Some Out of Town Jasper

As I quoted yesterday, in 1853 a story surfaced saying that Josiah Waters, Jr., had delivered intelligence about the impending British army march on 18 Apr 1775.

This story is significant in predating Henry W. Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” which romanticized the event and focused people’s attention on Revere over all the other people involved in the Lexington Alarm.

It also came with a provenance: from Waters himself to Joseph Curtis to his relation Catherine Curtis to the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Though that story might have evolved along that path of transmission, it’s always good to know that path.

Waters reportedly credited his knowledge of the British military plans to “Jasper, an Englishman, a gunsmith by trade, whose shop was in Hatter’s Square.” This man “worked for the British,” gaining their trust. He rented space to the family of a sergeant major who ended up “telling him all their plans.” Or at least the plans that a sergeant major would be privy to.

Of course I went looking for traces of a gunsmith named Jasper working in pre-Revolutionary Boston. I didn’t find any. But I did find a man named Jasper who came from Britain and worked with metal, so he could have repaired gunlocks along with other things.

William Jasper moved from Britain to North America soon after the end of the French and Indian War. The first sign of him is this advertisement from the 29 Aug 1763 New-York Gazette.

WILLIAM JASPER, cutler, Just arrived from England, is now settled in New York, near the Fly, Queen-Street, near the Burling’s and Beekman’s Slip next Door to Mr. Murray’s, takes this Method to acquaint the publick, That he makes all kinds of Surgeons instruments, and grinds and cleans them; makes Razors, Pen knives, scissars, and all kinds of Edge Tools, which he also grinds; and makes Cutlery in general; makes Buckles of the best Block-Tin, wrought and plain Men’s Gold and Silver Ware; Pinking-Irons of all Sorts; Sadlers Tools; Fret-Saws; Hatters knives; likewise draws Teeth with great Ease and Safety, being accustomed to it for many Years. He likewise has brought over a Quantity of Copper and Tin Hard-Ware. All Persons that please to favour him with their Custom, may depend upon being served in the best and cheapest Manner.

A cutler, according to Dr. Samuel Johnson, was “one who makes or sells knives.” Jasper made all sorts of bladed tools, from surgeon’s scalpels to fret saws, and he also offered some dentistry.

In 1768 William Jasper was in Boston, marrying Anne Newman on 29 June 1768. This couple appears on the list of marriage intentions read in all the pulpits, and it’s not clear to me where they actually wed. I also can’t find records of the couple having children, though there’s a mention of them having done so.

The Curtis story said Jasper the gunsmith had a shop “in Hatter’s Square,” which was also known as Creek Lane and later Creek Square. It was near the center of town, literally on the Mill Creek that defined the edge of the North End. I can’t situate William Jasper the cutler there, but he must have rented a shop somewhere.

Weapons collectors have found William Jasper’s name on a couple of blades possibly made during the war. Above is his maker’s stamp on a spontoon head from the late 1700s. In For Liberty I Live, Al Benting described a halberd inscribed with Jasper’s name. I don’t see any sign that he made guns, though perhaps he repaired them.

There was also a William Jasper among the American prisoners of war taken on the Boston-based privateer Rising States on 15 Apr 1777 and housed in Forton Prison in Britain. I have no idea what happened to that man and thus whether he could be the cutler. But the surname Jasper was rare in Massachusetts.

The next time William Jasper appeared in a newspaper was this notice in the 8 Aug 1782 Continental Journal:

TO THE PUBLIC.

JASPER, Surgeon Instrument Maker in Boston, has lately invented and compleated an Instrument for drawing Teeth perpendicular, which was never done before, for which if he can have a patentee from Congress, it shall be universally known, if not, let it die in oblivion.

I see no indication that the Confederation Congress considered granting Jasper a patent for this new dental instrument. There was no statutory process for the national government to grant patents until 1790, and the Congress had a lot of other business to handle in 1782.

Finally, the Continental Journal of 23 Nov 1786 reported that “Mr. William Jasper, Cutler,” had died in Boston. Anna Jasper administered William’s estate, relying on two men to complete the paperwork since she couldn’t sign her name. William Jasper’s property, evaluated at £24.6.6, included metal-working tools, some old books and pictures, and household utensils, but no real estate. Probate judge Oliver Wendell signed off on the administration, which included a general mention of children.

On 10 Apr 1791 a woman named Nancy Jasper married Joseph Jones in the Rev. Thomas Baldwin’s Second Baptist Meeting-house. Was this the widow Anne Jasper? Or a daughter of the 1768 marriage? The next year, on 25 Mar 1792, another Baptist minister, the Rev. Samuel Stillman, married Mary Jasper to John Dumaresque Dyer. Was this a daughter of the cutler William Jasper? If the family had been Baptist before the war, that would explain why there are no records of the children being baptized soon after birth, as there usually are for Congregationalist and Anglican families.

Thus, the sparse record of William Jasper’s life in America shows that he could have been Josiah Curtis’s informant in April 1775 but is far from confirmation of that story.

Did Josiah Waters Obtain the News of the British March?

Some accounts of the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April 1775 credit Josiah Waters of Boston with helping to provide intelligence about the British army’s plans to Dr. Joseph Warren. How did Waters enter the historical picture?

Waters’s role seems to have been first mentioned in print in 1853, when the New England Historical and Genealogical Register published an article titled “Revolutionary Incidents,” based on the recollections of Joseph Curtis, then 86 years old.

Curtis spoke of “Col. Josiah Waters of Boston, a staunch whig, and who afterwards acted as engineer in directing the building of the forts of Roxbury.” The article summed up the story this way:

The Americans obtained this news, through an individual by the name of Jasper, an Englishman, a gunsmith by trade, whose shop was in Hatter’s Square; he worked for the British, but was friendly to the rebels; a sergeant major quartered in his family and made a confidant of him, telling him all their plans. Jasper repeated the same to Col. Waters, who made it known to the Committee of Safety. The Colonel has often told this story, years after, to his then young friend, Joseph Curtis, who is still living.

There were two men named Josiah Waters in pre-Revolutionary Boston, father and son. The father was born in 1721, became a militia captain by 1770, and died in 1784.

Josiah Waters, Jr., was born to that man and his wife Abigail in 1747. After the war he became active in the Massachusetts militia, rising to the rank of colonel and collecting “many facts, for a history,” before dying in 1805. So when Joseph Curtis referred to “The Colonel,” he meant the younger man. Curtis was in his thirties when Col. Waters died, so he had plenty of time to hear that veteran’s stories.

Both father and son were involved in building forts in Roxbury early in the siege of Boston. Gen. William Heath’s memoir mentioned “Capt. Josiah Waters of Boston” as an impromptu engineer, and in a 21 October 1775 letter John Adams referred to “young Josiah Waters” as another. In 1776 the Connecticut legislature appointed Josiah Waters as engineer for Fort Trumbull in New London with Josiah Waters, Jr., as his assistant. (However, Gen. John Thomas wrote that neither Waters had “great Understanding” of either fortifications or gunnery “any further than Executing or overseeing works, when Trased out.”)

