How Long Did Slavery Linger in Vermont?

Last month the Seven Days alternative newsweekly in Burlington reported on Harvey Amani Whitfield’s research on remnants of slavery in Vermont, which we New Englanders usually consider to be the foundation of our anti-slavery tradition:

Whitfield’s research explodes the myth that the abolitionist provision in the Republic of Vermont’s 1777 constitution ended slavery in the territory. The ban on holding black adults as slaves was indeed the first of its kind in the New World and launched Vermont’s progressive tradition, Whitfield acknowledges. But, he adds, an unknown but significant number of black Vermonters remained in bondage several years after slavery was supposedly prohibited.

“In fact, the state is home not only to a rich abolitionist history, but also to the more troublesome story of slavery,” Whitfield writes in The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont, 1777-1810.

Limiting the ban to African males older than 21 and females over the age of 18 meant children could lawfully remain enslaved in Vermont for as long as 20 years after the constitution was promulgated. But plenty of adult Vermonters of African descent also did not gain freedom because the 1777 decree went unenforced, Whitfield points out.

Many residents of what would become the State of Vermont in 1791 apparently had no problem with neighbors who continued to hold slaves, Whitfield suggests. Those defying the emancipation initiative included some of “the most respectable inhabitants of the state,” the historian observes in his book.

Among this slave-holding and lawless elite were Vermont Supreme Court Judge Stephen Jacob and Levi Allen, described by Whitfield as “Ethan’s troublesome brother.” And nearly 60 years after the supposed abolition of slavery in Vermont, Ethan Allen’s daughter, Lucy Caroline Hitchcock [1768-1842], returned to Burlington from Alabama in possession of two slaves—a mother and child. Hitchcock continued to enslave this pair for six years in the Queen City.

Ethan Allen himself may also have been a slave owner, Whitfield suggested in an interview. “I can’t say this will be proven, but he does refer to having servants, and in the English Atlantic world references to ‘servants’ often means ‘slaves,’” Whitfield said.

Whitfield is a professor at the University of Vermont, and his book is published by the Vermont Historical Society. Whitfield is speaking at Phoenix Books in Burlington on 13 March.

TOMORROW: Stephen Jacobs and “a certain Negro woman by name of Dinah.”

The Mysteries of Ezekiel Russell’s Wife

I’ve been writing about printer Ezekiel Russell’s wife, who, according to Isaiah Thomas’s History of Printing, was a great help to him in his business. Indeed, as I quoted yesterday, the first edition of that book said she learned the printing business and wrote memorial verses for broadsides.

Since 2009 I’ve been calling that woman Penelope Russell because that’s what later printing historian Josiah Snow called her in 1847. But over the past few days I’ve realized that her name was Sarah Russell.

That’s clear from a series of documents:

• The record of the marriage of Ezekiel Russell and Sarah Hood in Hampton, New Hampshire, on 7 Oct 1773.
  
• Biographies of their oldest (surviving) child, Nathaniel Pope Russell, born in Danvers in 1779.
• The births of two younger children in Boston in 1785 and 1787.
  
• The baptisms of four younger children at Ezekiel Russell’s house by the minister of the Hollis Street Meetinghouse, all on one day in May 1787.
  
• Real estate records from Boston in the 1780s and 1790s.
  
• Ezekiel’s death notice in the 12 Sept 1796 Federal Orrery, and Sarah’s notice for administering his estate in the 7 Oct 1796 Massachusetts Mercury.
  
• Sarah’s unusual listing as a printer in the 1798 Directory of Boston.
  
• Sarah’s death notices in the 16 Oct 1806 Boston Gazette and 24 Oct 1806 Farmer’s Museum.
  

And then there’s this letter that a descendant has shared online, sent by Sarah’s mother from besieged Boston in January 1776 when the Russells were living in Salem.

So where did the name Penelope Russell come from? Was she just an error by Snow, repeated by later authors through to me? Or, since Waters linked her to the Censor, published in 1771-72, perhaps she was Russell’s first wife (though I haven’t found any other trace of her). If the latter, that could mean both of Russell’s wives were active in the printing house.

Another question: Bostonians didn’t go up to Hampton, New Hampshire, to be married by a Presbyterian minister unless they were eloping. What was the story behind the Russells’ marriage in 1773? Did they have any children in the mid-1770s? Why did they have four children baptized by a Congregationalist minister at their home in 1787, but not the oldest, Nathaniel Pope Russell? (If there was illness in the family, the baby survived, but I don’t know about the middle children.)

What Isaiah Thomas Wrote about Ezekiel Russell’s Wife

Back in 2009, I quoted the passsage above from Isaiah Thomas’s History of Printing in America (1874 edition) about Ezekiel Russell and his wife. I then added:

Josiah Snow’s [1847] account (quoted yesterday) credited those ballads to Penelope Russell herself, even saying she could compose them while she set the type. Perhaps Thomas’s phrase “A young woman who lived in Russell’s family” was a coy way of alluding to Penelope without pointing the finger directly. Or perhaps Ezekiel Russell’s struggling shop was kept afloat by the work of two young women instead of just one.

