his subjects personally. But Weems’s biography was immensely popular in the early republic, and helped form the public understanding of Bunker Hill.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that a book titled The Life and Heroic Exploits of Israel Putnam, published in 1847 and credited to the long-dead Humphreys, did contain the famous quotation amidst the general’s other orders:

Powder was scarce and must not be wasted. They should not fire at the enemy till they saw the white of their eyes, and then fire low, take aim at their waistbands. They were all marksmen, and could kill a squirrel at a hundred yards; reserve their fire, and the enemy were all destroyed. Aim at the handsome coats, pick off the commanders.

This book then goes on to say, “The same orders were reiterated by Prescott at the redoubt, by Pomeroy, Stark, and all the veteran officers.” In other words, every top officer was giving the same orders, but Putnam gave them first.

That version of Putnam’s words, and the sentence that followed, came straight out of Samuel Swett’s History of Bunker Hill Battle, published first in 1818 and reissued in 1826. Swett’s appendix quoted the testimony of three men who said they had been in the battle: John Stevens of Frye’s regiment, Philip Johnson of Little’s regiment, and Elijah Jourdan. All said they heard Putnam speak about the “whites of their eyes” or heard other officers say those orders came from Putnam.

Swett and other New England historians saw such a sequence of orders as highly significant because, as the fiftieth anniversary of the battle approached, they had drowned themselves in ink debating who was in command of the provincial forces. Was it Putnam, Connecticut’s general and hero? Col. Prescott, in the redoubt? Gen. Seth Pomeroy, who was in the ranks as a volunteer? Dr. Joseph Warren, who had also been commissioned a general and was also in the ranks as a volunteer?

The good thing about this debate is that it spurred writers to find veterans of the battle and put their recollections into print. The bad thing is that so many of those sources were focused on boosting the case for a particular candidate for command rather than providing a complete picture of the action. Furthermore, if lots of officers were saying the same thing, it would be almost impossible for a soldier in one part of the line to know who said it first. Finally, all those reminiscences went into print after Weems’s book, raising the possibility that his popular tale had affected how men recollected or recounted their experiences forty years before.

Richard Frothingham’s History of the Siege of Boston, first published in 1849, attributed a variety of phrases to a variety of officers. “These phrases occur frequently in the depositions [of veterans], the same one often being ascribed to different officers.” Frothingham did cite Johnson saying Putnam had voiced the “white of their eyes” remark. However, since he concluded that Prescott did the most commanding during the battle, his book led many later writers to credit the colonel with the famous quotation, not Gen. Putnam.

The best Boston 1775 guess? I think the weight of the evidence favors Putnam (shown above) with the “whites of their eyes” phrase, even if Prescott was doing more in the redoubt to make provincial soldiers hold their fire. But that doesn’t mean Putnam coined the phrase.

TOMORROW: The real source of the quotation?

Arrests After the Battle of Bunker Hill

For the past two days I quoted responses to the Battle of Bunker Hill from people who were on their best behavior. But not everyone reacts to stress in such an admirable way. Merchant Isaac Smith, Sr. (shown here) described this fallout from the battle in a letter dated 30 July 1775, after leaving Boston for Salem:

Poor, harmless Shrimpton Hunt, standing by the door at the time of the engagement, was overheard saying he hoped our people would get the better of the others, was taken up and confined in gaol.

Sam. Gore, for calling over to his sister to come and see a funeral pass, was taken up and confined some time; and a person who came out by water yesterday says Jemmy Lovell is in close gaol or in the dungeon, but nobody can tell for what.

Hunt was a shopkeeper in his fifties, not active in politics. And is it possible to have a more harmless-sounding name than “Shrimpton”?

I presume painter Samuel Gore’s offense was referring to British soldiers, either on their way to the battlefield or on the way from it to the hospital, as a funeral procession. Despite his nasty joke, he was probably let out after a short time because his father was a Loyalist. The military authorities didn’t know the extent of Gore’s Patriot activities, and his father probably didn’t, either. In 1773 Gore had participated in the Boston Tea Party, and in 1774 he had helped remove the Boston militia artillery company’s cannons from an armory under redcoat guard.

Gore’s father left town with the British military in March 1776. Samuel stayed—and in April the Massachusetts Provincial Congress ordered his arrest, along with a lot of other men who had remained in town through the siege. He might not have gone to jail that time; one of the magistrates charged with arresting people was his brother-in-law, Thomas Crafts. But Gore might have the rare distinction of being arrested by both sides of the war.

James “Jemmy” Lovell was the usher (assistant teacher) at the South Latin School. He was an avid Patriot, delivering the town’s first official oration about the Boston Massacre in 1771. He thought about leaving to join the provincial army, but in May 1775 he wrote that “a most violent Diarhea, from being too long in a damp place, has confirm’d Doctr. [Joseph] Gardners advice to me not to go into the Trenches.”

Instead, Lovell remained in Boston, sending what seems to have been sensitive information to Dr. Joseph Warren. The British army found those papers on the doctor’s body after the battle. Lovell was locked up for the rest of the siege and taken to Nova Scotia in chains.

"We Have Peppered 'em Well"

Here’s another anecdote about the aftermath of the Battle of Bunker Hill, this one first published in William Tudor’s The Life of James Otis in 1823:

After the battle had continued for some time, a young person living in Boston, possessed of very keen and generous feelings, bordering a little perhaps on the romantic, as was natural to her age, sex, and lively imagination, finding that many of the wounded troops brought over from the field of action were carried by her residence, mixed a quantity of refreshing beverage, and with a female domestic by her side, stood at the door and offered it to the sufferers as they were borne along, burning with fever and parched with thirst.

Several of them grateful for the kindness, gave her, as they thought, consolation, by assuring her of the destruction of her countrymen. One young officer said, “never mind it my brave young lady, we have peppered ’em well, depend upon it.” Her dearest feelings, deeply interested in the opposite camp, were thus unintentionally lacerated, while she was pouring oil and wine into their wounds.

Tudor seems to be writing about am upper-class young woman he knew well, from whom he heard this anecdote but whose name was he was keeping confidential. Perhaps his mother, Delia Jarvis, who turned twenty-two in 1775, or another relative. (Here’s a love letter from Tudor’s father, also named William, to Miss Jarvis at the end of the following year.)

Peter Oliver Meets a Wounded Man

Much of Loyalist judge Peter Oliver’s memoir of the coming of the American Revolution, written around 1783, is delightfully sarcastic, bitter, and nasty. But this is one of the most sincere and affecting passages, describing the judge’s encounter with a British soldier in the aftermath of the Battle of Bunker Hill:

After the Battle, the Kings wounded Troops were carried to Boston, & it was truly a Shocking Sight and Sound, to see the Carts loaded with those unfortunate Men, & to hear the piercing Groans of the dying & those whose painfull Wounds extorted the Sigh from the firmest Mind.

As I was a Witness to one Instance, in particular, of Stoicism, I will relate it. I was walking in one of the Streets of Boston, & saw a Man advancing towards me, his white Waistcoat, Breeches, & Stockings being very much dyed of a Scarlet Hue. I thus spake to him; “My friend, are you wounded?”

