USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume I > Part 19
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It is an extraordinary coincidence that the man who was chiefly respon- sible for the emancipation of the slaves of Massachusetts, the first free State in the Union, and the man whose emancipation proclamation set free the slaves of every State-Levi Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln-were descended from a common Lincoln ancestor.
Levi Lincoln's associate, Caleb Strong, likewise stood in the front rank of contemporary lawyers. He later became not only Governor of his State but a United States Senator. Judge Sprague later became Chief Justice of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas of the County. William Stearns of
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Worcester gave promise of large achievement, but death came when he was still a young man.
The brief used by Levi Lincoln in the trial of the case in the Superior Court is preserved in the family, and was loaned by his son to Judge Emory Washburn of Worcester who made a transcription of it, which he included in a paper read by him before the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1859. It is a clear and concise exposition of the public thought of the time, as well as of the legal issues. We are quoting a considerable portion of it :
"The counsel for the master rested his rights, among other things, upon the following points :
"The Plaintiff (Jenison) insisted that the negro was his servant by virtue of a bill of sale by which he became the property of Caldwell, from whom he passed to the plaintiff as husband of his owner, and such a bill of sale was produced at the trial. And the general right of holding property in slaves was sustained upon several grounds.
"First, it is declared in Exodus, of a man's servant, that 'he is his money.' But, said the defendant's counsel, 'it is indeed said in Exodus that a man's servant is his money, and from this the counsel on the other side argues in favor of slavery. But are you to try cases by the old Jewish Law ?'
"This was an indulgence to that nation, and they could only make slaves of the heathen about them. But even by their severe laws, which required an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, men were not allowed to make a slave of a brother. They might not make a slave of him, though they might hire him. In the present case Quork was their brother ; they all had a com- mon origin, were descended from a common parent, were clothed with the same kind of flesh, breathed the same breath of life, and had a common Saviour.
"It was contended that the custom and usage of the country considered slavery as right. But, it was replied, the objection to this is, that customs and usages against reason and right are void.
"The counsel on the other side insist that slavery is a respectable affair in this country. But the question to be decided was not whether it was respecta- ble or not.
"Did the defendant entice away the plaintiff's servant, as is claimed in his writ? When a fellow-subject is restrained of his liberty, it is an attack upon every other subject, and every one has a right to aid him in regaining his liberty. What, in this respect, are to be consequences of your verdict ? Will it not be tidings of great joy to this community? It is virtually opening the prison doors and letting the oppressed be free.
"Could they expect to triumph in their struggle with Great Britain and become free themselves, until they let those go free who were under them?
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Were they not acting like Pharaoh and the Egyptians, if they refused to set them free ?
"But the plaintiff insists that it is not true, as stated, in the Constitution, that all men are born free; for children are born and placed under the power and control of their parents. This may be. But they are not born as slaves ; they are under the power of their parents, to be nursed and nurtured and educated for their good. And the black child is born as much a free child in this sense, as if it were white.
"What are its consequences? How does slavery originate? Kidnapping and man-stealing in the negro's country, while its consequences here are, that the infant may be wrested from its mother's breast and sold or given away like a pig or a puppy, never more to be seen by the mother! Is not this con- trary to nature? Does not Heaven say so in the strongest manner? Is not one's own child as dear to the black subject as to the white one? Can a mother forget her sucking child? Do not even the beasts and the birds nur- ture and bring up their offspring, while acting from their instincts ?
"But under such a law as this, the master had the right to separate the husband and wife. Is this consistent with the law of nature? Is it consistent with the law of nature to separate what God has joined together, and declared no man should put asunder ?
"In making out that negroes are the property of their masters, the counsel for the plaintiff speak of lineage, and contend that the children of slaves must be slaves in the same way that, because our first parents fell, we all fell with them. But are not all mankind born in the same way? Though the white man may have his body wrapped in fine linen, and his attire may be a little more decorated, there the distinction of man's make ends. We all sleep on the same level in the dust. We shall be raised by the sound of one common trump, calling unto all that are in their graves, without distinction, to arise,- shall be arraigned at one common bar, shall have one common judge, and be tried by one common jury, and condemned or acquitted by one common law -- by the Gospel-the perfect law of liberty.
