“Jealous, very jealous, of the honour of Massachusetts”

The Virginia lawyer and politician William Wirt (1772-1834, shown here courtesy of the Library of Virginia) had two big accomplishments in 1817. First, he finally published Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, a biography that he’d been working on for years. Second, he was appointed Attorney General of the United States. He remained in that post for twelve years, through the administrations of James Monroe and John Quincy Adams.

Wirt’s biography of Henry is the earliest source for many anecdotes about the Virginia politician’s life, and for many of his famous quotations, including “Give me liberty or give me death!” Nobody recorded those speeches at the time, the author complained, so he had to do extra work reconstructing them as they ought to have been.

Some of Henry’s contemporaries (and occasional rivals) noticed. Thomas Jefferson, who had been one of Wirt’s sources, said privately that the biography was “a poor book, written in bad taste.” But it was also a successful book, and one of the foundation stones of the literature of the American South.

Up in Massachusetts, John Adams borrowed a copy. On 5 Jan 1818, before he had even finished reading, he sent a letter to Wirt, damning the book with faint praise as “rich entertainment.” He went on:

If I could go back to the age of thirty five, Mr. Wirt, I would endeavour to become your rival; not in elegance of composition, but in a simple narration of facts, supported by records, histories, and testimonies, of irrefragable authority. I would adopt, in all its modesty, your title, “Sketches of the life and writings of James Otis, of Boston.” . . .

I envy none of the well merited glories of Virginia, or any of her sages or heroes. But, sir, I am jealous, very jealous, of the honour of Massachusetts.

The resistance to the British system, for subjugating the colonies, began in 1760, and in the month of February, 1761, James Otis electrified the town of Boston, the province of Massachusetts bay, and the whole continent, more than Patrick Henry ever did in the whole course of his life. If we must have panegyrics and hyperboles, I must say, that if Mr. Henry was Demosthenes, and Mr. Richard Henry Lee, Cicero, James Otis was Isaiah and Ezekiel United.

Wirt replied on 12 January with a complimentary copy for Adams and assurance that he didn’t mean to set off a regional rivalry. In Constructing American Lives: Biography and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, Scott E. Casper called this “an unconvincing assertion from an author who had asserted the Old Dominion’s preeminence in the Revolution.”

Wirt’s book continued to rankle Adams. The fourth Josiah Quincy recalled one visit to the former President’s house in Braintree on 6 Sept 1820 with some men from Virginia:

His visitors asked him his opinion of Patrick Henry, and whether he was not the greatest orator he had ever heard.

His reply was: “No, gentlemen. Much of Wirt’s life of him is a romance. Why, I have heard that gentleman’s father (pointing to one who was present [probably the third Josiah Quincy, son of the Patriot lawyer]) speak in a strain of eloquence to which Patrick Henry could never pretend. . . . You know Virginian geese are always swans.”

Notwithstanding these remarks, the gentlemen seemed very much pleased with their visit.

This wasn’t the first time Adams had grumbled about Virginians saying all their geese are swans, but not seeing Massachusetts credited with coming first in the Revolution really rankled him.

TOMORROW: John Adams strikes back.

John Adams Looks Back on the Writs of Assistance Case

The reason we remember the February 1761 “writs of assistance case” without really remembering what writs of assistance are, I think, is not because of James Otis, Jr. It’s because of John Adams (shown here, courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society).

Adams was in the courtroom as a young lawyer in training. He took notes on the attorneys’ speeches and probably wrote up an “abstract” by 3 April, when his diary quotes some teasing from Col. Josiah Quincy of Braintree about it. Over the next decade Adams’s summary circulated in the Boston legal community.

In 1773, after Otis had fallen into intermittent mental illness, an Adams trainee named Jonathan Williams Austin published a version of the abstract in the Massachusetts Spy. Decades later, Adams complained that Austin had stolen the document and added erroneous commentary.

On 3 July 1776, as Adams told his wife Abigail about the Continental Congress’s vote for independence the previous day, he added:

When I look back to the Year 1761, and recollect the Argument concerning Writs of Assistance, in the Superiour Court, which I have hitherto considered as the Commencement of the Controversy, between Great Britain and America, and run through the whole Period from that Time to this, and recollect the series of political Events, the Chain of Causes and Effects, I am surprized at the Suddenness, as well as Greatness of this Revolution. Britain has been fill’d with Folly, and America with Wisdom, at least this is my Judgment.—Time must determine.

So Otis’s argument did hold great meaning for him.

In the quarter-century that followed, Adams drafted the Massachusetts constitution, served as a diplomat in Europe, and was elected Vice President and then President of the United States. After being turned out of office, he looked back on his career, first in anger and then, in his manuscript “Autobiography,” with a little more nostalgia.

Around 1804 Adams once again described the writs of assistance case. But this time, more than four decades afterward, he declared that Otis’s arguments had made him foresee the same split with Britain whose suddenness had “surprized” him in 1776:

In February Mr. James Otis Junr. a Lawyer of Boston, and a Son of Colonel Otis of Barnstable, appeared at the request of the Merchants in Boston, in Opposition to the Writ. This Gentlemans reputation as a Schollar, a Lawyer, a Reasoner, and a Man of Spirit was then very high. Mr. [James] Putnam while I was with him [as a clerk] had often said to me, that Otis was by far the most able, manly and commanding Character of his Age at the Bar, and this appeared to me in Boston to be the universal opinion of Judges, Lawyers and the public.

Mr. Oxenbridge Thatcher whose amiable manners and pure principles, united to a very easy and musical Eloquence, made him very popular, was united with Otis, and Mr. [Jeremiah] Gridley alone appeared for [Customs official James] Cockle the Petitioner, in Support of his Writ.

The Argument continued several days in the Council Chamber [of the Town House], and the question was analized with great Acuteness and all the learning, which could be connected with the Subject. I took a few minutes, in a very careless manner. . . . I was much more attentive to the Information and the Eloquence of the Speakers, than to my minutes, and too much allarmed at the prospect that was opened before me, to care much about writing a report of the Controversy.

The Views of the English Government towards the Collonies and the Views of the Collonies towards the English Government, from the first of our History to that time, appeared to me to have been directly in Opposition to each other, and were now by the imprudence of Administration, brought to a Collision. England proud of its power and holding Us in Contempt would never give up its pretentions. The Americans devoutly attached to their Liberties, would never submit, at least without an entire devastation of the Country and a general destruction of their Lives. A Contest appeared to me to be opened, to which I could foresee no End, and which would render my Life a Burden and Property, Industry and every Thing insecure.

