USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume I > Part 22
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The pledge went on to the pith of the boycott when it provided that : "We consent to abandon the use of all foreign teas, which are clearly superfluous, our own fields abounding in herbs more healthful, and which, we doubt not, may, by use, be found agreeable."
Finally, "We further promise and engage that we will not purchase any goods of any persons, who, preferring their own interest to that of the public, shall import merchandise from Great Britain; or of any trader who pur- chases his goods of such importer. And that we will hold no intercourse, or connection, or correspondence, with any person who shall purchase goods of such importer, or retailer ; and we will hold him dishonored, an enemy of the liberties of his country, and infamous, who shall break this agreement."
Thirsty Tea-Drinkers-Immediately the popular thirst for tea became incredibly great. In a time when strong liquor was drunk as matter-of-factly as water, the craving was diverted to the herb that cheers without inebriating. To swear off tea-drinking was to make the greatest of sacrifices and tests of will power. But we must remember that in the 1760's tea alone afforded the stimulation and comfort which today we get from coffee as well. The women of Boston met, and agreed to discontinue the use of the taxed leaf. Then the women of Worcester met and took like action. "But the royalists, who loved their tea and their king," wrote William Lincoln, "and were equally averse to the desertion of the social urn or the sovereign, had influence enough to convene another assembly, and procure the reconsideration of its approbation of the American plant (Labrador tea, a rare plant hereabouts), and a renewal of allegiance to the exotic of India."
The Boston Post had the following squib, perhaps from its "special cor- respondent" :
"Worcester, Nov. II, 1768. We hear that the ladies have discovered the most malignant quality in the Labrador tea, which, by vote of the daughters of liberty within the metropolis, was substituted, to be used in the room of the Indian shrub called Bohea; that they find it to be of so debilitating a quality, and that it produces such a total frigidity in their warmest friends of the
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other sex, that at a later convention, to deliberate on matters of the greatest consequence, it was agreed, by a majority greater than that of 92 to 17, to rescind their former vote in favor of the detested plant, as being clearly unconstitutional, and tending to rob us of our dearest privileges and deprive us of our most sacred and invaluable rights." The reference to ninety-two to seventeen will be explained presently.
As the nonconsumption agreement prevented the sale by the merchants of the obnoxious article, the gardens and fields were laid under contributions to supply the lack.
"Liberty tea" was brewed from the leaves of the four-leaved loosestrife, and "Hyperion tea" from rasberry leaves, said by good Patriots to be "very delicate and most excellent." Thoroughwort, sage and strawberry leaves were other substitutes. But none, so far as known, ever produced the sooth- ing "kick" of a good cup of real tea, which made the sacrifice the more blessed on the part of those who forebore through the love of country, and more accursed on the part of those Tory souls who were compelled to join in the sacrifice. "Those who ventured to acknowledge the abstract right of taxation, by the use of tea, indulged in the luxury, as if they were committing crime, with the utmost secrecy, drawing bolt and bar, and closing every crev- ice which might betray the fragrance of the proscribed beverage."
To show the importance attached to tea, even by physicians, the following resolution adopted by a town meeting in Templeton is significant: "That we will not directly or indirectly purchase any goods of any person whatever, that is, or shall be subject to any duty for the purpose of raising a revenue in America. Also, that we will not use any foreign tea, nor countenance the the use of it in our families, unless in case of sickness, and not then without a certificate from under the hand of one or more physicians, that it is abso- lutely necessary in order for the recovery of their patient."
Oakham spoke right out in meeting when it learned of the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, and wrote to John Murray of Rutland, its representative in the Massachusetts House, as follows: "Sir, we are sensabel of the dutey we owe to the Crown of great Britain, at the same time Canot but have a sensibel feeling, not only for ourselves, but also for all the Colonies hear, on account of a Lent Act of parlement, Respecting the Stamp dutey, which we humble concive, presses hard on our Innaliable rights and priveliges granted us by Charter, and which tends to Distress the Inhabetents of this countrey, Especially of this provance and are Convinced must End in our Ruing as we are by no means abel to pay the duties Imposed in said Act."
