USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 16
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An affair of some moment in itself, but far greater in its results, precipitated the action of Middlesex. Upon information of William Brattle of Cambridge, major-general of the province mili- tia, Generał Gage, on the morning of September 1, 1774, sent an armed force to seize the prov- ince powder, stored in an ancient windmill, now standing in the city of Somerville. At the same time a detachment went to Cambridge and brought away two field-pieces belonging to the Middle- sex regiment, with which they safely returned to Boston. The news spread like wildfire. All Mid- dlesex was in commotion. The next evening the freemen of the county towns marched for Cam- bridge with arms, provisions, and ammunition. Friday morning some thousands of them, having first left their guns outside the limits, entered the town. The committees of Charlestown and Boston, being notified, immediately repaired to Cambridge. The assembled freemen first proceeded to the court-house, where they demanded and received the resignation of the venerable Samuel Danforth as a member of Gage's council. The resigna-
tion of Joseph Lee was next obtained. Then the High-Sheriff of the county, Colonel David Phips, was required to sign a pledge not to execute any precept that might be sent to him under the new acts of parliament, and to recall all the venires sent out by him under the new order of things. Later in the day the resignation of Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Oliver, also a resident of Cambridge, as president of the obnoxious council, was exacted. He was permitted to say in it that the act was not a voluntary one.
No act of violence was committed by the four or five thousand men whom his honor, the lieu- tenant-governor, described as not a mad mob, but the freeholders of the county. After securing the compulsory resignations of the crown officers, the sturdy yeomanry were provided with food, and returned to their homes well satisfied with their day's work. The tory party in Middlesex was overawed ; the patriots correspondingly elated.
The Middlesex resolves had been transmitted to the Continental Congress, and were highly ap- plauded by the delegates. Upon the reassembling of the convention of Suffolk a series of resolves was adopted, on the third day of the session, re- affirming in the most decided terms the language of the patriots of Middlesex. These resolutions were also forwarded to Philadelphia, and having been duly considered by the congress, that dignified body unanimously declared its approval of the acts of the suffering people of Massachusetts, in oppo- sition to the wicked measures of the ministry, and earnestly recommended perseverance in the same wise and temperate conduct expressed in the reso- lutions of the delegates for the County of Suffolk. Intelligence of this high indorsement was received in Massachusetts with unbounded satisfaction. It testified that the other colonies regarded the struggle now going on in that devoted province as their own.
General Gage issued writs for holding a general court at Salem on the 5th of October. Upon fur- ther consideration he subsequently recalled the writs by proclamation, notwithstanding which ninety members met at the time and place appointed, and, after vainly waiting recognition from the gov- ernor, on the third day resolved themselves into a provincial congress to take into consideration the "dangerous and alarming " condition of public affairs. On the same day they adjourned, to meet at Concord ; and upon resuming their session there, October 11, chose John Hancock of Boston presi- dent, and Benjamin Lincoln secretary. Middlesex
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IIISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
was represented by seventy-nine delegates in a body of two hundred and eighty-eight. The con- gress first assembled in the court-house, but that building being too small for its accommodation, the sessions were subsequently held in the meeting- house, - the pastor, Rev. William Emerson, offi- ciating as chaplain. After preparing a remon- strance to General Gage, in which he was urged to discontinue the fortification of Boston Neck, as calculated to excite alarm in the province, the congress adjourned to Cambridge.
On Monday, October 17, the Provincial Congress met in the court-house at Cambridge, but immedi- · ately adjourned to the more spacious meeting-house. The first business was the reading of a communica- tion from General Gage in answer to the remon- strance. The royal governor told them that what they were pleased to call a fortress, erecting on Boston Neck, would annoy nobody unless annoyed ; that their assembly was illegal, and in defiance of the charter ; and he solemnly warned them to desist from their unconstitutional proceedings. Upon which the congress proceeded to discuss from day to day, with closed doors, what was necessary to be done for the defence and safety of the province.
