APRIL MEETING, 1921
A Stated Meeting of the Society was held, at the invitation of Mr. Henry Herbert Edes, at No. 62 Buckingham Street, Cambridge, on Wednesday, 27 April, 1921, at eight o’clock in the evening, the President, Fred Norris Robinson, Ph.D., in the chair.
The Records of the last Stated Meeting were read and approved.
The President appointed the following Committees in anticipation of the Annual Meeting:
To nominate candidates for the several offices, — Messrs. M. A. De Wolfe Howe, Morris Gray, and Percival Merritt.
To examine the Treasurer’s Accounts, — Messrs. John Eliot Thayer and John Lowell.
Mr. William Bradford Homer Dowse of Sherborn was elected a Resident Member.
Mr. Harold Murdock read the following paper:
EARL PERCY’S RETREAT TO BOSTON ON THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL, 1775
The Battle of the 19th of April, 1775, may be divided into three distinct periods. The first has to do with the night march of Colonel Smith’s detachment of Grenadiers and Light Infantry and culminates at daybreak on Lexington Common, where the troops in pursuance of orders to surround and disarm the fleeing minutemen delivered an unauthorized and fatal fire. The second period carries us to Concord and back to Lexington and includes the skirmish at the North Bridge, the destruction of military stores in the village, Captain Parsons’ march and safe return from the house of Colonel Barrett, and the beginning of the running fight so stoutly maintained throughout the afternoon by the fast gathering minutemen. The third and last period concerns Earl Percy, his arrival at Lexington with the First Brigade, his rescue of Smith’s demoralized command at that place, and his conduct of the return march to Boston. It is this final phase of the battle that we are to review.
It was nearly half-past two in the afternoon when Smith’s detachment re-entered Lexington on its return from Concord. As the harried soldiery streamed confusedly into the village they were held to a semblance of military order only by the desperate exertions of the officers. All faith had been lost in the oft-repeated assurance that reinforcements were on their way from Boston. The men were worn down with heat and fatigue, and their ammunition was shot away. With only their bayonets to depend upon, with the bullets of unseen enemies stinging them to death, it was only a question of time, of minutes rather than hours, until a surrender or general disintegration must have occurred. Smith had just received a painful wound and we must assume that Pitcairn had taken over the active command. I fancy that I can see the Major here and there in the midst of this confusion, active and resourceful always, a buoyant influence despite the forebodings that chill his heart—among the wounded and faint-hearted full of bluff courage and cheer, but where panic or insubordination threaten, cursing with a fervor that tends to relegate his exploits of the morning to the level of a tame rehearsal. Now he sees again, close at hand, the meeting-house of the Rev. Jonas Clark, and hears the first glad shout, then the wild cheer from a hundred throats, a cheer that in a moment is rolling all up and down the stricken column. As the air throbs with the glad tumult, the word passes from mouth to mouth that help is close at hand. Weariness and wounds are for the moment forgotten. The hostile fire drops to a mere patter like the passing of a summer shower.509 The gathering stillness oppresses strangely and once again there is heard the tread of marching feet, the creaking of belts, and the rattle of side arms. Then the Major sees through haggard and bloodshot eyes the cause both of the tumult and the stillness, a scarlet line that stretches its imposing length along the rising land in front, hardly a quarter of a mile away. All silent and immovable it stands, glittering and sparkling in the sun, the battle line of the First Brigade.
Percy
Engraved for The Colonial Society of Massachusetts from a portrait in the Cary Memorial Library, Lexington
The casual observer who visits Lexington to-day might carry away the idea that Percy was the presiding genius of the place. While he made but one visit to the town and that of a flying nature, he has always been numbered as among its distinguished guests. He received a warm, if not a cordial, reception, and if he did not endear himself to the townsfolk of the time, he might have pleaded in defence that when in Rome he did as the Romans did. The old Munroe Tavern has on quite insufficient grounds been christened “Earl Percy’s Headquarters,” and the renovated rooms of the ancient hostelry contain, among other battle relics, prints and documents that have to do with him. The pleasant road winding up the slope behind the tavern now bears his name, a gun site chosen by his artillerymen is marked by a rude imitation of a cannon carved from solid rock, while in the Cary Library hangs his portrait in oil, a gift to the town from a modern Duke of Northumberland. There is far more in Lexington suggestive of Percy than of Captain Parker. The bronze effigy of the Minute Man gazing steadfastly down the old Boston road idealizes the spirit of Parker’s command, but in no sense portrays the visage of Parker himself. On the Common cut in stone are certain words attributed to Parker which we may hope, nay believe, that he never uttered. These are almost the only reminders of the Lexington Captain that confront the tripper on his hasty rounds. I would not convey the impression that Lexington has proved recreant to its Revolutionary traditions or that it has turned to the worship of false idols. At a town meeting called a few years ago to consider the naming of “Percy Road,” the spirit of 1775 blazed forth in unmistakable fervor. That there was a contest proved that the citizens were keenly alive to their historic inheritance, while the final result reflected great credit upon their sportsmanship and common sense.
Let us now try to imagine ourselves as standing in old Lexington on that bright April afternoon one hundred and forty-six years ago. I will ask you to believe that the First Brigade has been for more than five hours on the march, that the precocious lad in Roxbury has discharged with credit his declamation of the suggestive lines from the Ballad of Chevy Chase, that the absent-minded tutor in Harvard Square has directed Percy along the right road and become one of the most innocent of offenders, that Percy has held his informing interview with the wounded Gould as he reclined in his chaise, and that now, at half-past two in the afternoon, the whole brigade stands drawn up in line of battle on the high ground east of Lexington as we saw it a moment ago.510
We should also refresh our memories as to certain well-known facts; namely, that the Brigade came out in response to Smith’s early warning that the country was aroused, that there was a delay in starting because of a staff blunder thoroughly characteristic of the military annals of the Anglo-Saxon race,511 that the long road through Roxbury was followed because all boats for river transportation were still moored on the Cambridge side of the Charles to await Smith’s return, that the Brigade was made up of the 4th, 23rd, and 47th Regiments of Foot, the First Battalion of Marines, and a detachment of the Royal Artillery, and that the total strength of the command was something less than one thousand men. In considering Earl Percy’s activities let us first review briefly his military conduct in the handling of a difficult problem, and then consider with more care the charges of brutality and vandalism that have been levelled against him. Perhaps at the outset it will be well to glance at the fourth print of Doolittle’s well-known series, entitled “A View of the South Part of Lexington.” This portrays the meeting of Smith and Percy near the junction of the Boston and Woburn roads. The provincials appear in the foreground huddled behind the walls that line the last named thoroughfare. The Brigade is still in route formation facing the Common, while its flank guards are seen at work clearing up the hillsides. A field-piece is just going into action and Smith’s jaded column can be seen in the background moving off by their right flank to gain the rear of the brigade. The British soldiers appear more like birds than men and one’s first thought is that Doolittle has attempted a sinister caricature in portraying them as birds of prey. You will note, however, that the minute-men in the plate present the same aspect and that the phenomenon is all traceable to Doolittle’s faulty conception of the cut of a military coat. From which we may infer that if Doolittle was a bad engraver he would have been a greater failure as a tailor. With a magnifying glass we can make out Percy and Smith on horseback in close consultation. That they appear like scarlet vultures does not detract from the value or realism of the view. But the really dominant features in Doolittle’s engraving are the smoke and flames that hang in rigid petrified masses above three burning houses. It has been asserted that the greatest British devastation in Lexington was wrought almost in Percy’s presence and Doolittle’s print supplies powerful support to the charge.
The work of Doolittle in his series of Lexington prints is invaluable for its portrayal of local topography and for the record it gives of the current idea of the provincial dispositions and activities. On the other hand, his conception of British alignments must in the nature of things be less dependable. It is doubtful if Smith with a ball in his leg was able to sit his horse while he conferred with Percy as indicated in the print. To represent the Brigade as moving along the road in column of twos at this juncture is of course wholly inaccurate. We know on the clearest evidence that at the time the Grenadiers and Light Infantry were passing through Lexington village, Percy had formed in line of battle and was swinging his six-pounders into position. It is probable, however, that, as depicted in the print, Smith did move by his right flank, passing through or around Percy’s left to safety and shelter.
Percy had never imagined such a situation as he found at Lexington. He possessed military experience; he had served under Ferdinand of Brunswick, had fought at Minden, and was well versed in military science as it was then practised on the Continent. But now he found himself for the first time in a supreme command, facing a problem that was unique and bewildering, one for which European military formulas afforded no satisfactory solution. Had he been in telephonic communication with Boston he might have been weak enough to have called up General Gage and sought counsel from that timid and anxious man. Lacking this facility, he had to rely upon his military instinct and resourcefulness. He knew that the aim of his adversaries was to destroy or capture his command and that his plain duty was to conduct that command safely to Boston with the minimum of loss. He was unrestrained by any of those political considerations that benumbed the royal commanders in the later years of the Revolution. He believed that war had begun and that not only was he powerless to avert the shedding of blood, but that the safety of his men would require the infliction of the maximum of damage upon his foe. In this conviction he girded his loins and hardened his heart for the task before him. There can be no doubt that he listened to Smith’s story and probably to Pitcairn’s and Bernard’s as well. We know what he learned as well as if he had recorded it in black and white for the benefit of posterity. The troops had marched from Concord under an incessant fire from unseen enemies concealed in houses and behind walls. Houses apparently deserted had been found by the rear guard to be full of armed enemies. The Americans had reverted to the methods of Indian warfare, not omitting — so it was alleged — the scalping of the wounded.512
The first necessity of the case was to secure for Smith’s shattered detachment some brief opportunity to recuperate from the fatigue and strain of twelve hours’ rough campaigning. So, ordering Bernard and Pitcairn to look well to their men and to care for the wounded at Munroe’s Tavern, Percy proceeded to clear away a zone that should be free from rebel musketry. His orders received prompt and ready obedience. Strong flank guards clambered along the slopes above the road, the field-pieces began to bark, and a round shot went crashing and splintering through the meeting-house of the Rev. Jonas Clark. There has been a persistent effort to include this shot in the list of Percy’s barbarities. The Rev. Abel Muzzey in 1877, in recording his boyish memories of the aged men who had stood with Parker at Lexington, refers to this event as an “act of desecration”513 and quotes from the anniversary sermon of the Rev. Isaac Morrill preached at Lexington in 1780, wherein he also emphasizes the impiety of the deed.514 Inasmuch, however, as British witnesses record a provincial concentration within the shadow of the sacred edifice,515 as we know that the place was used for the storage of the town supply of powder, and that no less a person than Colonel Baldwin of Woburn was narrowly missed by the flying ball, I think we are warranted in including this achievement of the Royal Artillery as among the justifiable acts of war.
“Houses and walls” — how many times had these words been dinned into Percy’s ears during the scant sixty minutes of his halt! They were doubtless in his mind when his glance fell upon Deacon Loring’s buildings and his well-laid stone walls. Perhaps the windows raked the road at too advantageous an angle; perhaps the structures interfered with the range of his artillery; at all events, it is certain that the walls offered tempting cover for a hostile force. So the command was given and Deacon Loring’s buildings went up in flames and two hundred rods of his stone wall came down in dust. Two other dwellings were also fired, and Percy sat his white charger watching the operations of flank guards, artillery, and uniformed incendiaries and grimly approved it all.
It has been customary to ascribe these acts to the revengeful vandalism of a frenzied and humiliated soldiery and to allege that by condoning such outrages Percy made himself an accessory after the fact. But surely it is a more sensible theory to assume that the damage was wrought by Percy’s express command as a necessary measure of protection for his men. We must remember that the Brigade still stood in battle line, that straggling under such conditions was well-nigh impossible, and that there is not the slightest reason to suppose that these men were infected with any fury or that they were not under perfect control. The Grenadiers and Light Infantry had gone to the rear, and must have been concentrated in the vicinity of the tavern. I am very strongly of the opinion that being in close proximity to Landlord Munroe’s bar, they were giving their officers a thoroughly bad quarter of an hour. It is evident that the burning of houses and the destruction of walls were simultaneous parts of an orderly military operation. Smith’s soldiers, described by Stedman as so exhausted that they lay on the ground, “their tongues hanging out of their mouths, like those of dogs after a chase,”516 could certainly be trusted not to bestir themselves against stone walls; nor is it more reasonable to assume that the men of the Brigade after a forced march of sixteen miles, with the knowledge that there were many more to go, would have entered upon any such athletic enterprise except by imperative order. You may demur at this theory and question my decision to regard the destruction wrought by the troops during the halt in Lexington as justifiable military acts, but surely any theory is more reasonable than that on the very threshold of a most difficult enterprise Percy should have been willing to adopt or abet any course of action detrimental to the discipline and control of his troops. If on the other side of Styx, Percy has been permitted to commune with the shades of Deacon Loring and the Widow Mulliken, I am sure that it required but a few words from him upon military practice, and the nature of his problem, to convince them that the destruction of their property was not wanton, but necessitated by certain grave responsibilities that rested upon him as a soldier.
Active along the line of the Brigade and busier still in the confusion down by the tavern are certain young officers with whom generations of American historians have had a long but by no means cordial acquaintance. We are reviewing an old familiar episode of our local history that for nearly a century and a half has inspired all sorts of publications and all sorts of enthusiasm and oratory. If my version proves out of harmony with generally accepted tradition, it is due in part to what I have learned from these youthful soldiers of the King. I set small store by a British official report and treat it with the same caution that I exercise toward a provincial affidavit supplied on rush order from the local Congress at Watertown. But these officers kept diaries, they wrote good manly letters home, they recorded defeat without peevishness, and their criticism was directed as much at their own service as at their foe. They cannot all have known one another, there is no taint of collusion in what they have to say. I do not think we can hope to understand what happened on the road to Charlestown Common if we continue to slight their evidence merely because we dislike the uniform they wear.
Lieutenant Mackenzie of the Royal Welsh Fusileers seems to have carried a watch on the 19th of April and I think that we may, as he did, place some dependence upon it. At 2 o’clock the Brigade came within sound of the firing. At 2.30, “being near the Church at Lexington,”517 they formed in line of battle. At 3.15 the Fusileers then holding the left of the line received orders to form the rear guard. In Mackenzie’s words, “We immediately lined the walls and other cover in our front with some marksmen, and retired from the right of Companies by files to the high ground a small distance in our rear, where we again formed in line.”518 Here they remained “for near half an hour,” partially hidden doubtless by the smoke screen of the burning houses. It must have been close to 4 o’clock before they had disappeared down the road beyond the Munroe Tavern, and Earl Percy had made his parting bow to hosts who were glad to have him go.
As we examine the British evidence it becomes clear that it was not until the arrival of Percy that the officers were conscious of any dominating leadership. Percy is a conspicuous figure in their narratives and commands unmistakably their confidence and respect. There is no attempt on the part of these officers to minimize the desperate condition of Smith’s detachment, and on the other hand there is not a shred of evidence to indicate that they felt the slightest anxiety or solicitude for the safety of the column after Percy took command. Washington on receipt of the first accounts of the action declared that “if the retreat had not been as precipitate as it was, and God knows it could not well have been more so, the ministerial troops must have surrendered, or been totally cut off;”519 but we find little trace of any such apprehension in British sources. The British officers had the sort of afternoon that tries men’s souls, but I think we may safely conclude that they performed their duties undisturbed by any serious apprehension as to results.520
That the officers at the tavern did their duty well is evidenced by the fact that by half-past three the Grenadiers and Light Infantry were moving off in the van, followed in order by the 4th and 47th Regiments, the Marines, with the Fusileers covering the rear. Mackenzie states that the Marines relieved the Fusileers as rear guard after seven miles had been covered, and that they in turn were relieved by the other regiments. The American fire was reopened shortly after the march began. Until Menotomy was reached, officers who had served with Smith regarded this fire as light, while in the Brigade it was considered as incessant and galling. The flank guards were efficient, and the pressure upon the marching column in the road was materially lessened. Within the area of Menotomy nearly eighteen hundred521 fresh minutemen entered the contest, a force in itself much larger than the effective strength of Percy’s command, and in the long street of the village occurred the heaviest fighting of the day. Here unwary Americans were caught between the flank guards and the marching column and bayoneted or clubbed to death. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting occurred within houses where the bayonets of the British gave them a decided advantage. More than half the American slain for the day fell along this short two miles of road. Here Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin Bernard of the Fusileers was wounded, and Lieutenant Knight of the King’s Own was killed;522 but when the rear guard had passed the Menotomy River the worst of the fighting was over.
By this time the flank guards were becoming exhausted, but on the other hand the country was more open and afforded less cover for hostile marksmen. Percy notes a concentration in force at North Cambridge that portended a determined attempt to block his retreat.523 This formation was broken up by a single cannon shot, and the action resumed its irregular character. Mackenzie records the presence in the column of “about ten prisoners some of whom were taken in arms. One or two more were killed on the march while prisoners by the fire of their own people.”524 Before this Percy, suspecting the destruction of the bridge near the colleges, had determined to follow the short route to Charlestown. When he wheeled to the left in North Cambridge his officers are unanimous in their praise of the move. “We threw them,” writes Barker with an enthusiasm foreign to him, “and went on to Charles Town without any great interruption.”525 Mackenzie records in his diary that Lord Percy “took the resolution of returning by way of Charlestown, which was the shortest road and which could be defended against any number of Rebels.”526 In a copy of Stedman’s History of the American War, General Clinton made this manuscript note: “gave them [the Americans] every reason to suppose they would retire by the route they came but fell back on C’Town thus securing his retreat unmolested.” Unmolested was too strong a word, but Percy’s move was a shrewd one. It took his enemies by surprise, disarranged their plans, and saved both time and lives.
Charlestown had been thrown into a panic by the news that the Cambridge bridge was up, and that the troops were following the road to the Common. Wild rumors of their atrocities were in the air and everyone who could get away fled the town. The sun set at half-past six. An hour later the troops were on Bunker Hill, and all firing had ceased. Here they halted while Percy negotiated an agreement with the selectmen pledging safety to the persons and property of the townsfolk provided they kept their women within doors, and furnished the soldiers with drink. Shortly after eight o’clock the troops moved down into the village. Boats from the men-of-war were found waiting at the waterside, and the wounded were placed in them and rowed across to Boston. Returning they brought General Pigot and a force of five hundred men to occupy the heights commanding’ the neck. The Marines and Fusileers were ordered into the Town House while the officers gathered at the tavern hard by. Everywhere the cry was for drink, but there was no hint of riot or disorder. Jacob Rogers, who had fled with his family in the afternoon, came down in the early evening from his refuge at the house of “Mr. Townsend, pump-maker in the training field.” Finding all things peaceful he started back for his wife and sisters only to meet them coming quietly up the street escorted by a certain Captain Adams. There is a Pepysian flavor about Rogers’s chronicle: “I . . . found an officer and guard under arms by Mr. David Wood’s, baker who continued, it seems all night; from thence, seeing everything quiet came home, and went to bed.”527 The moon rose shortly after ten and revealed the Somerset man-of-war at her old anchorage where Paul Revere beheld her the night before, and the surface of the harbor dotted with a multitude of slow moving boats. The midnight hour had long since clanged out from Christ Church steeple when the tramp of the war-worn Fusileers returning to their barracks echoed in the silent streets below. Percy was closeted with the governor at the Province House, and Charlestown after its fitful fever of doubt and terror slept well. I am inclined to think that the behavior of the troops in the little village across the river should be mentioned to Percy’s credit as a soldier. He might well have complimented the selectmen on the performance of their part of the agreement, despite that transgression of Mrs. Rogers, her appearance on the street in company with Captain Adams.
That Percy displayed real military ability in his conduct of the retreat from Lexington has never been questioned. Friend and foe found themselves in complete agreement with Lord Drummond’s statement528 to Lord Dartmouth that “a piece of masterly officer-ship” had been performed. He had brought his fifteen hundred men nearly a dozen miles along an exposed fire-swept road, standing his enemy off with such success that according to his own statement he suffered a loss of only about forty killed.529 When we consider the peculiar nature of his problem and that the advantages of numbers, initiative, cover, and choice of ground were always with his adversaries, is it too much to say that we are dealing with one of the brilliant military feats of the American Revolution?
We can hardly dismiss this phase of the subject without some mention of what is known as Percy’s baggage train. American annals teem with details of its progress and fate. It came on far behind the column with a sergeant’s guard of twelve men, and was finally ambushed and captured by a group of armed villagers in Menotomy. Some accounts state that it consisted of two wagons, one loaded with provisions, the other with ammunition. As the legend runs, the guard dispersed upon receiving the provincial fire, which killed two men and several horses. The fugitives fled in the direction of Spy Pond, giving themselves up to old Mother Bathericke, whom they found in a field digging dandelions.530 The details of this surrender were transmitted to England, where they stirred caustic comment in the press and on the floor of the House of Commons. Stripped of this dandelion episode, and certain other improbabilities born of local anniversary oratory, the fact remains that the men of Menotomy did lay violent hands upon some portion of His Majesty’s property. Strangely enough there is no mention of the existence or the loss of these supplies in the British official reports, or in the other British evidence upon which we depend. Mackenzie states that the Brigade went out with a vanguard of fifty men, and a rear guard of as many more, but he says nothing of a train. Had it been officially attached to the column, and gone out in its company as far as the Charles River in Cambridge, surely some of our witnesses should have noted and bewailed its disappearance. We are told that Percy was urged to take out a reserve supply of ball for his six-pounders, but insisted on limiting himself to the capacity of the side boxes. This might be construed as an indication that he had an aversion to baggage on a short forced march. I have wondered whether those mysterious wagons could have been an after-thought of the headquarters in Boston. Gage made up his mind slowly, and his best laid plans were wont to miscarry.531 We now come to the consideration of the charges of vandalism and brutality that have been brought against Percy, and I will ask you to listen to the indictments. This is from the first account sent to England by the provincial authorities:
They pillaged almost every House they passed by, breaking and destroying Doors, Windows, Glasses, etc. and carrying off Cloathing and other valuable Effects. It appeared to be their Design to burn and destroy all before them; and nothing but our vigorous Pursuit prevented their infernal Purposes from being put in Execution. But the savage Barbarity exercised upon the Bodies of our unfortunate Brethren who fell, is almost incredible: Not content with shooting down the unarmed, aged and infirm, they disregarded the Cries of the wounded, killing them without Mercy, and mangling their Bodies in the Most shocking Manner.532
Here is an extract from the sermon of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Langdon, President of Harvard College, preached before the Congress at Watertown on May 31st, 1775:
They acted the part of Robbers and Savages, by burning, plundering and damaging almost every house in their way, to the utmost of their power, murdering the unarmed and helpless, and not regarding the weakness of the tender sex, until they had secured themselves beyond the reach of our terrifying arms.533
Hear what the Rev. Jonas Clark has to say in a sermon preached at Lexington, April 19, 1776:
After they were joined by Piercy’s brigade, in Lexington, it seemed as if all the little remains of humanity had left them; and rage and revenge had taken the reins, and knew no bounds! Cloathing, furniture, provisions, goods, plundered, carried off, or destroyed! Buildings (especially dwelling houses) abused, defaced, battered, shattered and almost ruined! And as if this had not been enough, numbers of them doomed to the flames! . . . . Add to all this; the unarmed, the aged and infirm, who were unable to flee, are inhumanly stabbed and murdered in their habitations! Yea, even women in child-bed, with their helpless babes in their arms, do not escape the horrid alternative, of being either cruelly murdered in their beds, burnt in their habitations, or turned into the streets to perish with cold, nakedness and distress! But I forbear — words are too insignificant to express, the horrid barbarities of that distressing day!534
In the middle of the nineteenth century, Bancroft and Frothing-ham reflected these accusations in a fashion that would have satisfied the earliest prosecutors, and in 1880 the Rev. Charles Hudson, the historian of Lexington, declared before the Massachusetts Historical Society “that we have discovered no general traces of barbarity until the troops became subject to Percy’s command, when a general systern of vandalism prevailed.”535 Since then it has been customary to depict the British commander as devising and practising a brutal method of warfare abhorrent to civilized standards. He is held personally responsible for some half-dozen alleged offences of the troops against non-combatants, all that in nearly a century and a half it has been possible to unearth.
