USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 22
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Ezek: Cheever Año Olivos The Hutchinson, James Skunnen
next day he came to town in the Castle barge, and landing at Long Wharf, under salutes from the shipping, Colonel Wendell's Boston regiment, Colonel Pollard's Cadets, and some other troops took him under escort with the town and pro- vincial dignitaries, and the day was given to jollification.
Not till the following summer did Pepperrell return, accompanied by Warren. They arrived in the harbor about the first of June, were saluted at the Castle, and reached town about 5 P. M., landing under salvos from all the batteries and ships. The Cadets and dignitaries escorted them up Long Wharf and King Street, between lines of the Boston Regiment, which kept back a crowd of people. At the Town House, Pepperrell took his seat as President of the Council, and the rep- resentatives delivered addresses. He stayed in Boston till July 4, when he set out for his seat at Kittery. The news of Culloden had likewise come, and Thomas Prince had preached a ser- mon of jubilation at the Old South, August 14. But all this gave way before long to a dread of Admiral D'Anville's Brest Fleet. Toward the end of September. 1746, says Douglass, who was an eye-witness, "6,400 men from the country, well armed, appeared on Boston Common; some of them from Brookfield travelled seventy miles in two days, each with a pack (in which was pro- vision for fourteen days) of about a bushel corn weight." Everything was astir. Work on the
harbor defences was pushed forward. The French armament, however, was scattered by a tempest, and the danger passed. The reader will remember Longfellow's ballad on the sub- ject. - ED.]
1 [It was perhaps because of these projects that, in 1746, special efforts were made to dis- cover all subjects of the French King in Boston, and to commit them to jail. The City Clerk's files disclose various papers on the subject. Early in September they had the news in Boston of the sack of Fort Massachusetts. - ED.]
2 ['These signatures are taken from the report of the Committee appointed in 1746 to settle some of the accounts of the expenses to the province attending the expedition to Louisburg, taken from the document in the Massachusetts Archives. The chairman, Wendell, was a prom- inent Boston merchant, colonel of the Boston Regiment in 1745. He was the great-grandfather of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and lived on the corner of Tremont and School Streets, opposite the King's Chapel. He was a director in the first banking institution in the province. In 1749 Parliament voted to reimburse the colonies for their expenses. William Bollan, a son-in-law of Shirley, had been over to urge the adjustment, and he had been greatly assisted by Christopher Kilby, a Boston merchant, who had been in Lon- don as the agent of the province since 1741. Mr. Charles W. Tuttle contributed an account
.
120
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The Swedish traveller, Peter Kalm, writing from New York in 1748, went even further than the Duke of Bedford.
Jan .2.1748 Beny Pollard Leonard Jarvis rash Martyn Joshua Blanchard The Clarke
"There is reason enough for doubting whether the king, if he had the power, would wish to drive the French from their possessions in Canada. . . . The English Govern- ment has therefore reason to regard the French in North America as the chief power that urges their colonies to submission." Whatever may have been the truth of these prognostications, it is certain that, after three years more of occasional Indian outrages, the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was made in 1748,1 providing for the mutual restoration of all conquests; and Louis- burg accordingly reverted to the French.
Yet no sooner had the treaty been signed, than Jam Gerrusty trouble was revived between the French and English about the boundaries of Acadia. Other collisions took place in the West, along the Ohio river ; and the last and severest of all these wars, commonly called the " Old French War," or the " French and Indian War," began. Much of this contest OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE OF THE BOSTON CADETS.2 took place beyond the terri- tory of New England ; but nowhere were its terrors greater, inasmuch as it seemed, at one time, to involve the very existence of the English colonies.
of Kilby to the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1872, p. 43; also see 1874, p. 451. The sum of £183,649 was sent to Boston in coin, and 653, 000 ounces of silver, and ten tons of copper were landed on Long Wharf. It took seventeen carts to carry the silver, and ten to carry the copper to the treasurer's office. - ED.]
1 [The proclamation of the peace was made
in Boston, May 10, in the presence of the town regiment in King Street. The treaty with the Eastern Indians was not perfected till Oct. 16, 1649, at Falmouth, and proclamation of it was made at Boston, Oct. 27. - ED.]
2 [This group of signatures gives us some of the principal citizens interested in military mat- ters at this time. Cf. Whitman, Ancient and
I21
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
A convention of delegates from the New England colonies, and from New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, was held at Albany, July 4, 1754. It was called by advice of the British ministry, for common meas-
COLONEL JOSIAH QUINCY.1
Honorable Artillery Company, 273. Various let- ters of Pollard relating to the Louisburg expedi- tion are in the Pepperrell Papers. He died ten years later. " 1756, Dec. 30. Colonel Pollard was buried," is the entry in Sir Charles Henry Frankland's diary. - ED.]