After I mentioned the Russells in my lecture on Friday, I checked out Thomas’s history again—but this time the original, 1810 edition. And here’s what Thomas first published.

So no wonder Josiah Snow thought Ezekiel Russell’s wife wrote those ballads—that’s exactly what Thomas’s book said. The “young woman” didn’t appear in print until decades later.

Thomas left a copy of his book with handwritten corrections at his American Antiquarian Society, which undertook to update and republish it. If that copy still exists, it could confirm if Thomas himself entered the revised information about the Russell printing house.

Given that Thomas and the Russells were both printing in Boston in the early 1770s, and that Thomas kept track of Ezekiel Russell in his movements to Salem, Danvers, and back to Boston, it seems odd for him not to know who wrote those tragical ballads. The passages also shift away from saying that Russell’s wife “made herself acquainted with the printing business,” leaving her just assisting.

That again raises the possibility that the mention of a “young woman” was a ruse designed to fit Mrs. Russell into a more traditional “help meet” model rather than a business partner writing for publication. The couple’s son, Nathaniel Pope Russell (1779-1848), became an important insurance broker in ante-bellum Boston. (In fact, his business records are at the American Antiquarian Society.) So the family may have wished for a more genteel portrait of their ancestress.

TOMORROW: More revisions about Ezekiel Russell’s wife.

“A sad tale to relate”

Yesterday I noted a mistake I made in Reporting the Revolutionary War, saying that John Derby took the 28 Apr 1775 issue of the Salem Gazette to London to convince folks there that a war had broken out in New England.

Derby left Salem on 28 April, so he could have carried a copy of that day’s Salem Gazette—if there were one. But no copy of that issue exists.

It looks like printer Ezekiel Russell closed his newspaper only one issue into the war. He might have worried about economic disruptions and lack of supplies. He might have lost patronage; in Boston, friends of the royal government had paid him to put out the Censor, so folks in Salem could have seen him as a “Tory.”

But Russell was really an opportunist. He reissued his report on the first day of fighting as a broadside titled “A Bloody Butchery by the British Troops.” At the bottom was “A Funeral Elegy to the Imortal Memory” of the fallen militiamen, beginning:

Aid me ye nine! my muse assist,
A sad tale to relate,
When such a number of brave men
Met their unhappy fate.
At Lexington they met their foe
Completely all equip’d,
Their guns and swords made glit’ring show,
But their base scheme was nipp’d.

(Complete transcription of a later, inexact reprint here.)

TOMORROW: Who wrote that elegy?

Footnotes on “Reporting the Battle of Lexington”

Last night’s talk at the Lexington Historical Society was fun, and I learned new stuff while preparing it.

For instance, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston owns this John Smibert portrait of Samuel Pemberton painted in 1734 when he was eleven years old. Not too young to shave his head and wear a wig, however. In 1770, Pemberton was on the committee with James Bowdoin and Dr. Joseph Warren to prepare Boston’s official report on the Boston Massacre.

The main thesis of my talk was that the Massachusetts Patriots, and Warren in particular, learned from that episode in 1770 that they could be scooped by royal officials if they didn’t send their version of events to London quickly. So after the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775, Dr. Warren and his Massachusetts Provincial Congress colleagues worked fast and commissioned the Derby brothers of Salem to speed their documents to London ahead of Gen. Thomas Gage’s dispatches.

In writing about that voyage in Reporting the Revolutionary War, I said that John Derby sailed with issues of the Salem Gazette dated 21 and 28 Apr 1775. I was relying on my notes on Robert S. Rantoul’s article in the Essex Institute Historical Collections for 1900, “The Cruise of the ‘Quero’.” As shown here, Rantoul wrote that Derby “had with him copies of the Salem Gazette for April 21st and 25th.” The Salem Gazette, like almost all colonial newspapers, was a weekly, so issue dates had to be seven days apart. I figured either Rantoul or I had made a mistake in our notes and “25th” should be “28th.”

Before my talk Todd Andrlik, chief author of Reporting the Revolutionary War, sent me an image from the 27-30 May 1775 London Chronicle showing a long quotation from the 25 April Essex Gazette, published up the coast from Salem in Newburyport. So that was one of the newspapers Derby had brought to convince people in London there really had been a battle. I should have corrected Rantoul not on the date but on the name of the paper: Derby sailed with the 21 April Salem Gazette and the 25 April Essex Gazette.

When Did London Learn of the Boston Massacre?

Another aspect of my talk at the Lexington Depot tonight is how long it typically took for news to travel from Boston to London.

We can measure that time by looking at the spread of news of the Boston Massacre, which took place on the evening of 5 Mar 1770. According to the 21 June 1770 Boston News-Letter, the first word about the shooting on King Street had reached London on 22 April. Government ministers met to discuss the situation the next day. So if a ship had sailed out of Boston harbor on 6 March, it needed 47 days to cross the Atlantic.

