Whom Do We Mean by “Sons of Liberty”?

One for the perennial questions about America’s Revolution is how we should understand the “Sons of Liberty,” as American activists called themselves. With a television show of that name on the way, I suspect the question will come up even more.

In recent weeks Rebecca Brooks’s History of Massachusetts blog and Bob Ruppert’s article for the Journal of the American Revolution have tackled that question, rounding up the sources on the Sons of Liberty in Boston.

One one side of the spectrum of possible answers is the one implied by the “Sons of Liberty medal” I discussed yesterday: it was such a formalized group that it gave each member a medal engraved with his initials to wear on public occasions and (at least according to Johnny Tremain) flash as a sign of membership. That idea holds appeal for spy fiction writers, but the evidence for it is very thin.

On the other side is the idea that “Sons of Liberty” was a generic label for any men in the colonies who opposed the Crown’s new revenue measures and enforcement between the Stamp Act and the outbreak of war. That suggests it was no more of a formal group than, say, “all true Americans.”

Ben Carp’s article on the term for Colonial Williamsburg, which I missed when it was published on the web three years ago, offers some valuable information on how the phrase resonated in the Georgian British Empire:

The term “sons of liberty” or “sons of freedom” was a generic term of national pride in the eighteenth century, usable on both sides of the Atlantic for anyone who felt that English, and later British, liberty was his birthright. An English writer in 1753 knew that his readers, as “sons of liberty,” would recoil at tales of despotism in India and elsewhere. An Irish Protestant might rally his compatriots with the phrase. Essentially, a British son of liberty was the same thing as a patriot, or a “friend of his country.” In the 1760s, when Americans took pride in their identity as British subjects, they thought of empire and liberty as one and the same.

But in 1765, the relationship between Great Britain and the colonies changed, and so did the meaning behind the phrase “Sons of Liberty.” The phrase caught fire in America when Colonel Isaac Barré spoke against the Stamp Bill introduced in Parliament in February 1765.

A group of Whigs in Albany led by Dr. Thomas Young adopted the name “Sons of Liberty” when they wrote themselves a “constitution,” now known only through a photostat copy.

Most other groups didn’t that far, and local newspapers used the term in a more general way, as in “a great Number of Gentlemen, Sons of Liberty” (New York Mercury, 13 Jan 1766), or “some young gentlemen, Sons of Liberty” (Newport Mercury, 14 Apr 1766). There were also references to “Daughters of Liberty” and “Friends of Liberty,” all united in the same cause.

And in Boston? On 15 Jan 1766, John Adams wrote in his diary that he “Spent the Evening with the Sons of Liberty, at their own Apartment in Hanover Square, near the Tree of Liberty.” He named nine men who were there, without suggesting they were the only members of the group, and compared them to the sort of gentlemen’s club he was used to. A month later, one of those men, Thomas Crafts, Jr., told Adams that “the Sons of Liberty Desired your Company at Boston Next Wensday.”

So in early 1766 the term “Sons of Liberty” seems to have meant a particular group in Boston. Yet as of the end of the previous year that same group was calling itself “the Loyall Nine” while issuing the invitation shown above to “all True-born Sons of Liberty”—which implies they saw themselves as just part of a larger movement. And within a couple of years men not part of the Loyall Nine, such as Dr. Young from Albany, were taking the lead in organizing political actions in Boston.

By the anniversary of the first Stamp Act protests in 1769, over three hundred “Sons of Liberty” dined at Lemuel Robinson’s Liberty Tree tavern in Dorchester. Those men included some who became Loyalists as war arrived. That’s obviously too large and diverse a group to be secretly organizing radical political actions as the Loyall Nine had done back in 1765.

On the other hand, those political actions could bring out thousands of people, as at the funerals of early 1770 or the tea meetings of 1773. So there were probably many more than three hundred men in Boston who considered themselves “Sons of Liberty.” (Indeed, by making their celebration a sit-down dinner out in Dorchester, whoever organized that banquet made sure it was just for gentlemen.)

I think it’s best to think of the label “Sons of Liberty” as similar to “Tea Party,” “Women’s Lib,” or other mass movements from recent decades. There are small formal groups that use “Tea Party” in their names, but many people support the movement or attend events without joining such groups. No single organization decided everything said and done in the cause of “Women’s Liberation.” And those movements developed recognizable iconography, but they didn’t have membership badges.

The Sons of Liberty Medal

In 1874 James Kimball wrote in the Essex Institute Historical Collections:

The following is from a private manuscript in my possession, written by Col. John Russell in 1850, whose father was one of the “Sons,” and an active participator during those stirring scenes (with Paul Revere, [Thomas] Melville, [Samuel] Sprague, etc.), a school master living during the war on Temple street, Boston.

Col. Russell says, “The Sons of Liberty consisted of an association of spirited men, who were determined to resist the oppressive edicts of the British Ministry, and to sustain and support each other in their efforts to rescue the town and country from the thraldom of tyrannic power. On public occasions each member wore suspended from his neck a medal, on one side of which was the figure of a stalwart arm, grasping in its hand a pole surmounted with a Cap of Liberty, and surrounded by the words, ‘Sons of Liberty.’ On the reverse was the emblem of the Liberty Tree. One of these medals I once had in my possession, with the initials of my father’s name, W. R., engraved thereon, but it was many years ago irrecoverably lost.”