He replied, “Yes Sir! I have 3 Bullets through me.” He then told me the Places where; one of them being a mortal Wound; he then with a philosophical Calmness began to relate the History of the Battle; & in all Probability would have talked ’till he died, had I not begged him to walk off to the Hospital; which he did, in as sedate a Manner as if he had been walking for his Pleasure.

Always be an England, what?

As this table from the Sons of the Revolution in California summarizes, the British military suffered more killed and wounded in its victory at Bunker Hill than it did in any of its losses for the rest of the war. (More British soldiers were captured in its big losses, of course.)

Furthermore, the battle was even more costly when we consider how relatively few British fighting men were in Charlestown, compared to the armies sent to North America at the end of 1776. And the destruction felt even worse to the officer corps, who were hit disproportionately, and to Gen. Sir William Howe (shown above), who saw every member of his staff killed or wounded.

Timothy Newell Reports on Bunker Hill

Just back from this year’s Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, and in time to post Boston selectman Timothy Newell’s account of the Battle of Bunker Hill, which occurred 232 years ago today.

Newell probably wrote this diary entry on 18 June or later, given its comment on “the night following.” There are a lot of other problematic details in this diary entry as well, showing his limited perspective inside the besieged town and his political preferences.

The Provincials last night began an Entrenchment upon Charlestown (say Bunker’s Hill) before sunrise.

The Tartar Man of War and the battery from Corps hill began a cannonade about 2 oClock AM.

Genl. [William] Howe with [blank] pieces of Cannon and three thousand Men landed on Charlestown point and marched up to the Redoubt after a great slaughter of Thirteen-hundred and twenty five of the Regulars killed and wounded—one hundred and twelve officers included—and of Provincials fifty killed and one hundred and eighty wounded and missing—among whom were Dr. [Joseph] Warren and Colonel Robinson killed—the Garrison gave way—a constant fire from the Men of War &c. all the night following—only three from one company and fourteen from another of the Regulars brought off.

18th. Skirmishes most of the day—divers killed and wounded.

From Newell’s Boston perspective, the provincials fortified Bunker’s Hill. He didn’t see Breed’s Hill as different.

At first I thought “Tartar Man of War” might refer to the name of a British naval ship. But I checked the names of the ships firing on Charlestown: the Lively, Somerset, Symetry, and Falcon. I then realized that Newell was communicating not a fact but his political opinion: that the royal forces were behaving like the proverbially tyrannical Tartars—not that actual Tatars are any more tyrannical than any other ethnic group.

“Corps hill” is usually called “Copp’s Hill.” Gotta love that Boston accent.

The Massachusetts Historical Society’s published transcription of Newell’s diary says the cannonade began at “2 oClock AM.” Most accounts agree it began at daybreak, when the British military spotted the redoubt. So that might be a transcription error for “7 oClock AM,” or perhaps the two o’clock time should be applied to the start of Howe’s attack in the next sentence.

As for deaths, Newell was correct that Dr. Joseph Warren was killed in the provincial lines. But no “Col. Robinson” was. Perhaps Newell heard that Lt. Col. John Robinson of Westford was killed (he wasn’t even wounded), or that Col. Lemuel Robinson of Dorchester was (he wasn’t even in the battle). And the one Massachusetts colonel who was fatally shot, Thomas Gardner of Cambridge, lingered until July.

Newell wrote that there were 3,000 British soldiers in the battle; the standard estimate is 2,600, so close enough. In the casualty figures Newell’s biases come through more clearly. The British suffered 226 dead and 828 wounded, so Newell’s report of those casualties was too high by 25%. The provincial losses are estimated as 140 dead, 271 wounded, 30 captured, or nearly twice as bad as Newell’s figures. His accounting of casualties was wishful writing.

Setting the Scene for Bunker Hill

After one session of the Boston Early American History Seminar this year, someone—perhaps Brendan McConville or Alan Rogers—suggested that the Battle of Bunker Hill would make a good movie. I responded by describing this scene from the morning of 17 June 1775, before the battle began in earnest.

EXT. COPP’S HILL IN THE NORTH END - DAY

GEN. THOMAS GAGE, his officers, and some well-dressed Loyalist Councilors climb the east side of the hill, the sounds of cannon growing louder. They reach the top and gaze at the scene below.

On the far side of the hill, the Royal Artillery in dark blue coats are firing cannon across the Charles River onto Charlestown. Warships in the bay fire shot and shells as well. Flames are rising from the small town opposite. A large body of men can be seen moving around the rise behind the town.

A couple of the gentlemen, including ABIJAH WILLARD, pull out small spyglasses. An aide hands GAGE a long brass telescope, which he peers through. A masking shot and handheld camera simulate GAGE’s view through the lens. On the far hill, men are piling up dirt with shovels, building a redoubt. A man in a long coat and broad-brimmed hat, PRESCOTT, strides back and forth along the new wall.

WILLARD
(looking through a smaller spyglass)

Good lord, that’s Captain Prescott!

GAGE

What’s that, Mr. Willard? What can you see?

GAGE hands WILLARD his telescope. WILLARD puts it to his eye. Another POV shot of PRESCOTT walking along the parapet as WILLARD speaks. A younger officer starts to walk the same way. The provincials keep digging. Cannons keep booming.

WILLARD

That man in command of the little redoubt, Your Excellency -- he’s Mr. William Prescott, a gentleman of Groton. My late wife, my first late wife, was his sister. He was promoted captain in the last French war, on Cape Breton. I suppose they call him “colonel” now -- last autumn, as I heard, the rebels chose him to command a regiment --

GAGE

Yes, yes. The only question is, Will they fight?

WILLARD

As to his men, I cannot answer for them.

(lowers the telescope to look at GAGE)

But Prescott will fight you to the gates of Hell.

This anecdote appears in John Stockton Littell’s notes for Alexander Graydon’s Memoirs of His Own Time (1846 edition), credited to a manuscript supplied by Col. Prescott’s grandson, the Rev. Edward G. Prescott. Interestingly, Richard Frothingham’s History of the Siege of Boston (1849) cites the same manuscript but says Willard’s answer was, “Yes, sir; he is an old soldier, and will fight as long as a drop of blood remains in his veins!” Caleb Butler’s History of the Town of Groton (1848) mentions that manuscript as well, but not the Willard anecdote. It’s not clear how, if this anecdote happened as described, word of the conversation came back to the Prescotts. But it’s just too good to toss out.

Bunker Hill "By Some Mistake"?

Yesterday I noted the ongoing little kerfuffle over whether it would be more accurate to call the Battle of Bunker Hill the “Battle of Breed’s Hill.” We can do that, I figure, right after we change the name of the Battle of Gettysburg to the “Battle of lots of places all around Gettysburg, but not, you know, right in the middle of town.” It might be a little more accurate, but it wouldn’t really be worth it.

But in one way the distinction between Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill may have really mattered.

In the immediate aftermath of the battle, many New Englanders thought it had been a debacle for their side. The British military had driven provincial troops from a fortified position and moved closer to Cambridge headquarters. Hundreds of men had been killed, wounded, or captured, including the head of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, Dr. Joseph Warren. The artillery had lost five of the six cannons it took into the battle. All those artillery companies’ officers and a few other officers were in various shades of disgrace.

