Cousin Jeduthan Baldwin
- westmohney
- Dec 15, 2022
- 6 min read
December 13: in the forenoon I was tak Sick. in the afternoon I Had 2 Blisters Drawd & Polticed, in the Evning Exceeding Bad ~ From Jeduthan Baldwin's diary
Jeduthans's life before revolution
I came across our cousin, Jeduthan Baldwin (3C7X), in one of J.L. Bell's Boston 1775 blog posts. Bell described him as one of his "favorite Revolutionary War diarists..." Bell's post on Jeduthan was one of his earliest, written in May of 2006, in the very first week of his long blog writing career which continues to this day.
Note: J.L. Bell's blog, Boston 1775, has given me a wealth of information on the people and events of the Revolutionary War. You will see his name in many of our posts dealing with the war.
Jeduthan, a grand-nephew of our immigrant grandfather John Baldwin (8GGF), was born in 1732 in Woburn. When Jeduthan was quite young, his father Isaac Baldwin (2C8X) bought land in Sudbury and moved his family there. In 1754, when he was twenty-two years old, Jeduthan moved to Brookfield where he lived for the rest of his life.
Jeduthan was active in the civic life of his adopted town and a sought after engineer in the Revolutionary war. His main claim to fame, however, was a diary he kept which has been handed down through generations of his ancestors and published in 1906.
While Jeduthan's diary has been published under the title of The Revolutionary Diary of Jeduthan Baldwin, the entries actually began at the end of 1755 during his service in the final French and Indan War which was waged between 1754 and 1763. Jeduthan, only twenty-three and a captain at the time, set out with a troop of men from Brookfield to participate in the Crown Point Expedition in the spring of 1755.
The Crown Point expedition turned out to be a dismal failure for the British. In September, both sides retreated to their winter quarters. Jeduthan stayed in New York to help with the construction of what would become Fort William Henry.
Sometime during his service, Jeduthan's leg was injured so severely that the doctors decided that amputation would be the best course of action. Evidently, Jeduthan was having none of it, threatening to shoot anyone who came near to him. He kept his leg and it was eventually healed.
Jeduthan's early diary
It was while Jeduthan was at Fort William Henry that he first began his journal. The first entry is dated December 1, 1755. His diary entries give brief details of Jeduthan's daily life spent supervising his men and hanging out with the commander of the operation, Colonel Jonathan Bagley. Then, on December 8, he wrote, "I was very Poorly." Still, he carried on with his activities until December 13.
December 13: in the forenoon I was tak Sick. in the afternoon I Had 2 Blisters Drawd & Polticed, in the Evning Exceeding Bad.
December 15: Being Sabath. I Grew Worse my fever Seteled (settled) Which was a Slow fever. I had an Extreem Pain in my head. & Body very much Bound. I continued Loosing my Strength & flesh til the 28 Day by Wich time I Was Brought almost to the Gates of the Grave. But God apeard for me & Bles't the means Used for my Recovery. I was Well taken care of and my fever Brook ye 28 day of Decr & then I Begun to Recover Begun to gain Strength but sloly till the 01 of Janary 1756.
January 10: I eat Some pancakes Wch Lay in my Stomach & hurt me very much.
January 11: My victuals did not Digest.
January 12: Being the 30 Day Since I Walkt a broad blessed be God for his Great Goodness in Rasing me from a Bed of Sicknss to Such a measure of health as that I have bin this Day to Walk out of Doers.
That same day, Jeduthan reported that "one of the men had Carelessly Shot Sergt Miller in the Leg." Friendly fire.
Life was always hard for soldiers in winter quarters. Many of Jeduthan's posts for the next few months were about men who were sick, men who had died and men who had deserted. Then on February 29, Jeduthan went with a scouting party of three captains and sixty men to Crown Point where the French Fort St. Frederic lay. They reached the area of the fort on March 8. By the 10th, they had been discovered: "the french...wrote on the trees that if they could catch us they would Burn us or we Should them Directly." (Possibly meaning they should turn themselves in.) Jeduthan's group decided that they should hightail it out of there. They marched all the way back to Fort William Henry, eighteen miles, in one day.