As with many of Adams’s anecdotes, the story eventually came down to:

1. making the right choice despite the many formidable obstacles and opponents ranged against…
2. John Adams.

Because Adams didn’t write his autobiography for publication, his view of Otis’s 1761 argument as the start of America’s Revolution remained a private opinion.

That changed in 1817, when a Virginia lawyer named William Wirt published his best-selling biography of Patrick Henry.

TOMORROW: “Virginian geese are always swans.”

James Otis Sets the Terms of the American Argument

After arguing the writs of assistance case (unsuccessfully) and standing for office as one of Boston’s legislative representatives (successfully), James Otis, Jr., became the leader of Massachusetts’s Whig or “country” party. Like the equivalent party in London, these Whigs opposed the growing power of the royal establishment.

In 1764 Otis published a major pamphlet, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved. It took some of the arguments he’d used against writs of assistance and applied them to a much broader swath of British imperial laws, especially those on taxation.

That pamphlet proved to be very important to the American political resistance over the next ten years, for several reasons:

• It grounded the American colonists’ anti-tax positions in the “natural rights” philosophy that many British thinkers shared. This provided a stronger intellectual basis for demanding rights than “It’s in our charter” and “Because we want it this way.”
• Its arguments spoke to all the colonies in the British Empire, and to all sorts of laws promulgated by Parliament, rather than the narrow desires of regional or economic interest groups.
• Although Otis didn’t use the phrase “taxation without representation,” he linked those political concepts.

The Rights of the British Colonies… thus set the terms for the American political argument against the Stamp Act that Parliament enacted in 1765, and the Townshend duties of 1767.

Otis expanded on his arguments in 1765 in Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists, but later that year pulled back from the same ideas in Vindication of the British Colonies. That prompted rumors in Boston that royal officials had bribed him—not with money, but with an appointment for his father. There’s no evidence of such a deal. Indeed, for Massachusetts’s “court party” Otis remained their main enemy, and their continued attacks on him might have restored his credibility with voters.

Historians have offered different theories about Otis’s wavering. Some tie it to his mental stability, suggesting he made grandiose arguments which he couldn’t sustain. Others say that his basically aristocratic outlook made him back away from radical arguments. Political scientist Richard A. Samuelson argues that Otis was in some way convinced by William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England that Parliament had to be sovereign in the British Empire, above the colonial legislatures.

By the late 1760s, Otis’s feuds with the men around Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson had become more personal than philosophical. In late 1769, he got into a physical altercation in a coffee shop—i.e., a small bar brawl—with Customs Commissioner John Robinson. Otis suffered a severe blow on the head, which probably didn’t precipitate the complete mental breakdown that followed, but certainly didn’t help.

In the early 1770s Otis had intermittent periods of mental coherence and political activity, but it was clear that he could no longer lead the Massachusetts Whigs. Samuel Adams stepped in as legislative leader. John Adams began to write the big legal arguments. Many other men and at least one woman contributed to the Whig side of the debate. However, they basically operated on an intellectual battlefield that Otis had laid out.

All that said, I doubt we’d remember James Otis’s writs of assistance argument if not for one man, and his resentment of Virginia.

TOMORROW: John Adams looks back.

Writs of Assistance as a Legislative Matter

This posting returns to that dispute in Boston over writs of assistance, or general search warrants. In February 1761 James Otis, Jr., made a courtroom argument against them which later became famous—but in that year made hardly any waves. In May, Otis was elected to the Massachusetts House, and in November he reargued the question, only to have Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson lead the Massachusetts Superior Court in ruling against him.

At some point in 1761, the House voted to define search warrants for the province of Massachusetts. Otis almost certainly took a leading role in writing this bill. It rejected the open-ended language of a writ of assistance. Instead, it required a Customs officer to seek a specific writ by swearing to “Information of the Breach of any of the Acts of Trade…that he verily believes or knows…to be true.”

The bill continued:

it shall be lawful in every such Case, for such Court or Justice, to whom Application may be made as aforesaid, upon reducing such Oath to Writing, with the Names of the Person Informing & ye Place informed against, and not otherwise, to issue a Writ or Warrant of Assistance…

The law specified how the writ should be written “with the name of the Person complained of.” That writ did not have to contain the name of the informer, but that name went into the justice of the peace’s records, and there was a fair amount of overlap between those gentlemen and the merchants who disliked Customs searches.

In early 1762 the upper house of the Massachusetts General Court, the Council, approved the same bill. The full legislature had already signaled its displeasure with the Superior Court by cutting the judges’ salaries.

Gov. Francis Bernard (shown above) consulted with his lieutenant governor—the same Thomas Hutchinson who was chief justice. Hutchinson told Bernard that the legislature’s bill would nullify the court’s November ruling. The governor therefore vetoed the bill, and there was no way for the legislature to override him. Bernard reported that this “occasioned a good deal of Murmuring.”

The General Court’s action made the fight against writs of assistance more respectable, I think. It was no longer a matter of a small interest group—merchants, many engaged in smuggling—trying to stymie law enforcement. The issue now involved two competing sources of governmental authority: a locally elected legislature, and Parliament in London working through appointed officials.

TOMORROW: Otis expands the argument beyond writs of assistance.

“O’er thy Pile shall Flames celestial burn”

Yesterday, a couple of my favorite local blogs observed the anniversary of the Boston Massacre with complementary poetry. [Actually, one of the blogs observed the anniversary last year, with a tweet reminder yesterday, and I didn’t notice the older date. I should probably check the dates I’m writing on checks as well.]

Rob Velella’s American Literary Blog reprinted Phillis Wheatley’s poem on the death of Christopher Seider (which she spelled “Snider”) on 22 Feb 1770. It also mentioned her poem about the Massacre, known from its title but not in her first collection—most likely because that book was printed in London, where the event had a very different political value.

William Henry Robinson’s 1984 edition of Wheatley’s writings and a 1998 article in the journal The Explicator by Antonio T. Bly suggested that the lost Wheatley poem was in fact printed anonymously in the 12 Mar 1770 issue of the Boston Evening-Post. Yesterday Caitlin G. D. Hopkins’s Vast Public Indifference blog reprinted those lines along with some thoughts about how the newspaper presented them. Here they are:

With Fire enwrapt, surcharg’d with Death,
Lo, the pois’d Tube convolves it’s fatal Breath!
The flying Ball with heav’n-directed Force,
Rids the free Spirit of it’s fallen Corse.