William Russell (1748-1784) was indeed on the first published list of Tea Party members in 1835. During the war he served in Col. Thomas Crafts’s state artillery regiment and on Capt. John Manley’s ship Jason, becoming a prisoner of war twice and dying of a disease contracted in captivity. He was also Kimball’s great-grandfather.

Francis S. Drake repeated Kimball’s statement (without credit) in Tea Leaves (1884). Elbridge Goss quoted it with credit in his 1891 biography of Revere. In the juvenile biography Paul Revere: The Torch Bearer of the Revolution (1913), Belle Moses declared that Revere himself had made those medals. The Sons of Liberty medal also makes an appearance in Esther Forbes’s novel Johnny Tremain, where it serves as a secret signal among members of the society.

G. Gedney Godwin has produced its own version of the medal, shown above. The firm’s webpage credits Revere with the original design and “Bell Moses” for preserving the description.

Yet the medal John Russell described in 1850 was never found again. Nor has any other family produced or written about such a medal, despite how every other member of the Boston Sons of Liberty was supposed to own one. And there’s no contemporaneous mention of such medals, despite how those men were supposed to wear theirs on “public occasions.”

So I’m not really convinced that the Sons of Liberty actually had these medals. Or any medals at all.

The Hangings of Thomas Paine

In 1791 and early 1792, Thomas Paine published the two parts of The Rights of Man, supporting the principles of the French Revolution and proposing radical reforms for British society. The book inspired a lot of reform societies, and also a lot of backlash. The government convicted him, in absentia, for sedition.

By the end of 1792 Paine had become a public enemy for some British. From John Mayhall’s Annals and History of Leeds (1860):

At Leeds the effigy of Tom Paine, (holding a pair of stays in one hand, and his Rights of Man in the other) was carried through the streets with a halter round his neck, and (having been well whipped and hanged at the market cross) thrown into a large bonfire, amidst the shouts of the surrounding multitude.

A letter to Notes and Queries in 1896 added:

Leeds was not by any means alone in burning Paine’s effigy, for the Bury Post, of Bury St. Edmunds, recorded on 9 January, 1793, that “On Saturday last [5 January] the effigy of T. Paine was carried round Swaffham, hung on a gibbet, and committed to the flames.”

And on 7 January, in the small West Yorkshire village of Ripponden, the lawyer John Howarth recorded paying people “who carried about Tom Payne’s Effigy and shot at it, 10s.6d.” I’m guessing those demonstrations of conspicuous piety and patriotism were part of Twelfth Night rituals.

The British cartoon above, titled “The End of Pain,” is dated to the same year. And that’s not all. In Spen Valley, Past and Present (1893), Frank Peel wrote:

Benjamin Popplewell, one of the founders of Stubbins Mill, Heckmondwike, had always belonged to the progressive party until scared by the excesses which followed the first French Revolution, he seems, like the great Edmund Burke and many lesser lights, to have fairly lost his head, and when the American Colonies revolted and Paine’s “Rights of Man” began to be circulated among the working classes, he joined one of the “Church and King” Clubs which were established about this time in various parts of the country by those who were anxious to prevent the spread of revolutionary doctrines. . . .

Popplewell, in order to show his detestation of the principles inculcated by Paine, got up what would now be considered a very laughable farce, in which he was himself the chief actor. Personating the arch-agitator, he was “discovered” reading the “Rights of Man” among the coal-pit hills of White Lee. He was seized, his face covered with a frightful mask, supposed to be a counterfeit presentment of the face of the writer of the hated book. It had a ring through the nose, and with a rope tied to the ring the representative of the arch sedition-monger was led into the market-place.

Locomotion then being no longer required, the mask was deftly removed to a straw effigy of Paine covered from view in a cart. This figure was then propped against the stone foundation of the old lamp post which stood where the fountain now is, and shot amidst tremendous hootings and cries of “Church and King” and “Down with Tom Paine.”

And yet more from the same book:

Mr. Thomas Cockhill’s envy being probably aroused by Mr. Popplewell’s curious anti-Tom Paine demonstration, got up one of a similar character at Littletown. Instead, however, of having a live man to represent Paine he had one roughly made of wood. This figure was dressed up and placed on a waggon, and with it they made a circuit of the village amid tremendous uproar.

Arrived at Littletown Green, preparations were made to burn the effigy, when Joe Yates, one of Cockhill’s workmen, earnestly begged to “have a round with it” before it was committed to the flames. Permission being given, Joe, who was a powerful fellow, stripped off his jacket, and mounting the waggon commenced a terrific onslaught on “Tom Paine.” Striking him a sledge hammer blow full in the face he knocked him against the sides of the waggon and then falling on him as he lay prone he pounded his wooden face with maniacal fury until his hands streamed with blood, and both he and the figure presented a most sanguinary aspect, his martial fire being kept at white heat by the joking cries of the spectators “Give it him Joe!” “Kill him lad!”

“I’ll shiver him!” responded Joe, and “Shiver him” he was called all the rest of his life.

I don’t think Paine ever returned to Britain after that year, living the rest of his life in France and the U.S. of A. And with countrymen like that, it’s not hard to see why.

An Empire on the Edge on the T.V.

On Sunday, 7 December, C-SPAN 2 will air a talk by Nick Bunker, author of An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America, at the New-York Historical Society in October.

An Empire on the Edge focuses on the years 1772 to 1775, starting with the East India Company’s troubles and the Gaspée incident in Rhode Island and ending with the orders to march to Concord. Not the orders Gen. Thomas Gage gave, really, but the orders he received from his superiors in London, telling him that he had to act quickly.