Nine persons were appointed a Committee of Safety, with power to call into active service the whole militia of the province whenever they should deem it necessary. Five others were constituted a Committee of Supplies, with authority to purchase cannon, mortars, muskets, and ordnance stores, and to provide for the subsistence of such troops as the Committee of Safety might call into the field.1 Three general officers were next appointed. They were Jedediah Preble of Falmouth, Maine, Artemas Ward, a delegate from Shrewsbury, and Seth Pome- roy, a delegate from Northampton. All of them had seen service in the French and Indian wars. Jolin Thomas, a delegate from Marshfield, and William Heath, a delegate from Roxbury, were subsequently added to the number of generals. Thomas had served under Amherst; Heath had seen no service. The congress also directed a more
1 Hancock, Warren, Church, Devens, White, Palmer, Quiney, Watson, and Orne were the Committee of Safety ; Cheever, Lee, Greenleaf, Gill, and Lincoln, the Committee of Supplies. John Pigeon of Newtown and William Heath of Roxbury were subse- quently added to the Committee of Safety, and Benjamin Hall chosen on the Committee of Supplies in the room of Greenleaf. Jabez Fisher, appointed on the Committee of Safety vice Quiney, was superseded hy Colonel Thomas Gardoer ; and Elbridge Gerry took the place of Hall on the Committee of Supplies. The com- mittees were directed to sit at Cambridge.
efficient organization of the provincial militia, and, for meeting such an emergency as the creation of the Committee of Safety contemplated, ordered the field officers of regiments to enlist from their com- mands companies of fifty men each, to be held in readiness to march at the " shortest notice" from the committee. The organization of these light troops into battalions of nine companies each was also provided for, and they at once took the popular name of " Minute Men." The ranks of these companies were quickly filled by the enthu- siastic youth of the province, for whom the most dangerous service is ever the most attractive. When the drum beat to arms, every minute-man was expected to obey the call on the instant.
Having provided an army, an executive junto with dictatorial powers, a commissariat, the congress appointed Henry Gardner of Stow receiver-general of public moneys in the room of Harrison Gray, tory treasurer of the province, whose tenure of the office was thus ignored. It sent a defiant, even threatening reply to General Gage's communica- tion, drew upa non-consumption resolve, appointed Heath, Warren, and Church to take care of the precious war stores, and then adjourned, after a session of eleven days fraught with more momen- tous consequences than it was possible for the most advanced patriot to forecast.
While General Gage was driven to his wit's end to provide winter-quarters for his troops in Boston, the patriot committees were busy collecting arms, munitions, camp and garrison equipage, intrenching tools, rice, flour, pork, pease,- everything, in short, needful for an army about to undertake an active campaign or the slower operations of a siege. As fast as collected, the stores were deposited for safe- keeping in the houses of trusted friends at Worces- ter and Concord. These towns soon became known to the British general as rebel magazines. He is- sued a proclamation declaring all such proceedings to be nearly verging on treason, and prohibiting compliance with the resolves or requisitions of the unlawful congress. Notwithstanding which, the accumulation of war material went on with unre- mitting activity. The women scraped lint and made cartridges and haversacks, the men ran bul- lets and fitted powder-horns and flints during those long winter evenings. Armorers, gunsmiths, found- ers, joiners, worked with a will. Cannon and can- non-balls were spirited away out of Boston under loads of barnyard manure; powder and musket- balls in the hampers of the country-people. Now
111
THIE PRELUDE TO HOSTILITIES.
and then the guard ou Boston Neck made prize of some iutended contribution to the province maga- zines ; but such occasional losses could not deter renewed attempts to smuggle out of the British lines whatever was needful to the provincials.
The situation was now briefly this. The royal governor held possession of Boston with an army. Beyond the town's limits his authority was hardly more respected than that of the meanest subaltern acting under his orders. All the rest of the prov- ince was in a state of quasi revolt, obeying only the recommendations of the Provincial Congress or its committees, but having neither legislators, magistrates, nor executive officers. This condition of anarchy could not continue. Habitual alle-
giance to the throne restrained the patriots from crossing the boundary which separated them from open rebellion, even after hope of peaceful redress had been abandoned. In all the public acts of the patriots their fealty to the sovereign is constantly reiterated up to the very moment of commencing hostilities ; but the expectation of holding to that allegiance, while openly defying the mandates of the sovereign, was a fallacy that could not long seriously occupy a place in even the most sanguine minds. There being really nothing left of the monarchy but the shadow, one of those events which changes the destinies of empires forever sealed the political fate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
XV.
