Boston from Massacre to Revolution

Sons of Liberty, Massacre, Tea Party, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Siege of Boston, Evacuation

That Revolution, being a conflict of principle, had its origin more remote even than the planting of the New England colonies. The seed germinated when the sun of the Reformation warmed the cold soil of society in Europe, over which the clouds of ignorance had so long brooded; and its blossoms were unfolded when the Puritans of England and the Huguenots of France boldly asserted, in the presence of kingly power, the grand postulate of freedom – the SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EQUALITY OF THE RACE. These two sections of independent thinkers brought the vigorous plant to America – the Puritans to New England, the Huguenots to the Carolinas. The Covenanters of Scotland, and other dissenting communities, watered it during the reigns of the Charleses and the bigot James II.; and when the tactics of British oppression had changed from religious persecution to commercial and political tyranny, it had grown a sturdy tree, firmly rooted in a genial soil, and overshadowing a prosperous people with its beautiful foliage. The fruit of that tree was the American Revolution – the fruit which still forms the nutriment that gives life and vigor to our free institutions. (Lossing)

“Resistance to something was the law of New England nature” – Henry Adams

“There is the most perfect harmony in the government of this province” Gov Francis Bernard on his arrival in MA 1760 “

Smuggling … “an honorable profession”

1690 Charter – “Royal Boston”

Latter half of 17th century: could still make a brisk livelihood from sea/still most lucrative of colonial ports in shipbuilding, cod fishing and seaborne commerce/ distilleries

1750 Rum and smuggling of slaves; trades: shipbuilding, chaises, leather, meatpacking, furniture, axes, hats, etc.

1760 PA 23,750/NYC 18,000/Boston 15,361

King George III:
Proclamation Acts preventing Americans from crossing Appalachian Mts (fur trade0
Currency Act
Sugar Act
“Grenville Acts”

lobsterbacks = Redcoats = because of haughty disdain to locals

“in smoke-filled backrooms of local taverns and coffee houses gathered together over punch, wine , pip and tobacco, biscuit etc…”caucus members gathered to make sure that certain persons” were selected as town members.

Clubs and Associations
Loyal Nine, Merchants Club, The Body of the People

Between General Court and Town Meeting=
British Coffee House on King Street
Bunch of Grapes, south side of King Street
Green Dragon, less well-to-do

1720 Tea, says OWH…but small use before
1760-65 Cast iron tea kettles “when ladies went to visiting parties, each one carried her tea cup, saucer and spoon: – didn’t persist for long

Conflicting interests between town and province
John Adams, John Hancock, Josiah Quincy = Braintree
James Otis = Barnstable
Joseph Warren = Roxbury

Boston Gazette – Benjamin Edes “When the Stamp Act was passed, I replaced the sign of the King on the front page of the newspaper with a skull and crossbones. My paper speaks for the Patriot cause every day. I even allow Sam Adams, James Otis and the rest of the Sons of Liberty to hold meetings in my print shop.”
“The tax on tea may only be three pence right now, but what’s stopping the King from raising it to four pence? Four pounds? Ten pounds? Without a representative in parliament, these taxes will continue to go up!” (Old South c 2000)

John Adams, cousin of Samuel
“working the political engine”
“threatening their livelihood and depriving them of their traditional liberties”
“A greater alarm among Boston citizens than the taking of Fort William in 1757”

Sugar Act: feared that it would destroy sugar and molasses trade with West Indies
Mobs stoned and looted homes of Oliver, Hallowell and Hutchinson
“Sons of Liberty”
“Daughter of Liberty”
“Liberty Tea”
Stamp Act Congress
1766 Repeal of Stamp Act – one of John Hancock’s ships brought the news – celebration
“Liberty Tree”

1760 George III accession: stubborn, limited intellect, paranoiac. He regarded colonials as insolent and disrespectful.

“Despite the zealous attempts at enforcing the Molasses Act (1733) by British patrols along the coast Boston smugglers with the help of every dodge that Yankee cunning could invent swept merrily on to the French West Indies. Cargoes were landed in the dead of night at isolated coves and then hauled to Boston by horse and team. Two third of molasses to Boston in 1760 was contraband; by 1761, it was three quarters.

1760 798 coastwise voyages
1760 five pounds = price of passage from Boston to London

Hancock, Revere, Keayne, Boylston, Otis – spiritual home was Old North Church, political rallying center, Old South Meeting House, edifice of Law, State House; social gathering place, Boston Common, shopping center, a public market place donated by Peter Faneuil.

Term “caucus” said to have sprung from the gatherings of “calkers” in the famous old public houses of the North End

North End of Washington Street = newspaper houses
12-2 Chalk items on boards
Creek Square = Stoddard Dock
Liberty Square = Oliver’s Dock”
Rowe’s Wharf = circular line = Barricado x 300 feet
“forestalling”
Long Wharf – well half-way down x 40 feet below sea bottom
1774 Town Dock – stench x 1770 fix it…but revolution delayed work
Scottow’s Dock

1763 Boston x 1.5 million gallons of rum

1765 First annual anti-Catholic “Pope’s Day” celebrated (first public Catholic mass in 1788)
BS D72 …In order to do away with the old custom of Guy Fawkes, and the riots which were sure to ensue between the North Enders and South Enders he gave a superb banquet at an expense of $1000. The famous Green Dragon Tavern was the scene and the leading members of both factions were invited. In a pacific speech addressed to his guests, he besought them to discontinue their dangerous celebrations, so harmful to the public peace.

BSN: Liberty Tree – “There was a grove of beautiful elms in Hanover Square – name then given to the corner of Orange (Washington) St and Auchmunty’s Lane (Essex) Opposite the SW corner of Frog Lane (Boylston Street) there was an old house with manifold gables, and two massive chimneys. In its front yard stood a large spreading elm. Meeting place of the Sons of Liberty. Garrett Bourne set tree out (1635) near his home. A century later the house became a tavern – the meeting place of the SOL.

BSN: Boston Gazette, Jan 2 1775: “To be sold by public auction, on Thursday next, at ten o’clock in the forenoon, all the Household furniture belonging to the Estate of the Rev. Mr. Morehead, deceased, consisting of tables, chairs etc…Also a likely Negro Lad – the sale to be the house in Auchmuty’s Lane (Essex St.) not far from Liberty Tree.”

(BIBL Dealings with the Dead by Lucius Manlius Sergeant re Liberty Tree cutting down chs 41 and 42)

BIBL BS G212 Moore’s diary of the American Revolution, a unique history from clippings in 27 newspapers.

1764 Sugar Act – homes raided
1765 Stamp Act Boycotts. “import no more goods from England”

1767 Townshend Duties; Boston merchants lead boycott on British
imports until they are repealed

1768 Rioting on Boston docks causes Britain to send soldiers to protect
customs officers

1768, June John Hancock’s sloop Liberty arrived from Madeira loaded with wine. As she was lying at Hancock’s Wharf, Thomas Kirk the tidewaiter came on board, and was followed by Captain John Marshall, who commanded Hancock’s ship, the London Packet, with five or six others. These persons confined Kirk below until they had removed the wine from the ship, of which no entry was made at the Custom’s House. The next morning, the master of the sloop entered, it is said, a few pipes of wine, and made oath it was all he brought. It was resolved to seize the vessel, and Joseph Harrison, collector, and Benjamin Hallowell, comptroller, repaired to the wharf and affixed “the broad arrow.” Apprehensive of the mob which had collected on the wharf, the sloop was moored under the guns of the Romney frigate.

The exasperated people now turned upon the officers, and beat and maltreated them so that Mr. Harrison was for some time confined to his bed, while his son, Richard Acklom, who was not present in any official capacity, was very roughly used. Hallowell and Irving, inspectors, fared no better. The mob broke the windows of Mr. John Williams, inspector-general, and also those of Mr. Hallowell’s house, and finished by dragging the collector’s boat back to the Common, where they burnt every fragment of it. The revenue officers retired after this affair to the castle, where they remained until the arrival of the troops in October.
On the 4th of July, ominous day to British rule, the 38th regiment landed at Hancock’s Wharf, and marched to the Common and encamped. When the British retreated from the town, they scuttled a new ship of 300 tons then lying at the wharf, and left behind about 3,000 bushels of salt and 3,000 blankets. (D)

1769 Dartmouth College moves to Hanover, N.H.

1768 Townsend duties create new boycott.
1768 Oct Two regiments from Northern Island, brought 4,000 redcoats – in town of 18,000

1770 State House in 1770 was defended by soldiers of the 29th Regiment of foot, an ill-disciplined and unpleasant bunch that the colonists resented having garrisoned among them. They were also largely of Irish and Scottish descent. Did the five victims of the massacre and their friends that Bloody Monday feel like “Americans” when they approached the State House to taunt the soldiers? Or more like English colonials who believed that their English rights were being abrogated by soldiers with whom they felt no affinity – soldiers who were only there because the English back home wouldn’t have them in their own towns?