That’s because Bunker, while writing in detail about important events in North America like the legal and political impasse in Boston leading up to the Tea Party, concentrates most on the decision-making in London. He uses British sources that rarely show up in American histories. Government ministers and members of Parliament come across as individuals rather than, as in many accounts from a purely American perspective, a rather faceless mass.

I got an early look at Nick Bunker’s book and found it solid and provocative; I plan to share more thoughts soon. I also got to hear Nick talk about it at the Boston Athenaeum this fall. After that talk a couple of audience members told me that they’d had trouble hearing; the acoustics and amplification in the room weren’t ideal, and Nick had so much to say (in a British accent, of course) that it might have been hard to keep up. I suspect that makes this recorded presentation all the more valuable.

Nick Bunker’s talk is scheduled to air on C-SPAN 2 on Sunday, 7 December, starting at 7:00 P.M.

Who Said “Hang Separately”?

In his Memoirs of His Own Time, first published in 1811, Alexander Graydon wrote:

Both the brothers, John and Richard Penn [shown here], had been governors of Pennsylvania; the former being in office at the beginning of hostilities.

By yielding to the torrent, which it would have been impossible to withstand, he gave no offence, and avoided reproach; though it was deemed expedient to have him secured and removed from Philadelphia, on the approach of the royal army in the year 1777. Mr. Richard Penn, having no official motives for reserve, was even upon terms of familiarity with some of the most thorough-going whigs, such as General [Charles] Lee and others:

An evidence of this was the pleasantry ascribed to him, on occasion of a member of Congress, one day observing to his compatriots, that at all events “they must hang together:”

“If you do not, gentlemen,” said Mr. Penn, “I can tell you that you will be very apt to hang separately.”

Wait a minute! Didn’t Benjamin Franklin say that?

Indeed, Jared Sparks wrote in his biography of Franklin:

There is also another anecdote related of Franklin, respecting an incident which took place when the members were about to sign the Declaration. “We must be unanimous,” said [John] Hancock; “there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together.”

“Yes,” replied Franklin, “we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

But Sparks published his biography from 1836 to 1840, a quarter-century after Graydon had credited Richard Penn with the same line.

The editor of a later edition of Graydon’s memoir noted Sparks’s claim and added, “It has been ascribed also to Mr. John Penn, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a member of Congress from North Carolina. Who shall settle the knotty point!”

Well, of course, this is America. Anything witty from the 1700s? We believe it had to come from Franklin.

The Last Members of the North End Caucus

Last month I highlighted from the Boston News-Letter and City Record’s 1826 publication of records from the pre-Revolutionary North End Caucus.

The periodical credited “a gentleman at the North End” for sharing his knowledge of the period, and presumably sharing those documents. We know that source was not himself a member of the caucus, however, because the newspaper staff was under the impression that no members were still alive.

Then on 9 December the News-Letter added:

In the News Letter of the 25th ult. [i.e., last month] we gave a catalogue of the most conspicuous patriots of 1771, and 1772, who frequently assembled in Caucus, at the North-End, for the purpose of consulting together, and passing such resolutions, as might be deemed necessary for the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people. We were not aware, at the time of publishing this record, that Perez Morton, esq. [shown here] was the only surviving one of the whole party; but the Gazette of Thursday informs us that he is; and we are gratified in learning that this gentleman still enjoys good health, and the full possession of his rich faculties, and will probably furnish some remarks on the disposition and character of his associates in the leading events of our glorious revolution.

Then on 23 December the periodical published a letter from someone signing with the initials “O.P.”:

It was mentioned in your last “News Letter,” that there was but one member of the Old North-End Caucus, of, 71, and 72, now living, and that was the Hon. Perez Morton. We are glad, however, to learn, by the last advices from Paris, that Col. James Swan, also one of the distinguished patriots in those meetings, is still alive, and has been recently released from the Debtors’ apartments in Paris, after a detention of nearly twenty years.

It may be proper to state, that the apartments, here spoken of, unlike ours for the confinement of Debtors, are extensive and cornmodious, having a fine garden surrounding them, and the tenants at liberty to walk in them, at all hours to enjoy what amusements they please—and to indulge themselves in such a manner of living, as they may think proper, and can afford to pay for—there being within the outer walls several restorators and other places, for the disposal of provisions, liquors, fruits, and confectionary.

“Restorators” was an old term for restaurants.

That description of Swan’s comfortable confinement for debt in Paris matches a lot of other sources from the following decades. However, those sources don’t speak of Swan being released in 1826. Rather, he reportedly remained in detention until 1830, dying shortly afterward. But there are a lot of mysteries about Swan that I'm still muddling through.

McBurney on “Spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island,” 11 Dec.

On Thursday, 11 December, the Newport Historical Society will host a lecture by Christian M. McBurney on the topic of his new book, Spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island.

Aquidneck Island and Narragansett Bay were contested territory during the Revolutionary War, with American, British, and French troops occupying Newport at different times. The area was thus a crossroad for spies on both sides.

In this talk, McBurney will discuss such individuals as:

• Lieutenant John Trevett of the Continental navy sloop Providence dressed as an ordinary sailor, grew out his beard, and went from tavern to tavern in Newport gathering intelligence.
• William Taggart became a Patriot spy and enlisted the help of his son to pass messages from Middletown to the American army at Tiverton.
• Portsmouth’s Metcalf Bowler became a traitor on the order of Benedict Arnold as he spied for the British while professing to be a Patriot leader.
• Disguised as a peddler, Ann Bates spied for the British ahead of the Rhode Island Campaign.