Bootleggers and Rum-Runners-History repeats itself in strange ways. The "Bootlegger" of Prohibition days had his counterpart in the pre- Revolutionary period when tea was tabooed by all patriotic people. Men ran great risk in furnishing it to those who would not do without it, for when
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THE APPROACH OF THE REVOLUTION
such a person were caught by the angry Patriots it went hard with him. Usually they were peddlars who carried little bags of the precious herb in their saddlebags, and secretly conveyed them to carefully chosen customers. One of the most obnoxious of these "Tory peddlars," as they were called, Breed Batchelor by name, operated in the North County and southern New Hampshire. He was making his rounds one day when he encountered mem- bers of the Committee of Inspection of the New Hampshire towns of Fitz- william and Marlborough, just over the county line. They were on his trail and were watching for him when he came along on his horse. He promptly hit a committeeman over the head with a club, and departed on the run. But they caught him later, and doubtless gave him what he deserved.
Incidentally, it may be mentioned here that there were rum-runners, too. On May 22, 1777, we find one Charles Kathan apprehended by the Committee of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety of the town of Southboro, as he was carting a hogshead of New England rum. On June 15 of the same year, Elijah Bruce was caught under similar circumstances in Grafton by the town's committee, with a hogshead and a teirce of rum. Both men were summoned into court. But the charge against them was not running rum into the province, but running it out! The Patriots refused to part with that which might be good for the sinews of war.
When in 1768 the Massachusetts House of Representatives by a vote of ninety-two to seventeen refused to rescind its action in forwarding an address to the King setting forth its grievances, the Sons of Liberty of Petersham celebrated the occasion in odd fashion. They selected a strong young elm tree, cut away seventeen branches, and, tradition says, there were ninety-two remaining. With songs, toasts and inspired speech, the seventeen dismem- bered branches were given to the flames, and the living tree dedicated to the Goddess of Liberty. The event had strange consequences.
One of the celebrants was Ensign Man, Patriot, elected town schoolmaster over the protest of Rev. Aaron Whitney, pastor of the village church and a Tory. The ensign's public association with the Goddess of Liberty enraged the Royalists. One Captain Beaman, claiming he owned the schoolhouse, padlocked its door to keep out the teacher. The ensign and one Sylvanus How, former owner of the land, who maintained the schoolhouse stood on the public highway, broke open the door with an axe. Beaman sued How and got six shillings damages. How appealed and employed the eminent Josiah Quincy, Jr., as his counsel. But he finally lost his cause, but with reduced damages.
Strange as it may seem, there never would have been any padlocking of the schoolhouse or any law suit, had Ensign Man met the Tory parson's daughter a few weeks sooner. As it was, he wooed and won her, but not, it
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would seem, until she had won him over to the side of King George. He proved himself a white-livered patriot, not worth quarreling about.
But as for Captain Beaman, he went down in Petersham history as the man who guided the British Army on its march to Lexington and Concord, and made of himself, in the eyes of his fellow-townsmen, a merger of Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold.
Bitter Patriot-Royalist Feud-The feeling between Patriots and Royalists gradually but continuously grew more tense. For a time friends and neighbors forebore to hurt one another's feelings by acrimonious dis- cussion. Dangerous topics were avoided, no doubt. But all the time exasper- ating influences were working. Royalists resented being compelled to partici- pate in the boycott of British goods and tea. Royalists importers and mer- chants did not dare to buy and sell the forbidden commodities. The boycott was absolutely air-tight. The crown did not take in one pound of revenue from the tariff in the northern provinces, and only a few hundred pounds in the South.
The Patriots were incensed by Royalist defence of the British measures aimed at the integrity of the charter. They came to regard such an attitude as disloyal and traitorous. Finally the rift became so wide and deep as to result in violence. Royalists were maltreated, sometimes with brutal violence, and there were reprisals.
A typical instance of this militant animosity occurred in Petersham. Dr. Ball of Templeton, which then included Phillipston, while on a visit to Peter- sham got into a dispute with a group of young Patriots and hard words were said. They waylaid him as he was returning home and stoned him. He was very seriously hurt, and, one tradition has it, eventually died of his injuries.