Before reviewing these specific acts, let us consider the broad charge of vandalism and brutality. I will ask you to consider first the nature of the problem with which Percy had to deal and will at the outset submit the evidence of some of the King’s officers whose qualifications as witnesses I have already explained.
Engraved for The Colonial Society of Massachusetts from an original owned by the Lexington Historical Society
They “concealed themselves in houses, & advanced within 10 yds. to fire at me & other officers,” writes Percy in discussing the provincial morale in a private letter to General Harvey.536 “The soldiers shewed great bravery . . . forceing houses from whence came a heavy fire.” This is the entry of Ensign Henry de Berniere of the 10th Regiment in his diary found in Boston after the withdrawal of the British garrison.537 Captain W. Glanville Evelyn of the King’s Own writes to his reverend father in Ireland:
We observed on our march [out] . . . that the houses along the road were all shut up as if deserted, though we afterwards found these houses full of men, and only forsaken by the women and children; having executed our orders, and being on our return to Boston, we were attacked on all sides, from woods and orchards, and stone walls, and from every house on the roadside (and this country is a continued village), so that for fourteen miles we were attacking fresh posts, and under one incessant fire. . . . Whenever we were fired on from houses or barns, our men dashed in, and let very few of those they could find escape.538
Here is what Mackenzie of the Fusileers has to say:
Before the Column had advanced a mile on the road, we were firedon from all quarters, but particularly from the houses on the roadside & the adjacent stone walls. . . . The soldiers were so enraged at suffering from an unseen enemy, that they forced open many of the houses from which the fire proceeded & put to death all those found in them. These houses would certainly have been burnt had any fire beenfound in them, or had there been time to kindle any, . . . Some houses were forced open in which no person could be discovered, but when the Column had passed, numbers sallied out from some place in which they had lain concealed, fired at the rear Guard, and augmented the numbers which followed us. If we had had timeto set fire to these houses many Rebels must have perished in them, . . . Many houses were plundered by the soldiers, not withstanding the efforts of the officers to prevent it. I have no doubt this influenced the Rebels, & many of them followed us further than they would otherwise have done. By all accounts some soldiers who stayed too long in the houses were killed in the very act of plundering by those that lay concealed in them.539
And now comes Barker of the King’s Own, a testy young subaltern of a keenly critical mind. In his diary you read as follows:
We set out upon our return; before the whole had quitted the Town we were fired on from Houses and behind Trees, and before we had gone ½ a mile we were fired on from all sides, but mostly from the Rear, where people had hid themselves in houses till we had passed, and then fired; . . . We were now obliged to force almost every house in the road, for the Rebels had taken possession of them and galled us exceedingly; but they suffered for their temerity, for all that were found in the houses were put to death . . .540 Our Soldiers the other day, tho’ they shew’d no want of courage, yet were so wild and irregular, that there was no keeping ‘em in any order; by their eagerness and inattention they killed many of our own People, and the plundering was shameful; many hardly thought of anything else; what was worse they were encouraged by some Officers.541
Lieutenant-Colonel James Abercrombie of the 22nd Regiment did not arrive in Boston until the 23rd of April, or four days after the battle. On May 2nd, after making “the Strictest enquiry amongst the Officers,” he penned his analysis of the event to his friend Lieutenant-Governor Colden of New York: “They were fired on from every House and fense along the Road for fifteen Miles, I cannot commend the behavior of Our Soldiers on the retreat. As they began to plunder, & payed no obediance to their Officers.”542
Here is a body of evidence coming from a variety of sources, all unofficial in its character, and indicating in unmistakable terms that the fighting throughout the afternoon was of the house-to-house variety. The British and American accounts agree on the use of trees, walls, orchards and other cover; but the American witnesses are wholly silent as to the firing from houses. Read what Holmes has to say in his American Annals: “An irregular yet very galling fire was kept up on each flank, as well as in the front and rear. The close firing from behind stone walls by good marksmen put them in no small confusion.”543 Or turn to Thacher’s Military Journal and read the following: “The provincials concealed themselves behind stone walls, and with a sure aim thinned the enemies’ ranks.”544 You find the same note in Gordon’s History: “The close firing from behind the walls, by good marksmen, . . . put the troops into no small confusion.”545 Why this prominence given to houses on the one side and to stone walls on the other? Were our British friends deceived, were they all lying as they wrote their diaries and addressed their relatives and friends, or were our ancestors writing history in ignorance of facts or with an exaggerated sense of duty to their cause? There is something to be said in support of the theory of ignorance. It is doubtful whether any one person acting with the uncommanded thousands that sustained the popular cause that day could have known to what extent houses were being used as a menace to the troops. The men who fought the British in Menotomy and Cambridge were strangers in those towns, they came from long distances, and included several companies of Pickering’s regiment from Essex County. They ranged about at will, in small groups, and all windows appealed to them as convenient loopholes from which to shoot a redcoat. The American contention has been from the first that the damage inflicted by the troops on private property was unprovoked and wanton, and upon this premise rest all the charges alleging against Percy ruthlessness and worse. Mr. Hudson admitted in 1880 that the British were justified in attacking any house from which they were fired upon.546 To my mind it is clear beyond all reasonable doubt that the fighting along Percy’s line of march was of the kind so minutely described by Abercrombie and his comrades. Tons of depositions turned off on provincial presses to meet the political exigencies of the hour cannot break the force of such evidence as this.
When the provincials drifted into the practice of using private houses as fortresses, they certainly adopted the best military policy to retard and demoralize their foe. By so doing they also placed all such private property under suspicion and in actual jeopardy. Their tactics introduced new problems for the British and went far to nullify the control of battalion and company officers. As the aim of the provincials was to impede, wear down, and ultimately capture their foe, so the purpose of the British was merely to cover their distance before the setting of the sun. The movement of the column continued steadily eastward at the rate of about three miles an hour, but the constant detailing of squads to clean up belligerent posts must have resulted in the hopeless mixing of units and the serious impairment of discipline. It was a difficult business to keep track of the groups operating indoors and to get them out before the rear guard came along. Is it reasonable to suppose that anything but the most imperative military necessity would have tempted the officers to engage their men in indoor fighting, conscious as they were of the long miles ahead and of the westering sun sinking surely to its rest? There were bad men in Percy’s rank and file and plenty of light-fingered gentry, as there were in Washington’s army in Cambridge a few weeks later. And so in the words of Abercrombie “they began to plunder.”
We find nothing in the official reports of Gage or Percy concerning the misdemeanors of the troops, and it is well that we can mingle with our youthful witnesses and hear from them the frank gossip of the mess-room. And yet it is possible that we may take their confessions too seriously. The British officer of that day, however easy going in his personal habits, was a martinet in the performance of his professional duty. He had been taught that old-time military maxim that an army that plunders is never a good one. To him, looting was a loathsome thing because it begot straggling and insubordination and was in every way subversive of discipline. We cannot accept our British evidence as confirming the American assertion that Percy’s men staggered along the Boston road under a weight of ill gotten plunder. Looting of some sort was certain to accompany the mode of fighting the British had had forced upon them. But despite Barker’s caustic thrust at some one, the officers were evidently vigilant, the column was cumbered with the transportation of wounded, the flank guards required frequent relief, skirmishing was incessant, there was a heavy pressure on the rear guard, and altogether there was too much to do, and too little time to allow of getting away with substantial plunder. Small articles for which the knapsack was a convenient receptacle did suffer, food and drink for obvious reasons were swept away, but on the whole I fear that from the standpoint of an ambitious looter the day’s work was not altogether a happy one. Now looting begets straggling or is the result of it. If you will turn to the British official report, and there are times in reading American history when official reports as well as affidavits must be consulted, you will find the total British missing for the day given as 26.547 A score of these we can trace from provincial sources to the captured baggage train and to the period of Smith’s command before Percy had arrived upon the scene. Is it reasonable to suppose that a force of fifteen hundred men could have marched under fire twelve miles through an enemy’s country systernatically plundering all the way and have appeared at roll call the next morning with only six men missing? The officers were shamed by the wildness, inattention, and disobedience that cropped up among their men, and yet as you read and re-read the story of the march you are impressed with the fact that on the whole they dominated a difficult situation, and did their duty well.
And then the thought occurs, what wretched propagandists these martial Britons were! The whole countryside was accusing them as destroyers and plunderers of private property, and conscious of a measure of guilt they remained silent and inert. Had they possessed a fraction of the political sagacity displayed by their foes, they might have set up a very plausible defence. Abercrombie had his chance. Might he not have urged in all sincerity that the British were not the first or the last strangers to infest deserted houses on the 19th of April, and that the charge of exclusive opportunity could not be levelled against the troops? Was it not true that for every minute allowed a soldier in which to misbehave, scores of light-fingered provincials had an hour? But his mind could not shape itself to propaganda. He had no interest in the exaggerations or possible misdeeds of his enemy. His Majesty’s troops had misbehaved, they had begun to plunder, and as an honest officer he was disgusted and sick at heart.548 Of course vandalism is an evil of which looting is but a single phase. Houses along the road were battered and shattered in battle and other minor damage was doubtless wrought in wantonness and hate. I think that in any Boston mess-room on the 20th of April we should have received frank admissions from the officers that probably some houses were entered by mistake and that possibly others known to be innocent were invaded by small groups, temporarily out of hand. It is certain that the soldier was in an ugly mood. He had gone out despising the Boston mob, and his temper had not been improved by his experiences on the road. If opportunity offered to drive his bayonet through a mirror or to break china in the corner cupboard, many a man there was who would have regarded the occasion as Heaven sent.
Mackenzie is the only one of the officers we have cited who alludes to the burning of houses. Our gallant Fusileer writes in shame and humiliation of the looting, but he records incendiarism as merely a necessary and ordinary episode of the day. If we admit the contention of the British that the fighting was of the house-to-house character, their disposition to keep the home fires burning falls into the category of a mere commonplace of war. This accounts for omission to mention it in the diaries and letters of our other witnesses. All incendiarism except that practised during the halt in Lexington proved abortive, owing to the closeness with which the provincials followed the rear guard, a fact that Mackenzie records with evident regret.
The earliest provincial account alleged that the British disregarded the appeals of the wounded, killing and mangling without mercy. Now the provincials killed exceeded the number of their wounded, a fact that in some measure confirms the charge;549 but we must remember that, aside from those slain by gunfire at Lexington and at the North Bridge, nearly all of the provincials killed fell in close combat within houses or in hastily constructed defences outside. We have just noted the temper of the private soldier. He had been fooled/ambushed, and shot in the back until he had lost all faith in American non-combatants, and was strongly of the opinion that the only good American was a dead one. On the other hand the hatred of the people for the troops, always fanatical in its intensity, had become inflamed by what they regarded as the unprovoked slaughter at Lexington and Concord. I doubt that quarter was asked, or thought of, in those fierce hand-to-hand fights along Percy’s line of march, and the bayonet and gunstock did make ugly wounds.
We come now to the consideration of specific outrages inflicted by the troops upon the persons of inoffensive non-combatants. There are just six cases of this sort that call for examination. Three of them fall naturally into one group: the killing of Raymond, “a lame man,” at the Munroe Tavern in Lexington; of William Marcy in North Cambridge; and of the fourteen-year-old lad Barber on Charlestown Neck.
John Raymond’s name appeared on the first lists of the provincial slain, but it was not until fifty years later that he took his place in history as the victim of a military outrage. William Munroe, the proprietor of the tavern who was out with the minutemen on the 19th of April, made the following deposition in 1825: “On the return of the British troops from Concord, they stopped at my tavern house in Lexington, and dressed their wounded. I had left my house in the care of a lame man, by the name of Raymond, who supplied them with whatever the house afforded, and afterward, when he was leaving the house, he was shot by the regulars, and found dead within a few rods of the house.”550 This brief statement of Munroe’s suggests an atrocity, and a tradition plausible but none too robust has developed since 1825 to the effect that Raymond, after mixing a punch, left the place in fear of his life and was shot by soldiers as he was hobbling away. The setting for this tragic legend was well chosen if you agree with me that there was probably trouble and disorder within the tavern where maddened men of Smith’s detachment came thronging and panting to the bar. Credible as the story is, it has never become solidly established in the annals of the day. Phinney, Frothingham, and Bancroft ignored it, and we might well follow their example had not Hudson revitalized the tale in his History of Lexington551 and in a contribution to Drake’s History of Middlesex County. Here are his words taken from the last named work:
The officers with Percy resorted to Munroe’s tavern just below. The occupants of the house left the place in affright, leaving only John Raymond, an aged man, who was at the time one of the family. The intruders ordered him to supply them with all the good things the house afforded, which he readily did. But after they had imbibed too freely, they became noisy, and so alarmed Raymond that he sought to escape from the house; but was brutally fired upon and killed in his attempt to flee from danger.552
The credibility of Munroe’s story has not been enhanced by this elaboration of Hudson. I think that I have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the soldiers about the tavern were of Smith’s command and that the brigade in battle formation nearly half a mile away was involved in skirmishing throughout the halt. It is clear also that, inasmuch as it was close to half-past two when Smith came within sight of the Brigade, and that at half-past three his men resumed their march down the Boston road, their presence in and about the tavern could not have consumed much more than half an hour. Hudson’s tale of Percy’s carousal with his officers suggests poetical or historical licence and may have been responsible for the christening of the tavern as “Earl Percy’s headquarters.” I have tried to show what Percy’s problems and responsibilities were at Lexington and I think you will agree with me that if he galloped down the road once or twice for a momentary inspection of what Pitcairn553 was doing, this was about all the time or attention he could have allowed to the vicinity of Munroe’s tavern. Had the officers of the Grenadiers and Light Infantry spent their precious time in the diversions portrayed by Hudson, drinking themselves into a state of noisy exaltation, the Fusileers would hardly have received their orders to form the rear guard at 3.15 and the van would have been fortunate to have passed over Charlestown Common by the light of the rising moon.
Now Munroe, an honest man, deposing at eighty-two years of age concerning events that happened fifty years before, states that Raymond was lame; Hudson, in every way a worthy and distinguished citizen, declared554 that he was oppressed by the burden of years. If you will turn to the genealogical register appended to Hudson’s History555 of the town, capably edited and handsomely republished by the Lexington Historical Society, you will find that John Raymond was born September 5, 1731, and so was in his forty fourth year at the time of his death. Moreover you will learn here and from other sources that he was a regularly enlisted member of Captain Parker’s company, from which fact we might well infer that the lameness mentioned by Munroe was merely a temporary affliction.556 He was among the sixty-seven absentees from the early morning muster on the Common, but we cannot trace his movements between that time and his appearance at the tavern in the afternoon. Of course if the British had learned or if they suspected his military status, they would have treated him as a prisoner and if as a prisoner he tried to escape, he would very properly have been shot. Fifty years was a long time to wait for Raymond’s conversion from the status of an apparent belligerent to the category of an aged and infirm victim of British brutality. I find it hard to resist the conviction that had murder been committed at the tavern as alleged by Mr. Hudson in 1880, Langdon and Clark would have exploited the fact in 1775. Clark’s silence is the more remarkable because the tragedy occurred within the narrow limits of the parish that had been confided to his spiritual charge.
The first mention of Marcy’s fate is to be found in the sermon preached by President Langdon before the Congress of the Colony, May 31st, 1775: “A man of weak mental powers, who went out to gaze at the regular army as they pass’d, without arms, or thought of danger, was wantonly shot at and kill’d by those inhuman butchers, as he sat on a fence.”557 If we accept this statement at its face value, we may yet question the wanton character of the deed. Perhaps more than one soldier who had been straining his eyes for a fair shot at some of the hidden marksmen who were picking off his comrades saw, through drifting powder smoke, Marcy seated on the fence. I think we may assume that his slayer knew nothing of his mental deficiencies or suspected that he was unarmed. If the fall of the victim was noticed in the column I am afraid that the sentiment aroused was not one of pity, but of grim satisfaction that one enemy had received his just deserts.
We have an interesting side light on this case that is somewhat harmful to Langdon’s hasty conjecture. Near the present corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Spruce Street in North Cambridge, a party of provincials had taken position behind a barricade of empty casks. They fell victims to the vigilance of a flank guard, a hot fight ensued, and Isaac Gardner of Brookline, John Hicks and Moses Richardson of Cambridge, and one or two others were killed. We have it on the authority of the Widow Hicks that, alarmed by the long absence of her husband from home, she in the early evening sent her fourteen-year-old son in search of him. The boy found him lying by the roadside, dead, and near him were the bodies of Moses Richardson and William Marcy. This places Marcy in the midst of undoubted combatants, on the very spot where one of the sharpest encounters of the day occurred, and we know that he was buried with Richardson and Hicks in a common grave on the night of the battle.558 In view of these facts we must regard Langdon’s statement with serious misgiving. All that we know of William Marcy himself is contained in the following extract from the records of the Cambridge selectmen, dated September 3rd, 1770: “Voted, to warn out of the town; William Marcy, a man of very poor circumstances; he for some time hath lodged in Steward Hastings’ barn, the Steward paying the charges.”559 Marcy made a more dignified exit from Cambridge than the selectmen had planned, and his name is now inscribed on a monument erected by the city in 1870 to commemorate “the Men of Cambridge who fell in defence of the Liberty of the People, April 19, 1775.”
Barber was the youthful brother-in-law of Rogers whom we met in Charlestown, from whose affidavit we learn that the lad was shot as he was looking out from a window on Charlestown Neck. Curiously enough Mackenzie mentions these houses “close to the Neck, out of which the Rebels fired to the last.”560 It was a pity that at a time when so many were fleeing for their lives, this boy should have been left gazing from a window among houses from which firing was still going on. The sun had set when the British passed this point. In the gloaming the lad’s youth and innocence were not discernible to the soldiers, but the sight of a face in the window had come to have a sinister significance to them. So Barber went down to his death, but not I think as the victom of a military atrocity.
The fourth case is that concerning Hannah, wife of Deacon Joseph Adams of Menotomy. She made affidavit to the facts on May 17th, 1775. Two weeks later, President Langdon epitomized the case in the following words: “A woman in bed with a new-born infant, about a week old, was forced by the threats of the soldiery, to escape, almost naked, to an open outhouse; her house was then set on fire, but soon extinguished by one of the children which had laid concealed till the enemy was gone.”561 This was the incident that inspired that passionate outburst of the Rev. Jonas Clark, “Yea, even women in child-bed with their helpless babes in their arms, do not escape the horrid alternative, of being either cruelly murdered in their beds, burned in their habitations, or turned into the streets to perish with cold and nakedness and distress!”562 Hannah Adams states563 that as she lay in her bed, three soldiers broke into her room. As one pointed his bayonet at her breast, she cried out in terror, “For the Lord’s sake do not kill me!” There was little comfort in the profane and laconic reply of, “Damn you!” Here a comrade interposed with the words, “We will not hurt the woman, if she will go out of the house, but we will surely burn it.” Leaving in the house “five children and no other person,” she threw a blanket about her and with her babe “crawled into a corn-house near the door,” but fortunately not “to perish with cold, nakedness and distress” on that bright April afternoon.