McBurney is the author of The Rhode Island Campaign: The First French and American Operation of the Revolutionary War and Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee & Richard Prescott.

This talk will start at 5:30 P.M. in the Colony House, Washington Square. Admission is $1 for Newport Historical Society members, $5 for everyone else. Reserve a seat by calling 401-841-8770.

Selig on Rochambeau at Washington’s Headquarters, 11 Dec.

On Thursday and Friday, 4 and 5 December, Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge will host its annual Holiday Open House, this year in conjunction with the Friends Meetinghouse, the choir of the Latter-Day Saints Church, and other institutions in the neighborhood. I’ll be volunteering there on Thursday.

But the big news from that site is that on the following Thursday, 11 December, Dr. Robert A. Selig will speak on “‘A Journey of Instruction’: General Rochambeau Visits Washington’s Headquarters.”

Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (shown here), was the French commander who brought troops to the young United States in 1780. On 13 December, he wrote to Gen. George Washington from Boston, “I came here, to make a journey of instruction, and to admire the brilliant Campaign which your Excellency made.” Later Washington and Rochambeau led the bulk of their troops south to Yorktown, winning that decisive siege. Their route through nine states was recently designated the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail.

Robert A. Selig holds a Ph.D. in History from the Universitaet Wuerzburg (Germany) and serves as Project Historian to the National Park Service in connection to the Washington-Rochambeau trail. His talk will focus on Rochambeau’s activity in Massachusetts.

This event is cosponsored by the Massachusetts Lafayette Society and the Friends of Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters. It’s free and open to the public, but to reserve a seat call the site at 617-876-4491. The talk is scheduled to start at 6:30 P.M. in the carriage house at the rear of 105 Brattle Street; at that time some parking spaces along Brattle Street to the west become legal for all.

(Longfellow–Washington was also the site of a memorable dinner for French naval officers in 1781.)

“Law and (Dis)Order in Boston, 1773” at Old South in December

In historical Boston, December is Tea Party time, and the Old South Meeting House and Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum are collaborating on a series of public presentations.

Friday, 5 December, 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
Holiday Open House at Old South
Meet colonial characters, enjoy a cup of tea, and discover if you would have been a Patriot or Loyalist in 1773. Programs for young children will include puppet making, scavenger hunts, and tiny tea sets! Free.

Friday, 5 December, 12:15 P.M.
“That Pesky Tax on Tea!”
Listen to an exchange between a Son of Liberty and a Tory as they spar on matters of tea and taxes, law and liberty in 1770s Boston. Then join the conversation! Presented by actors from the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum. Free to all, but pre-registration requested.

Saturday, 6 December, 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
Holiday Open House at Old South
See above. Free.

Friday, 12 December, 12:15 P.M.
Ebenezer Mackintosh, the Gangs of Boston, and Riot in the New World
Historian Matthew Wilding will focus on the life of radical Ebenezer Mackintosh as he explores the theme of riot as political expression in colonial Boston, from the Stamp Act Riots to the Boston Tea Party. Free for Old South members, $6 for others. Pre-registration requested.

Tuesday, 16 December, 6:30 to 8:30 P.M.
Tea Party Reenactment
Gather at Old South Meeting House, where the colonists met in 1773, with colonial agitators and Loyalists to debate the tea tax and liberty from the British crown! Afterwards, join the procession to Griffin’s Wharf accompanied by fife and drum. You will line the shores of Boston Harbor to witness the destruction of the tea as the Sons of Liberty storm the brig Beaver, tossing the tea into the frigid water below.

Tickets to the big event cost $25, and there’s a deal if you buy a membership in Old South at the same time.

Bostonians from A to Z

The Boston Athenaeum has done a service to local historians by digitizing its collection of town directories, which includes publications from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.

John Norman published the first such directory in 1789 under the formal title of The Boston Directory. Containing, A List of the Merchants, Mechanics, Traders, and others of the Town of Boston; in Order to enable Strangers to find the Residence of any Person.

The booklet included a map of Boston and at the back listed the town’s public appointees, lawyers, doctors, and firefighters. The Massachusetts Bank was something new, founded in 1784, and the directory named its president and board. The directory did not have a list of selectmen or other elected officials, probably because their tenure was limited, nor of militia officers, though such lists had been a staple in pre-war almanacs.

Most of the small book was a listing of Boston inhabitants, starting with “ADAMS Samuel, Hon.”—i.e., the governor. Individuals and firms were listed almost alphabetically—i.e., all the people with surnames starting with A appeared in one section, but not in alphabetical order. The town hadn’t yet instituted street numbers as part of all addresses, so strangers looking for an individual usually still had to make their way to a particular street and ask around. Page 56, the last, is headed “OMISSIONS,” and includes people not sorted into the right sections such as “Gill Moses, Hon”—i.e., the lieutenant governor.

Though Norman proposed to publish a new edition annually, he doesn’t seem to have found enough demand since he never did another. John West issued one in 1796, choosing a biennial schedule. West’s directory was more comprehensive, or more businesspeople had come to town.

Both those early volumes were reprinted by the city of Boston as part of its turn-of-the-last-century publication of early town records, and those volumes have been on Google Books for a while. In addition, in the mid-1800s a genealogist named John Haven Dexter kept notes in a copy of the 1789 directory on what he’d learned about different individuals; the New England Historic Genealogical Society has transcribed and published that source. The Athenaeum’s choice to share page images of those and the many larger directories that followed provides a useful resource for historians and genealogists.