When news of the assault reached Templeton, Dr. Ball's friends promptly armed themselves and proceeded to Petersham where they were joined by other Royalists. In the meanwhile, Captain Holman of Templeton, Patriot, got wind of what was threatening, assembled the Patriots of the town, and marched in pursuit. At Petersham their ranks were strongly reinforced. In the peaceful village were two considerable bodies of armed men, one of them bent on vengeance, the other on protecting their own kind. The Royalists found themselves outnumbered, and sought refuge in a house, where they prepared to resist attack. There they spent the night, surrounded by a vigi- lant enemy. In the morning they were compelled to surrender, and were marched to a tavern, where the matter was threshed out. The result was the surrender of all arms of the Royalists and their parole as prisoners of war- when there was no war. The story goes that on the evening of the siege, the wife of a besieged Royalist and the wife of a besieged Patriot "met between their homes and exchanged condolences."
CHAPTER XX.
The Mounting Flame of Revolution
Matters between the people of the Massachusetts Province and the Royal Government went from bad to worse in the years following the passage of the Stamp Act. The complete boycott of British manufactures, the resolute refusal of the people to drink the tea that must pay a duty, the implacable stand of the Council and General Court that the rights granted by the Pro- vincial Charter should not be annulled in favor of Royal prerogative-these and other circumstances aroused a cumulating anger in the minds of King and Parliament. There answer was the despatching to Boston of ships of war and troops whose purpose was to back up the Royal Governor in what- ever he should undertake in carrying out the King's wishes, and also to show that his Royal Majesty meant business.
But a show of force was far from exercising a restraining influence. Instead it made things very much worse. The immediate effect, as far as overt acts of the authorities were concerned, was chiefly centered in the town of Boston. But everything that happened there was reflected faithfully in shaping patriotic sentiment in every outlying community. Worcester County was in a tumult of active resentment. There followed, in 1770, the Boston Massacre. Grim-visaged county men openly talked armed rebellion. All the towns of the shire had their Tories, but in most of them the Patriot sentiment was preponderously strong. In Worcester town, however, were many Roy- alists, who included a very considerable number of the most influential peo- ple, and particularly those of the aristocratic class. They made a determined effort to counteract the influence of Patriot leaders and carried their fight into such town meetings as were called from time to time to deliberate and take action when the Governor announced, one after another, measures which offended the Whig conception of freedom under the charter. The Patriot Whigs were in large majority, but the Tories were able to make trouble, which, however, they came deeply to rue.
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In the early years of this preliminary struggle of the Revolution, the Patriots experienced the greatest difficulty in unifying their efforts. If they were to succeed, close cooperation and concerted action of the towns was absolutely necessary. But there was no method of organized exchange of views, nor for the quick and dependable distribution of news of what was transpiring. Mails were infrequent. Information passed chiefly by word of mouth. The towns eventually learned what was going on in other towns, but it was a slow and unsatisfactory process.
Samuel Adams, indefatigable and fearless Patriot, had an inspiration. In order to bring the people together in full knowledge of events and full inter- change of opinion and constructive suggestion, he conceived the idea of com- mittees of correspondence. Every town in the province would have its com- mittee, chosen at town meeting, and its duty would be to prepare and send letters containing everything of importance that had come to the knowledge of its members, and pass on the news to every other town. His motion, made in Boston town meeting in March, 1772, was epoch-making. It provided "that a committee of correspondence be appointed to consist of twenty-one persons, to state the rights of the Colonists, and of this Province in particular, as men, as Christians, and as subjects, and to communicate and publish the same to the several towns of this Province and to the world, as the sense of this town, with the infringements and violations thereof, that have been or from time to time may be made; also requesting from each town a free com- munication of their sentiments on the subject." Samuel Adams had in mind a general confederacy against the authority of parliament. The towns of the province were to take the initiative, the Assembly was to confirm their doings and invite the other provinces to join with them.