I mentioned Abigail Waters, Josiah, Sr.’s wife (and Josiah, Jr.’s mother). She was a daughter of Deacon Thomas Dawes and thus an aunt of William Dawes, Jr. In 1773, as discussed here, Capt. Waters and Adjutant Dawes were both asking the Boston selectmen if they could use Faneuil Hall for militia training.

The fact that Josiah Waters, Jr., and William Dawes, Jr., were first cousins becomes significant in looking at another of the details Joseph Curtis recounted about the start of the war:

The intelligence, that the British intended to go out to Lexington, was conveyed over Boston Neck to Roxbury by Ebenezer Dorr, of Boston, a leather dresser, by trade, who was mounted on a slow jogging horse, with saddle bags behind him, and a large flapped hat upon his head, to resemble a countryman on a journey. Col. Josiah Waters…followed on foot, on the sidewalk at a short distance from him, until he saw him safely past all the sentinels.

There was a Roxbury farmer named Ebenezer Dorr, but no other source connects him to the 18 April alarm. Many sources, some contemporaneous, credit William Dawes, and Curtis probably just muddled that name. (After all, Yankees would drop the R in “Dorr.”) But it’s reasonable that Dawes’s cousin might have watched to make sure he got out of town safely.

Was Waters also a conduit of crucial information about the British march for Dr. Joseph Warren? There are multiple stories of Bostonians reporting on British military activity, and we know Warren didn’t rely on a single source. Waters may well have supplied helpful intelligence, but he wasn’t the only Bostonian to do so.

TOMORROW: What about this gunsmith named Jasper?

Prepping for Patriots’ Day 2020 Online

The anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord is coming up on 19 April, so I’ll shift topics (mostly) from the Sestercentennial of the reaction to the Boston Massacre to the opening of the Revolutionary War.

Of course, right now we’re all quarantining like smallpox patients with red flags hung outside our homes. The traditional ceremonies along Battle Road have been canceled for this spring.

But local historical organizations are using technology to fill the gap a bit. For example:

• The Lexington Historical Society is offering a Virtual Patriots’ Day collection of virtual tours of its historic sites, footage of past events, new videos, and online activities.
• Minute Man National Historical Park is offering “Ask a Ranger” sessions on Facebook Live on 17 and 24 April at 10:00 A.M. Check out the park’s Facebook page for video interviews with veteran reenactors and historians, spotlights on archeological finds, and more. 
• Old North Church launched a video series called “99% Sure” with a discussion of who hung the lanterns for Paul Revere. (See the Boston1775 discussions of John Pulling, Robert Newman, and Thomas Barnard.)

There may well be other online events out there that slipped my mind tonight.

This year’s History Camp Boston also had to be postponed, from last month to, we hope, 11 July. So History Camp organizers Lee Wright and Carrie Lund are trying out a series of virtual events through the organization’s Facebook page, and I’ll be their first guest.

Lee, Carrie, and I will talk about some of the myths and realities of the Battle of Lexington and Concord in a Facebook Live conversation scheduled to start on Thursday, 16 April, at 8:00 P.M. Here’s a teaser video we made last week as we tested our technology.

This is a chance for you to ask questions, too! Are you wondering about common myths, or particular realities, of the start of the Revolutionary War? Carrie and Lee are compiling a list of queries from the comments of those Facebook postings. And I can collect them here.

We hope people will also be able to send in questions in real time during the conversation. Of course, I won’t be able to dig into those topics beforehand and appear as if I had an answer all along.

“The Town make choice of a proper Person to deliver an Oration”

Yesterday I described how Bostonians commemorated the first anniversary of the Boston Massacre in 1771, including Dr. Thomas Young delivering a political oration in the Manufactory.

Six days later, on Monday, 11 March, Boston had its first town meeting of the year. As usual, attendees took up the first day with electing various officials, from the selectmen on down.

One agenda item on the second day was “Whether the Town will determine upon some suitable Method to perpetuate the memory of the horred Massacre perpetrated on the Evening of the 5. of March 1770—by a Party of Soldiers of the 29. Regiment.” Town leaders were getting on the commemoration bandwagon.

The meeting assigned that topic to a committee of active upper-class Whigs: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Dr. Benjamin Church, Benjamin Kent, Richard Dana, Dr. Joseph Warren, and Samuel Pemberton. A second committee was chosen to vindicate the townspeople from “some partial and false publications” about the Massacre trials the previous fall.

The perpetuation committee returned on Tuesday, 19 March with this recommendation:

That for the present the Town make choice of a proper Person to deliver an Oration at such Time as may be Judged most convenient to commemorate the barbarous murder of five of our Fellow Citizens on that fatal Day, and to impress upon our minds the ruinous tendency of standing Armies in Free Cities, and the necessity of such noble exertions in all future times, as the Inhabitants of the Town then made, whersby the designs of the Conspirators against the public Liberty may be still frustrated–

And the Committee in order to compleat the Plan of some standing Monument of Military Tyrany begg’d to be indulged with further time

The meeting “Voted unanimously” to adopt that plan for an oration. (No “standing Monument of Military Tyrany” would be erected for more than a century.)

The next question was who should deliver the oration. Dr. Young already had a text, of course, but now that was old news, and possibly too radical as well. Instead, people proposed two possible orators:

• Samuel Hunt, master of the North Latin School
• James Lovell, longtime usher, or assistant master, of the South Latin School

The townspeople “as directed then withdrew and brought in their Votes.” Not only did James Lovell win, but he was “unanimously chosen.” (I wonder how Mr. Hunt took that. Maybe it was supposed to be an honor just to be nominated.)

The same committee, with the addition of Samuel Swift, was sent off to invite Lovell to speak at Faneuil Hall on Thursday, 2 April, at 10:00 A.M. In essence, this would be a special edition of the usual “Thursday Lecture,” or sermon, that one minister or another had delivered on Thursday mornings for years. But this oration would also be an official session of the town meeting.

As it happened, on 2 April such a big crowd came out to hear Lovell that the meeting had to officially adjourn from Faneuil Hall to the Old South Meeting-House, the largest enclosed space in town (shown above). Afterwards, the town asked for Lovell’s text so that it could print his oration and spread its message. You can read it here.

All of those steps became an annual ritual in Boston: the proposal in town meeting to commission an oration, the committee visiting a respectable young gentleman with a speaking invitation, the adjournment on 5 March (or 6 March if the anniversary fell on the Sabbath) to Old South, the town’s publication of the text. Even in 1776, when Boston was under siege, there was an oration for Bostonians in exile out in Watertown. That tradition lasted until 1783, after the Revolutionary War ended.