Well fated Shades! let no unmanly Tear
From Pity’s Eye, distain your honour’d Bier:
Lost to their view, surviving Friends may mourn,
Yet o’er thy Pile shall Flames celestial burn;
Long as in Freedom’s Cause the Wise contend,
Dear to your Country shall your Fame extend;
While to the World, the letter’d Stone shall tell,
How Caldwell, Attucks, Gray, and Mav’rick fell.

At the time, Patrick Carr was still clinging to life. He would die two days later, bringing the official number of victims to five. However, Christopher Monk, badly wounded and apparently disabled as a teenager, may have died of complications years later.

Pleading the Death of the Clergy

Under the rules of criminal trials at the time of the Boston Massacre, defendants weren’t allowed to testify on their own behalf. That meant that none of the eight soldiers’ voices got into their trial record. (Capt. Thomas Preston helped with his defense, and is thus recorded as having asked questions, not answered them.)

Yet there is an anecdote that might preserve the voice of Pvt. Mathew Kilroy. He was one of the two men convicted of manslaughter. That was a capital crime, but under an old British law defendants convicted of it for the first time could “plead the benefit of clergy” and suffer only being branded with the letter F on the base of one thumb.

One of the three trial judges, Peter Oliver (shown above), included this incident in his delightfully caustic memoir of the run-up to the Revolution:

At the Conclusion of the Trial of Capt. Preston’s Soldiers in Boston; one of them, who was brought in guilty of Manslaughter, standing at the Bar, was asked by the chief Justice, what Objection he had to offer why sentence of Death should not be passed upon him? The simple Fellow did not know what to say. A Bystander whispered to him, to pray the Benefit of the Clergy. The Man not understanding the whole of the Direction, bawled out with an audible Voice, “may it please your Honors! I pray the Death of the Clergy”—& many present nodded their Amen.

It’s possible that the man who cried out was Pvt. Edward Montgomery, the other soldier convicted of manslaughter. But there’s at least a 50% chance it was Kilroy, and since we know Kilroy hadn’t been educated well enough to sign his name I like to think he was the man.

The “benefit of clergy” was originally a benefit for actual or potential members of the clergy, who qualified by showing that they knew how to read from the Bible. The branding was added to prevent such a felon from escaping capital punishment twice.

So how did Kilroy avoid hanging this way? While it’s possible he could read without being able to sign his name, the most likely explanation is that by the eighteenth century “benefit of clergy” was merely a ritual. People understood that the branding had become the actual punishment for manslaughter, as well as a permanent “one strike” for the felon. Convicts were even known to memorize the Bible verse they traditionally had to read—Psalms 51:1, the “neck verse”—but courts still went through the motions of the plea. (For more on “benefit of clergy,” here’s an article from Colonial Williamsburg, and a podcast transcript.)

The muster rolls of the 29th Regiment show that several of the soldiers put on trial were promoted to corporal or sergeant soon after they rejoined their company. Kilroy didn’t rise in those ranks, probably because being a non-commissioned officer required some literacy.

(A quick reminder: Pvt. Mathew Kilroy’s fatal confrontation with the Boston crowd is being reenacted three times today, the 241st anniversary of that event.)

“We poor men that is Obliged to Obay his command”

Pvt. Mathew Kilroy was one of the soldiers of His Majesty’s 29th Regiment of Foot put on trial after the Boston Massacre of 5 Mar 1770. Finding sources that preserve the voices or stories of individual British enlisted men in this period is very hard—all the more reason to marvel at the work behind Don Hagist’s British Soldiers, American Revolution site.

In the case of Pvt. Kilroy, one legal document speaks for him—in a way. It’s a filing from the Massacre trial, on behalf of Kilroy and two fellow defendants:

To the Honourable Judges of the Superior Court,

My it please Yr. Honours we poor Distressed Prisoners Beg that ye Would be so good as to lett us have our Trial at the same time with our Captain for we did our Captains Orders & if we dont Obay is Commands should have been Confine’d & shott for not doing of it—

We Humbly pray Yr. Honours that your would take it into yr serious consideration & grant us that favour for we only desire to Open the truth before our Captains face for it is very hard he being a Gentleman should have more chance for to save his life then we poor men that is Obliged to Obay his command—

We hope that Yr. Honours will grant this our petition, & we shall all be in duty Bound over to pray for Your honours

Dated Boston Goal
October ye. 24th. 1770

Hugh White
James Hartegan
Mathew Killroy
+
his mark

Capt. Thomas Preston was due to be tried first. It appears that White, Hartegan, and Kilroy were concerned that he would throw the blame for the shootings on them. The judges didn’t grant their petition, Preston did indeed build his defense on never having ordered the soldiers to fire, and in fact the evidence still looks mighty favorable to him.

Two of Preston’s attorneys—John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr.—then defended the soldiers in their separate trial. These days, that would be a conflict of interest, but in 1770 there weren’t that many lawyers to go around.

That legal team argued mainly that the soldiers had fired in self-defense, and for the most part they were successful. The jury convicted only two of the eight men, and only of manslaughter. Those two were Pvt. Edward Montgomery, who privately admitted to having yelled “Fire!” to his comrades, and Kilroy. Probably the bayonet evidence sunk him.

It’s not clear why of the eight soldiers only Kilroy, White (the sentry), and Hartigan signed this petition. But that detail is a reminder that each “redcoat” was an individual, making his own decision for his own reasons, which in most cases never got written down.

TOMORROW: Mathew Kilroy’s voice at the trial?

Mr. Hewes and Pvt. Kilroy

Yesterday I quoted a story from George R. T. Hewes that was published in Traits of the Tea Party in 1835.

It described how he saw a British soldier he called “Kelroy” mug a woman on Queen Street in Boston and steal some clothing from her. Hewes said he followed the soldier, got the clothes back by threatening to expose his crime, and then returned those goods to the woman.

I tried various ways to test Hewes’s story:

• Was the action he described reasonable? Hewes said he followed the soldier from Queen Street (now Court Street) to the Common, south along Tremont, then east across town to Wheeler’s Point near Fort Hill. That’s a plausible route, especially for someone who wanted to avoid crowds on the main streets.
• Was there a “barracks on Wheeler’s Point,” also known as Windmill Point? The 29th Regiment was housed in several buildings around Boston in 1768-70, including some in the South End. But I haven’t found a specific reference to a barracks in that neighborhood.
• Was there “a notice of the assault in the papers,” as Hewes recalled? I couldn’t find one, though I may not have searched for the right terms. The Boston Whigs described army misbehavior through late 1769 in a series of dispatches to newspapers in other towns called “The Journal of the Times.” Boston newspapers published those reports weeks after the events they described, and that timing doesn’t fit Hewes’s story.
• Did a “Capt. Cobb” live in West Boston? I’ve found references to a sea captain named Cobb going in and out of Boston harbor, but I haven’t found him as a homeowner. It’s not clear from the story whether the woman was a relative, boarder, or house servant; either way, her presence was probably not recorded.
  

