The Loyalists of Massachusetts Part 60

EBENEZER 3 CUTLER, was born at Salem in 1664, where he married Mary, daughter of Zacheray and Mary March. Mr. Cutler died about 1729 at Salem and the widow in 1734, the sale of the homestead being effected soon after, and the family removed from Salem. He had six children, four sons and two daughters. The eldest son,

EBENEZER 4 CUTLER, was born in Salem, October 1, 1695. He was a farmer and brickmaker. He married May, daughter of William Stockwell, Oct. 16, 1732. He inherited the farm in Sutton, Ma.s.s., purchased of William Stockwell by his father, and on which he settled previous to 1728. It is said that three of his sons resided on this farm at one time, each occupying separate houses. He died in 1779, and had two daughters and five sons.

EBENEZER 5 CUTLER, son of the aforesaid,[272] settled in the town of Oxford, Ma.s.s., as an inn keeper and trader. He married Miriam Eager, sister of his brother Zackeus' wife, and daughter of James Eager of Westboro, Ma.s.s., Nov. 24, 1764. Mrs. Cutler was a sister of Colonel Eager, who was a Loyalist and settled in Victory, Nova Scotia.

[272] See Cutler Genealogy for descent of Ebenezer 4.

Before the commencement of hostilities he tried to be neutral, but when the tea troubles arose, he went quietly at night, and purchased a quant.i.ty of it, on the return with his supply a masked band interrupted him, took the tea from him and burnt it. That decided him, which side to take, and he became a staunch loyalist.

Ebenezer Cutler was a trader which caused him to travel considerably about the country, and being very independant and outspoken he soon had many enemies among the Revolutionists, and a price was set on his capture. He had many narrow escapes before they got him. Once he was hidden in a farmhouse between the chimney and outer wall, most suffocated by smoke.

The Committee on Correspondence made charges against him, and sent him with the evidence of his misconduct to General Ward at Cambridge, the charges were as follows:

Northboro, May 17th, 1775.

Sir:

We the Committee of Correspondence of the Town of Northboro having taken into our custody Mr. Ebenezer Cutler, late of Groton, but now of this town, which from his conduct appears to us to be an avowed enemy of his Country, he has set at naught and despises all the Resolutions of the Continental and Provincial Congress, and also utterly refuses to act in any defence of his now peris.h.i.+ng country whatever, and as he has from his past conduct, ever since we have been struggling for the Liberties of our Country appeared in the eyes of the Public to be aiding and abetting, in defeating the plans of the good people of this Province, and has been riding from one part of this province to the other, and in our opinion for no good design, we think it highly necessary to send him to the Council of war, to know whether he may (as he desires) have a pa.s.s to go into Boston: we also inclose the substance of two evidences concerning said Cutler.

By order of the Committee of Correspondence, GILMAN Ba.s.s, Clerk.

N. B. General Ward, we apprehend is well acquainted with the character and conduct of said Cutler.[273]

[273] "Royalists" in Ma.s.s. Archives, Vol. 1, p. 6.

His case was submitted to Congress, when it appeared that he had spoken "many things disrespectful of the Continental and Provincial Congress"

that he had "acted against their resolves," had said that "he would a.s.sist Gage," had called such as signed the town-covenant or non-consumption agreement "dammed fools" etc., etc. A resolve to commit him to prison was refused a pa.s.sage, and a resolve that he be allowed to join the British troops at Boston was also lost. But subsequently he was allowed to go into that town "without his effects." On the evacuation of Boston he accompanied the British Army to Halifax. He settled at Annapolis Royal, and with the money which the British government paid him in compensation for his losses, he established himself in business there. After his home in Oxford was broken up, his wife Miriam, and children, went to her mother, Mrs. Eager, in Worcester. His wife died there. Mrs. Eager was a strong Loyalist, one day a party of Rebels visited her, and she sent them off by some ready quotations of scripture. She and her sons brought the family to Annapolis and then settled on a farm in Nisteaux.

After a few years Ebenezer Cutler went to England on a visit and there married Mary, daughter of Colonel Hicks, of the 70th Regiment. Two children were born in England and four in N. S. He was protonotary of the County of Annapolis, and was a zealous Episcopalian. He died there in 1831, quite aged. Mary, his widow, died at the same place in 1839. He was proscribed and banished in 1778, and his property was confiscated and inventoried April 5th, 1779. Aug. 3rd the judge appointed a commission to settle his estate. His first wife, Miriam, died at Northboro, Ma.s.s., and her estate was inventoried Sept. 10, 1784, amounting to 100. He had by her eight children.

