Tea Party Ship Under Construction

Alerted by a message from Scott on the New England Revolution (NEREV) email list, I went looking for reports on the building of a new ship for the Boston Tea Party Museum.

The Tea Party Museum’s webpage contains photographs of the work through April 2006, and of the finished ship that is serving as a model for the ship’s very nice aft.

Work has proceeded apace in a Gloucester shipyard, and Scott posted some more recent photos he took to the NEREV list. However, for public access I must refer folks to the pictures from “goodharbor” on Flickr.

Gen. Gage's Harmless Cattle

In the mail I recently received a new primary source to explore, the journal of Pvt. Thomas Sullivan of the 49th Regiment, as published by Joseph Lee Boyle in 1997. So I’ll put it to use.

Last month I mentioned the 15 Aug 1775 arrival of a fleet with provisions for the British army besieged inside Boston. Pvt. Sullivan could write and do math, so in his military career he was was often assigned to help keep track of stores. He could therefore offer this detailed accounting of the shopping expedition:

This time also 8 transports with 180 Soldiers, with a proportion of Officers and Non-commissioned Officers, went to Long-Island and about New-York, to buy Cattle and Sheep for the use of the Army. Upon their arrival there, the Captains and Crews from the different transports went on shore, and left the troops on board to guard the Vessels, for fear of being set on fire by the Rebels, which were encamped there. They brought 500 Oxen and 300 sheep, which was killed in Boston for the use of the Army & Navy there.

For the troops blocked up inside Boston, the arrival of fresh meat was probably one of the high points of August 1775. On the 20th, Gen. Thomas Gage wrote to the Secretary of State for the colonies that this fresh meat “will be some relief to the troops in general, and of great benefit to the hospitals.” The government had this letter published in the London newspapers.

However, buying livestock didn’t amount to meeting the benchmarks that people in London had expected of their army. At least some people seem to have thought the general and government were trying to hide a bleak, frustrating situation behind minor gains like this. A correspondent of the London Chronicle replied with this verse:

In days of yore the British troops
Have taken warlike kings in battle;
But now, alas! their valor droops,
For Gage takes naught but—harmless cattle.

Britons, with grief, your bosoms strike!
Your faded laurels loudly weep!
Behold your heroes, Quixote-like,
Driving a timid flock of—sheep.

Taking Gunpowder from Bermuda

Yesterday I quoted a British naval history on the unauthorized removal of gunpowder from the government magazine on Bermuda. I found a detailed account of that theft in the first volume of the Naval Documents of the American Revolution (a kind gift a few years back from Bart Reynolds). On 17 Aug 1775, Gov. George James Bruere reported to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the colonies:

I had less suspicion than before, that such a daring and violent Attempt would be made on the Powder Magazine, which in the dead of night of the 14th of August was broke into on Top, just to let a man down, and the Doors most Audaciously and daringly forced open, at the great risk of their being blown up; they could not force the Powder Room Door, without getting into the inside on Top

They Stole and Carried off about one Hundred Barrels of Gun powder, and as they left about ten or twelve Barrels, it may be Supposed that those Barrels left, would not bare remooving. It must have taken a Considerable number of People; and we may Suppose some Negroes, to assist as well as White Persons of consequence. . . .

The next morning the 15th Instant, (of August) one Sloop Called the Lady Catharine, belonging by Her Register to Virginia, George Ord Master, bound to Philadelphia, was seen under Sail, but the Custom House Boat could not over take Her.

And likewise a Schooner Called the Charles Town and Savannah Packet, belonging to South Carolina, from South Carolina Cleared out at Bermuda the 11th of August with 2,000 Sawed Stones for Barbados John Turner Master. And was seen under Sail the same day, at such a Distance off, that the Custom House Boat could not over take either of the Vessels.

It may be supposed that neither of the vessels came near the Shore, to take in the Powder, if they did carry it away, but it is rather to be imagined that it must have been Carried out by Several Boats, as both these Vessels, Sailed from a Harbour at the West End, twenty Miles off, of the Magazine.

The Bermuda legislature offered reward of £100 to anyone who gave evidence to convict someone of this theft. Bruere offered a personal reward of £30 and a pardon to any informer, or £10 “to be paid to any Negro, or Negroes, to inform against any other Negro or Negroes.” There’s no indication that anyone tried to claim either reward.

At the same time this was going on, Gen. George Washington and Gov. Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island were in correspondence about sending a ship to Bermuda to obtain that very powder. On 8 August Cooke wrote, “If the Powder supposed to be at Bermuda be private Property it must be immediately paid for. If not I imagine it will be settled with our own Disputes”—i.e., by stealth and force justified by politics. By the time a ship left Newport for the island, however, that gunpowder was on its way north.

And what of the anxious governor’s sons in Boston, whom I also mentioned yesterday? By the 2nd of September Bruere had heard a rumor that “both my Sons, very promising Youths, are Said to be Killed, and I know nothing to the Contrary.” Indeed, the governor’s eldest promising youth, John Bruere, had been killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill; he seems to have been a military retiree serving as a volunteer officer with the 14th Regiment.

The next oldest promising youth was merely wounded at Bunker Hill. George Bruere (1744-1786), a lieutenant in the grenadier company of the 18th, survived to marry fourteen-year-old Martha Louisa Fatio in 1777 and serve as Bermuda’s lieutenant governor in 1780-81, after his father had died.

The Bermuda-Boston Connection

This summer I mentioned the shortage of gunpowder in the Continental Army, and Gen. George Washington’s efforts to pressure more out of the colonial governments. Here’s another comment on that situation, from Robert Beatson’s Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain, from 1727 to 1783, published in London in 1804:

For a considerable time General Washington was so sparing of his ammunition, as plainly to indicate that he was scarce of powder; but the Congress devised means to obtain a supply of that article, before they had any commerce with the French or Dutch merchants.