Provincials consoled themselves with news of the heavy British losses. Only as time went on did it become clear that the battle had discouraged the British army from trying to break the siege again. Then the Battle of Bunker Hill gradually turned into an American success story.

In the meantime, the Provincial Congress formed a committee of inquiry to look into what happened. This committee’s report was mainly supposed to put the American cause in the best possible light for London readers, but there was also the question of what had gone wrong. The committee delivered their report on 25 July. Before getting down to the business of lambasting Crown policies, it said:

...commanders of the New England army had, about the 14th ult. [i.e., of last month], received advice that General [Thomas] Gage had issued orders for a party of the troops under his command to post themselves on Bunker’s Hill. . . .

Accordingly, on the 16th ult., orders were issued, that a detachment of 1000 men should that evening march to Charlestown, and intrench upon that hill. Just before nine o’clock they left Cambridge, and proceeded to Breed’s Hill, situated on the further part of the peninsula next to Boston, for, by some mistake, this hill was marked out for the intrenchment instead of the other.

However, exactly a month later Col. William Prescott wrote to John Adams in Philadelphia:

On the 16th of June, in the evening, I received orders to march to Breed’s Hill in Charlestown, with a party of about one thousand men. . . .

We arrived at the spot, the lines were drawn by the engineer, and we began the intrenchment about twelve o’clock; and plying this work with all possible expedition till just before sun-rising, when the enemy began a very heavy cannonading and bombardment.

And then there’s a 12 July letter from a man named Samuel Dyer (perhaps a Boston officeholder of that name), passing on secondhand news:

that the engineer and two generals went on to the hill at night and reconnoitred the ground; that one general and the engineer were of opinion we ought not to intrench on Charlestown Hill [apparently meaning Breed’s Hill] till we had thrown up some works on the north and south ends of Bunker Hill, to cover our men in their retreat, if that should happen, but on the pressing importunity of the other general officer, it was consented to begin as was done.

So which account is correct? We don’t have a written record of the orders issued on 16 June, if they were ever written down. All of these accounts come from after the battle, and are thus tinged by that oldest and deepest of human motivations, the desire to cover your own arse.

Prescott insisted that he went to Breed’s Hill as ordered. The Provincial Congress committee said the orders were for Bunker’s Hill, but an officer—implicitly Col. Richard Gridley, commander of the American artillery regiment—“marked out [the wrong hill] for the intrenchment.” The stories Dyer heard absolved both Prescott (who wasn’t involved in the decision) and Gridley (who advised against it), and blamed an unnamed general for choosing Breed’s Hill without adequate preparation behind the lines. And that doesn’t even get into the question of who that general was, or whether Dyer’s information is reliable.

All I can be sure about the choice of Breed’s Hill for the provincial redoubt are that:

• “Breed’s Hill” was a strictly local term. The Early American Newspapers database brings up no hits for that phrase in Boston newspapers from 1700 to 1774.
• None of the military commanders involved—Prescott, Gridley, Gen. Israel Putnam, Gen. Artemas Ward &c.—was from Charlestown.
  

So if American security hinged on the subtle distinction between Bunker’s Hill and Breed’s/Charlestown Hill, it wasn’t wise to send those men out in the middle of the night to find the right spot.

What Do We Call the Battle of Bunker Hill?

It’s common in discussions of the Battle of Bunker Hill for someone to add, “Actually, it was fought on Breed’s Hill.” This is often said with the slightly smug, know-it-all tone associated with history blogs like this one. (See examples here.)

The Breed’s Hill label is arguably true (and arguably false—as I’ll get to in a moment). But why does the different name matter, besides offering the pleasure of showing you know more than the average bear? After all, names are conventions, and our standard names for historical events aren’t necessarily the most accurate.

For instance, Bostonians were calling the shootings on King Street on 5 Mar 1770 a “Horrid Massacre” within weeks after the event; that phrase is in the title of the town’s official report on the incident. Friends of the royal government avoided such language; their response to the Boston report referred to the “Unhappy Disturbance.” Clearly the word “massacre” had political ramifications, but it’s nonetheless become our standard term for the event.

What about the night of 16 Dec 1773, when Bostonians dumped tea into their harbor? For decades locals referred to that as “the destruction of the tea.” Then in 1826 Josiah Wyeth of Cincinnati started to speak of the “Boston Tea Party.” Prof. Ben Carp of Tufts made me notice how New Englanders first adopted that term to refer to the actors, not the action, as in “Nicholas Campbell...made one of the celebrated Tea Party in Boston harbor” (Connecticut Courant, 31 July 1826). After two books based on the memories of George R. T. Hewes used “Tea Party” in their titles, the new name stuck and became our standard term for the event.

There are similar quibbles possible with the names of other Revolutionary events:

• New England’s “Powder Alarm” of 1774 and New York’s “Battle of Golden Hill” in 1770 got their names from historians many years later.
• The “Battle of Lexington and Concord” took place in many other towns as well, with the worst fighting in Menotomy, now called Arlington.
• The “Battle of Bennington” not only didn’t take place in Bennington, it didn’t even take place in Vermont.

So what might be the most accurate period term for the location of the battle on 17 June 1775? Did people of that time use “Bunker Hill” or “Breed’s Hill” more often? I searched for the different phrases in late 1775 in the Early American Newspapers database, and the answer is:

Neither.

The database included 4 mentions of “Breed’s Hill,” 23 mentions of “Bunker Hill,” and a whopping 52 uses of “Bunker’s Hill.”

Furthermore, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s official report on the fighting, dated 5 July 1775, referred to “the battle of Charlestown.” That name emphasized the nearly total destruction of the town by British artillery to deprive provincials of cover, rather than the farmland where most of the actual killing took place.

Nevertheless, I call this fight the “Battle of Bunker Hill,” letting convention justify dropping the apostrophe-s. As for Bunker versus Breed’s, that’s a distinction with little difference. Breed’s Hill wasn’t so much a separate hill as a rise along the slope from the water to the top of Bunker Hill. As the newspaper showed, few people wrote of Breed’s Hill as a site of its own. There were provincial forces on both Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill, though men at the first location did most (but not all) of the fighting. And at the end of the day the British military took both prominences, making Bunker Hill their fortified outpost for the rest of the siege.

In only one way might the distinction between Bunker’s Hill and Breed’s Hill really matter. And I’ll discuss that tomorrow.

(Incidentally, if you see the famous Howard Pyle painting above, showing lines of British soldiers marching up Bunker Hill, grab it. According to the F.B.I.’s art theft website, it was stolen from the Delaware Art Museum in 2001.)

New Bunker Hill Visitor Center Opens Tomorrow

I was planning this entry to highlight tomorrow’s ceremonial opening of the Bunker Hill Monument’s new visitor center and museum, and lucked out in having this front-page Boston Globe story do all the reporting for me. The Globe also had a local story last weekend the trowel Lafayette used to help lay the monument’s cornerstone.

For over a century the main interpretive site at the monument has been the 1902 classically-styled lodge, and the main visual tool was a rather nice scale model of the battle—low-tech but effective. The new visitor center is a two-story building across the street from the park. That building, formerly a branch library, displays a new “cyclorama” mural of the battle by Arlington painter John S. Coles. The monument itself has a new exterior lighting scheme.

