The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III, Part 11

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897
Publication date: 1880-1881
Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood
Number of Pages: 770

USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 11

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Paddock left Boston with Gage, and died in the Isle of Jersey in 1804, aged seventy-six. Mills and Hicks's Register, 1775, gives a statement of the Boston military at this time. See Frothingham's Siege of Boston, P. 49 .- ED.]

8 [Andrews records, Sept. 5, 1774, that Gage began to build block-houses and otherwise repair the fortifications at the Neck, but he could get none of the artisans of the town to help him. Three days later Gage, "with a large parade of

THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.

and Salem the Governor had scarcely any power. The people of the inte- rior counties recognized only the authority of the committees of correspon- dence, and of the congresses composed of their own representatives.

On the fifth of October, the members of the Massachusetts Assembly appeared at the court-house in Salem, but were refused recognition by

MRS. JOSEPH WARREN.1

Gage; thereupon they resolved themselves into a Provincial Congress and adjourned to Concord, where, on the eleventh, two hundred and sixty mem- bers, representing over two hundred towns, took their seats, and elected

attendants," surveyed the skirts of the town op- posite the country shore, supposably for determin- ing on sites of batteries. Sce an editorial note to the chapter following this. In November, 1774, Nathaniel Appleton writes to Josiah Quincy, Jr. : " The main guard is kept at George Erving's warehouse in King Street The new-erected for- tifications on the Neck are laughed at by our old

Louisburg soldiers as mud walls." Life of Josiah Quincy, Jr., p. 175 .- ED.]

1 [She died in 1773, aged 26. The Boston Gasette of May 3 published some commemo- rative verses on her Frothingham's Warren, p. 228. This painting is the pendant of that ot General Warren, and the two have always been owned together. - ED.]

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

John Hancock president, and Benjamin Lincoln secretary. They sent a message to the Governor, remonstrating against his hostile attitude. He answered by making recriminations; and shortly after issued a proclamation denouncing them as "an unlawful assembly whose proceedings tended to ensnare the inhabitants of the Province, and draw them into perjuries, riots, sedition, treason, and rebellion." The Congress, having adjourned to Cam- bridge, adopted a series of resolves providing for the creation of a "com- mittee of public safety,"1-a sort of directory empowered to organize the militia and to procure military stores.2 A committee of supplies was also Jedidiah Pueble appointed, and threc general officers- Preble, Ward, and Pomeroy-were chosen by ballot. Thus the people of Massachusetts proceeded in a calm and statesmanlike manner to organize themselves into an independent existence, and to make suitable provision for their own po- litical, financial, and military necessities. They Artemas Ward had no intention of attacking the British troops, but took measures to defend themselves in case of necessity.3 Hitherto they had carefully avoided being the aggressors, and they were determined to adhere to this policy; but they considered it the part of wisdom to be prepared for any emergency which might arise in the present complicated state of affairs. Consequently, all the towns were advised to enroll companies of Minute Men, who should be thoroughly drilled and equipped.4

Gage also on his part was actively employed in strengthening the gar- rison, and by the end of the year he had no less than eleven regiments, with artillery and marines, quartered in Boston, besides a large number of ships of war at anchor in the harbor. During all this time the Tory party was endeavoring, without much success, to secure adherents to the royal cause.5 Most of their leaders, finding their position uncomfortable in the

I Hancock, Warren, and Church were the Boston members.

2 [Mr. C. C. Smith contributed a valuable paper on "The Manufacture of Gunpowder in America," to Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1876. -ED.]

8 [It was at the Green Dragon Tavern, which stood on what now makes Union Street, near where it runs into Haymarket Square (there is a doubt whether the building now marked with a dragon on a tablet gives correctly the site), and whose earlier history is noted in Vol. II , Intro- duction, p. v, that the leading Patriots held their conclaves. It was in front a two-story brick building with a pitch roof, but of greater eleva- tion in the rear; and over the entrance an iron rod projected, and upon it was crouched the copper dragon which was the tavern's sign. It was probably selected as a meeting place because Warren was the Grand Master of the Grand

Lodge of Masons, who had their quarters here. Paul Revere records how he was one of upwards of thirty men, chiefly mechanics, who banded together to keep watch on the British designs in 1774-75, and met here. The old building disappeared in October, 1828, when the street was widened to accommodate the travel to Charlestown. Shurtleff, Description of Boston, p. 605 .- ED.]