Early in the month of August, an armed sloop from Philadelphia, and a schooner from Charlestown in South Carolina, repaired to the island of Bermuda, seized on the principal magazine, containing one hundred barrels of gunpowder, which they carried off.

This scheme was, in all probability, executed by the connivance of some pretended friends to Government. At any rate, the situation of the magazine in a great measure justified the enterprize, as it was far distant from the town, and had no dwelling-house near it.

On 20 Aug 1774, the governor of Bermuda, George James Bruere, wrote to Lord Dartmouth how some of the island’s planters were indeed showing sympathy for the rebellion on the mainland:

As the People here, have thought themselves of Sufficient Consequence, to Choose Delegates, and Address the Congress at Philadelphia. I hope Government [i.e., in London] will think they have Sufficient Reason to put some Check upon them. and Support the few Officers of Government.

Bruere also had a personal reason to be anxious about the new war: his two eldest sons were in Boston, “with the Army.” He had tried to charter a ship “to go to Boston to enquire after the fate of my two Sons, very promising Youths,” but no owners would cooperate.

The governor’s paternal anxiety made me think these “Youths” were teenagers. However, a little more digging showed they were both army veterans in their thirties. Every time Bruere mentioned them to Dartmouth, he called them “promising Youths,” and I begin to suspect he was trying to secure them good royal appointments—if they survived.

TOMORROW: How to steal gunpowder in Bermuda.

Redoing Washington's First Survey

From Graeme Marsden, I heard about this unusual historical reenactment later this month. Unfortunately, it’s in Virginia. As The American Surveyor describes it:

In 1747, George Washington was a 16-year-old rookie surveyor, struggling to measure his very first parcel, on his father’s farm in Virginia. He completed the 22-acre training exercise successfully. Today the site is part of a national park, George Washington’s Birthplace National Monument, owned and preserved by the National Park Service.

Remarkably, young George’s original field notes and drawings from his first survey have survived to this day, allowing modern surveyors to reconstruct his original dimensions.

On Saturday, September 15, 2007, land surveyors from across America will gather at that very same spot, to recreate and reenact George Washington’s first land survey. The public is invited.

Wearing colonial garb and using period-correct instruments and techniques from the 1700s, modern-day surveyors will re-run the same lines that George Washington first laid out 260 years ago. The event is part of “RENDEZVOUS ’07,” an annual three-day surveying history conference organized by Surveyors Historical Society, and hosted this year by National Park Service.

That Surveyors’ Rendezvous is a three-day affair organized by the Surveyors Historical Society and the Virginia Association of Surveyors.

In other Washington news, the New York Times reports on how Topps has made a few Commander-in-Chief baseball cards that come with strands of what seems to be authentic Commander-in-Chief hair. One collector’s attempt to auction off his find online was temporarily stymied for this reason:

EBay pulled the item last night after a member complained that it was listed in the baseball card section and that “George Washington cannot have a baseball card,’ ” Mr. Simonis said.

Washington indeed never played baseball at a professional level. However, soldiers at Valley Forge did play an early version of that game.

The Stories Behind "Revere's Ride," 19 Sept 2007

In a couple of weeks, Old South Meeting-House in Boston will host a lecture that might interest Boston 1775 readers:

September 19, 6:30 – 7:30 pm
Paul Revere’s Ride Revisited

Eighty-five years after Paul Revere made his ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow set pen to paper and turned the midnight rider into an instant legend. New research has uncovered some fascinating discoveries about Longfellow’s poem. Charles Bahne, independent historian and author of “The Complete Guide to Boston’s Freedom Trail”, will discuss how the poet came to write about Revere, the poem’s publication history, changes made to the text over time, and why the poem isn’t historically accurate.

Longfellow was born in 1807, and Bahne’s talk is one of a series of bicentennial tributes each Wednesday in September. For fans of American poetry and Boston culture in the 1800s, the others are:

• 5 Sept, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Old South Meeting-House: Longfellow biographer Charles Calhoun on “The Art of Friendship: Longfellow’s Circle 1840-1860.” On any evening in Longfellow’s Craigie House one might have met Emerson, Hawthorne, Dickens, Thackeray, Sumner, Agassiz, Kemble, or Cushman.
• 12 Sept, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Old South Meeting-House: Dartmouth College Professor Colleen G. Boggs on “‘Better than the vernaculars’: Longfellow as Translator.” Professor Longfellow’s efforts as teacher, translator, critic, and anthologist to change the contours of American literature.
• 26 Sept, 7:30-9:00 p.m., First Parish in Cambridge, 3 Church Street in Harvard Square: Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and Longfellow scholar, revisits the legacy of the “Public Poet” with John Barr of the Poetry Foundation and the Cambridge Forum. What does Longfellow’s work say to twenty-first century readers?
  

All these events are free and open to the public. They are co-sponsored by the Paul Revere Memorial Association, Old South Meeting-House, the Friends of the Longfellow House, Longfellow National Historic Site, and the Cambridge Forum. Funding by the Lowell Institute.

Sites of the Powder Alarm

For the last two days I’ve written about the events of early September 1774 that have become known in history as “the Powder Alarm.” This militia uprising came in response to the British army’s seizure of militia gunpowder and ordnance on the 1st of September. The biggest confrontations came in Cambridge on the 2d as thousands of men intimidated royal officials into resigning.

Yet even as the men of Middlesex County returned to their homes, the rumors that had prompted them to march continued to spread outward, alarming more militia companies. In Massachusetts, this mobilization occurred all the way west to Hampshire County. In Connecticut, Israel Putnam heard the news and sent alerts to his fellow militia officers. In all, up to twenty thousand armed men were probably on the march for at least a while during this alarm. (The British army strength in Boston was then about three thousand.)