This is not a pleasant story, but perhaps it hardly justifies the fevered denunciation of the Rev. Jonas Clark. It is notable as the one recorded instance of indignity offered by the soldiery to the gentler sex. Here in this room, so far as the 19th of April is concerned, we see the British soldier at his worst. The stage was set in every detail for a most revolting tragedy, rude and angry soldiers and an unprotected mother with her children. But the villains in the piece were not of the deepest dye, there was no lust for butchery in their hearts, nor had they a mind that Mrs. Adams should be burned alive in her habitation. What the three uniformed offenders would have said in their own defence we shall never know. Were they part of a squad acting under orders to burn the place or were they stragglers? It is certain that no officer was with them. It would be interesting to know a little more of the attendant circumstances and whether it were possible that as Mrs. Adams lay in her room some part of the premises had been put to military uses by armed patriots from out of town. If the house had been so used, or if the soldiers believed such to be the fact, they would of course have regarded Mrs. Adams with some suspicion, and might even have been inclined to question the age of her babe. We cannot summon Deacon Adams as a witness, because he ran away and was throughout the episode lying concealed under hay in the barn of the Rev. Samuel Cooke.564 The soldiers had seen him leave the house and he had drawn their fire in his flight across the fields. Possibly this precautionary measure of his may account in part for the military invasion of his home.565 Now Hannah Adams’s infant was eighteen days old on the 19th of April.566 This child grew into womanhood, married, and must often have heard her mother, who lived until 1803, discuss with the older children the family experiences in which they were participants on that fateful day. We might well expect that the terrors of the episode would increase with repeated telling, but on the contrary under the mild influence of the family tradition the Rev. Jonas Clark’s denunciation has long since lost its sting. We are told that Mrs. Adams was fully dressed on the arrival of the soldiers, having been assisted in that process by two daughters aged respectively twenty and fourteen. The brutal redcoats degenerate into mere burglars of a rather genial type. “Why don’t you come out here?” queries a soldier when the head of nine-year-old Joel Adams is thrust from under a bed. “You’ll kill me if I do,” replies the prudent boy. “No we won’t,” is the prompt and reassuring reply. Then out crawls the child and follows the soldiers about, a rapt spectator of their activities, which are largely of a pilfering nature. We are told that when they laid thieving hands upon the church communion silver, Joel ventured a word of warning and an assurance that the deacon would “lick” them for that offence. A567 touch of the original tragic flavor is restored to the story, when upon leaving, the soldiers break up the chairs and set them alight with a brand from the fireplace. Then comedy once more gaily trips the stage in the person of the youthful Joel, who saves the situation by attacking the flames with a pot of the deacon’s home-brewed beer.568 In the next case we have to consider, the authorities began to disagree at the outset. President Langdon states that “two aged helpless men who had not been out in the action, and were found unarmed in a house where the Regulars enter’d, were murdered without mercy.”569 After a year of reflection the Rev. Mr. Clark referred to the incident in these words, “the unarmed, the aged and infirm, who were unable to flee, are inhumanly stabbed and murdered in their habitations!”570 Between the dates of these statements of Langdon and Clark, the tragedy had been located not in the habitations of the victims but in the bar-room of the Cooper Tavern in Menotomy. Here is an extract from the deposition of Landlord Benjamin Cooper and his wife, Rachel, dated May 19, 1775:
The king’s regular troops . . . fired more than a hundred bullets into the house where we dwelt, through doors, windows, &c. Then a number of them entered the house, where we and two aged gentlemen were all unarmed. We escaped for our lives into the cellar. The two aged gentlemen were, immediately, most barbarously and inhumanly murdered by them: being stabbed through in many places, their heads mauled, skulls broken, and their brains dashed out on the floor and walls of the house.571
Now these two aged, helpless, infirm and unarmed men were Jason Winship and Jabez Wyman, and we learn from the genealogical records of Cambridge and Woburn that they were brothers-in-law, aged respectively forty-five and thirty-nine years.572 We learn too from a letter of that staunch patriot, the Rev. John Marrett of Woburn dated July 28th, 1775, that “they were drinking flip;” and, in utter disagreement with the views of the Rev. Jonas Clark, that they “both died like fools.” He was “not certain they were unarmed,” but on making inquiry was informed that such was the fact.573
Our local historians in accepting the story of the flip are far from admitting that “both died like fools.” To my mind the second fact is a necessary corollary of the first and they must stand or fall together. We must remember that at the very moment these aged and unarmed men were engaged in their legitimate and private business, there was raging all along the half-mile of road to the west the heaviest fighting of the day. Hundreds of newly arrived Americans closed in upon the redcoats, and all along the village street the British gunfire rattled and rolled. Gunstocks thundered on the surface of splintering doors, and from within houses came shouts and shrieks of angry men battling to the death. Old Samuel Whittemore, seventy-nine years of age, went clanking by the tavern door with his newly cleaned musket and pistols, and a newly ground edge upon his sword. He concealed himself at a point but a few hundred feet distant from where Landlord Cooper stood at his bar, and opened fire as the British vanguard came along. He was discovered after killing his man. From the road and from the rear there was a rush upon him. It is alleged that two more Britons fell before a bullet from the flank guard entered his head. Wounded and helpless upon the ground he was savagely clubbed and bayonetted by the infuriated soldiery. Sturdy efforts have been made to include this affair in the list of Percy’s barbarities, notwithstanding the fact that the old gentleman made a happy and complete recovery, dying finally at the ripe age of ninety-seven, leaving, we are told, a virile progeny of one hundred and eighty-five souls.574 Must we believe that in this perturbed environment, Benjamin Cooper and his wife Rachel, Winship, and Wyman, did play their unconcerned and stolid parts at the tavern bar as has been long alleged? Can we doubt that a fire, or a runaway horse in Menotomy street on the day before, would have tin-own all four into a fever of excitement, and a whirlwind of motion? The quaffing of flip was not the opportunity of a life-time; prohibition had not then been born. Yet there they stand at the bar as those hundred bullets come whistling through the place, and the soldiers come roaring and cursing into the room. The landlord and his wife vanish away, but the two victims stand their ground until such brains as the legend leaves in their possession are beaten out and spattered upon the walls.
It is reasonably clear that the Rev. John Marrett believed the victims at the Cooper Tavern to have been drunk, and if we accept this theory it goes far to explain an otherwise incomprehensible incident. Marrett speaks plainly, as witness these words: “They were drinking flip. Wyman was warned of the danger but says he, ‘let us finish the mug, they won’t come yet.’ He died as a fool dieth.” If they were very drunk, their condition would warrant Clark’s allegation that they were “unable to flee;” if their intoxication had reached the surly or quarrelsome stage, the tragedy explains itself. It may occur to you that a political aroma hangs about that deposition of Benjamin and Rachel Cooper. That they prevaricated through inadvertence or design respecting the ages of Winship and Wyman, we must regretfully admit. In view of this fact are we justified in accepting the balance of their assertions, particularly such as have reference to the number, condition, activities and armament of guests upon their premises? The tavern stood within the limits of a battle-field, three Britons had just been killed within a few rods of the door, and while we shall never know just what happened within the house, most assuredly in that warlike atmosphere non-combatants drunk or sober would have been allowed scant time in which to prove their innocence. The affair at the Cooper Tavern has long been cherished as authority for that sweeping charge of the Rev. Jonas Clark, “the unarmed, the aged and infirm, who are unable to flee, are inhumanly stabbed and murdered in their habitations.”575 The names of Jason Winship and Jabez Wyman are now inscribed with that of William Marcy upon the monument erected in Cambridge to honor those “who fell in the defence of the Liberty of the People, April 19, 1775.”
Finally some mention must be made of Jason Russell of Menotomy, if for no other reason because he with Winship and Wyman was in the mind of the Rev. Jonas Clark when he uttered the lament I have just quoted. Russell was fifty-eight years of age and is said to have been lame. Until the middle of the nineteenth century he was generally referred to as a helpless bystander, an infirm victim of British brutality. Since that time he has been placed where he doubtless belongs, in the ranks of the brave and determined men who opposed the King’s troops in arms. Singularly enough this change of status has in no way abated the persistence of the allegation that he “was barbarously murdered in his own house, by Gage’s bloody troops.”576 If he was a slaughtered innocent, well and good; but if a combatant, he is entitled to the honors of a soldier, dead.
The story of Jason Russell is briefly this. He started across the fields to conduct his family to a place of safety, but he left them by the way, and returned to his house alone. “He barricaded his gate with bundles of shingles, making what he thought would be a good cover from which to fire on the enemy as they returned.”577 Ammi Cutter sought to dissuade him from his purpose, but he refused to leave, declaring that “an Englishman’s house was his castle.”578 A party of the Essex militia who were “unsuspiciously lying in wait” at this point were surprised by the flank guard and took hasty refuge in Russell’s house. Jason Russell was shot as he was entering the door and the troops followed, “killing all they found inside, save a few who fled to the cellar, the latter shooting whoever of the British attempted to descend the cellar-stairs.”579 Unless we are prepared to assert that every shot fired and every wound inflicted by the British was a wanton atrocity, I think we may dignify the memory of stouthearted Jason Russell by declaring that he fell in battle in defence of a cause that was more to him than life.
Is Percy guilty or not guilty of the charge of instigating or abetting a systern of savagery on his retreat? I admit that I find nothing to support such a charge either in our knowledge of the man or in the American evidence that is offered in support of the indictment. That he embittered the fighting after taking over the command is indisputable, but only in the same sense that Grant embittered the fighting in Virginia as compared with the standards of McClellan. He knew nothing of the cases of Raymond, Marcy, or Barber, of Hannah Adams, Jason Russell, or the two men at the Cooper Tavern. We may be sure that he ordered buildings to be fired or instructed his officers to burn them as military circumstances required. He must have known of the looting, and it is preposterous to suppose that he did not adopt through his officers the most strenuous measures to break it up. He could have known little of the petty details of the fighting, but he kept the column moving at its even steady pace and, in spite of irritating circumstances and some unavoidable confusion, brought it over Charlestown Common on schedule time with about forty killed and only six men missing.
Unlike Colonel Smith he carried away no bitter memories of the day and harbored no resentment against his enemies for the methods they employed. In fact he highly commended their tactics as admirably adapted to their purpose. He had believed the people to be cowards and had so expressed himself in letters to his father. After Lexington he frankly confessed his error. “Whoever looks upon them as an irregular mob will find himself much mistaken” is his comment to General Harvey. “For my part, I never believed, I confess, that they would have attacked the King’s troops, or have had the perseverance I found in them yesterday.”580 In Almon’s Remembrancer in 1775, there appeared this bit of Boston gossip: “Lord Percy said at table, he never saw anything equal to the intrepidity of the New England minute men.”581 I should like to feel that there was sitting at the same table that other soldier who remarked, “the rebels were monstrous numerous, and surrounded us on every side; . . . but they never would engage us properly.”582 We know what Percy’s reply would have been to that, for we have it in his letters: “they knew too well what was proper, to do so. . . . They have men amongst them who know very well what they are about.”583 The comments of Percy’s officers, while less sportsmanlike than those of their chief, are for the most part free from criticism of the tactics employed by their enemy on the 19th of April. Lieutenant William Carter was an exception;584 Evelyn still insisted that the provincials were cowards, but sustained by a mad fanatical zeal; while Captain George Harris, afterwards Lord Harris of Indian fame, expressed a wish to meet the Americans in a fair stand-up fight and give them the drubbing they deserved.585 Aside from these we find no trace of rancor in the battle narratives of the King’s officers. To my mind these officers from their commander down conducted the retreat in the spirit of gentlemen, and not of brutes. As long as war is war, and nations and peoples continue to assert their just or fancied rights by force of arms, I think we may regard the story of Earl Percy’s march in its incitements to barbarities and in its freedom from such excesses upon either side, as a creditable chapter in the military annals of the Anglo-Saxon race.
In conclusion, despite his faults and misdemeanors, I can almost find it in my heart to say a kind word for the British common soldier. I wonder if, after the lapse of nearly one hundred and fifty years, it would be sacrilege to include the name of Thomas Atkins in the list of the heroic sufferers of the day. He had undergone trials that were long and sore, he had been insulted and his uniform reviled, he had encountered New England rum, and for resulting offences he had been rigorously punished by his officers. He went out on an excursion through the King’s dominions, he was upon the King’s business, and was affronted by armed men who denied the King’s authority. He was marched and driven to the last ounce of his strength, and believed that he had been made the victim of sneaking, scalping assassins who were afraid to show their faces. It was a far cry from the military ethics of the French Guard at Fontenoy to those of these rebels of kindred blood. He did not know that he was contending with unselfish patriots who were risking all in a righteous cause, who were willing to die that liberty might live. As footsore and weary he strode manfully along, nursing that wicked bayonet of his, and devoid of all compassion toward his foe, we should at least remember that he had suffered much, that he was very brave, and that he did not understand.
Mr. Worthington C. Ford announced a forthcoming volume of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, being a check-list of broadside issues of the press in Massachusetts, 1639-1800. The broadside was the forerunner of the news-sheet and later newspaper and was used for official announcements and political controversy. The first issue from the press in Massachusetts was a broadside — the Freeman’s Oath. Twenty years later a sheet of verses, and after another twenty years regulations for small-pox treatment, marked the developing use; but to Benjamin Harris is due the first political broadside and the first news-sheet. Customs and legal forms came into use towards the end of the seventeenth century, but not before 1704 were the behavior and dying speech of a criminal embalmed in that form. Attempts at illustration were crude and infrequent. The colony seal, engraved by John Foster, decorated some laws and proclamations, and Andros introduced the royal arms, but only on a single occasion. Harris, the printer, was successful in introducing it after 1692. The first true illustration is found on a sheet of 1718. Mr. Ford also glanced at the ballad literature of the day, a field yet to be studied carefully.
Mr. Albert Matthews spoke as follows:
In his interesting paper on “Germanisms in English Speech: God’s Acre,” contributed in 1913 to the Kittredge Anniversary Papers,586 Dr. John A. Walz showed that this term had for three centuries been occasionally employed by English travellers in Germany; that it is an adaptation of the German Gottesacker, first found in the sixteenth century, and not, as Longfellow asserted in 1841, “an ancient Saxon phrase;” and that the vogue which the term now enjoys is due to Longfellow’s poem bearing the title “God’s Acre.”
Whenever the philologist pits himself against the poet he is bound to lose, though he have analogy, etymology, and usage on his side. It is true that “acre” in nineteenth-century English is used exclusively as a measure; generations ago it ceased to have the meaning of field, as a look at the New English Dictionary tells us; yet Longfellow’s adaptation of the German word became a permanent part of the modern English vocabulary, especially the poetic vocabulary. Without knowing it, yes, without intending it, Longfellow added a beautiful word to the stock of English. Its adoption into the language was doubtless greatly favored by the general misunderstanding which saw in it a revival of an old English phrase.587
With these conclusions, there can be no dispute. But on one point it is possible to take issue with Dr. Walz — namely, the application of the term to the old burial place at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue (formerly North Avenue) and Garden Street. “I do not know,” says Dr. Walz, “who first called the old burial-ground in Cambridge ‘God’s Acre;’ my earliest reference is Palfrey’s History of New England, 1860, but the name cannot have been applied to it before 1841. There is not a scrap of evidence in the early records or town histories that the old Cambridge burying ground or any other burying ground in New England was ever called ‘God’s Acre’ before the publication of Longfellow’s poem, or that the phrase was at all known.”588 When Dr. Walz was preparing his paper, he asked me whether I had noted instances of the term before 1841, and though I pointed out one or two from English travellers I was unable to adduce any from American sources. But since then three American examples have come to light. The earliest is the most interesting. Speaking of John Rogers, who was President of Harvard College from 1682 to 1684, Cotton Mather wrote in the Magnalia, printed in 1702: “But that the Character of this Gentleman may be more perfectly exhibited, we will here take the Leave to transcribe the Epitaph engraved on his Tomb, in God’s-Acre, at Cambridge.”589 In two other places in the same work Mather also mentions the Cambridge burial ground. Alluding to Charles Chauncy, who was President from 1654 to 1672, he says: “All that we will add of this Good Man, shall be the Epitaph, which is now to be read on his Tombstone in Cambridge.”590 And referring to Urian Oakes, who was President from 1675 to 1681, he remarks: “The Rest of the Report that we will give of this Memorable Person, shall be but a Transcript of the Epitaph on the Tomb-stone in the Sleeping-place at Cambridge, dedicated unto his Memory.”591
After the lapse of more than a century and a quarter the term is again met with in Cambridge. In an article called “Historical Sketches of Harvard College,” confessedly derived from the Magnalia, a writer in the Harvard Register for October, 1827, said that “President Rogers died on the 2d July, 1684, three days after Commencement,592 and during an eclipse of the sun. He was interred in God’s-acre, (probably the present burial ground). A stone was placed over his grave with a Latin inscription thereon, written by Mather, at the expense of the students.”593 Finally, in the same magazine for December, 1827, in an article entitled “Commencement in Olden Time,” the writer draws a fancy sketch of the College as it existed about 1720 and says:
Massachusetts was raising her modest walls, blushing in her maiden beauty, beneath the encouraging glances of maternal “old Harvard;” and Stoughton stood exulting in youthful prime. The Hotel, Market, and College-house, and all the rest of our Classic buildings sunk into the dust. Post office, there was none! — Lawyer’s office, there was none! — Printing office, there was none; and the Barber’s pole slipt from its fastenings, and rolled off, a little acorn, into the surrounding forest. The place of Divinity Hall was occupied by a dismal swamp; Professors’ Row was overgrown with brushwood; the church disappeared, and God’s acre arose on a little knoll, with a few roughly hewn stones to mark where two or three worthies had laid themselves down to rest.594
Quite possibly these two articles were written by the same person, though there is no means of knowing with certainty. The “Advertisement” to the Harvard Register states that “The articles, with a few exceptions, have been written by undergraduates in the few leisure moments which could be snatched from more important pursuits, and the pieces not written by undergraduates, were the composition of those who are otherwise connected with the University.”At all events, Longfellow did not come to Cambridge until 1836, and so he is eliminated as the possible author of the two articles.
Mr. Percival Merritt read the following communication:
The second French newspaper to be published in Boston was the Courier Politique de l’Univers.595 The Columbian Centinel of Wednesday, November 21 1792, contained “Proposals, for publishing a periodical Paper in the French Language, entitled Le Courier Politique de l’Univers.” The publication was projected with the view of giving a just idea of the present state of France, and a connected summary of the French Revolution, by a succinct account of all events which had occurred in France since 1788. It was also proposed to furnish details of such occurrences in the sugar colonies as were connected with events in France, or which might be of interest by their relation to the commerce between the United States and those colonies. The paper was to be published on Monday of every week, and consist of four pages in quarto, the first number to be delivered in Boston on the 10th of December, and to be sent by post the same day to other parts of the Continent. The subscription price at Boston was two dollars for six months, and three dollars for the same period in places distant more than fifty miles from Boston. Subscriptions were to be received by J. Bumstead, Printer, Union Street; by the Editor of the Columbian Centinel; and by the different printers in the United States and West Indies. The prospectus was followed by a supplementary statement in the nature of a postscript:
After these Proposals were sent to the Press, a wish to conciliate the favour of the publick, induced the Editor to seek for some American assistance, in which he has been successful. The Courier de l’Univers, will therefore be published in French and English, in columns corresponding to each other.—The Editor who has engaged to furnish four quarto pages in a number, will frequently give six, and sometimes eight, without adding any thing to the price of subscription. In this form the Courier de l’Univers, by supplying an English Translation, will be serviceable to those who are imperfectly acquainted with the French Language.596
The proposals appeared again in the Centinel of Wednesday, December 12, prefaced by the statement that “The PROSPECTUS of a News-paper, in French and English, publishing in this town, the first number of which was issued on Monday last, contains sentiments and observations worthy general perusal, — we therefore reinsert it.” The same issue of the Centinel contained a reading notice of the Courier Politique, stating that it had “commenced publishing . . . on Monday last,” and that “The Editor is a man of talents; and has resources of information, direct.”597
Now the “American assistance” to which the Proposals referred was supplied, in part at least, by John Quincy Adams. In a letter to his father written from Boston, December 16, 1792, Mr. Adams stated that —
A French and English newspaper has been commenced in this town which is to contain among other things a summary account of the French Revolution. This account is very handsomely written by one of the Aristocratic party now here, having been driven from the Island of St. Domingo by the triumphant faction there.598 He has aimed at impartiality as much as he could; but if you read the narrative you will find he is very bitter against the Duke of Orleans to whom he attributes all the calamities of his country. The first number only has been published, and the editor has forwarded one of them to you which he will continue to do. The translation of that part of the paper will be done by me, and I imagine the paper itself will not be continued long after that publication is finished. The proposals are only for six months.599
Brief references to the Courier Politique are to be found in the issues of the Centinel of Wednesday, December 26, 1792, and Wednesday, January 9, 1793, and an extract from it is quoted in the Argus of January 8, 1793.600 The life of the paper, however, was even more brief than Mr. Adams’s expectation. The Centinel of Saturday, January 19, 1793, contained the following advertisement:
M. Rousselet, Editor of the Courier Politique de l’Univers, being suddenly called to the Island of Guadeloupe, by the desire of a great number of its inhabitants, in order to fulfill the duties of an apostolic missionary has the honour to testify his regret to the subscribers to his paper, that he is unable to complete the task he had undertaken. Professionally engaged in support of the religion of which he is a minister, he makes this sacrifice to his duty, of an undertaking, the object of which was to promote the triumph of truth. He thanks his subscribers for the encouragement, with which they have favoured him: requests their acceptance of the numbers which they have received, and informs those of them to whom he has given receipts that by calling in the course of the next week, at Mr. Joseph Bumstead’s printing office in Union-Street, thier Subscription money shall be returned to them.601
The advertisement apparently implies that the final issue of the paper was that of Monday, January 14. If this supposition is correct the total number of issues was six, December 10, 1792, to January 14, 1793, inclusive.602 It is not surprising, therefore, that Mr. Brigham states that “no copy of this paper has been located.”603 With regard to the identity of the editor, Mr. Rousselet, it may be said that he was the Abbé Louis de Rousselet, a French Catholic priest and the second pastor of the Church of the Holy Cross, Boston.604 His sudden call to the Island of Guadeloupe proved to have unhappy consequences. The practical control of Guadeloupe was wrested from the English in October, 1794, by the French Revolutionists under Victor Hugues, appointed Commissioner to the Island by the National Convention. After his success some three hundred French Royalists were put to death. It is stated that fifty were guillotined in the space of an hour, and that the Abbé, who had ministered spiritually to them while in prison, shared their fate on the scaffold.
1 Mr. Greenough’s paper, together with the illustrations, will appear in the Transactions of a future meeting.
2 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, viii. 258.
3 Notes relating to Rawlins, or Rollins, etc., p. 37.
4 Records of Families of the Name of Rawlins or Rollins, in the United States, pp. xi, 303.
5 xxvi. 619.
6 xxvii. 578.
7 ii. 578. The paragraph is headed “Friday, December 16.”
8 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 166.
9 College Book iv. 23, 24, 25.
10 Diary, ii. 134.
11 S. Sewall, History of Woburn, p. 586.
12 John Robinson (1650–1723).
13 W. S. Perry, Historical Collections relating to the American Colonial Church, iii. 98–99. On December 11, 1872, Bishop Perry wrote to Sibley stating that he had a copy of this letter and asking for information about Rawlins; and on December 27 he sent Sibley a copy of the letter, adding “I am very much obliged to you for the information you send.” The Massachusetts Historical Society owns Bishop Perry’s letters, but Sibley’s replies have not been preserved.
14 Andover Vital Records, i. 77. Dudley Bradstreet, the father, died on November 13, 1702 (ii. 397).
15 A. Abbot, History of Andover, p. 133; S. L. Bailey, Historical Sketches of Andover, p. 522.
16 Sewall, History of Woburn, pp. 214, 586.
17 Butler, History of Groton, pp. 165, 168. The date of ordination is sometimes wrongly given as June 16, 1706, and even as 1708.