1 [This cut follows a portrait by Copley, painted in 1769, which Miss Eliza Susan Quincy VOL. II .- 16.
kindly allowed to be photographed for the en- graver's guidance. Stuart is recorded as saying of this picture in 1825: "Copley put the whole man upon the canvas. Mr. Quincy had a white hair in his eye-brow and there it is. The indus- try of Copley was marvellous." This gentleman was the son of Judge Edmund Quincy, Colonel of the Suffolk regiment, grandson of the immi-
122
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ures of defence, and to treat with the friendly Indian tribes. Franklin was one of the members, and his famous representation of the snake dismembered, with the motto "Unite or Die," was prepared for this occasion. The Massachusetts General Court had suggested "that the control of Indian affairs be put under such general direction as his Majesty shall judge proper; and that the several Governments shall be obliged to bear their proportions of defending his Majesty's territories against the encroachments of the French and the incursions of the In- dians." The delegates from Massachusetts had been authorized to form articles of union; and a committee of one from each colony was appointed to frame a plan. Franklin's plan was reported, and had the support of all but the Connecticut delegates. He proposed a council of forty-eight mem- bers, distributed among the different colonies, and having for its head a presi- dent-general, appointed by the Crown, and having the veto power. It was ultimately rejected by the King's Council as giving too much power to the people, and by the provincial assemblies as giving too much power to the Crown. Meanwhile the French and Indian war went on, and the colo- nists were compelled to ponder more and more the sarcastic counsel of the Mohawk chief Hendrick, at Albany: "You desired us to open our minds and hearts to you. Look at the French : they are men ; they are fortifying everywhere. But, we are ashamed to say it, you are like women, without any fortifications. It is but one step from Canada hither; and the French may easily come and turn you out of doors." 1
The treaty of Utrecht in awarding Acadie, or Acadia, to the English had assigned to that province its " ancient limits ; " but to agree upon those lim- its passed the skill of commissioners. The English claimed both sides of the Bay of Fundy ; but the French conceded only the peninsula now called Nova Scotia, claiming the north shore of the bay for themselves. Forts Beau-Séjour and Gaspereau were built expressly to defend this French claim. The English had already built forts at Windsor and Minas; and
grant Edmund; and he was the first of a bril- liant line of Josiahs. A graduate of Harvard (1728), he was engaged in commerce and ship- building in Boston during these wars with the French and Spaniards. In 1748 his mercantile house fitted out the ship " Bethell" for the Medi- terranean, arming her with twenty guns, some of which, however, were dummies. They made a good enough appearance however, together with a display of spare coats and hats stuck upon handspikes, to deceive the commander of a Spanish ship of heavier force, who, mistaking the " Bethell" for an English sloop-of-war, struck his colors. It was no easy matter for Captain Isaac Freeman to prevent the prize turning mas- ter, when the trick was discovered. Good luck attended him, and the " Bethell" and her prize came into Bostor harbor with one hundred and sixty-one chests of silver and two of gold, to be distributed. The doubloons and dollars were
escorted by armed sailors from the wharf to Colonel Quincy's house, on the corner of what is now Washington Street and Central Court, where they found rest in the wine cellar, with a guard mounted over them while they remained there, day and night. Later, Mr. Quincy re- moved to Braintree, and became Colonel, as his father had been, of the Suffolk regiment. In 1755 the province sent him to Pennsylvania to ask help from that colony, in the attack on Crown Point, which Massachusetts was then planning. Franklin, in his Autobiography, tells the story of this negotiation. Edmund Quincy, Life of Josiah Quincy, ch. i .; Miss Quincy in Penn. Mag. of Hist., iii. There is a genealogi- cal sketch of the Quincys in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., January, 1857, p. 71, and April, 1857, P. 154 .- ED.]