Fortunately, the Massacre Exhibition’s director, Steven Hill, was there to confirm my suspicions: “American textbooks, until 15 years ago, were saying that we beat the British, but these people were defending their English rights. This wasn’t an American issue – what happened later on was entirely separate.”
High Life, British Airways Magazine, February 1999.

1770, March 5 explosion – outside Custom House on King Street 3 dead, 8 wounded and two died a short time later. Trial. John Adams defense: “upholding the English common law tradition of trial by jury, the patriot lawyers saved lives of those responsible for the Boston massacre.”
Very day that Lord North moved to repeal the Townsend Acts, except duty on Tea
1773 Tea Act to save the British East India Company from bankruptcy.
Tea Ships – Dartmouth to Griffin Wharf, Nov 28, 1773; Eleanor, December 2, Beagle Dec 7. Old South Meeting House, December 16. 50 Bostonians dressed as Mohawk Indians

Coercive Acts: single out Boston as the culprit and move to destroy the political and economic leadership of Boston
Quartering Act/Intolerable Acts/Quebec Act ( a good law in bad company) = rights of Roman Catholic Church in Canada and Ohio Valley

The Old Revolutionaries….as much anti-papist as opposition to tax laws and the closure of the port of Boston

1774 June 1 Boston Harbor sealed off by blockade, Thomas Gage
Pop of 16,000 down to 6000
“unmanageable” – Gage
1774, Sept Philadelphia Continental Congress

1775, April 18 Gage to Concord
Old North Church – one or two lanterns: One if troops marched south to Dorchester and Braintree// Two if toward Charles heading for Cambridge
To Lechmere : Two lanterns: William Dawes and Paul Revere set out. see Revere letter, January 1, 1798 to Corresponding Secretary of the Mass Historical Society re his ride.
AM Lexington Green: the first shots in the American War of Independence – 8 dead and 10 wounded
Concord + back to Boston with 300 casualties
1775, May Washington appointed Commander in Chief of the colonial forces at that time camped around Boston
1775 June Howe landed force at Charlestown and overran colonial positions
Bunker Hill three assaults x two repulsed
1775-1776 Winter was severely cold in British occupied Boston

1776 Jan: Captain Henry Knox, a Boston bookseller arrived with a number of heavy cannons he had dragged through the snowdrifts all the way from Fort Ticonderoga, NY

Dorchester Heights
125 warships and transports in the harbor
1776 Mar evacuation of 9,000 men of the garrison and 1,100 loyalists to Halifax
1776 March 17, Washington’s troops marched into Boston – siege, occupation and plunder had defaced the town
Depression – loss of ships, shipyards etc.

BSN:
Hamilton Place….should be remembered for the exploits of Elijah Brown, the one man army who defeated the British in 1770
In 1718, the town erected in Hamilton PL a large building for the manufacture of linen. The venture was not successful and after various other lines of manufacture were tried out the building was rented for occupancy by private families. In 1770 it was occupied by Elisha Brown.
Colonel Dalrymple of the 14th Royal regulars commandeered the building as a barracks but Brown refused to move.
Sheriff Greenleaf and a band of deputies attempted to force an entrance and finally gained admission to the cellar. They were promptly locked in by the doughty Brown and remained prisoners until they were rescued the next day by a file of soldiers. Brown endured a siege for several days and the soldiers finally withdrew and were quartered in Faneuil Hall.
His grave says…”in October 1769 during 17 days inspired with a generous zeal for the laws bravely and successfully opposed a whole British regiment in their violent attempt to force him from his legal hesitation.”

The Boston Mob strove to repeal the Stamp Act by putting fear into the lives of those who were to administer and enforce the law.
“A crew of bullies, loud, rough even drunk”
Mob almost under military discipline (?)
Mackintosh paraded the town with a mob of 2,000 men in two files and passed the Statehouse where the General Court Assembly was sitting to display his power If a whisper was heard among his followers, the holding up of his finger silenced it in a moment.”

1770 British troops fight Boston laborers; Boston Massacre
March 5, 1770 leaders with blackened faces…Crispus Attucks etc.
BS R1 192 “Attucks was a stranger in Boston and was taken for Johnson mistakenly, The Inquest before filing was indorsed “Johnson, alias Attucks” The body before the verdict was legally filed was identified as Attucks. A week after the massacre in The Boston Gazette, no mention of Johnson. On the contrary the Gazette enumerates “A mulatto man named Crispus Attucks, who was born in Framingham but lately belonged to New Providence, and was here in order to go for North Carolina

BS U116 “Attucks…He was a slave, the owner of his body being a William Brown of Framingham. He ran away from his master in September 1750. The latter advertised for his property in Boston Gazette of Oct 2: “he was 27 years old, 6 ft 2 in, short curled hair, knees nearer together than common.” A reward of L10 was offered the person who captured him..”

BS E 168 “Inquest of Michael Johnson, alias Crispus Attucks….6th day of March …before Robert Pierpont, gentlemen, one of the coroners… body of Michael Johnson. was willfully and feloniously murdered at King Street on the evening of the 5th, between the hours of nine and ten, by the discharge of a musket or muskets loaded with bullets, two of which were shot through his body…
“Attucks or Johnson was a renegade half-breed, an adventurous sort of fellow, a sea faring man, who merely happened to be in Boston at the time, and it is quite possible that the both the names Attucks and Johnson were aliases.

Boston Massacre – Story that church bells were heard ringing…A warning of “Fire!” – To which soldiers responded by shooting
“…for years before this violence had become commonplace in the city”

1770 Harvard stops ranking its entering students according to the social prominence of their fathers Ethan Allen forms Green Mountain Boys to protect Vermont from New York control

1772 First Committee of Correspondence organized in Boston by Samuel Adams; Rhode Island residents board the British ship Gaspee, setting it on fire in Narragansett Bay
BS E77 “…following is a list of the members of the famous North End caucus held on March 23, 1772 at the Salutation Tavern kept by William Campbell. It stood at the corner of Salutation Alley and North Street….Samuel Adams, John Adams, Paul Revere.etc.

1773 Townshend Acts. – Mediterranean and African trades dropping to a low point – ONLY 13 ENTRIES AND 13 CLEARANCES

Tax on tea to sustain the near-bankrupt East India Company

Boston Tea Party 1773 = Smuggling of Dutch Tea x 1773 East India Company permitted to export directly from India x Tea party = merchant reaction
1773, Dec 16 Tea ships Boston Harbor

Boston Tea Party – Benjamin Ede’s house at 74 Washington Street (Punch Bowl from Ede in MHS) + Faneuil Hall to Old South Meeting House ..but by design some to Edes and Gill printing offices in little Dassett alley off Court Street – “Mohawks” – others at houses and taverns – pre-arranged signal.. Samuel Adams “This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.” “Down to the wharf!” – Identities largely kept secret.

BS E88 letter…Tea Party…Over thirty years ago I was told by Mr. Joseph Lovering that he as a boy held the light for them to disguise themselves; that he personally accompanied my ancestor Col John Crane to the place of meeting and that he John Crane was in disguise, and that there were 17 in all. (Mr. Drake says there were other persons). During the destruction of the tea John Crane being in the hold of one of the ships was knocked senseless by a tea chest which fell on him. He was left for dead but recovered and did active service, succeeded Major General Knox as colonel of the MA artillery

BS F64 Tea Party….House at corner of Hollis and Tremont, where a squad of citizens disguised themselves as Indians… room with its great chimney…old Bradlee House, Nathaniel, his three brothers, David, Thomas and Josiah, and their sister Sarah. ..There was the pail of red ochre the horse hair plumes and feathers that lent to their grim visages a savage aspect,
When they reappeared, they left a trail of gunpowder, young hyson and other tea leaves after them. A kettle of hot water was steaming in the fireplace but in their haste they left traces of red paint behind many an ear. Suddenly there came a heavy knock at the door, and such a quiet scampering there was up the back stairs. Mr. Bradlee, when she did open the door was confronted with an indignant Britisher who insisted upon making a thorough search of the place. As many of the reformed Indians as could not get into the closets threw themselves into bed and adopted the ruse of sleep

Hamlin: “Few realized that they were destroying the foundations of their prosperity”
Years of smuggling in defiance of royal officials
Winthrop “Look out to the West Indies for a trade” -- 1791-1815 destruction of the triangular trade

BSN: Tea Party site was at the corner of Pearl and Atlantic Ave. a site now about ½ mile inland. When the new highway covered this spot the table was moved to the Statler Building at 470 Atlantic Ave nearly a mile from the true site

1774 Boston Port Bill = seaborne commerce came to a standstill – Marblehead declared the major Massachusetts’s port

1774 Enslaved Africans in Massachusetts petition Britain for freedom; Rhode Island prohibits the importation of slaves; New Hampshire militia at Portsmouth captures first British military post to be seized by Americans

1775 Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion; battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill; Ethan Allen and Green Mountain Boys of Vermont take Fort Ticonderoga; Benedict Arnold leads the Kennebec Expedition from Augusta to Quebec; British fleet destroys Portland, Me.; New England Non Resistance Society forms; out migration from Massachusetts begins, to continue into the 19th century, first to northern New England, later to New York and Ohio

Thomas Gage: column of infantry under Major John Pitcairn to Boston to capture colonial stores at Concord.

