The Loyalists of Massachusetts Part 61

Do you think there might be found, among the splendidly patriotic Daughters of the Revolution, some sufficiently generous-minded to put this American poet's recognition of the worth of these poor fellows on a small tablet near the graves? I would at least ask whether the last two lines of this verse do not move the heart of any woman.

I do not know how public sentiment toward the sacred ground of Concord battlefield might regard such an intrusion, and if the words were those of any but such a man as Lowell, so a.s.sociated with the locality and imbued with all that that fight meant to your nation, I would not be so bold as to suggest it. I know that this is really a national, not an individual, matter and that a stranger ought not to intermeddle with it. I am only making my little moan in sympathy with the English mother whose heart Lowell so beautifully understands.

ALBERT WEBB.

Elderslie, London Road, Worcester, Eng., March 31, 1909.

The editor's comments on the letters was in part as follows:

"The letter in another column pleading for a memorial tablet, bearing suggested and suggestive lines from Lowell, at the grave of the two British soldiers slain at the North Bridge, Concord, should challenge attention and it is difficult to see why it should challenge antagonism. The grave is now marked by two stones half sunken in the mold with which kindly nature everywhere seeks to efface the evidences of human strife. It is protected by chains which were provided some thirty years ago by a British resident of Boston. On a stone of the wall sheltering the grave is an inscription setting forth who sleep below. Neither the inscription nor the defence was strictly necessary, for all Concord knows where the grave is, and tradition has preserved the names of the two men who buried the slain, giving them hasty but not irreverent interment. Nor has there ever been danger of vandalism. The old New England reverence for the last resting place of the dead protected the sleepers for one hundred years, and the chain fence is more the tribute of a countryman to these friendless and nameless victims of George III.'s policy than a precaution. The same spirit which protected those two soldiers' resting place would doubtless not see anything objectionable in a bronze tablet carrying Lowell's lines.

Certainly the people of Concord, the descendants of the Minutemen, would be the last to feel incensed at this tribute, if tribute it be, or this reminder of permanent material, of the historic dust that must in these one hundred and thirty-four years have turned into earth.

"These two soldiers are none the less historical characters because their ident.i.ty is unknown. What their names or grades neither history nor research tells. They were just common men in the ranks, in the era when the private soldier was simply so much food for powder.

"But apart from the influence of local sentiment, there is a broad public opinion that guards a soldier's sepulchre, even if he was an enemy in life. This opinion is expressed in the general custom in this country to allow both sides memorials on the great battlefields of our Civil War.

"If the suggested tablet should be erected at Concord, if 'patriotism' should at first think too much honor were done these 'hireling soldiers,' would not reflection remind that when the 'embattled farmers'--who, by the way, were led by a veteran and accomplished officer--and the regulars faced one another across the narrow stream both were proud of the name of Englishmen? Concord was then a microcosm of English America, which up to the very verge of hostilities had drunk the King's health and had clung desperately to the foolish fond belief that he was a good sovereign misled by designing ministers."

This led me to further investigate this matter, for I had been informed that the graves had been desecrated some years ago under authority of the town officials. I therefore caused to be published in the Boston Transcript under the heading of "Notes and Queries" the following query:

(7891.) 1. Can anyone give the names of the two British soldiers killed at Concord Bridge, or inform me if there were any papers taken from their bodies that would ident.i.ty them? I have been informed that there were.

2. One of the soldiers was left wounded on the bridge; what was the name of the "young American that killed him with a hatchet"?

3. When did the selectmen of Concord give Professor Fowler permission to dig up the two bodies of the British soldiers and remove the skulls to be used for exhibition purposes?

J. H. S.

April 6, 1906.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONUMENT TO COMMEMORATE THE SKIRMISH AT CONCORD BRIDGE.

The letter A on the left of the engraving, marks the site of the graves of the two British Soldiers. The first killed in the Revolution.]

The only answer received was the following:

"7891. 3. The indirect intimations of J. H. S. are shrewd, but before the alleged action of the selectmen excites the Concord people, they should insist upon his producing adequate evidence.