THE PRELUDE TO HOSTILITIES.
GENERAL, GAGE's military measures, though limited to depriving the provincials of the meaus of resistance, were sure to provoke a collision at 110 distant day. He had, as already related, seized the province powder and cannon. Another expe- dition, despatched for a like purpose to Salem, only failed through the firmness of the people of Essex. Anxiety to avoid bloodshed characterized the movements of both parties, even after both were convinced that it must come to that issue at last. The British commander had, however, de- terinined either to obtain possession of or destroy the magazines at Concord and Worcester ; indeed, no other course was consistent with his honor or his safety. He was well informed of the places of deposit, having sent officers to recounoitre the roads, aud to gather such information as they could from inhabitants friendly to the royal cause. Moreover, one of the earliest and most trusted members of the patriot junto had, at this early period, traitorously divulged its secrets to the general before the discovery of his infamy was made. The British troops constantly practised in firing with ball, to enable them to cope with the skilful American marksmen. The regiments not on duty were frequently exercised by marching a few miles into the country, which in the present disturbed condition of the public mind caused con-
siderable alarm. On the 30th of March a brigade of regulars marched out over the neck, apparently with no other object than to overawe the people by a display of foree, but the movement of so large a body created great excitment at Cambridge. Other movements tended to excite suspicion and uneasiness, so that under the appearance of calm the people were possessed by a feverish agitation, a sense of coming danger.
On their side, the patriots were well served by their friends in Boston. Every movement of the soldiery was instantly reported to the provincial committees. The vital question of when hostilities should begin was solved by the deliberate determi- nation, that whenever the British troops marched into the country with baggage and artillery they should be opposed by force.
A second Provincial Congress met at Cambridge on the first day of February, 1775. It reaffirmed the powers previously granted to the Committees of Safety and Supply, confirmed the appointment of Hancock, Cushing, the two Adamses, and Rob- ert Treat Paine as delegates to the Philadelphia Congress, declared all persons contributing labor or materials to the British troops enemies to America, recommended the manufacture of saltpetre by the inhabitants, chose John Pigeon commissary of the provincial army, chose John Whitcomb of Lan-
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
caster an additional general officer, and after traus- acting much important business adjourned, to meet at Concord on the 22d of March. In an emer- gency arising during the intermission, members from Charlestown, Cambridge, Roxbury, Brookline, and Dorchester were authorized to call the congress together.
The congress, upon reassembling, prepared a code of regulations for the Massachusetts army, and continued its measures for putting the prov- ince in a posture of defence. While sitting, intelli- gence was received of the address of parliament, declaring Massachusetts to be in rebellion, and of the votes in both houses to compel submission by strongly reinforcing the army in Boston, and by cutting off the foreign trade and fishery of the province.
Edward Gibbon, then in parliament, writes to his friend Holroyd : " We voted an address (three hundred and four to one hundred and five) of lives and fortunes declaring Massachusetts Bay in a state of rebellion. More troops, but I fear not enough, go to America, to make an army of ten thousand men at Boston ; three generals, Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton. In a few days we stop the ports of New England. I cannot write volumes ; but I am more and more convinced, that with firmness all may go well ; yet I sometimes doubt." Doubt, in this case, was better than conviction ; it was prophetic.
It was now no time for half-measures. Resolu- tions were immediately passed to raise an army. Committees were sent to New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut to secure the co-operation of those colonies. County committees were formed to receive reports from town committees of their proceedings in furtherance of the recommenda- tions of the Continental and Provincial Congresses. James Prescott of Groton, Eleazer Brooks of Lin- coln, Richard Devens of Charlestown, Simeon Spaulding of Chelmsford, and Jonathan Brown of Watertown were the committee for Middlesex. After providing for raising six companies of field artillery, and anthorizing the Committee of Safety to procure the services of suitable field-officers for the proposed standing army, the congress, on the 15th of April, adjourned, to meet again at Concord on the 10th of May.