BSN: Lexington April 19, 1775. Capt Parker: If they mean to have a war, let it begin here.

Revere, William Dawes, Samuel Prescott “One by land, two if by sea”
Paul Revere’s ride: William Dawes – “Dawes and Prescott” contrived to alert the countryside…The history books never mentioned the name of Revere until after his death, 50 years after the event. Longfellow’s poem written in 1863 changed history – written in propaganda effort to inspire northerners to enlist

Revere was then 40, and the distance he rode before being capture has been recorded as “12 and 86/88th” miles. -- Though some say Sparky, Brown Beauty, the name of the Larkin horse in unknown.” Stan Isaacs, History’s Mystery Horse, Newsday March 6 1993.

BS L64 William Dawes (who died in 1802)… descendant = Hellanddamnation Dawes = Charles Dawes = “spirited remarks before the Congressional Investigating Committee in January 1920?

BS L 52 Christ Church in Salem Street was known and called the North Church before the Revolution. It is now called the Old North because it is the last of the three North Churches, viz the Old North or Second Church, the New North and the North or Christ Church… It was not customary then to call houses of the Lord churches but meeting houses.

Lexington – several Americans killed
Concord – 200 British casualties x first battle of the American revolution

“The road to Concord: a road along which the history of America was created, a road that launched American freedom, a road that marked the beginning of American literature.”
Boston Siege by patriots

The English had determined as early as June 16 to take Dorchester Heights – they knew then, as well as our army did, that these heights commanded the harbor…Through Mrs. Gage or somebody this determination was known immediately in Cambridge, and it was this which precipitated the American attack on Bunker Hill.

Gage to seize the heights of Dorchester and Charlestown
1775, June 17 Battle of Bunker Hill
Colonists ran out of gunpowder
Bunker’s Hill – named by George Bunker, the owner – June 16, 1775 fortified Breed’s Hill – ? perhaps stolen maps that identified all three of Charlestown’s hills as Bunker’s – or from out of town and ignorant. But military historians say that Breed’s Hill was best of the three to defend. British losses 1,054 versus 441 patriots killed. Gen Thomas Gage fired = Lord Lexington, the Baron of Bunker Hill.”

BS G163 Bunker Hill: painting “pictures the moment when the British soldiers cast off their knapsacks made the last desperate charge against the crude breastworks of the colonists. Steadily the Redcoats advance in the face of a terrible fire, and the farmers under Prescott and Warren make a final rally. Warren stands fearlessly on the breastworks sword in hand, urging the colonists, while Prescott is seen through the smoke of battle with sword aloft steadying his men before the onrush of British soldiers.
A glare of lurid smoke on the right reflects the destruction of Charlestown and the man of war in the distance pours hot shot into the burning town. Beyond the smoke of battle, is the Old North Church on Salem Street. The red coats of the British soldiers make a strong color note against the variegated costumes of the colonists.”

BS T206 “Hannah Barney, the same young woman was afterward Aunt Fales, was visiting her brother Abiel Smith (on State Street)…Her sister Lydia said, “ Hannah we must make two gold petticoats and quilt a gold guinea in every square, You must wear one and I the other.” She laid on the table a bag of gold. “In that way we can pass through the British lines on the Neck and get into the country with all this gold.”

BS R 307 “ Isaac Gardner, who fell at Lexington, from Brookline farm – granddaughter recalled that “her mother was five years old at the time, and distinctly remembered how her mother and sisters as well as all the other women in Brookline worked at making cartridges and she wondered why none of the family could eat dinner as for the last time they sat at the table with the beloved father. When he put on his uniform and had kissed them all, he said “Farewell!” and his wife said “Oh, don’t say that word!” He was going out of the door but at that he turned and went to her and kissed her again without a word, and she never saw him again.”

BOSTON SIEGE

1775 Boston “a town of despair” – all her privileges as a seaport annulled; her warehouses emptied; her ships and workers idle; her foreign trade thwarted – 11 month’s siege

A sort of “civil war” in Boston

Quaker Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense smuggled into the city
“government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

1776 Thomas Paine's Common Sense sells nearly half a million copies; John Adams, Thoughts on Government, Abigail Adams asks John to "remember the ladies" at the Continental Congress; New Hampshire first state to declare itself independent of Great Britain, 6 months before the Declaration of Independence; Nathan Hale, of Connecticut, hanged by British in New York; British evacuate Boston; first 13 stripe flag raised over Prospect Hill in
Somerville, Mass.; Rhode Island is first colony formally to renounce all allegiance to King George III

BS M49 “Hawthorne’s story about ball at Province House during the latter part of the Siege…ragged Washington and his soldiers – laughter had barely died down when Sir William Howe and his aids were startled to hear the beat of a funeral march… a melancholy procession, each man dressed t represent the governor going to his doom. and Howe himself.” True or fiction?

BS Everett Hale: article on Siege…Major Wemyss, an English officer who served under Gage said of him: “Lt. Gen Gage, a commander in chief of moderate abilities, but altogether deficient in military knowledge. Timid and undecided in every emergency, he was very unfit to command at a time of resistance, and approaching rebellion to the mother country. He was governed by his wife (An American lady, one of the Kembles of New Jersey), a handsome American; her brothers and relations held all the staff appointments in the army and were, with less abilities, as weak characters as himself. To the great joy of the army he went back to England soon after the disastrous attack on Bunker Hill.”
In Burgoyne’s memoirs, it is distinctly charged that the secrets of Gage’s plans slipped out, through his wife, to the Americans. It is certain that they slipped through somehow.

Acting as a soldier, Washington would probably have fired the town. The expediency of such a step was discussed by Congress which always met in secret. On Dec 22 Congress resolved “that if General Washington and his council of war should be of the opinion that a successful attack be made on the troops in Boston, he do it in any manner he may think expedient, notwithstanding the town and property in it may be destroyed.” Hancock… “May God crown your attempt with success. I most heartily wish it, though I may be the greatest sufferer.”

Wemyss on Howe: It was soon discovered that however fit to command a corps of grenadiers he was unequal to the duties of a commander in chief, which his misconduct on almost all occasions, particularly at the beginning of the war, Long Island, White Plains and Trenton shows. His manners were sullen and ungracious, with a dislike of business and a propensity to pleasure. His staff officers were in general below mediocrity; with some of whom and a few field officers he past most of his time in conviviality.”

Burgoyne says mournfully that they saw the very sheep taken from the islands under their eyes; the spirited expeditions of Groton, Putnam and other officers of he American army.

BSN: Brattle Square Church dated back to 1699. Fourth Congregational. Wooden church, never painted inside or out. Brick building built 1772 and used for 100 years. Struck by cannon ball on night before the evacuation of Boston. Ball embedded in place where it struck. Church demolished in 1874.
Brattle Square was a favorite rendezvous of British officers during the siege. Gov Gage lived across the street from the church. The quarrel which ended in the Massacre began in Brattle Square.
Officers of the 29th regiment lodged with Mrs. Apthorp whose house was near the church on grounds later covered by Quincy House. John Adams and his infant son JQA lived in Brattle Square in 1768. Sq. was starting place for most of the stages.

BS B82 Cannonball found in South End at the Cathedral Housing Project. A 24 pounder five and a half inch in diameter…believed to have been dumped by the British when they were evacuating Boston… Soule/Roxbury History Society: believes it was Redcoat ball….if so it lends firm evidence to the supposition that in their haste to clear out from under Washington’s menacing field pieces on Dorchester Heights, dumped their ammo in time-honored military fashion …No doubt that the British did have gun emplacements in that territory. Old history books say that they lobbed some cannon balls clear up to Eliot Square hill in Roxbury…He also declared that Washington had a battery on Nook’s Hill, from where they were supposed to have lobbed a few big pounders at the entrenched British,…The smallest part of the old neck..(Workmen discovered pilings that were part of old wharves, And tons of clam and oyster shells, We dug the cannon ball up near the corner of Brookline and Washington streets.

BS U96 When Lord Percy marched out of Boston on the 19th of April 1775, to reinforce Lt Col Smith, nothing was played by the fifes and drums but Yankee Doodle. This tune was played when Colonel Nesbit tarred and feathered a countryman in Boston, and paraded him through the streets with his troops under arms, and with fixed bayonets, and was played in derision of the “rebels.” When Lord Percy returned to the Boston, one asked how he liked the tune now? For Percy, like the rest of the red coats did justice to his heels on this memorable day. “Damn them,” said he “they made us dance it till we were tired.”