And it all started with the town meeting deciding to commemorate the Massacre one month after the first anniversary.

“An Oration containing a brief Account of the Massacre”

On Tuesday, 5 Mar 1771, Bostonians commemorated the first anniversary of the Boston Massacre.

I write “Bostonians” and not “Boston” because those commemorations weren’t official town acts. Rather, some of the more radical Whigs organized the events privately.

Paul Revere had pictures of the Massacre, Christopher Seider, and wounded America illuminated in his North End windows, as described here.

“The Bells of the several Congregational Meeting-Houses” rang for an hour after noon and then again from 9:00 to 10:00 P.M. The bells of the Anglican churches presumably stayed silent.

In addition, the Boston Gazette for 11 March reported:

An Oration containing a brief Account of the Massacre; of the Imputations of Treason and Rebellion, with which the Tools of Power endeavoured to brand the Inhabitants, and a Discant upon the Nature of Treasons, with some Considerations on the Threats of the British Ministry to take away the Massachusetts Charter, was delivered on the Evening by Dr. [Thomas] Young at the Factory-Hall, being the Place where the first Efforts of Military Tyranny was made within a few Days after the Troops arrived.

Edes and Gill’s front page for that issue of their Boston Gazette was very unusual, as shown above. It had big type, mourning banners, oversized headlines, wide columns, and other typography more common to see on broadsides than on newspapers of the day.

Dr. Thomas Young had been personally involved in the October 1768 dispute over the Manufactory. He had supported the Brown family against the regiments that tried to take over that large province-owned building, and he reported on the conflict for the newspapers. So it made sense to return to that site for his speech.

Young had also been at the forefront of the non-importation protests, both in the streets and in newspapers. On the evening before the Massacre, he was out on the streets carrying a sword, albeit trying to keep the peace by telling people fighting with soldiers near their barracks to go home. So naturally he had a lot to say about “the Threats of the British Ministry.”

On the other hand, Dr. Young was an unorthodox voice in Boston. He was a New Yorker in New England. He was a deist in a devout town dominated by Congregationalists. He was a democrat in a society that still expected deference to the genteel. For more about Dr. Thomas Young and his role in the Revolution, check out Hub History’s interview with Scott Nadler on the man.

Given Dr. Young’s many forms of radicalism, it’s easy to understand why his oration wasn’t endorsed by the town. There’s also no sign that that speech was ever published. The description in the Boston Gazette, which I suspect came from Young himself, is all that we have of it.

TOMORROW: But the idea of a commemorative oration caught on.

“In like manner killed by two balls”

As discussed yesterday, there’s good evidence that Crispus Attucks was the first person shot at the Boston Massacre.

There’s even stronger evidence that he was hit with two musket balls.

The 12 Mar 1770 Boston Gazette reported that Attucks was “killed instantly; two balls entering his breast one of them in special goring the right lobe of the lungs, and a great part of the liver most horribly."

Dr. Benjamin Church did an autopsy and wrote in even more detail:

I found two wounds in the region of the thorax, the one on the right side, which entered through the second true rib within an inch and a half of the sternum, dividing the rib and separating the cartilaginous extremity from the sternum, the ball passed obliquely downward through the diaphragm and entering through the large lobe of the liver and the gall-bladder, still keeping its oblique direction, divided the aorta descendens just above its division into the iliacs, from thence it made its exit on the left side of the spine. This wound I apprehended was the immediate cause of his death.

The other ball entered the fourth of the false ribs, about five inches from the linea alba, and descending obliquely passed through the second false rib, at the distance of about eight inches from the linea alba…

Church’s main point in all that Latinate anatomy was that “from the oblique direction of the wounds, I apprehend the gun must have been discharged from some elevation”—i.e., from the windows above the soldiers. His deposition was part of the Whigs’ argument that the Customs service was involved in the shooting.

But the angle of the musket balls was affected by how Attucks was standing. John Danbrook testified, “The Molatto was leaning over a long stick he had, resting his breast upon it.” With Attucks leaning forward, musket balls shot level into his chest would probably have exited at lower points on his back.

Danbrook and other witnesses agreed that Attucks fell quickly after the first musket shot, before they heard another gun fire. He didn’t continue standing long enough to be shot by a second gun. That strongly suggests he was hit by two musket balls at once, both coming from one discharge.

I’ve previously noted how Edward Crafts reported Cpl. Hugh McCann telling him that on a British army patrol that night “every man [was] loaded with a brace of balls.” There are many other examples of muskets reported to fire two balls at once in this period.

It’s also significant that the coroner’s jury decided that Attucks was killed by “the discharge of a Musket or Muskets loaded with bullets, two of which were shot thro’ his body.” Those men didn’t see the two wounds as necessary evidence of two guns.

What’s more, Attucks wasn’t the only man wounded twice. Immediately after him on the newspaper’s list of victims was:

Mr. James Caldwell, mate of Capt. [Thomas] Morton’s vessel, in like manner killed by two balls entering his back.

Danbrook’s testimony even suggests that Caldwell was killed by the same shot that killed Attucks, meaning the balls went through one man’s body and then another. There’s not as much evidence to support that, however, as that both men fell immediately after being hit with two balls.

The third man to die quickly, Samuel Gray, was shot in the head. Witnesses observed only one wound on his body, but it was a big one.

In addition, sailor Robert Patterson testified about how “the sentinel up with his gun and fired, the balls going through my lower right arm.” However, the Boston Gazette reported only that “a ball went through his right arm, and he suffered great loss of blood.” So the evidence of multiple balls in Patterson’s case seems ambiguous.

In the cases of Attucks and Caldwell, on the other hand, by far the most likely explanation of their double wounds is that each was hit by two balls fired from one gun.

Was Crispus Attucks Really the First Man Shot at the Massacre?

Another question about the Boston Massacre that I saw come up this Sestercentennial season is whether Crispus Attucks was really the first man to be killed in that event.

Attucks is certainly remembered as the “First Martyr of Liberty,” as in the title of Mitch Kachun’s book on the historical memory of the man. That reflects the importance of Attucks’s African ancestry to the abolitionist and civil-rights movements. (Of course, it sets aside young Christopher Seider, killed eleven days earlier.)

But what evidence says that Attucks was the first man shot on King Street? Given the stress and confusion of the moment, how consistent and reliable could the witnesses be?

In fact, a review of the eyewitness testimony finds multiple witnesses describing Attucks as being the first person to fall. There’s a little confusion since the first shot seems to have come from Pvt. Edward Montgomery, but it’s not clear he shot Attucks. He may have fired his musket high and hit no one but spurred another soldier to fire at Attucks soon afterwards. Nonetheless, people saw Attucks fall before anyone else.