Last month I led two walking tours along Brattle Street and Elmwood Street in Cambridge, past several important Powder Alarm sites: Cambridge common and the homes of militia general William Brattle, Attorney General Jonathan Sewall, Council member Joseph Lee, and Lieutenant Governor Thomas Oliver, as well as the Loyalist Vassall family. It was a good fun, especially the day the temperature wasn’t in the 90s, and I’ll probably do something like that again next year.

Below is a photograph by Boston 1775 reader Robert Mitchell showing our group stopped outside Lee’s house, now the headquarters of the Cambridge Historical Society. (Take a virtual tour of that house here.)

Militiamen Rise Up Against Gen. Gage—in 1774

Yesterday’s posting described how on 1 Sept 1774 Gen. Thomas Gage, using his authority as governor of Massachusetts, ordered British soldiers to empty the provincial gunpowder storehouse in Charlestown (a part that’s now Somerville) and collect two small brass cannons from the militia in Cambridge.

Local people noticed. (It’s hard for over 200 redcoated soldiers to roll cannons and gunpowder wagons through a town without people noticing.) They started asking questions. And then, according to merchant John Andrews, this happened in Boston:

The Governor walking up the main street to dine with Brigadier [Robert] Pigot of the 43d, who improves a house just above Liberty tree, by chance or design, in pulling out his handkerchief, dropt a letter from Brigadier [William] Brattle of Cambridge

Andrews thought Gage deliberately dropped that letter “to exculpate himself from being thought to take such a measure of his own head”—i.e., to let people know that he’d acted only after a note from Brattle, their own militia general (shown above). Some historians have suggested that a Whig stole this note and made up a cover story about it falling from Gage’s pocket. And, of course, the general could truly have lost it by accident.

In any event, Cambridge quickly learned what Brattle had done. On 2 September, Andrews wrote that the people of that town “did not fail to visit Brattle and [Attorney General Jonathan] Sewall’s house last evening, but not finding either of ’em at home, they quietly went off.” Actually, these local crowds made a lot of noise, broke windows, and then went off. Even before they came, Brattle had hurried into Boston and taken refuge in the army camp, knowing how upset his neighbors would be.

And that was just the beginning of the provincial reaction. As word of the removal of the powder and cannons spread out from Cambridge, the rumors became more dire. Eventually people were hearing that the army had attacked a crowd of people, set fire to the town. (Which town? Rumors disagreed.) Men mustered in their militia companies and marched toward Charlestown.

That was how the militia system was supposed to work in a world before electronic communication. A military emergency allowed no time to wait for commanders to gather, confer, and bring back orders. The companies in each town prepared themselves to march to where it seemed they were needed.

And they marched with notable speed. Andrews later wrote:

Though they had an account at Marlborough of the powder’s being remov’d, last Thursday night, yet they were down to Cambridge (which is thirty miles) by eight o’clock Fryday morning, with a troop of horse and another of foot.

These two companies from Marlborough joined a crowd of 3,000, then 4,000 men from Middlesex County massing on Cambridge common early on 2 September. The town itself contained only 1,582 people according to the census of 1765. The militiamen had stacked their muskets somewhere along the way when it became clear that there was no imminent danger. Nevertheless, their numbers were enough to intimidate anyone in Cambridge who supported Gen. Gage’s actions. Even Boston’s Patriot leaders—men like Dr. Joseph Warren, Dr. Thomas Young, and town clerk William Cooper—were alarmed by this crowd, and hurried out to Cambridge to urge the crowd not to do anything violent or rash.

The government in London had appointed three Cambridge gentlemen to the new Council under the Massachusetts Government Act: Lt. Gov. Thomas Oliver, Samuel Danforth, and Joseph Lee. The crowd insisted that all three publicly resign their seats, and they did. Sheriff David Phipps had to apologize for helping the army remove the powder and cannons, and promise not to enforce as writs under the new act. By that evening Attorney General Sewall and Lt. Gov. Oliver joined Brattle in Boston, and over the next couple of weeks most other Loyalist families in Cambridge left their homes as well.

That night, William Tudor of Boston wrote in his diary: “at 5 P.m. came on hard Thunder & Lightning with a great Shower.” And the next morning: “It Rain’d plentifully all last Night.” The storm encouraged the crowd to disperse and return to their homes. But those militiamen had already shown Gen. Gage, the province’s Whig activists, and themselves that they would oppose any further changes to their ability to defend or govern themselves. On 2 Sept 1774, months before the Battle of Lexington and Concord, it was also clear that the royal government’s power no longer extended farther than the gates of Boston.

Gen. Gage Secures the Provincial Powder

On 1 Sept 1774, I believe, the American Revolution became a military contest. There was no direct confrontation between military forces (that would not come until December), and there was no violence. But the events of that day and the next seem to have convinced the competing factions that they had to use military as well as political means to thwart the other side.

Before daybreak on that Thursday, 280 British soldiers under Lt.-Col. George Maddison landed from boats in the Mystic River and marched over the hills to the provincial gunpowder storehouse in what’s now called Somerville. That stone building is still standing. (Photograph from Flickr thanks to Bunkosquad. More details from The British Redcoat.)

Gen. Thomas Gage had sent those soldiers after receiving a letter from a general of the Middlesex County militia, William Brattle of Cambridge. It’s a curious missive, written in a courtly third person and never directly coming out and saying what Gage should do. As a member of the Massachusetts Council, Brattle had been a thorn in the side of Gov. Francis Bernard in the 1760s. However, in recent years he had come to side with the Crown authorities. On 27 August he wrote:

Mr. Brattle presents his duty to Governor Gage. He apprehends it his duty to acquaint his Excellency, from time to time, with every thing he hears and knows to be true, and is of importance in these troublesome times, which is the apology Mr. Brattle makes for troubling the General with this letter.