4 [The last monthly meeting of the Friends was held in Boston in the eleventh month of 1774. "The record speaks of its being a time of difficulty in Boston on account of the present calamity [the war] ; and the same likely to attend them through the winter, Boston monthly meet- ing is dropped." - An Historical Account of the various Meeting-houses of the Society of Friends in Boston, published by direction of the Yearly Meeting, Boston, 1874. - ED.]

5 See Sabine's Loyalists.

THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.

country towns, took refuge in Boston as a kind of asylum. Their organs de- nounced the Patriots as rebels, rioters, republicans, and sowers of sedition.

At the beginning of the year 1775 the American question was brought forward in the House of Lords by the Earl of Chatham, who, in one of his most eloquent speeches, urged the immediate removal of the king's troops from Boston. He Chatham eulogized the American people, their union, their spirit of liberty, and the wisdom which marked the proceedings of their Congress.1 He charged the ministry with misleading the king and alienating the affections of his subjects. Chatham was ably supported by Shelburne, Camden, and Rockingham; but all their appeals " availed no more than the whistling of the wind." The motion was rejected by nearly four to onc. This result, following as it did the re- jection by the Cabinet of the petition of Congress which Franklin had just presented, was sufficient proof that nothing was to be hoped for from that quarter. If any further evidence was wanted, it was soon found in the in- structions which were sent to Gage to act offensively, and in the Restraining Act, which excluded New England from the fisheries.2

While England was thus forcing on the issue, America was preparing to meet it. The new Congress convened at Cambridge in February, and ap- pointed its committee of safety and the delegates to the next Continental Congress. Provision was also made for the militia; and Colonels Thomas

Je : Thomas

Moleath,

and Heath were commissioned additional general officers. " Resistance to tyranny ! " was now the watchword for Massachusetts. " Life and liberty shall go together! Continue steadfast! " said the Patriots; "and with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which Heaven gave and no man ought to take from us." 8

1 [See the History of Lord North's Adminis- tration, p. 187; llugh Boyd's Miscellaneous Works, i. 196; Annual Register, 1775, p. 47 ; Belsham's Great Britain, vi. 91 ; Life of Josiah, Quincy, fr., p. 318. - ED.]

2 [See various references for political move- ments in England at this time in Winsor's Handbook, p. 23, etc. - ED.]

8 [In March came the anniversary of the massacre, and Warren's most famous address in commemoration. See Mr. Goddard's chapter. The diary of Joshua Green, making note of it, speaks of the attempts of British officers present at the town-meeting which followed, to break it up by unseemly disturbances. (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,

VOL. III. - 9.

1875, p. 101.) About this time (March 22, $775), according to statements printed in a Boston letter in the New York Journal, a number of drunken British officers set to hacking the fence before Hancock's house ; and on a repetition of such annoyances, Hancock applied for a guard. While the congregation of the West Church were observing a fast, drums and fifes were played by another party close under the win- dows. Something of the feeling of the time can be gathered from letters of Quincy, Cooper, Winthrop, and Warren, printed in Massachu- setts Historical Society's Proceedings, June, 1863, - all addressed to Benjamin Franklin in Lon- don. - ED.]

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

Gage did his utmost to disarm and disperse the militia and seize their military stores. He sent expeditions to Marshfield and Jamaica Plain and Salem; 1 but the judicious and spirited conduct of the inhabitants defeated his object, and the peace was not then disturbed. For a time it was quiet, but it was only the lull before the storm; and the hour of the American Revolution, which had been so long in coming, was near at hand. The War of Independence on this continent began 2 at last on that memorable morning, enshrined forever in the annals of freedom, when

" The troops were hastening from the town To hold the country for the Crown ; But through the land the ready thrill Of patriot hearts ran swifter still.

" The winter's wheat was in the ground, Waiting the April zephyr's sound ; But other growth these fields should bear When war's wild summons rent the air."

Ederandy, Poster

I [The expedition to Salem was sent by Gage in transport from the Castle, and its three hun- dred troops, landing at Marblehead, marched to Salem to seize some cannon. Their failure and retreat is described in Charles M. Endicott's Leslie's Retreat at the North Bridge, Feb. 26, 177 5, printed separately for vol. i. of the Essex Institute Proceedings. See also Life of Timothy Pickering. i., and George B. Loring's Address on the centen- nial observance of the event. The contemporary accounts of the Marshfield expedition are in Force's American Archives. Of another and more secret expedition just now, that of Captain Brown and his companion De Bernière, sent by Gage inland toward Worcester to pick up infor- mation, we have their own account, printed in the American Archives, i. Gage's instructions

to these emissaries, Feb. 22, 1775, were printed in Boston in a pamphlet in 1779, which also con- tains "The Transactions of the British troops previous to and at the Battle of Lexington," as reported to Gage. - En.]