BS G 33 Poison…unpublished memoirs of Thomas Pemberton: Dr John Warren, on April 9 1776, a brother of Joseph…after evacuation visited the hospital at the workhouse on Park Street. Inspected some medicine left behind:
“They consisted chiefly of the kinds mostly in demand. I observed small quantities of what I supposed was white and yellow arsenic intermixed, and then received information from Dr. Daniel Scott that he had taken a large quantity of said arsenic from amongst the medicines. I viewed and judged it to be 14 to 16 pounds.
The genial and kindly old diarist adds:
This circumstance of poison being found mixed and scattered among the medicines left by the British, occasions suspicions derogatory to the humanity of America’s enemies. The discovery of it probably saved thousands of lives.”

BSN: State House Lion and Unicorn taken down and burned in 1775. Later replaced in copper. Irish objected. Appealed to first Irish mayor Sullivan. Showed his Irish wit and tact: “Boys take another look, by God, they’ve turned green already.”

Islands George and Annabella (?) captured by patriots

1776 March 17 British withdrawal + several hundred Tories and a large part Boston’s wealth

Loyalists:
Sharp rail – tar and feathered loyalist?
Loyalists to Bahamas which had a spectacular growth esp. cotton
Exodus likened to flight of the Huguenots in 17th century France
1/6 Harvard grads were loyalists and emigrated
Thomas Hutchinson, Lt. Gov, a descendant of Ann

John Singleton Copley –artist – to London
BSN: John Singleton Copley, born in Boston of Irish parents in 1737. Married Susannah Farnum. Copley’s maternal grandmother was a descendant of Mary Chilton who came in the Mayflower. Copley’s son of the same name became Lord Lyndhurst, three times chancellor of the British Exchequer. Copley often called the American Van Dyke.
Painted Hancock, Adams and scores of other patriots. A natural genius. Began to draw on the walls of his nursery. Self taught. Learned to paint by painting. It came to be as much a matter for course for a rich man to have his wife and daughter painted by Copley as to send his son to Harvard.
Nearly 300 paintings during the 20 years in America. Bought over 11 acres on Beacon Hill for less than $100 acre. Bounded by Walnut-Beacon-Mt Vernon-Pinckney and the Charles River. His house was where the Somerset Club stands.
Copley was in England during the Rev. and at the close of the war he was at work on a portrait of Elkanah Watson. The background of the picture showed a ship about to depart from its wharf. He left his work to attend meeting of parliament where George III declared the US to be free and independent. Copley returned to his studio and painted the Stars and Stripes at the masthead of the ship. This was, doubtless, the first American flag hoisted in England.

1783 Tories x united Empire Loyalists
Loyalist refugees and final parting scenes on Long Island – Halifax The Woman in Scarlet
(Long and Deer and Hog Island + John Nelson x Andros
Nelson was a relative of Thomas Temple, Deer Island, descended of Lady Godiva
“Nelson Island”
Nelson – Andros/Long Island/Voyage x French/Quebec/Bastille/20 years – returned to a hero’s welcome. – 7 parts x 4 parts bought up by Robert Temple.)

REVOLUTIONARY WAR

Privateers: “365 vessels were commissioned during the revolution and in some cases fortunes were made.”
By 1777 Boston privateers roamed the coast from British provinces in the North to the West Indies in the south, had crossed the ocean and plundered British vessels on the coasts of Spain, France and England.

1780 As late as this year, Boston continued to feel distress …there was nothing to export, import credit was strained, prices rising continually. While cost of outfitting a privateer was great, chances of success had become slight strongly convoyed British craft could not be taken and Boston losses were heavy…local merchants kept vessels abroad where they harassed British commerce on coasts of Spain, France and England

1783, summer – One of the last exploits of Boston privateers. Five Boston merchants joined in an expedition and attacked Luneberg, Nova Scotia:
The town had paid dearly for having commenced the Revolution. Pestilence, privation and military occupation had reduced her population. Trade, commerce and industry had been destroyed. Privateering had succeeded only in establishing a class of nouveau riches who, in the hungriest days of the war, conducted themselves with a degree of ostentation never before seen, while the destitute of the almshouses went without bread.”

BS Ev: Those taken prisoner of war when they were cruising in American privateers were kept at Forton prison in England, and a very hard time they had of it until Franklin was at last able to arrange that they should be exchanged for prisoners taken by Jones and others from English ships. Capt Lee of Marblehead spent eighteen months here…
One day he was called to door by a man of military air who pressed 75 guineas into his hand…and said that before night he should buy dress of one of the prison workmen and when the relief came round he must be in an out of way place and fall in with the relief at twilight and pass out of prison.. “ But to go out of the whole enclosure you will need a countersign of the day.. and so he whispered to him the countersign. Lee asked who he was indebted to but the stranger would not tell…Succeeded…In street, he met stranger who put him in a coach and to seaport where he could take ship for France

The mysterious stranger was no less than Gen Burgoyne. While at Cambridge he had been under charge of Col Lee who was Lee’s brother. When Burgoyne was exchanged, he promised Col Lee that he would render any service in his power to the captive at Forton, Col Lee had entrusted to him the 75 guineas delivered and it was he who had whispered the countersign.

BSN: 1778 Chevalier Saint Sauveur, an officer on a French ship which had come to aid us during the Revolution, killed while attempting to stop a street brawl. Fearing international complications and as a gesture of goodwill, the House of Rep voted to erect this memorial with a parade and all fitting ceremonies.
Then it was discovered that St Sauveur was a Catholic. At that time any Catholic service was forbidden by law in Boston – with heavy fines and imprisonment for anyone who took part.
So, a Catholic Mass – complete with bell, book and candle was held at midnight in the cellar of King’s Chapel. It was not deemed expedient to erect the monument or have a parade at that time.” -- In 1917 when the Irish Catholics were very much in control of Boston, Mayor Curley resurrected the old vote and had it carried out to the letter – parade, monument and speakers all compete as planned 139 years before.

1782 Medical school – Harvard
1785 First bridge across a broad, deep river in America from North End to Charlestown (1662 first major bridge Boston to Cambridge – wooden drawbridge? = present Lars Anderson Bridge)

BS 1/12/2000 -- Allison. Robert, Suffolk U:

MA towns had more power than any other in the British empire.
1747 Pivotal moment = Royal Navy x war between England and France x “Press Gangs” – refused landing in Boston. Mob surrounded the State House. Governor Shirley deferred to them. No press gang ever impressed sailors in Boston.

Ebenezer Macintosh x mob leader x shoemaker.
Shoemakers played a vital role in the political process …listened and communicated.
“Tavern” in south end of Boston = Chase and Speakman’s Distillery, near Liberty Tree = corner of Essex and Washington Streets.
Nov 5 = Pope’s Day x cart with effigy of Pope hauled through streets x people put lights in their windows or show support – or else! Rocks through un-illuminated windows. Mob stopped at taverns on the way. Similar mob coming from the North End, Clashed. Who wins the Pope? Victor carried the effigy and burned on the Common.
In 1750s, a boy was killed during Pope’s Day. Macintosh indicted, tried and found not guilty.
1765, Aug 14 Stamp Act protest x Andrew Oliver x warehouse destroyed x tossed off wharf into water. Oliver’s effigy hoisted upon tree outside Tavern.
Hutchinson house ransacked. Threw out mss of history he was writing and cut out eyes in his portrait.
Isaac Barre – English Parliament – first to use term “Sons of Liberty”
Aug 14 replaced Pope’s day.
No ethic or demographic differences then between North End and South End.

Samuel Adams – Never “Sam” – 5th in Harvard Class = social ranking rather than academic position.
Samuel ran five family businesses into the ground. Politics and Power rather than businesses.
Newspaper
“caucus club” x John Adams x “flip and smoke”
political clubs chose members to represent them at town meetings = precursor of ward boss system

1773 “the crucial year”
1773, Jan 6, Hutchinson opens session “instructs the assembly on their proper role in the British Empire: x moves assembly to Cambridge
Samuel Adams “clerk of assembly” – “parliament is not supreme in Massachusetts, the voters are.”
1773 slaves petition
“Committee of Correspondence” – beginning a network among colonies x frequent town meetings and “correspondence” with Boston
“not as high-minded as quest for liberty by as response to threat to personal liberty and safety.