In addition, the issue of the London Chronicle dated 26-28 April and published on the latter date included a letter from Boston dated 12 March. Again, that totals to 47 days.

That separation in space and time was crucial in how the London government managed its North American colonies. By the time colonial officials saw the ministry’s response to some news from America, at least three months and possibly four had passed since it had happened, meaning the situation could have changed drastically. Orders from London were usually expressed in contingent and conditional terms, not just because of upper-class British politesse but because the ministers knew they had to give their appointees enough leeway to adjust policy to events on the ground.

I don’t think we should imagine those officials sitting around and moping that they couldn’t communicate more quickly, however. The British imperial communications system was one of the fastest and more dependable humans had ever come up with. Officials and merchants could rely on regular shipments of mail and news. Three thousand miles of ocean in just forty-seven days!

However, after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress wanted to send the news faster than usual. They wanted their version of events to be the first to reach Britain. At tonight’s talk, I’ll discuss why and what steps the Patriots took toward that goal.

“Undoubted intelligence of hostilities being begun at Boston”

The 28 Apr 1775 Pennsylvania Mercury newspaper contained several letters about the fighting in Massachusetts nine days before. One that had just arrived in Philadelphia the previous evening began:

Hartford, April 23, 1775.

Dear Sir,

These are to inform you, that we have undoubted intelligence of hostilities being begun at Boston by the regular troops; the truth of which we are assured divers ways, and especially by Mr. Adams the post [rider]; the particulars of which, as nigh as I can recollect, are as follow:

General [Thomas] Gage, last Tuesday night, draughted out about 1000 or 1200 of his best troops in a secret manner, which he embarked on board transports, and carried and landed at Cambridge that night, and early Wednesday morning by day break they marched up to Lexington, where a number of the inhabitants were exercising before breakfast as usual, about 30 in number, upon whom the regulars fired without the least provocation about 15 minutes, without a single shot from our men, who retreated as fast as possible, in which fire they killed 6 of our men, and wounded several, from thence they proceeded to Concord;

on the road thither, they fired at, and killed a man on horseback, went to the house where Mr. [John] Hancock lodged, who, with Samuel Adams, luckily got out of their way by secret and speedy intelligence from Paul Revere, who is now missing, and nothing heard of him since;

when they searched the house for Mr. Hancock, and Adams, and not finding them there, killed the woman of the house and all the children, and set fire to the house; from thence they proceeded on their way to Concord, firing at, and killing hogs, geese, cattle and every thing that came in their way, and burning houses. 

The letter’s description continued through the action at Concord, the march of the British reinforcement, the capture of prisoners, and many other events. Interesting events like “the death of General [Frederick] Haldimand,” Lord Percy being “burnt with other dead bodies, by the troops in a barn,” and the 300-man British contingent at Marshfield “all killed and taken prisoners.”

Alexander McDougall, one of the Patriot leaders in New York, had endorsed this document as an accurate copy of the original letter. Sharing and copying such letters was a common way to spread news in a crisis.

Of course, much of the information in this letter was completely false. Ironically, it’s one of the few public reports of Paul Revere’s part in the Battle of Lexington and Concord, but he’s lost in a great fog of unfounded accusations about the royal troops and unfounded boasts about the damage the provincials had done.

Tomorrow night I’ll speak to the Lexington Historical Society about the Massachusetts Patriots’ efforts to spread news of the events of 19 Apr 1775 and win public sympathy for their actions. I’m not sure whether this letter would count in that campaign as a success or a failure.

This Article on Samuel Adams Will Change Your Life

This morning’s article at the online Journal of the American Revolution bears the reprehensible clickbait title “You Won’t Believe How Samuel Adams Recruited Sons of Liberty.” And I wrote it.

In fact, thinking of that title, at first as a joke, helped me figure out how to pull together some Boston 1775 postings and comments from 2006 into a new article. I did a lot of rewriting, but I decided to stick with the opening that had gotten me started.

Todd Andrlik at the J.A.R. keeps track of what articles get the most clicks, out of curiosity and wanting to serve the readership and not because of advertising. I’m curious to see if that title might have any effect. Here and on the Boston 1775 Facebook page, the postings that prompt the most clicks and comments often aren’t the ones that share new sources or try to break new ground in interpretation. Rather, it’s those that address current topics like the use of Revolutionary War history in today’s politics or the historical inaccuracies in Sleepy Hollow. Of course, I probably respond the same way on other sites.

The Memory of Samuel Ely

For the last two days I’ve quoted advertisements from Connecticut newspapers spelling out a dispute between militia colonel William Williams of Wilmington, Vermont, and the former minister Samuel Ely. That wasn’t the last dispute that Ely got into.

In April 1782, while living in Conway, Massachusetts, Ely led a crowd that kept the Hampshire County court closed, just as similar crowds had done in 1774 and throughout the war. Though Massachusetts had a new constitution, Ely and the scores of men who supported him didn’t think the system was fair to poor farmers. Ely is described as picking up a stick and shouting, “Come on, my brave boys, we’ll go to the woodpiles and get clubs enough to knock their grey wigs off!” State authorities arrested Ely, but a crowd of over a hundred men broke him out of the Northampton jail.