2 [Various claims have been made for earlier shedding of blood and resistance in arms, like the capture of the fort at Great Island, near Portsmouth, Dec. 13, 1774, -see American Ar- chives, Belknap's New Hampshire, Amory's Gen- eral Sullivan and Governor Sullivan, Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., March, 1875; or the Golden Hill affair, Jan. 19, 1770, near New York, - see Ilist. Mag., iv. 233, and again January, 1869; or the Westminster massacre, March, 1775, in Ver- mont, - sce Hist. Mag., May, 1859; sec also Potter's American Monthly, April, 1875 .- ED.]

ADDENDA.

[Dr. John C. Warren has given to the Editor the following extract from his grandfather's diary (the elder Dr. John C. Warren) : -

"Feb. 12, 1851. . . . That picture [of Gen- eral Warren, then in Faneuil Hall] was copied from one belonging to me, painted by Copley for Governor Hancock, and which I bought when some of the relics of Governor Hancock's family were sold at the stone house in Beacon Street by the widow of Governor Hancock. This picture was copied by request of Hon. John Welles, who felt an interest from the fact that his brother,

General Arnold Welles, married the elder daugh- ter of General Warren. He (Mr. Welles) pre- sented this copy to the city [in 1827]. . . . Another picture painted by Copley for General Warren . .. was in the possession of my father, who had charge of the relics of the family of General Warren; and when Mrs. Newcomb, the younger daughter of General Warren, was mar- ried, he allowed her to take this picture, which is now [1851] in the possession of her son, Mr. Newcomb."-ED.]

CHAPTER II.

THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.

BY THE REV. EDWARD E. HALE, D.D.

A FTER dark on the 18th of April, 1775, eight hundred British troops, being the grenadiers and light infantry of Gage's army, were with- drawn as quietly as might be from their barracks and marched to the bay at the foot of the Common. The spot is near where the station of the Providence Railroad now stands.1 Boats from the squadron had been or- dered to the same point to meet them. The troops were under the com- mand of Lieut .- Colonel Francis Smith, of the Tenth regiment. Directly northward, crossing by about the line of Arlington Street what are now the Commonwealth Avenue and Beacon Street, the little army came to Phips's Farm, now East Cambridge, and after two hours took up its silent march through Cambridge to Lexington and Concord. The column con- sisted of men drawn from the Fifth regiment, the Tenth, Thirty-eighth, Forty-third, Fifty-second, Fifty-ninth, and Sixty-fifth. Officers and men from each of these corps appeared in the list of killed and wounded after the next day. In some instances they may have been detached on separate service; in which case no large number of the regiment was present on the march.2

What happened at Concord, and on the way thither and back, has worked its way into the world's history. "On the nineteenth of April," says the me- morial of the Provincial Congress, " a day to be remembered by all Amer- icans of the present generation, and which ought and doubtless will be handed down to ages yet unborn, the troops of Britain, unprovoked, shed the blood of sundry of the loyal American subjects of the British King in the field of Lexington."

The Common and the Back Bay were so far apart from the familiar haunts of men in those days, that General Gage had some hope, perhaps, of sending his men away without an immediate alarm.8 But this hope was

I [Here was water enough for the boats (see map at beginning of Vol. I.), but Gage's account says simply "from the Common." Smith says nothing. The usual story runs simply "from the foot of the Common."-ED.]

2 [Donkin, Military Collections, p. 170, says they carried "72 rounds of ball-cartridges per man."-ED.]

8 [Sec the Editorial notes following this chapter .- ED.]