Capt. [Jonas] Minot of Concord, a very worthy man, this minute informed Mr. Brattle that there had been repeatedly made pressing applications to him, to warn his company to meet at one minute’s warning, equipt with arms and ammunition, according to law; he had constantly denied them, adding, if he did not gratify them, he should be constrained to quit his farms and town. Mr. Brattle told him he had better do that than lose his life and be hanged for a rebel: he observed that many captains had done it, though not in the Regiment to which he belonged, which was and is under Col. Elisha Jones, but in a neighboring Regiment. Mr. Brattle begs leave humbly to query whether it would not be best that there should not be one commission officer of the militia in the Province.

This morning the selectmen of Medford came and received their town stock of powder, which was in the arsenal on quarry-hill, so that there is now therein the King’s powder only, which shall remain there as a sacred depositum till ordered out by the Captain-General. To his Excellency General Gage, &c. &c. &c.

Gage didn’t take the drastic step of canceling all militia commissions, but he did send those soldiers to secure the “King’s powder” in the powderhouse before anyone in the countryside thought of removing it. He had legal authority to issue those orders: that powder belonged to the province of Massachusetts, and as governor he was the commander (“Captain-General”) of its militia.

Therefore, dawn on 1 September found Maddison and his soldiers waiting outside the powderhouse until the Sun rose—you don’t go into a gunpowder storeroom with a lit lantern. The men probably took off their boots as well so there was no chance the nails in their soles would set off sparks on the stone floor. As soon as the light was good, they started moving 250 half-barrels of gunpowder from that building onto waiting wagons. Meanwhile, about two dozen soldiers went to Cambridge common, met royal sheriff David Phips, and took possession of two small brass cannons used by the Middlesex County militia.

The wagons of gunpowder and the cannons were all wheeled through Cambridge, Roxbury, and Dorchester to Castle William, the fort in Boston harbor that the army had been using since 1770. The whole operation was over by noon. It had met no opposition. Gage felt secure enough to issue a call later that day for new legislative elections. But the reaction was just beginning.

TOMORROW: The militia rises.

New Cider

After learning about the epidemic of the “bloody flux” in Massachusetts in the summer of 1775, I wondered whether that affected Gen. George Washington’s planning. I found one mention of the problem in his writings. He apparently saw the disease as being brought into the camps from outside, rather than being spread by the soldiers from the camps, as others suspected.

Washington’s general orders for 28 Aug 1775 stated:

As nothing is more pernicious to the health of Soldiers, nor more certainly productive of the bloody-flux; than drinking New Cyder: The General in the most possitive manner commands, the entire disuse of the same, and orders the Quarter Master General this day, to publish Advertisements, to acquaint the Inhabitants of the surrounding districts, that such of them, as are detected bringing new Cyder into the Camp, after Thursday, the last day of this month, may depend on having their casks stove.

I can’t resist the segue from that document to this announcement from Graeme Marsden:

The Guild of Historic Interpreters announces its first “Cider and Song” event on Sunday, 16 September.

We will be having an artisan pressing cider, and we will be holding an “open mike” session (as it were) with musicians and songsters in the Hartwell Tavern taproom. [That’s in Minute Man National Historical Park, the battle road section.]

It’s a freewheeling end-of-season event, and if you have a flair for 18c song or if you have an 18c musical instrument, bring it along to ‘jam’ with us.

Planning of “Cider and Song” is unfolding as we speak. Event is likely to run from 10:30am to 4:00pm. [Please call the park in advance to confirm.]

If one dares to drink “new cider,” this seems like a fine occasion for taking that risk.

Epidemic Behind the American Lines

Today Boston 1775 welcomes Judith Cataldo as a guest blogger. She is researching an event occurring at the same time as the British and American military maneuvers in late August 1775: a summer epidemic of the “bloody flux,” or dysentery, in Middlesex County.

That outbreak may well have been related to the sudden concentration of men from all over New England in military camps around Boston. In his memoir, Lt. David Perry (1741-1826) wrote:

In the heat of Summer, the men were attacked with the Dysentery, and considerable numbers of them died. The people flocked in from the country, to see the camps and their friends, and took the disorder; and it spread all over the New-England states: it carried off a great many more in the country than in the camp, which seemed to dishearten the people very much.

Judy writes:

This was how I got interested in Rev War history. I was documenting the gravestone epitaphs in my home town cemetery, Needham, and found a higher number of stones for 1775 than for other years. In my travels of other graveyards I found the same pattern. Eventually, I tripped upon the Dedham Register, which had serialized a book documenting the town epitaphs with genealogical notes, and it mentioned an epidemic at that time.

Here’s the gravestone that started it all:

In memory of Mrs Esther wife of Mr Joseph Daniels who died Aug’st 1775 in ye 34th year of her age & 7 children of Mr Joseph Daniels & Esther his wife.

Martha Died August 31 in the 5th Year [she had been born 8/19/1770]

Sarah Died Sep’r 2nd in her 9th Year [born 4/9/1767]

Esther Died Sep’r 4th in her 12 Year

Anna Died Sep’r 7th in her 2th year [baptized 5/10/1773]

Josiah Died Sep’r 7th in the 6th year [born 4/9/1769]

Elizabeth Died Sept 12th in her 11th year 1775 [born 7/17/1765]

Joseph Died June 1st 1777 in his 16th year [born 2/24/1762]

The Rev. Samuel West, minister of Needham in 1775, mentioned this epidemic and the Daniels family in his autobiography:

The Dysentery soon prevailed in the American Army & Extended itself more of less through the country. Although it prevailed most in the Town near camp My parish partook largely of this calimity. We buried about 50 persons in the course of the season. Some families were dreadfully. One in particular a Mr Joseph Daniels buried an amiable wife & 6 promising children in about 6 weeks—we often buried 3 or 4 in a day. My time was wholly devoted to visiting the sick, attendance on the dying and dead.