18 Butler, History of Groton, pp. 166–167.
19 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xii. 298–302; S. A. Green, Groton Historical Series, vol. i. no. x. pp. 1–5.
20 Leverett’s Diary, p. 90.
21 Diary, iii. 13.
22 Diary, pp. 90–91. They are headed “mr Dudley Bradstreet’s Orders. 1. Diaconatus. . . . 2. Presbyter at as;” are entered between Corporations meetings held on July 22 and September 16, 1714; and in the margin is written “Reg. Sept. 1. 1714.”
23 Letter-Book, ii. 32.
24 ii. 32.
25 A Sermon Preach’d before the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; . . . On Friday the 18th of February, 1714. . . . London: . . . 1715. Abstract Of the most material Proceedings and Occurrences within the past year’s Endeavours, p. 40. In his History of the Episcopal Church in Narragansett (1847, p. 452; 1907, iii. 63) Updike wrongly stated that Bradstreet was designed “for Marblehead or Narragansett,” and that he “died before ordination.” In the Classified Digest of the Records of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1893, p. 852) Bradstreet is said to have “qualified for Newbury Mission.”
26 This title is taken from the British Museum Catalogue. The title is not in Sabin, and I have been unable to locate a copy. Mr. Rollins’s statement (p. 3, above) that Rawlins printed “Two Sermons; 1715” may be correct, but no authority is cited.
27 College Book iv. 259.
28 Overseers’ Records, ii. 1.
29 The date 1757 was first attached to Rawlins’s name in the 1848 Triennial Catalogue.
30 The so-called “Gilman-Belknap-Winthrop-Pierce Triennial Catalogue,” now owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society, where the entry occurs: “Episc. min. London. B. — obt 1763 aged 76 E. — Epis. min. in London. G. Brit. W.” “B.” stands for Jeremy Belknap, and “W.” for William Winthrop (H.C. 1770). In 1864 Sibley wrote: “To the Doctor’s [Dr. Belknap’s] memoranda are additions by another hand, probably that of the Rev. Dr. John Eliot, of Boston” (1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, viii. 45). Why Eliot gave that date remains unknown.
31 History of Plymouth Plantation (1912), i. 20–22.
32 In Bradford, History, i. 134.
33 In Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, pp. 396, 397.
34 History, i. 124–125.
35 Id. i. 191.
36 Laus Deo Optimo Maximo.
37 Peter Bours (H. C. 1747).
38 C. R. Batchelder, History of the Eastern Diocese (1910), i. 482. I am indebted to Mr. Percival Merritt for this reference and for the identification of “Mr. Bass.”
39 Richard Baxter (1615–1691), Thomas Emlyn (1663–1741), Matthew Henry (1662–1714), William Law (1686–1761).
40 Cf. A. H. Clough, Qua Cursum Ventus.
41 Belknap, History of New Hampshire (1792), ii. 169.
42 Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Proceedings, iii. 392.
43 Temple and Sheldon, History of Northfield, pp. 99, 106.
44 Conant, Vermont Historical Reader (1907), p. 19.
45 New Hampshire State Papers, ix. 382–383, xxiv. 142, xxv. 115–123; Vermont Historical Gazetteer, vol. v. pt. ii. 251, 271, 274.
46 Massachusetts Province Laws, xii. 55–56.
47 xii. 197.
48 xiii. 34–35.
49 xviii. 44, 65. A plan of this grant is in Maps and’ Plans, xxxvii. 5, in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth.
50 John Stebbins’s Narrative, in Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Proceedings, i. 148; Vermont Historical Gazetteer, vol. v. pt. ii. 275.
51 Massachusetts Province Laws, xii. 275 and note.
52 iv. 466.
53 xviii. 44 (June 25, 1765).
54 Massachusetts Province Laws, xi. 619–620 (October 1, 1731).
55 xi. 664 (June 30, 1732).
56 A perch is equivalent to one rod, or 5½ yards. As a square measure, a perch is equal to 30¼ square yards. 160 perches make an acre.
57 xi. 699–700.
58 xii. 499.
59 Massachusetts Province Laws, xii. 523.
60 Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Proceedings, i. 148.
61 Cf. Publications of this Society, xvii. 113, 115.
62 Connecticut Colonial Boundaries, 1670–1727, Massachusetts, iii. 12 (December 12, 1695). This is a volume of manuscripts in the Connecticut State Library at Hartford relating to the Massachusetts-Connecticut boundary for the years indicated. It is hereafter cited as “Connecticut Colonial Boundaries, iii.”
63 Connecticut Colonial Records, v. 399. The story of this survey and of the agreements arrived at is a long one. The documentary evidence in the Massachusetts Archives, in the Connecticut Colonial Records, and in the Connecticut Colonial Boundaries (iii), is extensive. Many of the important facts will be found in Clarence W. Bowen’s Boundary Disputes of Connecticut (1882).
64 Connecticut Colonial Boundaries, iii. 34–35c; Massachusetts Court Records, ix. 300–301; Massachusetts Archives, cxvii. 689.
65 Massachusetts Court Records, ix. 338–339; Connecticut Colonial Boundaries, iii. 43a–43c. A list of the tracts south of the line is in iii. 45b.
66 Connecticut Colonial Boundaries, iii. 43–45c.
67 iii. 44, 44b.
68 iii. 45b.
69 As in Connecticut Colonial Boundaries, iii. 54, 81c, 81d; Connecticut Colonial Records, v. 13; Massachusetts Archives, ii. 276–276a.
70 Connecticut Colonial Boundaries, iii. 58c–58d.
71 Connecticut Colonial Boundaries, iii. 54.
72 Massachusetts Archives, xlvi. 437; cxiv. 770.
73 Massachusetts Archives, ii. 277–283.
74 Massachusetts Archives, ii. 278; Connecticut Colonial Boundaries, iii. 194–199.
75 B. Hall, History of Eastern Vermont, p. 106.
76 Court Records, xvi. 70 (November 30, 1734); Massachusetts Province Laws, xii. 58 (December 2, 1734).
77 Massachusetts Archives, xlvi. 528.
78 xlvi. 521–522.
79 New Hampshire State Papers, xxv. i. 51–58, 130–138, 363–369.
80 Massachusetts Archives, cxiii. 425–427.
81 cxiii. 431–433.
82 Massachusetts Province Laws, xii. 142–143 (June 19, 1735), xii. 252 (March 27, 1736).
83 xii. 289.
84 xii. 294.
85 Vol. xxvi.
86 Massachusetts House Journal, 1735, pp. 221, 225, 227; Province Laws, xii. 225–227 (January 15, 1736), xii. 232 (January 16, 1736), xii. 307 (December 17, 1736); Court Records, xvi. 276–277, 282, 373 (January 15, 16, November 30, 1736).
87 Province Laws, xii. 292 (November 30, 1736).
88 For Phinehas (Phineas) Stevens, see Publications of this Society, vi. 260, 260 note, 261 note 2.
89 Cf. Publications of this Society, vi. 137–151.
90 Province Laws, xii. 342.
91 For a memoir of Young, see Publications of this Society, xi. 2–54.
92 The pamphlet is no. 9889 in Evans, under Young’s name; no. 42758 in Sabin, under Lydius’s name; and no. 1405 in Trumbull’s List of Books printed in Connecticut, 1709–1800 (1904), under the title. The title reads:
Some Reflections on the Disputes between New-York, New-Hampshire, and Col. John Henry Lydius Of Albany. Qui ab altero fere tuleris, re inferes ipse.
To these Reflections are added, Some Rules of Law, fit to be observed in purchasing Land, &c. New-Haven: Printed and Sold by Benjamin Mecom. 1764.
Title, 1 leaf; Reflections, &c., pp. 3–21. The copy in the Boston Public Library ends on p. 21, the verso of which is blank. The copies in the New York Public Library and in the Henry E. Huntington Library have an additional leaf, the verso of which is blank, while the recto (in verse) is headed: “From an Old Book. Rules of Law, fit to be observed in purchasing Land, &c.” Cf. Publications of this Society, xi. 26 note 1.
93 It is No. 49 on the map in Documentary History of the State of New York (1849), i. 556.
94 Some Reflections, etc., pp. 12–13.
95 Id. p. 4.
96 Id. pp. 4, 5.
97 Id. pp. 5–6.
98 This boundary was determined in July, 1764, and became known in New York the following February or March.
99 The New York law of 1691 establishing counties left the northern extension of Albany County east of the Hudson indeterminate: “The County of Albany [to containl] the Manour of Renslaerswyck, Schenectady and all the villages neighbourhoods and Christian plantacons on the East side of Hudson’s River from Roeloffe Jansens Creeke and on the west side; from Sawyers Creeke to the utmost end of Saraghtooga” (Laws of New York, 1894, i. 268).
100 Particularly in the Calendar of the [New York] Council Minutes, 1668–1783 (1902), pp. 414–466; and in the Calendar of the Sir William Johnson Manuscripts in the New York State Library compiled by R. E. Day (1909).
101 Calendar of the Council Minutes, p. 452.
102 Calendar of the Council Minutes, p. 452; Calendar of New York Historical Manuscripts (1866), p. 719.
103 Calendar of the Council Minutes, p. 456.
104 Calendar of the Council Minutes, p. 457; Calendar of New York Historical Manuscripts, p. 729.
105 Calendar of the Sir W. Johnson Manuscripts, pp. 136, 169.
106 Province Laws, xiii. 543; xiv. 79, 592; xv. 105, 281; House Journal, 1745, p. 179; 1747, pp. 21, 175, 179; 1748, pp. 14, 56, 67, 114; 1755, pp. 233, 239.
107 New York Colonial Documents, vi. 561, 569, 577, 650; vii. 456; ix. 1019–1020.
108 New York Land Papers, xxxiv. 10–11, in the Land Bureau of the Secretary of State of New York.
109 New York Land Papers, xvi. 396–405.
110 Military Patents, xvi. 418–421.
111 In or near Lincoln, Vermont.
112 Documentary History of New York (1851), iv. 956; Hall, Early History of Vermont, p. 169.
113 At a meeting of the Council held 1 April, 1920, the following minute was adopted:
The Council have learned with sorrow of the death of their honored colleague ANDREW McFARLAND DAVIS, the Senior Vice-President of the Society, and for many years a member of this Board. Although the state of Mr. Davis’s health has deprived us of his presence at our meetings during the past three years, his wise counsel has always been at our service, and his kind and cordial greeting has been sent to us on more than one occasion. We shall long miss him, and we deplore the loss of his advice and cooperation in the varied interests of the Society. Nor can we say farewell to our old associate without an especial tribute of gratitude and appreciation for his unfailing loyalty and help in the early days of the Society before it had attained the recognized position which it now enjoys.
114 Cf. our Publications, xiv. 268–281.
115 Oddly enough, “Ashworth” was also a ghost benefactor, the name evidently being an error for “Henry Ashurst:” cf. our Publications, xx. 201–202.
116 History of Harvard University (1833), p. 50.
117 History of Harvard University, i. 510.
118 Sketch of the History of Harvard College (1848), p. 166.
119 College Book, iii. 60.
120 iii. 83.
121 Donation Book, i. 19. This was compiled about 1773.
122 There was a William Trusedale in England, who never came to this country. He is supposed to have been a brother of Deacon Richard Trusedale and the father of the Richard Trusedale who died in 1676 or 1677: see 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, iv. 78.
123 Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, iv. 335.
124 A. B. Ellis, History of the First Church, p. 328.
125 Hill, History of the Old South Church, i. 117–118.
126 Suffolk Probate Files, vii. 176, 177. That this Richard Trusedale was the deacon is shown by the fact that he is so called in several depositions and in the inventory.
127 Suffolk Probate Files, no. 885.
128 Suffolk Probate Records, v. 230, vi. 73.
129 Our Publications, v. 390, 391; W. C. Ford, Boston Book Market, pp. 43, 72; Memorial History of Boston, i. 469.
130 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 93, 101, 112.
131 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, Iii. 315.
132 Roberts, History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, i. 209, 210.
133 Diary, ii. 12.*
134 History of Printing in America (1874), ii. 207, 208, 242.
135 Ford, Boston Book Market, p. 12.
136 Suffolk Probate Files, no. 486.
137 Diary, iii. 14.
138 The Greene Family (1901), p. 50.
139 Suffolk Probate Files, no. 5574.
140 Collation: Title, 1 leaf; Dedication, 1 leaf; “Officia Sacrata: or, Devotional Offices. In Three Parts” (half-title), 1 leaf; “View of H. Duties” (half-title), 1 leaf; “A General View of the Christian Duties, the Compiler’s Preliminary to the Retired Acts thereof,” pp. [i]–vii; Contents, pp. [viii]–[xi]; “Daily Offices. Part the First” (half-title), p. [1]; text, pp. [3]–56; Appendix to these Retired Acts, pp. [57]–80; “Eucharistical Offices. Part the Second” (half-title), p. [81]; text, pp. [83]–119; “Occasional Offices. Part the Third” (half-title), p. [121]; text, pp. [123]–224.
141 It is also the book-plate that I have found in all copies of the Elliston books that I have seen. Both book-plates are reproduced in facsimile in A. B. Keep’s History of the New York Society Library (1908), the 1725 one on p. 38, the later one on p. 41.
142 I do not find the name of Robert Elliston in the index to any volume by or about Franklin.
143 For information about this library I am indebted to Mr. Isadore G. Mudge.
144 Before I had an opportunity of examining the copies in the library of this institution, Mr. George Dobbin Brown kindly sent me information.
145 Collation: Title, 1 leaf; Address Dedicatory, pp. iii–vi (misprinted iv); General Matters in the Religious Instructions, pp. vii–xi; Version of the Mottos, pp. xii–xiv; Cognitiones Christianismi, pp. 1–242; Ἐπίλογος φιλοχρήστου, P. 243; Narratus, etc., pp. [244–245].
146 P. [244] ends with this word.
147 “Some account of Robert Elliston, gentleman. He was born in Middlesex in the year of salvation 1680, in Haberdashers’ Hall, fourteen full years after the Great Fire of London and on that very day; and at the beginning of the next century he had been for a time one of the clerks under the Hon. Edward Harley, Esq., Royal Auditor; then up to 1742 he was Comptroller of his Majesty’s Customs in the port of New York in America. All praise be assuredly to the Most High!” The building in which Mr. Elliston was born stood on the present site of Haberdashers’ Hall at no. 33 Gresham Street and Staining Lane, behind the General Post Office, and was erected immediately after the Great Fire from designs by Wren. Wren’s building was in turn in large part burned in or about 1840. Cf. Brayley, Londiniana, 1829, iv. 149, 151–152; Wheatley, London Past and Present, ii. 176; W. C. Hazlitt, Livery Companies of London, p. 289; P. H. Ditchfield, City Companies of London, pp. 115–116. For the translation of this inscription and of the dedication below, together with the comments, I am indebted to Professor Kittredge.
148 Collation: Title, 1 leaf; Address Dedicatory, 1 leaf; Contents, 1 leaf; Enchiridium Polychrestum, pp. [1]–[84].
149 “M. & C.” is probably an abbreviation for “Medicinae et Chirurgiae.” “Hinc . . . Plurimae” is unintelligible. Exopatur would be an easy misprint for exoratur, but exoptatur seems more likely, since exoratur means not to “ask” but to “obtain one’s request.” Erint is somebody’s blunder (Elliston’s or his printer’s); sense and grammar require sint. With these corrections it is possible that Elliston’s Latin was intended to signify: “To Mr. John Dupuy, scholarly physician and surgeon, these Instructions of Christianity are inscribed by R. Elliston his father-in-law. Hence it is earnestly desired that very many [of these Instructions] may be acceptable to him.” Ipsimet is so emphatic a word that one is tempted to guess that Elliston meant it to refer to Christ; but it is to be noted that in the other inscription he employs ipse where a mere “he” would be expected in English.
150 This inscription is printed wholly in capital letters.
151 Doubtless a misprint for “Quidam” (see the inscription of 1742, above).
152 Corrected with a pen to “Computatori.”
153 W. Berrian, Historical Sketch of Trinity Church (1847), p. 322.
154 Id. p. 355.
155 Id. p. 340.
156 Id. p. 55.
157 Id. p. 55 note.
158 Id. p. 57; Keep, History of the New York Society Library, pp. 33–35.
159 “Robert Ellison, Esq; Collector of the Customs at New-York” (London Magazine, July, 1732, i. 207). A similar item appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine for the same month (ii. 877).
160 The New York Weekly Post Boy of July 22, 1745, stated that “Last Night, died . . . Mr. John Dupuy, M.D. and man-midwife; in which last Character it may truly be said here . . . There is none like him” (in C. M. Dupuy, Genealogical History of the Dupuy Family, p. 20).
161 For references to Elliston, other than those already cited, see: New York Colonial Documents, v. 774 (where “Rll Elliston” clearly stands for “Rt Elliston”); Calendar of New York Historical Manuscripts (1866), ii. 465, 543; Ecclesiastical Records State of New York (1902), iv. 2927; Memorial History of New York City, iv. 113–114; Calendar of [New York] Council Minutes (1902), pp. 288, 316; Abstracts of Wills (Collections New York Historical Society), iii. 97, 283, iv. 327, viii. 254, 295, 369; M. Dix, History of the Parish of Trinity Church, i. 220, iv 575; W. Berrian, Facts against Fancy (1856), p. 61; W. Berrian, Historical Sketch of Trinity Church, pp. 85, 334; Keep, History of the New York Society Library, p. 122; H. B. Dupuy, The Huguenot Bartholomew Dupuy and his Descendants (1908), p. 391 (where the name is wrongly given as “Ellister”); C. M. Dupuy, Genealogical History of the Dupuy Family (1910), pp. 16, 19, 21, 22, 24, 26, 155.
My particular thanks are due to Mr. Robert H. Kelby of the New York Historical Society, who has kindly sent me some data which were collected by his brother, the late William Kelby.
162 Pennsylvania Magazine, xiii. 207–215; also separately printed the same year.
163 Sketches of Printers and Printing in Colonial New York (1895), pp. 37–38.
164 These are: E. Pemberton, Sermon Preached . . . On Occasion of the Death of John Nicoll, M.D. (1743); D. Horsmanden, “Negro Plot” (1744); and E. Pemberton, Sermon Delivered at the Presbyterian Church in New-York, July 31, 1746 (1746).
165 Sketches, etc., p. 35.
166 Hildeburn (Pennsylvania Magazine, xiii. 209) assigns to Parker’s press the Rev. John Beach’s “Sermon on Eternal Life” (1745). According to Haven and to Evans this book was printed at Newport, R. I. I have found no copy of the 1745 edition in the libraries about here, but the title-page of a later edition reads in part: “A Sermon shewing, that Eternal Life Is God’s Free Gift, Bestowed upon all Men who obey the Gospel. . . . Newport: Printed by the Widow Franklin, at the Town-School-House. 1745. Newport: Re-printed at the Office of the Newport Mercury 1806.”
167 See J. Nichols, Biographical and Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer, F. S. A. (1782), and J. Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (1812), ii. 1–461. Elliston’s name apparently does not appear in either of these works.
168 A border frequently employed in the Officia Sacrata—it is found on pp. 18, 20, 23, 39, 41, 77, 99, 107, 112, 114, 158, 183, 207, 209 — appears to be identical with a border in Roger North’s Examen, printed by Bowyer in 1740 (Advertisement, signature b). It should be added that no copies of the Elliston books are in the British Museum, nor do I find them recorded in Watt or Lowndes.
169 The paper on which the Officia Sacrata is printed has no water-mark. The paper on which the Enchiridium Polychrestum is printed has a singularly distinct water-mark: a figure of Neptune and his trident, the words “Pro Patria,” and the name “J: Evers Vierevant.” Perhaps Vierevant was a Continental paper-maker. The water-mark of the paper on which the Cognitiones Christianismi is printed is not easy to read, but the words “Pro Patria” are clear.
170 The Enchiridium Polychrestum is entered in Evans’s American Bibliography (no. 4941), doubtless, as Mr. Evans writes me, on the authority of Hildeburn. Mr. Evans now thinks that the book must have been printed in England.
171 See the Columbian Magazine, December, 1788, ii. 673.
172 At this time the Board of Overseers was composed of the members of the Governor’s Council, and the teaching elders of Boston, Cambridge, Watertown, Charlestown, Roxbury, and Dorchester, with the Governor (Samuel Shute), the Lieutenant-Governor (William Dummer), and the President of the College (John Leverett).
173 See no. ii, pp. 89–90, below.
174 See p. 90 note 1, below.
175 See p. 95 note 1, below.
176 See the other plan (reproduced facing page 100) and the note in regard to it, p. 95, below.
177 Among the reasons set forth are that the number of resident students, graduates and undergraduates, amounted to 124, that the studies to receive them when the smaller building was finished would amount to but 116, or eight less than the number of students at that time, while the larger building would accommodate 134, or only ten more than the present number. These figures are puzzling. Why should the building when doubled in size contain only 18 additional studies? One would expect the number to be 32, for the building when actually completed in its larger form contained 64 studies altogether, or two in each of the 32 chambers. The explanation may be something like this. Harvard and Stoughton are supposed to have contained 72 studies. The fifty-foot building then under way, with four large square chambers on each floor, each having windows on two sides, may well have had three studies to each chamber, as proposed in Wadsworth’s draught plan. This would give us twelve studies on each floor, and if in the roof story only eight studies (two to a chamber) were provided, we should have the forty-four which, added to seventy-two, gives the 116 mentioned in the report. On extending the building to the 100-foot length, the plan was in fact changed so far as to give but two studies to each chamber, or 64 in all. This would give 136 for the three buildings, which is only two in excess of the number mentioned in the committee’s report.
178 On July 29, 1720, Judge Sewall recorded (Diary, iii. 259) that he waited “on the President, and Chuse a Chamber in the New-College for Cousin Quincey, and Sam. Hirst,” the latter his grandson. The youths were Edmund Quincy of the class of 1722 and Samuel Hirst of the class of 1723.
179 The address was printed in full, by special vote of the House, in rather handsome typography, in its Journal. It has been reprinted at the Harvard University Press in broadside form, following carefully the style of the original, for the Harvard Memorial Society, in honor of the two hundredth anniversary of the day on which it was first presented.