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

disappointed. Thirty men of the Patriot party, mostly mechanics, had bound themselves into a club, to observe the movements of the Tories and the army. They took turns as patrols, two and two, to watch the streets at night. Some one, who was perhaps one of these men, told Dr. Warren that the soldiers were moving to the Back Bay. Warren immediately sent William Dawes to Lexington, whither John Hancock and Samuel Adams had retired to escape arrest, supposing that one object of the expedition was to seize them. Dawes started on horseback, crossing the Neck to Roxbury. At ten o'clock Warren sent to Paul Revere, who was one of the club of patrolmen, and begged him to go to Lexington and tell Hancock and Adams of the movement, "and that it was thought they were the objects." Paul Revere went to a friend who had a boat in readiness, and crossed at once to Charlestown. So early was Gage's secret known. Sted- man, in his history of the war, says that Gage told Percy of the movement as a profound secret ;, that Colonel Smith knew he was to go, but not where. As Lord Percy returned to his own quarters, he fell in with eight or ten men talking on the Common. One of them said: "The troops have marched, but will miss their aim." " What aim? " said Lord Percy. " Why," the man replied, "the cannon at Concord." Lord Percy, ac- cording to the story, returned to General Gage and told him, with surprise and disapprobation, what he had heard. The General said that his con- fidence had been betrayed, for that he had communicated his design to only one person beside Lord Percy. This is one of the flings of the time upon Mrs. Gage,1 who was American-born. The English officers who dis- liked Gage were fond of saying that she betrayed his secrets. But in this case, after eight hundred men were embarked for Cambridge, ten Boston men on the Common might well have known it; and " the cannon at Concord " were a very natural aim. Warren, as has been said, thought of Hancock and Adams as the object.2

Paul Revere had already concerted with his friends on the Charlestown side, that, in the event of any movement by night on the part of the Eng-

I [Adams had learned of the movement to be at the house, an order was left for him to Concord from "a daughter of liberty, une- qually yoked in point of polities," as Gordon says. - ED.]

2 The following narrative, kindly communi- cated by a granddaughter of Dr. Stedman, the great-granddaughter of Henry Quincy, shows exactly how the news travelled from house to house without treachery. Mrs. Stedman lived in the Salter homestead, at the corner of Winter and Washington streets, where is now Tuttle's shoe-store : --

" It was difficult at that time to obtain ser- vants, and Mrs. Stedman had been glad to se- cure the services of a woman whose husband was a British soldier named Gibson. On the evening of the eighteenth of April a grenadier in full regimentals knocked at the door and inquired for Gibson. On being told that he would soon

report himself at eight o'clock at the bottom of the Common, equipped for an expedition. Mrs. Stedman hastened to inform her husband of this alarming summons, and he at once carried the intelligence to Dr. Benjamin Church, who lived near by on Washington Street. Gibson soon came in and took leave of his wife, pale with anxiety at the doubtful issue of this sudden and secret enterprise. 'Oh, Gibson !' said my mother, 'what are you going to do?' ' Ah, madam!' he replied, '1 know as little as you do. I only know that I must go.' He went, never to return. He fell on the retreat from Lexington. A few minutes before receiving the fatal shot he remarked to one of his com- rades that he had never seen so hot a day, though he had served in many campaigns in Europe."

THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.

Paul Revere L'ol.

lish army, a lantern should be displayed in the tower of Christ Church. This signal had announced the news to the Charlestown people before

1 [Of the likenesses of Revere, Mr. Hun- him at a table, in shirt-sleeves, holding a silver toon, in an address at Canton in 1875, says : cup, with engraver's tools at hand. The Stuart is followed in the present cut. " Two pictures have been preserved of him; one, taken in the full prime of manhood, by Copley, Revere's agreement for engraving and print- ing the paper money of the Provincial Congress is dated Watertown, Dec. 8, 1775, and is in the Massachusetts Archives, cxxxviii. 271. A cut of the Massachusetts treasury-note of 1775 is given in Lossing's Field-Book of the Revolution, i. 534- -ED.] which, after having lain neglected for many years in an attic in this town, has been finally restored. The other, by Stuart, brings up a venerable face and stately form." Perkins, Copley's Life and Paintings, p. 98, says the earlier picture is now owned by John Revere, of Boston. It shows

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

Revere arrived. He mounted his horse, and the famous " Midnight Ride" of Longfellow's ballad began. The night was clear and frosty.