(The Globe article is off on the battle’s casualty count when it says, “The redcoats lost more than 1,000 troops, compared to about 400 dead among the colonists.” Those are the approximate figures for the dead and wounded. The British suffered 226 dead, the provincials about 160 by the end of the summer. The Battle of Bunker Hill was a victory for the British military, but more costly than any battlefield loss during the rest of the war.)

For a few days I’ll post items about the Battle of Bunker Hill, at least when I can get to a computer. As for tomorrow’s ceremony, the Boston National Historical Park events calendar says it starts at 10:00 A.M. and runs through noon. (Which is, alas, in conflict with Harmonious Blacksmith.)

Smithsonian Focus Seeks Inspiring Americans

Vanessa Harbin, editor of Smithsonian Focus, has emailed me an alert about its “Inspiring Americans Contest.” The institution invites legal residents of the United States over the age of eighteen to “Describe for us in an essay using approximately 250 words or less an American individual who inspires you.”

A panel of Smithsonian Institution judges will pick five finalists, whose work will be posted on a webpage where folks can vote for their favorites later this month. The winner will receive a free year of Contributing Membership in the Smithsonian at the Partner Level ($225-$349), including Smithsonian monthly magazine.

The deadline for this contest is noon, Eastern time, on Friday, 15 June—that’s this week!

ADDENDUM: The page for voting on one’s choice of Inspiring American is up now.

John Adams Hears Some Dirty Jokes

Yesterday I quoted young John Quincy Adams feeling pressure from his father to note down everything useful he hears in a diary. And here’s a couple of ribald jokes John Adams himself wrote down in a notebook he carried in the spring of 1759, when he was twenty-four. The original is at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and readable here.

Ned tells a story tolerably well. He told of [smudge]. He was a better Prophet than Elijah for he stretched himself on her but once to bring her to Life whereas Elijah did 3 times. He breathed into her the Breath of Life.

Ned told the Duke of Whartons Character and Life, &c. Ned was sociable, told the stories he had read pretty well, &c. Billy was sociable too, but awed, afraid.

They told of the wickedest jokes that had been put upon Nat Hurd, by some fellows in Boston, who found out that he had such a Girl at his shop, at such a time. One went to him and pretended to make a confidant of him.

Oh god, what shall I do? That Girl, [smudge] her, has given me the Clap. [smudge]

That scared him and made him cry, Oh damn her, what shall I do? I saw her such a Night. I am [peppered?].

He went to the Dr. [smudge] and was salivated for the Clap. Then they sent him before justice Phillips, then before justice Tyler, in short they played upon him till they provoked him so that he swore, he would beat the Brains out of the first man that came into his shop, to plague him with his [smudge].

Here’s a more dignified portrait of silversmith and engraver Nathaniel Hurd from about a decade later.

John Quincy Adams Wishes He Kept a Journal

I’m busy preparing my butt off to go to the 2007 Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife conference this upcoming weekend in historic Deerfield, Massachusetts. This is the second year the seminar is devoted to New England diaries of all kinds.

The first paper to be delivered on Friday evening will be my own: “The Revolutionary-Era Boy and ‘His Joyrnal’: Diary-Keeping as a Step Toward Manhood.” To get in the right mood, today I’ll share John Quincy Adams’s thoughts on keeping a journal and letterbook from a letter to his mother, 27 Sept 1778:

My Pappa enjoins it on me to keep a journal, or a diary, of the Events that happen to me, and of objects that I See, and of Characters that I converse with from day, to day, and altho I am Convinced of the utility, importance, & necessity, of this Exercise, yet I have not patience, & perseverance, enough to do it so Constantly as I ought.

My Pappa who takes a great deal of Pains to put me in the right way, has also advised me to Preserve Copies of all my letters, & has given me a Convenient Blank Book for this end; and although I shall have the mortification a few years hence, to read a great deal of my Childish nonsense, yet I shall have the Pleasure, & advantage, of Remarking the several steps, by which I shall have advanced, in taste, judgment, & knowledge.

a journal book & a letter Book of a Lad of Eleven years old, Cannot be expected to Contain much of Science, Litterature, arts, wisdom, or wit, yet it may Serve to perpetuate many observations that I may make, & may hereafter help me to recolect both persons, & things, that would other ways escape my memory.

I have been to see [various sites]…in & about Paris, which if I had written down in a diary, or a Letter Book, would give me at this time much Pleasure to revise, & would enable me hereafter to Entertain my Freinds, but I have neglected it & therefore, can now only resolve to be more thoughtful, & Industrious, for the Future & to encourage me in this resolution & enable me to keep it with more ease & advantage my father has given me hopes of a Present of a Pencil & Pencil Book in which I can make notes upon the spot to be Transfered afterewards in my Diary & my Letters this will give me great Pleasure both because it will be a sure means of improvement to myself & enable me to be more entertaing to you.

If John Quincy had taken all the effort that went into this letter and just kept a diary from the start, then he wouldn’t have felt such guilt and anxiety about disappointing his parents on that score. But I get the feeling he would have suffered a lot of guilt and anxiety about disappointing them anyway.

About a year later John Quincy did start a journal, which covers the start of his second journey to Europe, and I’m going to discuss that in my paper. Eventually Adams got so into the daily habit that his 51-volume diary is one of the daunting monuments of nineteenth-century America.

Was Dr. Samuel Danforth Smuggling Hay?

Boston selectman Timothy Newell recorded yet another skirmish over hay in Boston harbor on 9 June 1775, this time with no casualties:

Last night several Gundaloes went to Noddle’s Island for hay—two hundred and thirty Regulars went off soon after sunrise to support them. Upon the appearance of our people they tho’t proper to retire and arrived safe back here.

Here’s another document from that spring showing the fight to control natural resources early in the siege:

Malden, May 8th, 1775. The joint Committee of Malden and Chelsea, Voted, Capt. John Dexter, Thomas Hills, and Jonathan Williams be a Committee to wait on Gen. [Artemas] Ward, and inform him that Doct. Sam: Danforth, of Boston, passes backwards and forwards to that place, and from his well-known Conduct and Behaviour, we have reason to suspect his Attachment to our most Righteous Cause, likewise his securing Hay and moving it down to Winnisimmet ferry in order to be removed to Boston: and that the Committee has taken care that said Hay shall be removed to some more secure place.

Dr. Samuel Danforth (1740-1827) owned farmland in Chelsea. His brother Thomas was a lawyer in Charlestown. And both Danforth brothers were known to favor the royal government. It looks like they went into Boston in June and stayed there, though Dr. Danforth’s wife and family remained with her father in Chelsea.

Interestingly, while Thomas evacuated with the British military in 1776, Samuel remained in Massachusetts. He weathered a long period of suspicion and unpopularity through the war, then regained people’s trust as a physician. In 1781 he joined medical colleagues, most of them Patriot, in founding the Massachusetts Medical Society, and in the late 1790s served as the group’s president.

British Officers Taken Prisoner

On Wednesday I shared some reports of a prisoner exchange between the British and provincial armies, 232 years earlier. The Essex Gazette reported the provincials’ prisoners as:

Major Dunbar, and Lieut. Hamilton of the 64th on horse-back; Lieut. Potter, of the marines, in a chaise; John Hilton of the 47th, Alexander Campbell of the 4th, John Tyne, Samuel Marcy, Thomas Parry, and Thomas Sharp, of the marines, wounded men, in two carts

Few sources on the siege of Boston say anything more about those men, so here’s what I’ve been able to gather.