Ely returned to Wilmington, Vermont, for refuge, only to find the same issues in that little nation. By the end of the year Ely was convicted for saying, “The state of Vermont is a damned state, and the act for the purpose of raising ten shillings upon every hundred acres of land is a cursed act, and they that made it are a cursed body of men.” Vermont officials happily gave Ely back to Massachusetts, which locked him up for a while.

After winning his release, Ely seems to have laid low, or perhaps he just got lost in the crowds of the Shays’ Rebellion. But he resurfaced in Maine in 1790, and was soon leading a settlers’ campaign against big landowner Henry Knox. While hiding from legal authorities he managed to publish pamphlets with titles like The Unmasked Nabob of Hancock County; or, The Scales Dropt from the Eyes of the People and The Deformity of a Hideous Monster, Discovered in the Province of Maine, by a Man in the Woods, Looking after Liberty. Ely finally died in the late 1790s.

In short, Samuel Ely was a radical organizer, constantly fighting against economic inequality according to his interpretation of Christian scripture. He wasn’t the sort of Revolutionary whom America’s wealthy liked to remember.

In Travels in New-York and New-England, Timothy Dwight (1752-1817, shown above) called Ely “the great fomenter of discontent, confusion, and sedition, in Massachusetts,” and wrote, “The remainder of his life was a tissue, woven of nothing but guilt and infamy.” Dwight had the most to say about Ely’s early work as a minister in Somers, Connecticut:

Ely was an unlicensed and disorderly preacher, and could not obtain an ordination. His character even at that time, although less known and probably less corrupted than it was afterwards, was yet so stained, as to render it impossible for him to enter the ministry. But he possessed the spirit, and so far as his slender abilities would permit the arts, of a demagogue in an unusual degree. He was voluble, vehement in address, bold, persevering, active, brazen-faced in wickedness, and under the accusation and proof of his crimes would still wear a face of serenity, and make strong professions of piety. At the same time he declared himself, everywhere, the friend of the suffering and oppressed, and the champion of violated rights. Wherever he went, he industriously awakened the jealousy of the humble and ignorant against all men of superior reputation, as haughty, insolent, and oppressive. Jealousy he knew to be, among human passions, the most easily and certainly kindled. Both his character and his circumstances were in his own view deplorable; and he felt therefore, that he had nothing to lose beside his neck; a loss too uncommon, in this state, to be seriously dreaded, except in the case of murder. Of course, he undauntedly applied himself to any wickedness, which promised him either consequence or bread.

In fact, Ely was qualified to preach as a graduate of Yale, the same college where Dwight was president for twenty-two years. Dwight was an arch-conservative of early America, so of course he hated Ely’s preaching against the upper class. Despite the omissions and obvious political leaning of Dwight’s statement, later authors repeated his judgment on Ely.

In 1858 Benjamin H. Hall’s History of Eastern Vermont described Samuel Ely’s military career this way:

A bold, but rash and impetuous man, he had served in the battle of Bennington as a volunteer, and being connected with no company or regiment had fought without the advice or direction of any person. He had been court-martialed after the action on account of his singular conduct in retaining a large amount of valuable plunder, but had been honorably discharged on proof that he had taken only such articles as he had won in his own independent method of warfare.

That account said nothing about Ely commanding of the Wilmington militiamen after their colonel had left, as three of them later wrote. Instead, it painted Ely as unable to get along with any group, and getting away with looting on that account. (Hall had only good things to say about Ely’s accuser William Williams, though he had to note that Williams had ended up moving to Canada.)

Another Yale-connected author actually concealed some favorable information about Ely. In Yale and Her Honor-roll in the American Revolution, 1775-1783 (1888), Henry P. Johnston quoted the 1778 advertisements from Ely’s supporters in Vermont, but incompletely. He left out the part about Ely leading the Wilmington militia and the Vermont men’s denunciations of Williams for plundering himself. Johnston did state: “After the war Mr. Ely agitated socialistic views, got into trouble, defied the authorities in Massachusetts, was denounced as a ‘mobber,’ and arrested.”

It wasn’t until the Depression that historians began to recognize Samuel Ely as a political leader, albeit an unsuccessful one. In 1932 the New England Quarterly published an article by Robert E. Moody titled “Samuel Ely: Forerunner of Shays.” In 1986 the Maine Historical Society Quarterly published Alan Taylor’s “The Disciples of Samuel Ely: Settler Resistance against Henry Knox on the Waldo Patent, 1785-1801.” And now the new Massachusetts Historical Review offers Shelby M. Balik’s “‘Persecuted in the Bowels of a Free Republic’: Samuel Ely and the Agrarian Theology of Justice, 1768-1797.”

Samuel Ely and the “Plunder Master General”

It took several months for Samuel Ely to respond to the accusation that militia colonel William Williams lobbed down at him from Vermont after the Battle of Bennington. But when he did, Ely had some impressive allies on his side.