"This cause will then be tried again, and your verdict will there be tried. Therefore, gentlemen of the jury, let me conjure you to give such a verdict now as will stand this test, and be approved by your own minds. It will then be tried by the laws of reason and revelation. Is not the law of nature that all men are equal and free? Is not the law of nature the law of God? Is not the law of God then against slavery ?"
The three judges of the Superior Court were unanimous in their interpre- tation of the bill of rights, that the negro was included in the meaning of the Declaration that "All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights." As Emory Washburn put it, "When the
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highest tribunal in the state was called upon to construe and apply the clause, they gave a response which struck off the chains from every slave in the Commonwealth; and Massachusetts was, at last, what she had so long been struggling to be, in all her dwellings, indeed the home of freemen."
As a matter of fact, Quork Walker never was a slave. As far as he was concerned the case might have been based upon the place of his birth, which, there is no reason to doubt, was in Rutland. For it had been established that the children of slaves born in Massachusetts were not themselves slaves. It did not need the new constitution to create his standing as a freeman. As Judge Washburn said, he, like every one negro born of slave parents, was not a slave in law, but a slave in fact. Their masters paid no attention to their legal freedom, nor did others interest themselves in this phase of emancipa- tion, even if they thought of it. The children continued to be regarded by the probate courts as personal property of their masters. We mention this only to show that the matter had been considered as a principle of freedom.
Slaveowners must have seen the handwriting on the wall as soon as Brit- ish protection of slavery disappeared with the opening guns of the Revolu- tion. They must have realized that if they were to get the money represented by their black chattels, they must pass them along to others. It is not sur- prising that advertisements offering slaves for sale occupied a conspicuous place in the columns of the Massachusetts Spy, like the following, printed in the period 1776-78:
To BE SOLD.
"A Sprightly, healthy Negro Wench, 20 years of age, born in the Country, and can do any kind of housework. She will be a valuable servant in a Country tavern, as she has lived in one several years. Enquire of the Printer."
"A Very likely negro man about twenty one years of age, has had the smallpox, and well understands the farming business. Enquire of the Printer."
"A Likely Negro Woman, about thirty years of age, understands all kinds of household work, and is an excellent Cook. Enquire of the Printer."
"The Printer," whose duty it was to answer inquiries concerning these sprightly and likely slaves, was none other than Isaiah Thomas, founder of the Worcester Spy and of the American Antiquarian Society.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Colonial Wars
Worcester County lived in peace following the close of Father Rasle's or Lovewell's War until the outbreak of King George's War in 1745. There had been the tragic interlude of England's war with Spain, which in 1740-41 sent a score or more of the young men of the shire to a miserable death under the walls of the Spanish fortress of Carthagena on the Spanish Main. But this did not affect the progress of settlement and the ever increasing prosperity of the new county. Population and wealth grew apace.
Peace did not endure, however. For nearly twenty years there was almost continuous campaigning, interrupted only for a few years, until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763, ceding to England all the French possessions in America, including Canada and the Mississippi Valley. In this long period the people of the county gave lavishly of their money to support the Colonial armies, and sent thousands of its men to fight under the flag of England.
In King George's War two regiments of our soldiers participated in the strange but triumphant expedition of farmers, mechanics and fishermen which reduced the great French fortress of Louisburg on Cape Breton. In the French and Indian war they took a conspicuous part in the northern campaigns. They suffered in the series of disasters which resulted from imbecile leadership of generals sent over from England, who were without the quality of leadership which combines military skill and aggression and the genius of adapting themselves to new and strange conditions of warfare. They shared in the stirring victories of the later years of fighting, which finally broke the French power in America. They served in the expedition against Acadia, and, under orders from their commanding English officer, were compelled to join in the burning of the villages and the herding of the unfortunate Breton peasants for transportation into exile.