With the exceptions of the patrolmen, of such leading Patriots as Warren and others, to whom they reported, and the families in which officers on duty were quartered, most of the people of Boston probably slept without knowing that the first step had been taken toward war. But before daylight on the nineteenth, General Gage had received word from Colonel Smith that the country was alarmed, and he at once ordered a de- tachment under arms to march out to reinforce that officer, and show the king's strength. This detachment was to be commanded by Earl Percy, who had led the five regiments which made the "promenade " of March 30 through Jamaica Plain and Dorchester. Percy was at this time a fine young officer of about thirty years of age.1

Percy's command consisted of the First Brigade, formed of the Fourth, Twenty-third, and Forty-seventh regiments, to which a detail of the Royal Marines was joined. To summon the marines, the order was sent to Major Pitcairn, their commander. In the precision of the red-tape of Gage's office, yet new to war, it was forgotten that Pitcairn had already gone as a volunteer with Colonel Smith. The letter therefore, with the orders to the marines, waited on his table unopened, while the rest of the detachment paraded. The venerable Harrison Gray Otis in his old age left the fol- lowing account of this parade : -

"On the 19th April, 1775, I went to school for the last time. In the morning, about seven, Percy's brigade was drawn up, extending from Scollay's Buildings, through Tremont Street, and nearly to the bottom of the Mall, preparing to take up their march for Lexington. A corporal came up to me as I was going to school, and turned me off to pass down Court Street ; which I did, and came up School Street to the school-house. It may well be imagined that great agitation prevailed, the British line being drawn up a few yards only from the school-house door. As I entered the school, I heard the announcement of deponite libros, and ran home for fear of the Regulars. Here ended my connection with Mr. Lovell's administration of the school. Soon afterward I left town, and did not return until after the evacuation by the British in March, 1776." 2

Why does not the column move? Percy is ready. The infantry are here, and the light artillery ; where are the marines? It is discovered at this late moment that the order for the marines is lying unopened at Major Pitcairn's quarters. Three or four hours before this, had anybody in Boston known it, Major Pitcairn had uttered on Lexington Common that famous appeal,

1 lle was afterward Duke of Northumber- that Master Lovell, with prophetic sagacity, said : land. His letters, copied by the Rev. E. G. "War's begun, and school's donc; deponite lib- Porter on a recent visit at the castle of the ros." He knew that this was war, though the news of bloodshed did not reach Boston till noon. present duke, give us some of our most vivid contemporary accounts of the Boston of that time.

2 MS. letter of Otis to the writer, E. E. H. A tradition, which we have at first-hand, says

[Loring, Hundred Boston Orators, p. 193, makes the young Otis just afterward a witness of the troops' march by a house which stood where the Revere llousc now is. - ED.]

THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.

familiar to any school-boy in America for half a century after: "Ye vil- lains, ye rebels, disperse ! Lay down your arms. Why don't ye lay down your arms?"

But as yet no man knows where he is, and the orders for his marines are waiting. This is only an early instance of a sort of imbecility which hangs over the English army administration, revealed in many of the early anec- dotes of the war.1

So soon as the marines were ready Percy marched, at nine o'clock. He moved south, through what is now Washington Street, to Roxbury, up the hill by the Roxbury meeting-house, to the right, where the Parting- Stone was then and is now; and so to the Brighton Bridge, where he was to cross Charles River to Cambridge. The distance from the head of School Street to that bridge by that road is about eight miles. But even if Gage was eager to save time, the boats were at Phips's Farm. Probably he and Percy both wished to make a military display. School-boys will be in- terested to know, that, as Percy's column approached Roxbury, Williams, the master of the grammar school, dismissed his school also, probably an hour later than Lovell dismissed his. He turned the key in the lock; joined his company, and served for the seven following years in the army. The Rox- bury company of Minute Men had paraded in the mean time, summoned by the alarm from Lexington. When Percy passed, on the old road to Cambridge, they appear to have been at Jamaica Plain, whither the com- mander had marched them, and where Dr. Gordon was leading them in prayer. It is fair to suppose that no commander in his senses chose to have them in the line of Earl Percy's advance.

As Percy rode on, his band was playing Yankee Doodle. He observed a Roxbury boy who was uttering shouts of derision, jumping and dancing, so as to attract Percy's attention. Percy sent for the boy and asked him at what he was laughing. "You go out to Yankee Doodle," said the lad, " but you will dance by and by to Chevy Chase." It was a happy allu- sion to the traditions of the Percys; and Gordon, who records the anec- dote, says the repartee stuck to Lord Percy all day.2

The day was already hot, when, after three or four hours' marching, Lord Percy and his army came to the bridge over Charles River, between Brighton and Cambridge. The bridge was a simple affair, and by General

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The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III, Part 11

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897 Publication date: 1880-1881 Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood Number of Pages: 770

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897
Publication date: 1880-1881
Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood
Number of Pages: 770