180 President Leverett’s Diary, p. 133.
181 President Leverett’s Diary, p. 134.
182 In President Leverett’s Diary (p. 135) this phrase reads: “the Slender Authority the College is capable of Exerting in the Town.” Cf. no. iii, p. 91, below.
183 This memorial is entered in Leverett’s Diary, pp. 134–136, but as printed in the text is copied from College Book iii. 164–163, which differs in some minor points of phrasing and spelling.
184 President Leverett’s Diary, p. 136.
185 Court Records, x. 188–189.
186 House Journal (1919), p. 249.
187 Court Records, x. 190.
188 Court Records, x. 195.
189 Court Records, x. 206. The same text is found in House Journal (1919), pp. 261–262.
190 Court Records, x. 207.
191 House Journal (1919), pp. 262–263.
192 House Journal (1919), pp. 263–264.
193 Court Records, x. 210.
194 House Journal (1919), p. 264.
195 A plan, reproduced facing page 94, made apparently by Benjamin Wadsworth, since the words and figures on it are in his hand, still remaining in the Library files (M3454F.4), may well be the draught mentioned in this vote. On the back of the plan is written, also in Wadsworth’s hand, the following:
Some model for a College
A College 98 Feet Long 43 wide. Walls 2 & half bricks thick. Two Entryways, each 7 feet wide. one solid brick afoot thick athwart in ye middle. Three stories high, 8½ feet each, and so 8 foot in ye clear between ye floor & cieling. 8 chambers in a story, each of them 20 feet square, excepting what’s taken up by ye chimneys. 3 studies in every front-chamber, by borrowing 3 foot 4 Inches out of ye Entry way; and two studies in each of ye Rere-chambers viz 60 in all. Every studie to be five feet long, four & an half wide, or there may be three studies in each of ye Rere-end chambers, by reason of ye end-lights, then ye whole number will be 66. The * or stars are studies. D.L. is a Door way in ye first story, & Lights in ye higher ones.
If ye middle, as well as ye end, chambers, in ye Rere, have three studies each, yn ye whole will be seventy two. And if it be thus contriv’d, each chamber (besides Lights for ye studies) may have one window 6 foot deep, 4 foot 4 Inches wide, which will have more than 16 square feet of Glass, and yt surely will be enough to Inlighten one chamber.
Another plan (reproduced facing p. 100, below), more like the building finally erected, is in Harvard College Papers, i. 16. On the face of the plan is written in ink “A Plan for the New College,” and in pencil “This is the hand of Thomas Prince J W.” The latter words were written by the late Justin Winsor. On the back of the plan is written in ink “Plan of the New College” — these words being also in the hand of Thomas Prince. Exactly when Prince made these endorsements it is impossible to say, but presumably it was after October 1, 1718, on which day he became an Overseer by virtue of his ordination as colleague pastor of the Old South Church, Boston.
The lettering of this plan is identified by Mr. Albert Matthews as doubtless in the hand of President Leverett. At first glance this plan would seem to be designed for the smaller building, which was all the House would consent to at first. In fact, however, the outline of the whole building is given, but only one half is filled in. The disposition of the chimneys agrees with the building as carried out.
196 House Journal (1919), p. 265.
197 House Journal (1919), p. 269.
198 Court Records, x. 220–221.
199 House Journal, p. 19.
200 Id. p. 21.
201 Court Records, x. 267.
202 House Journal, p. 33.
203 Court Records, x. 283.
204 This relates to the trouble caused by Ebenezer Pierpont in 1718 and the various meetings of Corporation and Overseers held to consider it.
205 Diary, pp. 152–153.
206 For the memorial, see no. xxiii, pp. 101–102, below.
207 William Dummer.
208 Leverett’s Diary, pp. 153–154, 156–159.
209 In regard to the number of studies, see p. 85 note 1, above.
210 College Book, iii. 162–161. The memorial is also given in Leverett’s Diary, pp. 154–156.
211 Paul Dudley.
212 Diary, iii. 402–403.
213 House Journal, p. 45.
214 House Journal, p. 56.
215 House Journal, pp. 3–4.
216 The house in which President Leverett lived was taken down.
217 Court Records, x. 350–352.
218 College Book, iv. 66.
219 Leverett’s Diary, pp. 173–174.
220 College Book, iv. 67.
221 Leverett’s Diary, p. 178.
222 House Journal, p. 10.
223 House Journal, p. 6. The Council concurred on November 5th (Court Records, xi. 41–42).
224 House Journal, pp. 31–33.
225 In a private note of the same date Lord Bryce says: “The Pilgrim Fathers Celebrations have passed off with keen interest and great success in many parts of England, and a remarkable display of fraternal feeling towards America in general, and New England in particular.”
226 Our Publications, vol. xxii. pp. lv–lxii.
227 Though not entitled, strictly speaking, to be called Dr. Briggs until 1855, I have uniformly applied that title to him.
228 Cf. our Publications, xxiii. 600–603, 710–712.
229 Our Publications, vol. xxii. pp. lx–lxi.
230 These two, if I have read them correctly, are thus entered:
- 1851 Prize Diss. Christ with the Doctors.
- 1890 Privilege of life to-day in unity.
231 Most of the sermons were preached more than once, many of them several times. Thus no. 238 was preached twenty-five times between 1840 and 1862, no. 3 twenty-seven times between 1852 and 1863, and no. 55 twenty-nine times between 1845 and 1863. Dr. Briggs frequently preached elsewhere than in his own pulpit. He pretty well covered the eastern part of Massachusetts, and sermons are recorded as having been preached in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Keene, New York, Portsmouth (N. H.), Providence, St. Louis, and Washington (D. C.).
232 Many clippings in (C) are taken from The Christian Inquirer (New York) for 1848, and from these it appears — though his name is nowhere mentioned — that Dr. Briggs was editor of that paper for about three months in that year. A brief editorial in the issue of April 15th, headed “Our Present Number,” states that “The present editor has been unable to give as much attention as he hopes to bestow, in future, to the paper of this week. A part of the copy was made up before his arrival. Perhaps it might be proper to apologize for what he has done, rather than for what he has not inserted. The entire charge of the paper, in future, for a few weeks, will devolve upon himself.” Then follows a long “Introductory,” beginning as follows: “The temporary editor of the Christian Inquirer would have greatly preferred to enter upon his brief service, without any special introduction. Indeed, he did not fully realize that he should have any claim to the title of editor until he found himself thus announced. The readers of the paper, therefore, may begin to imagine, though they cannot really apprehend his dismay as he read the Valedictory of his predecessors.” A long valedictory in the issue of July 8th, headed “Editorial,” begins with this paragraph:
“In consequence of the somewhat oppressive kindness of our predecessors’ introduction of us to the readers of the Inquirer, we were compelled to take the editorial chair in form three months ago, instead of sliding into it, unobserved, as we had hoped. The same original sin of our friends makes it necessary, now that our brief engagement has closed, distinctly to state that fact also. Our connection with the paper does not entirely close; but as we cannot be an Editor in New York, while on the sea-shore in Massachusetts, the special charge of its columns will pass into other hands.”
Clippings from every issue of the Christian Inquirer from July 15th to December 30th, 1848, are pasted into (C), but how many of the articles were written by Dr. Briggs himself it is impossible to say, as none are signed with either his name or his initials. But an article entitled “Present Experience of Immortal Life,” in the issue of July 29th, has at the bottom “G. W. Briggs” written in ink in his own hand.
233 Thus (D) contains only pp. 23–49 of no. 1; only pp. 25–36 of no. 21; and only pp. 41–52 of no. 54. See pp. 126, 132, 139, below.
234 Pasted into (C) is a clipping from the Microcosm of September 9, 1825, giving an account of the Commencement exercises at Brown University on September 7th. From this it appears that no. 7 on the programme was “A Greek Oration on Grecian Literature. By George W. Briggs.”
235 For the title of the sermon preached on this occasion, see no. 1, p. 126, below.
236 See our Publications, xxiii. 591–596.
237 The sermon preached on this occasion was published with the following title:
A Sermon, preached at the Installation of Rev. George W. Briggs, as Pastor of the First Church in Salem, January 6, 1853. By John Hopkins Morison, Pastor of the First Church in Milton. Salem: . . . 1853.
Title, 1 leaf; Sermon, pp. [3]–28; Right Hand of Fellowship, by Rev. Dr. Flint, of Salem, pp. [29]–32; Notices of the First Church in Salem and its Ministers, 1629 to 1853, by a Member, pp. [33]–62; Index, p. [63].
The cover reads: “Sermon at the Installation of Rev. George W. Briggs, as Pastor of the First Church in Salem, by Rev. Mr. Morison, of Milton. Right Hand of Fellowship, by Rev. Dr. Flint, of Salem. With Notices of the First Church and its Ministers by a Member.” The Notices were written by Daniel Appleton White, as appears from Dr. Briggs’s Memoir of Judge White, p. 43: see no. 63, p. 140, below.
238 “On Wednesday evening last, the installation of Rev. George W. Briggs, D.D., as pastor of the Cambridgeport Parish (Austin Street Unitarian Society) took place at the church” (Cambridge Chronicle, Saturday, April 6, 1867, p. 2/1). Dr. Briggs remained sole pastor until April 11, 1889: “The installation of the Rev. John Tunis as associate minister of the Third Congregationalist Society took place Thursday evening at the church on Austin street, . . . Rev. George W. Briggs made the address to the people” (Cambridge Chronicle, Saturday, April 13, 1889, p. 3/1). Cf. General Catalogue of the Divinity School of Harvard University (1910), p. 122.
239 This account is based on Professor Briggs’s sketch of his father cited in the next note. Cf. General Catalogue of the Divinity School of Harvard University (1910), p. 44.
240 LeB. R. Briggs, “George Ware Briggs, 1810–1895,” in Heralds of a Liberal Faith, III, The Preachers (1910), pp. 37–40.
241 See no. 62, p. 140, below.
242 Our Publications, vol. xxii. pp. lx–lxi.
243 In this list, the items are arranged by date of delivery, not necessarily that of publication.
244 That of George Latimer: see H. Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, i. 477–480.
245 Samuel Hoar (1778–1856; H. C. 1802) had been appointed agent by Governor Briggs on October 11, 1844: see Memorial Biographies of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (1883), iii. 113.
246 Possibly this is an error for Fairhaven, where Dr. Briggs delivered the “Address to the Society” at the ordination of the Rev. Thomas Dawes on October 30, 1844 (The Monthly Religious Magazine, December, 1844, i. 427).
247 The book was advertised in the Christian Register of December 20, 27, 1845, January 31, March 7, October 24, 1846, etc., xxiv. 203, 207, xxv. 19, 40, 171. It is described from the only copy I have seen, kindly loaned to me by Miss Catherine E. Russell of Boston.
248 William Thomas.
249 Zephaniah Willis was born at Bridgewater February 24, 1757; graduated at Harvard College in 1778; was ordained at Kingston October 18, 1780; withdrew in 1828; and died at Kingston March 6, 1847.
250 There is pasted into (C) the “Plymouth School Report for 1850,” no doubt taken from a Plymouth newspaper, though the name and date have been cut off. The School Committee consisted of “G. W. Briggs, R. Tomlinson, Adiel Harvey.” Following the Report is a letter signed “G. W. B.,” undated, which begins as follows: “Mr. Editor. —When the School Committee presented their Report for the last year, all of the School Registers had not been returned. Will you permit me to communicate through your paper, some of the statistics of the schools, which have been since obtained, for the information of the town?” Perhaps this Report was written by Dr. Briggs, but it is excluded from the list of his writings merely because it is not included in (A).
251 The Unitarian Book and Pamphlet Society was formed in August, 1827. Its Constitution, with the names of members, was published in Boston in 1829. Nos. 23, 34, 51, 56, 57, and 62, are reports of sermons or addresses.
252 Reprinted from The Monthly Religious Magazine for December, 1853, x. 558–568.
253 James Flint was born at Reading December 10, 1779; graduated at Harvard College in 1802; was settled at East Bridgewater October 29, 1806, resigning in 1821; was settled in the East Church, Salem, September 19, 1821; and died at Salem, March 4, 1855.
254 Also printed in the Essex County Mercury of June 4, 1856.
255 See W. Cushing’s Index to the Christian Register (1879), pp. 88, 139.
256 See also Boston Daily Advertiser, September 19 (p. 1/6), 21 (pp. 1/6, 1/8, 4/1), 22 (p. 1/6, where the “probable number of drowned” is given as 419, pp. 2/1, 2/3), 23 (pp. 1/8, 4/1).
257 See Report of the Treasurer of the Committee of Relief for the Sufferers by the Fall of the Pemberton Mill (1860); Final Report of the Treasurer, etc. (1861); J. F. C. Hayes, History of the City of Lawrence (1868), pp. 99–127; H. A. Wadsworth, History of Lawrence (1880), pp. 161–162.
258 Frederic West Lander was born in Salem December 17, 1822, and died in West Virginia March 2, 1862.
259 Also printed in the Salem Gazette of March 11, p. 2/2.
260 The name originally chosen was apparently Salem “Unconditional League:” see Salem Register, February 26 (p. 2/2), March 2 (p. 2/1), March 9 (pp. 2/3, 2/7), March 12 (p. 2/2), March 19 (pp. 2/2, 2/7).
261 Pickering Dodge Allen was born at Salem May 20, 1838, and died at Brashear City, Missouri, June 2, 1863. His father was John Fisk Allen.
262 Reprinted from Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, February and March, 1864, vi. 1–24, 49–71.
263 The square brackets are in the original.
264 Nathaniel Hall was born at Medford August 13, 1805; ordained at Dorchester July 16, 1835.
265 The centennial celebration in New York of Washington’s inauguration took place on Tuesday, April 30, 1889.
266 In this list, the dates are those of delivery, not necessarily of publication.
267 Proceedings, lii. 285–312.
268 Sephardi is the name by which a Jew of Spanish or Portuguese origin is usually designated.
269 Rovigo is a small city on the present railway between Padua and Ferrara.
270 Our Publications, vol. xxii. p. li.
271 Sketches of Mr. Ball are printed in Hurd’s History of Worcester County (1889), ii. 907–908, 920–921 (where will be found a portrait); in the Unitarian Year Book, 1903, pp. 156–157; and in the General Catalogue of the Meadville Theological School (1910), p. 2. See also our Publications, xxiii. 715, 716; Leominster Vital Records, p. 12; Bolton Vital Records, p. 109; C. F. Walcott, History of the Twenty-First Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers (1882), pp. 16, 50, 92, 167, 235, 430; W. A. Emerson, Leominster, Historical and Picturesque (1888), pp. 95, 110; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxii. 86, 87.
272 Actually written “Sergeant Joseph Ryde Ryder.” The name “Ryde” coming at the extreme right hand of the page, there was no room for the final letter and so “Ryder” was written on the line below.
273 To this point the entry is crossed out.
274 To this point the entry is crossed out.
275 “Josiah” is preceded by “Major,” crossed out.
276 To this point the entry is crossed out.
277 This name is clearly “Iyde” or “Jyde.” In the Plymouth Colony Records occur the following: Nicholas Hyde (or Hide), ii. 123, 126, iii. 4, 66, iv. 15, 151, v. 19, 278; Nicholas Ide (or Iyd or Iyde), iii. 158, v. 146, 209, 234, 237, vi. 8, 62, 86, viii. 100, 121, 201, 209; Jyde, iii. 119, iv. 84. According to Savage, there was no Nicholas Hyde in New England in the seventeenth century. On the other hand, there were several persons named Nicholas Ide. Presumably, therefore, “Hyde” as printed in the Plymouth Colony Records, is a misreading of “Ide” or one of its variants.
278 This entry is crossed out.
279 This name is crossed out.
280 This name is crossed out.
281 This entry is crossed out.
282 This name is crossed out.
283 This name is crossed out.
284 To this point the entry is crossed out.
285 This name is crossed out.
286 This name is crossed out.
287 This name is crossed out.
288 This name is crossed out.
289 This name is crossed out.
290 This name is crossed out.
291 This name is crossed out.
292 To this point the entry is crossed out.
293 To this point the entry is crossed out.
294 To this point the entry is crossed out.
295 To this point the entry is crossed out.
296 To this point the entry is crossed out.
297 This name is crossed out.
298 This name is crossed out.
299 This name is crossed out.
300 This name is crossed out.
301 To this point the entry is crossed out.
302 To this point the entry is crossed out.
303 This name is crossed out.
304 This name is crossed out.
305 This name is crossed out.
306 Presumably this word was “Propounded:” cf. Plymouth Colony Records, vi. 42, 62, 86, etc.
307 “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him Crucified.” On p. 1 the text is wrongly attributed to 1 Cor. ii. 6.
308 Title, 1 leaf; Dedication, pp. i–iv; Sermon, pp. 1–18. The headline on each page reads, “A Sermon Preached in the College, &c.”
309 Our Publications, xii. 220, 227–231.
310 For a sketch of him, see A. C. Potter and C. K. Bolton, Librarians of Harvard College, 1667–1877, Library of Harvard University, Bibliographical Contributions, No. 52 (1897), p. 16.
311 Here the word “thereof” or “whereof” is crossed out.
312 This is a portrait seal.
313 Faculty Records, iii. 42; Boxford Vital Records, p. 21; S. Perley, History of Boxford (1880), p. 353.
314 Faculty Records, iii. 118. Cf. our Publications, xvii. 277, 281.
315 Faculty Records, iii. 100, 150, 152, 155, 173, 183.
316 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxiv. 56, 59, 60, 61.
317 Faculty Records, iii. 41.
318 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxx. 34.
319 Faculty Records, ii. 241; Andover Vital Records, i. 161; Ellen F. Barker, Frye Genealogy (1920), p. 54.
320 Faculty Records, iii. 50, 67–68, 105–106, 152, 154.
321 Faculty Records, iii. 41; Grafton Vital Records, p. 75; F. B. Dexter, Yale Biographies and Annals, ii. 122; C. A. Downs, History of Lebannon, N. H., p. 151, etc. In C. H. Bell’s Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (p. 455) it is wrongly stated that Hutchinson was born in Connecticut and graduated at Yale College in 1770.
322 Faculty Records, iii. 118; J. Chapman, Leonard Weeks of Greenland, New Hampshire, and Descendants, 1639–1888 (1889), p. 20; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxix. 37. In the last two works Clement Weeks is stated to have died January 4, 1829. This is an error for January 6, 1830. An obituary notice appeared in the New Hampshire Gazette of January 12, 1830, p. 3/3.
323 The last two or three letters are uncertain.
324 Here something is crossed out.
325 Altered from “2d.”
326 The words “2d Lieut.” are written above “Ensign,” crossed out.
327 Altered from “Clark.”
328 The first figure is somewhat uncertain.
329 Here the words “Rice tert 4 Sargent Lane” are crossed out.
330 P. 347.
331 William Wetmore was born at Middletown, Ct., October 30, 1749; was for many years an attorney in Salem; was in Boston in 1787, and died there November 19, 1830. (2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xvi. 313 note.)
332 Solomon Vose was born at Milton February 22, 1768; practised law at Northfield; removed to Augusta, Maine, in 1803, and died there in 1809. (2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xvi. 339 note.)
333 Collection of College Words and Customs, ed. 1851, pp. 156–157; ed. 1856, pp. 247–248. Cf. 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, viii. 69 note.
334 Harvard Book (1875), i. 42, ii. 375. Cf. A. S. Pier, Story of Harvard (1913), p. 78.
335 Faculty Records, iii. 118; History of Hingham (1893), ii. 23; J. Thacher, American Medical Biography (1828), i. 143–144.
336 Faculty Records, iii. 119; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 281; Thacher, American Medical Biography, ii. 238–241. Cf. our Publications, xix. 286, 288, 289 note.
337 Faculty Records, iii. 119; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxi. 149.
338 For a sketch of him, see our Publications, xxi. 280–283.
339 Faculty Records, iii. 118; Haverhill Vital Records, i. 235, ii. 452; I. Osgood, Genealogy of the Descendants of John, Christoper and William Osgood (1894), pp. 46, 91–92.
340 Faculty Records, iii. 169; Newbury Vital Records, i. 378, ii. 682.
341 Faculty Records, iii. 169; Sturbridge Vital Records, p. 110; A. H. Ward, Genealogical History of the Rice Family (1858), pp. 81, 145–146.
342 Faculty Records, iii. 119; Ipswich Vital Records, i. 343; Newburyport Vital Records, ii. 789.
343 Faculty Records, iii. 119; Martha J. Tenney, Tenney Family (1904), pp. 51, 86–87; Biographical Congressional Directory, 1774–1911 (1913), p. 1047; Thacher, American Medical Biography, ii. 117–121.
344 Faculty Records, iii. 119; Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, ii. 1007.
345 Faculty Records, iii. 118.
346 Haverhill Vital Records, i. 312; New Hampshire Town Papers, xiii. 434; Biographical Congressional Directory (1913), p. 1105. In the last cited work the date of his death is wrongly given as August 11, 1811. An obituary notice appeared in the Columbian Centinel of June 29, 1811, p. 2/4. This Phillips White (1729–1811) was the son of William and Sarah (Phillips) White of Haverhill.
347 College Book, i. 43, 45; our Publications, xv. 26, 31.
348 C. A. Bristed, Five Years in an English University, 2d ed., 1852, p. 13. See also B. H. Hall, Collection of College Words and Customs, 1856, p. 192.
349 College Book, i. 182–183; our Publications, xv. 135.
350 College Book, iii. 42; our Publications, xv. 209.
351 College Book, iii. 40; our Publications, xv. 207.
352 This name is somewhat obscure: perhaps it is “Langhorn.” So far as it is known there was no Thomas Langham here at that time. There was, however, a Thomas Longhorn (or Longhorne) then at Cambridge, though, since he was a butcher and town drummer, it does not seem likely that he could have been the man. Nor could his son Thomas have been the fellow-commoner, since he died in infancy.
353 John Ven was one of the patentees named in the Massachusetts charter of 1629 (our Publications, ii. 10, 11, 12, 13), and his son Thomas was here in 1644 to look after his father’s interests: see Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 76, iii. 8.
354 See p. 170, below.
355 Presumably Edward Pelham: see p. 174, below.
356 As there were between 1642 and 1678 no fewer than nine graduates whom these initials would fit, the identification of this I.B. is hopeless.
357 The only alumnus — graduate or temporary student — whose name fits these initials is William Whittingham of the Class of 1660.