The Committees of Safety and Supplies, sitting at Concord on the 17th of April, were busy per- fccting the mounting and organizing of the artil- lery. Adam; and Hancock were at the house of
Rev. Jonas Clark at Lexington. Vague rumors of an intended movement by the troops began to circulate in Boston, and were communicated to Adams by " a daughter of liberty unequally yoked in point of politics." }
These reports were further strengthened by the information that the grenadier and light compa- nies of all the royal regiments were on Saturday, the 15th, relieved from guard duty, - which meant that there was, or soon would be, other work for them. A number of boats were also collected. Warren, in Boston, took care to notify Hancock and Adams of these signs of preparation, on the very next day. He knew it to be one of Gage's pet ideas that the seizure of some of its chiefs would paralyze the rebellion itself. When, there- fore, the committee assembled on Monday it was doubtless informed of what was in agitation, for orders were immediately given to remove the most valuable ordnance from Concord to Sudbury and Groton. On the 18th the committee was in ses- sion at the Black Horse Tavern, at Menotomy, now Arlington, and actively giving orders for dis- tributing the ordnance, ammunition, and provisions among nine different towns, one of which was Con- cord. The committee sat at Menotomy in order, it would seem, to be within easy communication with Boston. The blow was expected, though it was not known where it would fall. To this extent the patriots were, therefore, not unprepared.
Joseph Warren, the most active, zealous, and influential member of the Committee of Safety, did not sit with it after the adjournment of con- gress, but returned to Boston in order, it is pre- sumed, to observe the movements of the British troops. It was equally the post of honor and of danger, for the soldiery knew and hated him. At
1 This is the statement made by Gordon. It may have re- ferred to the wife of General Gage himself, who is accused of con- fiding his secrets, hoth politieal and military, to her; which she, an American by birth, sympathizing with their eause, revealed to the patriots. In relating Lord Perry's interview with General Gage, Stedman, the British historian, who was at this time one of the army commissaries, reports the general as declaring bin- self betrayed, and as saying that he had communieated the secret to only one other person ; and this person we know, from the same authority, was neither Lord Perry, who had just learned it, nor Colonel Smith, the commander of the expedition, who merely received orders to get ready without knowing his destination. As General Gage sent for Perey in order to arrange for getting his brigade under arms early in the morning, so that if necessary he might support Smith, the general's decision, not to trust those officers on whom the conduct of the expedition depended, is hardly reconcilable with the hypothesis that he would divulge his secret to others. See p. 116, Foublauque's Burgoyne.
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THE PRELUDE TO HOSTILITIES.
no time was his presence with the committee more important than at the present moment. It is there- fore evident that his being at the province capital was considered still more urgent. Warren was the idol of the revolutionary clubs. His noble, chiv- alric nature, his earnestness, his lofty courage, had especially marked him as the champion of these ardent Sons of Liberty. One of the leading spirits of the clubs was Paul Revere. In him Warren seems to have reposed full and entire trust, which Revere as fully justified. On Sunday, the 16th, Warren despatched Revere to Hancock and Adams at Lexington, with a message, undoubtedly of warning; for upon his return Revere concerted with friends in Charlestown to show two signal lanterns in the steeple of the North Church of Boston if the British went out by water, and one if by land. This establishes that a movement was expected to take place at any hour.