In this long war, unrealized by themselves and by their British comrades, the American fighting men, in spite of inefficient commanders, were attending
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a great military school, in which were training the brilliant generals who in the Revolution, already looming on the horizon, were to lead the Continental armies to victory and the Thirteen Colonies to independence.
The Tragedy of Carthagena-In 1740 England and Spain were at war. Late in the year the recruiting sergeant rolled his drum in village streets, seeking recruits for an expedition against the Spanish possessions in the West Indies and Gulf of Mexico. The thoughts of untraveled country boys of the shire painted romantic pictures of tropic skies and the loot of rich cities and treasure ships. No record exists of how many of them joined the colors and departed on what they believed to be a gorgeous adventure. So far as historians have been able to learn, not one of them lived to return home.
A secret contract between the reigning Bourbon houses of France and Spain had been made in 1733 with the design of ruining the maritime supremacy of England. Spain undertook "to deprive England gradually of her com- mercial privileges in the Spanish-American colonies," and in return France was to assist Spain on the ocean and in the recovery of Gibraltar. It was not until the end of the Franco-Austrian war of 1733-36 that the allies showed their hand. Then British shipping began to suffer. Trade with the Spanish- American colonies was restricted to one ship and its cargo to African slaves. In 1738 the traders demanded war. An English merchant captain told at the bar of the House of Commons of his torture by the Spaniards, "and pro- duced an ear which he declared had been cut off," the operation being accom- panied by taunts at the English King.
England struck at the Spanish possessions in America. Her one purpose was to acquire a monopoly of the trade with these important colonies. While they remained Spanish this control could not be assured. Therefore it was necessary to dispossess Spain and make of her American territory English colonies. In November, Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon with six men-of-war appeared off Porto Bello, the port in Panama where Spanish treasure ships took on their cargoes, destroyed the fortifications and got nothing more than $10,000 in gold. In the meanwhile Admiral Anson had been sent with a small fleet to the Pacific, but his ships were battered by unheard-of gales as they attempted to round Cape Horn, and all but his own were wrecked. They were to have cooperated with Vernon's fleet for the capture of Mexico and Peru. Instead Anson continued his voyage round the world. Vernon was back in Jamaica.
England determined to send into the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico a huge expedition, which was to make a clean sweep of all that was Spanish. Every Colony responded with its quota. Massachusetts raised a regiment,
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but fortunately only one battalion of four companies was required. Unfor- tunately one of these was commanded by Colonel John Prescott of Concord, descendant of the pioneer Prescott of Lancaster. Young men flocked to his command. No rolls of the company exist. But it is known that nearly a score of these unfortunate soldiers enlisted from Lancaster alone and there were others from scattering towns of the county. What they endured may best be told in the words of Bancroft :
" 'It may not be amiss,' wrote Sir Charles Wager to Admiral Vernon, 'for both French and Spaniards to be a month or two in the West Indies before us, that they be half dead, and half roasted, before our fleet arrives.' So the expedition from England did not begin its voyage till October, and, after stopping for water at Dominica, where Lord Cathcart, the commander of the land forces, fell a victim to the climate, reached Jamaica in the early part of the following year.
"How has history been made the memorial of the passionate misdeeds of men of mediocrity! The death of Lord Cathcart left the command of the land forces with the inexperienced, irresolute Wentworth; the naval force was under the impetuous Vernon, who was impatient of contradiction, and ill disposed to endure even an associate. The enterprise, instead of having one good leader, had two bad ones.
"Wasting at Jamaica the time from the ninth of January, 1741, till near the end of the month, at last, with a fleet of twenty-nine ships of the line, besides about eighty smaller vessels, with fifteen thousand sailors and twelve thousand land forces, equipped with all sorts of war-like instruments, and every kind of convenience, Vernon weighed anchor, without any definite pur- pose. Havana lay within three days' sail; its conquest would have made England supreme in the Gulf of Mexico. But Vernon insisted on searching for the fleet of the French and Spaniards; and the French had already left the fatal climate.