On 13 Nov 1778, the Connecticut Gazette of New London published two new messages from Vermont:

Benington, Sep. 5, 1778.

These Certify, that Mr. Samuel Ely, the Preacher, who [was] in the two bloody Battles at Benington, and behaved with the greatest Honor, Valiantry and Courage in both Actions, and all the other Accounts did, when desired, appear before the Court of Enquiry, and made a handsome Defence relative to the Plunder he had taken; as he said what he had taken was at the point of the Sword, as a Volunteer for his groaning, bleeding Country; and he further said, he supported himself and lived upon his own Money while in Camp, and was at no charge to his Country. And the Court being fully satisfied with what he said and what he did, they never ordered Mr. Ely to be advertised, nor stigmatized, to my certain Knowledge, as I was both a Member and Clerk of that Court, at the same Time. This I solemnly declare as real Fact, and accordingly I request this to be published both by my own and Mr. Ely’s desire.

SAM ROBISON; Captain, and Clerk of that Court of Enquiry.

Wilmington, Sept. 11, 1788.
To the PUBLIC.

We the Committee of Safety, are very sorry we are obliged to inform the World, that Williams, who advertised Mr. Ely in Hartford Papers, after Benington Battle, should act such a dirty, scurrilous Part as to advertise Mr. Ely in the Name of the Court of Enquiry, when we are absolutely certain the Court never had it in their Hearts to do it, as appears by the Records of the Clerk and other good Evidence we have obtained; and what adds to the Guilt of Williams in his cruel and abusive Conduct towards Mr. Ely is his boldly and openly denying that he ever ordered Mr. Ely to be advertised, but as he did prove a Coward in leaving the Field in Time of Action, so Mr. Ely taking his Place and Command, the World will at once judge why he wickedly advertised Mr. Ely; We therefore declare that Williams whom the Soldiers universally called Plunder Master General, has acted like himself, and abused Mr. Ely without the least Cause or Reason; And as to Mr. Ely, we all know that General [John] Stark said, if he had five Thousand such Men as Mr. Ely, he would drive Burgoyne and his Army to the D___. Besides, we are sorry that Mr. Ely should be so treated by Williams and some others, when no Man could exert himself more for his distressed Country then he has done in various Instances.

Signed by the Committee of Safety for Wilmington, in Vermont State.
JOHN RUGG,
JOSEPH HARTWELL,
BENJ. PIERCE.

N.B. This we request to be printed in any of the Printing-Offices in Connecticut.

So according to those four men (whose names I confirmed are in Vermont records), Williams had neither a valid reason nor the authority to call for Ely’s arrest. And according to three of them, Williams had shirked his own duty as a militia officer during the Bennington campaign even though that meant forgoing his habitual opportunities for plunder.

In fact, if those Vermonters were telling the truth, the list of things Williams had accused Ely of stealing the year before while leading the Wilmington militia might actually have been items he would have taken for himself. (So no wonder Williams was so upset.)

TOMORROW: How this dispute has been treated in the history books.

[The image above is a latter-day portrait of Gen. John Stark.]

The Rev. Samuel Ely at Bennington

The latest issue of The Massachusetts Historical Review, for the year 2013, contains Shelby M. Balik’s paper “‘Persecuted in the Bowels of a Free Republic’: Samuel Ely and the Agrarian Theology of Justice, 1768-1787.”

Ely was from Connecticut, born in 1740 and educated at Yale. He became minister in Somers, Connecticut, in 1769 and was ousted in 1771—a remarkably short time, even for someone so fervent about arguing the New Light side of the period’s favorite religious controversy. As time went on, however, Ely only became more fervent and more radical.

In August 1777, he took part in the Battle of Bennington. Evidently not as part of any particular company, because he wasn’t the sort of man to take orders, but as an unattached volunteer.

On 7 Oct 1777, on the top of its center column, the Connecticut Courant of Hartford ran this notice from militia colonel William Williams of Wilmington, Vermont:

Run away from Head Quarters, about the 5th instant, with the following valuable articles, one infamaus, loquacious SAMUEL ELY, of Somers, formerly an itinerant preacher, and auctioneer of the gospel. This inhuman, plundering villain may be distinguished by his being constantly found cloathed with a face of brass, and armed with a lying tongue in his own vindication and defence, when most guilty.

ARTICLES.
A number of silk and worsted hose, one British officers coat, one gold diamond ring, one pair of shoes, a number of holland shirts, several pair of breeches, (some of which he sold to the prisoners for solid coin) one gold eppalet, one lawn apron, a considerable quantity of linnen, some engineers instruments, a pocket book, and many other articles too numerous to mention; all of which he knew to be in direct opposition to general orders.

It is earnestly requested of all comittees of safety and others in authority, in the neighbouring towns; to apprehend the said Ely and convey him to this place, or confine him so that he may be brought to justice, for which they shall receive ten dollars reward and have all necessary charges allowed them.

By order of the Court of Enquiry,
WILLIAM WILLIAMS President.