Among the folks I’ve looked up in those early Boston directories:

• The 1789 directory is one of the earliest pieces of evidence about Samuel “Rat-trap” Adams.
  
• The 1789 directory also listed Dr. John Pope as a cancer specialist; the 1800 listed his widow Hannah as “cancer doctor.”
• The 1798 directory included widow Sarah Russell among the town’s printers.
  
• Directories from 1796 and 1805 show former Salem newsboy Job Weedon shifting from printing to shopkeeping.

A Punch Bowl in Pennsylvania

Last month the Museum of the American Revolution being built in Philadelphia shared news about archeology on its site, including the shards of a ceramic punchbowl shown here.

The museum’s blog reported:

In all, we excavated a well and twelve brick-lined privies, most of them brimming with artifacts. One of the largest assemblages of artifacts came from an 18th-century privy in the southeast corner of the site, located behind a house that would have faced Carter’s Alley. Among them was one of our most treasured findings: the pieces of an English delftware punch bowl.

When these sherds were pieced together in the lab, we were delighted to see a resplendent ship flying British flags with the words “Success to the Triphena” below. (“Triphena” is the name of the ship depicted.) We were the first people to lay eyes on this object since it was broken and discarded around the time of the American Revolution.

American colonists drank enormous quantities of alcoholic beverages, including beer, cider, wine, brandy, rum, gin, and whiskey. One particularly popular beverage during the era of the American Revolution was punch, which combined various ingredients like sugar, citrus juice, spices and liquor, and was commonly served in ceramic “punch bowls” like the “Success to the Triphena” bowl found on our site. . . .

During the 18th century, many of the punch bowls that were exported to the American colonies were produced by potters in Liverpool, England. The collection of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England includes an example that is a very close match to the Triphena bowl. Such bowls were likely produced to commemorate the launch of a new ship or to mark a voyage.

Thanks to the digitization of 18th-century American and British newspapers, we have been able to piece together some fascinating details about the original Triphena. (“Triphena” is Greek for delicate or dainty). The December 1, 1763 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette carried an advertisement for merchants Robert Lewis and Son, located on Front Street in Philadelphia, where they offered an assortment of goods just imported on the “Triphena, Captain Smith, from Liverpool.” It is certainly no coincidence that Captain Smith’s travels on the Triphena over the next few years regularly carried him to Liverpool, the place where the punch bowl was made, as well as Philadelphia, Charleston, and the West Indies.

The museum notes that in 1765 the Triphena carried the Philadelphia merchants’ protest against the Stamp Act. In that same season it carried a copy of one letter and possibly two to Benjamin Franklin. The 31 Oct 1765 Pennsylvania Gazette reported that “Capt. J. Smith” had cleared the Tryphena (the more common spelling) for Liverpool.

That was a significant date since the Stamp Act was supposed to take effect the next day. In The Stamp Act Crisis Edmund Morgan wrote: “In Philadelphia, apparently alone among colonial ports, many ships’ captains secured their clearance papers before November 1, even though they were still only partially loaded, so that when they finally sailed later in November [without Customs documents on stamped paper] they could persuade the commanders of naval vessels that they were operating perfectly legally.”

A New Song: “The British Steel”

Earlier this year Michael Laird Rare Books of Texas offered for sale a rare chapbook printed in Newcastle, England, titled A Garland, Containing Four New Songs.

One of those songs, “The British Steel,” is still new to the standard databases, as is the little book itself. The title page has no date, but that song is all about the American War, so we can date the publication to the very end of 1776 or the first months of 1777.

The song extols British victories at Québec and New York. It even refers to “Undaunted Hessian heroes” and the Americans’ notorious “rifled guns.” The lyrics drop the names of several British commanders, including Guy Carleton, Allan Maclean, Henry Clinton, Percy, and John Burgoyne, but not that of Adm. Richard Howe and Gen. William Howe. Since those brothers were the commanders in America, and their name is easy to fit into verse, I wonder if their omission was intentional.

Here are the last two verses, with the error-ridden typography intact:

See yond, see yond, to yonder comes the great Burgoyne,
His well displin’d troops proclaim is warlike skills,
Curse Hancock and his Congress crew, who us into rebellion drew,
And caus’d great George our sovereign Lord our blood to spill.

A boon, a boon, these ungrateful monster’s cry,
Pardon your deluded sons long time been led astray,
By wandering dreams of liberty, henceforth good subjects will be,
And as in duty bound we will for ever pray.

John Overholt of the Harvard University library system tweeted this week that his institution had acquired the book, so it should soon be available to researchers there.

Taking Liberties

The History Channel released this photo to promote its upcoming series Sons of Liberty. According to the caption on its website, it shows:

• Dr. Joseph Warren [hmmm]
• Paul Revere [okay]
• Samuel Adams [snort!]
• John Hancock [come on]
• John Adams [bwahahaha!]

I have a feeling that this series will relate to the actual history of the American Revolution in Boston rather like Turn relates to its history on Long Island during the war. That is, at the same distance or more as the Marvel movies relate to the Marvel Comics “continuity.”

There will be characters in Sons of Liberty with the same names as actual historical figures. Those characters will have some of the very basic attributes as their real-life counterparts: Hancock will be rich, Warren militant, Samuel Adams radical. But we mustn’t expect their histories, costumes, behaviors, personalities, or outlooks to match anything we’ve read. If there is a match, it will be a pleasant “Easter egg” surprise.