BS - 1/12/2000 -- Jane Triber
1768 John Rowe diary.. “dinner to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act
800 young men and negroes – street protest – condemned by men like Rowe
“middling class” (Revere) as opposed to the “bully boys” of the waterfront
Revere called himself a “master goldsmith” through his specialty was silver work
Class differences 1) men like Hancock and Adams x Boston Latin x Harvard and 2) Revere and middling class of master craftsmen etc
Salutation Inn in North End
Revere “beefy, brawny firearms” – pound silver – “fingernails short and dirty” – “not a gentleman” “A men with French name doesn’t do well in Boston” x French and English wars etc.
NB difference between master/journeyman/labor L85 pa x L40/5 x L30
Income and cultural outlook
For the mob Stamp Act meant unemployment/debtor’s prison etc.
1763…on eve of crisis things looked good for Revere
16 children
1763 English war debt x Lord Grenville
1764 Sugar Act affected merchants with trickle down effect
1765 stamp Act – tax on everyday items…tavern, newspaper, bill of sale etc.
1765 Revere saw fortune slipping
NB Revere punchbowl at MFA
Political threat x “slavery”
Colonial coinage = anything that circulated. People wanted paper money.
1765 Loyal Nine
Aug 14 = Macintosh x Oliver = “house attacked” “stripped trees and drank wine”
Macintosh eclipsed by Revere and later landed in Debtor’s Prison
“Seven women shopkeepers signed the non-importation agreements”
Townshend Acts to collect taxes to pay Royal Officials as opposed to the colonists paying them.
1768 New Importation Acts

William Dawes wedding reported in Boston Gazette noted that he and his wife were dressed in local made clothes
Song : “ To the ladies…”

1767 Fall Four regiments of soldiers based in Boston
Soldiers allowed to work part-time when off duty x took work from local laborers x one of the causes of friction x Boston Massacre

Teenage Boys in mobs x Picket Shops
Hillsborough Paint – piss and excrement
Lilly’s Shop
Ebenezer Richardson, a revenue spy x connection to 1920s revenue cutters

Death of 11-year old Christopher Snyder or Syder
1300 schoolboys at the funeral
1770 March 2 and 3 William Green, road-builder x confrontation with soldier re work offer to clean his outhouse x Fight between road workers and soldiers
1770 March 5, 6.30 to 9.00 x 1 foot of snow
Among the massacre dead = Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr, an Irish immigrant + Gray, one of the men involved in the clash between the road-workers and soldiers
Revere pix – note dig in foreground

1770-1773 = The Quiet Years
Now kept annual vigil on anniversary of the Massacre
Revere = illuminated exhibition at his windows
Snyder’s “pale ghost” x massacre “foul play” x Young woman representing America over prostrate soldier
1774 Revere and 20 refuse to serve under Chief Justice Oliver.
Day after T party – Revere traveled to New York with the News
“Drunk Billy” Dawes – ruse to get past Boston Neck

JOHN HANCOCK

BSD70 ….A newspaper writer of the period who describes Hancock as appearing in public with all the pageantry and state of an Oriental prince; he rides in an elegant chariot which was taken in a prize to the Civil Usage pirate vessel, and by the owners presented to him. The picture of the four servants dressed in superb livery, and mounted on horses richly caparisoned, who attended him and his escort of 50 horsemen with drawn sabers sketched by the same writer…
There was a lack of simplicity about the man which has helped to belittle him in the eyes of historical writers, who in their disparagement of his showy characteristics have been led to undervalue his solid merits. The fact that King Hancock was the sobriquet which he received during life, and that he was a constant butt for Tory wits, has blinded some of these critics to the value of his services to the country and to the higher qualities of his character.

I think Boston may take pride in the self-sacrificing spirit with which Hancock met the proposal as to the best way of driving the British from the city. “Burn Boston and make John Hancock a beggar if the public good requires it,” was his patriotic utterance, and although the mode of expression was grandiloquent, it had the same stamp of earnestness and sincerity as his letter to Washington, who had been authorized by Congress to destroy Boston if it should be necessary: he said that although probably the largest property owner in the city, he was anxious that this should be done if it would benefit the cause.

BS D71 The question has often been asked how a man with Mr. Hancock’s ideas of pomp became such a favorite of the people, and the reason is not difficult to discover. Beneath the show and glitter they saw the true man. He kept thoroughly in touch with the people. He consorted with them at all their meetings, advising, counseling, contributing. They also went to his house. All secrets were confided in him and the grand occupant of the mansion on Beacon Hill was kept informed of everything transpiring, whether at the North End, the wharves of the South End. He was a born leader of men and the people recognized the fact, and it made not the slightest difference to them whether he had ridden out with twelve horses instead of four or six. None feared and hated him more than the British officials, especially the Royal Governor Hutchinson, some of whose statements regarding Hancock are full of envy and exaggeration. They regarded him as a king and the first orders from abroad were to seize him with Messrs Adams and Cushing and send him to England to be tried.
“As for their king, John Hancock
And Adams, if they’re taken,
Their heads for signs shall hang up high
Upon that hill called Beacon.”
Mr. Hancock is one of the most remarkable instances ever known of a man of great fortune, great capacity as a man of affairs, being a leader in a revolution of the people.

1782 BS D32 Familiar Letters on Public Characters – “At this time , about noon, Hancock was dressed in a red velvet cap, within which was one of fine linen. The latter was turned up over the lower edge of the velvet, two or three times. He wore a blue damask gown lined with silk; a white stock; a white satin embroidered waistcoat; black satin small clothes, white silk stockings and red morocco slippers. At this time he was about 45.” IN State House…a crimson velvet body coat, blue satin waistcoat, embroidered with gold, and drab silk trunks.”

BSN: Hancock: Mrs. Mercy Warren, favorite sister of James Otis wrote: Mr. Hancock was a young gentleman of fortune, of more external accomplishments than real ability. He was polite in manners, easy in address, affable, civil and liberal.
With these accomplishments, he was capricious sanguine and implacable; naturally generous, he was profuse in expense; he scattered largesse without discretion, and purchased favors by the waste of wealth, until he reached the ultimatum of his wishes, which centered in the focus of popular applause. He enlisted early in the cause of his country, at the instigation of some gentlemen of penetration, who thought his ample fortune might give consideration while his fickleness could not endure, so long as he was under the influence of men of superior judgment. They complimented him by nomination to committees of importance till he plunged too deep to recede, and flattered by ideas of his own consequence, he had taken a decided part before the battle of Lexington, and was president of the provincial congress when that event took place.” On the other hand he had more to loose and less to gain than any other leader of the Revolution.

Declaration first signed by John Hancock of Boston. – so large, so unwavering was that original signature that the name John Hancock has become synonymous with the word signature
Hancock spent more than half a million inherited from his merchant uncle Thomas Hancock in less than a decade after revolution.
Clarke’s Wharf north side of Lewis Wharf
Self-proclaimed King of Boston Society… wore buttons of pure gold .. snubbed Washington who he felt had played a poor role as father of his country.
“Hancock told his servants to milk every cow on the Common regardless of ownership after he learned that his own cows did not give enough milk for his guests.”
Hancock arrested for driving a cab in and out of Boston between Sunday hours of midnight and sunset.
Hancock died in 1793…no will…everything including Hancock House torn down in 1863 for taxes, lost to posterity

SAMUEL ADAMS

“Samuel Adams = The Lenin of the American Revolution”
“Sparta City” Samuel Adams called Boston

BSN: Samuel Adams called “the master of the puppets” by Hutchinson. Some justification for the title. “One frequently detects in him a tendency to justify the means by the end which is not easy to square with simple honesty.”
Trembling hands and a weak voice due to paralytic affliction. Made friends with the common people, talked with them at their work and drank flip with them at their humble taverns.
At 21 he chose for his master’s thesis at Harvard: Whether it is lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot be otherwise preserved. He argued the affirmative.
He was so poor that when he went to the Continental Congress he had to be provided with money and proper clothing by his friends.
He talked very little for effect. Earnest writing and ceaseless doing were his concerns.
“While he superintended the birth of a nation there were often no shoes for his own children and often a scanty supply of food for the table.”
The men who attended the first Continental Congress from Boston were characterized by a Philadelphia newspaper thus: Four desperate adventurers. Mr. Cushing, harmless kind of man, but poor and wholly dependent on his popularity for his substance; Mr. Samuel Adams, a very artful designing man, but desperately poor and wholly dependent on his popularity with the lowest vulgar for his living; John Adams and Mr. Paine, two young lawyers of no great talents, reputation or weight.”

BS F 12 Sam Adams house…the abuses to which the homestead on Purchase Street of the Adams family had been subjected by the Tories and soldiers necessitated new quarters and after the declaration of peace in May 1784, the house on Winter Street was bought of John Bois.

It was a three story wooden house fronting on the street with an ell and in the rear a garden. It has been part of the estate of Sylvanus Gardiner, a loyalist. A substantial looking building built early in the 18th century and originally painted yellow, in its later days it had taken on the dingy and weather-beaten appearance. Its front door ornamented by a large brass knocker, was surmounted over its arched entrance by a bow window. A single step gave entrance to the broad entry, from which heavily-capped banisters led to the upper stories. On the ground floor with their windows descending to within two feet of the ground were parlors, one of which was used by Mr. Adams, The parlor was spacious, having a large fire place with its huge brass endirons and its surrounding blue tiles. One the walls were paintings of Mr. and Mrs. Adams and pictures of eminent Americans. The thoroughfare which is now known as Winter Street had formerly been known as Blotts Lane and Bannisters lane, and at the early part of the century the houses on the same side of the street were similar to Mr. Adams’ except a few shops, one a barber that stood next to Mr. Adams’ residence and between it and Tremont.
On pleasant days in his declining years, his erect figure a little above medium height, in tie wig cocked hat, buckled shoes knee breeches and red cloak would be seen in front of his house, …as when on the inauguration of Gov Caleb Strong, the chief executive paused with his suite and with uncovered head paid his respects to his revered predecessor.
(1803,Oct 2, Sam Adams died.)