Here’s some of eyewitness John Hickling’s deposition:

I instantly leaped within the soldier’s bayonet as I heard him cock his gun, which that moment went off between Mr. [Richard] Palmes and myself. I, thinking there was nothing but powder fired, stood still, till upon the other side of Mr. Palmes and close to him, I saw another gun fired, and the man since called Attucks, fall. I then withdrew about two or three yards, and turning, saw Mr. Palmes upon his knee, and the soldiers pushing at him with their bayonets. During this the rest of the guns were fired, one after another, when I saw two more fall. I ran to one and seeing the blood gush out of his head though just expiring, I felt for the wound and found a hole as big as my hand. This I have since learned was Mr. [Samuel] Gray. I then went to Attucks and found him gasping, pulled his head out of the gutter and left him…

Unlike Hickling, Charles Hobby blamed Capt. Thomas Preston:

The Captain then spoke distinctly, “Fire, Fire!” I was then within four feet of Capt. Preston, and know him well; the soldiers fired as fast as they could one after another. I saw the mulatto fall, and Mr. Samuel Gray went to look at him, one of the soldiers, at the distance of about four or five yards, pointed his piece directly for the said Gray’s head and fired. Mr. Gray, after struggling, turned himself right round upon his heel and fell dead.

Sailor James Bailey had been standing with sentry Hugh White as the crowd built up. According to John Adams’s notes at the soldiers’ trial, he said:

Montgomery fired the first Gun. He was the next Man to me close to me, at the right. Cant Say whether the 1st. Gun killed or hurt any one. I Stoopd down to look under the Smoke and the others went off. 1/2 a Minute between 1st. and 2d. Gun. . . . Montgomery fired, about where the Molatto fell. It was pointing towards the Place where we saw Attucks lie.

All those men were up toward the front of the crowd. John Danbrook was somewhere in the middle, and he also testified that Attucks was the first man shot—but also that another man was hit immediately afterwards. Here’s Danbrook at the soldiers’ trial:

Q. Was you looking at Montgomery when he discharged his piece?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you see any body fall upon his firing?

A. Yes, I saw two fall, one fell at my elbow, another about three feet from me. I did not hear the sound of another gun, before they both fell.

Q. Were they standing before Montgomery?

A. Yes, about twelve or fifteen feet from him, and about five feet apart, one was the Molatto, the other I did not know.

Q. Do you think one gun killed both these men?

A. Yes, for I heard no other gun when they fell.

Q. Are you certain the other person was killed?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you hear any other gun before that man fell?

A. No.

And Adams’s notes on Danbrook’s testimony:

I saw Montgomery there and saw him fire. . . . I saw two fall as he fired, before I heard any other Gun. One fell just vs. my left Elbow, and the other about 3 foot from me about 10 or 15 foot from the Soldier. In a range with me, one was the Molatto. I believe it was with the first Gun that they were. They were 5 foot a sunder. It was not a Minute, after the Molatto fell that the other Man fell. I cant say, I heard another Gun, before I Saw the 2d Man down. 

I couldn’t find any witness identifying another victim as dropping before Attucks.

Thus, while witnesses disagreed on some details, they did provide us with strong support for saying that Crispus Attucks was the first man fatally shot in the Massacre.

TOMORROW: Was Attucks shot twice?

“Liberated upon each of them giving bail”

Back on 27 March, I described how a Suffolk County grand jury indicted four civilians for murder in the Boston Massacre.

As acting governor Thomas Hutchinson wrote, those four men had been “committed to close prison, where they lay about a fortnight,” because of the testimony of Charles Bourgate.

That “French boy” claimed that his master, Edward Manwaring, had fired a gun out of the Customs House window. The other three men were charged with being part of the fatal conspiracy simply because they testified in support of Manwaring’s denial.

Ordinarily, there was no bail for people charged with murder. But some Superior Court judges thought the evidence against those men was weak enough to make an exception.

According to an anonymous correspondent keeping track of events in Boston for the Customs service, the town committee gathering evidence about the Massacre “threw every obstacle in the way in order to prevent this affair coming to a hearing by informing the Court that they daily expected new Witnesses from the Country.”

Eventually the court scheduled a bail hearing on Saturday, 7 Apr 1770—250 years ago today. According to the diary of acting Chief Justice Benjamin Lynde, it took “all forenoon.” The anonymous report described the event this way:

The Witnesses brot. against the Custom house People Manwarings french boy and one [Samuel] Drown, the former had sworn to so many falsities that the Court paid no regard to his evidence—the latter was proven in Court to be a fool, unable to utter one coherent sentence. . . .

Upwards of 40 Creditable people were summoned by Manwaring to disprove Guns being fired out of the Custom house but only the family of Mr. [Benjamin] Davis who lives directly opposite was examined—they all declared they had their eye upon the Custom house during the whole affair, and that they saw no Guns fired nor believ’d any were fired. their Evidences were so very clear that the Court thought it unnecessary to examine any other of his exculpatory Witnesses.

Lynde was nonetheless still inclined not to grant bail. Judge Peter Oliver (shown above), brother of province secretary Andrew Oliver and related by marriage to Hutchinson, already believed there was “little cause of Confinement.” Judge John Cushing (1695-1778) cast the deciding vote.

The court let the four men out of jail pending trial if they paid bail of £400 each. As comparison, in 1770 Paul Revere paid £213 for an entire house in the North End. With the help of sixteen sureties, the defendants came up with the necessary money. They still had to go on trial, but until then they were free.

Samuel Fitch Takes the Case

Jonathan Sewall wasn’t the only attorney missing from the big trials in Boston in the spring of 1770.

As the Massachusetts Superior Court geared up for the Boston Massacre trials, Ebenezer Richardson was having a hard time finding a lawyer to represent him.

Richardson was arraigned on Monday, 19 March, and brought out for trial that Friday. British law already recognized that a man charged with a capital crime deserved to have legal representation. But no attorney, not even those politically allied with the Crown, had agreed to represent Richardson.

That echoed how on 2 March the Customs service, as I noted back here, had publicly and falsely claimed that Richardson had “never been employed as an Officer or Under Officer, or in any Capacity in the Customs.” Killing a child had made the man even more unpopular than he already was. No one wanted anything to do with him.

An anonymous correspondent for the Crown reported on Richardson’s lament:

He observ’d to the Court that he had made application to almost every Lawyer in town to undertake his cause, which no one would do, that the Constables had refused summoning his Witnesses, that the Jailer, had used him in so cruel a manner that he was even frequently debarred the Liberty of conversing with his friends, that every Newspaper was crouded with the most infamous and false libels against him in order to prejudice the minds of his jury; that without Counsel, without the privilege of calling upon his Witnesses to support his innocence he was now to be tried for his life.

The royal judges accordingly postponed the murder trial, which is just what the Boston Whigs were pressuring them not to do. They also tried to get Richardson representation.