1 Bancroft, United States, revised edition, iii. 79.
123
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
had established a fort and colony at Halifax to take the place of Louisburg, just surrendered. In 1755 hostilities had advanced far enough - though there had as yet been no declaration of war- for the English to attack the two forts on the Bay of Fundy. Three thousand men had been placed under
JOHN WINSLOW.1
1 [This cut follows the likeness of General Winslow now hanging in the gallery of the His- torical Society, in whose cabinet is a collection of papers which is lettered "Winslow's Jour- nal." The first volume opens with a letter of proposals which Winslow addressed to Gover- nor Shirley, followed by a copy of his commis- sion as Lieut .- Colonel, Feb. 10, 1755. Tran-
scripts then follow of instructions, letters, accounts, orders, rosters, log-books, and reports, bearing date down to Jan. 1756. The second volume of a similar character begins February and ends August, 1756, closing with a certificate that the 354 pages of the book "is to the best of my skill and judgment a true record of original papers committed to my care for that purpose,"
124
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
John Winflow Grand Sre Camp 20 Septembre 175
the command of John Winslow, a militia general who had himself seen some actual service, and whose grandfather 1 was well remembered as having commanded the New England force in the celebrated " swamp fight" during Philip's War. He sailed from Boston on May 20,2 and on arriving at the Bay of Fundy Winslow's troops were reinforced by three hundred British regulars under Col. Monckton, who took com- mand of the expedition. The forts were easily taken, and the small French forces driven away. But a more difficult problem was the question of governing the
signed, " Henry Leddel, Secretary to General Winslow." The third volume covers August- December, 1756, and is similarly certified under date, Boston, April 23, 1757 ; a single letter of Loudoun's, dated Boston, Jan. 29, 1757, closes this final volume. A journal of the Expedition to Acadia, kept by Dr. John Thomas as surgeon, - the same who acquired fame later as General Thomas, at the Roxbury fort, - was printed in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Oct. 1879. Fur- ther study of the subject can be pursued in the Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax, 1869, and in the Transactions, Part vii., of the Literary and His- torical Society of Quebec. Beside the general historians there are local writers, like Moreau,
L' Acadie Française, ch. xxiii .; Campbell, Nova Scotia, ch. vii., etc.
Boscawery.
Admiral Boscawen was at this time in com- mand of the squadron on the coast hereabout. -ED.]
1 [Various members of the Winslow family were prominent in Boston affairs during the pro- vincial period, and it may be well to make clear their relationship (N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., April, 1863; Oct. 1871) :-
EDWARD, of Droitwich, England.
Gov. Edward, of Plymouth Colony.
John, Boston, 1655 ; d. 1674.
Kenelm, d. at Salem, 1672.
Gilbert, d. in England. Fosinh, d. at Marshfield, 1674.
Gov. Josiah, of Plymouth Colony ; d. 1680.
Edward, b. 1634, d. 1682.
John, d. 1683. Joseph, d. 1679. Samuel, d 1680. Isaac, d. 1670. Benjamin, d. 1673-76.
Nathaniel, d. at Marshfield, 1719.
Fudge Isaac, b. 1670 : d. 1738.
Col. Edward, b. 1669.
Kenelm, b. 1675; d. 1759.
Gen. John, b. 1702.
Josiah. b. 1701 ; kld. 1724. Edward, b. 1714; Royalist.
Joshua, Boston Merchant.
Isaac, Boston Merchant.
Joseph, b. 1724; Boston Merchant.
Pelham, b. 1737;
Dr. Isaac.
b. 1739.
Royalist. - ED.]
" 1755, May 22. Wind S.W. We weighed anchor at Deer Island road, in Boston Bay, in company with the three men of war, - ' Success,' Captain John Rouse ; 'Mermaid,' Captain
2 [Dr. Thomas thus records the setting sail : Sherley; 'Siren,' Captain Proba; thirty-three transports and store ships (two brigs, five schooners, rest sloops); and about five thou- sand and one hundred soldiers, all bound for Annapolis Royal." - ED.]
125
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
province of Acadia, - a region occupied largely by some twelve or fifteen thousand French colonists, who, during forty years of nominal British sovereignty, had still remained absolutely French in all their ways and sympathies. By treaty they had been excused from taking up arms against their own nationality ; and were therefore called " French neutrals." But the
Pot Moncktony
capture of Fort Beau-Séjour had revealed three hundred of their young men in arms. Should a population thus disposed be expelled, and go to strengthen the French force in Canada, or be left where it was and kept down by strong garrisons? The easiest military remedy, and the cruellest, was that finally adopted by the authorities of the province: the whole French population was to be seized by stratagem, Takes George the Sept. 9 .1755 Jetway a Memorable day carried away and distrib- uted among the British North American colonies. More than a thousand of the exiles were brought to Massa- chusetts, and were here supported at the public expense; but were denied the exercises of their Seth Pomeroy 00 religion. " We did," said Ed- mund Burke, " in my opinion most inhumanly, and upon pretences that in the eye of an honest man are not worth a farthing, root out this poor, innocent, deserving people, whom our utter inability to govern or to reconcile gave us no sort of right to extirpate." The story of this sad event has been written in undying song by Longfellow.1
During Braddock's ill-fated campaign in America the Massachusetts
1 [Besides Evangeline, there is a novel on the subject by C. R. Williams, The Neutral French.