Reading between the lines, one suspects that Williams didn’t much like Mr. Ely.

TOMORROW: Samuel Ely’s side of the story.

“Reporting the Battle of Lexington” Lecture, 7 Feb.

On Friday, 7 February, I’ll speak to the Lexington Historical Society about how the start of the Revolutionary War was reported.

The society’s events page says this talk “discusses Reporting the Revolution, a new publication showcasing newspaper reporting of the Revolution in real time.” It’s more accurate to say my talk will be inspired by one of my articles in Reporting the Revolutionary War, the volume that Todd Andrlik edited in 2012. But since those chapters are too short to fill an hour, I’ll go into more detail about some stories that didn’t get into the newspapers.

The Massachusetts Patriots faced a couple of challenges on the morning of 18 Apr 1775. The first was alerting New England allies and the Continental Congress about the fighting. The second was to manage the flow of information, both in North America and to Britain, so that it supported their image of having been unfairly attacked. I plan to talk about dispatch riders like Isaac Bissell, the Provincial Congress’s report on the first day of fighting, and John Derby’s voyage of the Quero to Britain.

This event will start at 8:00 P.M. in the Lexington Depot at the heart of town—there’s ample parking nearby. The talk is free and open to the public.

How to Dress at the Hive

Federal budget cuts mean that there won’t be a big battle and camp reenactment at Minute Man National Historical Park around Patriots Day this year. But there will be smaller events, especially on the town level, and it’s still valuable for reenactors to deliver an accurate period impression.

Once again, therefore, the Ladies of Refined Taste & Friends and Minute Man N.H.P. are offering free Hive workshops on Revolutionary War topics and artifacts for reenactors and other interested folks. I’m too late for the first, but the next two are scheduled for Sunday, 9 February, and Sunday, 2 March.

In addition, on Saturday, 8 February, there’s an advanced Hive workshop on sewing Revolutionary War knapsacks with Henry Cooke IV. On that day and Saturday, 8 March, there’s an advanced workshop on constructing an English gown with Hallie Larkin and Stephanie Smith.

In addition, Larkin & Smith have just issued a pattern for an eighteenth-century English dress for sale. Their webpage says, “This pattern is drafted from an original open front gown c 1760s-1770s. It has a stomacher front and robings, with a pleated enfourreau back.” If I’d been to more Hive sessions, I might know what that means!

The pattern comes with an impressive quantity of instructional material, including “variations for simple working and middling class gowns,” “20 pages of color plates,” a “pleating template,” and a “documentation card with details of the original.”

Women at Old South Meeting House in February

Old South Meeting House’s “Middays at the Meeting House” talks resume on Thursdays in February with presentations on eighteenth-century women.

February 6
Sarah Prince: A Life in Meditations and Letters
Sarah Prince Gill (1728-1771, shown here courtesy of R.I.S.D.), daughter of influential Old South Meeting-House minister Thomas Prince, kept a spiritual diary for twenty-one years and maintained a friendship and correspondence with her “dearest Friend” Esther Edwards Burr, daughter of famed theologian Jonathan Edwards. Historian and Wheelock professor Laurie Crumpacker will discuss what the journal and letters reveal about women’s roles in the Great Awakening, the astonishing spiritual revival that swept the colony.

February 13
Abigail Adams: Life, Love, and Letters
Abigail Adams claimed to write with an “untutored stile,” and asked her husband John to destroy her letters. He saved them anyway, giving posterity a unique look into the life and times of this iconic wife, mother, and Patriot. Living history interpreter Patricia Bridgman uses the couple’s correspondence to bring Abigail to life, from the Adamses’ courtship in 1764, through the tumultuous years of the American Revolution, to 1778 on the eve of her husband and son’s voyage to France. Bridgman’s Mrs. Adams is serious about such issues as women’s education and rights, but she’s saucy, too, and enjoys poking gentle fun at those who deserve it, including Mr. Adams!

February 20
Petticoats at the Revolution
Join us to hear a remarkable story of tea and Revolution from the woman who rode through life with Paul Revere. Actor and storyteller Joan Gatturna portrays Rachel Revere sharing the story of the Boston Tea Party, the Midnight Ride, and the Siege of Boston through the eyes of a woman who kept the home fires burning while her husband fanned the flames of rebellion. Her characterization of Rachel Revere was developed with assistance from the staff of the Paul Revere House.

February 27
“Lett No Country Grants to be Laid Upon our Lands”
The lives and perspectives of Native women are often left out of histories of colonial New England. In 1723, Eastern Pequot leader Mary Momoho submitted a petition to the Connecticut General Assembly, demanding tribal recognition and the preservation of her community’s reservation in Stonington. In this illustrated lecture, anthropologist and UMass Boston professor Amy Den Ouden will explore what we can learn about indigenous women’s daily lives from 18th-century land petitions, and will draw parallels between these historical realities and contemporary issues in indigenous communities involving land, voice, and power.

Each session starts at 12:15 P.M. and lasts for about an hour. They are free to Old South members, $1-6 for others.