Street View and the 1700s

Back in February the Guardian newspaper featured artist Halley Docherty’s images of historic paintings of London laid over (and, thanks to Photoshop, somewhat under) Google Street View photographs of the modern city.

Above, for example, is Canaletto’s 1750s view of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, one of my favorite parts of London. The skyline hasn’t changed that much, but there appears to be much less traffic on the river.

In March the newspaper published Docherty’s similar work on other cities around the world, including the view of Paris below. Shortly after Nicolas-Jean-Baptiste Raguenet painted the Pont Notre-Dame in 1756, that built-up bridge was taken down for safety.

Since then Docherty has done photo features on album covers, the World Wars, and the Berlin Wall.

I just tried doing the same thing with Henry Pelham’s print of the Boston Massacre and modern State Street. (Pelham had a better handle on perspective than Paul Revere, who copied his engraving.)

My main conclusion is that Pelham must have sat in a second-story window to get his view of the Old State House with its lion and unicorn and tower behind. He was clearly higher than those Street View cameras that Google employees walk around with.

“Behaving with discretion & Calmness”

On 1 Nov 1769, Boston’s selectmen appointed Thomas Bradford a temporary Constable of the Watch for the south part of town.

On their authority, town clerk William Cooper issued Bradford these instructions:

1st. That you with the Watchmen under you attend at sd. Watch House at the Hours of 9 oClock every Night from the 20th. of Septr. to the 20th. of March and continue till clear day light, and at the Hours of 10 0Clock from the 20th. of March to the 20th. of September, that you & each of you continue upon Duty untill Sunrise; & if any of your Division should misbehave you must inform the Select men of it.

2d. That you keep a fair Journal of your doings every Night, how you find the State of the Town, and who of the Watchmen are on Duty, and Report to the Selectmen every Wednesday.

3d. That two at least of your Division taking their Staves with them walk the Rounds within your Ward, twice at least every Night, or oftner if necessary, setting out from the Watch House at such Times in the Night as you shall judge best, varying the Time according to your discretion.

4th. In going the Rounds Care must be taken that the Watchmen are not Noisy but behave themselves with strict decorum, that they frequently give the Time of the Night & what the Weather is with a distinct but moderate Voice, excepting at Times when it is necessary to pass in Silence in order to detect and secure Persons that are out on unlawful Actions.

5th. You & your Division must endeavour to suppress all Routs Riots & other Disorders that may be committed in the Night and secure such Person as may be guilty; that proper steps may be taken the next Morning for a prosecution as the Law directs, we absolutely forbid your taking private satisfaction, or any bribe that may be offer’d you to let such go or to conceal their offence from the Selectmen.

6thly. You are to take up all Negroes Indian and Molatto Slaves that may be absent from their masters House after nine oClock at Night and passing the Streets unless they are carrying Lanthorns with light Candles and can give a good and satisfactory Account of their Business that such offenders may be proceeded with according to Law.

Of course, since it would be impossible to determine if someone was enslaved just by looking at him, that meant stopping and questioning every person of color.

But in doing so, Bradford and his men were not supposed to swear or be impolite.

7thly. The Selectmen expect that you execute your office with Resolution & Firmness not using any affronting langage but behaving with discretion & Calmness, that it may appear you do not abuse even Offenders & they recommend to you and your Division that you behave with Sobriety Temperance Vigilence and Fidelity and agreeable to the Laws; Your Office requires a Conduct; the Security of the Town demands it, & you may be assured that your continuance in the place to which you are appointed altogether depends upon it

Bradford received a permanent appointment to this post in March 1771.

(The cartoon above, from 1784, depicts British politician Charles Fox as a London watchman. The lantern, staff, and long coat appear to have been emblematic of the job.)

Looking Narrowly at Broadcloth with Hallie Larkin

This fall the Readex Report, published to highlight research that folks can do with that company’s digital databases, included costume expert Hallie Larkin’s article, “‘Suitable to the Season’: Using Historical Newspapers to Help Reproduce 18th-Century Clothing.”

She starts with advertisements for dry goods:

Merchant advertisements list the goods being brought into port. From nails to needles, advertisements provide detailed lists of merchandise available. Early American Newspapers allows a search of these ads by location, date and multiple keywords. As an example, broadcloth was one of the most frequently used fabrics in the construction of men’s clothing during the 18th century. A heavily fulled, wide (54-60 inches), dense fabric that wore like iron, it was one of the most important exports of England and one of the most frequently advertised imports into America. . . .

An advertisement appearing in the Boston Post Boy on 10 June 1765 lists “a large assortment of superfine Broadcloths with a variety of inferior cloths.” This ad clearly indicates that more than one quality of Broadcloth was available to the consumer. Would a seller today use the word “inferior” to describe any product?

Colonial advertisements rarely used product images, so words had to get buyers into the shop. In addition to price and quality, color was almost always a descriptor, as seen in this text from the Massachusetts Gazette on 5 June 1771:

Pea and grass Green, white, mazarine and Wilke’s Blue, cinnamon mixture, nutmeg mixture, coffee, chocolate, claret and bloom colour’d superfine, middling and low pric’d Broadcloths.

Everyone knows the color of peas, grass and white. Even claret is still easily visualized today. But this ad throws a couple of color curve balls. Mazerine? Wilke’s Blue? The color of mazerine I discovered is a deep blue color, named for Cardinal Mazerin in the 17th century. But what color was Wilke’s Blue? (I am still looking for a source that will answer this question.)