Out of the Boston Committee of Correspondence came the famous Boston Pamphlet which set forth the accumulated grievances of the province: The assumption by Parliament of absolute power over the Colonies; the exertion of that power to raise a revenue in the Colonies without their consent; the appointment of officers foreign to the charter to collect the revenue, vesting them with unconstitutional authority and supporting them with troops and ships-of-war in time of peace; the establishment of a salaried civil list out of this unconstitutional revenue, even including the judges, whose commissions were held only during the pleasure of the crown, and whose decisions affected property, liberty and life; the enormous extension of the power of the vice- admiralty court ; the embargo on the manufacture of iron, hats and woolen goods ; the assumed authority to transport persons arrested in the Colony to England for trial ; the claim of a right to establish a bishop and the Episcopal Church without the consent of the people; and the frequent alterations of
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THE MOUNTING FLAME OF REVOLUTION
bounds and the seizing of lands to the personal profit of rapacious Royal Governors.
The towns of Worcester County did not delay in replying to the com- munication of the Boston Committee, nor could any man doubt the meaning and sincerity of their words of condemnation of the many wrongs. Some replies were expressed in formal phrases, some leaped in the vigor of their denunciation. We can give abstracts of only a typical few of them. Lan- caster, with dignity, resolved :
"That the raising of a revenue in the Colonies without their consent, either by themselves or their representatives, is an infringement of that right which every freeman has to dispose of his own property; that the granting of a salary to His Excellency, the Governor of this Province, out of the revenue unconstitutionally raised from us, is an innovation of a very alarm- ing tendency ; that it is of the very highest importance to the security of liberty, life and property, that the public administration of justice shall be pure and impartial, and that the judges should be free from every bias, either in favor of the Crown or the subject; that the absolute dependency of the judges of the Superior Court of this Province upon the Crown for their sup- port, would, if it should ever take place, have the strongest tendency to bias the minds of the judges, and would weaken our confidence in them; and that the extension of the power of the court of vice-admiralty to its present enor- mous degree is a great grievance, and deprives the subject in many instances of that noble privilege of Englishmen, trials by juries."
The people of Fitchburg pledged their word "never to be wanting accord- ing to their small ability," for "they wanted to be known to the world and to posterity as friends to liberty."
Princeton's answer recognized "an alienation, the effect of which must be attended with bad consequences. For the resolute man, in a just cause, while in a state of freedom, never will consent to any abridegements or deprivements of his just rights, and disdains threats, or any measures of com- pulsion, to submission thereto,-not like the dog, the more he is beaten the more he fawns-but, on the contrary, with a noble mind, defends to the last, and every stripe stimulates his efforts and endeavors in defence of his own or his country's cause."
The Patriots of Warren put it tersely and strongly : "WE MUST, WE CAN, AND WE WILL BE FREE! We cannot part with our creation right. We are obliged forever to assert it, as it is our glory to be in subjection to that Supreme Power which made us free."
The Oxford town meeting said much in one paragraph of their resolu- tions : "That we ever have been and will be true and loyal subjects of our
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most gracious sovereign George III, so long as we are permitted the free execution of our charter-rights." The paragraph which followed provided for the organization of the town's military forces, for use in case King George failed in the people's conception of "free execution of their charter rights."
At Worcester the citizens declared in town meeting: "The fond affec- tions that has ever subsisted in our hearts for Great Britain and its sovereign, has ever induced us to esteem it above any other country, and as fond chil- dren speak of a father's house, we have ever called it our home, and always have been ready to rejoice when they rejoiced, to weep when they have wept, and, when required, to bleed when they have bled. And in return, we are sorry to say, we have had our harbors filled with ships of war, in a hostile manner, and troops posted in our metropolis, in a time of profound peace : not only posted in a manner greatly insulting, but actually slaughtering the inhabitants (The Boston Massacre) ; cannon levelled against our senate house, the fortress or key of the Province taken from us; and as an addition to our distress, the commander in chief of the Province has declared that he has not power to control the troops."