Mr. Redwood’s Wig

Scott Stephenson alerted me to this delightful entry from the diary of William Ellery (1727-1820, shown here), Rhode Island delegate to the Continental Congress.

In 1778 Ellery was traveling to Philadelphia with William Redwood (1726-1815), a Philadelphia merchant who had been born in Newport:

Nov. 5th. Took the route through Paramus and breakfasted at a Dutchman’s about 7 miles from Coe’s, and were well-entertained.

A little diverting affair took place here: The Children who had never before seen a Gentleman with a wig on, were it seems not a little puzzled with my friend’s head-dress. They thought it was his natural hair, but it differed so much from mine and theirs in its shape that they did not know what to make of it. The little boy after viewing it some time with a curious eye, asked his mother, in Dutch, whether it would hurt my friend if he should pull his hair. The mother told us what the boy had said, whereupon my friend took off his wig put it on the head of the boy and led him to the looking-glass. The mixture of Joy and Astonishment in the boy’s countenance on this occasion diverted us not a little. He would look with astonishment at Mr. Redwood’s bare head, and then survey his own head, and the droll figure he made with the wig on, made him and us laugh very heartily. It is not a little remarkable that children who had lived on a public road should have never before seen a wig.

From thence to Newark is 9 miles and to Elizabeth Town 6 miles, where we lodged at one Smith’s. A Detachment of the Army under Ld. Stirling was here. The Officers had a ball at Smith’s and kept up the dance till three o’clock in the morning. Drum, fife and fiddle, with an almost incessant saltation drove Morpheus from my Pillow.

Ellery’s diary was published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in 1888.

How Massachusetts Got Its Constitution

Yesterday I quoted a letter from Alexander McDougall discussing the Massachusetts Convention of 1780 (shown courtesy of Springfield Technical Community College).

Here’s how Samuel Eliot Morison described the ratification of that document in A History of the Constitution of Massachusetts, published in 1917.

The mode of ratification adopted by the Convention was peculiar. Profiting by the experience of 1778 [when voters strongly rejected the legislature’s draft constitution], it did not submit the Constitution as a whole to popular vote. Instead, it asked the adult freemen to convene in their town meetings to consider and debate the Constitution clause by clause, to point out objections, if any, to particular articles, and to send in their returns to the secretary of the Convention, with the yeas and nays on every question. The people were then asked to empower the Convention at an adjourned session on June 5 to ratify and declare the Constitution in force if two-thirds of the voters were in favor of it, or, if not, to alter it in accordance with the popular will as expressed in the returns, and ratify it as thus amended. . . .

On June 5 the Convention convened for its fourth and last session at the old Brattle Street Church in Boston. . . . A committee was appointed to canvass the returns and report the result to the Convention. This committee adopted a system of tabulation which to-day would be called political jugglery. The towns had not voted on the Constitution as a whole, but article by article; and in many cases they proposed a substitute for an article they objected to, and voted on that instead of on the original. These votes on amended articles were either thrown out or counted as if cast for the original article. Hence it was made to appear that every article of the Constitution had well over a two-thirds majority, although a fair tabulation would have shown only a bare majority for at least two.

This sort of manipulation in Boston didn’t help relieve the unrest in the western counties which had made MacDougall doubt that Massachusetts would accept any sort of government. Nonetheless, the state constitution took effect, John Hancock took office as the first governor since Thomas Gage, and we still govern ourselves on the basis of that document. We even proudly boast that our constitution was a model for the federal Constitution adopted later in the decade.

“A constitution to be offered to the people”

Here’s an unusual discussion of the Massachusetts constitution of 1780 between two New Yorkers, published in (of all places) The Cincinnati Miscellany in 1846.

That Ohio periodical stated, “The following letter, published now for the first time, was written by Gen. [Alexander] M’Dougal [shown here] to Judge [William] Goforth of New York, afterwards one of the first settlers of Columbia” in the Northwest Territory:

Fish Kill, February 7th, 1780.

My Dear Sir:—

This will inform you that I have been at quarters here, since the 6th of December last, in order to get rid of an old complaint of the stone. The symptoms have so far yielded to medicine, as to render them more tolerable than they were.

I have seen the report of the committee of the convention of Massachusetts Bay of a constitution to be offered the people for their approbation. From some sentences in it, I think they have not wholly lost sight of an establishment [i.e., state support for one favored religion]. I am inclined to believe this was occasioned by their dread of the clergy; for if the convention declared against such a measure, they would exert themselves to get a negative put on it when it should be proposed to the people. But independent of this subject, I think the people will not approve of it, or any other form, which gives energy to the government or social security to the people. To give security to a people in the frame of a government, they must resign a portion of their natural liberty for the security of the rest. There is a large county in that state that will not suffer a court of justice to sit to do any business. These very people have become so licentious that they have taken flour by force of arms from a magistrate in this state, who was retaining it here according to law to supply the army, which has been frequently distressed for the want of that article. From this specimen you may form a judgment what kind of constitution will suit that people. There is a great deal of good sense among them; but I have my doubts of its having effect in the frame of govemment.