In sum, I couldn’t find any little confirmation of Hewes’s tale. However, the woman’s lack of gratitude is a curious detail which doesn’t fit into a neat story that the little shoemaker might have made up about his heroism. (Had he gotten in the middle of a lovers’ quarrel or breakup? Another possible wrinkle: Mount Whoredom was in West Boston.)

Hewes’s story gains a clear moral only in its second act. On the evening of 5 Mar 1770, he was in the crowd around sentry Pvt. Hugh White at the Customs house. Cpl. William Wemys led out a squad of grenadiers as reinforcements. According to Hewes:

His old acquaintance, Kelroy,…was one of the guard. “Get out of the way!— get out of the way!”—he cried, as he pushed roughly by, and dealt his old friend Hewes a pretty severe recognition with his gun, in the shoulder, as he left him.

The violence escalated until the soldiers shot into the crowd, the event dubbed the Boston Massacre. Hewes and other witnesses claimed to see Pvt. Mathew Kilroy “running his bayonet into the brains of one of the dead or wounded”—most likely ropemaker Samuel Gray. In the morning, people saw dried blood on Kilroy’s bayonet. Other witnesses said that both Kilroy and Gray had both been part of the ropewalk brawl three days before.

That accumulation of evidence led jurors to conclude that Kilroy was more guilty than most of his fellow soldiers. He was one of the two men convicted of manslaughter, potentially a capital crime. And the lesson of the story Hewes told in 1835, if we can believe it, is that Kilroy had been a bad ’un all along.

TOMORROW: Seeking Mathew Kilroy’s voice.

“Hewes, who wanted nothing but justice”

With the Boston Massacre anniversary and reenactments coming up, I’m giving the writs of assistance a short rest in favor of more violent events.

The first tale comes from long-lived shoemaker George Robert Twelves Hewes (shown here, courtesy of C.U.N.Y.), in his second memoir of life in pre-Revolutionary Boston. In 1835 he told amanuensis Benjamin Bussey Thatcher about an encounter with a British soldier sometime between late 1768 and early 1770:

One moonshiny night, (as he describes it) Hewes was passing the Town House, (now City Hall [now the Old State House Museum]) when he noticed a woman turning up Prison Lane, or Queen Street—both names then given to what is now Court Street.

A soldier followed her; and Hewes’s curiosity was excited to watch the movements of the “red coat.” He walked behind him softly in the shade, and presently saw him overtake the woman, and deal her a blow with his fist, that felled her. He then, with a violent haste, stripped her of her bonnet, ‘cardinal,’ muff and tippet, and, having completed this achievement, started off on a run.

Hewes followed him up Prison Lane, and down Tremont Street, past the whole length of the Common, to the barracks on Wheeler’s Point (out of Sea Street.) There the soldier went in.

Hewes called there the next morning, and called for Mr. “Kelroy;” having made up his mind that he knew the fellow. He came out, and Hewes charged him with the outrage boldly. Kelroy persisted in denying it, till Hewes, threatening to complain of him to the General, turned to leave him; and then he called him back, and gave up all the things.

Hewes, who wanted nothing but justice, concluded not to report him. He afterwards looked up the woman, by the aid of a notice of the assault in the papers, and found her at Capt. Cobb’s, in New (now West) Boston. She did not so much as thank him for the property which he returned to her.

Was Hewes’s memory accurate? He told this story sixty-five or more years after the event, when there was no one around to contradict him. Some details in his other stories are surprisingly accurate, but a few (especially reflecting on his role) are contradicted by contemporaneous sources.

TOMORROW: The rest of the story.

Boston Massacre to Be Reenacted Three Times, 5 Mar.

March already? That means it’s almost time for the annual Boston Massacre reenactment outside the Old State House! This year the 5th falls on a Saturday, meaning there can be a whole day of commemorations without confusion between the observation and the actual anniversary.

Here are the Bostonian Society’s scheduled events:

Kids Re-enact the Massacre
11:00 A.M. and 2:00 P.M.

With little red coats and Styrofoam snowballs, young visitors will be the stars in a recreation of the Boston Massacre led by rangers from the Adams National Historical Park in the plaza outside of the Old State House.

Trial of the Century
11:30 A.M. and 2:30 P.M.

Immediately following the Kids’ Reenactment, come inside to watch patriot lawyers John Adams and Josiah Quincy defend the British soldiers accused of murdering Bostonians. Audience members are invited to act as witnesses and jurors for this celebrated case. Free with museum admission; in the Old State House.

Tickets for both preceding performances go on sale at 9:00 A.M. at the Old State House. Space is limited; purchasing tickets before attending the Kids’ Reenactment is highly encouraged.

Boston Massacre Reenactment
7:00 P.M.

Witness the event that sparked the American Revolution! Join us and become a part of this infamous event as it is reenacted in front of the Old State House, in the very place where it took place in 1770. Decide for yourself if the soldiers fired into the crowd in self-defense or cold-blooded murder. Before the action unfolds, hear from patriots, loyalists, and moderates who will talk about the events and attitudes that led to that fateful night. Free; in front of the Old State House, at the corner of State and Congress streets.

Now all we need is good Massacre weather: chilly, but clear, with a bright moon shining on the soldiers but leaving much of the crowd in shadow.

Twitter Feed, 22-26 Feb 2011

After two weeks off the air, Loudtwitter returned as silently as it had disappeared.