Maj. William Dunbar was a retired British officer who had been traveling in New England when the war broke out; he was captured in Cambridge while seeking to ride home to Canada. On 29 April the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s Committee of Safety ordered that “Major Dunbar, now a prisoner at Head-Quarters” in Cambridge, be taken “to Woburn, under a strong guard, and...kept in safe custody.” (The committee also authorized the company escorting Dunbar to charge their tavern bill to the province.) According to Historical Sketches of Andover, relying on correspondence between Dunbar and Samuel Osgood, the officer was “Mayor of Quebec,” but there seems to have been no such office until 1833; that might simply have been a misreading of “Major.” Dunbar died in Montreal in 1788.

Lt. Hamilton of the 64th Regiment was probably one of the British officers who rode out on horseback early on 18 April to scout the route to Concord, stop alarm riders like Paul Revere, and otherwise prepare the way for the army’s march that evening. He was captured, unwounded, by provincial militiamen as he tried to get back to his regiment at Castle William. (He was not Lt. James Hamilton of the 10th, who had refused to ride out the night before, claiming illness.)

In an invisible-ink report to Gen. Thomas Gage dated 6 May 1775, Benjamin Thompson of Woburn said that “Dunbar from Canada, & Ens. Hamilton of [tear] Regt. with their Servants are Prisoners in this town.” Ensign was the rank below lieutenant, the equivalent of a 2nd lieutenant in today’s U.S. army, so Thompson wasn’t far off. (Judge Peter Oliver, in a letter to Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, referred simply to “Mr. Hamilton, of the 64th Regiment.”) Did Dunbar and Hamilton have servants with them who did not return to Boston, or did Thompson assume the enlisted men were their servants?

Lt. Isaac Potter of the marines was wounded near Lexington, according to Gage’s report to London. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 History of the Town of Concord reported:

Lieutenant Isaac Potter, of the marines, was taken prisoner, and confined some time at Reuben Brown’s. Colonel [James] Barrett was directed, April 22d, to give him liberty to walk round the house, but to keep a constant guard of three men, day and night, to present his being insulted or making his escape.

Maj. David Mason of the Massachusetts artillery regiment wrote “Lieut Potter of the Marines” in a notebook he was keeping in 1774-75, so their paths must have crossed.

As for the enlisted men, it’s typical of British military sources not to name them. Gage reported all the officers killed, wounded, and captured in his report to London, but simply gave numbers for lower-ranking men. Similarly, the officers traveled to this prisoner exchange on horses and a chaise while the enlisted men shared wagons. The American newspaper account might therefore be our best printed source on the private soldiers. For more information, someone might have to page through original manuscripts in the U.K.’s National Archives.

COMING UP: And the British military’s prisoners?

Ann Molineux Marries Ward Nicholas Boylston

Earlier in the week I promised to discuss the mysterious marriage of William Molineux’s eldest daughter, Ann. I want to thank Boston 1775 reader Donald Campbell for pushing me on this topic last month. I’d read the following material before, but I hadn’t followed up on it or tried to put it together.

Ann Molineux, as I described earlier, was the first child of the marriage between William Molineux and Ann or Marianne Guionneau. She was baptized on 24 Aug 1748.

Ward Hallowell was born on 22 Nov 1747 to merchant captain Benjamin Hallowell (1725-1799) and his wife Mary Boylston (1723-1795). In 1757 the captain commanded a small warship called King George, commissioned by the province of Massachusetts. After the fighting with France he sought a lucrative post within Britain’s Customs service, rising in 1770 to be one of the five Customs Commissioners overseeing all the ports of North America. In the early 1770s the Hallowells bought a mansion in Jamaica Plain, just outside Boston.

Ward was his parents’ oldest surviving child, but he was not destined to carry on the family name. [It’s so rare to be able to write a sentence like that these days.] Instead, Ward’s maternal uncle Nicholas Boylston of London, having no children of his own, offered to make Ward his heir if he agreed to change his surname. Since Uncle Nicholas was immensely rich, this was not a hard decision. In his late teens Ward Hallowell sailed to London to start learning the business. In 1770 he became Ward Nicholas Boylston by royal decree, and in 1771 he became, yes, immensely rich.

[The Nicholas Boylston in London was not the same as the Nicholas Boylston whom John S. Copley painted in Boston, though he, too, was immensely rich.]

The following appears in the first volume of Mary Caroline Crawford’s Famous Families of Massachusetts, published in 1930.

He [Ward Nicholas Boylston] chose for a wife—probably about 1770...—Ann Molineux, daughter of William Molineux, Boston merchant and friend of Samuel Adams. The union of this son of a supporter of the king with the daughter of a Boston patriot apparently was clandestinely planned, as the ceremony was performed under a permit issued by Governor John Wentworth of New Hampshire. The marriage probably occurred at Portsmouth.

Not long after becoming a benedict, Boylston went abroad for an extended tour. Then the Revolution broke out and he was obliged to seek refuge in London. Apparently he did not bother much about his wife’s comfort or welfare and that lady’s troubles so preyed on her mind that she long hovered on the verge of insanity. Finally she lived apart from her husband. But in 1779, after having been deserted by him in London, she started for America,—and died on shipboard. The funds for her support, during the last part of her life, seem to have been furnished by her brother William...

Unfortunately, Crawford didn’t say where her information came from. It may have been from Nellie Zada Rice’s Molyneux Genealogy, published in 1904; I haven’t seen that book, but I understand from an online description that it doesn’t cite original sources either. The implication of the passage above is that someone in the twentieth century saw a marriage document issued by Gov. Wentworth for Ward Nicholas Boylston (or Ward Hallowell) and Ann Molineux. Everything else could be based on family traditions—probably the Boylston family.

The date of the marriage would be significant since Ward Nicholas and Ann Boylston’s first child, Nicholas, was born in 1771, according to the Boylston Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Was his impending arrival the reason the couple went to New Hampshire? Or did they leave Massachusetts to wed because of opposition from their families?

This marriage is even more intriguing because the groom’s father and the bride’s father were on opposite sides of the pre-Revolutionary political conflict, they were both leaders within their factions, and they were both hotheads. Molineux once threatened to kill himself if he wasn’t allowed to lead a huge crowd in a march on the acting governor’s mansion. Hallowell got into fisticuffs with Adm. Samuel Graves in 1775 even though there was a war on and they were on the same side.

So a marriage between Molineux’s daughter and Hallowell’s son, particularly a secret one, should be the stuff of Montagues and Capulets. And then when that marriage went sour? As gossip, it must have been huge. Yet I can’t recall or unearth a single mention of this union in contemporary diaries, newspapers, or other records—anything before 1930. Anyone? Anyone?

Where Was Paul Revere's "North Church"?

Yesterday I had a chat with Cambridge historical tour guide Donna “Mistress Elizabeth” La Rue about which Boston steeple Paul Revere used to send his lantern signal to Patriots in Charlestown. He told the founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society that he’d arranged “if the British went out by Water, we would shew two Lanthorns in the North Church Steeple; and if by Land, one, as a Signal.”