The Court then made application to the several Lawyers present to appear as his Counsel but this one and all of them declined. The court finding that a requisition had no effect asserted their Authority and order’d Mr. Fitch the advocate General to appear on his behalf on his trial. Fitch made use of a variety of arguments in order to excuse himself which the Court did not judge sufficient. He concluded with saying that since the Court had peremptorily ordered him, he would undertake it, but not otherways.

Samuel Fitch (1724-1799) had come to Boston from Lebanon, Connecticut, and Yale College. He was an established lawyer but not particularly prominent. Politically Fitch leaned toward the Crown, though not so strongly as to prevent him from representing James Otis, Jr., in his lawsuit against Customs Commissioner John Robinson.

In 1768, Jonathan Sewall was seeking a successor to himself as advocate general in the Admiralty Courts, now that he was going to be attorney general. He approached John Adams with hopes of winning the younger lawyer to the side of the Crown. Adams later wrote that when he declined, he suggested that Fitch would be more comfortable in the job. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson eventually did give Fitch that permanent position.

The judges scheduled Richardson’s trial for 6 April. Fitch told the judges that he was feeling sick that month. Also, he had received an anonymous letter hinting at a valuable witness. The court postponed the trial to give Fitch time to investigate that information and decamped to Charlestown for a weeklong session in Middlesex County.

Richardson’s new trial date was Tuesday, 17 April. When the court convened that day, Fitch was nowhere to be found.

The Disappearance of Jonathan Sewall

In the mid-1760s, Jonathan Sewall allied with Gov. Francis Bernard, writing pseudonymous newspaper essays lampooning James Otis and favoring the Crown. The governor appointed Sewall to be attorney general of Massachusetts in 1767.

Sometime in March 1770, Attorney General Sewall wrote out the indictment of Capt. Thomas Preston and eight soldiers for multiple counts of murder—the Boston Massacre. This document used old British legal formulas: “not having the Fear of God before their eyes, but being moved and seduced by the Instigation of the devil and their own wicked Hearts…”

After 27 March, Sewall expanded that indictment to include three Customs service employees and notary John Munro, caught up in young Charles Bourgate’s accusations. It’s highly unlikely he believed in those charges, but he didn’t fight them.

Ordinarily Sewall would have prosecuted all those defendants, as well as the murder charges against Ebenezer Richardson and George Wilmot. He had personally argued all previous criminal cases since his appointment. Because people knew Sewall was a friend of the royal government, on 13 March the town of Boston voted to hire an attorney to assist him—an unusual move to ensure there was an aggressive prosecution.

Instead, the indictment turned out to be Sewall’s last official act in the Massacre trials. He never appeared in the Boston courthouse again that term. In 1816 defense counsel John Adams recalled: “Mr. Sewall, the Attorney General, who ought, at the hazard of his existence, to have conducted those prosecutions, disappeared.” Solicitor general Samuel Quincy wrote that Sewall couldn’t appear “by reason of Ill health.”

According to Thomas Hutchinson, the problem was the Boston Whigs’ visit to the court on 22 March to demand that the judges proceed to those murder trials. The acting governor wrote, “Sewall tells me he never will appear at any other court in that town, after the present, as Attorney General, and the whole court say they do not sit there with freedom.”

Yet the judges continued to sit. To prosecute the big murder cases, they appointed Robert Treat Paine, a private lawyer in Taunton, and Samuel Quincy. Adams wondered if Sewall was involved in those choices, but there’s no surviving evidence that he was.

Samuel Phillips Savage of Weston complained that Sewall didn’t stop all legal work. In his almanac diary Savage wrote that the attorney general continued to appear “with the jurys of the Inferior Courts at Charlston and Ipswich in the petty Concerns cognizable before the General Sessions of the Peace.” But he never went into Boston.

I suspect there was another factor in Sewall’s action, or lack of it: he was prone to depression. During the war he had a breakdown and spent more than a year in his bedroom. He had other spells of depression later in life, and his son suffered from the same spells while serving as chief justice of Upper Canada.

Even before the war, I think Sewall’s public writing shows a pattern of bursts of energy and silence. He published series of lively and often verbose essays from February to June 1763 (as “J,” “Jehosaphat Smoothingplain,” and “J. Philanthrop”), December 1766 to August 1767 (“Philanthrop”), December 1770 to February 1771 (Philanthrop” reviewing the Massacre trials he’d stayed away from), and June to August 1773 (“Philalethes”).

But in late 1774, after the Powder Alarm drove him into Boston, Sewall went silent. To argue for the Crown, “several of the principal gentlemen” turned to Daniel Leonard and Sewall’s law clerk Ward Chipman to deliver the “Massachusettensis” essays. Sewall may have supported the project, but he couldn’t do the work.

Historians are reluctant to apply psychiatric diagnoses like bipolar disorder to figures of the past. They’re beyond the reach of psychologists. And more than anyone historians know how concepts of mental illness change over time.

But in Sewall’s case, I think attributing his refusal after March 1770 to try the Massacre cases solely to his politics or to Whig pressure might miss a crucial internal force. The attorney general couldn’t bring himself to prosecute the big cases, nor to refuse to prosecute. He just stayed away.

The Mystery of Ebenezer Richardson’s Mother

A very long month ago, on the day we reenacted the Boston Massacre for its Sestercentennial, I stopped by the Edes and Gill print shop in Faneuil Hall.

Andrew Volpe was printing his recreation of Paul Revere’s engraving of the Massacre. As proprietor Gary Gregory said, this was the first time in centuries that image was being reproduced on an authentic eighteenth-century press. See an example here.

Volpe had colored some of the prints. I shared my theory about one of the fallen figures being painted with a darker face than others—just how dark varies from copy to copy—to represent Crispus Attucks.

Gary told me about something I hadn’t come across pertaining to the fatal events of early 1770, and I’m still puzzling over it.

The 19 Dec 1771 Massachusetts Spy included this item referring to Ebenezer Richardson:

“Last Tuesday se’nnight died suddenly at Stoneham, Mrs. Abigail Richardson, mother of the noted Esquire Richardson, now under conviction of murder, and whose habitation is now, as it has long been, in Suffolk County goal. She has turned out a true prophetess, having often declared, that she should never live to see this ---famous fellow hanged, though she thought his tu---s in iniquity richly deserved it.”

That paragraph was printed within quotation marks, unlike most death notices. But there was no indication of what source printer Isaiah Thomas was quoting from. My only guess on what “tu---s” signified is “tutors.”

The 23 December Boston Evening-Post ran a shorter version of the same news:

DIED.]…At Stoneham, very suddenly, Mrs. Abigail Richardson, Mother of the noted Richardson, now in Goal here, under Conviction for the Murder of young Sneider. She has turned out a true Prophetess, having, ’tis said, often declared, “that she should never live to see him hanged.”