REVERE

BS B7 Although Longfellow represents Revere as starting out from Charlestown only when he saw the lanterns hung out, it is well known that he started first from the Boston side and took his orders from Dr. Warren, whose house stood on Hanover Street, on the site now occupied by the American House (?1894). From here he probably started down Hanover Street turning into Salem Street, for next place at which we hear of him is at the house of Robert Newman, the sexton of Christ church, who was man who hung the lanterns in the steeple. The house stood on Salem Street opposite North Bennett street. Revere had some difficulty in getting the news to the sexton and some British officers were quartered in the house, but he finally succeeded in doing so and proceeded on his way, which now lay down Hanover street again to the house of Joshua Bentley, at its foot about opposite where Constitution wharf is now.

It was Bentley, who with a friend was to row Revere across to Charlestown and the men passed through Hull Street over the hill by the burying ground to the place where Bentley kept his boat., which was where the coal sheds of the gas house are now. There are several stories of delays which occurred at this point. One is that they found they had nothing with which to muffle the oars, and so borrowed for the purpose a petticoat from a loyal lady, but as the house at which this is supposed to have occurred stood at the corner of North and North Center streets, a long distance from the wharf, the story seems hardly likely. Another story is that Revere found he had forgotten his spurs and sent his dog back for them, although why he should have taken the dog on so dangerous a mission is hard to understand.
In spite of the danger of detection from the British man of war Somerset which was just below them, they must have slanted down in crossing the river for the place at which they landed was at what is now Pier 5 at the Hoosac Tunnel docks. It was here that Revere mounted on Dean Larkin’s black horse and the ride proper began.

The line followed was over Main Street, then a country lane. Just beyond was what was Charlestown Neck, he turned to the left through Sullivan Square and along Cambridge Street. To use his own words: “When I cane to the place where Mark wads hung in chains I saw two British officers under a tree.” This was on Cambridge Street, near the present Somerville line, probably just beyond the line of the Boston and Maine railroad.

It was his original intention to go out through Cambridge but on seeing this danger he turned his horse back toward the Neck and pushed across to the Medford Road, probably reaching it at the about the bottom of the hill, and thus eluding the two officers. From here to Medford his route was that followed by the cars of the West End road. Longfellow makes it 12 o’clock that he rode over the bridge but it could not have been more than half-eleven for he reached Lexington soon after 12. Medford was the first place where he aroused anyone, and from there to Lexington he awakened the inmates of almost every house on the road.

From Medford Square the route leads along High Street through West Medford to Arlington…At Arlington Square it joins the route by which the British marched to and from Lexington. Over Arlington Heights to Lexington

BS U19 Ad from Boston Gazette of Nov 14 1768: “Whereas many persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore-Teeth by accident, and others to their great detriment, not only in looks, but speaking both in public and private: this is to inform all such that they may have then replaced with artificial ones, that look as well as the natural and answers the end of speaking to all intents – by Paul Revere, Goldsmith, near the head of Clarke’s Wharf, Boston.
“All persons who have had false teeth fixt by Mr. John Baker, Surgeon-Dentist, and they have got loose ( as they will in time) may have them fastened by the above, who learnt the method of fixing them from Mr. Baker.”

BS N54 “Prof Jarvis Morse of Brown U says that Revere “in the excitement of warning sleeping farmers that the British are coming spread the alarm too soon. If Revere had not ridden so fast on the night of April 18-19 there would have been twice as many patriots in Lexington Green,,, The alarm brought some 130 volunteers together about midnight, but as nothing happened, nearly half of them grew tired of waiting. Some went home, others retired to Buckman’s tavern to bolster their courage with a shot of grog, When the Brits finally arrived about sunrise, only 70 left.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

BS B15 Washington (address by Rev Robert Collyer, 1883) : “Washington fell in love before he was fifteen. It was supposed the maiden can no more be identified than Junius. I remember coming to the conclusion that this must have been a mistake and there was no such love or maiden, because if there had been she would have told that other maiden, her one dear friend, and then we should all have known by this time also. I have given up this theory. She did tell. The evidence is in black and white. Who was it? That’s my secret…HE wrote poetry about her, very deplorable poetry indeed. What never seems to have occurred to him was that he had any time to dawdle about doing nothing or sowing his wild oats. He was a whole boy and I venture to say that when his youth was over, a whole man. The only presence so far in which his heart sank was the presence of pure maidens, and the only artillery he was afraid of was the glance in their eyes, and I love this blush and stammer in Washington, love to watch it and think of it as one of the most exquisite qualities in his early manhood.

“…Washington was not one of the men who inaugurated the Revolution and it is very doubtful whether there would have been one in that age if it had been left to men of Washington’s make to open the ball…Sam Adams…and there you have the roots and tap roots of the Revolution, In Sam Adams, of all men, you find the bit of fierce white fire for freedom which struck into the dry tinder and set the world afire…When the battle of Lexington was fought, Adams cried “What a glorious day!” but Washington wrote, “What a deplorable day!” And twenty days after Lexington, Washington joined with some other members of Congress in a humble and dutiful petition to the King, which John (??) Adams denounced as an imbecile measure. God put Adams in the front and Washington in the center. Each was a predestinated man for the place. Adams was a Puritan republican; Washington was a Virginia gentleman. This when you look at it is till more honorable to Washington. He was not a John the Baptist, this was not in the terms of predestination, His head was full of the hereditary loyalty to England.

No man in the Revolution, so far as I know, had to cut such cables of wealth and friendship for the good cause. The wealth would all be lost if the King succeeded in whipping the Colonies back into sub mission, and the friends must go with the first crash and pride of a loyal house. A man with no inbred liking for revolution in his nature, but shrinking from t with a touch of dismay – this man comes forward and casts all he has and all he is into the scale trembling with the fortunes of the new republic.
We can never understand what a great true man he was until we get rid of the idea that he was a great general in the sense of winning battles. The first battle of moment was Long Island, HE lost it and had to give up New York. He lost Brandywine and Germantown, and he had to give up Philadelphia. It was not so much in his victories over the enemy as in his grand courage and patience under defeat that we trace his greatness, He strikes the keynote in a letter written from Valley Forge. “ I think our affairs are brought to this sore crisis that the hand of God may be the more clearly seen in our deliverance.

What I love above all things in Washington is his great sound, sound, loyal nature, passionate sometimes but never sullen, manful but never masterful, except when manhood and mastery are one and the same…The watchword of his life was duty, not ambition, not pleasure, not the praise of men, not ease, not quiet, not gain, but duty on the farm, in the wilderness, on the battlefield, in the camp, in the Senate and the central home of the nation, man, yeoman, gentleman, Colonel, General, President, and then resting until the agents came to call him home.

Continental Congress at insistence of Sam Adams selected George Washington as c-in-c of Continental Armed Forces

BSN “It was Julien who prepared and served the famous dinner to George Washington after the Revolution when John Hancock kept him waiting at the end of that street which has ever since borne his name.

Terry Vaughan NPS: On Massacre Walk;
“30,000 farmers” -- Sam Adams
John Adams – (Angelos store)
Gill and Edes – Court and Brattle
At Dock Square – Someone in a cloak inciting the crowd
Brattle Church/Murray’s Barracks/Cornhill
PO Square = Gray’s Ropewalk 740 feet

Notes: Nov 2002

November 5, 1769 x Guy Fawkes Day x Pope’s Day
North and South end rivalry x “Black Sabbath” of Pope’s Day
North End Pope taken but once, when their captain was wounded
South End = Captain McIntosh
“Joyce Jr.” Chairman of the committee for tarring and feathering
1765 first anti catholic Pope’s Day
1765 “Cudgel Boys”

1769 – famous banquet at Liberty Tree
“Sons of Violence” “Indian howlings”

“tooth shaker”

John Copley, b 1737 : I am now in as good a business as the poverty of this place will permit.
A STEELE painted by Copley

After massacre, March 5 became the most important commemoration date
Post 1783 = July 4

April 19, 1775 – Lexington

1760s everyone felt a crisis was coming.
Customs officers x writs of assistanace to forcibly enter dwellings, warehouses etc.
Customs collector c Charles Paxton
James Otis “with a tongue of flame and inspiration of a seer x four hour speech x “a man’s home is his castle.”
Otis “mad dictator of Boston
Insane by 1766
A youthful John Adams in Court to hear writs speech (1761)