Did “the North Church” mean the Old North Meeting-House in North Square, near Revere’s home, or Christ Church on Salem Street, a couple of blocks away and now called Old North Church? Congregationalist meeting-houses weren’t usually called “churches”—though sometimes they were. Anglican churches weren’t usually designated by geographic location—though sometimes they were. (Earlier discussion on that nomenclature here.)

Revere named the building in 1798, so he probably used the term that prevailed in that decade. If he meant the Old North Meeting-House, it’s notable that he didn’t mention that the British military had pulled it down more than twenty years before. But would Bostonians of that decade have understood the term “North Church” to mean Christ Church? That’s what Donna and I discussed yesterday.

Here’s an advertisement in the 20 May 1794 Salem Gazette:

John Wilson,
NEXT door to the Rev. Doctor Stillman, opposite to the North Church, Salem Street, Boston—respectfully informs the Ladies of Salem and its vicinity, that he has erected a machine for the Glazing of Linen and Calico Gowns...

And a passage from the diary of the Rev. William Bentley of Salem, 3 Nov 1797:

We took leave of Mr. Freeman & then passed to the North End. At the head of Hancock’s Wharf we saw the Frigate & received the kind attentions of Col. Claghorn. We then left the town, passing the North Church in Salem Street & over Charlestown & Malden Bridges continued our route towards Salem.

Quotes like these show that in the 1790s people were using the term “North Church” to refer to a building on Salem Street—which could only be Christ Church. Old North Meeting-House was not only gone, but it had been a couple of blocks away.

A helpful architectural clue appears in the account of Richard Devens, the Charlestown Patriot to whom Revere arranged to send the signal. As quoted in History of the Siege of Boston, by Richard Frothingham (ironically, the first author to promote the Old North Meeting-House theory), Devens wrote:

Soon afterward, the signal agreed upon was given; this was a lanthorn hung out in the upper window of the tower of the N. Ch., towards Charlestown.

Below is part of a northwest-looking image of Boston’s 1768 skyline engraved by none other than Paul Revere from a drawing by Christian Remick. It’s not an exact picture—it’s more like one of those tourist maps that enlarges all the businesses that have sponsored the map and shrinks all the rest. In this case, the town’s places of worship stand out, not just because they were the tallest buildings in town but also because Remick and Revere were making a point about Boston being a godly town.

Fortunately, for this question we simply need to compare the Old North Meeting-House steeple on the left to the Christ Church spire on the right. They were both drawn to stand out. But which has an “upper window”?

We do have to ask why Revere and his confederates would signal from an Anglican church, one whose minister and congregants (by and large) supported the Crown. Again, the picture hints at a likely answer. Christ Church was high on Copp’s Hill and had the tallest spire in Boston. A signal from its tower would be more visible than the same signal from the Old North Meeting-House. Furthermore, once the military authorities spotted those lanterns, it would take a longer time for men to climb up there and snuff them out.

British-American Prisoner Exchange

I promised to write about Ann Molineux’s marriage today, but then I realized I’d already planned to discuss an event from 1775 noted in selectman Timothy Newell’s diary:

6th [June]. Mr. John Peck, Mr. Frost, Mr. Brewer and sundry others discharged from on board the Admiral in exchange of prisoners, viz Major Dunbar, Capt Gould and a number of wounded soldiers.

This was the first negotiated exchange of prisoners in the Revolutionary War, I believe. [ADDENDUM: There was an earlier exchange of one wounded British officer for one American on 28 May 1775.] Newell didn’t have all the prisoners’ names, and one of the names he listed (Gould) was an error. Here’s a very detailed report on the day from the Patriot newspaper nearest the scene, the 9 June Essex Gazette:

Tuesday last being the day agreed on for the exchange of prisoners, between 12 and 1 o’clock, Dr. [Joseph] Warren and Brigadier General [Israel] Putnam, in a phaeton, together with Major Dunbar, and Lieut. Hamilton of the 64th on horse-back; Lieut. Potter, of the marines, in a chaise; John Hilton of the 47th, Alexander Campbell of the 4th, John Tyne, Samuel Marcy, Thomas Parry, and Thomas Sharp, of the marines, wounded men, in two carts; the whole escorted by the Weathersfield company, under the command of Capt. Chester, entered the town of Charlestown, and marching slowing [sic] thro’ it, halted at the ferry, where, upon a signal being given, Major [Thomas] Moncrief landed from the Lively, in order to receive the prisoners, and see his old friend, General Putnam:—

Their meeting was truly cordial and affectionate. The wounded privates were soon sent on board the Lively; but Major Moncrief, and the other officers, returned with Gen. Putnam and Dr. Warren, to the house of Dr. [Isaac] Foster, where an entertainment was provided for them.

About 3 o’clock, a signal was made by the Lively, that they were ready to deliver up our prisoners; upon which, Gen. Putnam and Major Moncrief went to the ferry, where they received Messirs. John Peck, James Hews, James Brewer, and Daniel Preston, of Boston; Messirs. Samuel Frost and Seth Russell, of Cambridge; Mr. Joseph Bell, of Danvers; Mr. Elijah Seaver, of Roxbury, and Caesar Augustus, a negro servant of Mr. Tileston, of Dorchester, who were conducted to the house of Capt. Foster, and there refreshed; after which, the General and Major returned to their company, and spent an hour or two in a very agreeable manner.

Between 5 and 6 o’clock Major Moncrief, with the officers that had been delivered to him, were conducted to the ferry, where the Lively’s barge received them; after which, General Putnam, with the prisoners who had been delivered to him, &c. returned to Cambridge, escorted in the same manner as before.

The whole was conducted with the utmost decency and good humor; and the Weathersfield company did honor to themselves, their officers, and their country. The regular officers expressed themselves as highly pleased; those who had been prisoners politely acknowledged the genteel, kind treatment they had received from their captors; the privates, who were all wounded men, expressed in the strongest terms, their grateful sense of the tenderness which had been shown them in their miserable situation; some of them could only do it by their tears. It would have been to the honour of the British arms, if the prisoners taken from us could with justice make the same acknowledgment.

The map above, courtesy of the National Park Service, shows the Charlestown peninsula in 1775. It centers on the Bunker Hill battlefield, of course. The prisoner exchange probably took place in the settled part of town near the bottom, where the ferry landed and gentlemen could sit down for a good meal.

COMING UP: Who were all those guys, and how had they become prisoners?

Growing Up Molineux

Boston merchant William Molineux and merchant’s daughter Ann Guionneau married at the end of 1747, and started having children eight months later. These are the names that appear in the records of Boston’s Trinity Church (shown here, courtesy of Julie L. Sloan), along with the many creative ways Bostonians rendered the family name:

• Ann, “Daughter of Will. & ____ Mullinux,” baptized 24 Aug 1748
• William, “Son of William & Ann Mullinex,” baptized 16 Nov 1749, with one sponsor being “Mrs. Guno,” probably his maternal grandmother
• Richard, “Son of William & Mary Ann Mullenix,” baptized 2 Feb 1751
• John, baptized 13 Aug 1753
• Elizabeth, “Wm. & Marian [Molineaux],” baptized 26 Jan 1758

Of these five children, the boys are much better documented than the girls, but I haven’t found any other mention of Richard at all, which probably means he died young.

