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.

John Field: breeches-maker

Back in March, I posted about what little is known of Patrick Carr, one of the victims of the Boston Massacre. He was working for a maker of leather breeches named John Field, and I’ve found more information about that man. Like Carr, Field appears to have immigrated to Boston from Ireland, but he was wealthier.

Church records show that Field’s wife had been named Catherine (or Katherine) Ryan, and they had married at the Presbyterian Meeting-House on 15 Jan 1767. They had their children baptized in Anglican churches: Mary in 1769, Catherine in 1772, John in 1774 (all at King’s Chapel), then Margaret in 1781 and Betsy in 1786 (at Trinity). The family was close to a blacksmith named John Magner and his wife Mary; the couples sponsored the baptisms of each other’s children. In February 1772, Field joined the Charitable Irish Society of Boston; most of its members were immigrants from Ireland.

Field stayed in Boston through the siege of 1775-76 rather than joining the provincials outside. Then he stayed through the evacuation of March 1776 rather than leaving with the British military. The Provincial Congress had him arrested for questioning, but he seems to have been released quickly.

Field might then have tried farming in Chester, Massachusetts. The baptismal record of Margaret Field in 1781 names her father as “John Field of Chester.” In the 13 June 1782 Independent Chronicle, John Field advertised a farm for sale in Chester. But he still owned real estate in Boston; in late 1781 he sold a lot to John Magner.

Another source on John Field are two narratives of a poor black woman from Rhode Island named Phillis Merritt Wanton. In 1784, she testified

that the next day after her Master [John] Merritt [of Providence] died, she was sold by Mr. Overring, the executor, to one Mr. John Field of Boston, a leather breeches maker, and in that month went to live in Boston with the said Field as his servant; that some years ago the said Field told her she might go and get her own living; and that he went away out of the country; whereupon she came to Providence about four years ago

I can date John Merritt’s death to 1770, which would mean Wanton was in the Field household for about ten years, perhaps from the time he moved onto Cornhill, one of Boston’s main streets, until he left town to try farming.

However, in 1800 Wanton described her history differently. She then said that Field had bought her for £100 after Merritt’s death, but then sold her to a “Mr. Peck” of Boston, who granted her freedom “about the time of the blockade of that place by the British.” Wanton may have been trying to shape her history to prevent the Providence officials from ordering her to leave that town—in which case, she was unsuccessful. Both these accounts are transcribed in Ruth Wallis Herndon’s Unwelcome Americans.

The 9 Sept 1800 Massachusetts Mercury reported that “Mrs. Catharine Field, Aet. [i.e., aged] 46, widow of Mr. John Field,” had died. So John had died some time before—perhaps in 1787, when the town granted Catherine a stand in Market Square for selling fruit and vegetables. But what’s most interesting about this notice is that, if the age is correct, John Field had married Catharine when she was only about twelve or thirteen years old.

Arrests and Artillery at the End of May

The fighting over Noddle’s Island seemed to confirm that the Revolutionary War was going to be a real shooting war, and on 31 May 1775 Boston selectman Timothy Newell wrote in his diary:

These several days last past we have been repeatedly alarmed with expectation of a general battle or attack on the town; many people put under guard and some sent on board the Men of war for the most trifling supposed offences.

Newell and his fellow elected officials supported the Patriots, but they also had to worry about the welfare of the townspeople. Which was worse—having the royal military detaining people or forcing them onto warships, or being bombarded by the guns of your own side?

Contrary to what many latter-day chroniclers have written about the provincial forces, portraying them as unequipped underdogs, there was a not-inconsiderable artillery force outside Boston even before Henry Knox brought back large guns from Fort Ticonderoga in the winter of 1775-76. On the same day that Newell was worrying about an attack, Lt. John Barker of His Majesty’s 4th Regiment of Foot wrote in his diary: “Nothing extraordinary but the Rebels practising with Cannon up the Country.”