EBENEZER 6 CUTLER, son of the aforesaid, was born at Oxford, Ma.s.s. Aug.

27th, 1765. He was a student at Harvard at the commencement of hostilities, when he was obliged to leave. Opposite his name in the College archives, is the name "Traitor," which means just the opposite, that he was a Loyalist. He went to Nova Scotia with his father. He was an expert accountant, and crown land surveyor. Here he resided several years, but settled finally at Moncton. One day in going up the street, pa.s.sing Mr. Wilmot's, he saw a very beautiful girl leaning over the gate, a visitor of Mrs. Wilmot, Olivia d.i.c.kson. It was a case of love at first sight. He met a friend a few minutes after and told him that he had just seen his wife that was to be. In due time they were married. On one of his voyages as supercargo, the vessel was taken by a Spanish privateer, off Jamaica. The captain recognized him as a Free Mason, gave him liberty, set him ash.o.r.e at Port Antonio, where he obtained a mule, and crossed the mountains to Kingston where he took a vessel for Nova Scotia. He died in 1839. He had ten children, six daughters and four sons, the tenth child born was

REBECCA 7 CUTLER, who married John Whitman of Annapolis whose ancestor came from Plymouth County, Ma.s.s., and settled in Nova Scotia previous to the Revolution. William Whitman of Boston and Clarence Whitman of New York are children of John Whitman and Rebecca Cutler.

Robert J. Dysart and Hugh Dysart, accountants of Boston, are descendants in the third generation from Ebenezer Cutler and Olivia d.i.c.kson.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Engagement at the North Bridge in Concord.

1 The Detachment of the Regulars who fired first on the Provincials at the Bridge.

2 The Provincials headed by Colonel Robinson & Major b.u.t.trick

3 The Bridge]

APPENDIX.

THE TRUE STORY CONCERNING THE KILLING OF THE TWO SOLDIERS AT CONCORD BRIDGE, APRIL 19TH, 1775. THE FIRST BRITISH SOLDIER KILLED IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

See page 53.

After the skirmish at Lexington, the king's troops marched into Concord in two columns, the infantry coming over the hill from which the Americans had retreated, and the grenadiers and marines followed the high road. On reaching the Court house Colonel Smith ordered six companies (about two hundred men) under Captain Parsons, to hold the bridge and destroy certain stores on the other side. With the balance of his command he remained in the center of the town destroying such warlike stores as could be found, this being the object of the expedition.

Captain Parsons in the meantime, posted three companies under Captain Laurie at the bridge, while he proceeded to Colonel Barrett's home in search of stores. The Americans had gathered on the high ground, west of the bridge, and now numbered about four hundred and fifty men, representing many of the neighboring towns. The Acton company in front, led by Capt. Isaac Davis, marched in double file and with trailed arms for the bridge. The British guard, numbering about one hundred men, drew up in line of battle on the opposite side of the bridge, and opened fire upon them. Capt. Davis, and Abner Hosmer, of the same company, both fell dead. Seeing this, Major b.u.t.trick shouted "Fire, fellow soldiers! for G.o.d's sake fire!" The order was instantly obeyed. One of the British was killed, and several wounded, one severely, who was left on the ground, when the British retreated to the center of the village. The Americans turned aside to occupy favorable positions on the adjacent hills.[274] A young man named Ammi White was chopping wood for Rev. William Emerson at the "Old Manse" at the east end of the bridge, while the firing was going on he hid under cover of the wood-pile, when it was over he went to the bridge, saw one British soldier dead, another badly wounded, grasping his axe he struck the wounded soldier on the head crus.h.i.+ng in his skull, then taking the soldier's gun, he went off home. The gun is now in the rooms of the Antiquarian Society of Concord. In the meantime, the detachment under Capt. Parsons returned from the Barrett house, crossed the bridge, pa.s.sed the dead bodies of the soldiers and joined the main body unmolested. They reported when they arrived at Boston, that the wounded soldier at the bridge had been scalped and his ears cut off.

[274] This description of the affair at Concord Bridge, was written by Rev. E. G. Porter, President of the New England Historic Genealogical Society for a work ent.i.tled "Antique Views of Boston." Pp. 234-8 compiled by me in 1882. J. H. Stark.

Very little was said during the past hundred years concerning the inhuman act of Ammi White, in fact this is the first time the name of the perpetrator of the outrage has been published. It was not a popular subject to be discussed in the Council of the "Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution" when a.s.sembled to recount the "brave deeds of their patriotic forefathers." Hawthorne mentions it in the "Old Manse" pp. 12, 13.