The Molineux family was then living in William’s house on Orange Street, a stretch of modern Washington Street. In 1753 the couple deeded that house to William Bowdoin, and the Thwing database doesn’t give a clue about where they lived for the rest of the decade. Molineux had bought a lot on Harvard Street in 1749, but apparently that was a real-estate investment; he sold it twenty years later, apparently still as an empty lot.

On 14 July 1760 the family moved into a large house on Beacon Hill, between the homes of wealthy merchants Thomas Hancock (uncle of John) and James Bowdoin. This mansion became known as “Molineux House,” and William Molineux would live there the rest of his life. The site now lies under the Massachusetts State House, about where the statue of Gen. Joseph Hooker stands.

Both William and John Molineux attended the South Writing School across the Common on West Street and learned handwriting skills from Master Samuel Holbrook. Samples of their elaborate work—probably end-of-year demonstration samples—are filed with other Holbrook papers at Harvard’s Houghton Library. The girls Ann and Elizabeth probably had private lessons in various genteel feminine skills, possibly even private writing lessons from the same Master Holbrook, but I know of no record of their education.

As a young man (or an old boy) William, Jr., shows up in the record of two eye-catching legal events of the early 1770s. First, he observed the Boston Massacre from the balcony of Joseph Ingersol’s Bunch of Grapes tavern across King Street. One of his companions, Jeremiah Allen, testified to seeing guns fired from the Customs House behind the soldiers. Even though William’s father pressed hard to prosecute Customs officials in that shooting, William, Jr., was never called to testify.

In 1771 William, Jr., was a witness in court when John Gray sued Lendall Pitts for assault. This trouble started when Gray or another boy had impersonated a girl so well that he attracted Pitts’s amorous attentions. Young Molineux testified:

I saw him dressed in Womens Cloaths. He had the outward Appearance of a Woman, a Gown and Womens Cloaths. I saw a Couple of young Gentleman gallanting him. Pitts was one, I was very sensible they were taken in. Plaisted was the other. They appeared to be very loving—she rather Coy. I called out to Pitts at New Boston [i.e., around Beacon Hill and perhaps Mount Whoredom]. He turnd a deaf Ear. He came back and said he had a very clever Girl, and went to her again.

When Pitts realized he’d been fooled, or later when he heard Gray joking about the incident, he demanded satisfaction. The phrases “chuckle headed son of a Bitch” and “woolly headed Rascall” came up. Pitt smashed Gray on the head with a cane. And Gray sued.

As if that dispute couldn’t get any further from our usual conceptions of colonial Boston, during the Dec 1771 trial James Otis, Jr., apparently took it upon himself to stand up and tell the court how Clodius had cross-dressed in classical Rome. That went over so well that later that day Gov. Thomas Hutchinson reported that Otis had been removed, “bound hand and foot,” to an asylum by his family.

The brief record for this case appears in The Legal Papers of John Adams, and it’s summarized in Brenton Simons’s Witches, Rakes, and Rogues. It only makes sense when we consider how a bunch of young men, a little too rich for their own good, can have fun at each other’s expense.

COMING UP: Miss Molineux’s mysterious marriage.

William Molineux: a Wolverhampton wanderer?

Because few historians have studied the Boston political organizer William Molineux as an individual, there’s not much information in print about his private life. Here’s all that I’ve been able to gather about his background, and I welcome more.

Massachusetts newspapers reported that Molineux died in October 1774 at the age of 57, which would mean he was born in 1717. As for where, the best clue I’ve found comes from Peter Oliver’s memoir:

There had lived in the Town of Boston, many Years, a William Molineaux, from Wolverhampton in ye. County of Stafford in England.

(Oliver wasn’t writing emphatically; he was following a formal style of the time that required underlining all proper nouns.)

Oliver detested Molineux and his politics, but on confirmable facts I find his memoir reliable, so I assume this statement is true. There was a prominent Molineux family in Wolverhampton in the mid-1770s. (How prominent? The city’s football stadium bears that name today.) Our Molineux probably commanded a certain amount of property because he seems to have arrived in Boston as a gentleman.

The earliest record of William Molineux in Annie Haven Thwing’s database about people in Boston is dated 10 Apr 1747, when he bought a house and land of Phillips Chamberlain on Orange Street in the South End. He was about thirty years old and already identified as a merchant.

William Molineux and Ann Guionneau married on 22 Dec 1747, according to Boston’s published town records. The presiding minister was the Rev. Andrew LeMercier, indicating that the ceremony was in Boston’s French Huguenot church, which disbanded the next year. (Its building was on the corner of School Street and what’s now Washington Street, present site of the godawful Irish Famine Memorial.)

The new Ann Molineux’s first name also appears in Trinity Church records as Mary Ann and Maryann, and her last name before marriage is spelled many ways: Guionow, Guineo, Guno, etc. When the she died on 12 Nov 1783, the Continental Journal (which described her as “amiable”) said she was 65 and the church said she was 63. So she was born around 1718-20.

No baptismal records from Boston’s Huguenot church survive, but I suspect Ann Gionneau was the daughter of Henry and Maria/Marianne (Fagget/Faget) Guionneau, who were married on 14 Mar 1707 by the Rev. Peter Daillie, a Huguenot minister who had come from New York. Real estate transactions identify Henry Guionneau as a merchant; he died in 1730. Trinity Church records say “The Widow Maryann Guioneau” died on 26 Mar 1771 at the age of 85, meaning she was born about 1686.

(I must note, however, that town records also say that on 16 Nov 1731 the Rev. Andrew LeMercier united “Maryan Guionow” with James Desbross as her second husband. Is this another woman of the same name? Or perhaps William Molineux’s future mother-in-law remarried but later returned to using her first husband’s surname.)

In 1748, William and Ann Molineux began having children. But before moving on to them, I’ll note one more member of the Molineux household. The merchant ran the following ad in the 15 June 1747 Boston Post-Boy (which remained his preferred advertising venue for the next several years):

Ran away from William Molineux of Boston, last Monday Night [i.e., 6 June], a Negro Fellow named Boston, about 20 Years of Age, of a middle Stature, had on when he went away, a light colour’d Cloth pea Jacket, a red strip’d cotton and linnen Jacket, and Leather Breeches: All Person are forbid harbouring or concealing said Fellow as they will answer it at their Peril: Whosoever will secure said Fellow, and bring him to said Molineux shall be rewarded for their Trouble.

(There are those proper nouns again.)

TOMORROW: Growing up Molineux.

William Molineux, Forgotten Revolutionary

Over the next couple of days, following a pointer and a push from Boston 1775 reader Donald Campbell, I’m going to write about William Molineux. To which the standard American answer would be:

Who?

Molineux’s name appears in few overall histories of the American Revolution. He held no major elective offices, wrote no significant articles, fought in no battles, and didn’t help organize the new U.S. of A. He has no entry in the Dictionary of American Biography. There’s no street or square in Boston named after him. He makes only a brief, silent appearance in Disney’s Johnny Tremain, looking like Spiro Agnew.