Proportional to population, four deaths in Needham in 1775 would be about 200 people a day today.

Thanks for sharing that work, Judy!

The Provincial Army Moves Forward

Two days ago, I quoted Capt. John Barker of the King’s Own (4th) Regiment on how on 26 Aug 1775 the Continental Army had started to entrench Ploughed Hill in Charlestown, one rise closer to the British lines. That advance was led by Gen. John Sullivan (shown here), and involved 1,000 men in a “fatigue party” to do the digging and 2,400 soldiers to guard them.

The Royal Artillery started to reply on the 27th, and kept up their fire for several days, as recorded by Boston selectmen Timothy Newell.

27th Sabbath. Cannonading from the lines at Charlestown on new works—a nearer approach, also much firing of small arms.

29th. Several bombs from Do. [i.e., Charlestown] on Do. [new works] in the night.

30th. Do. in the night—Do. Bombarding from the lines on Bunkers Hill.

1st Sept. Do. almost constant firing from the Centinels at each other. New works arise upon the Neck by the Provincials who approach very near.

Augustus Mumford, the adjutant of Col. James Mitchell Varnum’s regiment, and another soldier had their heads shot off in this barrage. They thus became the first men from Rhode Island to die in the war.

The Continental artillery used a nine-pounder cannon and other guns to take out some of the British floating batteries, as Gen. Sullivan proudly described in his letter to the New Hampshire Committee of Safety (which historian Richard Frothingham noted should be dated 29 August instead of 29 July.)

on Saturday morning,...I was preparing to take possession of Ploughed Hill, near the enemy's encampment at Charlestown. This was done on Saturday night, and on Sunday morning a heavy cannonading ensued, which lasted through the whole day.

The floating batteries and an armed vessel attempting to come up and enfilade us as I expected, I opened a battery which I had prepared on purpose; cut away the sloop’s foresail; made her shear off; wounded one floating battery, and sunk another yesterday. They sent round a man-of-war to Mistick River, drew their forces from Boston, formed a long column, and prepared to come out; but finding our readiness to receive them, declined the combat.

Last evening they began to throw bombs, but have as yet done no damage. Their cannon has been more successful, having killed three or four. . . .

The powder you write for, gentlemen, it is impossible to obtain at present. We have had but six tons from the south ward, which is but half a pound per man for our army, and what we had before was a shocking store. We hope for some every day...

Sullivan said the army didn’t have enough gunpowder to send some north to New Hampshire, but he was certainly using what was available.

In contrast, Gen. George Washington emphasized the need for gunpowder in a letter to the New York Provincial Congress the next day:

Our Situation is such, as requires your immediate Assistance and Supply in that Article. We have lately taken Possession of a Hill considerably advanced towards the Enemy, but our Poverty prevents our availing ourselves of any Advantage of Situation. I must therefore most earnestly intreat, that Measures may be taken to forward to this Camp, in the most safe and expeditious Manner whatever Amunition can be spared from the immediate and Necessary Defence of the Province.

Washington wrote much the same to the Continental Congress on the 31st, describing the advance and the British barrage, but not the cannon fire from his own army. Describing that detail as Sullivan had done might have made his desire for more gunpowder seem less urgent.

No Harm from Fire at the Boston Tea Party Museum

Adam Salsman has posted a bunch of photos of the fire at the Boston Tea Party Museum site last night, including this one. (Thanks to Universal Hub for the link.)

Fortunately, today’s Boston Globe report says, nothing of value was damaged. The building has been empty for years, and was slated for demolition anyway. The reconstructed tea ship Beaver was removed for repair a few years ago. And, as this site explores in exhaustive detail, the museum isn’t even on the original site of Griffin’s Wharf, which is now quite inland.

When the museum reopens, it will probably feature the Robinson tea chest, which appears to be an authentic relic of Boston’s tea trade before the Revolutionary War. Today’s newspaper report also says:

The plans for the new museum call for the addition of replicas of the Dartmouth and the Eleanor, the two other ships raided by colonists in 1773.

That will be three times as impressive, and a considerable expense.

Lt. John Barker Observes the Siege

I’ve been quoting a lot of New England sources on the siege of Boston in 1775-76. There are also some great contemporaneous accounts from the Crown side, particularly diaries and letters written by British army officers. (We have few detailed sources from British enlisted men, alas. One exception is Thomas Sullivan’s journal—but he switched sides later in the war.)

Unfortunately for my purposes, many of those officers’ writings weren’t published until after 1922, which means that they’re still protected by copyright. So, while I feel free to quote them briefly on specific points, I can’t extract from them as extensively as from the diary of Timothy Newell (published 1852) or the letters of George Washington (published in many growing editions since the 1830s).

One exception to that pattern is a British army officer’s journal published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1877. The diarist was later identified as Capt. John Barker of the 4th Regiment, and the document was transcribed again and republished as The British in Boston in 1924. These entries are from the earlier published form of the diary—the one in the public domain.

In his diary, Barker tended to vent almost as much about the incompetence of his own commanders and men as about the perfidious rebels.

24th [Aug 1775]. The expedition talked of was to attack Dorchester Hill, and was to have been to day at 6 oclock in the morng. All the Troops on this side were drawn out and paraded on the Hill, and some march’d into the road; this was to alarm the Rebels on this side and keep off their attention; but soon after we heard it was put off, the Genl. [William Howe] hearing they had got intelligence and had reinforced that place with 4000 Men.