No European town had been more divided than Boston before revoilution

Liberty Tree at Chase and Speakman’s distillery

1768 800 young men and negores…bully boys of the waterfront to men like Rowe and Revere
the middling classes

local made clothes

1770-1773 The Quiet Years
1770 Christopher Snyder x Seider x Syder died x 1300 to funeral

Sam Adams, the Lenin of the revolution…He was poor and nervous…while he superintended the birth of a nation, there were often no shoes for his own children and a scanty supply of food for his table.”
Desperately poor

Bentley and a friend row Revere across to Charlestown – ladies petticoat to muffle oars – Somerset

Sons of Liberty x secret signs x cockades ’45 referring to pamphlet by John Wilkes
John Pulling “a bully of the Mohawk tribe”

Joseph Warren
Thomas Revere, brother, “dressy”
John Boyle, Newsletter diarist “formerly a noted merchant, lately a noted miser, he has left a great estate to one of his illegitimate offspring”

August 1764, Thomas Hancock died…
King John “milch cow of the revolution”

Sam Adams, son of Deacon Adams, brewery which Sam ran into the ground..first interest was politics
First public office was as town scavenger, next tax collector
Adams wharf was fast disappearing intothe sea
John Adams was thriteen years younger than cousin Sam

After Peace of Paris, England was supreme but treasury exhaused…led to Townshend Acts
March 1763 x customs laws enforced x Grenville x Naval officers on coast empowered to enforce Navigation Acts
1765 Stamp Act

Hutchinson, a miserable sailor prone to all the tortures of sea-sickness.

Andrew Oliver – brother in law of Hutchinson was a stamp distributor
“a party of Boston mechanics called Sons of Liberty”
Aug 14, 1766 hung effigy of Oliver on old elm called Liberty Tree
Cortege for the dummies…

Captain McIntosh led the raid on Hutchinson house x sacked
“Whig leaders made a great pet of this gorilla, while repudiating his actions.”
Sam Adams was “mob master of Boston”-- “a certain attraction for humble people, but abysmal contempt for their ignorance.”

Conservative merchants sighing for the good old days and bully boys longing to plunder the houses of the rich

Salutation Inn – caucus room of the Whigs x Whigs of North South and Middle Boston
Salutation Alley and North street
Sam Adams in all three clubs

Angry William Molineaux, a “black Irishman.”

Benjamin Edes, printer of the Boston Gazette
Long Room in Dassett Alley

“high-handed outrage”

October 1766, 1st Congress held at New York

1st November Stamp Act came into force
“Liberty, Property and No Stamps”
Effigies of Grenville etc. hung at Neck
People refused to use stamped paper.No contracts etc.
Venerable Pitt denounced Stamp Act Great Commoner “I rejoice that America has resisted.”
Ben Franklin, then a colonial agent in England, went to the bar of Parliament.
February 1767, Stamp Act repealed in Commons
March in Lords – April/May news reached Boston – Obelisk on Commons decorated with lantersn

Townshend Acts – duty on glass, paper, paint, tea..Board of Customs at London charged with collection of all American revenue x writs of assistance x “Die is cast” x Sons of Liberty protest

Gage, NY, cic of royal forces in America.
Romney May 1768 x impressing sailors
June 1768, seizing of John Hancock’s Liberty
Daniel Malcolm, a leader of the protest
Otis x Faneuil Hall Convention
English regiments transferred from Halifax x two from Ireland to reinforce to regiments of artillery under Dalrymple
“popular assembly continues to avoid treason to the king”
Oct 8 – armed ships to wharves with cannon loaded
Regiments with fixed bayonets – march from Long Wharf to quarters on the Common and in Faneuil Hall

1768, Sept 30, ships of war arrived.
Meeting at Molineaux’s to decide on resistance:
Adams patience won out
“non-cooperation”
Barracks refused – to Common
Soldiers smelled…
Recaptured deserters shot at the foot of the Common
Negro regimental drummers carried out the lashings
Black Peg, a freed slave who kept with the soldiers

Regulars got little pay and would work for next to nothing, another source of friction with locals

Hated 29th Regiment Irish and Scots at State House

“Not an American issue – people were defending their English rights”

Sam Adams presents picture of an elderly patriot’s enormous sorrow on finding granddaughter in bed with a lobsterback
Royal Coffee House – Otis – brawl 1769 x fall
Rebel and tyrant
Patriot and tory

Death of Townshend x Lord North
“Boston in a state of disobedience to all law and government” – King GIII
Troops sent to bring rioters to justice
Lord North “to see America prostrate”

1769 first tar and feathering x Greyer x who gave info to the customs officials

1774 John Malcolm Johnny – Joyce Jr.

The Spy
Isaiah Thomas married to that slut Mary Dill, who consorted with English officers

1774 Orders to punish Boston for the T Party – The Lively – 1st June port closed

When Gage arrived, many still did not know whose side they were on

“reduced by tyranny to the status of Ireland”

sabotaging Gage’s supplies
A British deserter and Steele girl???

Henry Knox, bookseller…a disastrous duck-hunt and maimed hand

Revere to Christ Church to hang lanterns
Something happened in the street to cause Newman to leave over roofs etc.

May 1769 first general court after a year – protests to England and requests for removal of troops
Gov Francis Bernard “unfit” – left no friends behind in Boston, departure was occasion for rejoicing x guns from Mr. Hancock’s wharf x flags on liberty tree x bonfire on Fort Hill

Lt Governor Hutchinson succeeded Bernard

Non-importation boycott
North proposed duties removed from all but tea

Appeal to the world – Sam Adams

Smuggling was an honorable profession” since imposition of Molasses Act in 1733 cargoes discharged at isolated coves and taken to Boston ¾ contraband

Edes x stamp Act x replaced king’s seal with skull and crossbones

Troops presence a continual irritation
End of February…opening moves toward March 5 massacre…
Theophilus Little, merchant, continued to sell boycotted goods..mauled by mob x effigy

Boy shot and wounded (Schneider,Snyder)
Six classmates held pall
500 children in funeral procession
thirteen hundred people followed

Gray’s ropewalk x soldiers seeking work x quarrel
Soldiers challenged ropewalkers to a boxing match
Fought with sticks and cutlasses..wounds, but no one killed.

Monday, March 5, massacre
“to the main guard”

Henry Knox, father William, a shipmaster, b 1750 in Sea Street, opposite Drake’s wharf: “if you fire, you must die for it”
Married daughter of the royalist secretary of the province, Thomas Fluckner, who had vainly tried to prevent union
A year from day of marriage Knox slipped out of Boston to avoid Gage – his wife concealed his sword in her quilted skirts

Attucks, Maverick x five dead and six others badly wounded
Attucks “a conspicuous leder of the mob”
The drums beat to arms

March 5….the mysterious third crowd at Faneuil and man addressing them – “Mr Joyce Jr.”
Hutchinson: “Law should have its course”
Preston examined for three hours x bound over for trial
Faneuil Hall x committee of 15 to government x “Committee of Safety” x Adams, Cushing, Hancock”
So large a meeting moved to the Old South
“Both regiments or none”

March 8, funeral x granary x one grave
Trial in Oct/November x Robert Treat Paine for the prosecution x Auchmuty x Adams x Quincy for the defence
Preston and six soldies not guilty x two soldiers guilty of manslaughter, branded in hand in open court and discharged
Trial of William Wemms x killing of Crispus Attucks

Crispus Attucks x fictional female x Nixie Fly??
Attucks Framingham Born 47-year-old x ran away 1750 x 27
Went to New Providence
Was en route to North Carolina

Sam Adams = “Vindex”
Sam Adams could never be persuaded to mount a horse

“On that night, the formation of American indepndence laid” John Adams

September “martial law” in Boston
Castle handed over to Dalrymple – and stayed in British hands until the evacuation March 1776

1770 Hamilton Place x defence by Elisha Brown who defeated British who would oust him
1772 October : Committee of Correspondence x 21 persons

1773 East India Company – tea to America without paying usual duty in England
“tea commissioners”

1773 Nov-Dec tea issue x “Who knows how tea will mix with salt water” (Rowe)

1773 NY was calling Boston the “common sewer of America”
Opposition to Sam Adams and radical whigs
Competition via jealousy between colonies

Long Room Club – Edes printing house…Tea Party planned here x 140 people
Independence now openly advocated
Tea Act monopoly of tea consignees x Hutchinson sons x mistake..