358 Speaking of the Rev. Samuel Parris, of unhappy memory in the witchcraft episode at Salem, Savage says that he “was educated at Harvard but left before graduation” (Genealogical Dictionary, iii. 345–346). No evidence is known to support this notion, and perhaps Savage confused Samuel Parris with the “Mr Parish” for whose study glass was furnished on March 5, 1644 (College Book, i. 3). On the extreme right of the page is written in pencil (of course very much later) “his son 1659.” If this is correct, the Mr. Parish who was living at the College in some unknown capacity was Thomas Parish, father of the Thomas Parish who graduated in 1659. There is some reason for believing that the Rev. Samuel Parris and the Thomas Parish who was in the Class of 1659 were brothers.
359 College Book, i. 79; our Publications, xv. 62.
360 College Book, i. 78; our Publications, xv. 60.
361 This line, and the note after the third line, were evidently written in at a different time.
362 See p. 175, below.
363 See p. 175, below.
364 This was Thomas Shepard of the Class of 1653.
365 See p. 174, below.
366 College Book, i. 85; our Publications, xv. 73.
367 College Book, iv. 192; our Publications, xvi. 651.
368 UAI 3. 5.
369 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, x. 403–408; F. B. Dexter, Historical Papers, pp. 1–5.
370 They show, for instance, that the French, German, and Italian instructors were not accommodated in University Hall, but that Francis Sales had his classes in No. 5 Hollis Hall, Charles Follen in No. 7 Massachusetts Hall, and Pietro Bachi in No. 5 Stoughton Hall.
371 The numbers within square brackets indicate the corresponding numbers on the plates accompanying this paper. For an explanation of the numbers within parentheses, preceded by the letters “M. F. A.,” see p. 171 note 3, below.
The plates accompanying this paper, facing pp. 166 and 172, show eleven pieces of silver, which, with the names (where known) of their donors or owners, are as follows:
Plate I
-
- 1 Bowl: Edward Holyoke
- 2 Tea-pot: William Kneeland
- 3 Cup: Samuel Browne
- 4 Tankard
- 5 Tankard
Plate II
-
- 6 Tankard: John Vassall. Cf. No. 11
- 7 Candlestick: Henry Flynt. Cf. No. 10
- 8 Cup: William Stoughton
- 9 Salt: Richard Harris
- 10 Candlestick: Henry Flynt. Cf. No. 7
- 11 Tankard: William Vassall. Cf. No. 6
372 College Book, i. 3, 10. The earlier account is dated March 5, 1644.
373 Cf. Publications Cambridge Historical Society, iii. 14–15.
374 Cf. p. 89, above.
375 Nearly all of the early silver owned by the College was included in an exhibition of American silver at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1906, and is described and figured in its catalogue “American Silver: the Work of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Silversmiths, exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, June to November, 1906.” The numbers in this catalogue are here noted within parentheses, preceded by the letters “M. F. A.,” after each piece described there.
376 “Item I give to Harvard College in Cambridge, sixty pounds to be Improved for purchasing an handsom piece of Plate for ye College, with my Coat of Arms on it” (College Book, iii. 105; our Publications, xv. 282).
377 E. D. Hines, Browne Hill and what has happened there, in Essex Institute Historical Collections, 1896, xxxii, 214.
378 College Book, iv. 93.
379 Cf. our Publications, xix. 8.
380 The name of Benjamin Browne is found in the list of temporary students printed in our Publications, xvii. 271–285, but not the names of Edward Paige, Langham, or Ven. Mr. Matthews tells me that the last three names were in his manuscript list but were excluded from the printed list because the facts in regard to them were so obscure.
381 Harvard Graduates, i. 549, 573. I am indebted to Mr. S. F. Batchelder for calling my attention to these references.
382 Peirce, History of Harvard University, pp. 313–314.
383 In the University Archives (UAI 3.200) is a copy of notes relating to the Harris salt and other pieces of silver, written by Librarian Thaddeus W. Harris in 1847 for President Everett’s use at the Commencement dinner of that year; also typewritten notes on the College silver by J. H. Buck, an Englishman in the employ of the Gorham Manufacturing Co., made in 1886. An illustrated article by Mr. Buck was printed in The Curio, September, 1887, i. 20–22.
Thomas’s History of Printing in America (ed. 1874, ii. 383–390) gives various documents connected with the lawsuits between the Glover heirs and President Dunster. In the inventories several pieces of silver are mentioned, but there seems to be no reason to connect any of them with the silver mentioned in the early College lists.
384 Several years ago Professor Le Baron R. Briggs called the attention of Mr. Matthews to a medal which was then owned by the daughters of the late Dr. Jonathan Greely Stevenson, who graduated at Harvard in the class of 1816. The medal, which is now in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is in the shape of a star with fourteen points, and bears on one side the inscription:
Fide et Amicitia
K. P. S.
1809
And on the other side is inscribed:
J. Greely Stevenson M.D.
Boston
b. 1790. d. 1835.
The significance of the letters “K. P. S.” eluded Mr. Matthews’s research, but the book-plate exhibited by Mr. Potter makes it reasonably certain that they stand for “Knights of the Pudding Stick.” The date 1809 undoubtedly indicates the year in which the society or club was started. Dr. Stevenson in 1813 became a member of the Knights of the Square Table —a fact which tends to corroborate Mr. Potter’s conclusion that the older club was merged in the younger one, both being later absorbed by the Porcellian.
385 Parkman became a member of the Knights of the Square Table in 1810.
386 Land in Rowley was bequeathed to the College by the Rev. Ezekiel Rogers, who died in 1661. For many years the land was leased, but in 1733 the College obtained from the General Court permission to sell it. The portion sold to Daniel Hale in 1738 consisted of “Four freehold Rights or Com̄onages in Mill Swamp pasture in ye lower Com̄: in Rowley,” etc. The deed is signed by the President, Fellows, and Treasurer of the College.
387 This is one of the earliest seals attached to such a document now extant.
The impression is unfortunately a poor one, but the word “Christo” is very clear.
388 The Rev. John Wilson (1621–1691; H. C. 1642) of Medfield was the son of the Rev. John Wilson (1588–1667) of Boston.
389 Apparently altered from “4th.”
390 By cousin is here meant nephew. The Rev. John Danforth (1660–1730; H. C. 1677) of Dorchester was the son of the Rev. Samuel Danforth (H. C. 1643) of Roxbury, who married Mary Wilson, a sister of the Rev. John Wilson of Medfield.
391 This John Wilson (1660–1728) is said (cf. our Publications, xvii. 275, 285) to have been a temporary student at Harvard. He taught school at Medfield, preached at New Haven, returned to Medfield where, owing to the opposition of the town, he failed to succeed his father as pastor, and removed to Braintree, where he practised medicine from 1692 to his death. See New England Historical and Genealogical Register, lxi. 38–41, 127–129; W. S. Tilden, History of Medfield, pp. 520–524.
392 This was the mother of the Rev. John Danforth of Dorchester. After the death of her husband the Rev. Samuel Danforth of Roxbury, she married Joseph Rock.
393 It is a pamphlet of forty-eight pages, bound in a blue paper cover, dated “No. I. August, 1833.”
394 The location of Harvard’s grave is not known, but he was probably buried, with other early settlers, in or near what has since been known as the City Square, in which the first meeting-house was built.
395 Cf. Harvard Book, ii. 201–204; Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, xv. 457–458, 531–533.
396 This paper was read in a somewhat different form at the annual meeting of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of California, held at San Francisco, November 22, 1919.
397 Evidently a misprint for “fruitful.” The Latin verse is: Faelix frugiferis sulcis, simul aequore faelix.
398 Perhaps a misprint for trigonas.
399 He was a son of William Crosby (H. C. 1794).
400 In the preparation of this paper, I have derived much assistance from Mr. Lane and Mr. Albert Matthews, the former of whom has supplied several extracts from the Bernard Papers. The papers here cited as the Bernard Papers, filling thirteen volumes, are among the Sparks Manuscripts in the Harvard College Library. Cf. J. Winsor, Calendar of the Sparks Manuscripts in the Harvard College Library (Library of Harvard University, Bibliographical Contributions, No. 22, 1889), pp. 4–6.
401 For Bernard’s genealogy and family history, see J. Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, ii. 235n–237n; Lipscomb, History of Buckinghamshire, i. 519; Mrs. Napier Higgins, The Bernards of Abington and Nether Winchendon, vols. i and ii. The exact date of Bernard’s birth is not known, but he was baptized on July 2, 1712.
402 Antonii Alsopi Aedis Christi olim Alumni Odarum Libri Duo. Londini, MDCCLII. “This little volume,” says Nichols, “was dedicated by Mr. Francis Bernard, the ingenious editor, in an elegant copy of Verses, to Thomas Duke of Newcastle” (Literary Anecdotes, ii. 233–234).
403 A week earlier the Court had granted also twelve townships east of the Penobscot: see p. 204, below.
404 Lincoln Deeds, iv. 80; Bangor Historical Magazine, vi. 20.
405 Royal Commission on the Losses and Services of the American Loyalists, 1783 to 1785 (Roxburghe Club, 1915), p. 264.
406 Burrage, Maine in the Northeastern Boundary Controversy (1919), pp. 10–18.
407 Gov. Shirley in a letter to Secretary Willard, June 24, 1752, recognized the importance of these works with reference to province bounds. See Massachusetts Archives, liv. 204–207; Documentary History of the State of Maine, xii. 180.
408 Burrage, Maine in the Northeastern Boundary Controversy, p. 16.
409 W. H. Kilby, Eastport and Passamaquoddy (1888), p. 45.
410 Documentary History of the State of Maine, xiii. 391.
411 Bernard was a clever draughtsman and, as Hutchinson says (History of Massachusetts, iii. 105 note), “a very ingenious architect.” He was the architect of the present Harvard Hall.
412 A letter from Abraham Somes to Eben Parsons, dated April 20, 1816, the original of which is in the Boston Public Library, refers to these settlers. In that year Somes, who was the first permanent settler on Mount Desert, was called upon to defend his title and this letter was one of several written to his lawyer. The following is copied from the original:
“sometime before the French War was over I received a letter from Sir Francis Barnard inviting me to go to Boston for in it he wanted to see me — Accordingly I went to see him, He asked me if I did not want a farm on the Island of Mount Desert I excepted the proposal he likewise requested me to procure as many Setlers as I could to go with me to setle the Land. I accordingly came down immediately after the War was over and peace ratified between Great Britain and the French & Indians — so that I could be safe in moving into the Wilderness; I came to this place which was in the Autumn of the year 1761 and made a pitch on this Lot I now live and in June the year following I moved my family and setled on the same lot, . . .
“In the year 1763 or 4 the said Sir Francis came in person . . . to this Island and remained here some Considerable time, and I attended on him, and piloted him and assisted him in making discoveries of Natural privile[ges] if any there might be. At that time he gave me this lot with all the priviledges thereunto belonging, and advised me to build mills and clear up my farm, for said he you never shall be interrupted, I accordingly proceeded, and have been in the peaceable possession of the premises for the full term of fifty two years before any difficulty.”
In another letter in the same collection, also dated April 20, 1816, Somes says that he and Ebenezer Sutton of Ipswich visited Southwest Harbor in 1755 when Somes bought Greening’s Island from the Indians for a gallon of “occopy” (rum), while Sutton’s purchase of the island which still bears his name cost him two quarts. The Indian governor from whom the purchases were made drew the deeds on a piece of birch bark, but Somes and Sutton “not understanding neither the description nor the worth of the Islands, never attended to the Subject nor took care of the birch bark and left them to drink their Occopy and to take the good of their bargain.” To Mrs. Fannie Hardy Eckstorm of Brewer, Maine, I am indebted for deciphering this Indian word for rum. She has pointed out that Somes’s occopy is the aoukoubi as given by Rasle (Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, New Series, 1833, i. 437). Cf. J. L. Locke, Sketches of the History of the Town of Camden, Maine, p. 47.
413 Bernard Papers, x. 21–27.
414 Documentary History of the State of Maine, xiii. 391.
415 Documentary History of the State of Maine, xiii. 391–392.
416 See Bernard’s memorial, pp. 212–215, below.
417 Massachusetts Province Laws, xvii. 168.
418 Cf. Bernard Papers, x. 199–200.
419 Bernard Papers, x. 299–301.
420 The postscript of June 11 is not in the Bernard Papers, and is copied from the Massachusetts Archives, xxii. 246.
421 Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, iv. 457–458.
422 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vi. 186–189.
423 Massachusetts Historical Collections, lxxiv. 69. Cf. Massachusetts Province Laws, xvii. 168, 169–177.
424 Palfrey, History of New England, v. 232 note, 248 note.
425 Originally written “Dec 31 1762,” but the “3” in “31” has been erased. In their letter of March 11, 1763, the Lords of Trade and Plantations speak of Bernard’s “letter to our Secretary, dated the first of December:” see p. 230, below.
426 Bernard Papers, x. 45–47.
427 Documentary History of the State of Maine, xiii. 296–302.
428 Bernard Papers, x. 91–94.
429 This date is somewhat uncertain: perhaps “1729.” Probably the year 1726 is meant: see Publications of this Society, xx. 128–147.
430 Cf. p. 248 note 3, below.
431 Bernard Papers, x. 83–88.
432 Bernard Papers, x. 83–88.
The House Journal for 1762 has at the end, filling pp. i-xix, “Appendix to the Votes Of the House of Representatives, For the Year 1762. A brief State of the Title of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay to the Country between the Rivers Kennebeck and St. Croix.” On p. xix is the following:
The Committee appointed to prepare a State of the Title of the Province to the Country between the Rivers Kennebeck and St. Croix, have prepared the foregoing, which is submitted in the Name and by Order of the Committee.
January 18, 1763. T. Hutchinson.
The report was read and accepted in Council on January 20, and in the House on February 1, and consented to by Gov. Bernard.
433 For the second letter, see pp. 228–230, below.
434 Documentary History of the State of Maine, xiii. 308–311.
435 Bernard Papers, x. 37.
436 Bernard Papers, x. 38–39.
437 Id. x. 41–42.
438 Bernard Papers, x. 67–73.
439 This copy is in Bernard Papers, x. 89.
440 Bernard Papers, x. 75–81.
441 See p. 210 note 3, above.
442 Bernard Papers, x. 63–65.
443 Bernard Papers, x. 163.
444 Id. x. 175.
445 Id. x. 179–180.
446 Id. x. 189.
447 Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, vi. 359, iv. 614.
448 Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, vi. 369–371.
449 Id. iv. 615.
450 G. E. Street, who prints the document in full (Mount Desert, 1905, pp. 118n-120n), says that the appeal was “dated October, 1764” (p. 118), but the document is undated.
451 In the Bernard Papers are two interesting documents. One (x. 226–228), dated September 8, 1764, is entitled “Proposals for settling a Colony of Germans at a Town in the Island of Mountdesert,” and has been printed in the Bangor Historical Magazine, v. 1–2. The other (x. 207–208) is as follows:
Proposals for a fishery at Mount Desert, October 5, 1764.
The Governor at the desire of some of the Settlers there, has undertaken to provide two small Schooners & two large Whaleboats, with all proper fitting, To be employed in a fishery in the following Manner.
There shall be ten people employed in fishing, that is; two on board each Schooner, & three on board each Whaleboat, & one Shoresman with such assistants as he shall want & procure, who shall live at the flakes.
The Flakes with a house for the Shoresman, & a Storehouse for the fish, shall be built on a point of land which forms the West Side of the Strait which leads out of the South West harbour into the long Sound; all the persons concerned in the fishery shall assist in erecting the Same; The Governor finding doors Windows & Nails & boards & Slate for the roof, & therefore having the property of the building.
All the fish that shall be caught in the said Boats, shall be brought to the flakes, there to be cured & kept in common; or in such Divisions partnerships as the fishermen shall choose to divide themselves: provided, that every boat at least shall be in partnership.
Towards the Close of the year, & at the ending of the fishery, at one or two times as shall be thought most convenient; all the fish so made shall be divided into five parts, & one fifth part, without any deduction or charge soever, except the proportion of Salt, shall be reserved to the Governor for the use of the Boats &c; the other four fifths shall remain to the fishermen in such Divisions & partnerships as they shall have agreed upon.
We whose Names are underwritten do agree to these proposals, & do promise & engage to conform thereto, & to observe the Same, In Witness whereof We have hereunto set our hands.
452 Bernard Papers, x. 216–219.
453 See p. 244 note 7, below.
454 See p. 231, above.
455 Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, iv. 576–579.
456 Massachusetts Archives, lvi. 434–436.
457 cxviii. 379. Some words, as indicated in the footnotes, are written in.
458 The next eleven words are written in.
459 This entire sentence is written in.
460 A copy of this printed broadside is in the Massachusetts Archives, cxviii. 378. It is entitled “A State of the Earl of Stirling’s Title, to that Part of New-England, now commonly called Sagadahook.”
461 Massachusetts Archives, cxviii. 377.
462 Council Records, xvi. 347.
463 Only two examples of this verb, dated 1696 and 1726, are given in the Oxford English Dictionary.
464 Massachusetts Archives, cxviii. 380–381; cf. Council Records, xvi. 349.
465 Massachusetts Archives, cxviii. 382–383.
466 Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, iii. 225–226.
467 The title became extinct by the death of the sixth Baronet, Sir Thomas Tyringham Bernard, May 8, 1883.
468 A copy of this petition is in Bernard’s Select Letters, London, 1774, p. 89.
469 Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, iii. 246 note. See the Letters of Dennys De Berdt, Publications of this Society, xiii. 293–461.
470 Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, v. 220.
471 Id. iii. 282–283.
472 Id. vi. 484.
473 Id. vi. 504.
474 In a letter to me Professor Charles M. Andrews, after pointing out that Bernard’s petition to accept his grant of Mt. Desert was on July 17, 1764, sent back by the Board of Trade to the Privy Council with the request that the Council should “consider whether the Province of Massachusetts Bay have, or have not a Right to make Grants of Land within the territory of Sagadahock” (see p. 233, above), goes on to say: “Evidently this return of the report to the Board involved considerable investigation and probably a sending of the question, which was a legal one, to the standing counsel of the Board, at that time Sir Matthew Lamb. We know that Lamb was dilatory in getting his opinions back to the Board, and I presume that if we could get at the Board of Trade papers we should find that the delay was due to Lamb’s procrastination. Lamb died in 1768 and I know that he left a large number of colonial laws unreported, and it is more than likely that this matter of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts was among the matters that had not been examined. At any rate Bernard petitioned again towards the end of 1769, and his petition was received by the Privy Council and on December 13 was sent down to the Board of Trade. Just what the Board did with it I cannot say, as Lamb was dead and his successor, Richard Jackson, was not appointed until the middle of the year 1770 (the interim was November 26, 1768, to May 1, 1770). It may be that Lamb’s report had come in or that the Board acted without legal advice, though the latter would be most unusual, or that they waited till Jackson came in. However, on May 4, 1770—the date looks as if Jackson had got down to business at once, and he was a very learned man—the Board sent in its second report on the petition, proposing that ‘the grant be ratified, without prejudice to the rights of the Crown in and over the Territory of Sagadahoc,’ a position corresponding to that taken by the Board in 1732 in the case of the petition of Samuel Waldo for land between the Kennebec and the St. Croix Rivers. It may be that all the Board did was to instruct its secretary or clerk of the reports to look up its own records, in order to find out what precedent had been established.”
475 Commissions, Proclamations, Pardons, etc., 1767–1775, pp. 207–209 (Massachusetts Archives). Cf. Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, v. 220.
476 Palfrey, History of New England, v. 408 note.
477 Massachusetts Province Laws, v. 966–967.
478 An interesting account of his last moments will be found in Hutchinson’s Diary and Letters, ii. 318–319.
479 Street, Mount Desert, p. 127.
480 Id. pp. 128–130.
481 Advertisements relating to the sale of the portion owned by the de Gregoires, inserted by them and by others, will be found in the following issues of the Massachusetts Centinel for 1790: May 19, p. 3/1; May 22, p. 2/1; June 2, p. 3/3; June 2, supplement, p. 4/3; June 5, p. 3/2; June 12, p. 4/3; June 19, p. 3/3; July 28, p. 3/4; August 4, p. 4/4; August 11, p. 4/2; August 18, p. 4/4; August 25, p. 4/2; September 1, p. 3/3. The sale was to be at auction on September 2. Mr. Percival Merritt kindly called my attention to these references.
482 3 Collections Maine Historical Society, i. 150.
483 Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, vi. 484.
484 Cf. 1 Collections Maine Historical Society, vii. 199–206; 3 Collections Maine Historical Society, i. 147–157; Sprague’s Journal of Maine History, ii. 219.
485 Vergennes.
486 The inscription is printed in full in 1 Collections Maine Historical Society, vi. 337–338.
487 Works, iii. 304.
488 In J. L. Sibley, History of the Town of Union, Maine (1851), p. 23 note.
489 This account is based on data furnished by Mr. Matthews. For further details, see his paper on “The Portraits of Sir Francis Bernard,” published by the Club of Odd Volumes (1922).
490 The words “by Copley” are interlined in pencil. For the extracts from the Club records I am indebted to Mr. Merritt.
Under date of November 21, 1888, there is mention in the records of “an engraving to be made by Wilcox after the portrait in England, a photograph of which, loaned by a former member Dr. C. E. Banks, is now in the hands of the Engraver being engraved;” and it was voted that the plate “be cancelled, and hung on the walls of the club room.” On February 20, 1889, proofs of the portrait were shown to the members; and on April 24, 1889, it was announced that the plate had been cancelled.
491 With the permission of the Club of Odd Volumes.
492 Mrs. Higgins, The Bernards, ii. 235.
493 Massachusetts Historical Collections, lxxi. 223.
494 i. 51.
495 ii. 206. It was perhaps through Dr. Banks that Mr. Daniels learned of the painting at Christ Church. In January, 1888, the Rev. Henry W. Foote spoke of the Daniels print before the Massachusetts Historical Society, and in February presented a copy of the print to the Society. (2 Proceedings, iv. 61, 66.)
496 v. 31.
497 As the Daniels print was purely a commercial venture, Mr. Daniels naturally wished to have its authenticity placed beyond the possibility of a doubt. Hence he had the letter facsimiled, and presumably sent a copy of the facsimile with each copy of the print sold. The letter in the text is printed from such a facsimile found by Dr. Banks in a New York print shop in February, 1921.