• From NY TIMES, tryouts for the Washington Nationals' "Racing Presidents" mascots (incl. Washington, Jefferson): nyti.ms/eJYwaw #
• BOSTON GLOBE editorial about statue of Dr Joseph Warren, now at school where he studied (and briefly taught): bit.ly/fVyly1 #
• In Dr Warren's day, Roxbury Latin was public school in Roxbury. Now a private school in West Roxbury suburb. Class issues arise. #
• Boston Tree Party wants volunteers to plant apple trees in city this spring: bit.ly/fGtJi2 (Dr. Warren's father would approve.) #
• From NY TIMES oped page, Scott Casper on "Rebranding Mount Vernon" in late 1800s: nyti.ms/dVrLf9 #
• Website for PBS documentary on Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington: tinyurl.com/4gqzcny (h/t @illustr8r) #
• From Ta-Nehisi Coates, remembering Oney Judge, escapee from the Presidential mansion: bit.ly/hiczM2 #
• Monticello scholars using Google track some of Thos Jefferson's books to Washington U in St. Louis: bit.ly/gkKTEI (h/t @elektratig) #
• RT @NewDeal20: Palin & Bachmann Would Call 18th-c. Philadelphia Freedom Fighters 'Un-American'" bit.ly/hXR8Vh by @WilliamHogeland #
• RT @WilliamHogeland: I'm writing new series "Founding Finance" for @newdeal20 www.newdeal20.org/ Economic radicalism of the 18thC. #
• RT @bencarp: Why the President Got Sexified shar.es/3YbMY // Did it really start with JFK? What about Pierce, Harding? #
• RT @bencarp: Now listed as a prize-winner: Defiance of the Patriots, Yale University Press shar.es/3Yopk #
• RT @amhistorymuseum: Today in 1792: Postal Service Act regulates US Post Office Department. ow.ly/1br0sp #
• RT @amhistorymuseum: Today in 1885: The Washington Monument is dedicated. Image of it during construction: ow.ly/3Nkab #
• RT @2nerdyhistgirls: In honor of birthday: the ever-evolving Washington Cake: bit.ly/gVVK0Y #historicfood #President'sDay #
• RT @A FBurialGrndNPS: #Virginia's Great Dismal Swamp hosted self-emancipated #Africans in 18th century: ow.ly/3ZZS2 #
• RT @BostonHistory: Historic Newspapers - Original or reprint? How to tell the difference. ow.ly/40EYc #
• RT @TheOnion: Report: Presidents Washington Through Bush May Have Lied About Key Matters onion.com/aCKr0k #presidentsday #
• RT @smithsonian How do curators @amhistorymuseum authenticate objects? Washington's masonic apron, pt 1 ow.ly/41haD #
• RT @Taylor_Stoermer: joys of the long s. RT @footnotesrising: just searched on "apoftolic" in early american imprints and got 1244 results? #
• RT @rarenewspapers: REVOLUTIONARY WAR Ending ? British Say 1776 Newspaper * - eBay (item 390291612822): bit.ly/dYC5sc #
• RT @rarenewspapers: HORATIO GATES Charleston SC Revolutionary War Newspaper - eBay (item 390291615652): bit.ly/g2ezjy #
• RT @CitizenWald: ~1780 house in Dudley, MA under demolition order. Owner will sell for $1. Must be moved. bit.ly/gLuZk9 #
• Should Boston's Greenway have a bronze statue of Johnny Tremain? bit.ly/gGLUZH #
• RT @Readex: From AAS's Past Is Present, Fraud Week, Part 2: Will the Real George Washington Please Sign Here? - bit.ly/h4Ru32 #
• RT @RagLinen: 40,000 to 80,000 Men in Arms On Their Way To Boston, Sept 1774 bt.io/GjHq #
• RT @ResObscura: Did Newton really destroy the @royalsociety portrait of Robert Hooke? Probably not, says historian: bit.ly/hMpVoK #
• RT @shperdue: Archivist Ferriero on putting the Founding Fathers Papers free online by Rotunda/UVA Press bit.ly/eLKb3M #
• From Nat'l Heritage Museum, prints commemorating death of George Washington: bit.ly/fo15f9 #
• Two British jailbirds appear to turn their lives around by joining the British army in #RevWar: bit.ly/f38z3v #
• Archeological analysis of bottles, other material from Gen. Washington's headquarters in Cambridge, MA: bit.ly/hAB2gp #
• RT @jmadelman: And just for fun, Franklin's 1728 epitaph for himself, via @librarycompany yfrog.com/h045ungj #
• RT @BostonHistory: Paul Revere House distributes public notice for review of Lathrop Place expansion. ow.ly/43AjM #
• BBC reports rare Button Gwinnett signature found in parish marriage ledger—could be worth $$$, but can't be sold because it's govt record. #
• RT @2palaver: Some interesting speakers: Hingham Library to host series on life in New England 3/5, 3/26, 4/16 bit.ly/i9f30a #
• RT @AFBurialGrndNPS:@howardu students built a memorial to the #african burial ground at George Washington's plantation ow.ly/43HIV #

The Boston Gazette Spin on Writs of Assistance

Last week Boston 1775 observed the 250th anniversary of James Otis, Jr.’s argument against open-ended writs of assistance before the Massachusetts Superior Court in Boston. As I noted, Otis’s side eventually lost that case.

But not before Otis and his colleague, Oxenbridge Thacher, had to rehash their arguments in a second hearing during the court’s fall term, called because Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson had sought a legal advisory from London. On 23 Nov 1761, the Boston Gazette reported on that session, which had taken place the previous Wednesday:

As this was a Matter in which the Liberty of the People was most nearly interested the whole Day and Evening was spent in the Argument. The Gentlemen in Favour of the [Customs officers’] Petition alleged, that such Writs by Law issued from the Court of Exchequer at home; and that by an Act of this Province, the Superior Court is vested with the whole Power and Jurisdiction of the Exchequer. . . .

The Arguments on the other Side were enforced with such Strength of Reason, as did great Honour to the Gentlemen concerned; and nothing could have induced one to believe they were not conclusive, but the Judgment of Court immediately given in Favour of the Petition. . . .

It is worth observing, that the Power of the Exchequer had never been exercised by the Superior Court, for near Sixty Years after the Act of this Province investing them with such Power had been in Force.—The Writ, which was the first Instance of their exercising that Power now granted, was never asked for, or if asked, was constantly deny’d for this long Course of Years, until Charles Paxton, Esq; whose Regard for the Liberty and Property of the Subject, as well as the Revenue of the King, is well known, apply’d for it in 1754—It was granted by the Court in 1756, sub silentio, and continued till the demise of the late King—

Edes and Gill’s Gazette had long leaned against expanded royal prerogative, and supported the interests of the Boston town meeting and the merchants who dominated it. The newspaper’s spin on the court’s decision managed to acknowledge the fact that the Customs office had used writs of assistance under Massachusetts law for years, but nevertheless suggest that there was no good precedent for them.

Boston 1775 readers might wonder why this article didn’t come up when I searched the Early American Newspapers database for references to the writs of assistance case last week. I wonder that myself, especially since the article’s first sentence (not quoted) contains the key phrase “Writ of Assistance.” I found this item only by following the trail of a footnote and looking at all the items in that issue.

That leaves the possibility that there are one or two other mentions of the case in 1761 newspapers, submerged by flaws in the database. However, it’s still clear that this dispute over writs of assistance attracted little attention outside of Massachusetts. After all, it was all about Massachusetts law, and enforcement in Massachusetts ports.