Other New England newspapers also echoed the Massachusetts Spy’s news.

Yet there’s no listing for Abigail Richardson dying in 1771 in the published vital records of Stoneham, nor the other nearby towns the Richardson family had links to.

However, J. A. Vinton’s The Richardson Memorial, a vast but not always accurate genealogy of the Richardson family, states that Ebenezer Richardson’s mother was born Abigail Johnson, widowed in 1735, and remarried in 1747 to “Dea. Daniel Gould, of Stoneham.”

And the Stoneham vital records do list this death under the name Gould:

Abigail, w[idow]. Dea. Daniel, Jan. ––, 1771, in her 65th y[ear].

The Stoneham records also confirm the marriage of Deacon Gould to “Mrs. Abigail Richardson of Woburn” in 1747. The Woburn records show an Abigail Johnson born in 1697 and one married to Timothy Richardson in 1717, data points that fit together. But that would make the widow Abigail (Johnson Richardson) Gould who died in January 1771 seventy-three years old, not sixty-four.

The next mystery is how this death in January 1771 relates to the Massachusetts Spy item from December. That quoted paragraph said Richardson’s mother had died “Last Tuesday se’nnight,” suggesting it was written in early 1771. Did that text take many months to reach Isaiah Thomas? Does quoting from an old letter explain why the newspaper put quotation marks around the old news?

It’s also notable that the letter referred to the woman by a previous surname, not Gould. Does that indicate the writer didn’t know Abigail (Johnson Richardson) Gould personally, but was passing on second- or third-hand information about her death? And if so, was that writer really privy to the woman’s comments about her son being hanged?

George Washington’s Honorary Degree from Harvard

On 3 Apr 1776, Harvard College awarded an honorary doctor of laws (Ll.D.) degree to Gen. George Washington.

The official college record of the event reads:

At a meeting of the President and Fellows at Watertown, Voted, that the following Diploma be presented to his Excellency General Washington, as an expression of the gratitude of this College for his eminent services in the cause of his country and to this Society. . . . 

The college had never conferred a degree outside of its regular summer commencement. It had never awarded an honorary degree to a man who hadn’t graduated from any college yet. Harvard’s treasurer, John Hancock, was away in Philadelphia at the time.

But this was Gen. Washington, and he had just successfully completed the siege of Boston. He had had also managed to leave the college campus, used by the Continental Army as barracks, reasonably intact.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper was a member of the Harvard corporation that conferred that degree, and his diary reveals the scramble to deliver it:

3. Went with Mrs. C. to Watertown. Corporation and Overseer’s Meeting there. Din’d at Mrs. [Dorothy] Coolidges [tavern] with College Gentlemen, went p. m. to Waltham with Mrs. C. who din’d at D[eacon Samuel]. Fisk’s. slept at Mr. [Jonas?] Clark’s. Horse there on my Hay.

4. Thursday. We din’d at home; Sign’d Diploma for Genl. Washington’s Doctorate of Laws. went to Cambridg p. m. to wait on him and take Leave; found him set out for Boston, and f’m thence to N. York, slept and H. at Mr. Clark’s, on his Hay.

That suggests that the Harvard dignitaries arrived at the general’s Cambridge headquarters too late to catch him. If a group of college officials chased after Washington to deliver the diploma, Cooper wasn’t among them.

That formal certificate did get to Washington one way or another, and it remained in his papers. Here’s an image from the Library of Congress (with the webpage stating the wrong date for the document). The honorary degree was also reported in several American newspapers over the following weeks.

Becoming Most Wanted

This month brings a new picture book about Samuel Adams and John Hancock: Most Wanted, written by Sarah Jane Marsh and illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham.

That same team previously created Thomas Paine and the Dangerous Word. Fotheringham also illustrated Those Rebels, John and Tom, written by Barbara Kerley.

All these books are in the genre called “picture book biography,” which introduces kids in the early elementary-school grades to notable figures. The mode emphasizes lively storytelling and historical accuracy—which can be at odds, especially when subjects’ lives were not well detailed. (There’s ongoing debate in the field about just how accurate every detail must be.)

I’m highlighting Most Wanted: The Revolutionary Partnership of John Hancock and Samuel Adams because back in 2018 I had the pleasure of fact-checking the manuscript for the publisher. I’ve worked in publishing and even written for kids myself, so I can mix my nitpicky remarks about interpreting historical sources with some some realism about what’s feasible in a children’s book.

For instance, how to explain the Stamp Act in a picture book when it took me years to grasp it myself? And when a picture-book page contains one small paragraph of text? Most Wanted takes the editorial-cartoon approach, with Marsh explaining (in 35 words!) the purpose and scope of the law and Fotheringham sketching a giant sheet of stamped paper falling onto the colonists’ heads. Hancock’s comments on the law appear in italics to underscore how those words are documented to be his.

In fact, we checked all the quotes in the book. Marsh provided detailed source notes, and I dug further. Then a few months later I reviewed Fotheringham’s sketches and queries because he was just as concerned about depicting Hancock’s coach, wardrobe, natural hair, and other details correctly.

Most Wanted covers Adams and Hancock from the formation of their political partnership in the mid-1760s to their arrival at the Second Continental Congress ten years later. It describes the Stamp Act, the Liberty riot, the Massacre, and the Tea Party. But the climax of the book, taking up about a quarter of its 80 pages, is the drama of April 1775, as Hancock and Adams hole up in the parsonage at Lexington only to learn about redcoats marching their way. It’s therefore quite an appropriate book to share with young readers this month.

“A TRAGEDY (Not acted here these seventy-eight years)”

On 1 Feb 1770, a curious notice appeared in the Boston Chronicle, the twice-weekly newspaper published by Scottish immigrants John Mein and John Fleeming.

It read:

Intended speedily to be acted
By a Company of young Tragedians,
A TRAGEDY
(Not acted here these seventy-eight years,)
called the
W I T C H E S,
With many Alterations and Improvements.

The scenery, decorations, &c. for the exhibition to be entirely new, and supplied by Messieurs J——n, L——, B——d and Company.

N.B. Notice will be given for the Rehersal, by ringing of the Town bells, when the Actors are desired to meet at FUNNY-HALL.—But as the young Gentlemen have lately been interrupted at some of their Rehearsals by the intrusion of Improper persons, it is desired that NONE but such as are to be REAL Actors will attend, and that NO ONE will presume to go behind the scenes without a TICKET from the Managers.

The names of the Managers, to whom Gentlemen may apply, with the Dramatis Personae, will be in a future Advertisement.

This announcement was fake news, which is one reason I’m discussing it on 1 April. But the item also carried a serious political message that genteel Boston readers of the day would have recognized immediately.