The writer's attention was first drawn to it by an article in the Boston papers concerning the observances of "Patriots Day," April 19th, 1903.

It was as follows:

"A story of the Concord fight not told by guides who take tourists to the graves of the soldiers by the Concord bridge was told by the Rev. Franklin Hamilton, preaching on "Patriots' Day and Its Lessons" last evening at the First Methodist Episcopal Church.

"It shows," said he, "that the British soldiers were men like you and me. It shows that the story of that fateful battle hour found many weeping hearts across the sea. Your histories tell you how two British soldiers, a sergeant and a private, were killed, and are buried under the pines by the wall. One was killed and the other wounded. As the wounded soldier was crawling away he was met by a boy who had been chopping wood, and who, inflamed with the spirit of the hour, struck him dead with his axe. Mr. Bartlett of Concord tells me that not so long ago a young woman came to Concord and asked to be shown where the British soldiers lay. She came from Nottinghams.h.i.+re, and was a relative of one of them. She went to the graves and placed upon them a wreath, singing as she did so 'G.o.d Save the King.'"

This led me to examine into the case. I found that there was considerable rivalry of feeling between the towns of Concord and Acton as to the part each took in the fight. There was a saying that "Acton furnished the men, and Concord the ground." And that there was not a Concord man killed, wounded or missing in the "Concord Fight." In the Centennial observances at Acton in 1835, the Address was delivered by Josiah Adams. He said:

"That two were killed at the bridge is certainly true, and it is true too that historians have published to the world that they were killed in the engagement.

"It is true also, that a monument is about to be placed over them on the spot to perpetuate American valor. The manner in which one of them met his death as disclosed in the depositions of Mr. Thorp, Mr. Smith and Mr. Handley, namely by a hatchet after he was wounded and left behind, was well known at the time. It was the action of an excited and thoughtless youth who was afterwards sufficiently penitent and miserable and whose name therefore will not be given.

But the attempt to conceal the act from the world which was made at the time, and has since continued, cannot be approved. It would surely have been better to have given it to the world accompanied by the detestation and horror which it merited and received. Thorp in his deposition said: 'Two of the enemy were killed--one with a hatchet after bring wounded and helpless. This act was a matter of horror to all of us. I saw him sitting up and wounded as we pa.s.sed the bridge.'"

Smith said: "One of them was left on the ground wounded and in that situation was killed by an American with a hatchet." Handley said: "The young man who killed him told me in 1807 that it worried him very much."

This inhuman act was of course reported by the British and a Boston paper represented that one killed at the bridge at Concord was scalped and the ears cut off from his head. This led to a deposition from Brown and Davis that the truth may be known. They testified that they buried the bodies at the bridge, that neither of those persons were scalped, nor their ears cut off.

If there be any one left to advocate such a proceeding, he will say that the deposition was true to the letter. But alas! it was in the letter only. It had the most essential characteristic of falsehood--the intention to make a false impression in regard to what was known to be the subject of inquiry to have it believed that both men were killed in the engagement."

"If a monument is to be erected by the authority of a town, one of the most respectable in the County of Middles.e.x, let it be seen that its inscription contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, relative to the subject matters thereof."[275]

[275] Centennial Address delivered at Acton, July 21, 1835, by Josiah Adams, pp. 44-5-6.

My attention was next attracted to the soldiers' graves at Concord Bridge by the following letters that appeared in the Boston Transcript:

BRITISH GRAVES AT CONCORD.

To the Editor of the Transcript:

I want to say in your columns something which has been on my mind frequently since I went to Concord Bridge on my recent visit to America. It has mingled some sadness with an otherwise most delightful visit.

By the side of the road there are the graves of the British soldiers who fell there, unnamed and unhonored by us, yet they died doing what they conceived to be their duty just as your men did.

The loneliness and unrecognized character of these graves struck me sadly, and I have often since wished that they, too, might have some tribute to their stanch, if misplaced bravery. Now in looking (as I constantly do) through the writings of my most dear friend and counsellor, James Russell Lowell, I find he has exactly struck the note I want in his poem, "Lines suggested by the graves of the two English soldiers on Concord Battleground." The third verse would make a fitting tribute to the character of these men. It runs as follows:

"These men were brave enough and true To the hired soldiers' bull-dog creed; What brought them here they never knew, They fought as suits the English breed; They came three thousand miles and died To keep the past upon its throne-- Unheard, beyond the ocean tide, Their English mother made her moan."