On Tuesday, the IS:h, a number of officers, well mounted, were sent by General Gage to clear the road by which his intended expedition was to move. The officers dined quietly at Cambridge, and then pursued their way towards Lexington as if on a party of pleasure; but their being on the road so late in the afternoon was calculated, in the present state of affairs, to arouse suspicion. Intelligence of their coming was sent to the committee at Me- notomy. Gerry immediately hurried off a courier to acquaint Hancock and Adams. In the mean time a sharp-eyed countryman, who had been passed on the road by the cavalcade, ran through by-ways to Sergeant Munroe of the Lexington minute-men, with the information that the troop of king's offi- cers were coming, - armed to the teeth, too, as he had seen when their garments were blown aside by the wind. Thinking Hancock and Adams were in danger, Munroe immediately got together a few men and with them took post at Clark's house. Three more, who were despatched to watch the sus- pected troop, were captured by the officers, who, having reached their destination, on the border of Lincoln, dismounted and posted themselves squarely in the road. General Gage's design was now clear. The officers were to prevent intelligence from reach- ing Concord that the blow was to fall there. Gage also sent out a second patrol, which established itself
on the great road from Charlestown to Cambridge, near Charlestown Neck. Supposing a rebel courier succeeded in evading this picket, which was diffi- cult, - for a marslı stretched on one side of the road and a high bluff rose on the other, - he would be quietly picked up three miles below Concord by the second. As to information getting out of Boston by land, there was the strongly guarded post on the neck. The officers there had their orders to question, search, and if needful detain, all suspicious persons attempting to pass beyond the gates. To prevent egress by water, Gage had stationed a guard over the boats at Charlestown Ferry, on the Boston side ; while his majesty's frigate Somerset lay at anchor in the ferry-way, in order to hail and bring to stray boats attempting to cross the river after dark. To get a messenger out by land through Roxbury, or by water through Charles- town, was as difficult as Revere apprehended it would be, when arranging his plan of the signals with Colonel Conant at Charlestown.
For some time past the Bostonians had been unusually vigilant. The troops were a constant inenace to them and their cause. Bitterness and hatred were growing with every hour. Encounters between citizens and soldiery were of daily and nightly occurrence. The redcoats dealt freely in taunts, epithets, and boastings of what they were presently going to do, all of which made the in- habitants more and more nervous, resentful, and apprehensive. That Incorruptible Thirty, of which Revere was one of the chiefs, had banded themselves together for the purpose of watching the soldiers. They were the hard-handed, patriotic mechanics of Boston, who had sworn to stand by each other to the uttermost ; and who, now that so many circum- stances made it certain that a crisis was imminent, redoubled their vigilance and their activity. All the landing-places of the town were narrowly ob- served; watchful eyes kept on the barracks and on the province-house. At the same time night- watches were being regularly set in Roxbury, Cam- bridge, and Charlestown. These received fresh warning to be on the alert. So far as obtaining swift intelligence of them might counteract the British general's plans, the patriots were certainly leaving no avenue unguarded, no stone unturned.
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
XVI.
THE NIGHT ALARM IN MIDDLESEX.
ON the 18th of April Boston was quiet, but feverish. Rumors were in the air, but nothing was positively known of the British general's intentions. His secret had been well kept ; for it is needless to observe that, had the patriots possessed earlier posi- tive knowledge of it, their own measures would not have been delayed. About ten o'clock at night the grenadiers and light infantry silently left their quar- ters and marched to the beach, at the foot of the Common, where boats were ready to receive them. Gage had been careful not to assemble the troops earlier, for by this honr the greater part of the townspeople were usually abed. The force num- bered abont six hundred bayonets. The men were the flower of the army, commanded by experienced officers, and full of martial spirit. Gage had cho- sen Colonel Francis Smith, of the tenth foot, to lead the expedition, and Major John Pitcairn, of the marines, to be second in command.
Between ten and eleven the troops, being em- barked, were rowed across the river to Phips' farm,1 in Cambridge, where they landed on the salt mead- ows. Floundering through these marshes in water up to the knee, the battalion, upon gaining the firm ground, was kept drawn up in a dirty by-road until two o'clock in the morning, waiting for their pro- visions to be brought from the boats and distrib- uted among the men. This delay, when minutes counted for hours, was fatal. Many of the soldiers, having already something in their haversacks, threw away their rations after receiving them. The three hours thus idled away decided the fate of the ill- starred expedition.
Leaving the troops muttering their discontent at Lechmere's Point, we will return to Boston. With the mustering of the soldiers the secret was of course out. It was almost immediately known in Charlestown, where watchers were now on the lookout for Revere's signals. The inhabitants of Boston knew, or guessed, the destination of the regulars. Earl Percy, while on his way to his quarters from a conference with the general, over-
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