But this article, the 7 December essay by “A Fair Trader,” and a lengthy 4 Jan 1762 recap of the case that the Gazette ran on its front page show how the Boston Whigs tried to make as much of the adverse court decision as they could. In essence, they began appealing to a higher court—the court of public opinion.

COMING UP: Making writs of assistance a legislative matter.

James Otis Tries a New Type of Politics

In 1760, Boston’s four representatives to the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court were John Phillips, Royall Tyler (father of the author who took the same name), Thomas Flucker, and Samuel Welles.

In early 1761, Flucker moved to Charlestown. Phillips, who had served off and on for decades, apparently decided not to run again; he had by far the highest vote total in 1760, and I know no reason he wouldn’t have been reelected.

That opened up two slots for other gentlemen. At a town meeting in May 1761, the qualified voters chose:

• Thomas Cushing, a prominent merchant and selectman (shown here).
• James Otis, Jr., the lawyer who had argued against renewed writs of assistance back in February, as quoted here.

Boston’s merchants, and the mariners and businessmen who depended on them, no doubt trusted Cushing and Otis to represent their interests.

Before that moment, Otis had filled appointive offices in the royal patronage system rather than elected offices that depended on maintaining popularity with the voters. These were two parallel tracks for rising within government in the eighteenth-century British Empire. As a brilliant, learned man who was sometimes snobbish and moody, Otis made a better fit for the patronage track. Royall Tyler reportedly had to give him tips on winning over voters.

But Otis had apparently soured on the patronage system when the new governor, Francis Bernard, had dismissed the previous governor’s promise to appoint James Otis, Sr., as chief justice. He resigned his royal appointment in the Vice Admiralty court system and offered his services to the Boston merchants. That party in return supported his election to the Massachusetts House, where the senior Otis was already a representative for Barnstable and the Speaker.

The legislative records aren’t as clear as we might want, but they say that the younger Otis began to serve on lots of committees, a sign of influence. Within a short time he was recognized as a leader of the “country party” or Whigs who usually opposed the royal governor’s policies. Cushing also rose in the House, becoming Speaker in 1766. (Oxenbridge Thacher, Otis’s co-counsel in the writs case, would join them in the House in 1763, but died in 1765 before the Revolutionary arguments really heated up.)

TOMORROW: The next round of the writs of assistance argument.

The Press Response to the Writs of Assistance Argument

Given how much American chroniclers have made of James Otis, Jr.’s arguments against writs of assistance, we might expect writers of his time to have a lot to say about the case. But in fact it received virtually no attention in the press in 1761.

In his 1939 article on “Writs of Assistance as a Cause of the Revolution,” Oliver M. Dickerson wrote:

Careful search of these [newspapers] discloses no general information about applications for writs of assistance nor much discussion of the question of issuing them, except that contained in the Journal of the Times [a series of essays published in 1768-69]. So far, no contemporary pamphlet that has come to light has been devoted mainly to a discussion of writs of assistance. On the other hand, there are many such pamphlets dealing with practically every other issue connected with the British treatment of the American colonies.

With digital databases now available, I decided to check Dickerson’s findings. I searched for “James Otis” and “Oxenbridge Thacher” in newspapers and pamphlets published in 1761. I searched for “writ of assistance,” “writs of assistance,” and, given the quirks of O.C.R. scanning, “writ of afsiftance.” And indeed there’s practically nothing in that year. The pertinent hits are:

• In the 9 Mar 1761 Boston Post-Boy, Otis swore under oath that he had not written a recent newspaper satire on “Charles Froth, Esq.”—Customs official Charles Paxton. This suggests the lawyer had gotten a reputation for attacking the Customs office.
  
• In the 7 Dec 1761 Boston Gazette, an essay signed “A Fair Trader” complained that the Customs office in Boston was much stricter than those in other ports. Among the problems:

  WRITS OF ASSISTANCE are now established and granted to the Officers of the Customs, who were tho’t by many Persons, to have had full Power enough over us before.—If it be said that all this is no more than the Law prescribes, I again ask, Whether the Law is carried to these Extremities in any other Province?

  This essay is quoted in M. H. Smith’s The Writs of Assistance Case, published in 1978.
• Newspapers and legislative records note the election of Otis to the Massachusetts General Court as a representative of Boston in the middle of that year.
• [ADDENDUM: A different type of search turned up a report on the second and decisive court session about this case in November, again from the Boston Gazette.]
  

Some historians say Boston newspapers might not say much about local events since the printers expected readers to have already heard the news. There were fewer than 8,000 adults in town, after all, and the newspapers were weeklies. But there’s nothing at all in the newspapers for other colonies, either.

Otis’s argument simply wasn’t big news in 1761. Only in the following years, as he and his Whig colleagues expanded their argument against Parliament making laws for the colonies, did it take on wider significance.

TOMORROW: James Otis’s political career and writings.

“The Writs Were Ordered to Be Issued”

Yesterday I quoted from James Otis, Jr.’s argument in the writs of assistance case, as set down afterward by John Adams. Otis and his colleague, Oxenbridge Thacher, represented Boston’s merchants in arguing that the Massachusetts court should not issue an open-ended writ allowing the local Customs office to search anywhere for smuggled goods.

They lost.

For Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson (shown here as a younger man), the case hinged on whether his court was a “Court of Exchequer” and whether similar courts in England issued writs of assistance. Hutchinson, in addition to being a probate judge and Lieutenant Governor, was the colony’s leading historian. Referring to himself in the third person, he provided this account of the case:

The court was convinced that a writ, or warrant, to be issued only in cases where special information was given upon oath, would rarely, if ever, be applied for, as no informer would expose himself to the rage of the people.

The statute of the 14th [year of the reign] of Charles II. authorized issuing writs of assistance from the court of exchequer in England. The statutes of the 7th and 8th of William III. required all that aid to be given to the officers of the customs in the plantations, which was required by law to be given in England. Some of the judges, notwithstanding, from a doubt whether such writs were still in use in England [because of an article reprinted from a London magazine], seemed to favour the exception, and, if judgment had been then given, it is uncertain on which side it would have been.

The chief justice was, therefore, desired, by the first opportunity in his power, to obtain information of the practice in England, and judgment was suspended. At the next town [where the court met], it appeared that such writs issued from the exchequer, of course [i.e., as a matter of course], when applied for; and this was judged sufficient to warrant the like practice in the province. A form was settled, as agreeable to the form in England as the circumstances of the colony would admit, and the writs were ordered to be issued to customhouse officers…

The Massachusetts court issued writs of assistance to Customs officials in that province. The court in New Hampshire, which usually followed Massachusetts’s lead, did the same.