Yet between 1768 and 1774, Molineux was behind only Samuel Adams in importance as a Boston organizer, of the same stature in the political resistance as men like James Otis, Jr., John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Dr. Thomas Young, and, eventually, Dr. Joseph Warren. This report from the Essex Gazette of 24 Oct 1774, datelined Boston, shows what Whig colleagues thought of him, and also explains why so few people today have heard his name:

On Saturday morning last, after 3 days illness, departed this lie, Mr. WILLIAM MOLINEAUX, in the 58th year of his age, a noted merchant of this town.

But what rendered this Gentleman more eminently conspicuous was, his inflexible attachment to the Liberties of America—At this crisis, when to evidence a desire to serve or relieve their distressed, and oppressed country, is denominated folly, by the mercenary or timorous worldling, ’tis not to be wondered that Mr. Molineaux, who was unappalled at danger, and inaccessible to bribe or corruption, should become obnoxious to the Minion and Sycophant, for his ebullient zeal in so noble a cause.

His time and his labour were with unremitted ardor applied to the public service: That Boston should become the victim of brutal oppressors, was to be insupportable: He could not suppress his resentment on seeing the sons of riot and rapine thus prey on her desolated bosom: It was his pride to confront the power and malice of his country’s foes; it was his constant wish and unremitted effort to defeat them.

It may with truth be said of this friend of mankind, that he died a martyr to the interests of America. His watchfulness, labour, distresses, and exertions to promote the general interest, produced an inflammation in his bowels: The disease was rapid and poignant: But in the severest pangs, he rose superior to complaint, he felt no distresses, but for the Public.

O save my Country, Heaven! He said, and died.

Molineux died six months before Lexington and Concord, when military histories of the Revolution generally begin, so he rarely appears in those books. Furthermore, some genteel contemporaries, even Whigs, weren’t as complimentary about him as this newspaper. Here’s what merchant John Andrews wrote to a relative in Philadelphia:

After surviving a fit of apoplexy two days, at six o’clock this morning died that zealous advocate for American liberties, William Molineaux. If he was too rash, and drove matters to an imprudent pitch, it was owing to his natural temper; as when he was in business, he pursued it with the same impetuous zeal. His loss is not much regretted by the more prudent and judicious part of the community.

And a Loyalist gentleman, Peter Oliver, said even worse:

This Man was a most infamous Disturber of the Peace, & urged on the Mobs to commit their mad & desperate Schemes.

Molineux didn’t practice genteel, indoor politics. He led crowds in Boston’s streets—usually peacefully, but often with the unspoken threat of physical action. During the nonimportation boycott of 1770, Molineux demanded a march on Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s house even though that was, Josiah Quincy, Jr., warned, potentially treasonous. After the Boston Massacre, he pressed for the prosecution of both the soldiers and Customs officials. He threw himself into a public-works project to employ Boston’s poor. In the tea crisis of 1773, Molineux’s visit to the Clarke family led to a stand-off with guns, and he appears to have been the only top Whig leader not seen inside Old South Meeting-House when the destruction of the tea began.

Men of Molineux’s class usually tried to separate themselves from crowd actions. He was a political anomaly in other ways as well. He was apparently born in England, and most British natives remained loyal to the Crown. He was nominally an Anglican, and the people of that church were disproportionately Loyalist. His closest business associates supported the royal government. But Molineux was probably more radical than any other leader in Boston but Young—more radical in many ways than Samuel Adams. Indeed, the 20th-century image of Adams that I’ve decried would probably be a better fit for Molineux.

In sum, William Molineux deserves a lot more attention.

TOMORROW: The dreaded genealogy.

Old South Meeting-House Steeple Tour for 2007

Last year I described taking a tour of the Old South Meeting-House steeple, which included a closeup look at the works for the tower clock, built by Gawen Brown. On 16 Apr 1770, the Boston Gazette reported that it “goes with such regularity and exactness that for this fourteen weeks it has not lost but two minutes of time.” Brown engraved his name on the bronze wheel in my photo. (Click on it for a closer look.)

Old South is offering that hourlong tour again on Saturday, 30 June (10:00 and 3:00), and Tuesday, 3 July (10:00 and 2:00). The price is $10 for members, $15 for others who reserve in advance, and nobody under age ten. Call 617-482-6439, x22 to reserve a spot.

Prisoners and Spies in Boston Harbor

On 1 June 1775, Boston selectman Timothy Newell added to his journal of oppressions:

Mr. Hopkins a carpenter released from on board the Admiral where he has been prisoner for 3 weeks for no other reason than taking his own Canoe from one wharf to another. He complained that his fare on board was cruel viz. but half allowance of provisions; kept under deck without any thing to lodge on but the bare deck amidst the most horrid oaths and execrations, and amidst the filth and vermin &c. and left a number of prisoners in that same dismal state &c.

This carpenter may also have aroused suspicion because early in the siege a Boston retailer told Gen. Thomas Gage that ferrymen named Hopkins and Goodwin were sneaking rebels into Boston and sharing information. That informant must have meant the men who kept the regular ferries from the North End to Charlestown and Chelsea. John Greenwood remembered “the person who kept the [Charlestown] ferry” as “Mr. Enoch Hopkins, whose son used to go to school with me.” This Hopkins died on 27 Dec 1778 at the age of 55.

Gage’s informant went on:

And the men that go in the Fishing-boats are Equally as bad, for they will get a pass from the Admiral for a boat and Perhaps four men, they will take three Fisher-men and one Rebel, and as soon as they get below they will Land the Rebel and take another on board, so he comes up in the stead of him that they carried down, and Sees and hears what he can, and then returns the same way that he came.

In fact, here’s a letter from William Stoddard, a justice of the peace in Boston, to Capt. James Littlefield on 15 June 1775, showing how ferryman Hopkins and his son were conduits for messages, goods, and money, and how bringing a fishing boat into town was indeed a way to slip in precious food—and perhaps more:

Your letter and the last, dated the 13th instant, by Mr. Hopkins, I have received. I waited on the Admiral this morning, and have got you a fishing pass for your boat and three men, to come in and out of this harbour, which I now send you. You will carefully observe the pass; you must observe to go a fishing from Salem, before you come up here, and then you may come in and go out. I hope you will not meet with any obstruction at Salem; not forgetting, if in your power, to bring up veal, green peas, fresh butter, asparagus, and fresh salmon.

Mr. Miles went away yesterday in the afternoon, by water, in order to come to you, and we suppose he is with you before this. I hope you have received a cloak, with a bag of brown sugar, I sent over yesterday by Mr. Hopkins’s son. I have paid some of the ferrymen, and I shall pay them all for their trouble, when I have done with them. Do not pay them any thing; if you have, let me know; keep that to yourself. . . .

I shall be much obliged to you, if you can, before you go for Salem, send me some fresh butter, and half a bushel of green peas. I now send you two dollars in this letter, and an osnaburgh bag, by Mr. Hopkins’s son, to put the peas in. What other charges you are at I will settle with you hereafter. I am obliged to you for the hint in coming out. I will let you know more when you come up from Salem. . . .

Twenty-four sail of transports have arrived here this week with Light-horses and Troops from Ireland, and twenty-four more sail are coming.

Capt. James Littlefield was later recommended for a post as Deputy-Commissary of the Continental Army. After all, he was good at supplying things. Justice William Stoddard died in September, aged 82.