Petersham's reply to Boston told the people of the harassed city: "The time may come when, if you continue in your integrity, that you may be driven from your goodly heritages ; and if that should be the case (which God of his infinite mercy prevent), we invite you to share with us in our small supplies of the necessities of Life. And should the voracious jaws of tyranny still haunt us, and we should not be able to withstand them, we are determined to retire and seek refuge among the inland aboriginal natives of this country, with whom we doubt not but to find more humanity and brotherly love than we have lately received from our mother country."
Boston's answer, from the heart, was: "We join with the town of Peter- sham in preferring life among the savages to the most splendid conditions of slavery ; but Heaven will bless the united efforts of a brave people."
But vastly more important than words, no matter how virile and sympa- thetic they might be, was the response of the towns to the suggestion that they immediately appoint committees of correspondence. In many of them the same town meeting which passed resolutions appointed the committee and delegated to it power. At home, its members were the watchdogs and the reporters of the news. They not only sent it, but received it, and passed it along among their fellows. In convention, they were members of a county congress which was vested with autocratic power and an immense responsi- bility. For most men believed that the fight for liberty was close at hand. To the Committees of Correspondence was entrusted the task of making ready for the time when the townsmen would go into action against British troops.
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Boston Tea Party-On the twenty-eight of November, 1773, the British merchantman Dartmouth sailed into Boston Harbor loaded with 128 chests of tea, the first of three tea ships of the English East India Com- pany, the empire's greatest monopoly. It was England's one determined attempt to make efficient use of the tea duty, and earn from it a revenue, and at the same time to stamp out smuggling. It came to ride upon the storm raised by the judges' salaries. Incidentally, it was a blow at Tory and back- sliding Whig merchants, who had Dutch teas, smuggled or otherwise, which were held at high values, and which would be badly hit by the cut-rate prices at which it was planned to offer the British teas. It is an old story, how the Boston Patriots, centering about their Committee of Correspondence, gave the consignees and ship captains 20 days in which to evacuate without unload- ing their cargoes ; how, as the time was expiring, Governor Hutchinson, him- self at a safe distance, refused to give them clearance. They could not pass the guns of the Castle.
It is written that whole towns of Worcester County were on tiptoe to go down and join the Boston Patriots. "Go on as you have begun," wrote the Committee of Leicester, "and do not suffer any of the teas already come or coming to be landed, or pay one farthing of duty. You may depend on our aid and assistance when needed."
"The morning of Thursday, the sixteenth of December, 1773, dawned upon Boston, a day by far the most momentous in its annals," wrote Ban- croft. "Beware, little town. Count the cost, and know well, if you dare defy the wrath of Great Britain, and if you love exile and poverty and death rather than submission." For on that night, when two thousand men from the country, even from as far as Worcester County, had assembled in Old South Church, it was found that the three tea ships would not be permitted to clear and sail from Boston and Samuel Adams had risen and said, "This meeting can do nothing more to save the Country." In an instant a shout was heard on the porch, the war-whoop resounded, and a party of forty or fifty men, disguised as Indians passed by the door. The Boston Tea Party was on. While sentinels guarded the wharf where the three ships lay, Sam Adams' "Mohawks" emptied every box of tea into the harbor water.
Expresses immediately left Boston with the fateful news. Every Worces- ter County town thrilled at the tidings. "The high height of joy that sparkled in the eyes and animated the countenances and the hearts of the patriots as they met one another, is imaginable."
The infuriated British Government in retaliation, in March, 1774, passed the Boston port bill, closing the port to all commerce, and prepared to enforce the new statutes by ample military and naval forces.
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It was of this period that John Adams wrote in his diary: "I stopped one night at a tavern in Shrewsbury, about forty miles from Boston, and as I was cold and wet, I sat down at a good fire in the bar-room to dry my great coat and saddle-bags till a fire could be made in my chamber. There presently came in, one after another, half a dozen, or half a score, substantial yeomen of the neighborhood, who, sitting down to the fire after lighting their pipes, began a lively conversation upon politics. As I believed I was unknown to all of them, I sat in total silence to hear them.
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