However, as Oliver M. Dickerson described in “Writs of Assistance as a Cause of the Revolution,” his chapter in Richard B. Morris’s The Era of the American Revolution, the judges in other American colonies resisted the Customs service’s requests for open-ended writs. Judges delayed rulings, they sent for advice from London and then ignored the results, they asked other colonies’ courts what they had done, they lost the paperwork, they reworded the writs to be less general.

Furthermore, in Boston the Customs officials had a hard time enforcing their writ, particularly in an attempted search of merchant Daniel Malcom’s warehouse in 1766. Malcom refused to unlock a room for the searchers, no justice of the peace would cooperate, and a grumpy crowd gathered.

Charles Townshend’s Revenue Act of 1767, which established new taxes, also explicitly authorized writs of assistance. The Customs Commissioners based in Boston had forms printed up and distributed to other colonies. But they still didn’t get the broad powers they sought. Though the Massachusetts court had decided otherwise, American society came to regard open-ended writs as unconstitutional.

Eventually Otis and Thacher’s argument became institutionalized in the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The new republic thus rejected Hutchinson’s fear that “a writ, or warrant, to be issued only in cases where special information was given upon oath, would rarely, if ever, be applied for.”

TOMORROW: The political effect of the writs case.

In a Boston Courtroom, 250 Years Ago Today

On 23 Feb 1761, two and a half centuries ago, James Otis, Jr. (shown here), and Oxenbridge Thacher stood before the top court of Massachusetts and argued that the colonial government did not have the constitutional power to grant the Customs service a “writ of assistance.” Representing the government in what is now the Old State House was Attorney General Jeremiah Gridley, who had trained both his opponents.

Otis and Thacher’s clients were the import merchants of Boston. At best, those men comprised a narrow special interest. At worst, they were a bunch of privileged whiners trying to stymie the lawful authorities’ power to curb their habitual smuggling.

Otis himself had worked for the royal government not long before, as Advocate General in the Vice Admiralty Court. He switched sides, everyone acknowledged, at least in part because the new governor, Francis Bernard, had not given his father the judicial appointment that the previous governor had promised.

A writ of assistance was general and open-ended. Having received one, Customs officials did not need to provide evidence of what smuggled goods they were looking for and where. And a writ of assistance lasted until the king died—which is why the writs issued under George II (1683-1760) were no longer valid.

Young lawyer John Adams took notes on the case, which survive in sketchy form, and afterward wrote out a more detailed and dramatic abstract of the event. That quoted Otis making this case against the writ:

In the first place, the writ is universal, being directed “to all and singular Justices, Sheriffs, Constables, and all other officers and subjects;” so, that, in short, it is directed to every subject in the King’s dominions. Every one with this writ may be a tyrant; if this commission be legal, a tyrant in a legal manner also may control, imprison, or murder any one within the realm.

In the next place, it is perpetual; there is no return. A man is accountable to no person for his doings. Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him.

In the third place, a person with this writ, in the daytime, may enter all houses, shops, &c. at will, and command all to assist him.

Fourthly, by this writ not only deputies, &c., but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. Now one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one’s house. A man’s house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege.

Having invoked class privilege against “menial servants,” Otis went on to warn, “This wanton exercise of this power is not a chimerical suggestion of a heated brain.” Loyalists complained that Otis did have an overheated brain, and by the end of the decade he actually had a mental breakdown. But the writs of assistance case had started an argument that eventually led to American independence.

TOMORROW: The outcome and results of the Massachusetts writs of assistance case.

Observing Washington’s Birthday

When George Washington was born, the calendar read 11 Feb 1731. At least, it did so within the British Empire (and the Russian, but that didn’t matter so much).

Most of Europe had adopted the Gregorian calendar in place of the Julian. That new system did a better job of managing leap years to match the calendar to the astronomical year and keep the solstices and equinoxes from shifting. Another difference of the Gregorian calendar was when people reckoned the start of a new year—at the beginning of January, rather than in March.

The British disliked the new system’s popish origin, but even they had to acknowledge it was more accurate. Already many referred to their dates at “Old Style” or “O.S.,” and gravestones sometimes showed both ways of counting the year for dates in the early months: e.g., “1720/1.”

Great Britain finally adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. The next year, Washington turned twenty-one, so his exact birthday was legally significant. The Gregorian date for his birth was 22 Feb 1732, so his date of majority was reckoned as 22 Feb 1753. That therefore became Washington’s legal birthday.

There might have been a private celebration for the general at Valley Forge in 1778. At least, some regimental musicians got extra pay for some event that 22 February. But the public ceremonies didn’t take off until 1782, after the siege of Yorktown confirmed that Washington was worth celebrating. Rochambeau, the French commander, hosted a big dinner for the general that year.

Some Americans thought that celebrating Washington’s birthday was too reminiscent of the king’s birthday holiday under the monarchy. But the date grew in popularity, even as people weren’t sure when to celebrate. On 14 Feb 1790, Washington’s secretary Tobias Lear told Clement Biddle:

In reply to your wish to know the Presidents birthday it will be sufficient to observe that it is on the 11th of February Old Style; but the almanack makers have generally set it down opposite to the 11th day of February of the present Style; how far that may go towards establishing it on that day I dont know; but I could never consider it any otherways than as stealing so many days from his valuable life as is the difference between the old and the new Style.

Apparently Lear’s hints about the proper date got through, and in 1796 Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser reported that the 22nd was:

ushered in here by the firing of cannon, ringing of bells, and other demonstrations of joy. In the course of the day, the members of both houses of Congress, the Senate and representatives of this state, the heads of departments, foreign ministers, the clergy of every denomination, the Cincinnati, civil and military officers of the United States, several other public bodies, and many respectable citizens and foreigners, waited upon the President according to annual custom to congratulate him on the occasion. Detachments of artillery and infantry paraded in honor of the day, and in the evening there was perhaps one of the most splendid balls at Rickett’s amphitheatre ever given in America.

Isaac Weld wrote in his Travels through the States of North America:

every person of consequence in it [Philadelphia], Quakers alone excepted, made it a point to visit the General on this day. As early as eleven o’clock in the morning he was prepared to receive them, and the audience lasted till three in the afternoon. The society of the Cincinnati, the clergy, the officers of the militia, and several others, who formed a distinct body of citizens, came by themselves separately. The foreign ministers attended in their richest dresses and most splendid equipages. Two large parlours were open for the reception of gentlemen, the windows of one of which towards the street were crowded with spectators on the outside. The sideboard was furnished with cake and wines, whereof the visitors partook. I never observed so much cheerfulness before in the countenance of General Washington; but it was impossible for him to remain insensible to the attention and compliments paid to him on this occasion.