498 Boston Gazette, August 7, 1769, p. 2/2.
499 Thomas Hubbard.
500 College Book, vii. 145. Cf. Donation Book, i. 81; J. Quincy, History of Harvard University, ii. 485.
501 Boston Evening Post, December 19, 1768, p. 1/1.
502 College Book, vii. 184. At a meeting of the Overseers on November 25, 1768, “A Vote of the Corporation at their Meeting this day Viz That the Picture of Governor Bernard with the other pictures in the Hall be placed in the Philosophy room . . . read and consented to” (Overseers’ Records, iii. 13).
503 Boston Evening Post, May 8, 1769, p. 1/3.
504 Cf. New Hampshire State Papers, xxvi, 20–22, 627–628.
505 Lucy C. Kellogg (History of the Town of Bernardston, 1902) says:
“The fact that the place was named for a Tory Governor has, at times, aroused the ire of some of her citizens, but some measure of consolation may be gleaned from the truism that the man could hardly have been held alone responsible for the age in which he lived, nor yet for having been born a British subject. May not the circumstance of his being considered by his king worthy to assume such a position, serve in some degree to mitigate this feeling?” (p. 2).
A search among the printed accounts of Bernardsville, New Jersey, has failed to reveal any criticism of the naming of the town.
506 A Most Excellent Instruction for the Exact and perfect keeping Merchant Bookes of Accovnts, by way of Debitor and Creditor, after the Italian manner: . . . By I. C. Gent . . . . London: . . . 1632. It is a folio, containing pp. i–viii, 1–152. The author was I. Carpenter.
507 Paddy’s will is printed in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, viii. 355.
508 This paper will be printed later in our Transactions.
509 “As soon as the Grenadiers & Light Infantry perceived the 1st Brigade drawn up for their support, they shouted repeatedly, and the firing ceased for a short time” (Diary of Lieut. Frederick Mackenzie, in 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 392).
510 The erroneous idea that the Brigade received Smith’s fugitives within a hollow square at Lexington apparently originated with Stedman the British historian in 1794 (History of the American War, i. 119). Percy states in his report to Gage that he “drew up the Brigade on a height” (Letters, 1902, p. 50). Lieut. Mackenzie gives us the authoritative account of the disposition of the troops at Lexington and makes it clear that they stood in line of battle throughout the halt. He states that the Grenadiers and Light Infantry “retired and formed behind the brigade” (2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 392).
511 This blunder is thus described in a letter dated Boston, July 5, 1775:
“The general ordered the first brigade under arms at four in the morning; these orders the evening before were carried to the brigade major’s; he was not at home; the orders were left; no enquiry was made after him; he came home late; his servant forgot to tell him there was a letter on his table; four o’clock came; no brigade appeared; at five o’clock an express from Smith desiring a reinforcement produced an enquiry; the above discovery was made; at six o’clock part of the brigade got on the parade; there they waited expecting the marines; at seven no marines appearing, another enquiry commenced; they said they had received no orders; it was asserted they had; in the altercation it came out that the order had been addressed to Major Pitcairn who commanded the marines and left at his quarters, though the gentleman concerned ought to have recollected that Pitcairn had been dispatched the evening before with the grenadiers and light infantry under Lieut. Col. Smith. This double mistake lost us from four till nine o’clock, the time we marched off to support Col. Smith” (Detail and Conduct of the American War, 3rd ed., London, 1780, p. 10). This letter is found in an earlier but undated edition of the same pamphlet, entitled A View of the Evidence relative to the Conduct of the American War, etc., London, p. 72.
512 This refers to the atrocity perpetrated upon a wounded British soldier at the North Bridge in Concord. Gage in his “Circumstantial Account” addressed to Governor Trumbull of Connecticut says: “When captain Parsons returned with the three companies over the bridge, they observed three soldiers on the ground, one of them scalped, (his head much mangled, and his ears cut off,) though not quite dead; a sight, which struck the soldiers with horrour” (2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ii. 226).
The Rev. William Gordon, who had the facts from the Rev. William Emerson of Concord, wrote in his letter of May 17, 1775: “A young fellow coming over the bridge in order to join the country people, and seeing the soldier wounded and attempting to get up, not being under the feelings of humanity, very barbarously broke his skull, and let out his brains with a small axe, (apprehend of the tomahawk kind,) but as to his being scalped and having his ears cut off, there was nothing in it. The poor object lived an hour or two before he expired” (Force, 4 American Archives, ii. 630).
This event made a profound impression upon the soldiers, nearly one hundred of whom saw the victim, and gave rise to the conviction that the Americans scalped the wounded. In an intercepted letter written by a private soldier we find this comment: “These people . . . are full as bad as the Indians for scalping and cutting the dead men’s ears and noses off, and those they get alive, that are wounded, and cannot get off the ground” (Force, 4 American Archives, ii. 440).
513 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxxi. 382.
514 “Let the mark of British tyranny made in this house of God, remain till time itself shall consume the fabrick, and it moulders into dust” (Faith in Divine Providence, the great support of God’s People in perilous times. A Sermon, etc., 1780, p. 26).
515 “They appeared most numerous in the road near the Church, and in a wood in the front and on the left flank of the line where our Regiment was posted. A few Cannon shot were fired at those on & near the road, which dispersed them” (Mackenzie, 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 392).
516 History of the American War (1794), i. 118.
517 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 392.
518 Id. p. 393.
519 May 31, 1775 (Writings, ed. Ford, ii. 475).
520 Percy’s report to Gage says “We arrived at Charlestown, between 7 & 8 in the even, very much fatigued with a march of above 30 miles, & having exhausted almost all our ammunition” (Letters, p. 50). Evidently Percy had ammunition enough but none to spare. He avoided real peril by following the short route home.
521 As a result of research among the muster rolls in the Massachusetts Archives, Mr. Frank W. Coburn of the Lexington Historical Society estimates the number of provincial reinforcements entering the fight at Arlington as 1779 (The Battle of April 19, 1775, in Lexington, Concord, etc., 1912, p. 135). He gives the total number of Americans engaged during the day as 3760. Percy after joining with Smith had a force of 1500 men, but it is not certain that Smith’s men should be rated as effectives on the retreat to Charlestown. Their ammunition was exhausted when they reached Lexington, and as the Brigade went out with only thirty-six rounds there could hardly have been any redistribution of powder and ball during the halt. Percy states in his report to Gage that he sent off the Grenadiers and Light Infantry in the van and “covered them” with his Brigade, – a hint that these troops may have been more of a hindrance than a help on the retreat. Probably the looting was in large measure due to them.
522 De Berniere (General Gage’s Instructions, 1779, p. 20; 2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, iv. 218–219) gives the casual ties among the officers as 2 killed and 13 wounded. Of these 4 occurred at the North Bridge, 1 near Concord, 8 near Lexington, and 2 in Menotomy. Probably Lieut. -Col. Bernard wounded and Lieut. Knight killed in the last named place were the only officers to fall after Percy began his march.
523 De Berniere (General Gage’s Instructions, 1779, p. 20; 2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, iv. 218–219) gives the casual ties among the officers as 2 killed and 13 wounded. Of these 4 occurred at the North Bridge, 1 near Concord, 8 near Lexington, and 2 in Menotomy. Probably Lieut. -Col. Bernard wounded and Lieut. Knight killed in the last named place were the only officers to fall after Percy began his march.
524 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 394.
525 Diary of a British Officer in Boston, in Atlantic Monthly (1877), xxxix. 400. The authorship of this diary is somewhat in doubt. In the Atlantic Monthly (xxxix. 389) the author is said to have been either Lieut. Peregrine Francis Thorne or Lieut. David Hamilton; but the late Rev. E. G. Porter showed in our Publications (v. 49–55) that the author was doubtless John Barker.
526 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 393.
527 Jacob Rogers’s petition, in Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, p. 372.
528 June 9, 1775, in Percy’s Letters, p. 54 note.
529 “They kept up a constant fire upon us for upwards of 15 miles, yet only killed of us about 40 men” (Percy to Henry Reveley, May, 1775, in Letters, p. 55). Gage’s first report (London Chronicle, June 13, 1775, xxxvii. 554) gave the British loss for the whole day as 65 killed, 180 wounded, 27 missing, a total of 272. This was subsequently amended (General Gage’s Instructions, Boston, 1779, p. 20; 2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, iv. 218-219) to read 73 killed, 174 wounded, 26 missing, a total of 273. Percy’s killed during the retreat aggregated a little more than half of the fatal casualties for the day.
530 Cf. our Publications, vii. 27–30.
531 The Rev. Dr. David McClure, writing April 19, 1775, seems in a measure to support this theory: “A waggon loaded with provisions was sent from Boston, for the refreshment of the retreating army, under an escort of 6 Granidiers, They got as far as this place, [Menotomy], when a number of men, 10 or 12, collected, and ordered them to surrender. They marched on, & our men fired, killed the driver & the horses, when the rest fled a little way, & surrendered. Another waggon sent on the same business, was also taken that day. It was strange that General Gage should send them through a country, in which he had just kindled the flames of war, in so defenceless a condition” (Diary, ed. F. B. Dexter, 1899, p. 161; cf. 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xvi. 158).
532 Essex Gazette, April 25, 1775, p. 3/2-3. Also printed in the Massachusetts Spy of May 3, 1775, p. 3/2; and reprinted in Almon’s Remembrancer, 1775, i. 33; Force, 4 American Archives, ii. 439, etc.
533 Government corrupted by Vice, and recovered by Righteousness. A Sermon, etc. (Watertown, 1775), p. 8.
534 Narrative, pp. 7–8, appended to his “Fate of Blood-thirsty Oppressors, and God’s tender Care of his distressed People. A Sermon,” etc., Boston, 1776.
535 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xvii. 322.
536 April 20, 1775, in Letters, p. 53. The italics in the extracts which immediately follow are mine.
537 “General Gage’s Instructions, Of 22d February 1775, . . . With a curious Narrative. . . . Also an Account,” etc., Boston, 1779, p. 19. Cf. 2 Massachusetts Historical Collect ions, iv, 218.
538 April 23, 1775, in Memoir and Letters (ed. G. D. Scull, Oxford, 1879), p. 54.
539 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 393, 394.
540 April 19, 1775, in Atlantic Monthly, xxxix, 400.
541 April 23, 1775, in Atlantic Monthly, xxxix. 544. Confirmation of the character of the fighting is found in intercepted letters of British private soldiers printed in Force. One man writes, April 28: “They did not fight, us like a regular army, only like savages, behind trees and stone walls, and out of the woods and houses, where in the latter we killed numbers of them” (4 American Archives, ii. 440). Another writes, April 28: “When we found they fired from the houses, we set them on fire, and they ran to the woods like devils” (id. p. 440). A soldier of the Royal Welsh Fusileers in addressing his “Dear Parents” April 30, records the following: “As we came along they got before us and fired at us out of the houses, and killed and wounded a great number of us, but we levelled their houses as we came along” (id. p. 440).
542 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xi. 306.
543 American Annals (1805), ii. 327; (1829) ii. 206.
544 Military Journal during the American Revolution (1823), p. 19.
545 History (1788), i. 482.
546 “We do not censure him [Percy] for any warlike attacks upon our troops, or for firing upon any dwelling within which our soldiers had taken refuge, or from which they assailed the king’s troops. So far he would be justified by the laws of war” (1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xvii, 322).
547 Cf. p. 270 note 1, above.
548 Gage’s defence penned to Governor Trumbull May 3rd, 1775, is as follows: “The troops disclaim with indignation the barbarous outrages of which they are accused, so contrary to their known humanity. I have taken the greatest pains to discover if any were committed, and have found examples of their tenderness, both to the young and the old but no vestige of cruelty or barbarity. It is very possible that in firing into houses, from whence they were fired upon, that old people, women, or children may have suffered, but if any such thing has happened, it was in their defence and undesigned.” (Trumbull Papers, ii. 298–299.)
549 The provincial losses are given by Phinney (History of the Battle of Lexington, 1825, pp. 27–30) as 49 killed, 36 wounded, 5 missing, a total of 90.
550 In Elias Phinney, History of the Battle of Lexington (1825), pp. 34–35.
551 (1868), p. 202; (1913), i. 175.
552 History of Middlesex County (1880), ii. 26.
553 Placing Pitcairn in command of the troops near Munroe’s Tavern is a mere conjecture, as his name is not mentioned by any of our witnesses after Percy took command. Possibly Bernard was in command at this point and Pitcairn may have been assigned to the Marine battalion that came out with the Brigade. Whoever commanded the Marines seems to have borne the brunt of the afternoon’s fighting. If we estimate the strength of the battalion at four or five companies, or not more than 175 men, we cannot be far from the truth. Two other companies may have gone out with Smith. The official report giving the total regimental losses in killed and wounded indicates that 27 per cent of the casualties were suffered by the Marines. If we confine ourselves to the killed, the Marine percentage was 37. This is an extraordinary showing when compared with the 14 per cent of the King’s Own Regiment, a larger unit and the next heaviest sufferer. These figures suggest that nearly 50 per cent of Percy’s casualties on the retreat occurred in the Marines.
554 In 1880: see p. 280, note 3. But in 1868 Hudson had merely called him “infirm” (History of Lexington, p. 202; Genealogical Register, p. 189).
555 (1913), ii, 552. Cf. Lexington Vital Records, p. 62.
556 In the roll of Parker’s company given in the first (1868) edition of Hudson’s History is found the name of John Raymond (p. 383).
557 P.9 note.
558 Paige, History. of Cambridge, p. 413.
559 Id. p. 413 note.
560 2 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 394.
561 Sermon, pp. 8–9 notes.
562 Cf. p. 272, above.
563 May 16, 1775, in Journals of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress (1838), p. 677.
564 Samuel Cooke (1708-1783; H. C. 1735) was long the minister of the second precinct, Cambridge (now Arlington).
565 In 1864 the Rev. Samuel A. Smith gave us this account of Deacon Adams’s activities. He “knew that his life would be in danger, both on account of his name, and also for his reputation for patriotic zeal, but thinking that they would not harm women and children, as the troops came in sight left his house, . . . and fled across the fields. He was hotly pursued, and, as he was running under cover of the stone walls, he heard the bullets whistle over his head. He kept on, however, and had just time to cover himself over in the hay-loft in Rev. Mr. Cooke’s barn, . . . when his pursuers came up and began to search for him, sticking their bayonets here and there into the hay. They did not dare to remain long, and he escaped” (West Cambridge on the Nineteenth of April, 1775, p. 34).
Deacon Adams was a prominent man in the community, was precinct treasurer for nineteen years and selectman of Cambridge for four years.
566 Born April 1, 1775. Her name is given as Ann by Paige (History of Cambridge, p. 478), as Ann or Anne by Cutter (History of Arlington, pp. 185, 260), but as Anna in Cambridge Vital Records, ii. 10. She married James Hill (1773–1852) on October 11, 1796. In 1831 Hannah Hill, daughter of James and Ann (Adams) Hill, married Thomas Hall.
567 This is the story as repeated in 1854 by Mrs. Hill, then in her eightieth year, to Samuel Griffin Damon: see Christian Register, October 28, 1854, xxxix. 169.
568 S. A. Smith, West Cambridge on the Nineteenth of April, 1775, p. 37.
569 Sermon, p. 8 note.
570 See p. 272, above.
571 May 19, 1775, in Journals of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, p. 678.
572 Jason Winship was baptized in Cambridge June 28, 1730 (Paige, History of Cambridge, p. 697). Jabez Wyman was baptized in Woburn December 26, 1736 (Bond, Genealogies and History of Watertown, ii. 976). (The statement in Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 412, that Wyman was born July 24, 1710, is clearly an error.) Wyman married Lydia Winship (sister of Jason) in Cambridge January 13, 1767 (Cambridge Vital Records, ii. 437). On March 23, 1773, Jabez Wyman of Cambridge, “laborer,” and wife Lydia, deeded land in Arlington to Ammi Cutter. The Rev. John Marrett states (in S. Dunster, Henry Dunster and his Descendants, 1876, p. 88) that Wyman at one time worked for the Rev. Mr. Cooke.
573 In S. Dunster, Henry Dunster and his Descendants, pp. 88, 89. The letter was written by Marrett to his uncle the Rev. Isaiah Dunster.
574 For further information concerning Samuel Whittemore, see S. A. Smith, West Cambridge on the Nineteenth of April, 1775, pp. 42–44; Cutter, History of Arlington, pp. 75–77, 317; Paige, History of Cambridge, pp. 414–415, 688; Columbian Centinel, February 6, 1793, p. 3/2.
575 See p. 272, above.
576 From the inscription on the old stone in the precinct burying ground, said to have been written by the Rev. Mr. Cooke.
577 S. A. Smith, West Cambridge on the Nineteenth of April, 1775, pp. 37, 37–38.
578 Cutter, History of Arlington, p, 69.
579 Id. p. 69.
580 April 20, 1775, in Letters, p. 52.
581 Remembrancer, 1775, i. 80.
582 Force, 4 American Archives, ii. 441.
583 April 20, 1775, in Letters, pp. 52, 53.
584 On July 2, 1775, Lieut. Carter wrote: “Never had the British army so ungenerous an enemy to oppose; they send their Rifle men, (five or six at a time) who conceal themselves behind trees, &c. till an opportunity presents itself of taking a shot at our advanced centries, which done they immediately retreat. What an infamous method of carrying on a war!” (Genuine Detail, etc., 1784, p. 7).
585 S. R. Lushington, Life and Services of General Lord Harris (1845), p. 40.
586 Pp. 217–226.
587 Id. p. 225.
588 Id. p, 223.
589 Magnalia (1702), bk. iv. pt. i. § 5, p. 130. As is of course well known, much of the Magnalia had already appeared in print before the publication of the volume in London in 1702. The portions not previously printed must have been written before June 8, 1700, when Mather wrote: “I this Day putt up my Church-History, and pen down Directions about the publishing of it. . . . A Gentleman, just now sailing for England, undertakes the care of it; and by his Hand I send it for London” (Diary, i. 353).
590 Bk. iii. pt. ii. ch. xxiii. § 12, p, 141.
591 Bk. iv. pt. ii. ch. v. § 11, p. 188.
592 The writer should have said “the day after Commencement.”
593 P.250. That this account is drawn from the Magnalia is sufficiently obvious, but is made certain by the statement on the same page: “Whilst Mr. Winthrop was travelling in the low countries, he endeavoured to persuade Johannes Amos Commenius to become President; ‘but the influence of the Swedish embassador,’ (says Mather, from whose Magnalia this account is principally taken,) ‘proving too strong, this incomparable Moravian became not an American.’” This gives us a reference to the alleged offer of the presidency to Comenius before the one dated 1860, which was cited by me (our Publications, xxi, 147) as the earliest after the publication of the Magnalia.
594 Harvard Register (1827), p. 302.
595 The first newspaper was the Courier de Boston, April 23 to October 15, 1789. It was printed entirely in French, and was published weekly for Joseph Nancrede, instructor in French at Harvard College from 1787 to 1800. I acknowledge my indebtedness to the Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690–1820, by our associate Mr. Clarence S. Brigham (proceedings American Antiquarian Society, xxv. 208, 209).
596 Columbian Centinel, November 21, 1792, p. 3/1–2.
597 December 12, 1792, pp. 1/ 4–2/1, 2/4. The Argus of December 11, 1792 (p. 3/1), contained a satirical article under the heading of “The French Revolution Defeated.” It read in part: “TWENTY-FOUR FRENCHMEN, in and near the town of Boston, have entered a PROTEST, in the office of a Notary Public in Boston, against the French Revolution . . . . But, as these PROTESTORS have a Gazette of their own, under the PRIEST, which will be out within a day or two, we will refer the readers to that for the wonderful effects of this new experiment in ‘Val’, and Politicks.”
598 Identified by Mr. Ford as probably a M. d’Hauteval.
599 Writings (ed. Ford), i. 125.
600 Columbian Centinel, December 26, 1792, p, 3/2; January 9, 1793, pp. 1/2, 2/1; Argus, January 8, 1793, p. 3/3.
601 January 19, 1793, p. 3/3.
602 December 10, 17, 24, 31, 1792; January 7, 14, 1793. On December 12, 1792, the Rev. William Bentley made this entry in his Diary: “The Courier de l’Univers, a second french & english paper appeared in Boston this week. Its duration may not exceed the other, which had but small encouragement” (i. 415).
603 Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, xxv. 209.
604 Mr. Brigham kindly sends me the following letter from the Isaiah Thomas Papers in the American Antiquarian Society:
Boston, November 18, 1792
SIR,
Inclosed are proposals for a new weekly french paper, of which I am to be editor. It will probably be published in a few weeks; and upon the receipt of mine, I request you to forward me one of yours in exchange. In a few days you will see the same proposals printed in English in the newspapers from Boston, which, I hope, will give you more ease to find me so many subscribers as you could in your town. Three dollars are to be paid by subscribing, and the names of the subscribers taken upon a private [torn]. My design is to allow you five per cent upon every [subscri]ption you will receive. I desire you consequently to do for my paper what I would be very happy to do for yours. As soon as you will have found some subscriptions, let me know the quantity and the names of the subscribers, if you are willing to oblige him who is very sincerely,
Sir,
Your most humble and obedient servant,
L. de Rousselet, P.C.
My direction is the Rd Mr. L. de Rousselet, at Mr. Joseph Bumstead’s printing-office, Union-Street, Boston.
Isaiah Thomas, Esq.
While the meaning of the letters “P.C.” following de Rousselet’s signature is not absolutely certain, they probably stand for the words “Prêtre Catholique.”
605 Our Publications, xii. 220, 227–231.
606 See pp. 156–159, above.
607 Our Publications, xvii, 275, 284.
608 A sketch of Brown will be found in the Dictionary of National Biography. The book was originally published in 1757 and went through several editions.
609 Mr. Woodbury has given the volume to the Harvard College Library.
610 Memoirs of the Life of the late Reverend Increase Mather, . . . With a Preface by the: Reverend Edmund Calamy, D.D., London, 1725, pp. 35-36. cr. C. Mather, Parentator, Boston, 1724, pp. 93-96. The forged letter itself is printed in full in the Mather Papers (4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 104-107) and in the New England Historical and General Register, xxxix. 23-25. An abstract appears in the Calendar of State Papers, America & W. Indies, 1685-1688, no. 1915, pp. 613-615. I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Albert Matthews for several of these and later references.