"The council of war, yielding to the vehement direction of Admiral Ver- non, resolved to attack Carthagena, the strongest place in Spanish-America (now a seaport of the Republic of Colombia). The fleet appeared before the town on the fourth of March, and lost five days in inactivity. Fifteen days were required to gain possession of the fortress that rose near the entrance to the harbor; the Spaniards themselves abandoned Castillo Grande. It remained to storm Fort Lazaro, which commanded the town. The attack, devised without judgment, was made by twelve hundred men with intre- pidity ; but the assailants were repulsed, with the loss of half their number,- while the admiral gave no timely aid to the land forces; and discord aggra- vated defeat.
Wor .- 12
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"Ere long rains set in; the days were wet, the nights brilliant with vivid lightning. The fever of the low country in the tropics began its rapid work; men perished in crowds ; the dead were cast into the sea, sometimes without winding sheet or sinkers; the hospital ships were crowded with miserable sufferers. In two days the effective force on land dwindled from six thou- sand six hundred to three thousand two hundred. Men grew as jealous as they were wretched, and inquired if there were not Papists in the army. The English could only demolish the fortifications and retire. 'Even the Span- iards,' wrote Vernon, 'will give us a certificate that we have effectually destroyed all their castles.' In July, an attack on Santiago, in Cuba, was contemplated, and abandoned almost as soon as attempted. Such was the fruit of an expedition which was to have prepared the way for conquering Mexico and Peru."
The fruit of the expedition so far as Worcester County boys were con- cerned was death. Some died in the assault, more of fever. Their common grave was the Caribbean Sea.
King George's War-King George's War came almost as a surprise to the people of the county. They had been enjoying what, in those early days, was a long period of peace. The towns were no longer, strictly speak- ing, on the frontier. Settlements had been established to the northward as far as Concord and Charlestown in New Hampshire, and the Connecticut Valley was more thickly peopled. Colonization had proceeded rapidly within the shire, and new towns had been created, which acted as bulwarks to one another and to the older settlements. But the memory of the former Indian wars was still a vivid one, and every community in the county quickly began preparations to resist raids by prowling savages, and to meet the possible emergency of invasion on a more formidable scale by French and Indians. Stocks of ammunition were replenished, firearms were brought out and made ready for immediate use, and each town hurried to acquire its quota of muskets and other military equipment.
In the more exposed towns garrison-houses were built. Several palisaded blockhouses were erected in Athol, so distributed as to give every inhabitant a place of quick refuge, and many families lived in them much of the time, especially at night, The men carried their muskets into the fields, and, the story goes, the minister preached with his loaded gun within reach in the pulpit. Brookfield, though less exposed, had its strongholds. A line of garrison houses was established, beginning in Townsend in Middlesex County and comprising Lunenburg, Leominster and Westminster, and each had its garrison of trained soldiers. Later a company was formed from the towns- men, and its men distributed among the blockhouses, with some serving as scouts.
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Farmers and Fishermen Take Louisburg-The siege and capture of Louisburg in 1745 is worth more than passing mention in a history of Worcester County, for its sons were conspicuous in the little army which reduced a mighty fortress. The larger parts of two regiments were raised in the towns, the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment commanded by Colonel Joseph Dwight of Brookfield, and the Ninth Massachusetts commanded by Colonel Samuel Willard of Lancaster. Before the fleet sailed, Colonel Dwight was promoted by Governor Shirley to the rank of brigadier-general, and was placed in command of the artillery of the expedition. It was he who superin- tended the extraordinary feat of hauling the heavy guns by man-power across an otherwise impassable marsh.
Paroled English prisoners who had been held captive at Louisburg brought to Boston accurate information as to the fortress. Its garrison, they said, was far from strong. Governor Shirley resolved upon a bold attack. The enterprise was generally considered foolhardy. The Legislature author- ized it by a majority of only one vote. France had spent millions of dollars in making the place as nearly impregnable as engineering skill could accom- plish. And it was indeed impregnable against such an expedition as was sent against it, excepting in the lack of fortitude of its French commander. The temptation to make the attempt was a powerful one. The harbor, on the oceanside coast of Cape Breton Island, was the refuge of armed French ships, styled by the English as pirates, which had raided the fishing fleet until it was driven from the Grand Banks, and had harassed coastwise shipping. The situation had become really serious. The cod fisheries were considered of vital importance in the life of the colonies, for salt fish was regarded a necessary element of food supply. Therefore the expedition took on the nature of a crusade, which had its religious as well as its economic side.