On April 7, Jeduthan mentioned a cousin of ours in his diary: "Lieut Offdin came up & Brough the Sorrowfull Niews of the Death of Dr. Samll Brigham of Marlboro." Samuel (4C7X) was a well-known army surgeon serving in the West Indies. He contracted yellow fever and died at the age of 32.
Note: When he died, Samuel was probably with the British army in Jamaica. England had wrested the island away from Spain in 1755 and the army stayed to expell any Spanish people still living there, a process which took five years.
Jeduthan's last entries for this portion of his life:
April 30: a post from Albany Brings News of Reliefs coming
May 3: Cleared out ye Garrison
May 4: James Fowler Died in the morning 4 o clock
between wars
It appears that, shortly after the May 4, 1756 entry in his diary, Jeduthan returned home to Brookfied. A year later, on April 28, 1757, he married Lucy Parkman. Jeduthan then went into the trading business and made many trips back and forth to Boston which was about seventy miles from Brookfield.
Cousin Jeduthan was well-to-do and evidently generous to boot. Dr. Benjamin Gott was a surgeon's mate who was in service with Jeduthan. In a petition, possibly applying for a pension for Jeduthan, Dr. Gott stated he "was at Fort William Henry last winter and know that Capt. jeduthan Baldwin dealt out from his private stores, Rum,. brandy, sugar, coffee, tea, wine, etc., to the sick in the Hospital, the Commissary being destitute."
For almost twenty years, Juduthan ran his trading business and raised his family. He and Lucy had five children. Three of their children died young, Jeduthan Jr. (4C6X) at age five, Isaac (4C6X) at nineteen, and little Lucy (4C6X) at only two months. In addition to his business, Jeduthan was something of a craftsman. In 1766 he built the clock below which was put up for auction in 2016 and sold for $9,480.00.
stirring's of war
As tensions between the British and their colonists heated up, Jeduthan's Patriot leanings became well known. On December 7, 1773 he was part of a five-man committee chosen to make clear Brookfield's stance on the new tea tax:
We think it our indispensable duty, in the most public manner to let the world know our utter abhorrence of the last and most detestable scheme, in the introduction of Tea from Great Britain, to be peddled out amongst us, but which means we were made to swallow a poison more fatal in its effects to the national and political Rights and Privileges of the People of this country, than ratsbane would be to the natural body—
Therefore, Resolved, that we will not by any way or means, knowingly encourage or promote the sale or consumption of any Tea whatever, subject to a duty payable in America, but all persons whoever they may be, who shall be concerned in a transaction so dangerous, shall be held by us in the utmost contempt, and be deemed enemies to the well being of this country.
A prudent disclaimer as to King George's complicity in the matter was added:
Loyalty and fidelity to our most gracious King, George the Third, and due obedience to the gov under him...we will to the utmost of our power maintain and defend. An uninterrupted Friendship and Commerce with the Country of our Father's nativity, we wish to continute to our latest Generation; but our dear bought rights and privileges we will never tamely give up.
As Boston bore the brunt of a cold, tense winter with British soldiers patrolling the streets, Jeduthan sent a letter to the Committee of Donations:
Gentlemen,
The bearer, Mr. Ayres, will deliver you 30 bushels rye, 14 do. Indian corn, 1/2 bushel beans, and 18 cheeses, weight 224 lbs., and two dollars in cash, which I received of the inhabitants of the second precinct in Brookfield, for the suffering poor of Boston...There is not a man in this place but wishes you success, and are ready to lend you their assistance to the last extremity.
I am your very humble servant,
Jedu. Baldwin, Committee.
By the time the Revolutionay War began in 1775, Cousin Jeduthan had become valuable as an artillery engineer. He would work closely with General George Washington in both Cambridge and New York during the course of the war. We'll have more of Jeduthan's diary entries in future posts.
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