611 See the Mather Papers, pp. 407–11; Palfrey, History of New England, iii 556–558; and allusions in Robert N. Toppan’s Edward Randolph (Prince Society).
612 Observator, no. 176, Monday, December 1, 1684.
613 In his Mercurius Aquaticus, 1643.
614 Intelligencer, no. 1, August 31, 1663.
615 E.g., see the Intelligencer, no. 23, March 21, 1663–4, p, 192. -
616 Mercurius Britanicus, no. 49, August 26-September 2, 1644, p. 387.
617 Weekly Pacquet, no. 34, April 16, 1683, p. 271.
618 Nathan Dane Papers (Massachusetts Historical Society).
619 George Cabot (1751–1823), United States Senator, President of the Hartford Convention, etc.
620 Joseph Lee (1744-1831), born in Salem.
621 Moses Brown (1748-1820), born at Waltham; H. C. 1768; raised and commanded a company which left Beverly August 9, 1777; present at the battles of Long Island, Trenton, and Harlem Heights.
622 Israel Thorndike (1755–1825), son of Andrew and Anna (Morgan) Thorndike.
623 Josiah Batchelder, Jr. (1737–1828), representative to the General Court; member of Congress; innholder; surveyor of the port of Beverly.
624 William Bartlett (1745-1809), fourth in descent from William Bartlett of Frampton, Dorset, England.
625 William Homans (1749–1837), born at Marblehead, died in Beverly.
626 Thomas Davis, born September 25, 1755, son of Thomas and Abigail (Stephens) Davis of Salem.
627 William Leach (1758–1838).
628 Livermore Whittredge, born February 24, 1740; descended from William Whittredge, who came over in 1635 and settled in Ipswich.
629 Thomas Woodberry, born May 10, 1743, son of Thomas and Lucy (Herrick) Woodberry.
630 For the newspapers of Salem, see Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, xxv, 463-476.
631 John Manly died February 12, 1793: cr. Publications of this Society, v. 274 note.
632 Captain’s pay per month, £ 4; 1st lieutenant, £ 3; 2nd lieutenant, £ 2.10.0; surgeon, £ 2.10.0; master, £ 2.0.0; boatswain, £ 1.10.0; steward, £ 1.10.0.
633 In some cases there seems to have been actual distribution of the cargo instead of a sale at auction and division of the proceeds. The following deposition is from the Nathan Dane Papers:
“I James Fuller Lakeman of Lawful age do Testify, in the Summer of the year One thousand, Seven hundred and eighty I went a Voyage from Gloucester to Bilbao in a Ship called the Gloucester Packet, William Coy, commander. I acted as Mariner on board and in the passage from Bilbao we took a Prize. She was a British brig of more than a hundred Tons, Loaded with salt and I was put on board of her with the Prize Master and four Men to Bring her and we arrived safe at Gloucester in the month of July Where the said Cargo was Divided and I Received thirty Bushels of it for my share. I exchanged my Share of said Salt at two Bushels of corn for one bushel of Salt and Corn was then one dollar a Bushel, hard money.”
634 Massachusetts Archives, clxxx, 974.
635 The following advertisement appeared in a Boston paper of May 17 1776: “To be sold by William Bartlett, Agent for the United Provinces, at public auction, the seventh day of May to be held in Beverly and to be continued from day to day until the whole is sold, the following vessels and cargo, Ship Concord, 150 tons, Jinny, 350 tons, Polly, 80 tons, Brigantines, Nancy 250 tons Hannah 250 tons; Sloops, Sally, 60 tons, Betty, 60 tons.” These vessels were condemned at a court held at Ipswich by Judge Pickering March 18, 1776.
636 Journals of the Provincial Congress (1838), pp. 412–413.
637 Henry Herrick, son of Henry and Joanna (Woodberry) Herrick, was born October 25, 1716, and died December 16, 1780.
638 Joseph Wood, son of Joseph and Ruth (Haskell) Wood, was town clerk of Beverly for thirty-seven years, selectman, assessor, representative, and member of the Committee of Public Safety and Correspondence. He died January 21, 1808.
639 In the New York Gazette of April 22, 1780, is an advertisement offering 12 and 13 pound carronades, imported direct from the Carron foundry, for use in privateers. “They can be discharged,” says the advertisement, “every three minutes, which doubles the strength against an enemy of equal force. The carronade weighs one third as much as a long gun of the same calibre and the powder charge is only one twelfth the weight of the ball.” The long gun could be discharged once in six minutes.
640 Eleazar Giles was born in Danvers, but removed to Beverly; commanded several privateers during the war and lost his leg in action on board the Saratoga; died in Liverpool, England.
As a rule the names of only the commanders or captains of vessels are mentioned in the text. For the names of other officers, see section viii, pp. 405–424, below.
641 George Child, an Englishman, on the St. Lucie, from Jamaica for Bristol, had a private adventure on board which Capt. Giles generously restored to him.
642 The Rover, Capt. Adam Wellman of Beverly, was captured in 1780.
643 The Beverly Historical Society owns a printed handbill reading: “Now fitting for a Privateer, In the harbor of Beverly, the Brigantine Washington. A strong, good vessel for that purpose and a prime sailer. Any Seaman or Landsman that has an inclination to make their Fortunes in a few months may have an opportunity by applying to John Dyson. Beverly, Sept. 7, 1776.”
644 John Dyson (1742–1828) was born in England.
645 Massachusetts Archives, ccxv. 442.
646 Robert Haskell, son of William and Mary (Lovett) Haskell, was born April 2, 1736, and died June 17, 1789.
647 The privateer schooner Hawk of Marblehead. On her arrival at Bilbao she was complained of as an illegal privateer. The prime minister of Spain, the Marquis of Grimaldi, decided that the Hawk was within her rights and ordered that American vessels, privateer or merchant, should be treated like any neutrals.
648 Benjamin Lovett (1756–1804), Bon of Benjamin and Hannah (Kilham) Lovett.
649 From December 25, 1777, to April 29, 1780, she bore the following names: Cent Pied, Santape, Cent. Pede, Cent. Pea, Cent. a Pede, Santipe, Sentipe, Cent. Peid, Centipede, Centi Pea, Saint te Pie, Centipie.
650 Lark in Thorndike (1730–1786) was captain of the minute-men who marched to Concord in 1775.
651 The Pilgrim was owned by John and Andrew Cabot, Joseph Lee, George Cabot, Moses Brown, Samuel Cabot, Francis Cabot, Jonathan Jackson, Joshua Wood, and Stephen Cleveland. Andrew Cabot owned a little less than one-half in 1780. Salem gentlemen owned 16/96ths. (Nathan Dane Papers.)
652 A portrait of Hugh Hill faces p. 320, above.
653 The Boston Gazette of June 24, 1782, stated that the previous Monday, the prize brig Neptune had been taken by “the Privateer Ship Pilgrim, Capt. Robinson, of Beverly!” (Publications of this Society, xvii. 365 note).
654 The Penobscot expedition.
655 Wages on vessels in 1779 are quoted at £ 15 to £ 20 per month for ordinary seamen. While not so stated, this probably means letter of marque vessels.
656 The Defence was a vessel built by Mr. Cabot to take the place of the brigantine Defence lost in the Penobscot expedition.
657 Diary of Moses Brown.
658 The Island of St. Eustatius was the great neutral port of the West Indies. When taken by Lord Rodney it was crowded with French, English, and American vessels and the booty was immense. It was captured before the governor had received news of war between England and Holland and he made no resistance, though 600 American seamen, crews of privateers and letters of marque in port, offered their services in defence of the city.
659 James Lovett (1749–1789), son of Benjamin and Eleonora (Cleaves) Lovett.
660 Herbert Woodberry (1745–1809), son of Jacob and Abigail (Thorndike) Woodberry.
661 Complaints against John Leach, commander of the schooner Dolphin, that he took 30 pounds of rice and 45 quarts of brandy from some Nova Scotians. (Massachusetts Archives, ccxxvii. 210.) On January 20, 1780, the General Court passed this resolve:
“Whereas it appears to the court that several small privateers have committed many robberies above high water mark on the inhabitants of Nova Scotia. Therefore resolved that this court do highly disapprove the conduct of any persons belonging to and commissioned from the State in the business of privateering and also resolved that when any commission shall be given out in future to small armed vessels they give good and sufficient bonds for the purpose of preventing such evils again taking place.”
It is perhaps not strange that ignorant men did not appreciate the difference between robberies above and below high water mark.
662 Schooner Hero, 26 tons, 9 guns (short guns) and 20 men. May 27, 1782, George W. Babcock, commander. This is the only case noted by me where short guns (carronades) were used on a privateer.
663 “A number of Frenchmen at Nantes have united to build six brigantines carrying from ten to eighteen guns, three of which are ready for sailing, the best calculated vessels for the American purpose I ever saw. I am confident they will sail fast and they are as sharp as a wedge. They will clear for the French West Indies.” (Auckland Manuscripts.)
664 E. D. Poole’s Annals of Yarmouth and Barrington (Nova Scotia) in the Revolutionary War (1899) contains a very interesting account of these Nova Scotians during the war.
665 There was also a brig Rambler captured by the English frigate Harriet Selvyl in 1779.
666 The Snapper, Capt. Taylor, was a famous letter of marque from Liverpool, and had taken many American vessels.
667 Mr. Cabot had at one time a ship, a schooner, and a sloop all named Sally.
668 Cf. Publications of this Society, x, 116–134, xx. 163–190.
669 The first salt works were established at Dennis, Cape Cod, in 1776. Afterwards several towns went into the business, Gloucester having three. Cf. 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xv. 224.
670 E. M. Stone, History of Beverly (1843), p. 83.
671 John Tittle (1735–1800).
672 Elisha Whitney was born at Watertown March 11, 1747; moved to Beverly in 1792; died February 22, 107.
673 Ichabod Groves, born in 1744, was a son or John and Catherine (Leach) Groves.
674 See p. 423 note 1, below.
675 Richard Ober (1745–1821), son of Richard and Lydia (Chapman) Ober.
676 Elias Smith (1744–1817).
677 Benjamin Ober (1751–1780) died abroad.
678 Asa Woodberry (1749–1830), son of Thomas and Lucy (Herrick) Woodberry.
679 Autobiography, Reminiscences and Letters (1841), p. 82.
680 Id. p. 87.
681 Ezra Ober (1747–1794), Bon of Richard and Lydia (Chapman) Ober.
682 William Tuck (1740–1784), son of William and Eliza (Sewall) Tuck.
683 “Lucas Johnson, midshipman on board His Majesty’s Ship Charlestown, being sworne declares that in the latter end of July last on their passages from Halifax to Spanish River in company with the Allegiance, Vulture and Jack and some transports under their convoy, being off of Spanish River, Seeing two French frigates, L’Astrea & Hermionné to Leward, Captain Evans . . . order’d the Deponent on board the Jack with orders to Capt. Tonge, . . . that the Jack was obliged to strike to the French frigates, and Deponent and the whole crew belonging to the Jack, were made prisoners and carried into Boston, that the Jack at that time carried ten nine pounders and four sixes, and was manned with sixty seven men, Richard Peter Tonge Commander, that the Deponent had seen the ship called the Jack (taken by Captain Crymes) . . . & knows her to be the same ship taken by L’Astrea & Hermionné” (Essex Institute Historical Collections, xlv. 182–183).
684 “Lucas Johnson, midshipman on board His Majesty’s Ship Charlestown, being sworne declares that in the latter end of July last on their passages from Halifax to Spanish River in company with the Allegiance, Vulture and Jack and some transports under their convoy, being off of Spanish River, Seeing two French frigates, L’Astrea & Hermionné to Leward, Captain Evans . . . order’d the Deponent on board the Jack with orders to Capt. Tonge, . . . that the Jack was obliged to strike to the French frigates, and Deponent and the whole crew belonging to the Jack, were made prisoners and carried into Boston, that the Jack at that time carried ten nine pounders and four sixes, and was manned with sixty seven men, Richard Peter Tonge Commander, that the Deponent had seen the ship called the Jack (taken by Captain Crymes) . . . & knows her to be the same ship taken by L’Astrea & Hermionné” (Essex Institute Historical Collections, xlv. 182–183).
685 A Relic of the Revolution, . . . By Charles Herbert, of Newburyport, Mass. Who was taken prisoner in the Brigantine Dolton, Dec, 1776, and served in the U. S. Frigate Alliance, 1779–80. 1847. This was compiled by R. Livesey, though his name is not on the title-page. In a later impression, dated 1854, the title was changed to “The Prisoners of 1776; A Relic of the Revolution. Compiled by the Rev. Richard Livesey from the Journal of Charles Herbert, of Newburyport, Mass., who was taken prisoner in the brigantine Dolton, Dec. 1776, and confined in Old Mill Prison, Plymouth, England.” The text of the two impressions appears to be identical, though the pagination is different.
686 The following extract from the Nathan Dane Papers, dated Beverly, December 2, 1781, shows that one man at least from Beverly served on the Bon Homme Richard and Alliance:
I, John Carrisco of Beverly, in the County of Essex, State of Mass., Mariner, constitute and appoint Nathan Dane my Attorney and hereby empower him to receive my wages and prize money due to me as a mariner on board the Good Man Richard, J. J. Jones, Commander, and also on board the Alliance, Peter Landais, Esq., Commander.”
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687 Narrative of Remarkable Occurrences, In the Life of John Blatchford, Of Cape-Ann, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, . . . Taken from his own mouth. M, DCC, LXXX, VIII. In 1865 Charles I. Bushnell published an edition, with notes, entitled “The Narrative of John Blatchford, retailing His sufferings in the Revolutionary War, while a Prisoner with the British. Aa related by himself.”
688 On April 2, 1777, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane wrote to the English ambassador at Paris calling attention to the fact that American prisoners were being employed in English ships to fight against their own people and also sent to distant ports where they stood little chance of being exchanged.
689 Edited by Charles I. Bushnell in 1865.
690 Some other accounts may be mentioned.
An Account of the Interment of the Remains of 11,500 American Seamen, Soldiers and Citizens, who fell victims to the cruelties of the British, on board their prison ships at the Wallabout, During the American Revolution. 1808. This was reprinted with notes by Dr. Henry It. Stiles in 1865 in The Wallabout Prison Ship Series, No. 2.
- Memoirs of Andrew Sherburne (2d ed., 1831), pp. 81–98, 109–119.
- The Old Jersey Captive: or a Narrative of the Captivity of Thomas Andros (now pastor of the church in Berkley,) on board the Old Jersey Prison Ship at New York, 1781. 1833.
- Review. The Tomb of the Martyrs, who died in dungeons and pestilential prison-ships, in and about the City of New-York, during the seven years of our Revolutionary War. By Benjamin Romaine, . . . 4th July, 1839.
- The Adventures of Christopher Hawkins, . . . With an Introduction and Notes by Charles L Bushnell. 1864. (Written in 1834.)
- Letters from the Prisons and Prison-Ships of the Revolution. With Notes by Henry R. Stiles, M. D. (The Wallabout Prison-Ship Series, No. 1.)
- A Memoir of Eli Bickford, a Patriot of the Revolution. 1865. (Contains “The Prison-Ship Jersey. By Charles I. Bushnell,” pp. 13–15.)
- 1888. A Christmas Reminder. Being the names of above eight thousand persons, a small portion of the number confined on board the British prison ships during the War of the Revolution. With the Compliments of the Society of Old Brooklynites. 1888.
- Horrors of the Prison Ships. Dr. [Charles E.] West’s Description of the Wallabout Floating Dungeons. How Captive Patriots Fared. 1895.
- 1776 Prison Ship Martyr Captain Jabez Fitch His Diary in Facsimile (1897 or 1903?)
- Historical Society, Eliot, Maine, January, 1900. Old Mill Prison. Henry W. Fernald, Boston, Mass.
- American Prisoners of the Revolution. By Danske Dandridge, . . . Charlottesville, Va., 1911. This is a book of ix, 504, pages, a bibliography being printed on pp. 503–504.
See also the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xix. 74–75, 136–141, 209–213 (List of Americans committed to Old Mill Prison during the War), xxxii. 42–44, 184–188, 305–308, 395–398 (Journal of Samuel Cutler).
691 It is doubtful whether these bonds were often enforced, and, even if collected, they were too small for the purpose. The bond of the schooner Hammond, for example, was for £ 300 signed by Jacob Oliver as principal and Robert Shillaber as surety, that all prisoners taken at sea would be brought back into port for exchange. (Revolutionary Rolls, viii. 4.)
692 Massachusetts Archives, clxxvii. 301.
693 Massachusetts Archives, cxxvi. 226.
694 Force, 5 American Archives, iii. 602.
695 Revolutionary Rolls, ix. 74.
696 Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Families of Boston.
697 Revolutionary Rolls, ix. 68.
698 Massachusetts Archives, cliii. 67.
699 New York Gazette and Mercury, February 2, 1778.
700 Massachusetts Archives, cxxv. 149.
701 Revolutionary Rolls, ix. 49.
702 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xix. 74.
703 Massachusetts Archives, clxxxiv. 34.
704 Massachusetts Archives, cxxv. 419.
705 Samuel Cressy (1751–1782), son of Benjamin and Mehitable (Brown) Cressy.
706 Massachusetts Archives, clxxvii. 63.
707 The officers and petty officers of the Pilgrim August 14, 1780, were as follows: Joseph Robinson, Salem, commander; Jesse Allen, Manchester, 1st lieutenant; Benjamin Warren, Salem, 2nd lieutenant; Nicholas Garven, Boston, master; George Sugden, Beverly, master’s mate; John Dean, Salem, 2nd mate; J. L. Hammond, Salem, 3rd mate; Samuel Blanchard, Boston, surgeon; Nathaniel Otis, Salem, chaplain; William Curtis, master of marines; Moses Vose, John Harris, Francis Horton, Joseph Hudson, John Kelly, John Marsh, and Thomas Hogkins, all prize masters; Jonathan Glidden, Beverly, carpenter; William Foot, Salem, cooper; Joseph Johnson, Salem, doctor’s mate; John Turner, gunner; James Lyons, Marblehead, sailmaker; Jonathan McDowell, boatswain; Joseph Standly and William Vose, stewards. Of the crew only two, James Elliot and Richard Allen, were Beverly men. There were ten boys, one eleven, two twelve, two thirteen and five seventeen years or younger. Most of the crew were of foreign birth.
708 This report of the capture of the Pilgrim was probably incorrect. At all events the vessel, if captured, was not the Pilgrim of Beverly.
There is in existence a log kept by Dr. Josiah Bartlett while surgeon on the Pilgrim of Beverly from April 19, 1781, to July 23, 1782. This log will be printed in Vol. xxv. of the Publications of this Society.
709 With the exception of John Vickory, who was probably a Marblehead man, all the officers and most of the crew were from Beverly.
710 “Elsinore May 27, 1783. Yesterday arrived the first commercial ship which has appeared in our seas. She came from Boston bound for Riga” (Salem Gazette, August 1, 1783). As Capt. Fearson in the Buccanier sailed from France for the Baltic as soon as peace was declared, it is possible that this is the vessel meant and that Andrew Cabot had the honor of first showing our flag in those waters. In 1784 the Commerce, Capt. Tuck, reached St. Petersburg before the Light Horse and beat her on the return voyage.
711 The letters “L.M.” indicate “Letter of marque.”
712 There is some confusion between the names Langdell and Langden which the writer has been unable to unravel.
713 Boston, Beverly, and Salem are all given as the residence of a John Leach, and it is difficult to distinguish between them.
714 He was not installed until 1786.
715 Dartmouth Manuscripts. For permission to have the letter copied, I am indebted to the present Earl of Dartmouth.
716 Half Moon, at the junction of the Hudson and the Mohawk Rivers, is now Waterford, New York. For its location, see the map in our Publications, vii. 260.
717 Massachusetts Province Laws, xv. 682.
718 Massachusetts Province Laws, xvii. 188.
719 See pp. 165–175, above.
720 “At a Meeting of ye Presidt & Fellows Agreed that George Ball be admitted a Fellow-Commoner,” August 18, 1730, Faculty Records, i. 30.
721 It is sometimes said that Ball was born in Cambridge, but of this there is no proof and the statement is probably due to a misapprehension. The Class of 1734 was placed on September 22, 1730, when Ball was assigned to the fourth place. (Faculty Records, i. 32.) His age is given as 14, and his place of residence at entrance (but not necessarily of birth) as Cambridge. In an interleaved Triennial Catalogue he is said to have been a Captain in the British Navy during the Revolution. (Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, xxvi. 565.)
722 The fourteen incorporators of the Society are those whose names are found under the year 1892 on p. 469, below.
723 The Certificate of Change of Corporate Name is dated March 3, 1893.
724 The date in this column is that given on the title-page. If a volume was not distributed until the following year, the fact is stated in a footnote.
725 Volume I was distributed in the autumn of 1896.
726 Massachusetts Royal Commissions, 1681–1774.
727 Land-Bank and Silver-Bank Papers; Bibliography of the Massachusetts House Journals, 1715–1776; Bibliography of the Massachusetts Laws, 1641–1776.
728 Check-List of Boston Newspapers, 1704-1780.
729 Volume X was distributed in May, 1908.
730 Volume XVII was distributed in January, 1916.
731 Volume XIX was distributed in April, 1919.
732 Plymouth Church Records, 1620–1859, Part i.
733 Volume XXII was distributed in January, 1921.
734 Plymouth Church Records, 1620–1859, Part ii.
735 Volume XXIV contains the Transactions from January, 1920, to January, 1922, both included.
736 Harvard College Records (Corporation Records, 1636–1750).
737 Volume XXV begins with the meeting of February, 1922.
738 Massachusetts Royal Instructions.
739 For a note on the place of residence, see p. 469, below.
740 An asterisk (*) denotes death while a member; a dagger (†) indicates that membership has ceased either through resignation, removal to or from the State, or otherwise; a double dagger (‡) means transfer to another class of membership. The place of residence given is that where the member lived at the time of his election. The place of residence of each of the fourteen incorporators of the Society, though not given in the Transactions, is recorded in the Records of the Society. Curiously enough, however, the place of residence of no member elected in 1893 and of scarcely a member elected in 1894 is recorded either in the Council Records or in the Records of the Society, nor is it given in the Transactions. Hence the place of residence of those elected in 1893 and 1894 is somewhat conjectural.
741 Corresponding Member, 1899.