The fleet sailed from Boston March 24, 1745, for the rendezvous at Can- seau. It carried an untrained, undisciplined army, made up of four thou- sand New Englanders, with a small train of artillery. The commander was William Pepperell, a Maine merchant. Under him were men of a motley array of occupations-Marblehead fishermen, forced into idleness and burn- ing for revenge and relief from French privateers ; farmers by the hundreds, mechanics of every trade, lumbermen, lawyers, clergymen. Most of them were church members and had left wives and children at home. They were true Yankees. One soldier proposed a flying bridge to scale the walls before a breach was made. A minister presented to Pepperell a complete plan for encamping the army before the fortress, and for opening trenches and plac- ing batteries, which may have had value to a commander almost devoid of military experience. It was characteristic of the army that on the first Sab-
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bath on land "a very great company of people" came together on the shore to hear a sermon on "enlisting as volunteers in the service of the Great Captain of our salvation."
The confiding and ill-informed judgment of Governor Shirley was shown in his instructions to Pepperell, that the fleet of a hundred ships arrive together at Louisburg at a precise hour of the night, that a landing be made in the dark on the rocky shore, heedless of the surf, and that the army march forthwith to the city and beyond it, and take the fortress and royal battery by surprise before daybreak! Because of masses of drift ice the fleet was delayed long at Canseau, which was well, for it permitted the unexpected arrival of Admiral Warren and a fleet of men-of-war, whose assistance had at first been refused, and of the Connecticut contingent of troops.
On the last day of April, the great fleet entered the Bay of Chapeaurouge, and came in sight of Louisburg. "Its walls raised on a neck of land on the south side of the harbor, forty feet thick at the base, twenty to thirty feet high, all swept from the bastions, and surrounded by a ditch eighty feet wide, were furnished with one hundred and one cannon, seventy-six swivels and six mortars ; its garrison was composed of sixteen hundred men; the harbor was defended by an island battery of thirty twenty-two pounders, and by the royal battery on the shore having thirty large cannon, a moat and bastion, all so perfect that it was thought two hundred men could have defended it against five thousand." Against this huge armament, the New England forces had but eighteen cannon and three mortars.
As soon as the ships were in sight of the citadel, their whaleboats were launched, and, loaded with soldiers, and heedless of a heavy surf, swooped upon the shore. Several of the boats were capsized, and the French had sallied forth to repel the invaders. But a landing was made and the enemy driven into the woods. The next day four hundred men marched by the city, greeting it with cheers. The garrison of the royal battery became panic stricken and abandoned it after spiking their cannon. The next morning a large French force attempted its recapture, but a dozen Americans held them at bay until reinforcements reached them.
The guns did not remain spiked. Lieutenant Edmund Bemis of Spencer, attached to the expedition as an armorer, was quick to see the way to restore their usefulness. He built a wood fire about the breech of a cannon, and the heat caused the metal to expand, which loosened the spike so that it was easily removed. Whereupon twenty smiths were drafted from the troops, firewood gathered, and presently the guns of the royal battery were pouring shot against the fortress, and particularly against the massive gates, in the hope of effecting a breach through which a storming party could force an entrance.
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THE COLONIAL WARS
The artillery of the expedition was useless unless its guns could be trans- ported across the broad marsh to a position where they could play against the stronghold. The mire would not sustain wheels, nor could horses or oxen traverse it. A New Hampshire officer, a carpenter, supervised the building of sledges upon which the unwieldy cannon were placed. Then whole companies of soldiers, knee deep in mud and mire, hauled the ponder- ous loads over the morass to the positions chosen for the cannon, where they could do their part in the attempt to reduce the fortress.
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