The ladies of the city, equally attentive paid their respects to Mrs. Washington, who received them in the drawing-room up stairs. After having visited the General, most of the gentlemen also waited upon her.

However, in 1798 the Washingtons’ neighbors in Alexandria invited them to a birthday celebration on 11 February, the original date. Perhaps they thought the former President might be occupied with public events on the 22nd.

(Washington’s Birthday postcard above courtesy of Dave, via Flickr.)

Anniversary Events in Greater Boston This Week

At Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge, the National Park Service is offering special out-of-season tours on Tuesday, 22 February—Gen. George Washington’s actual birthday. These tours focus on Washington’s months in the house during the siege of Boston, and how the family of poet Henry W. Longfellow later celebrated that history. Tours are scheduled to start every half-hour, and are free.

(To be completely accurate, the calendar read 11 Feb 1731 when Washington was born. But by the end of his lifetime he was acknowledging 22 Feb 1732 as his birth date. More on that change tomorrow.)

On Wednesday, 23 February, at 6:30 P.M., the Bostonian Society’s Old State House hosts a program called “‘A Man’s House Is His Castle’: The Legacy of James Otis.” This event commemorates the 150th anniversary of James Otis, Jr.’s legal argument against writs of assistance in that building, which in 1761 served as a courthouse. The Fourth Amendment is one eventual result of that argument, as are today’s debates about search warrants and pat-downs of travelers.

The panelists are:

• Robert Allison, Professor of History, Suffolk University
• Christopher Pyle, Professor of Politics, Mount Holyoke College
• Dennis Treece, Colonel U.S. Army (Ret.); Director of Security, Massport
• moderator Meghna Chakrabarti, Host, Radio Boston, WBUR

The discussion is presented by the Bostonian Society and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. It is free and open to the public.

Symposium on the Princeton Battlefield, 26 Feb.

The Princeton Battlefield Society is sponsoring a free symposium on Saturday, 26 February, to unveil its new mapping study from the American Battlefield Protection Program. The organization’s announcement says:

It is the most detailed advanced study of its nature on the Battle of Princeton. It marries an analysis of firsthand accounts with recent archeological findings, modern military analysis mechanisms and GPS technology by John Milner Associates with historian Dr. Bob Selig.

This groundbreaking study features some 34 new digital maps of the battlefield which identify the location of the long lost Saw Mill Road, the movement and locations of [Thomas] Mifflin’s Brigade, the German Regiment and other units comprising [Gen. George] Washington’s army, as well as the movement and location of the British 4th Brigade.

There will be a panel discussion with Dr. Larry Babits, Dr. Charles Neimeyer, Thomas Fleming, and Will Tatum of the David Library, moderated by author Glenn Williams.

As I understand the situation, battlefield preservationists are fighting a proposal from the Institute for Advanced Study to expand its buildings. The result is a provocative question of priorities, balancing the preservation of unique space against the potential of scientific and scholarly research. I suspect this mapping study was commissioned to pin down how certain areas of town were involved in the 1777 battle.

The symposium will take place in the Friend Center on the Princeton University campus, near the corner of Williams and Olden Street. Registration starts at 8:30 A.M., there’s an hour break for lunch at noon, and the schedule concludes at about 4:00 P.M.

Building and Rebuilding Washington

Edward G. Lengel’s Inventing George Washington is a quick, readable study of how Americans have remembered the “Father of Our Country” over the decades. Many legends arose despite the lack of documents, or even despite the existence of contradictory documents, reflecting the interests of different periods and people.

In some cases, such as the cherry tree and phrase “Washington slept here,” the fact that those legends are legends is also part of our culture. Other legends, such as the general praying in the snow at Valley Forge, serve as articles of faith for some Americans.

Because there are so many Washington myths, and debunking takes far more space than retelling, this book could have filled a thousand pages. So Lengel’s first step was to narrow down the field to those stories that have had the most readers and the widest influence. This book doesn’t quibble over every little doorstep where Washington may have walked.

Lengel’s second step was to organize his material along two tracks. One is chronological. The first two chapters discuss some stories about Washington in his lifetime and for the fifty years thereafter, when authors like Mason Weems and George Lippard (who never claimed to write nonfiction) confirmed that the first President’s name could sell books.

The second track is thematic. In the late nineteenth century a combination of nostalgia, nationalism, and post-Romantic interest in “the real man” produced a flowering of Washington myths. Lengel offers separate chapters on “Washington’s Loves”; “Washington’s Visions,” or religious experiences; and “Washington Slept Here,” on the growth of historical tourism. Along the way come the claims from the families of Lydia Darragh, Betsy Ross, and John Honeyman. Most of these stories have few sources, but folks who wanted Washington to be a certain sort of person filled in the holes.

Not every story turned out to be a myth, though. The “Sally Fairfax letter” which published in the late 1800s showed young Washington as a flirt—a flirt with another man’s wife when he was about to marry Martha. That fit into the period’s notions of Washington as a romantic hero, though it also ran up against proper Victorian mores. The letter vanished into an individual’s collection, leading many people to denounce it as a forgery or myth. But then it resurfaced in 1958, looking quite convincing.

Inventing George Washington isn’t just about debunking myths. It’s also about the way Americans have preserved the President’s memory, including preserving Mount Vernon, publishing his papers, and erecting monuments that look nothing like him.

Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the historiography of the 20th century, including the “debunking” of the 1920s writers William E. Woodward and Rupert Hughes; the government’s Depression-era project to publish all the general’s writing (as opposed to the current project, publishing letters he both sent and received); and the post-WW2 biographies from Douglas Southall Freeman (exhaustive, dry) and James Thomas Flexner (lively and, well, imaginative about what people were thinking and feeling).

The final chapter is a bit of a gumbo, with ghost stories, television movies, and the latest favorites about Washington—politicians’ misquotes, the hemp lobby’s claims. But Lengel pulls it together with his personal experience of acting as historical advisor on a movie about Washington for Mount Vernon. He says the reenactors involved called the result “FUBAR,” which it might have been, but I bet they also said it was “farby.”

In all, Inventing George Washington is a brief, thought-provoking read. It’s a reminder that debunking and revamping historical stories has been a constant phenomenon, not something that began in our lifetimes. It shows how each period has, consciously or unconsciously, created a George Washington that serves its cultural needs and reflects its contemporary concerns.

The book is enough to make one wonder what our time is unconsciously doing to the man and his memory.