I want some small articles from your town. I shall be much obliged to you to inform me how much higher dry goods are than they were before the war for hard money? What can the best leather breeches be bought for in like specie? Your old subaltern is well.

I wish to hear from you by post on the subject of my request as soon as possible.

I am, dear sir, your humble ser’t,
ALEX. M’DOUGAL.

Judge W. Goforth, New York.

Massachusetts towns did end up approving that constitution of 1780, which is still the basis of the state government today. However, I believe the approval came only after the legislature defined the rules in a fashion that Samuel Eliot Morrison later called “political jugglery.”

TOMORROW: What exactly did that mean?

The Council Chamber at the Old State House, 28 Jan.

On Tuesday, 28 January, the Bostonian Society will unveil its makeover of the Old State House’s Council Chamber, where the Massachusetts Council considered legislation and met with the governor. This was considered the most opulent public space in colonial Boston and the center of imperial power in Massachusetts.

Working with craftspeople trained at the North Bennet Street School, the society has furnished the room as it appeared in 1764, when the building was still called the Town House and Britain’s North American empire was at its peak.

The event announcement explains:

Although the original Council Chamber table and chairs were lost or destroyed long ago, records kept by the colony have made it possible to identify in detail how the room was furnished and decorated. In several cases, the names of specific craftsmen are known and similar pieces by them survive in museums where they may be examined and then carefully reproduced. . . .

North Bennet Street School’s master faculty and alumni are expert in eighteenth-century cabinetmaking techniques. The results of this unique collaboration are now visible in the meticulous furniture reproductions on display in the Council Chamber at the Old State House.

The result includes “lavish, ruby-colored curtains, hand-crafted reproductions of the original furnishings and carefully selected pieces from the Bostonian Society’s collection of rare artifacts from the American Revolution.” There are paintings of kings on the walls. Visitors will be able to sit at the Council table and even in the Royal Governor’s chair.

The Bostonian Society invites the public to the official opening of this Council Chamber on Tuesday, 28 January, at 6:00 P.M. Launching a new exhibit titled “A British Town,” Prof. Jane Kamensky of Brandeis will speak about Boston’s happy place within the British Empire in the early 1760s.

The following weekend, 1-2 February, the Bostonian Society will offer programs for children and families, including special tours and scavenger hunts in the Council Chamber and throughout the Old State House.

Come to History Camp, Saturday, 8 March

On Saturday, 8 March, Lee Wright of The History List is organizing a “History Camp” at the I.B.M. Innovation Center in Cambridge. This event is designed to be an “unconference,” or self-organizing, non-hierarchical conference, for anyone in greater Boston interested in history.

The program will depend on who signs up to speak in the next few weeks. The presentations are supposed to be short and lively. The only requirement is that they not be just a sales pitch for a book, tour, class, or other product. I imagine those presentations falling into two categories:

• neat stories and findings about the past.
• practical tips about researching, writing, and teaching history.

I proposed two topics to Lee, one in each of those categories: “The Boston Bankruptcy That Led to the American Revolution” and “Google Books Changed My Life, and You Can, Too!” In addition, Lee drafted me for a tentative panel on “Becoming a Published Author” because I was once an acquiring editor for a book publisher.

Lee had the idea for History Camp after last fall’s RevWar Schmoozer. That informal social event brought together people from our city’s historic sites, reenacting organizations, libraries, museums, tour companies, colleges, and other institutions. It would be great to an even broader turnout at this event, which isn’t confined to the Revolutionary period. Given its setting, this History Camp might be an especially good place to talk about using new technology to improve the study or presentation of history.

As a self-organizing conference, History Camp will take shape over the next few weeks based on the interests of the folks who volunteer their time or ideas. So check out the website, think about the stories you might have to tell or would like to hear, and start signing up!

From Paper to Pixels

John Fea’s blog alerted me to an excerpt from Nicholas A. Basbanes’s On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History describing a visit to the Massachusetts Historical Society and a look at the documents it preserves. Among the paper treasures that Basbanes highlights are the Adams Family Papers, which the society is gradually digitizing and putting on the web.

Speaking of digitization, the Massachusetts State Library now offers P.D.F. files of Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolution, seventeen volumes that transcribed all the state’s surviving records about men serving in the Revolutionary War. A lot of those records come from scraps that happen to have been preserved—a pay record for one month, a clothing allowance for another, and so on. You often have to seek the same man under different spellings, and men with similar names can be combined into one entry. But I think it’s the most comprehensive record of individual service in that war from any state. The text is already available for subscribers at Ancestry.com; now you can download your own digital set.

And in Worcester, the American Antiquarian Society has honored its founder Isaiah Thomas by offering a digital look at the typeface catalogue he received from the London manufacturer Thomas Cottrell (d. 1785) in 1774. Graphic design histories credit Cottrell with popularizing oversized display type in the British Empire.

Ironically, all those links are about written and printed records, and yet we can now read all the information without a scrap of paper.