This isn’t my area of expertise, but I’m going to toss out the idea that “Wilke’s Blue” refers to the blue or purple dye from whelks. And that spelling might be due to the interest in John Wilkes in 1771.

Larkin’s article goes on to discuss another valuable source on people’s clothing to be gleaned from newspapers: advertisements for runaways that described what they wore in detail.

Lucinda Foote’s Entrance Examination

Last week I shared the account of a Yale entrance examination for a seven-year-old in 1757. Here’s another notable Yale applicant from 1783.

Once again the story includes the Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles, by then president of the college. In his diary for 22 December, he wrote:

I examined Miss Lucinda Foot aet. [i.e., aged] 12, Daugh. of the Revd Mr Foot of Cheshire [Connecticut]. She has learned the 4 Orat. agt. Cataline, the four first Books of the Aeneid, & St. Jno.’s Gospel in Greek. I exam’d her not only where she had learned but indifferently elsewhere in Virgil, Tully, & the Greek Testament, & found her well fitted to be admitted into the Freshman Class. She was born May 19, 1772. I gave her the followg. Certificate or Diploma on Parchment.

(L. S.) Prases Collegij Yalensis, Omnibus S. P. D.
Vobis notum sit quod Dominam
Lucindam Foot Aetat 12. Examine probavi, eanique in Linguis edoctis, Latina et Graeca, laudabilem progressum fecisse; eo ut familiariter et reddidisse & tractasse reperivi, tum verba tum Sententias, alibi in Aeneide Virgilii, in selectis Ciceronis Orationibus, et in Graeco Testamento. Testorque omnino illam, nisi Sexus ratione, idoneam ut in Classem Recentium in Universitate Yalensi Alumna admitteretur. Datum e Bibliotheca Collegij Yalensis, 22 die Decembris, Anno Salutis MDCCLXXXIII.

An English translation of that document:

The President of Yale College, to all to whom these Presents shall come,—Greeting: Be it known to you, that I have examined Miss Lucinda Foote,—twelve years old,—and have found that in the Learned languages,—the Latin and the Greek.—she has made commendable progress,—giving the true meaning of passages in the Eneid of Virgil, the Select Orations of Cicero, and in the Greek Testament; and that she is fully qualified, except in regard to sex, to be received, as a Pupil of the Freshman Class in Yale University. Given in the College Library, the 22 of December, 1783.

Lucinda Foote was not, of course, admitted to the college. Not because she would be only twelve years old at the start of the next academic year, but because she would still be only a girl.

A family chronicler later wrote, “She pursued a full course of College Studies, and also studied the Hebrew, with President Stiles, subsequent to the date of this Certificate.” Unfortunately, Stiles’s diary, which is quite detailed, doesn’t confirm that. Stiles did remain in contact with her father, a fellow minister, but never mentioned Lucinda again.

It does seem certain that Lucinda Foote remained, as her descendants said, “altogether a woman of much learning and great mental power.” She grew up to marry Dr. Thomas T. Cornwall of Middletown in 1790. According to The Foote Family (1849), they had nine children between 1791 and 1801, a very high number, and then another in 1811. Nonetheless, she lived until 1834. Her husband died twelve years later, aged seventy-eight, having practiced medicine for more than half a century.

(Yale finally admitted young women as undergraduates in 1969. The photo above shows the university’s Mead Visitor Center, in a 1767 house on Elm Street.)

Lion and Unicorn Returning to Boston, 23 Nov.

On Sunday, 23 November, the figures of the lion and unicorn will be reinstalled at the Old State House in Boston.

The lion has been regilded, and the unicorn repalladianized, making them shinier than they’ve been in years and probably far shinier than the original statues looked in colonial times. The balcony below them has had major repairs, as had the building’s west façade.

Aa was widely reported this fall, the lion’s head contained a time capsule from 1901. The conservator placed a new time capsule into the gilded scroll that the lion statue stands on, to be more easily accessible to people in another century.

Like the 1901 time capsule, the new box contains material reflecting this moment: today’s mayor and other officials, today’s fads, &c. But it also includes “Two 18th-century hand-wrought nails removed from the Old State House tower in 2008,” and a “Fragment of a 1713 brick removed from Old State House during the 2014 west façade restoration project.”

At 10:00 A.M. the statues are due to be unveiled at street level on the “Boston Massacre Plaza” beside the building. That will probably be the best time for many years to get a close-up look at them. Then they’ll be hoisted up to the roof with a crane.

John Trumbull’s Entrance Exam

Yesterday I described the accomplishments of young John Trumbull, son of a Westbury, Connecticut, minister. His mother, daughter of another clergyman, taught him from an early age.

Then, as he wrote about himself, Trumbull started to eavesdrop on lessons by his father:

The country clergy at that time generally attempted to increase their income, by keeping private schools for the education of youth. When he was about five years of age, his father took under his care a lad, seventeen years old, to instruct and qualify him for admission as a member of Yale-College.

Trumbull noticed the tasks first imposed; which were to learn by heart the Latin Accidence and Lilly’s Grammar, and to construe the Select Colloquies of Corderius, by the help of a literal translation. Without the knowledge of any person, except his mother, he began in this way the study of the Latin language. After a few weeks, his father discovered his wishes, and finding that by the aid of a better memory, his son was able to outstrip his fellow-student, encouraged him to proceed.