Sam Wells
The two volumes in the Massachusetts Archives, " Neutral French," reveal the corners of Massa-
chusetts into which they were sent, but give little information beyond accounts of expenditures in their behalf by the towns. About two hun- dred families had been sent hither, and thirty families had arrived before the 11th of November. Their dispersion was in charge of a committee, of which Samuel Watts was chairman. Hutchinson, Massachu- setts Bay, iii. 40. - ED.]
I26
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
troops -some seven thousand nine hundred in all, being one-fifth of the able-bodied men in the colony - were partly employed under Sir William Johnson in his expedition against Crown Point. One regiment was commanded by Colonel Ephraim Williams, who was killed in action ; and who, while passing through Albany on the way, had made his will, leaving property to found what is now Williams College. Another was commanded by Colonel Pomeroy, whose letter from Louisburg has been already quoted, and who lived to fight at Bunker Hill. He wrote home thus enthusiasti- cally after the battle of Lake George: "Come to the help of the Lord against Whiskey the mighty ! You that value our holy religion and our liberties will spare nothing, even to the one half of your estate." 1
Bryhis Excellencys Command
Javalland Stay
ment ! " 3
you save the King,
SUBSCRIPTION TO A PROCLAMATION.4
In drawing pictures of the outbreak of the Revolutionary war we often forget the previous military training of the colo- nists, not only by fighting with Indians, but through what were at least glimpses of more regular warfare.
Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, during an abortive expedition against Niagara in 1755, built and garrisoned a new fort at Oswego. In the year after, the Marquis de Montcalm besieged and took it with five thou- sand French. During the following year (1757) he also took Fort William Henry, where a large part of the ill-fated garrison, including many Massachusetts soldiers, were cruelly murdered by the Indians after surrender under promise of safety.2 This crowning disaster left a general feeling of despair. "For God's sake," wrote the officer in command at Albany to the Governor of Massachusetts, " exert your- selves to save a province ! New York itself may fall; save a country! prevent the downfall of the British Govern- Montcalm seemed invincible; the French held the valleys of the fort in Martin's Montcalm et les dernières années de la Colonie Française au Canada, and in Dr. Hough's translation of Pouchet's History of the War, p. 48 .- ED.]
1 [His letter, descriptive of the fight of Sept. 8, 1755, and the death of Williams, written to head- quarters in Boston, when he supposed himself the only field officer of the regiment left alive, is preserved in Massachusetts Archives, "Letters," iv. 109. - ED.]
2 [Beside the general historians, see Essex Institute Hist. Coll., iii. 79. There is a plan of
8 Bancroft, United States, iii. 176.
4 [This is from a proclamation issued June 18, 1755, by Shirley, offering £110 bounty for captives and {100 for scalps. Shirley and Pep-
I27
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
the St. Lawrence, the Ohio, the Mississippi; Great Britain held but a strip along the shore, and even there her hold seemed uncertain. The Indians made fearless forays into the heart of Massachusetts, and kept the middle colonies in terror.
Dr. Jeremy Belknap, pronounced by Bryant to be "the first to make
-
POWNALL'S VIEW OF BOSTON, 1757.1
perrell had been made next in command when Braddock was put in charge of all the British forces in America. Shirley's expedition to Niagara was a part of the campaign planned with Braddock, after whose death the supreme com- mand of the royal forces devolved upon Shirley. A son of Shirley had accompanied Braddock as his secretary on his ill-starred expedition, and had fallen. Washington came to Boston in February or March, 1756, to lay before Shirley, as the supreme commander, a question of military precedence which was agitating the governors of Virginia and Maryland. It gave him the oppor- tunity to narrate to the father the particulars of the son's death. Washington was well received in Boston, and it is claimed sat to Copley for a miniature which is engraved in the first volume of Irving's Life of Washington. - ED.]