More Reports on Noddle's Island

Two hundred thirty-two years ago today, Boston selectman Timothy Newell filled out his account of the fighting on Noddle’s Island in Boston harbor, which had started three days before:

30th [May]. The mansion house on Noddle’s Island burnt by our People, the cattle and sheep &c. drove off. The Admiral sent a number of his People to take off some stores of the Men of War, which were in the a ware house there, which was not opposed by our people who lay near; suppose when they had taken them on board a Sloop (which lay at the wharf) our people fired two cannon out of a little patch of wood on the top of the hill, which made them all fly precipitately.

Gen. Thomas Gage sent a report on the same skirmish home to Britain. In mid-July the London Gazette printed this summary released by the government:

Lieutenant-General Gage in his Letters to the Earl of Dartmouth [Secretary of State, shown above courtesy of Wikipedia], dated June 12, 1775, gives an Account, That the Town of Boston continued to be surrounded by a large Body of Rebel Provincials, and that all Communication with the Country was cut off; that the Rebels had been burning Houses and driving Sheep off an Island that has easy Communication with main land, which drew on a Skirmish with some marines who drove the Rebels away; but that an armed Schooner, that had been sent between the Island and the main land, having got on shore at High Water, there was no possibility of saving her, for as the Tide fell, she was left quite dry, and burned by the Rebels. Two men were killed and a few wounded.

Characteristically, Gage didn’t report that loss of a schooner quickly, but waited about two weeks. His message then took more than a month to reach London. By then the situation in Boston had changed greatly, even though the siege lines hadn’t moved at all.

Captain Conner: Tea Party thief, scapegoat

You remember the moment in Johnny Tremain when the men of the Boston Tea Party discover Dove, Johnny’s lazy former bedmate, trying to steal some of the tea for himself? Esther Forbes based that incident on a real incident in the 16 Dec 1773 destruction of the tea.

As I quoted back here, merchant John Andrews identified the tea thief as “Captain Conner, a letter of horses in this place.” Shoemaker George R. T. Hewes remembered him as “Captain O’Connor,” and took credit for detecting his pilferage. (Hewes said that “a tall aged man, who wore a large cocked hat and white wig,” stole tea as well.)

I think that man was Charles Conner, an Irishman who owned an inn and stable in Boston. He had testified for the town about the Boston Massacre, having accompanied victim Patrick Carr to that event. I wrote more about his professional and political activity in Boston back in March. But in late 1773 and 1774 he was probably very unpopular in Boston for endangering the nobly disinterested image of the Tea Party.

I’ve come across Conner’s name in one more interesting place. On 30 July 1774, Adm. John Montagu was sailing home to England on the Royal Navy ship Captain (which name sounds like the start of an Abbot & Costello routine, but I digress). He took down a deposition from a sailor named Samuel Dyer, who incriminated three of Boston’s top leaders and “Captain Conner” in enticing British soldiers to desert:

And this Deponant further maketh Oath that Mr: Samuel Adams did promise him, at the House of Doctor [Thomas] Young in June last. that he this Deponant should, (if he could by any means prevail with any of the Soldiers to Desert.) Receive Four pounds sterling for every Soldier so deserting. and that every Soldier should receive the like sum of Four pounds, or three Hundred acres of Land, and a Quantity of Provision, so soon as they arrived at a certain part of the Country. provided they would cultivate the said Land.

and as a further encouragement he this Deponant was authorised by said Adams. to assure each Soldier he could Prevail upon to desert. that Cloaths to disguise them should be Lodged at proper places.

and this Deponant had Authority likewise to call upon Captain Conner Inn Holder near the Mill Bridge in Boston for what Horses he might have occasion for to carry the Soldiers off. and that a Boat should always be ready at Hancocks Wharf if that method of conveying them off. should be Judged the most Eligible, likewise that a Room, or Store belonging to said Conner was provided to conceal them in, until a proper opportunity offered for their leaving the Town, The Key of which this Deponant had in his possession.

Dyer signed this deposition with a mark.

However, there are reasons to find this document suspicious. First of all, putting an army deserter on horseback at Capt. Conner’s inn, near the center of Boston, would be a terrible way to sneak him out of town.

Furthermore, Dyer could sign his name when he wanted to. The day after this deposition, he signed a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State, asking for protection and support since, he said, people from Boston were asking about what he’d told the admiral.

Finally, when he didn’t get what he wanted from the imperial government, Dyer began to complain loudly that he’d been kidnapped, shipped to England under cover of impressment, and harshly interrogated by high officials. He received support from the Lord Mayor of London (who opposed the party then in power), returned to America, and was warmly welcomed by the Whigs at Newport. Then over the next two years Dyer behaved so erratically that I have doubts about his sanity.

So what does this mean about Charles Conner? I think that Dyer told Adm. Montagu what he wanted to hear about Adams, Young, and Hancock. And I think he pointed the finger at Conner because he knew the Irishman was then an unpopular scapegoat back in Boston. But it’s really hard to guess what was in Samuel Dyer’s mind.

The National Park Service’s Patriot Spy Game

I can’t tell if we’re supposed to see this website or if it’s still in development, but the National Park Service has created a simple videogame called “The Patriot Spy” for young “Webrangers.” Players move across a nice period map of Boston, with images of four surviving landmarks, and have to interpret political cartoons and documents from the 1770s to move ahead.

I’m hoping this is still a beta version since I want to make some changes. (I’ve worked for nearly twenty years as an editor; wanting to make changes is an occupational hazard.) Some are little edits, such as how the game explains its stakes:

In order to maintain control over the troublesome Massachusetts colony, the British planned to capture Patriot cannons hidden in the town of Lexington.

Those cannons were hidden in Concord—as the folks at Minute Man National Historical Park know because they’ve put one of those cannons on display.

The goal of the game is to deliver a secret message to Paul Revere about the British army preparing to march to those cannons. That means its action takes place before 18 April 1775, when the silversmith started his ride west. But Part 1 says British soldiers are stationed in Old South Meeting-House, and that didn’t happen until weeks later.

The first challenge shows an eighteenth-century political cartoon from London with the question, “Does this cartoon show support for the Tea Act?” Well, that all depends on what ”show” means. The drawing depicts opposition to the Tea Act. But it portrays that opposition as so brutish and nasty that it reflects support of the law.

Challenge 3 asks players to search a list of Boston’s elected officials for the names of three prominent Patriots: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Benjamin Church. The Benjamin Church listed there as “Mr. Benjamin Church” was the father of the Patriot physician (and royal spy) Benjamin Church, Jr. (The name of William Dawes, Jr., also appears at the bottom; he was elected an “Informer of Deer,” a traditional English game warden that was basically a meaningless honor in Boston.)

Finally, the game now has a weak narrative. It tells the player that he (the player’s silhouette is clearly male) must maneuver past British soldiers and Loyalist merchants. But there’s no connection between that sneaking around and succeeding at the challenges. Instead, the player moves past his foes because of one conveniently distracting animal after another. Surely our government can do better at constructing stories than that!

(More historical videogames for N.P.S. Webrangers here. I especially like the dendochronology challenge.)

Fighting on Noddle’s Island and Hog Island

Toward the end of May 1775, the British military inside Boston and the provincial militiamen outside started fighting harder for control of the natural resources in Boston harbor. First came the British raid for hay on Grape Island. Then, as described by Boston selectman Timothy Newell’s diary, the provincials moved to destroy resources the redcoats might seize from an island to the east:

May 27th. Our People set fire to hay and a barn on Noddle’s Island; a number of Marines went over.

Our People Retreated over to Hog Island, the troops following, by being decoyed by our People down to the water, who then fired and the action continued all night (though very dark) also a Man of War schooner firing their cannon continually upon them which towards morning catch’t aground upon Winesimet ferry ways. Our people boarded her and finally burnt her

This action seems without a parallel, that, notwithstanding several hundred of the Kings Troops and the schooners were engaged all night and it is said 100 were wounded and fell—not the least hurt happened, except to three wounded of our People, who were commanded by General Putnam. The Lord manifestly appears on our side, and blessed be his glorious name forever.

In addition to Israel Putnam, Dr. Joseph Warren took part in this fighting as a volunteer. But most of the fighting was done by ordinary Massachusetts farmers.

Donald Haskell has posted his ancestor Caleb Haskell’s account of the skirmish, from the perspective of a Newburyport militiaman:

Today a party of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire forces, about 600, went over to Noddle’s Island to bring off some cattle. The enemy landed on the island, and pursued our men till they got back to Hog Island, at which time an armed schooner, belonging to the enemy came to their assistance, and to prevent our people from leaving Hog Island—which she could not effect. Our people put a heavy fire of small arms upon the barges. Capt. Foster came with two field pieces and began to play upon the schooner, which soon obliged them to quit her. She then caught on Winnisimot ferry ways. Our people set fire to her and burned her to the water. We saved all that was not burned. We took four pieces of cannon, a number of swivels and some clothing, and brought all the cattle off both islands. In the engagement we had not one killed, and but three wounded, and those not mortally.

The Winnisimet Ferry went from the North End of Boston to Chelsea. It’s no longer possible to visit Noddle’s Island and Hog Island in Boston harbor. Thanks to landfills, they’ve become part of the mainland, and are known today as the neighborhood of East Boston.

Rev. William Gordon Goes to Press

After the Rev. William Gordon’s The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America was printed in England in 1788 and then reprinted in the U.S. of A., Bostonians who had heard the minister read from his manuscript were puzzled. Parts of it seemed to be missing.

One man, writing to a Boston newspaper in 1821-22, recalled hearing Gordon read “three or four pages” about how the 47th Regiment of Foot had tarred and feathered a Billerica farmer named Thomas Ditson, Jr., in March 1775. In the printed version, that episode occupied only “a few lines.” Another correspondent noted a sensitive topic that had dropped out: “I refer here particularly to the subject of negro slavery.” He added that Gordon “was also persuaded to soften his harsh picture of the illustrious Exempt.” I have no idea what that means, but it could refer to the portrayal of such popular figures as John Hancock.

The first writer told the newspaper, in a reminiscence reprinted in Hezekiah Niles’s Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America, of what he’d heard about the book’s publication:

In 1790 I embarked for England, where I was introduced to a relation of Doctor Gordon, of whom I enquired how the Doctor had succeeded in his history? He smiled and said, “It was not Doctor Gordon’s history!”

On my requesting an explanation, he hold me, that on the Doctor’s arrival in England, he placed his manuscript in the hands of an intelligent friend, on whom he could depend, who, (after perusing it with care), declared that it was not suited to the meridian of England, consequently would never sell. The style was not agreeable—it was too favourable to the Americans—above all, it was too full of libels against some of the most respectable characters in the British army and navy—and that if he possessed a fortune equal to the duke of Bedford’s, he would not be able to pay the damages that might be recovered against him, as the truth would not be allowed to be produced in evidence.

The doctor had returned to his native country, and expected to enjoy “otium cum dignitate [leisure with dignity].” Overwhelmed with mortification, and almost with despair, he asked the advice of his friend; who recommended him to place the manuscript in the hands of a professional gentleman, that it might be new modelled, and made agreeable to English readers; this was assented to by the doctor, and the history which bears his name was compiled and written from his manuscript, by another hand!

In any event, the history didn’t become a success. People saw its style as stodgy. Gordon was unable to retire on the proceeds, and ended up a poor minister for a poor congregation.

Furthermore, the final text—whoever was responsible for it—destroyed Gordon’s reputation as a historian a century later. In the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1899, Orin Grant Libby showed that large portions of Gordon’s History were copied or closely paraphrased from The Annual Register, a Whiggish review of the events of each previous year co-founded by Edmund Burke. Other passages came from The History of the Revolution in South Carolina (1785), by Dr. David Ramsay (shown above, courtesy of the Smithsonian).

Kids, don’t try this at school! Our standards on plagiarism have become much stricter, especially in the last few years. Authors quoted much more freely in the 18th century. In fact, Ramsay also borrowed from The Annual Register, and when he revised his own book, historian Arthur H. Shaffer noted, he adopted some of Gordon’s rewrites of his prose.

Without Gordon’s original manuscript, it’s impossible to know whether he had copied that material himself or his British editor did. But he certainly signed off on the final text and hoped to make money off it. And the result of its twisted journey to print is that most modern historians consult Gordon’s book for sporadic passages about Revolutionary politics and war in Massachusetts, where he had first-hand knowledge, and ignore the rest as derivative.

(Back in April, the 18th-Century Reading Room ran a passage from Gordon’s book about Gen. Charles Lee.)

Rev. William Gordon Sails with His Manuscript

The Rev. William Gordon, a minister in Roxbury, started to chronicle America’s Revolution in mid-1775. He published a long letter describing the Battle of Lexington and Concord in the 7 June Philadelphia Gazette. At the end of the year, as I mentioned earlier in the week, his expanded account of that day graced some American almanacs.

After the war ended in 1783, Gordon completed The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America. But rather than publish in the U.S. of A., he decided to return to England with his manuscript. Perhaps he hoped the printing and the market for such a long history would be better there; he was hoping to retire on the proceeds.

Gordon also told Sir John Temple, another Englishman who had lived in Boston and supported the Whigs, that he feared in America “those individuals who now occupy eminencies will be most horribly affected by an impartial history.”

In The Politics of History: Writing the History of the American Revolution, 1783-1815, Arthur H. Shaffer said, “It is difficult to ascertain what portions of Gordon’s History of the Rise, Progress, and Independence of the United States of America would have given offense. In its published form it is an unblinking justification of the American cause.”

That’s true, but so was Mercy Warren’s History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, and that book upset John Adams so much that it ruined their friendship of many years. Adams thought Warren paid too little attention to the young country’s Dutch alliance. (Not coincidentally, he was the Congress’s minister to Holland.) She also used her history, and especially its footnotes, to praise Republican politicians like Elbridge Gerry and attack Federalists like Timothy Pickering.

Viewed from a distance, the histories by Gordon and Warren are both rah-rah American. But leaders who had lived through the war read those accounts closely to find their own names, and some were quick to accuse and complain.

I think Gordon was particularly mindful of John Hancock’s reaction. In 1786 Hancock had just finished his first stretch of terms as governor of Massachusetts and had been reelected President of the Continental Congress. He was very popular in New England, immensely so in Massachusetts. He also had a touchy ego, and there was already bad blood between the two men. At a meeting of the Harvard College overseers in 1777, Gordon had pressed Hancock hard to finish his job as treasurer and balance the accounts. Privately, the minister called the politician “John Puff.” And, as yesterday’s anecdote about Hancock and Samuel Adams shows, Gordon didn’t keep that disdain out of his History. So it might well have been wiser to publish outside of Massachusetts.

Reading Between the Lines of Gordon’s History

Early in the week I quoted from the Rev. William Gordon’s History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America, published in London in 1788. This was one of the earliest attempts to write a history of the Revolution, by an Englishman who had been close to the Boston Whigs and in Roxbury at the start of the war.

Like almost any other history, it also reflects the history of the time in which it was written. Take, for instance, this anecdote about Samuel Adams and John Hancock shortly after they fled Lexington ahead of British troops.

During this interesting period, Messrs. S. Adams and Hancock, whose residence was near at hand, quitted and removed to a further distance. While walking along, Mr. Adams exclaimed, “O! what a glorious morning is this!” in the belief that it would eventually liberate the colony from all subjection to Great Britain. His companion did not penetrate his meaning, and thought the allusion was only to the aspect of the sky.

Let’s see if we can penetrate Gordon’s prose for the subtle clues about his sources. He’s quoting from a private conversation between two men. One of them comes across as an idiot. You know, I’m going out on a limb to guess that the other man, Samuel Adams, talked to Gordon about his experiences after Lexington. And that their interview took place after Hancock and Adams had drifted apart politically in the late 1770s, before their reconciliation in 1789.

An Army Stays in Town on Its Stomach

The last couple of Boston 1775 postings have been about the first significant military action around Boston after the provincials laid siege to the town, the skirmish around Grape Island. The two armies started shooting at each other again over a harvest of hay. How could hay be so important?

The British military, trapped on Boston’s spit of land, had lots of horses. Boston Common had been set aside since the first English settlement as an area for livestock to feed, including the town’s milk-cows, but it and a few other fields within the town were too small to grow enough fodder for all those animals.

The military authorities knew that London would start sending them more supplies once ministers learned about the war—but they also knew how long it would take for Gen. Thomas Gage’s report to cross the Atlantic and for supply ships to sail back. In fact, the first word of the siege (sent by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress) didn’t reach London until 28 May. So until the British government could gear up to send supplies, the besieged army and navy had to feed themselves, their horses, and that part of the Boston population who remained in town.

On 1 June, Boston merchant John Andrews, who was staying only to preserve his property, described the shortages to his brother-in-law in Philadelphia:

Now and then a carcase offer’d for sale in the market, which formerly we would not have pick’d up in the street; but bad as it is, it readily sells for eight pence Lawful money per lb., and a quarter of lamb when it makes its appearance, which is rarely once a week, sells for a dollar, weighing only three or three and a half pounds. To such shifts has the necessity of the times drove us; wood not scarcely to be got at twenty two shillings a cord. Was it not for a triffle of salt provissions that we have, ’twould be impossible for us to live. Pork and beans one day, and beans and pork another, and fish when we can catch it.

Eventually British ships delivered more food, and even over the winter no one starved. The military helped relieve the firewood shortage by pulling down Liberty Tree, other trees, fences, small houses and shacks, and even churches and their steeples.

Prof. David Hsiung of Juniata College is now studying that struggle for natural resources as part of an environmental-history approach to the Revolutionary War. There’s a December 2006 draft of his preliminary work available through the Georgia Workshop in Early American History and Culture.

John Adams Starts to Worry

Yesterday I quoted Abigail Adams’s frazzled description of the skirmish on Grape Island, off the South Shore of Boston harbor. John Adams’s response to early news of the incident reaching Philadelphia was a jocular comment on 2 June:

Was you frightened, when the sheep Stealers got a drubbing at Grape Island?—Father Smith [i.e., Abigail’s father] prayed for our Scough Crew, I doubt not, but how did my dear Friend Dr. [Cotton] Tufts sustain the shock?

Only later did he receive Abigail’s letter describing the panic among their friends and family and the local militias’ response. On 6 June, John sent a further comment:

I am afraid you will have more Alarms than are necessary, in Consequence of the Brush at Grape Island. But I hope you will maintain your philosophical Composure.

Another four days went by, and John hadn’t heard from Abigail again. And I sense that he started to worry a little more because he returned to the topic of Grape Island in his letter on 10 June, asking more questions:

I long to know, how you fare, and whether you are often discomposed with Alarms. Guard yourself against them my Dear. I think you are in no Danger—dont let the groundless Fears, and fruitfull Imaginations of others affect you.

Let me know what guards are kept—and who were principally concerned in the Battle at Grape Island as well as that at Chelsea. The Reputation of our Countrymen for Valour, is very high. I hope they will maintain it, as well as that for Prudence, Caution and Conduct.

Abigail didn’t receive that letter until 22 June, and by then the little skirmish off Hingham had been overshadowed by the Battle of Bunker Hill. Nevertheless, she responded with some more news about the fight on 21 May:

You inquire of me, who were at the engagement at Grape Island. I may say with truth all Weymouth Braintree Hingham who were able to bear Arms, and hundreds from other Towns within 20 30 and 40 miles of Weymouth.

Our good Friend the Doctor is in a very misirable state of Health, has the jaundice to a [very great] degree, is a mere Skelliton and hardly able to [ride from] his own house to my fathers. Danger you [know] sometimes makes timid men bold. He stood that day very well, and generously attended with drink, Bisquit, flints &c. 5 hundred men without taking any pay. He has since been chosen one of the committee of Correspondence for that Town, and has done much Service by establishing a regular method of alarm from Town to Town.

Both your Brothers were there—your younger Brother [Elihu] with his company who gaind honour by their good order that Day. He was one of the first to venture aboard a Schooner to land upon the Island.

You can explore the Adams family correspondence in depth through the Massachusetts Historical Society’s Digital Adams collection.

The First Skirmish in Boston Harbor

Last month I quoted the first entry in selectman Timothy Newell’s journal of the siege of Boston. That was dated 19 Apr 1775, the day the war began. He didn’t write another for over a month because there was no significant fighting during that time.

(Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen did take Fort Ticonderoga on 10 May, which turned out to be a significant military event. But Newell didn’t know about it, and there hadn’t been any fighting out there, either. The British outpost hadn’t yet heard about Lexington and Concord, and were therefore caught unawares.)

Selectman Newell resumed his chronicle this way:

May 21st (Sabbath). This day two sloops and an armed schooner with soldiers sailed to Grape Island near Hingham to get hay, our People attacked them and beat them off, some say with loss, none on our side as is known, they returned without accomplishing their design. Our People afterwards set fire to the hay.

This little skirmish ended without loss of life. Newell wasn’t close enough to see the response to the three British ships, but Abigail Adams was. She described the alarm in the provincial towns south of Grape Island in a letter to her husband dated 25 May:

Suppose you have had a formidable account of the alarm we had last Sunday morning. When I rose about six oclock I was told that the Drums had been some time beating and that 3 allarm Guns were fired, that Weymouth [meeting] Bell had been ringing, and Mr. Welds was then ringing.

I immediatly sent of an express to know the occasion, and found the whole Town in confusion. 3 Sloops and one cutter had come out, and droped anchor just below Great Hill. It was difficult to tell their design, some supposed they were comeing to Germantown [in Braintree] others to Weymouth.

People women children from the Iron Works flocking down this Way—every woman and child above or from below my Fathers. My Fathers family flying, the Drs. [Dr. Cotton Tufts’s] in great distress, as you may well immagine for my Aunt had her Bed thrown into a cart, into which she got herself, and orderd the boy to drive her of to Bridgwater which he did.

The report was to them, that 300 hundred had landed, and were upon their march into Town. The allarm flew lightning, and men from all parts came flocking down till 2000 were collected—but it seems their [i.e., the British military’s] expidition was to Grape Island for Levet's hay. There it was impossible to reach them for want of Boats, but the sight of so many persons, and the fireing at them prevented their getting more than 3 ton of Hay, tho they had carted much more down to the water.

At last they [i.e., the local militiamen] musterd a Lighter, and a Sloop from Hingham which had six port holes. Our men eagerly jumpt on board, and put of for the Island. As soon as they [the army] perceived it, they decamped. Our people landed upon Island, and in an instant set fire to the Hay which with the Barn was soon consumed, about 80 ton tis said. We expect soon to be in continual alarms, till something decisive takes place.

As Adams’s hastily written letter reflects, people in towns around Boston harbor expected punitive raids from the British military at any time.

The Repartee Stuck by His Lordship?

On the morning of 19 April 1775, Gen. Thomas Gage ordered one of his colonels, Earl Percy, to lead a column of troops down Boston Neck with the mission of reinforcing the soldiers who had crossed the Charles River and marched for Concord the night before.

In 1788 the Rev. William Gordon published a four-volume History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America in London. It contained this anecdote about Percy’s column marching through Roxbury that morning:

The brigade marched out, playing, by way of contempt, Yankee Doodle, a song composed in derision of the New Englanders, scornfully called Yankees.

A smart boy observing it as the troops passed through Roxbury, made himself extremely merry with the circumstance, jumping and laughing, so as to attract the notice of his lordship, who, it is said, asked him at what he was laughing so heartily; and was answered, “To think how you will dance by and by to Chevy Chase.” It is added, that the repartee stuck by his lordship the whole day.