Several shells fired from the Lines into Roxbury to set it on fire, but did not answer; the same day two Men came in as far as Brown’s House, when a Serjt. and a Party was sent to meet them, as it was thought they wanted to deliver themselves up, but when the party got near, the two men fired and run away, but were shot by the Party and their Arms brought in.

Aug. 26th. The Rebels perceived throwing up Entrenchments on Winter Hill [actually Ploughed Hill, one rise to the east] about 12 or 1300 Yards from our Works on Bunker’s hill; after wasting a good deal of time we at length got four long twelvers [i.e., twelve-pounder cannons] to the Lines and fired several shot at them, but without preventing them from continuing their Work; they had likewise made a Battery near the water side at a Mill on Mr. Temple’s farm, a great way off, from which they fired several shot at the Gondolas, but without doing any harm.

Barker was still using “Brown’s house” as a landmark on Boston Neck, though it had been burned in July. Interestingly, if Gen. Howe had managed to seize “Dorchester Hill” in August 1775, the Continental Army could not have put a large battery up there in March 1776, the move that finally forced the British to depart.

How Things Looked from London

Today I’m availing myself of the Eighteenth-Century Reading Room blog to share quotes from two publications that express the British/Loyalist side of the conflict. Both examine the primary mystery that baffled imperial politicians of the period: how could Britain’s American colonists could be so blind and/or selfish as to fight to get out of the finest form of government that humanity had ever developed (and, by implication, would ever develop)?

John Andrews (1736-1809) was a London historian and pamphleteer. (He is different from the Boston merchant John Andrews whose letters I like to quote.) Andrews’s four-volume History of the War with America, France, Spain; and Holland; commencing in 1775 and ending in 1783, published two years after the Treaty of Paris, shows how the London establishment viewed the colonies as the political conflict started.

The state of the British Colonies at the Aera of the general pacification [after 1763], was such as attracted the attention of all the politicians in Europe. Their flourishing condition at that period was remarkable and striking; their trade had prospered in the midst of all the difficulties and distresses of a war, in which they were so nearly and so immediately concerned. Their population continued on the increase, notwithstanding the ravages and depredations that had been so fiercely carried on by the French, and the native Indians in their alliance. All this shewed the innate strength and vigour of the constitution of the British Colonies.

The conclusion of the quarrel between Great Britain and France, placed them immediately on such a footing as could not fail to double every advantage they already possest. — They abounded with spirited and active individuals of all denominations. They were flushed with the uncommon porosperity that had attended them in their commercial affairs and military transactions. The natural consequence of such a disposition was, that they were ready for all kind of undertakings; and saw no limits to their hopes and expectations.

As they entertained the highest opinion of their value and importance, and of the immense benefit that England derived from its connection with them, their notions were adequately high in their favour. They deemed themselves, not without reason, entitled to every kindness and indulgence which the mother-country could bestow.

Though their pretensions did not amount to a perfect equality of advantages and privileges in matters of commerce, yet in those of government, they thought themselves fully competent to the task of conducting their domestic concerns, with little or no interference from abroad. Though willing to admit the supremacy of Great Britain, they viewed it with a suspicious eye, and with a marked desire and intent speedily to give it limitations.

Today’s second extract is from a pamphlet titled Plain Truth; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America. Containing Remarks on a late Pamphlet, Intitled Common Sense; Wherein are shewn, that the Scheme of Independence is ruinous, delusive, and impracticable.

This pamphlet was advertised for sale by the Pennsylvania Ledger in March 1776, a few months after Thomas Paine’s republican manifesto. It was signed “Candidus,” who has since been identified as James Chalmers (1727-1806), a Maryland planter. Born in Scotland, Chalmers went to the Caribbean as a teenager and earned enough to bring several enslaved people and £10,000 to the mainland when he decided to settle there in 1760. As the war moved closer to his colony, Chalmers wrote:

I have now before me the pamphlet intitled Common Sense; on which I shall remark with freedom and candour. It may not be improper to remind my reader, that the investigation of my subject demands the utmost freedom of enquiry; I therefore entreat his indulgence, and that he will carefully remember, that intemperate zeal is an injurious to liberty, as a manly discussion of facts is friendly to it.

“Liberty, says the great Montesquieu, is a right of doing whatever the laws permit; and if a citizen could do what they forbid, he would no longer be possessed of liberty, because all his fellow citizens would have the same power.” In the beginning of his pamphlet the author asserts, that society in every state is a blessing. This in the sincerity of my heart I deny; for it is supreme misery to be associated with those who, to promote their ambitious purposes, flagitiously pervert the ends of political society. . . .

Our political quack avails himself of this trite expedient, so cajole the people into the most abject slavery, under the delusive name of independence. His first indecent attack is against the English constitution, which, with all its imperfections, is, and ever will be, the pride and envy of mankind. . . . This beautiful system (according to Montesquieu) our constitution is a compound of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. But it is often said, that the sovereign, by honours and appointments, influences the commons. The profound and elegant Hume agitating this question, thinks, to this circumstance, we are in part indebted for our supreme felicity; since, without such controul in the crown, our constitution would immediately degenerate into democracy.

Anything but that.

Thompson’s Timely Tale of the Revolution

For analyzing popular attitudes toward the past in a given period, I think it’s more rewarding to look at hack writing than at either historical studies or good literature. Hack writing is pounded out at speed for as large an audience as possible, often using stereotypes for characters and plots that don’t challenge readers’ assumptions. It therefore reflects the writer’s first instincts and understanding of what the public wants rather than a more deeply researched or thought-out consideration of the past.

That’s why I find the Liberty Boys of ’76 dime novels to be informative as well as amusing, and why today I’m highlighting “How a Lad of 1776 Surprised the Redcoats”, a short story featured by Hungry Tiger Press. The young writer, shown here, was Ruth Plumly Thompson, the first author to continue L. Frank Baum’s Oz books.

Thompson wrote this tale for the Philadelphia Public Ledger in 1916, when she was editing the newspaper’s kids’ page. At that time Woodrow Wilson was successfully running for reelection on the platform of not helping the British in the world war against Germany. And Thompson has no problem portraying a British sympathizer as a war profiteer: “Long live King George! Ha! Ha! Long live anybody that can pay me good honest crowns!” The young hero, an orphan naturally named Jack, saves the day and earns his own freedom by preserving American livestock to the American army.

The story also contains some telling anachronisms, especially in its treatment of time itself. Thompson wrote:

Tiptoeing into the room where Derry slept, [Jack] reached for the clock which stood on a chair beside the bed. Scarce daring to breathe, he took it to the window and by the pale moonlight, turned it forward one hour. Derry’s watch he treated in similar fashion. Downstairs he hurried next, fixing the old clock in the hall and the clock in the kitchen one hour fast. Now upstairs again went Jack, this time to the room of Gates, a British private, who had been slightly wounded and was being cared for in the inn. Quietly as a mouse he removed the man’s uniform from the closet, then tarrying only long enough to set his watch forward, too, tiptoed downstairs, slid the bolt aside and hurried out into the night, never stopping till he had come to the house where the young American lieutenant was lodged.

Jack changes five separate timepieces in one house—probably more than twice what there would have been. In the 1770s, many British privates were still poor and illiterate, and it would have been unusual for one to have his own watch. Not to mention being separate from his unit.

Furthermore, for Jack’s plan to work, Derry must think that it’s nine o’clock in the morning, as his timepieces say, instead of eight o’clock. But as a farmer, Derry would have been used to estimating the time by the position of the Sun in the sky, or the behavior of his livestock. Thompson’s story projected a twentieth-century sense of time back into the eighteenth century.

I’ll spoil the end of the tale by revealing that it involves a personal meeting with the commander-in-chief:

Washington himself shook hands with Jack and was so impressed with the lad’s spirit and manliness that he agreed to his entreaties that he be kept on as a drummer boy.

I’ve seen that sort of close encounter with Washington as the payoff in many dubious stories: the legends of John Honeyman, Sarah Bradlee Fulton, Primus Hall, Lydia Darragh, the Hart family, even George R. T. Hewes at his least reliable. Such moments seem to have almost developed a sacred quality in the nineteenth century, a laying-on of the great man’s hands. I’m even starting to think of a scene like that as a dead giveaway that a story is, like Thompson’s “Lad of 1776,” fiction.

Open Wide

A couple of years ago, a celebrated writer turned to me at a military reenactment and said, “The fife is really the dental drill of musical instruments, isn’t it?”

He was speaking metaphorically, and from a more informed appreciation for music than mine. (He’s written a couple of books on the topic.) But, oddly enough, there is a close connection between music and dentistry in Revolutionary Boston.

Exhibit 1 is John Greenwood (1760-1819), whose memoir I’ve quoted several times on Boston 1775. As described in this posting, Greenwood started playing the fife around age nine or ten, enlisting in the provincial forces before the Battle of Bunker Hill. After the war he became a dentist in New York. Greenwood’s manuscript of music, dated 1785, is now at the New-York Historical Society.

Exhibit 2 is Josiah Flagg. The father of that name (1738-95) was a silversmith and engraver who started publishing psalm books and putting on concerts in Boston in the 1760s and 1770s. His namesake son (1763-1816) created America’s first known chair designed for dentistry—shown above, and now on display at Temple University. Grandson Josiah Foster Flagg (1788-1853) also managed a dental school.

Exhibit 3 is Paul Revere, a childhood friend of the elder Flagg. Of course, we know Revere best as a silversmith and carrier of important messages. But he also engraved many images for printers, including Flagg’s 1764 psalm collection and the frontispiece for William Billings’s first collection of original songs. Indeed, the Music Publishers’ Association has named its engraving awards after Revere. When his other businesses were slow, Revere advertised that he cleaned teeth and made dentures. What would qualify a silversmith to do all those things? Basically, Revere was good at scraping.

Daily Arrivals of Gunpowder for Gen. Washington

Back on 5 August, I posted a letter from Gen. John Sullivan reporting Gen. George Washington’s astonishment at discovering that the Continental Army had much less gunpowder than its leaders had thought. Already the commander-in-chief was working to find more. On 4 August, Washington wrote urgent notes to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut and the Committee of Safety in New Hampshire, with the message that

our Stock of Powder is so small, as in a great Degree to make our heavy Artillery useless: I must therefore request you will exert yourselves to forward what ever can be spared from your Province as soon as Possible.

By the 20th, the situation had improved. Washington wrote to Gen. Philip Schuyler of New York, “the daily arrivals of that Article give us Reason to hope we shall soon have a very ample supply.” Visitors from the Continental Congress had brought news that on 10 August the Pennsylvania Council of Safety had sent 382 pounds of musket powder and 1,754 pounds of cannon powder north. As of the 21st, that shipment had reached Albany.

Meanwhile, inside Boston, selectmen Timothy Newell was hearing the effects of the resupply in renewed cannon fire from the provincial siege lines.

16th [Aug]. Cannonade from both lines.

17th. Cannonade again.

19th. D[itt]o.—A 42 pounder split on the lines, killed a bombardier and wounded one or two men.

20th to 25th. Daily firing from the lines and from the Centinels on both sides.