The item used phrasing for theatrical entertainments that often appeared in newspapers from outside New England. Since theater was illegal in Massachusetts, right away this ad had an edge.

The title of the putative play, “the WITCHES,” and the reference to “seventy-eight years” ago were a clear allusion to the witch trials of 1792, an embarrassing episode in Massachusetts history.

The gentlemen said to be furnishing the sets, “Messieurs J——n, L——, B——d and Company,” were William Jackson, Theophilus Lillie, John Bernard, and the other shopkeepers defying the non-importation committee that winter.

“Funny Hall” was clearly a disdainful reference to Faneuil Hall, seat of the town government. The “Town bells” referred to the customary way of gathering a crowd—either to fight a fire or, as this item hints, to start a riot.

In sum, this item in the form of a theatrical advertisement was satirizing the town’s non-importation committee and its attempts to put pressure on the merchants who were refusing to cooperate. The last line, promising to name the managers of this enterprise, echoed how the Boston Chronicle published a lot of embarrassing and insulting material about the Whigs in 1769.

When I first read this item, I interpreted the “company of young Tragedians” as a reference to the schoolboy picketers outside importers’ shops. But it actually appeared a week before the first picket line was reported at Jackson’s Sign of the Brazen Head.

It seems unlikely that Mein and Fleeming were privy to the Whigs’ plans for those picket lines. And I read the evidence to say the schoolboys’ participation developed over time and was largely self-directed. That means the “young Tragedians” referred to the crowd meeting at Faneuil Hall in January—which would have gotten the Whigs even angrier.

“A number of Soldiers with their Baggage landed”

On Monday, 12 Mar 1770, Bostonians assembled for a town meeting to elect officers for the coming year and transact other business.

In fact, there was so much other business that that meeting kept going by adjournment for over two weeks, with sessions starting:

• Monday, 12 March, 3:00 P.M.
• Tuesday, 13 March, 9:00 P.M. [sic]
• Friday, 16 March, 9:00 A.M.
• Monday, 19 March, 9:00 A.M.
• Monday, 26 March, 9:00 A.M.
• [intervening meeting to tidy up some items]
• Tuesday, 27 March, 4:00 P.M.

At that last session there were only three agenda items: putting off all other concerns until May, thanking the moderators, and complaining about troops in Boston. Soldiers were back! Well, some of them:

The Town having been informed by several Persons that a number of Soldiers with their Baggage landed Yesterday at Wheelwrights Wharff—one Gentleman supposing that there was not less than Sixty Men—Voted, that
Mr. William Mollineux
Joshua Henshaw Esq.
Joseph Jackson Esq.
Mr. Jonathan Mason
Ezekiel Goldthwait Esq.
be a Committee to make enquiry from time to time, whether any more Troops came up from Castle Island than they think necessary, and if they shall find it to be otherwise, that they then immediately acquaint the Selectmen in order for their calling a Meeting of the Inhabitants

In fact, Henshaw, Jackson, and Mason were selectmen. Molineux was the Whigs’ leader on resistance to the troops, and also manager of properties on Wheelwright’s Wharf that the army had rented. Goldthwait (1710-1782) was Suffolk County registrar of deeds, having served Boston as town clerk, as selectman, and otherwise. (It’s striking I haven’t mentioned him before, only his young namesake who died from a fireworks injury. Here’s registrar Goldthwait as painted by John S. Copley.)

I rather doubt “Sixty Men” came over from Castle William all at once on 26 March, but there might well have been dozens. In her new book The Boston Massacre: A Family History, Serena Zabin discusses this moment in the context of the soldiers’ families who came to Boston and were left behind when the regiments were moved to the Castle.

The army soon stopped renting buildings for barracks, which meant some of those families would lose their homes, perhaps at the end of the month. In other cases, the wives and children were living in quarters they rented themselves. There appears to have been a scramble for new places to live. That might have been why so many soldiers came into town.

Some women ended up squatting in a building with no fireplaces. The wives of two of the soldiers jailed for the Massacre, Pvts. Edward Montgomery and James Hartigan, stayed behind in Boston while most of the 29th was sent south. We know about those vivid details because of Boston’s custom of “warning out” strangers so they wouldn’t become legal burdens. A few actually did end up in the poorhouse, but most managed to join their husbands or support themselves, which meant they didn’t reappear on town records.

To hear more about The Boston Massacre: A Family History, check out this video of Serena Zabin’s talk at the beginning of this month at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Capt. Preston and the Town of Boston

On Monday, 12 Mar 1770, one week after the Boston Massacre, the Boston Gazette ran this letter:

Boston-Goal, Monday, 12th March, 1770.

Messieurs Edes & Gill,

PERMIT me thro’ the Channel of your paper, to return my Thanks in the most publick Manner to the Inhabitants in general of this Town—who throwing aside all Party and Prejudice, have with the utmost Humanity and Freedom stept forth Advocates for Truth, in Defence of my injured Innocence, in the late unhappy Affair that happened on Monday Night last: And to assure them, that I shall ever have the highest Sense of the Justice they have done me, which will be ever gratefully remembered, by

Their most obliged and most obedient humble Servant,

THOMAS PRESTON.

Preston was of course the army captain jailed after the Massacre.

In the initial coroners’ inquests and newspaper reports, some witnesses declared that they hadn’t seen Preston give a clear order to his men to fire, or that many other people in the crush on King Street were yelling the word “Fire!” Some added that Preston definitely stopped the soldiers from firing a second time by knocking their muskets up.

Other witnesses, to be sure, said that they had heard and seen Preston give the order to fire. The prints soon to be published by Henry Pelham and Paul Revere depict that. The legal case against Preston was based on that testimony.

By writing this letter, Preston sought to keep the first group of witnesses on his side, to ensure the populace understood his guilt was not clear, and perhaps to break down the stark division between army and civilians. By running the letter, printers Edes and Gill were pleased to show how Preston recognized Boston as a fair-minded town.

Hovering over Preston’s head was the historical memory of John Porteous, a captain of the Edinburgh City Guard who was convicted in 1736 of ordering soldiers to fire at a riotous crowd, killing several people. When it became clear that the royal government planned to reprieve him, a local mob broke into the jail and lynched Porteous, as depicted above.

Preston of course didn’t want that to happen to him. The Boston Whigs didn’t want that to happen, either. They wanted to show the rest of the British Empire that their town was peaceful and law-abiding when not flooded with troops. Providing Preston with a fair trial was the way to do that. The captain’s public thanks to “the Inhabitants in general of this Town” seemed to endorse their position.

The Whigs didn’t know that two days later Preston completed a much longer piece of writing, eventually published under the title of the “CASE of Capt. Thomas Preston of the 29th Regiment.”