ROCKINGHAM."

The adequate evidence was produced and is as follows:

"The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, April 12, 1909.

Mr. James H. Stark,

Dear Sir:

Mr. Barton has handed your letter to me and I write to say that the skulls of those two British Soldiers killed at the bridge in Concord were once the property of this Society, we having purchased them of the Widow of Prof. Fowler, the phrenologist, who some years ago went about the country giving lectures and ill.u.s.trating his subjects. Prof. Fowler got permission to dig up those skulls from the Selectmen of Concord, and he carried them about with him and used them in his lecturing. After his death one of the members learned of them and we purchased the skulls and they were in our museum some time. The late Senator h.o.a.r learning that we had them, came to know if we would be willing to return them to Concord that they might be put back in the ground from whence they were taken.

As he seemed quite anxious about it, consent was given, and they were sent to Concord to be placed in their original resting place.

Presume they are there at the present time.

Yours, ELLERY B. CRANE.

Librarian."

The only excuse offered for the inhuman act of Ammi White was found over one hundred years after the crime was committed. It is now said that he was only a boy, and that the wounded soldier cried out for water, and that while giving it to him he tried to kill him with his bayonet. This is all false, there is no evidence whatever to prove it, in fact Thorp, one of the deponents said "he was killed with a hatchet after being wounded and helpless, and the act was a matter of horror to all of us."

Handley said "The young man who killed him told me in 1807 that it worried him very much." Here is not the slightest evidence that White killed him in self defence, neither was he the boy as represented, for I find that he enlisted five days after killing the soldier, in Capt.

Abishai Brown's Co. Col. John Nixon's (5) Regiment. He enlisted April 24, 1775, June 10, 1775 signed advance pay order at Cambridge, Aug. 1, 1775, Private on muster roll at that date. Service 3 months 15 days.

Company return dated Sept. 30, 1775.[276]

[276] Rev. Soldiers and Sailors. Vol. 17, p. 42.

I am pleased to state that a few weeks after the aforesaid letters appeared in the Transcript, that the town authorities at Concord gave permission to the "British Army and Navy Veterans" of Boston, to march on Memorial Day, May 30, 1909, to the graves of the two soldiers and to decorate same, which was accordingly done. The graves of the soldiers are referred to in the Transcript article as being "protected by chains, which were provided some thirty years ago by a British resident of Boston." The party referred to was Mr. Herbert Radcliffe, a member of the British Charitable Society. The facts which I have stated here, concerning what occurred, "Where once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world" is not done with a view of reviving old grievances, or re-opening old sores, but that the historic truth may be known concerning "the shot heard round the world," for history should know no concealment, and as Josiah Adams truly said, "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, should be told relative to this matter."

If it be said that these are old stories of the past, we reply that these misrepresentations are being quoted as having actually occurred and are made living issues for to-day by numerous societies formed for that; and kindred purposes. Even those societies designed to keep in remembrance their honored ancestors' part in the Revolution, make it a point to perpetuate their historic fables and falsehoods in the belief that anything is good enough to be said of their historic opponent.

THE ENGAGEMENT AT THE NORTH BRIDGE IN CONCORD, WHERE THE TWO SOLDIERS WERE KILLED.

In the American army which was formed at Cambridge immediately after the affair at Lexington and Concord, there were two young artists from Connecticut, Amos Doolittle, afterwards a well known engraver, and a portrait painter by the name of Earl, both members of the New Haven company. During their stay at Cambridge, these young men improved the opportunity by visiting Lexington and Concord, for the purpose of studying the battle field and making drawings of the several localities, the buildings, and the forces in action. The drawings were mostly made by Earl, and afterwards engraved by Doolittle, on his return to New Haven the same year. The four plates were each twelve by eighteen inches in size, and have been claimed to be the first series of historical prints ever published in this country. "Plate III., the battle of the North Bridge in Concord" shown here in reduced size from the reproduction of the original in "Stark's Antique Views of Boston." In this engraving, one soldier is seen falling, near the spot where the two soldiers are buried.

THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Boss or ring rule is not a modern invention, for at the time of the Revolution, Sam Adams was the political boss of Boston, Gordon in his "History of the American Revolution" under date of 1775, traces this practice to a much earlier date. "More than 50 years ago Mr. Samuel Adams' father and 20 others, one or two, from the north end of the town, where all the s.h.i.+p business is carried on used to meet, make a caucus, and lay their plans for introducing certain persons into places of trust and power. By acting in concert, together with a careful and extensive distribution of ballots, they generally carried the elections to their own mind." In this manner Sam Adams first became a representative for Boston, and then its Boss. At this period s.h.i.+p building was one of the leading industries of Boston. Originally the "Caucus Club" was a mechanics club called from the leading trade in it the "Calkers' Club,"

which name, with a variation it still retained after it had pa.s.sed in the hands of politicians.

It is impossible to exaggerate the influence such secret societies as the Caucuses, and Sons of Liberty, had upon the events which helped to bring on the conflict with the mother country. The "Sons of Liberty" met in a distillery, and also the Green Dragon Tavern, and arose out of the excitement attending the pa.s.sage of the Stamp Act. John Adams in his diary gives some interesting glimpses of their clubs, where the Revolution was born, he says "Feb. 1, 1763. This day learned that the Caucus Club meets at certain times in the garret of Tom Dawes, the adjutant of the Boston regiment. He has a large house, and he has a movable part.i.tion in his garret, which he takes down and the whole club meets in one room. There they smoke tobacco till you cannot see from one end of the garret to the other. Then they drink flip I suppose, and there they choose a moderator, who puts questions to the vote regularly, and selectmen, a.s.sessors, collectors, wardens, and representatives, are regularly chosen before they are chosen in the town. Fairfield, Story, Ruddock, Adams, Cooper, and a rudis indigestaque moles of others are members."

"January 15, 1766. Spent the evening with the Sons of Liberty at their own apartments in Hanover Square near the Tree of Liberty. It is a counting-room in Chase & Speakman's distillery; a very small room it is.

There were present John Avery, a distiller of liberal education; John Smith, the brazier; Thomas Chase, distiller; Joseph Fields, master of a vessel; Henry Ba.s.s, George Trott, jeweler; and Henry Wells. I was very cordially and respectfully treated by all present. We had punch, wine, pipes and tobacco, biscuit and cheese, etc."

Chas. J. Gettemy in commenting on same, says:[277]

[277] The True Story of Paul Revere, p. 45, by Charles J. Gettemy, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics and Labor of the Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts.

"From which it appears that politicians are much the same in all times.

Public officials were chosen by a ring in Boston in the year of our Lord 1763 before they were "chosen by the town" =and the Revolution was hatched in a rum-shop=, while those upon whom history has placed the seal of greatness and statesmans.h.i.+p filled themselves with "flip" in an atmosphere dense with tobacco smoke as they plotted and planned the momentous events of the time!"

PAUL REVERE THE SCOUT.

Paul Revere was born in Boston, Dec. 21, 1734, his father was a Huguenot named Rivoire, which in time became Revere. When Revere left school he went into his father's shop to learn the art of gold and silver smith.

His first military experience was when he was twenty-one years old, in the expedition against Crown Point, in which he held the king's commission from Gov. Wm. s.h.i.+rley as second lieutenant of artillery. The service proved uneventful, it continued for six months and then the enterprise was abandoned.

On his return he took an increasing and prominent part in the political life of the time, and on one occasion his pugnacious disposition got him into the police court, in 1761, where he had to pay a fine and be bound over to keep the peace.

Revere became quite skilled in drawing and engraving on copper, and the exciting political events of the time readily lent themselves to pictorial treatment. Probably the best known of Revere's copper-plate engraving, was that of the so-called "State Street Ma.s.sacre." It has since, however, been discovered that in this instance he appropriated the work of Henry Pelham, the half brother of Copley the artist[278] as the following letter will show: