The True Story of Isaac Bissell

We don’t have the original letter that Joseph Palmer dashed off on the morning of 19 Apr 1775, alerting the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s political allies in Connecticut that the British army had killed people at Lexington and asking speedy passage for the man carrying it. Instead, we have copies of that letter, hastily written at stops along the post riders’ route.

It’s only natural that errors crept into Palmer’s text. By the time the note reached New York, it referred to “Israel Bessel” and “T. Palmer.” Later copies, such as the one transcribed in Charles Burr Todd’s A General History of the Burr family in America (1872), appeared to render the rider’s name as “Trail Bissell.”

So we need to go back to the earliest copies that survive. The one from Brooklyn, Connecticut, now owned by the National Heritage Museum, gives the name Israel Bissell. But according to this article, a copy signed by Connecticut official Silas Deane and owned by the William L. Clements Library in Michigan names the rider as “Mr. Isaac Bissell.” And a copy transcribed from the Springfield archives also names “Mr. Isaac Bissell.”

The name “Isaac Bissel” appears in the records of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, authorizing payment for “a Post-Rider’s Account.”

That brings me to the research that Lion G. Miles has shared through iberkshires.com, the Berkshire Eagle, and Connecticut History.

According to Miles and his citations, all the papers in the Massachusetts Archives about the post rider who carried Palmer’s message are signed by “Isaac Bissell,” who identified himself as from Suffield, Connecticut, near the Massachusetts border. In July 1775, the Provincial Congress approved his bill for six days of expenses while riding “to Hartford,” but then that body dissolved for elections and no one got around to paying the man.

In March 1776 Bissell wrote to Palmer: “Sir you may Remember when Lexinton Fite was you gave me an Express to Cary to Hartford in Connecticut which I did. . . .I think I Earn my money.” Finally on 23 April the Massachusetts House voted to pay Isaac Bissell the £2.1s. he’d asked for.

So I now believe that Isaac Bissell rode to the Connecticut capital of Hartford, probably by way of Worcester and Springfield. An accurate copy of the letter he carried was sent on to Deane, who lived one town below Hartford in Wethersfield. Meanwhile, another rider or set of riders, names unknown to us, was carrying another copy of Palmer’s letter south from Worcester to Brooklyn, Norwich, and New London, and then along the coast to New York. That copy rendered the original courier’s name as “Israel Bissell,” and Isaac wasn’t around to correct that error or further deviations.

According to lineages published by the D.A.R. and S.A.R., after returning home to Suffield, Isaac Bissell (1749-1822) enlisted in a Connecticut regiment and marched back to Boston to participate in the siege. He was a sergeant in Col. Erastus Woolcott’s regiment until March 1776, and later mustered as part of the New Haven Alarm of July 1779. After the war he worked as a blacksmith in Suffield. His grave in the Suffield cemetery (shown in the thumbnail above; click for a full set on Flickr from caboose_rodeo) has been identified as that of a Revolutionary veteran for decades.

What about the Israel Bissell buried in Hinman Hinsdale, Massachusetts? His grave has gotten special attention from the D.A.R., and he’s been lauded in poetry, song, and art as the forgotten equal to Paul Revere. But all that celebration is just because of a spelling error.

Comparing Bissell and Revere

In a half-serious, half-parodic poem called “Israel Bissell’s Ride,” western Massachusetts newspaper columnist Gerard Chapman wrote:

He lacks the renown that accrued to Revere
For no rhymester wrote ballad to blazon his fame;
But Bissell accomplished—and isn’t it queer?—
A feat that suggested Revere’s to be tame.

But such praise for Bissell over Paul Revere is based on some important misunderstandings.

One mistake is assuming that Bissell rode all the way to Philadelphia, switching horses along the way. (According to legend, his first mount collapsed and died as he rode into Worcester, and he hopped on another.) Bissell’s name indeed appeared in all the copied letters because Joseph Palmer had mentioned him specifically before signing his name. But Palmer’s letter also specified Bissell’s job: to carry the message “quite into Connecticut.”

Other riders took over in that colony and carried the message south. That’s how the post system was designed to work. Alexander McDougall of the New York Committee of Correspondence even stated the name of the courier to New Brunswick: a “Mr. Moorbach.”

Writers like Chapman praise Israel Bissell for riding over a much longer distance than Paul Revere, and that doesn’t change even if he went only as far as Connecticut. But length is only one way to compare Revere’s and Bissell’s actions.

Revere rode on a night when the British military was out to stop messengers just like him. He evaded a Royal Navy warship, narrowly escaped capture after leaving Charlestown, and was actually captured in Lincoln. In contrast, Bissell rode in daytime, farther and farther from the battle, with no danger of being captured or shot.

Revere also did a lot of other things on 18-19 April: gathering intelligence about the British march for Dr. Joseph Warren, arranging to send the news by signal-light to Charlestown, alerting militia officers along his way west, helping Samuel Adams to convince John Hancock to leave Lexington, and finally helping to hide Hancock’s papers as the first shots rang out on Lexington common.

Bissell, on the other hand, stuck to his job as a mail carrier. There’s no evidence of him doing anything else for the Patriot cause in in 1775. Bissell did an important task, but another post rider could have taken his place and done the same. Revere had the connections and persistence to do more than any other alarm rider on 18-19 April.

TOMORROW: What’s more, it looks like Israel Bissell didn’t really ride at all.

(The image above is Grant Wood’s rendering of Revere’s midnight ride from the Grant Wood Gallery.)

The Legend of Israel Bissell

Yesterday I quoted the Brooklyn, Connecticut, copy of Joseph Palmer’s letter about the shooting at Lexington on 19 Apr 1775. Starting in the late 1800s and throughout the 1900s, authors began writing about Israel Bissell, the post rider named in that document.

Historians found Israel Bissell (1752-1823) and his brother Justis listed as joining in Capt. W. Wolcott’s company from East Windsor, Connecticut, in July 1776. He served in the army only one month, though. After the war the Bissell family moved to Middlefield, Massachusetts. Israel bought farmland, married Lucy Hancock in 1784, and fathered four children. He died in 1823 at age seventy-one, and was buried in Hinsdale.

Bissell’s gravestone in Hinman said nothing about his Revolutionary War service: “IN MEMORY of Mr. ISRAEL BISSELL, who died October 24th 1823, Aged Sev’nty One Years.” In 1967 the D.A.R. added a bronze plaque describing him as an important post rider.

Since then, Bissell has been celebrated in art and sermon and poetry. Almost all of those mentions compare Bissell to Paul Revere, made into an American legend by Henry W. Longfellow’s poem. For example, Clay Perry opened his ode with these lines:

Listen, my children, to my epistle
Of the long, long ride of Israel Bissell,
Who outrode Paul by miles and time
But didn’t rate a poet’s rhyme.

Most authors writing about Bissell credit him with carrying Palmer’s news of Lexington all the way to Philadelphia.

There are three problems with that celebration. A series of post riders, not one man, carried the message to Philadelphia. Revere rode less distance, but did a lot more. And Israel Bissell didn’t ride at all.

TOMORROW: Comparing Bissell and Revere.

“To alarm the country quite to Connecticut”

Last year I quoted Elizabeth Palmer on how her husband and her father-in-law, Joseph Palmer (shown here, courtesy of Warren S. Parker), responded to news of the shots on Lexington common at dawn on 19 Apr 1775.

As I noted in discussing Elizabeth’s tale of Dr. Joseph Warren’s last day, not all that family’s lore pans out. But in this case we have evidence that Joseph Palmer was at work that morning, spreading the word about that shooting.

Joseph Palmer was a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s Committee of Safety, basically the executive power in the province outside of Boston. He and his extended family had moved from Boston to Watertown to keep away from the royal authorities. Palmer decided to alert other Patriots about the start of the armed conflict by sending a letter off with the post rider heading west toward Worcester and down into Connecticut.

Palmer’s original letter hasn’t survived, but copies did, including this one on display at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington (and conveniently quoted on its blog):

Watertown Wednesday Morning near 10 o’Clock

To all the Friends of American Liberty, be it known that this Morning before breake of Day a Brigade consisting of about 1000 or 1200 Men landed at [David] Phip’s Farm at Cambridge & marched to Lexington where they found a Company of our Colony Militia in Arms, upon Whom they fired without any Provocation and killed 6 Men and Wounded 4 others.

By an Express from Boston this Moment, we find another Brigade are now upon their march from Boston supposed to be about 1000.

This was the reinforcement column under Col. Percy. And the earlier column under Lt. Col. Francis Smith would certainly have argued with Palmer’s statement that they had “fired without any Provocation.”

The Bearer Mr. Israel Bissel is charged to alarm the Country quite to Connecticut and all Persons are desired to furnish him with Fresh Horses as they may be needed.

I have spoken with Several Persons who have seen the Dead & Wounded. Pray let the Delegates from this Colony to Connecticut see this they know.

J. Palmer, one of the
Committee of S——y

Copies of Palmer’s letter provided the first news of the war to many people between Watertown and Philadelphia. It was printed in various newspapers and handbills, and eventually reprinted in the Remembrancer, a London review of the past year’s news.

But Palmer’s short, sketchy report was quickly superseded by more detailed accounts, and this letter was basically forgotten for about a hundred years. Then historians started to cite it as evidence of how the Lexington alarm spread. By the late 1800s Henry W. Longfellow’s poem had made Paul Revere a household name in the U.S. of A., so people wanted to know more about the rider whom Palmer had “charged to alarm the Country.”

TOMORROW: On the trail of Israel Bissell.

Too Much Paine?

Ken Burchell recently posted the text of a review of Thomas Paine: A Collection of Unknown Writings, compiled by Hazel Burgess, that he wrote for the Journal of Radical History. It starts with some standard bibliographical head-shaking:

the collection actually contains some newly published Paine material of genuine scholarly and historical interest. There are, however, two problems. First, a great part of the collection is either already in print, easily obtained. And more problematically, the very small quantity of new Paine material is sandwiched in between a much greater quantity of work that is not of Paine’s authorship.

But soon the review gets into juicier topics. Rumors that Paine had secret illegitimate children! That his skull had been discovered in Australia! That he secretly owned slaves! Alas for the cause of gossip, Burchell will have none of those notions.

The review doesn’t clarify other claims in the book’s marketing copy:

Two recently discovered portraits of Paine, one of a proudly-confident, middle aged man of Philadelphia and the other an elegantly-dressed, older, gentleman of Paris, add mystery to this book, a mystery yet to be solved.

Rolling beneath the review is the rumble of scholarly rifts and feuds. Has Burgess hidden her dissertation from public scrutiny? What’s the connection between the Thomas Paine Society in the U.K. that publishes the Journal of Radicalism and the Thomas Paine Society in the U.S. that Burchell has also written for? How was the Thomas Paine National Historical Association “disgraced and fallen upon hard times”?

I don’t claim the knowledge to sort out the quality of Burgess’s work, Burchell’s criticisms, or modern Paine organizations. Ken Burchell and I first corresponded as he prepared his six-volume collection of American writings in response to Paine, and I called on his expertise to sort out a mystery last year. His blog is an easy source of Paine material, from short quotations to this essay for Free Inquiry. But since I haven’t seen Burgess’s book or other publications to judge for myself, I take no position on the areas of dispute.

Instead, my main conclusion is that Thomas Paine, perhaps more than any other figure of the American Revolutionary era, inspires passion in the people who study him.

Samuel Whittemore and Memory Creep

The Rev. Samuel Abbott Smith included a stirring rendition of Samuel Whittemore’s story in his 1864 address West Cambridge on the Nineteenth of April, 1775. Unfortunately, that telling exaggerated the old man’s actions:

He lay under cover of a wall near where the Russell school-house now stands, and fired some half dozen shots at the enemy. He had just loaded his gun, when he heard the wall rattle and saw five soldiers of the flank-guard approaching him shoulder to shoulder. Beside being eighty years old he was lame, and knew that it was of no use to attempt to escape.

With his musket he shot one of the soldiers, and, instantly drawing his pistol, fired at another. He aimed the second pistol and discharged it just as they fired at him; one of the soldiers was seen to clap his hand to his breast. As he fired the third time a ball struck him in the head, and he fell senseless.

So in a single second both Whittemore and a soldier fired their guns, Whittemore’s ball hit a soldier who grabbed his chest, and a soldier’s ball hit Whittemore on the head and knocked him out. And someone who remained in Menotomy to speak to Smith saw all that. Wow!

The soldiers beat him with their muskets, bayoneted him, and left him for dead. After the British had passed by, our people, finding that there was some life left in him, carried him to Cooper’s tavern, where the surgeon, Dr. [Simon] Tufts of Medford, said that it was useless to dress his wounds, for he could not live. He dressed the wounds however, and the old hero lived eighteen years after this, dying in 1793 at the age of 98.

The people of that time accounted for his longevity by saying that “He bled like an ox” from his wounds, and through the new blood formed got a new lease of life.

Smith gave his source for at least part of the story as “F. H. Whittemore,” apparently a descendant. But the obituary I quoted yesterday said he shot two soldiers, not three. That death notice must have come from Samuel Whittemore’s immediate family and friends, and they had no reason to downplay or conceal flattering details.

Smith’s account displays what I call “memory creep,” in which stories become slightly better as they pass from one teller to another—at each stage a bit more exciting and the stakes more important.

The next version of Whittemore’s tale appeared in an 1870 family history and an 1880 History of Arlington by Benjamin and William R. Cutter. They also gave the old man two pistols, and wrote that his surgeons dressed “one shot wound and thirteen bayonet wounds.”

Strangely, the Cutters started their account by quoting a version of Whittemore’s Centinel obituary, which said he had been stabbed “6 or 8” times with a bayonet. How did eight wounds grow to thirteen between 1793 and 1870? Memory creep.

In 1893 B. B. Whittemore published a genealogy of the Whittemore family (published by “Francis P. Whittemore, Book and Job Printer” of Nashua). He included Samuel Whittemore’s birthdate in 1696, and said he was 96 years old when he died. Yet that book also said he was “At the age of 80” during the battle in 1775. Memory creep even overcame mathematics.

Are we doing better today? Well, the problem doesn’t seem to be getting worse—I haven’t found any tale of 90-year-old Samuel Whittemore firing a cannon at a company of redcoats before he’s shot through the head, only to be revived through leeches. This webpage by the Arlington Historical Commission combines the most solid information from the most reliable sources. On the other hand:

• This stone marker in Arlington follows the Rev. Mr. Smith’s address by saying Whittemore killed three British soldiers and died at 98.
• The 2005 Massachusetts law naming Whittemore as official state hero repeated the errors in his obituary, saying he was “over 80 years old” during the battle and 99 when he died.

In Massachusetts we don’t merely print the legend; we give it the force of law! But Whittemore’s bravery and longevity never needed exaggeration.

The Near-Death and Death of Samuel Whittemore

Earlier this month at an event in Arlington, a nice lady suggested that Boston 1775 feature the story of Samuel Whittemore of Menotomy (now known as Arlington). Five years ago the Massachusetts legislature named Whittemore an official state hero; that bill was sponsored by a legislator from Arlington.

The earliest detailed source about Whittemore that I’ve found is his obituary in the Essex Journal on 13 Feb 1793; I believe most of the text came from Boston’s Columbian Centinel newspaper a week earlier:

DIED.

At Menotomy, the 2d inst. [i.e., this month] Capt. SAMUEL WHITTEMORE, Æt. 99. The manly and moral virtues, in all the various relations of brother, husband, father and friend, were invariably exhibited in this gentleman. He was not more remarkable for his longevity, and his numerous descendants, (his progeny being 185; one of which is the fifth generation) than for his patriotism.——

When the British troops marched to Lexington, he was 81 years of age, and one of the first on the parade [i.e., for militia duty]; he was armed with a gun and horse pistol; after an animated exhortation to the collected militia, to the exercise of bravery and courage, he exclaimed; “If I can only be the instrument of killing one of my country's foes, I shall die in peace,”

The prayer of this venerable old man was heard—for on the return of the troops, he lay behind a stone wall, and discharging his gun, a soldier immediately fell; he then discharged his pistol, and killed another—at which instant, a ball struck his face, and shot away part of his cheek-bone; on which a number of the soldiers ran up to the wall, and gorged their malice on his wounded head: they were heard to exclaim, “We have killed the old rebel.”

About four hours after, he was found in a mangled situation; his head was covered with blood, from the wounds of the bayonet, which were six or eight; but providentially none penetrated so far as to destroy him; his hat and cloaths were shot through in many places, yet he survived to see the complete overthrow of his enemies, and his country enjoy all the blessings of peace and independence.

Lucius Paige reported in his 1877 History of Cambridge (which once included Menotomy) that Whittemore had been born on 27 July 1696. That means he was actually 78 years old in April 1775, and 96 when he died rather than 99. But sometimes very old people and their family lost track of their exact ages. (George R. T. Hewes is another example; his portrait was once labeled “The Centenarian,” but he died at age 98.)

Even if Whittemore was only a septuagenarian, his military actions on 19 Apr 1775 are impressive. Indeed, this death notice almost seems beyond belief—particularly that exclamation to his fellow militiamen. Yet it was printed well within the lifetime of many Revolutionary veterans, and reprinted often and as far away as Philadelphia (in the 29 February Gazette of the United States) with no apparent objections that it was inaccurate. So this account appears to be generally reliable.

But apparently Whittemore’s tale wasn’t quite impressive enough for the following decades because later authors enhanced the details.

TOMORROW: Samuel Whittemore and “memory creep.”

(Picture above from Arlington Historical Society.)

Sarah Richardson: “she prefers to live with…”

This is the first of an occasional “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” series, gossiping about couples having difficulties in Revolutionary New England.

As I described yesterday, Sarah Wyman of Woburn married Ichabod Richardson in 1770. Six years later, Ichabod was captured while serving on a privateer and disappeared into the British prisoner-of-war system. In 1782, Josiah Richardson, a survivor of the skirmish at Lexington, proposed marriage to Sarah, then living as a widow with a ten-year-old son. And then her first husband came home.

A document about Americans held in Britain’s Forton Prison indicates that at some point Ichabod Richardson escaped. Woburn authors say he was “pressed into the British service,” serving in the British army or navy. As the war wound down (though it didn’t end until late 1783), Ichabod made his way home. And found his wife newly remarried.

Unfortunately, the historical record is silent on how everyone reacted emotionally to the situation. Ichabod and Josiah Richardson were probably related but not closely; there were a lot of Richardsons (and Wymans) in Woburn.

The whole awkwardly extended family appears to have sat down and come to an agreement about what to do next. Legally, the result was a contract between the men, but it reflects the choice that Sarah made for the sake of her son, young Ichabod. Abram E. Brown published the document in Beneath Old Roof-Trees (1896):

Ichabod Richardson and Josiah Richardson Stipulation

Whereas Ichabod Richardson of Woburn in the County of Middlesex, Commonwealth of Massachusetts shop joiner [i.e., cabinetmaker], about six or seven years since, (during the unhappy Difference between Great Brittian and America), the Colonies Inlisted him on board one of the American Privateers, leaving behind his wife Sarah, by which, he had Issue, one son, in which unlucky voyage he was taken Prisoner by the Brittians and was carried to Great Brittian and from thence to the East Indies, which occasioned him six or seven years absence; without any the least notice to his said wife Sarah, of his being in the land of the living.

During this uncertain interim the said Sarah in a desolate state, Josiah Richardson of said Woburn, blacksmith, being left a widower, married the said Sarah.

But so it happens at this present time, the said Ichabod is now returned and puts in his claim to his said wife Sarah, which by reason of their said son she preferres to live with in the future…and they the said Ichabod and Josiah, for the amicable settlement of the unhappy affair between them, stipulate as follows, namely the said Ichabod on his part, on the penalty of one hundred pounds, lawful money, stipulates with the said Josiah, his heirs and executors to pay discharge, and Indemnify him and them from all demands of what nature so ever against the said Sarah, at and until the time of her intermarriage with the said Josiah, and from all for the future, and that he the said Josiah shall Retain all the goods by him, the said Josiah and the said Sarah, Procured since the time of their intermarriage, during life.

And he the said Josiah, on his part stipulates with the said Ichabod, his heirs and executors, on the penalty of one hundred pounds like money, to discharge the said Sarah from the obligations of such marriage, and to Restore all the goods she brought with her at that time.

In confirmation of all above written, they have hereunto interchangably set their hands and seals, this fifteenth day of February, one thousand seven hundred eighty three.

Josiah agreed to walk away from the marriage, and Ichabod to resume it. Josiah took his stuff and left Sarah with hers, and the men agreed that whoever sued first would have to pay £100. Both Richardson men signed the document, and men named William Fox and Josiah Johnson witnessed it. And that was the end of Josiah and Sarah Richardson’s marriage.

Young Ichabod grew up and married Ruth Baldwin in 1791. His father died the following year, said to be age fifty. I can’t trace his mother.

The gravestone above is that of Deacon Josiah Richardson (1747-1795) of Woburn, husband of Jerusha Brooks. Yes, it’s yet another man named Josiah Richardson! But I don’t know what happened to the blacksmith who was so briefly married to Sarah.

The Marriage of Josiah Richardson

Back when I introduced Asahel Porter, killed at Lexington on 19 Apr 1775, I mentioned that there were two Josiah Richardsons in his story:

• A man, reportedly from Salem, who got married in Seabrook, New Hampshire, on the same day.
• The Woburn blacksmith and farmer who accompanied Porter into Lexington on that morning in 1775.

We know there are two Josiah Richardsons because the one who married Ruth Brooks went on to have children with her at least through 1788, and they both lived into the nineteenth century, according to The Brooks Memorial. In contrast, the Josiah Richardson who worked as a blacksmith in Woburn was a widower in 1782.

In that year the blacksmith wooed a Woburn widow named Sarah Richardson. (Richardson was a very common surname in Woburn because a lot of people from one English family had settled there; I previously wrote about Ebenezer Richardson marrying Rebecca Richardson.)

Sarah Wyman had married Ichabod Richardson in June 1770, and their son Ichabod arrived in January 1771. When the war began, the grown-up Ichabod Richardson enlisted in the provincial army for eight months during the siege of Boston, then signed onto a privateer named Warren. The Royal Navy captured that ship on 18 Nov 1776.

In 1879 the New England Historical and Genealogical Register published a table of American prisoners at Forton Prison in England that included “Icho’d Richardson” as one of five men captured while serving under “John Hammon / P. Master”; they were “Committed to Prison the 26th of June, 1777.”

Another column in the same table lists the fates of various prisoners: “Dead,” “Shot,” and “Enter’d”—which I believe means enlisted in the British military. Next to Hammon and Richardson’s names is “Run.” Apparently those two men escaped, at least for a while. But that’s the last trace of Ichabod Richardson from the 1770s, and even that news may not have made it back to Massachusetts.

In 1782, Sarah Richardson had been raising her son without a father for more than six years. I have no idea how she supported herself, but she was probably pleased to receive a proposal of marriage from an established craftsman. Josiah Richardson and Sarah Richardson married in Woburn on 19 Mar 1782.

And then Ichabod Richardson came back.

TOMORROW: Can this marriage be saved?

Twitter Feed, 17-24 Apr 2010

• RT @OldManseConcord: The Revolutionary War as a Civil War?? bit.ly/d40qff #
• RT @history_geek: Reading: BETSY ROSS AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA by Marla R. Miller. #
• RT @amhistorymuseum: Today in 1790, Benjamin Franklin dies. See what he left George Washington in his will: ow.ly/1yzQ5 #
• RT @Gothamist George Washington Stole Library Books! bit.ly/bLH1Ug // Or NY Society Library keeps imperfect records. #
• Spent all day in a (mostly) warm academic conference center. These volunteers at Minute Man Park braved the weather: bit.ly/bud9 0v #
• N. C. Wyeth's four murals for the First National Bank of Boston: bit.ly/bBaFcV #
• RT @universalhub: Weren't the Sox supposed to be a defensive team this year? // Well, they have a lot to be defensive about. #
• RT @jmadelman: Franklin also gave his printing materials to grandson B.F. Bache, and created a fund for young artisans. bit.ly/b8VUKY #
• @Willambeau: Gordon Wood won Pulitzer for "Radicalism of the American Revolution", right? // Yes, in 1993. Also Ralph W. Emerson Prize. #
• RT @PaulRevere1734: April 18, 1775: Spent the day w/Paul, Jr. in our Shop, not thinking 'twould be nigh on 11 mo's ere I saw either again. #
• Gravestone of Samuel Tarbell of Groton, Mar 1776: bit.ly/biBzjs Why did his son become a Loyalist officer, then return to Groton? #
• Historian Richard Archer suggests British soldiers picked their targets at the Boston Massacre. Was that murder? bit.ly/cGY5QS #
• Connecticut town tax collector arrested in 1786 for…not paying taxes: bit.ly/92jN4a #
• RT @RagLinen: 235 years later we can watch the animated Battle of Lexington and Concord online: tinyurl.com/y3wsh95 // Interesting! #
• HistoryAnimated.com puts Revere, Dawes, and Prescott together too early. (They met at Lexington.) And Dawes didn't return to Boston. #
• I saw a few other timing issues with HistoryAnimated.com's Concord march, but overall it's very impressive. tinyurl.com/y3wsh95 #
• RT @universalhub: Battle re-enactment photos from Lexington and Concord: bit.ly/cJtMxM #
• RT @HistoryNet: Daily History Q: Which country would you most like to visit to explore its history? bit.ly/99bUZh #
• The Massachusetts troops' battle of the 19th of April—in 1861: bit.ly/bx5qj2 #
• Thorough review by @JBD1 of thorough study of Bermuda trade in 18th century: bit.ly/c1UPZD #
• Poems on the Battle at Concord from Emerson and Lowell: bit.ly/bvoT4c #
• RT @BatGirlBabs: "Alexander Hamilton is my homeboy" #
• Marker for British soldiers who died in Menotomy (Arlington), Mass., on 19 Apr 1775: bit.ly/9omFW9 #
• RT @franceshunter: Jefferson, Hamilton, and the sex scandal that rocked early America: ow.ly/1AJvT #
• RT @Harvard_Press: Watch Alison LaCroix discuss the origins of federalism: bit.ly/arlW3a #
• RT @gordonbelt: An economic historian's take on Citizens United v. FEC: What Founding Fathers Thought of Corporations bit.ly/9LCJPh #
• RT @MilestoneDocs: One of our most popular DocNotes analyses: F. Douglass "What to the Slave Is Fourth of July?" bit.ly/9hiLLf #
• New book on an old story, Boston debate over smallpox inoculation in early 1700s: bit.ly/8ZLRbq #
• Smallpox debate notable for Cotton Mather being on side of experimental science, Ben Franklin on side of religious traditionalists. #
• Heard fresh take on smallpox history from @AndyWehrman at NEHA: by late 1700s Americans believed inoculation method was their discovery. #
• Member of Bedford Minuteman Company dies doing ritual he loved, marching to Patriots' Day commemoration: bit.ly/aRh0lq #
• Heard Bill Poole talk of ancestor: bit.ly/b5UyFM But no, Ebenezer Locke didn't fire first shot at Lexington. He REACTED to shots. #
• NEW YORKER questions Stephen Ambrose's claims about interviewing Eisenhower, basis of his initial rep as historian: bit.ly/criZmU #
• H-Net review of book about Atlantic Slave Trade Census, now expanded and refined: bit.ly/boN1wr #
• RT @history_book: Growing Up in England: The Experience of Childhood 1600-1914 - Anthony Fletcher - Yale UP. j.mp/d6tQlf #
• RT @dancohen: Slate's @jcbeam writes about "How Future Historians Will Use the Twitter Archive": bit.ly/d8Beua #
• @Willambeau HBO made JOHN ADAMS because Tom Hanks liked the book and pushed. Adams letters personalize him unlike most other founders. #
• RT @gordonbelt: I suspect that our most colorful Founding Father would approve of this colorful C-note makeover: bit.ly/brqnYU #
• Remarks and video from OAH panel about paper on "Liberty and Discipline in the Continental Navy": bit.ly/dmssU2 #
• City of Quincy finds letter by John Quincy Adams: bit.ly/aLXDE1 As if we didn't have enough JQA to read. #
• Archivists stump for US bill to provide more funds for…archiving: bit.ly /ct2bFu #
• SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN podcast with John Nagy about spy technology in the Revolutionary War: bit.ly/boeQMJ #
• From C-SPAN, full video of John Nagy's talk on spycraft in America's Revolutionary War: bit.ly/dCZ6Zh #
• Helped NEW YORKER fact-check an article this week—scratch one more thing off the lifetime to-do list. #
• RT @universalhub: Problems at Waltham dam mean large parts of the Charles in Newton could become a fetid mud flat bit.ly/da4HPS #
• CHAINS, Revolutionary War novel by @halseanderson, on short list for Carnegie Medal in UK: bit.ly/9Zoykq #
• RT @gordonbelt: A late Founding Father in the Cherokee campaigns? John Sevier and the Battle of Etowah: bit.ly/cM17Ui #
• From @lucyinglis, something rarely seen in Puritan Boston: cockfighting spurs – bit.ly/aUFYmI #
• Blog listed as resource for college course on Boston history. Some students search it. Some just email me for answers. So I make stuff up. #
• RT @dancohen: @nytimes needs big survey to figure out demographics of Tea Party. @dbamman uses text-mining: bit.ly/94RmzF #
• RT @Boy_Monday: New blog post >> Transatlantic History: Top Ten Books on Eighteenth-Century America bit.ly/d8oEVn #
• RT @gordonbelt: "The Crazy Imaginings of the Texas Board of Education" by Geoffrey R. Stone huff.to/duWA9n #
• RT @Historyday: On this day in 1800 the U.S. Library of Congress was established as John Adams signed legislation to spend $5,000 on books. #

Local and Material History at the Concord Museum

The Concord Museum is celebrating the 375th anniversary of the town with an exhibit called “into your hands…,” featuring objects passed down in Concord families and entrusted to the museum. Among the items:

• The Bloody Massacre, the famed Revere engraving that was a milestone in America’s road to independence, owned by Emerson Cogswell, a hatmaker, in 1775 Concord. A gift to the Museum in 2002 by Cogswell’s great, great, great-granddaughter.
• Pvt. Abner Hosmer’s powderhorn, worn at the fight at the North Bridge, April 19, 1775, where the 21-year-old Acton native was killed. A gift to the Museum in 1936.
• An 18th-century high chest made in Concord and descended in the Wheeler Family of Concord. A gift to the Museum from the family of Wilfrid and Emily Wheeler in 1996.

This exhibit will be up through 19 Sept 2010.

My notes indicate that the Concord Museum’s copy of Paul Revere’s Boston Massacre print shows the same wounds as on the copy once owned by the New England Merchants National Bank and made into a poster for my office. (Okay, that might not have been the poster’s original purpose.) A man lying at the lower center bleeds from the head, and a man in the crowd at the left bleeds from two wounds in the chest.

The Massacre print now at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington is similar as well. In both that print and the poster, the figure bleeding from his chest looks slightly darker-skinned than the rest. Back here I wondered if he was supposed to represent Crispus Attucks.

The wounds and flesh tones are significant because they weren’t part of the underlying engraving. Revere and helpers (artistic partner Christian Remick, apprentices, kids?) painted the blood and skin by hand. So if the same wounds were painted onto most of the original prints, and that one face was usually given a light brown wash, then the team was trying to depict the figures in a very particular way. My poster says there are nine prints surviving from the first run. Someone test this hypothesis for me!

The History Behind the Shirley-Eustis House, Roxbury, 28 April

On Wednesday, 28 April, the Shirley-Eustis House Association will host a talk by Donald C. Carleton, Jr., on “The Architecture of Victory: Governor Shirley, the Taking of Louisbourg, and a Grand House in Roxbury.”

In 1745, during King George’s War, Massachusetts governor William Shirley led the effort to raise a New England army, sail to Nova Scotia, and attack the French fort at Louisbourg. The success of this expedition made Shirley a star within the British Empire. Thirty years later, as conflict within that empire heated up, Massachusetts Whigs looked back on this victory for confidence that they could stand up against a professional army, even their own king’s.

Carleton’s talk is scheduled to begin at 4:30 P.M. (after the association’s annual business meeting for members only). Light refreshments follow. Admission for nonmembers is $15.

(Photo of the Shirley-Eustis House’s garden gazebo by Tim Sackton, via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.)

“Two Nations, Shared History” in Lexington, 30 April

On Friday, 30 April, at 7:00 P.M., the Lexington Historical Society will host a program called “Two Nations, Shared History” with two professors from Tufts University: Benjamin Carp, who specializes in early America, and Kris Manjapra, who studies the history of India (and Germany).

The pre-1776 British colonies in North America are now often called “the first British Empire.” After losing the most populated of those territories, the Crown began to build the “second British Empire” by taking over the troubled East India Company’s holdings in South Asia. In the 1800s Britain planted colonies there, in Africa, and elsewhere around the world. In the twentieth centuries those countries gained their independence, taking some inspiration from American history but also having to create their own path. It looks like this program will compare and contrast those colonial histories.

Another connection between the histories of U.S. of A. and India shows up in Carp’s upcoming book, Teapot in a Tempest, about the Boston Tea Party.

This event is co-sponsored by the Indian Americans of Lexington. It will take place at the Lexington Depot, and is free and open to the public.

The Aftermath of Asahel Porter

Asahel Porter was killed in the confusion and rancor that followed the first shots at Lexington on 19 Apr 1775. He fell “close by the stone wall below [Rufus] Merriam’s garden, east of the Meeting house,” according to Levi Harrington, speaking in 1846.

In 1824, Amos Lock of Lexington recalled seeing Porter’s body. Amos and his brother Ebenezer had mustered with the militia, heard there weren’t any British regulars on the way after all, and headed home.

We had not proceeded far, before we heard a firing; upon which we immediately returned, coming up towards the easterly side of the common, where, under the cover of a wall, about twenty rods distant from the common, where the British then were, we found Asahel Porter, of Woburn, shot through the body;

upon which Ebenezer Lock took aim, and discharged his gun at the Britons, who were then but about twenty rods from us. We then fell back a short distance, and the enemy, soon after, commenced their march for Concord.

Elias Phinney published Lock’s deposition in his History of the Battle of Lexington, written to prove that the Lexington militiamen had fired back at the British.

In 1775, the Massachusetts authorities had wanted to emphasize victimhood, not resistance. They listed Porter among the provincial dead, and published little about Lexington men firing back. The earliest reports don’t present Porter’s death as an atrocity, as they do with some of the people killed later in the day.

There was a funeral for Porter and another Woburn casualty, Daniel Thompson, on 21 April. He was noted in the newspapers, though some rendered his first name as “Azel.”

In 1782, Asahel’s widow Abigail married Ephraim Peirce, who was a couple of years younger. He died in 1810. She lived until 1840, dying at age 84. A younger Asahel Porter settled in Reading, christened his oldest son Asahel, and thus carried the name into the new century.

On 21 Apr 1875, a Grand Army of the Republic post erected the first stone in Asahel Porter’s honor in Woburn’s cemetery. It was described as “a plain marble slab suitably inscribed.” And a century later, apparently, it had disappeared.

In 1975 a group called the Baldwin Historical Society erected a new stone, carved in a startling approximation of eighteenth-century style. I can find only a few traces of this society today, but I suspect it was named after Woburn’s Loammi Baldwin. That monument reads:

Although a Man of Peace
he was caught in a conflict
not of his choosing.
As a result he became
one of the first to die
for his New Country.

(Here’s a clearer photo on Flickr.)

COMING UP: What happened to Porter’s companion Josiah Richardson?

The Shots at Lexington

Lt. William Sutherland was riding in front of the British expedition to Concord on 19 Apr 1775. He reported: “On coming within Gunshot of the village of Lexington a fellow from the corner of the road on the right hand Cock’d his piece at me, [and] burnt priming.” In other words, a local had tried to take a shot at him.

And then: “we still went on further when a few shot more were fired at us from the Corner of a house to the right of the Church which is sacred truth as I hope for mercy.” This building appears to have been Buckman’s tavern, facing onto the Lexington common.

On the other hand, locals insisted that the first shot came from the regulars. In fact, Simon Winship, one of the late-night riders that the British had confined within their ranks, declared on 25 April:

within about half a quarter of a mile of said [Lexington] meeting-house, where an officer commanded the troops to halt, and then to prime and load;

this being done, the said troops marched on till they came within a few rods of Capt. [John] Parker and company, who were partly collected on the place of parade, when said Winship observed an officer at the head of said troops, nourishing his sword, and with a loud voice giving the word fire! which was instantly followed by a discharge of arms from said regular troops; and said Winship is positive, and in the most solemn manner declares, that there was no discharge of arms on either side, till the word fire was given by said officer as above.

Of course, witnesses on both sides had reasons to blame the other.

After the shooting, the British commanders apparently acknowledged that the Middlesex countryside was already alarmed, so there was no use in detaining people to keep that secret. Furthermore, to complete their mission the regulars had to move on to Concord as quickly as possible. The officers therefore decided to release their prisoners.

Silas Dean’s Brief History of the Town of Stoneham (1870) described what happened to two of those prisoners, Asahel Porter and Josiah Richardson, apparently drawing on descendants’ understandings:

Richardson requested permission to return [i.e., go home], and was told by the individual to go to another person, who would no doubt give him a release; but in case the second person he went to told him to run he was by the first ordered not to run; being informed that if he did run he would be shot.

Richardson did as he was told to do; and though he was told to run, he walked away, and was not injured. The reason why he was ordered to run was this: that the guard might think him a deserter, and thereby, in the discharge of their duty, shoot him.

Mr. Porter not being apprised of their artifice in telling him to run, got permission, in the same way of Richardson. Having liberty to go, he sat out upon the run. On getting over a wall a short distance off, he was fired upon and received his death wound.

Did British soldiers truly mistake Porter to be a deserter? Other authors suggest that the two men were released “on condition they departed without attracting any especial observation,” and then Porter drew attention to himself. And maybe a soldier (or officer) was just fed up with defiant Yankees. However it happened, sources agree that Richardson (and, presumably, Winship) walked away safely while Porter ran and was shot dead.

TOMORROW: The aftermath of Asahel Porter’s death.

“Ordered to March in the Midst of the Body”

On the 18-19 Apr 1775 expedition to Concord, Lt. William Sutherland of the 38th Regiment volunteered to ride out ahead of the British army column and scout for trouble. In a 26 April report for Lt. Col. Francis Smith, he wrote that he heard:

Lieut. [Jesse] Adair of the Marines who was a little before me in front Call out, here are 2 fellows galloping express to Alarm the Country, on which I immediately rode up to them, Seized one of them & our guide [Samuel Murray?] the other, dismounted them & by Major [John] Pitcairns directions gave them in charge to the men,

A little after we were joined by Lieut. [William] Grant of the Royal Artillery who told us the Country, he was afraid was alarmed, of which we had little reason to doubt as he heared several shot being then between 3 & 4 in the morning (a very unusual hour for firing) when we were joined by Major [Edward] Mitchell, Capt. [Charles] Cochrane, Capt. [Charles] Lumm & several other Gentlemen who told us the whole Country was Alarm’d & had Gallopped for their lives, or words to that purpose, that they had taken Paul Revierre but was obliged to lett him go after having cutt his girths & Stirrups.

In his edition of Sutherland’s manuscript, Harold Murdock suggested that those “2 fellows galloping express to Alarm the Country” were Asahel Porter and Josiah Richardson. Sutherland and the other British officers whose accounts I’ve read don’t describe capturing any other pair of men together, so that seems likely.

Murdock tended to lean toward the British, and he suggested Porter and Richardson had actually “been sent out from Lexington as scouts.” But the two farmers might truly have been traveling on business, as they claimed, and tried to gallop away only after they spotted the officers. It’s notable that in the 1820s and later men from Lexington acknowledged that some of them were scouting the roads that night, but they never said Porter and Richardson were doing so.

The regulars took Porter and Richardson’s horses and farm goods, made sure they were unarmed, and ordered them to walk in the middle of the ranks. As the column got closer to Lexington, the mounted officers spotted another young man on horseback.

On 25 April that man, Simon Winship, signed a deposition describing how the officers treating him:

on the 19th April instant, about four o’clock in the morning, as he was passing the public road in said Lexington, peaceably and unarmed, about two miles and a half distant from the meeting-house in said Lexington, he was met by a body of the king’s regular troops, and being stopped by some officers of said troops, was commanded to dismount.

Upon asking why he must dismount, he was obliged by force to quit his horse, and ordered to march in the midst of the body; and, being examined whether he had been warning the minutemen, he answered, “No, but had been out, and was then returning to his father’s.”

Again, the British officers were suspicious of Winship’s story. And even if he hadn’t been trying to spread the alarm at 4:00 A.M., he almost certainly would do so if they let him go.

So the British column moved on toward Lexington, with Porter, Richardson, and Winship in the vanguard as prisoners surrounded by soldiers.

TOMORROW: Asahel Porter released.

The Mysteries of Asahel Porter

Asahel Porter was one of the casualties of 19 Apr 1775. We have a lot of information about Porter’s death because it was politically significant, and that in turn prompted local historians to seek information about his life. But there isn’t much.

Samuel Sewall’s History of Woburn (1868) identified Asahel as “son of Mr. William Porter.” In his Genealogy of the Descendants of Richard Porter (1878) Joseph W. Porter guessed this was the William Porter who was born in 1713, married Lydia Batchelder in 1733, and had children in Beverly and Salem village (Danvers) from 1738 to 1753.

Alternatively, genealogist William R. Cutter in Brooks Family of Woburn and other works identified Asahel as “Asa,” son of Josiah Porter of Woburn, mentioned tentatively in Joseph W. Porter’s book.

One of the few documents related to Asahel Porter’s life was reprinted in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register in 1875. It’s a marriage certificate:

Seabrook, Oct. 3, 1773.

This may certify whom it may concern, that Mr Asahel Porter & Mrs. Abigail Brooks, both of Salem in the county of Essex, Province of Massachusetts Bay, are legally married by Mr. Samuel Perley, A.M , and pastor of Church att Seabrook.

Test. John Brooks, Timothy Brooks, Mary Knowlton.

The Brooks Memorial (1884) identifies Abigail Brooks as the daughter of Timothy and Ruth (Wyman) Brooks of Woburn, born 18 June 1756 and died 8 Jan 1840.

Perley was the Presbyterian minister at Seabrook. Massachusetts couples went over the New Hampshire border when they wanted to marry quickly and without a lot of questions. It’s not clear why Asahel and Abigail chose that route in 1773, especially since two of her relatives (perhaps her two older brothers) were witnesses. It’s also not clear if they were really “both of Salem” at the time.

The Brooks Memorial says Asahel and Abigail “left one child who lived to manhood.” The Porter genealogist guessed that this son was the Asahel Porter who married in 1796 and settled in Reading. That town’s records say Asahel Porter died in February 1819, aged 43—implying he was born in 1775. Perhaps there was an earlier child who hastened the marriage but died young.

Also on 3 Oct 1773, the Rev. Mr. Perley married Josiah Richardson and Ruth Brooks, said to be from Salem as well. It’s tempting to identify this second bride as Abigail’s older sister Ruth (1753-1807). The Richardson Memorial lists her as marrying Josiah Richardson (1749-1826), and having their first child, Abigail, in 1774. Two of this Ruth’s sisters married two of this Josiah’s brothers.

The problem is that there may have been multiple Ruth Brookses. There were definitely multiple Josiah Richardsons (another one is about to come up), and it’s easy to get them confused. For example, a “Josiah Richardson of Stoneham” married a “Jerusha Brooks of Woburn” in April 1776, and The Brooks Memorial actually assigns that marriage to Ruth.

In any event, in April 1775 Asahel Porter was living in Woburn and working as a farmer. If he was indeed a son of William Porter, then his brother William, born in 1751, had settled in Woburn and married Hannah Munroe in 1774. Her brothers included William Munroe (1756-1837), orderly sergeant in the Lexington militia. At that time, Woburn covered much more territory than it does today, and bordered Lexington.

Early in the morning of 19 Apr 1775, Asahel Porter and another Woburn farmer, our second Josiah Richardson, set out for Boston on horseback, reportedly with goods to sell in their panniers. (There’s a tradition in Woburn now that Porter carried eggs, but I haven’t found anything that specific in nineteenth-century sources.) Their route took them through the western part of Cambridge, called Menotomy.

Along the way, Porter and Richardson ran into the British army column, moving west along the same road toward Concord.

TOMORROW: Asahel Porter captured.

History Events in Boston’s North End This Week

On Thursday, 22 April, at 10:00 A.M. a new Freedom Trail map will be unveiled in Boston’s North End at the corner of Hanover and Cross Streets. This event appears to be sponsored by the nearby Citizens Bank, and there will be a reception afterward. I’m guessing that this new map is part of the ongoing shift in the neighborhood after the removal of the Central Artery. One might even call it a segue.

In other news from the north, the North End Historical Society has launched its website, and will host its first event on Saturday, 24 April, at 2:00: “A ‘Holy Thursday’ walk to five religious and historical locations” within the neighborhood.

(Aerial photo of the North End by Juliette Melton, via Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)

Twitter Feed, 9-16 Apr 2010

• Correcting a gravestone in 1773, via Vast Public Indifference: bit.ly/d1rl3d #
• Starred PUBLISHERS WEEKLY review for Jack Rakove's REVOLUTIONARIES: bit.ly/cMrGpY #
• RT @JBD1: Whoohoo! Panel proposal accepted for Society of Early Americanists conf in Philly next March - Libraries of Early US! // Cool #
• Volokh Conspiracy on Georgia attempt to legislate state as republican, not democratic: bit.ly/a0Es5C #
• Back from walking tour on Revolutionary mythmakers at Mt Auburn Cemetery. Cool, sunny weather—excellent for a Victorian stroll. #
• RT @HeritageMuse: I am thinking of using the Toilet Paper Incident from April 1721 in my presentation tomorrow. bit.ly/bwbxC2 #
• Supper entertainment tonight was the Haggerty School 2nd grade's "Constitution Rap." My generation's offer to sing the preamble ignored. #
• House of Boston-born artillerist John Crane as it appeared in 1898, linked to modern map: bit.ly/9V6FlA #
• Last US President to have served in Revolutionary War was first to inspire assassination attempt: bit.ly/9j0aCz #
• Excitement over the arrival of Congressmen from Massachusetts—in May 1775, via @RagLinen: bit.ly/aT9QF4 #
• RT @ToddHouse: #genealogy, chronology of Hichborn family 1673-1891 by Philip Hichborn bit.ly/aDUxFm #
• RT @RagLinen: New Rag Linen collection: The Battle of Lexington and Concord - tinyurl.com/yycpkkx #
• RT @gordonbelt: Curators at @TJMonticello use historical detective work to authenticate Jefferson's Artifacts: bit.ly/afRAuE #
• Home from Charles Bahne's standing-room-only talk about Paul Revere and H W Longfellow at Cyrus Dallin Museum: bit.ly/anmp7z #
• By end of this month, hope to tackle the 19 Apr 1775 stories of Asahel Porter, Hezekiah Wyman, and Israel Bissell. #
• Mercy! Gravestone of Mehuman Hinsdell of Deerfield, Mass, twice a war captive: bit.ly/94cutn #
• Vast Pub Indiff points out the doll in Copley family portrait: bit.ly/aSHOaa Also, child getting Mama's attention is future viscount #
• New website on Jefferson's NOTES ON STATE OF VIRGINIA, so complex it comes with a tutorial: bit.ly/cTlEzw #
• RT @librarycongress: True Story Behind Stevenson's "Kidnapped" discussed with Author A. Roger Ekirch bit.ly/biYfju #
• RT @TJMonticello: RT @NatlParkService: The Man of Monticello: Remembering Jefferson on his Birthday: ow.ly/1y3Dw #
• RT @BBCHistoryMag: Will the British monarchy survive? bit.ly/9Youmd // This essayist says yes. #
• RT @historyfaculty: Historian links homicide rates to the way people feel about their government: bit.ly/b5jvz9 #
• RT @gordonbelt: story about the original Tea Party in 1773 on @NPR this morning: n.pr/ciu1vV #
• From the desk for "duh" news—RT @CanadasHistory: Buffalo News: US way behind Canada in War of 1812 observance funding. ow.ly/1ypk2 #
• RT @librarycongress Library to acquire ENTIRE Twitter archive—ALL public tweets since Mar 2006! // Future historians will shake their heads. #
• @historynerd55 One opportunity/temptation will be to analyze huge blocks of text mathematically: e.g., changing usage of key words. #
• @historynerd55 Historians started to miss important discussions after telephone established; email actually redocuments stuff. #
• @historynerd55 In a couple of decades biographers will be writing about subjects' credit-card bills in lieu of personal letters. #
• RT @lynneguist: Some of Noah Webster's spelling reforms changed AmE, some didn't. Happy anniversary of his dictionary. bit.ly/9rlubH #
• New word of the day: tenoroon. Like a bassoon, but higher. #
• Curious spelling on a 1756 Duxbury gravestone. Or perhaps it's just a curious name. bit.ly/975Ou3 #
• Were pocket diaries from 1700s like Twitter updates? bit.ly/aEndYG Actually, very few diarists recorded their breakfasts. #
• Report on auction of Americana via @JBD1: bit.ly/bhbN8T #
• Quirks of inheritance and emancipation mean there's scant evidence John Hancock owned slaves. But this is SOLID: bit.ly/9PXDSu #
• Plus, I was there when Caitlin Hopkins took this gravestone photo: bit.ly/9PXDSu #
• KIRKUS lambastes historical romance for teens about Nathanael Greene's wife and daughter: bit.ly/9l6mPt #
• Oscar-nominated short from 1950 preserves a mostly all-white, all-male, Cold War view of US history: bit.ly/9m3gYg #
• Vast Public Indifference asks why did Judge Samuel Sewell erect a "Connecticut stone post" for his late wife in 1721? bit.ly/aF967W #
• RT @MilestoneDocs: Declaration of Independence best reflects the character of America: bit.ly/9cBPqs // Nation of high-ideal whiners? #
• RT @gordonbelt: Why Isn't History More Interesting? A history professor tells a story that is both compelling and true: bit.ly/bYuFsX #

The Admiral’s Plan to End the War, and the End of the Somerset

On the evening of 19 Apr 1775, Gen. Thomas Gage was absorbing news of his troops’ bloody withdrawal from Concord. According to his later report, Adm. Samuel Graves came to offer this helpful advice:

In an interview this Evening with General Gage the Admiral advised the burning of Charles town and Roxbury, and the seizing of the Heights of Roxbury and Bunkers Hill, (indeed the latter had begun to be fortified, but that work was discontinued for some reasons with which the Admiral was unacquainted);

to this Proposal the General objecting the weakness of the Army, the Admiral replied that he would strengthen it to the utmost of his power by landing what few Marines remained aboard his Fleet, and, if the General would withdraw the 64th Regiment from Castle William, he would garrison it with his Seamen and be answerable for its safety.

Such a plan pursued, at the same time that the three Line of Battle Ships lay opposite to the town full of Rebels and their Goods, would probably have chequed the most daring and have given such am Appearance of activity to our Operations that things might have continued a long time quiet.

It was indeed the Admirals opinion that we ought to act hostiley from this time forward by burning & laying waste the whole country, & his inclination and intentions were to strain every nerve for the public Service.

Having been recalled to England when he wrote this, Graves was defending himself against criticism. He was also writing with the assurance of a man whose plan was passed over in favor of another and could thus say, “If people had only listened to me at the time…”

Gage opted for less punitive measures, with threats instead of actual destruction. The admiral recorded one step:

Capt. [Edward] LeCras was ordered to acquaint the Select Men of Charles Town that if they suffered the Rebels to take possession of their town or erect any works upon the Heights, the Somerset should fire upon them

The Somerset was still guarding the Charles River on 17 June when the British forces spotting provincials building a redoubt on the lower portion of Bunker Hill called Breed’s Hill. Its gun crews immediately went to work, set fire to Charlestown, and made the first kill of that battle.

The warship was part of the evacuation of 1776, returned to England, and was back along the North American coast in 1778, fighting Continental and French ships. During that mission the Somerset ran aground off Truro on 2 November. Twenty-one members of the crew died, and the rest became prisoners of war.

The Massachusetts authorities salvaged all they could, including cannons used to fortify Boston and “several Casks of Oatmeal” assigned to “for the Use of the State Hospital” the following April. The shipwreck itself is now considered the property of the British government.