It portrayed Boston in a very different light:

IT is Matter of too great Notoriety to need any Proofs, that the Arrival of his Majesty’s Troops in Boston was extremely obnoxious to it’s Inhabitants. They have ever used all Means in their Power to weaken the Regiments, and to bring them into Contempt, by promoting and aiding Desertions, and with Impunity, even where there has been the clearest Evidence of the Fact, and by grossly and falsly propagating Untruths concerning them.

On the Arrival of the 64th & 65th, their Ardour seemingly began to abate; it being too expensive to buy off so many; and Attempts of that Kind rendered too dangerous from the Numbers.—But the same Spirit revived immediately on it’s being known that those Regiments were ordered for Halifax, and hath ever since their Departure been breaking out with greater Violence.

After their Embarkation, one of their Justices, not thoroughly acquainted with the People and their Intentions, on the Trial of the 14th Regiment, openly and publicly, in the Hearing of great Numbers of People, and from the Seat of Justice, declared, “that the Soldiers must now take Care of themselves, nor trust too much to their Arms, for they were but a Handful; that the Inhabitants carried Weapons concealed under their Cloaths, and would destroy them in a Moment if they pleased.”

Lt. Alexander Ross reported hearing justice of the peace Richard Dana give such a warning.

This, considering the malicious Temper of the People, was an alarming Circumstance to the Soldiery. Since which several Disputes have happened between the Towns-People and Soldiers of both Regiments, the former being encouraged thereto by the Countenance of even some of the Magistrates, and by the Protection of all the Party against Government. . . .

The Insolence, as well as utter Hatred of the Inhabitants to the Troops, increased daily; insomuch, that Monday and Tuesday, the 5th and 6th instant, were privately agreed on for a general Engagement; in Consequence of which several of the Militia came from the Country, armed to join their Friends, menacing to destroy any who should oppose them. This Plan has since been discovered.

Preston thus suggested a conspiracy theory to rival the Whigs’ suspicions about the Customs Commissioners with a whiff of treason stirred in.

The “Case” the captain was making appears to be for a royal pardon to rescue him and his men from an unjust death sentence in a hostile province:

And this must be the fate of all the unhappy Soldiers confined with me. In short with such Jurors and Witnesses we have nothing better to expect than to be sacrifyc’d as a terror to all others who would oppose the people, however wrong. . . . The Commanding Officer with the Officers of both the two Corps and every other dispassionate man here have approved of my conduct and hope it will also deserve the attention of His Majesty.

Capt. Preston’s essay was one of the documents that Customs Commissioner John Robinson was carrying to Britain in late March 1770, 250 years ago. Convinced by Preston’s letter that he felt locals were treating him fairly, the Boston Whigs had no idea of his range of feelings about their town.

“Cutting a plate of the late Murder”

On 26 Mar 1770, the Boston Gazette ran this advertisment:

To be Sold by EDES and GILL
(Price Eight Pence Lawful Money)
A PRINT containing a Representation
of the late horrid Massacre in King-Street.

The same ad appeared that evening in the Fleet brothers’ Boston Evening-Post.

That picture of the Boston Massacre was made by Paul Revere. It showed a British army officer ordering his soldiers all to shoot into a recoiling crowd. Men lay dead on the ground, their wounds blood red in the painted versions. The Customs House behind the soldiers was labeled “Butchers Hall.”

Ironically, this picture went on sale on the same day the Boston town meeting voted not to distribute the Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre lest that sway potential jurors’ minds.

This image is probably Revere’s most famous production, but it’s not at all typical of his artwork. He rarely came up with such a complex composition with people and buildings lined up in careful perspective. So how had he managed that this time?

The Boston Gazette advertisement caught the attention of twenty-one-year-old Henry Pelham, half-brother of the painter John Singleton Copley and an aspiring artist himself. On Thursday, 29 March, 250 years ago today, Pelham addressed an angry note to Revere:

Sir,

When I heard that you were cutting a plate of the late Murder, I thought it impossible, as I knew you was not capable of doing it unless you coppied it from mine and as I thought I had entrusted it in the hands of a person who had more regard to the dictates of Honour and Justice than to take the undue advantage you have done of the confidence and Trust I reposed in you.

But I find I was mistaken, and after being at the great Trouble and Expence of making a design paying for paper, printing &c, find myself in the most ungenerous Manner deprived, not only of any proposed Advantage, but even of the expence I have been at, as truly as if you had plundered me on the highway.

If you are insensible of the Dishonour you have brought on yourself by this Act, the World will not be so. However, I leave you to reflect upon and consider of one of the most dishonorable Actions you could well be guilty of.

H. Pelham.

P S. I send by the Bearer the Prints I borrowed of you. My Mother desired you would send the hinges and part of the press, that you had from her.

Pelham had been working on his own engraving of the Massacre, headlined “The Fruits of Arbitrary Power.” It reflected the same anger at the shooting that his older half-brother showed on 6 March when he went to the town meeting to complain about a soldier’s threat.

Revere’s print was almost identical to Pelham’s. The small differences included slightly wonkier perspective, the removal of a church spire, and that “Butchers Hall” sign.

Pelham had the decorative painter Daniel Rea, Jr., (1743-1803) printing 575 copies of his engraving. Along with “12 Quire of Paper,” that left the young artist owing Rea £5.9s.

There was no copyright law in colonial America. If an engraver went to all the trouble to carve a copy of someone else’s design, he could sell those prints. Pelham couldn’t object to Revere copying one of his published prints, but he obviously thought the silversmith had taken advantage of a drawing or early proof he’d cordially shared and then beaten him to market.

Revere and his Whig colleagues appear to have mollified the young artist. On Monday, 2 April, a new ad appeared in the Boston Gazette:

To be Sold by EDES and GILL,
and T. and J. Fleet,
(Price Eight Pence)
The Fruits of Arbitrary Power,
an Original Print, representing the last horrid Massacre in King Street, taken from the Spot.

A similar ad appeared in the Boston Evening-Post. The next week’s Gazette advertised Pelham’s print again. There was no second ad for Revere’s print. The town’s most radical printers thus helped Pelham earn back his investment. Revere’s accounts showed he continued to do business with the Copley and Pelham family over the next few years.

Curiously, there are more copies of Revere’s Massacre in collections today than Pelham’s. Did Revere make a lot more than 575 copies? Did that one-week edge in the market bring much wider distribution? Or did Revere’s fame in the late 1800s mean more people preserved copies of the print with his name?

Designing this image was the height of Henry Pelham’s Whiggism. His family was Anglican to begin with, which made him more apt to side with the royal government. Then Copley married a daughter of tea importer Richard Clarke, beleaguered in the weeks leading up to the Tea Party.

By the outbreak of the war in 1775, Pelham was so angry and suspicious about the Patriot cause that he feared a mob would attack another half-brother, Charles Pelham, in Newton. Henry Pelham left Boston with the British army in 1776 and settled in Ireland.