1 [The appearance of Boston and the Castle defences are shown at this time (1757) in a drawing made by Governor Pownall, the basis of an engraving, which is considerably reduced in the present cut. The plan of the Castle, with the battery which had been erected by Shirley, is shown in the annexed plan, copied from Pel- ham's map of the harbor made somewhat later ; but little change had been made, however, in the
distribution of the defences. After the death of Spencer Phips, in March, 1757, the Council gave the command of the Castle to Sir William Pep-
Shorts
Block He. M
Shirley's Barros
Shoals
ola
BLOCK HO
perrell, who was then acting as governor. In August, on Pownall's arrival, Sir William trans- ferred the keys. - ED.]
128
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
American history attractive," wrote an almost contemporary narrative of this period, and thus summed up the discouragements of the situation at the beginning of the year 1757: "The great expense, the frequent disap- pointments, the loss of men, of forts, of stores, were very discouraging. The enemy's country was filled with prisoners and scalps, private plunder, and public stores and provisions, which our people, as beasts of burden, had conveyed to them. These reflections were the dismal accompaniment of the winter." 1
But in this year the hopes of America, as of England, were turned to William Pitt. With his wonted energy, he began his career as prime minister by determined efforts in behalf of the colonies. In his circular letter to the American governors he informed them that a formidable force would at once be sent to operate by sea and land against the French, and he called on them to raise " as large bodies of men within their respective governments as the number of inhabitants might allow," and suggested twenty thousand as a minimum number. The Crown would furnish arms, equipments, and supplies; the colonies were to recruit, organize, uniform, and pay the men, with the pros- pect of ultimate compensation from Parliament. The promise " acted like magic," we are told. Massachusetts voted seven thousand men, besides five hundred for frontier defence ; and advanced during the year a million dollars, keeping all disbursements under control of its own commissioners.2 But the services of a single colony formed henceforth only a subordinate element in the great contest which was destined to annihilate the power of France on this continent, and to make Canada an English possession. Massa- chusetts troops did their share, however, in this work; they were with Aber- cromby in his unavailing attack Fames abercromby on Ticonderoga,
with Bradstreet when he took Fort Frontenac, and with Prideaux when he took Niagara. One at least of the English commanders of Massachusetts troops, Lord Howe, so won the affection of his command that his death
1 History of New Hampshire, 2d ed., p. 318.
preached." . N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Jan. 1865, p. 60. Loudon had come out in July of the previous year to take the supreme command of the British forces in America, accompanied
2 [We find some token of the activity in Boston in the bills, still on file in the City Clerk's office, under date of 1757, from Edward Jackson and William Sutton for casting bullets. When_ by Christopher Kilby, an old Boston merchant Lord Loudon visited Boston in 1757, the bells long resident in London, who was commissioned Lowlong as "agent-victualler " of the army. The Earl's visit to Boston was to consult upon the coming campaign. Kilby accompanied him, and at the hands of his old townsmen received flattering compliments. He was publicly thanked for all that he had done as agent of the province, and a dinner was given him in Concert Hall. Reg- ister, 1872, p. 43. - ED.] were all rung ; and in the same office there is a petition of the sextons, asking pay for the service. They were allowed 2s. 8d. each. A private diary records : " 1757, Jan. 23. The Earl of Loudon was at meeting. Dr. Sewall
129
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
upon the field, at Trout Brook, was commemorated by a monument in Westminster Abbey, erected by the province.1 To hold the Eastern Indians in check, Fort Pownall was built on the Penobscot, within what were then the limits of Massachusetts. 2 Louisburg, Ticonderoga, and Crown Point
fell; the power of French Canada was exhausted, and only the ad- your Most Obedient Humble Servant mirable generalship of Montcalm prolonged the contest. Quebec was taken in 1759,3 Montreal in 1760,4 and the conquest was com- plete. The New England colonists were at last relieved from the terrible warfare which had known but few intervals for eighty-five years; the Eastern Indians were almost annihilated, and the brief final conspiracy of Pontiac did not touch New England. In 1763, the Peace of Paris ended the last of the French and Indian wars.6
Thos. Wentworth Higginson
1 [John Adams makes record of the golden opinions this youthful nobleman won in his passage through the country from Boston to New York. John Adams, Works, ii. 33 .- ED.]
2 [The four hundred men for this expedition were put under the command of a colonel, and embarked at Boston, May 4, 1759, though per- haps one company of them sailed from Newbury. Governor Pownall accompanied the force, kept a journal, and after deciding upon a site for the fort, re-embarked May 26, and reached the Castle in Boston harbor May 28. There is a paper in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Jan. 1860, by Rev. Richard Pike, on "The Building and Oc- cupancy of Fort Pownall." See also Register, April, 1859, p. 167 .- ED.]
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