The song “Chevy Chase”, in print for over a century and a half by then, told of the death of an earlier Earl Percy. What a clever wit that boy must have had! And surely Gordon is a reliable source since he was actually in Roxbury in 1775 as one of the town’s ministers.

The only problem is that Gordon had published a long account of the march to Concord in three American almanacs issued late in 1775. In that version, close to the original event, Gordon hadn’t identified the army’s music, and had said the Roxbury boy simply told the troops that they would dance to that tune by nightfall. “Yankee Doodle,” “Chevy Chase,” Earl Percy himself—all those details seem to have appeared later. So this anecdote turns out to be one of the most suspicious types of stories: one that grows significantly better in the telling.

What Sort of Tea Was Thrown into Boston Harbor?

The Boston Post-Boy of 16 Nov 1767 offered this verse for caffeinated young ladies concerned about the new Townshend duties on, among other, less consequential things, imported tea:

Throw aside your Bohea and your Green Hyson Tea,
And all good things with a new fashion duty;
Procure a good store of the choice Labradore,
For there’ll soon be enough here to suit ye.

Labrador was an herbal tea made from a plant found growing in Canada. (Loyalist judge Peter Oliver later claimed that “it brought on Disorders of Health; & among the rest a Vertigo, as fatal as that which they had brought upon theirselves with Respect to Liberty.”)

But Labrador isn’t the topic of this posting. I’m wondering about what type of tea Americans drank at the time of the Boston Tea Party? Were Bohea and Hyson the most popular kinds, as that verse implied, or were those names simply a lot easier to fit into a rhyme than “Lapsang Souchong”? A 16 Sept 1736 Boston News-Letter advertisement listed several types—Bohea, Congou, Pekoe, green, and fine imperial—with green and Bohea the cheapest and Pekoe the most expensive. (For more about some of those varieties, see TeaMuse’s article on “Teas of Yore.”)

We know that American colonists didn’t import tea bricks, though those things are so quaintly historic and easily displayed that some small museums say they did. Instead, as Ebenezer Stevens recalled and other sources confirm, the tea emptied into Boston harbor came in canvas-covered wooden boxes that had to be chopped open. The Boston Tea Party Museum (now in drydock) displays a possible surviving example of those boxes on its website. And what sort of tea was inside them?

Last week my eye fell on a passage from the diary of John Tudor, a deacon in the North End. After describing how “a number of Resolute men” had destroyed the East India Company tea, Tudor wrote:

The Tea was worth ’tis said at least 25,000 £ sterling, as a great deal of it was green Tea.

So on the day after the Tea Party, Bostonians saw a lot of the tea in their harbor as green tea. Tudor’s remark about the value of the tea also implies that green tea is one of the more expensive kinds.

Benjamin Woods Labaree’s The Boston Tea Party says, “About one-third of the tea exported from China in the eighteenth century was green tea,” with green Hyson “the choicest of all.” But the bulk of the tea that Europeans, and thus European-Americans, consumed was black tea from the Bohea mountains. And Labaree’s Table IV has the exact answer to my question above: the three tea ships at Boston contained 240 chests of Bohea, 15 of Congou, 10 of Souchong (all black teas), 60 of Singlo, and 15 of Hyson (both green teas). Green tea accounted for about 22% of the shipments’ total volume, and 30% of the value.

Was Tudor’s perception that “a great deal of it was green Tea” shaped by what people saw in the harbor the next day? Not all the leaves thrown overboard had sunk. Men went out in boats to beat the remaining shoals of leaves under the water. And perhaps the green tea was the biggest problem. A commenter on this British webpage says, “I've noticed that my Chai teabags (more smaller particles), sink faster than my green tea teabags (larger leaf particles). I suspect it is because the smaller particles get saturated fast than the larger ones.” As a “living history” experiment, does green tea take longer to sink in saltwater than black tea?