Even after this crisis passed, Washington rarely let up his pressure on Congress and provincial governments to keep supplying the army. On 7 September, he wrote:

I have only to inform the Honr. Congress, that I have received a small supply of 7000 lb. Powder this Week, from Rhode Island, and in a few days expect 7 Tons of Lead and 500 Stand of Arms, A part of the same Importation, and to request that more Money may be forwarded with all Expedition; the Military Chest being nearly exhausted.

While on 20 August Washington had looked forward to “a very ample supply” of powder because he expected a little over two thousand pounds to arrive soon, when he wrote to Congress three weeks later he called seven thousand pounds only “a small supply.” He didn’t want that body to become complacent about supplies.

Firing at & Kill'g. Hogs, Geese, Cattle & Every Thing?

Here’s an incendiary account of the British actions in Lexington on 19 April 1775, apparently written in Hartford four days later and then printed in the Pennsylvania Mercury five days after that. The letter’s description of events in Concord was fairly accurate, but as for Lexington:

the Regulars fired without the least provocation about fifteen minutes, without a single shot from our men; who retreated—in which fire they killed six of our men & wounded several, from thence they proceeded to Concord:

on the Road thither, they fired at & killed a Man on Horseback, went to the House where Mr. [John] Hancock lodged, who with Samuel Adams luckily got out of their way by secret & speedy Intelligence from Paul Revere—when they searched the house for Mr. Hancock & Adams, & not find them there, killed the Woman of the house & all the children & set fire to the house;

from thence they proceeded on their Way to Concord, firing at & kill’g. hogs, geese, cattle & every Thing that came in their Way, & burning houses.

Among the inaccuracies:

• The British volley at Lexington was short, not fifteen minutes long.
• Some locals fired back, though without much effect.
• The British soldiers didn’t shoot up the countryside on their way from Lexington to Concord; only on the return trip, as they were being surrounded by provincial militiamen, did the regulars start firing.
• The British never went to the Lexington parsonage where Hancock and Adams had lodged (shown above, courtesy of BattleRoad.org); despite American suspicions, arresting those men was never part of Gen. Thomas Gage’s orders.
  
• The regulars therefore didn’t kill any woman, children, or animals at that house. (The only child killed by British fire on 19 Apr 1775 was Edward Barber of Charlestown.)

The letter writer might have heard an exaggerated account of what happened at the house of Joseph and Hannah Adams of West Cambridge, and shifted that action to Lexington. I’ll tell that story one day. But no one was killed in that incident, either.

In sum, this letter from Hartford reflects not what the British soldiers had actually done, but what New Englanders were telling each other those troops had done—which was significant in its own right in motivating men to join the besieging provincial army.

Whoever wrote this account seems to have been well informed otherwise. For example, the letter mentions Paul Revere by name as the man who brought news of the British march to Lexington. Revere was being singled out among the alarm riders more than eighty years before Longfellow’s poem.

Another interesting detail appears in a portion of the letter I haven’t transcribed: it said the provincials “Made eight prisoners. Ten more clubbed their firelocks & came over to us.” In other words, ten British soldiers deserted while eight captives wanted to go back to their army. The prisoner exchange on 6 June sent two officers and six enlisted men back to Boston—but another officer had been traded earlier. (More about him later.) So those numbers need reconciling. The deserters are even harder to count because they were already fading quietly into New England society.

Samuel Danforth and the Philosopher's Stone

In June I wrote about Dr. Samuel Danforth, a Loyalist suspected of supplying hay for the British military from his farm in Chelsea. Dr. Danforth’s father was also named Samuel and was also interested in medicine, of a sort.

According to this article in Alchemy Journal by Mark Stavish, Samuel Danforth (1696-1777) probably became intrigued by alchemy as a student at Harvard College in his teens. In its library was

the curious manuscript Compendium Physicae by Charles Morton. Morton, a Puritan, received his M.A. from Oxford in 1652, and emigrated to Massachusetts in 1686. His Compendium was a strange blend of the science of the period with Aristotle. A lengthy section was devoted to the “Artifice of Gold by Alchymy” or “the finding of the Phylosophers stone”, even stating, “Some have done it, such are cal’d the Adepti”. He listed among them, Lully, Paracelsus, and his disciple, van Helmont.

Danforth settled in Cambridge, just a few blocks from the college. At that time, learned gentlemen often dabbled in many fields. Danforth not only became a probate judge but read enough about medicine to try offering the smallpox inoculation in 1730, only eight years after the Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather and his enslaved man Onesimus introduced the practice into Massachusetts. Cambridge voted its disapproval and asked Danforth to remove his patients to where they couldn’t infect anyone else. However, he kept enough respect in the community to be elected to the Council, the upper house of the Massachusetts colonial legislature, in 1739; he remained a member of that body for over thirty years.

Meanwhile, Samuel Danforth was collecting alchemical books and making extensive notes inside them. In 1773 he wrote to an old acquaintance, Benjamin Franklin, with news of discovering the philosopher’s stone; as Harry Potter fans know, that substance was supposed to confer immortality. Franklin wrote back on 25 July 1773:

I rejoice, therefore, in your kind intentions of including me in the benefits of that inestimable stone, which curing all diseases (even old age itself), will enable us to see the future glorious state of our America, enjoying in full security her own liberties, and offering in her bosom a participation of them to all the oppressed of other nations.

I anticipate the jolly conversation we and twenty more of our friends may have a hundred years hence on this subject, over that well replenished bowl at Cambridge commencement.

It’s disappointing to report that Danforth died four years later, in 1777. The Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles of Newport, who was interested in many fields and many secrets (however outlandish), had this to say in his diary.
(I’m reproducing the image since I can’t reproduce the Hebrew.)

Dr. Samuel Danforth inherited his father’s library, and in 1812 he donated twenty-one volumes on alchemy to the Boston Athenaeum.