The unfortunate teenager who got to see his tutor’s little son outstrip him was, notes by the Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles show, William Southmayd (1740-1778).

In September 1757, the Rev. John Trumbull took his namesake son and his student Southmayd down to Yale to be “examined by the tutors” there. In 1897 Moses Coit Tyler wrote:

What were the requirements at that time exacted for admission to Yale College may be seen in the following statute printed in the year 1759: “Admissionem in hoc Collegium Nemo expectet, nisi qui é Praesidis et Tutorum Examine, Tullium, Virgilium et Testamentum Graecum extemporè legere, ad Unguem redere, ac grammaticè resolvere, et Prosâ veram Latinitatem scribere potuerit; et Prosodia ac Arithmetices vulgaris Regulas perdidicerit: atque Testimonium idoneum de Vitâ ac Moribus inculpatis exhibuerit.”

So that’s a pretty high hurdle.

Yet another teenager trying for admission that year was Nathaniel Emmons. He later claimed that he held little John on his lap during the tutors’ questioning.

The result was remarkable enough to be published in New Haven’s Connecticut Gazette on 24 Sept 1757, according to Henry Bronson’s History of Waterbury (1858). It reported the notable news that the boy “passed a good examination, although but little more than seven years of age.”

At the same time, the newspaper said, “on account of his youth his father does not intend he shall at present continue at college.” Or as the grown-up John Trumbull wrote:

Trumbull, however, on account of his extreme youth at that time, and subsequent ill health, was not sent to reside at college till the year 1763. He spent these six years in a miscellaneous course of study, making himself master of the Greek and Latin authors usually taught in that seminary, reading all the books he could meet with, and occasionally attempting to imitate, both in prose and verse, the style of the best English writers, whose works he could procure in his native village. These were of course few. The Paradise Lost, Thompson’s Seasons, with some of the poems of Dryden and Pope, were the principal.

On commencing his collegiate life, he found little regard paid to English composition, or the acquirement of a correct style. The Greek and Latin books, in the study of which only, his class were employed, required but a small portion of his time. By the advice of his tutor, he turned his thoughts to Algebra, Geometry, and astronomical calculations, which were then newly introduced and encouraged by the instructors. He chiefly pursued this course during the three first years. In his senior year he began to resume his former attention to English literature.

John Trumbull finally graduated from Yale in 1767, ten years after his admission. He stuck around some more years to earn a master’s degree, then a couple more as a tutor. After all, he didn’t want to go home to “his native village,” where he’d already read all the books.

(The photo above shows Connecticut Hall at Yale, built in the early 1750s.)

John Trumbull: “this weird urchin”

Last week I shared a portrait of John Trumbull (1750-1831), the author of M’Fingal and Connecticut jurist. He was a child prodigy, according to the biographical introduction to the 1820 collection of his work (which he apparently wrote himself):

Being an only son, and of a very delicate and sickly constitution, he was of course the favorite of his mother. She had received an education superior to most of her sex, and not only instructed him in reading, from his earliest infancy, but finding him possessed of an extraordinary memory, taught him all the hymns, songs and other verses, with which she was acquainted.

His father’s small library consisted mostly of classical and theological books. The Spectator and Watts’ Lyric Poems were the only works of merit in the belles-lettres, which he possessed. Young Trumbull not only committed to memory most of the poetry they contained, but was seized with an unaccountable ambition of composing verses himself, in which he was encouraged by his parents.

Trumbull appears to have offered more detail in 1788 to the Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles (shown above), who took detailed notes on their conversation, eventually published in his Extracts from the Itineraries and Other Miscellanies:

Aet. [i.e., age] 2, began [New England] Primer & learned to read in half a year without School. Mother taught him all the Primer Verses & Watts’ Children’s Hymns before read.

Aet. 4. Read the Bible thro’—before 4. About this time began to make Verses. First Poetry, Watts’ Lyrics, & could repeat the whole—& only poetical Book he read till Aet. 6.

Aet. 5. Attempted to write & print his own Verses—Sample large hugeous Letters. This first attempt of writg. by himself—& before writg. after Copy. Scrawls.

Aet. 6. In Spring began to learn Latin & learnd half Lilly’s Grammar before his Father knew it—catchg. it as his Father was instructg. [William] Southmayd: same Spring as six y. old. Learned Quae genus by heart in a day. Tenacious Memory.

Aet. 9. On a Wager laid—to commit to memo. one of Salmon’s Pater Nosters in a quarter of an Hour—he effected it—recitg. by Memo. the Pater Noster in Hungarian and Malebar: & retains it to this day. I heard him repeat the Hunga.

In 1897 Moses Coit Tyler added this anecdote in The Literary History of the American Revolution, 1763-1783, citing Trumbull’s manuscripts:

Emulous, no doubt, of the laurels of the heavenly and much desired Watts, he began at about the age of four to make verses for himself, as much as possible in the true Wattsian manner; but not having as yet advanced so far in learning as to be able to write, he could only preserve these valuable productions by storing them away in his memory.

At five, being still unable to write, he hit upon the device of transcribing his verses by imitating printed letters. His first attempt of this kind consisted of four stanzas of an original hymn, and his “scrawl of it filled a complete sheet of paper.” Having perceived a want of connection between the third and the fourth lines of one of his stanzas, this weird urchin was greatly perplexed thereby; but “after lying awake some nights,” meditating upon the problem, he finally solved it by the proper verbal corrections.

So what do you do with a boy like that?

TOMORROW: Take him to Yale, of course.