Dec 16: Old South…”This meeting can do nothing more to save the country” Sam Adams

March 1774 x Boston Port Bill
May x Hutchinson recalled and Gage appointed royal governor
Long wharf landing and procession to State House for a loyal address
“not a man to reconcile or subdue”

Town paid dearly for having commenced the revolution—pestilence, privation and military occupation

“a tumultuous and riotous rabble”
1st June x blockade of the harbor
Marblehead and Salem
Regulation Acts abolished town meetings x not county meetings
August: “Boston suffers with dignity: Sam Adams
Boston occupied x four regiments on the common
“People are extremely violent and wrong-headed” Percy…”This is the most beautiful country I ever saw, and if the people were only like it, we should do well.”
“New council” afraid to g o to their homes
“Other party are arming and trayning”
Clubs x caucuses and conventions

Warren x house at Roxbury
19 Resolves

Freemasonry
Saint Andrews Lodge organized in 1756, got its charter in 1760
St John’s x Rowe, Otis, Channing

1774 Enslaved blacks petition MA for freedom – RI prohibits importation

Gage asked for more troops
Sept 1774 powder in old mill on road from Winter Hill to Arlington Brattle got this (?)
Seized powder belonging to the province and began fortification on the Neck
New fortifications were laughed at by old Louisburg veterans as mud walls

Oct 5, provincial congress at Concord 260 members from 200 towns with John Hancock as president and Benjamin Lincoln, secretary
Committee of Public Safety – convened provincial congress at Cambridge, Feb 1775 (?) delegates to new contin ental congress
“Resistance to Tyranny”

Minute men

Green Dragon Tavern copper dragon x green

Tories moving from country to town
“rebels, rioters and sowers of sedition”

1775/1776 severe winter
Gage tried to disarm and disperse militia x Jamaica Plain, Salem and Marshfield, failed.
April 18, 1775 x 800 grenadiers and light infantry withdrawn from the common – Cambridge and Lexington and Concord x April 19 – the retreat

Percy, 35..His band was playing Yankee Doodle
Mrs Gage, American born, one of the Kembles of NJ – “governed” her husband
Burgoyne’s memoirs charge that secrets slipped out via Mrs. Gage

“a club to observe Tories”

Someone fired from upper window in Buckman’s Tavern
Watching from Beacon Hill, the flashes of guns on Milk Row, the road from Cambridge to Charlestown

A Steele doctor who was a pupil of Warren

Prison ships in Boston Habror

Evacuees x some royalists in from the country
Lady Frankland
The Gentleman Volunteers x 200 loyalist corps under Ruggles
Loyal American Associates
Battle of Hog Island

Byles son to Halifax. Byles b 1707 South End Church Hollis/Orange
Governor Belcher had his “summer” house in the area
He wintered in Province House + summer too
1733 Byles ordained minister of Hollis Street
Louisburg Square battery

The three bow-wows = Clinton, Howe and Burgoyne

Bunker Hill: “Wait till you see the whites of their eyes”
E 224 dead including 157 officers, 830 wounded
A 150 dead and 270 wounded and 30 prisoners
Carts with wounded men, blood dripping onto pavement

20,000 hungry people 6577 civilians and 13,500 troops
Deserters executed at bottom of Common
Punishment of 800 to 1000 lashes!!
North End was center and hotbed of patriot movement
Gentlemen and ladies of royalty cause took possession of houses of patriots
Aristocratic boarding houses
Liberty Tree Cut down
A beuatiful carved pew from Old South used as pigsty
Lovell of the Latin school sent to jail as a spy – his father decamped as a loyalist
Daughters of Byles x loyalists to the end
Promenading on the Common
Balls at Province House

English determined as early as June 16 to occupy Dorechester Heights which commanded harbor,
Through Mrs Gage (or somebody else)…news to Cambridge and this precipitated an attack

11months siege

July 3, Washington takes command of patriot army
1775 Washington forbade Poe’s Night

Hot summer
privateers

Battle of Hog Island

Oct 1775 Gage recalled x Howe takes over

Winifred McOwen x 100 lashes for killing town bull and selling beef.

Faneuil Hall theater…Zara, Voltaire x Burgoyne wrote prologue and epilogue
Female parts by Boston ladies

When Dorchester Heights was occupied x decision to evacuate town
Knox had gone to Ticonderoga for cannon

Watertown was capital for over a year
March 17 Howe left
78 vessels
Crean Brush x NY Irishman x Minerva x linens and woollens

French fleet 1778
Post siege piety
“Church is grand theater”

18 July 1776 Indep declaration read at Boston

American prisoners at Forton

Poison left behind x arsenic found in Park St Workhouse which was used as a hospital
Hancock x pageantry of an Oriental prince x 50 horsemen with sabres drawn

Names : Watt X Isanna

5000 to 6000 Boston men died in the French and Indian wars

1792—Steele’s Russia trade?
1773 – Codfish
1837 Broad Street – 1845 famine.
By 1800 Boston reached unprecedented prosperity.

Massacre x Zobel:

Boston population 1765 –15,520 in 1,676 houses

Chapter Outline notes

1768

Caleb Trane b 1704 x 64
Jethro b 1733 x 35 REVERE and SAM ADAMS
Nelly b 1737 x 31 = woman shopkeeper
Loyal b 1758 x 10

Milo Lynch b 1746 x Smuggler x Bully boy of the waterfront

Emory Steele b 1717 x 54 HANCOCK
Will Steele b 1753 x 15
“Bess” Hart b 1755 x 13

Edmund b 1717 x 51 LOYALIST/ Province House
Sarah b 1736 “slut” x Spy for Whigs x Adams

Capable Johnson, b 1714 x 64

Nixie Fly b 1727 x 41
Son x Deems Steele x 1745 x 23 = Richard“Dick” Fly x Dick Fly, Jr. b 1785
X Pedro Coelho x 1750 = Azor Fly b 1756 x 12 and Sally Fly b 1758
X 1765 Michael Johnson aka Crispus Attucks = Junius Fly b 1766 x Willy Fly b 1785
(Dick and Willie x Constitution 1803 Tripoli x African Meeting House 1805 x old enough for Anthony Burns incident)
(Junius on Columbia to Canton?)
*****

1768 Crispus Attucks x NIXIE FLY x Junius b 1766?
“a freebooting mulatoo adventurer”
Attucks born 1723 x ran away in 1750 at 27
Wapikicho x 1670 x Nipmuc girl =
Son b 1672 x Nipmuc girl x 1700 =
Nipmuc girl x 1722 x African slave = Crispus b 1723 =
Grandson of Wapikicho
X Nixie Fly

1768, June Liberty x Hancock x Daniel Malcolm x collector’s boat to Common x MILO LYNCH
MILO LYNCH and Ebenezer McIntosh x shoemaker
MILO = “Joyce Jr.” = “Cudgel Boys”
The Mob
A liberty boy
“genius of the people”

Steele’s Wharf? Swan
Customs x corruption x hated custims commissioners
Chronicle and Tory Jacobites
“locusts”
MILO LYNCH x fisherman/smuggler x tied to the Steeles
“a cargo of Madeira wine landed at night x no customs”

CALEB x Appolos Revoire x d. 1754/ JETHRO x Paul Revere

“800 young men and Negroes” x Liberty Tree
Liberty Tree to Faneuil Hall x 5/8th mile

LOYAL TRANE x Dame’s School x picket shops of non-boycotters x “Hillsborough Paint”
WILL STEELE, schoolboy x friend

Training Day

1768, July
Lighting the Beacon pre-troop arrivals
Regiments land at Long Wharf x Boston under virtual military occupation x 4000 troops in city of 16,000. Regiments from Northern Island
“Jonathans” = New Englanders x Yankee Doodle

MILO LYNCH at Manufactory in Hamiliton Place x Elijah Brown x 17 day stand off re quartering issue
The manufactory x “outcasts of the workhouse and scum of the town”
“banditti” of NE

EMORY STEELE x selectman
Sits for John Copley portrait
Emory x one acre at Fort Hill (Purchase Street) x opposite Captain Samuel Adams malt house, father

Tar and feathering
Romney impressment

Sale of a likely negro lad at Orange and Auchmuty Lane
Went aboard a ship in the bay to buy a small slave girl at £2 a pound

Paul Revere x Intelligence System x SARAH STEELE

Threat of sezing 50 tradicals and sending them to England for trial

1770 Killing of Christopher Seider x 11-year-old

The Funeral

Mar 5 Massacre x Knox into x WILL STEELE at 17 x MILO LYNCH
Dock Square x A tall man wearing a white wig and a red coat

Crispus Attucks x 1750 ran away x “A Man who called himself Michael Johnson” x mulatto x Indian/Negro x NIXIE FLY
Black Peg x freed slaves x English soldiers

Debtor’s Jail? A TRANE?

1773, December Tea Party x JETHRO TRANE
WILL STONE x Harvard x a student of Dr. Warren
MILO x tea in pockets

1774 Blockade
Slaves petition MA for freedom
Mum Bett x Elizabeth Freeman

1775, April x Lexington/Concorde/Retreat to Boston

1775, June x Bunker Hill WILL STEELE x MILO LYNCH

1775/6 Siege CALEB x KNOX to Ticonderaga for guns x Dorchester Heights

EMORY (or/and MILO?) – The Defiance captured at sea x Forton Prison, England

EDMUND x Province House x customs informer?
Arrogant ruling class
Wife SARAH x information to rebels
SARAH x Burgoyne x Faneuil Hall play

1776 March 17, Evacuation Day EDMUND x Halifax…SARAH?